Metamagic Proposal (Take Two)

[Spatzimaus]

What if we looked at Meatmagic Feats like this:
QUICKEN places a temporal bubble around the caster allowing them 6 seconds of time in an instant of real time.
STILL phases the caster just slightly into the ethereal plane where he can move without the prime plane seeing or hindering the movement
EMPOWER allows the caster to create a stronger connection to the energy source of the spell being cast.
MAXIMIZE allows the caster to create the strongest possible connection to the energy source of the spell they are casting.

Just because these can be described in one sentence doesn't make them "flat". The increase in power due to Empower will still equal ~50% of the base spell's power. This, of course, scales with the spell modified. If Empower said "the spell deals +2d6 damage of the previous damage type", then that'd be a flat increase, and could be assigned to a specific spell level. But it doesn't. So, Maximize, Empower, Twin, etc. all need to scale with the spell's level, because the actual benefit depends on the spell involved.

Then, there's the actual power bestowed. Like you said, Quicken is like giving a free round, but only allowing the person to cast spells. That's almost as good as a 9th-level spell (Time Stop), without the duration issue that instantaneous spells suffer from (made more explicit in 3E). So, allowing someone to Quicken with only a 4th-level slot? Too cheap. We could double all the numbers, and require an 8th-level slot to Quicken, but then you'd never be able to use it for low-level spells. Likewise, there's no 1st-level spell that'd allow you to bypass Silence, so why should Silent Spell only require a 1st-level slot? (And, it'd be like a spell that casts as a Free Action.)

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As a possible suggestion, let's rewrite all the metamagics' costs to depend on the level of the spell being modified. That way, it still scales, like the old system, but in a way that isn't quite so obnoxious.
If I take the metamagic feat, and I want to apply it to a spell of level X (OR LOWER), I need a slot of level Y (OR HIGHER), defined by:
Empower: Y = X/2 + 1
to Empower a Magic Missile takes a 1st-level slot, a 4th or 5th level spell takes a 3rd-level slot, and to Empower an 8th or 9th takes a 5th-level slot.
Maximize: Y = X
to Maximize a 3rd-level slot requires another 3rd-level slot. Since the damage is doubling this only makes sense.
Quicken: Y = X + 2
to Quicken a Magic Missile would cost a 3rd-level slot, to quicken a Fireball would take a 5th, and so on; you couldn't Quicken a Meteor Swarm unless you went Epic.
Still: Y = X/2 - 1 (min 0)
Silent: Y = X/2 - 1 (min 0)
For 1st-3rd, it'd only require a cantrip slot. An 8th- or 9th-level spell would require a 3rd-level slot; not quite negligible, but not significant.
and so on.

Okay, algebra may not be the best thing to require, so let's put it into more of a tabular form using categories. For example:

(excuse the lack of formatting)
Spell level: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
+1 metamagics: 0 0 0 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 (formula is (1/3)(X))
+2: 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 (formula is (1/2)(X+1))
+3: 1 2 2 3 4 4 5 6 6 7 (formula is (2/3)(X+2))
+4: 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 - - - (formula is (1)(X+3))

The point is, you still need to keep some scaling IMO, because none of the metamagics are truly "flat", even the ones like Still and Silent that don't have numerical effects. If I'm Held, then Still Spell is more valuable applied to a Meteor Swarm than to a Magic Missile. The one constant should be that when applied to your best spells (which, of course, improve with level), the fractional loss in power for using the metamagic should remain constant. If you always require Empower Spell to use a 2nd-level slot, at high level this becomes a trivial cost.

 

[JimAde]

Spatzimaus,

That's actually very similar to what I suggested. But instead of requiring division, mine just uses subtraction. It's less smooth, but easier to deal with. So the formula I suggested (using your definitions of X and Y) was:

Y = (X - 4) + metamagic levels

"metamagic levels" is the number of levels the existing metamagic feat raises the spell. If you want to make metamagic more costly (so that Quicken actually takes a higher level slot for example) just tweak that "4" to a lower number like "2". Using a 2 for this constant gets you:

Quicken = X + 2
Maximize, Widen = X + 1
Empower = X
Enlarge, Extend, Still, Silent = X - 1

Very similar to your numbers, but there's only one formula and no division.

 

[StAlda]

How about this....

Instead of raising the level of a spell, increase it's casting time - similar to the sorcorer but not quite.

Let's say Still, Silent, Extend, Enlarge take a full round to cast. Empower takes a full round and a standard action - meaning you still have a move action. And Maximize and Widen take two full rounds. Quicken, I think is too expensive, so how about +2 spell levels, Heighten spell remains the same as the PHB.

Or their could be combinations - Empower is +1 level and a full round casting time.

 

[JimAde]

How about this....

Instead of raising the level of a spell, increase it's casting time - similar to the sorcorer but not quite.

Let's say Still, Silent, Extend, Enlarge take a full round to cast. Empower takes a full round and a standard action - meaning you still have a move action. And Maximize and Widen take two full rounds. Quicken, I think is too expensive, so how about +2 spell levels, Heighten spell remains the same as the PHB.

Or their could be combinations - Empower is +1 level and a full round casting time.

This is an interesting idea. You are basically using a ritual to add power to the spell. I assume these times are for spells with a regular casting time of 1 standard action. One balance problem I see with this is that if a spell already has a longer casting time, adding to it won't really hamper the caster. If a spell takes 1 minute to cast it's pretty useless for combat anyway, so doubling or tripling the casting time won't really be a drawback. Glyph of Warding normally takes 10 minutes to cast. I think people would gladly spend an hour casting it to get Maximize and Empower on it.

 

[StAlda]

Yes, how about multiples of casting time. For Still, Silent, Extend, Enlarge the casting time is doubled - Standard Actions become Full Round. Empower would triple the casting time - for a Standard Action spells it takes a full round and a standard action - meaning you still have a move action in the second round (same as the post above). Maximize and Widen take quadruple casting time - two full rounds for a Standard Action, or 40 minutes for a Glyph. And yes the spell's level wouldn't change.

 

[JimAde]

I'm not sure. It would take play-testing, but it seems like if a spell's casting time is already too long for combat, then increasing that casting time just isn't much of a hindrance. It should at least be equivalent to the skill system. That is, the maximize feat is similar to choosing to "take 20". In both cases you will get the best possible result from your effort. Choosing to take 20 takes, literally, 20 times as long as a regular attempt.

I think your idea could work well for combat-type spells, but I'm not sure how you'd correctly apply it to the longer type.