Consolidated Metamagic

[ChrisHaines]

I don't think I'm the only player frustrated with the Metamagic feats in 3.x. From what I have observed playing D&D, no one really ever picks them. So I decided to design a mechanic for them that made the metamagic system apealling but balanced. I have played with this system for a while and I feel it works very well.
First, all metamagic feats are consolidated into one feat:

Use Metamagic
Prerequisite - Spellcaster
Benefit - You gain the ability to apply metamagic effects to spells you cast by making a successful Spellcraft check. The caster must make a Spellcraft check every time they wish to modify a spell being cast with any of the following Metamagic enhancements. The DC of the Spellcraft check is 20 + five times the Spell’s level (0th level spells always have a base DC of 20) + any modifiers form the table below. A single spell may be modified by more than one effect. A single spell may not be enhanced by a total modifier of more than the PC’s Caster Level. This means that a PC with a caster level of 4 can only use Metamagic that has modifiers up to a total of 4.
If the check fails, but not by more than 5, the spell is cast without the Metamagic enhancements. If the check fails by more than 5, then the spell is miscast and lost.


Hardened
Modifier +4
Any attempt to dispel the PC’s magic is done so at a penalty of –4.

Restrain
Modifier +2
Any damage done by a spell is subdual damage.

Touch to Ray
Modifier +4
Spells with a Range of Touch can be converted to a Ray witha Range of Close.

Disguise
Modifier +4
Anyone attempting to identify a spell being cast with this metamagic makes Spellcraft rolls with a penalty of –10.

Empower
Modifier +6
Any random numeric effects of the spell are increased by 1.5, rounded down.

Enlarge
Modifier +2
The spells numeric Range is doubled.

Extend
Modifier +4
The spells numeric duration is doubled.

Heighten
Modifier +2/Level increase
The spells effective level is increased, increasing the DC to save.

Quicken
Modifier +8
The spells casting time is reduced as follows: full round action to standard action, and standard action to free action. Any spell that takes more than a full round action to cast has its casting time reduced by half, rounded up. The caster may only cast one spell as a free action in a round.

Silent
Modifier +2
The spell can be cast without any Verbal components.

Still
Modifier +2
The spell can be cast without any Somatic components.

Cooperate
Modifier +2
This metamagic is used when there is more than one caster attempting to cast the same spell against the same target. All casters must be within stepping distance of one another. All casters must hold their action until the last caster makes his or her metamagic roll, then each caster may perform the spell. For each additional Spellcaster casting the spell, the caster level of each spell goes up by 1 and the DC of each spell goes up by 2.

Delay
Modifier +2
The caster may cause the effect of the spell being cast to be delayed by up to 5 rounds.

Energy Substitution
Modifier +4
The type of energy produced can be changed to any other element as follows: heat (fire), cold, electricity, force (concussive), sonic, corrosive(acid), positive energy, or negative energy.

Eschew
Modifier +2
The spell can be cast without a material component as long as the component is valued at less than 10GP.

Sculpt
Modifier +4
The caster can alter the Area of Effect to Ball(20’ radius), Cylinder(10’ radius, 30’ high), Line(60’ Range and 10’ wide), or Cone(40’ Range).The caster can also change the shape of the area of effect of the spell to avoid harming allies, but each target avoided adds a +2 modifier to the DC.

Widen
Modifier +6
The spells Area of Effect is increased by 1.5 times.

I removed Maximize because I felt that in combination with Empower it became too powerful.
Casting a spell with metamagic does not change the casting time for any class, unless you are using the Quicken modifier. To balance it I put the caster level cap on the modifier. To show expertise with metamagic I created two new feats.

Metamagic Focus
Prerequisite - Use Metamagic
Benefit - You treat your caster level as 2 higher for purposes of adding modifiers when using metamagic.

Greater Metamagic Focus
Prerequisite - Metamagic Focus
Benefit - You treat your caster level 4 higher instead of 2 higher for purposes of adding modifiers when using metamagic.

This allows a 1st level caster to cast a 1st level spell with metamagic, though they would have a minimum DC of 27 to do so. I set the base DC rather high because I allowed magic items that could increase your Spellcraft by up to a +10. I discovered I had to be very careful with that skill or the whole mechanic was shot.

 

[Baronovan]

I know your mileage in the game is probably a lot different from mine, but I think this is a pretty bad idea. Mushing everything into one feat inflates the spellcaster's options across the table, leaving feats open for other things when the number of metamagic feats in the game usually helps balance out such a character's feat selection. It also makes metamagic dependant on a skill, which Sorcerers and Clerics don't get much of.

 

[Dyson]

what happened?

 

[Liquidsabre]

Our game group has been making use of Unearthed Arcana's Spontaneous Metamagic variant with great success for the last year+. I'd suggest trying it out if you ever get the chance!

 

[Nifft]

Allow spellcasters access to all Metamagic, but have Spellcraft requirements. Like, total Spellcraft check 15+ required to use Empower.

Then, add in the "Sudden Metamagic" feats, so spontaneous casters aren't penalized too badly.

(Basically -- Metamagic is seldom worth it, since you have to "pay twice". So make the payment only once, but make it harder on Sorcerers & Bards who will benefit most. Skill prereqs hurt Sorcerers most, Clerics quite a bit, and Wizards least.)

-- N

 

[Li Shenron]

Your system can work, but it's hard for me to quickly calculate if the chances are appropriate. If they are too low, metamagic may still be rarely used; if they are too high, the casters are going to be too versatile. Assuming you planned them well, the HUGE difference between using it with spells of different levels (5 DC per level) is so that at every point in the game there are spells which are near-automatically metamagicked all the time (the lowest level ones). All 1st level spells maximised for free after a while, because it's easy to make the roll.

There are many options now to help wiz/cle/dru use MM easily: Spontaneous MM variants, Divine Metamagic feats and others. Try to see if there is at least one that you like and make MM more popular.

Another option might be to just accept the idea that MM is worth only to spontaneous casters, and helps keeping the Sorcerer on par with the other casters.

 

[Pyrex]

Your DC's look way off to me.

By my count, using Silent on an 8th level spell would be DC 62.

You'd have to be well into Epic to pull that off.

Not to mention that by basing it on a Spellcraft check you are inherently penalizing Clerics and Sorcerers.

 

[ChrisHaines]

I'll admit that the DC msut be evaluated very carefully or the whole system goes out of whack. When I designed the mechanic, I wanted it to be difficult to cast your highest level spell with metamagic, hence the high DC. I also wanted you to be able to cast lower level spells with metamagic very easily at higher character levels. My idea was an 18th level Wizard should be able to cast 1st or 2nd level spells with metamagic automatically.
I also took into account what my player's highest Spellcraft bonuses would get to. This may vary in different games due to other house rules. In my game I assumed a 20th level caster could get a Spellcraft bonus as high as 50 (23 ranks, 10 from Ability score, 10 from a magic item bonus, 6 with a couple of house feats, and maybe 1 or 2 more from various other sources).
The mention that this system leaves some classes out like Clerics and Sorcerer's confuses me. All you need to use metamagic with this system is the Spellcraft skill and the new feat. The two classes mentioned above get Spellcraft as a class skill. Any other spellcasting classes that don't get Spellcraft as a class skill should be able to pick a feat to remedy the problem.
I found that making metamagic more available didn't counterbalance the game to casters more, as long as I got rid of Maximize.
Thanks for your input. It's good to run ideas like this by others to see it in a different way.

 

[farscapesg1]

I like it. The checks may be a little hard to make at higher level, but like you mentioned, it should be hard to metamagic the higher level spells. I usually play the spellcaster of the group and while I do take some of the metamagic feats, I usually feel that they are very circumstantial feats that rarely get used.

I also don't see the problem with basing it off Spellcraft. As you mentioned, most of the other caster classes get the skill as a class skill. The only exceptions are the Paladin and the Ranger (who are not primary casters anyways).

 

[Pyrex]

The mention that this system leaves some classes out like Clerics and Sorcerer's confuses me. All you need to use metamagic with this system is the Spellcraft skill and the new feat.

It doesn't leave them out, but it does penalize them. In your example you assume your 20th Wiz will have a +50 spellcraft modifier, +10 of it from Int.

Wizards inherently will have massively higher Int scores than other caster classes, thus, by design, you've unintentionally penalized non-Int based casters as they'll never be able to match the Wizards spellcraft score.