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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spatzimaus" data-source="post: 1155903" data-attributes="member: 3051">Well, yes, it IS a bit steep, but removing one cost entirely would make it too cheap IMO.  I personally think metamagic effects are worth more than a standard Feat, so how do you price them then?  There has to be some other sort of drawback simply to balance cost versus reward, so from one perspective you end up double-charging.All of the concepts suggested here keep the Feat cost and remove the +level cost, but what about going the other direction?  Let's say that every character got every metamagic for free, no cost in Feats, but they still had to add the spell levels.  So, anyone could Quicken a spell, but they'd still have to use a slot 4 levels higher.  Would that be balanced?  Assuming there were no +0 metamagic Feats like Element Substitution or the old Eschew Materials available, that is.  Personally, I'd say it was too cheap for the effect, so we're back where we started, trying to come up with a suitable offsetting cost.But, your suggestion about virtual metamagic levels gave me an idea.  What if you removed all the specific metamagic Feats and  made a more general Feat chain?  Something like this (I'm making this up off the top of my head, so bear with me on balance):BASIC METAMAGIC:Each day, a spellcaster gets a number of Metamagic Points (MP) equal to his caster level.  Unspent points from the previous day are lost.Pick two metamagic forms with a "level" of +1 or less.  Each form can be applied to your cast spells, with the following costs:1> Each form costs a number of MP equal to its level.2> Using each form disables that form for a number of rounds equal to its level.3> The casting time for all metamagicked spells increases to at least a full-round action, except for metamagic forms that specifically adjust casting time (i.e., Quicken)(That is, a 15th-level Wizard could have Still and Silent, both +1 forms.  He can metamagic 15 spells per day split between the two, and if he uses Still one round he can't use it again until 2 rounds later since it's disabled for 1.).IMPROVED METAMAGIC:Pick two additional metamagic forms.  This Feat may be taken multiple times; each time the level cap for new forms increases by 1.(The first time lets you pick ones with a cost of +2 or less, the second +3 or less, the third +4 or less, and so on.  There's already a downside to using the bigger ones, so it's not too powerful.  Having a ton of forms is great, but you'll run out of MP really quickly.  A Quicken uses 4 MP per use, so with ~20 MP total you can't do it often, and it sucks off the same pool as your other metamagics.)EXTRA METAMAGIC:Gain an additional number of MPs each day equal to your primary spellcasting statistic modifier.  This Feat may be taken multiple times; the effects stack.(INT 20 means +5 MP, for a Wizard.  At low levels this'd be a huge boost.)FAST METAMAGIC:Instead of delaying N rounds before using that metamagic form again, the delay is reduced to (1dN) rounds.Also, the full-round-action minimum threshold is removed.Wizards can choose one of two paths at level 1: either they get Scribe Scroll as a bonus Feat, in which case all future bonus Feats must be item creation ones, or they take Basic Metamagic as a bonus Feat, in which case all future bonus Feats must be one of the other metamagic Feats.  It'd be nice if the item creation Feats were worked into a chain, too, but that won't happen soon.You'd have to add in all the exotic metamagics from other sources; in addition to Empower (+50% for 2 levels), you'd also have the metapsionic Fortify (+25% for 1 level) and Overpower (+100% for 4 levels).  As for Heighten, you'd split it into Heighten +1, Heighten +2, and so on.  The nice part of this is, the big-level ones like Quicken, Chain, Persistent, and Twin will be rare (too many Feats to reach), powerful, and only usable rarely.I wonder, could this work?</blockquote>

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