Metamagics

[Falling Icicle]

It has been said that spells in 5e will deal static damage that doesn't scale by level, but players will have the option to cast spells in a higher level spell slot in order to increase their damage.

This has had me thinking about metamagics. I've always liked the concept of metamagics, but I didn't like 3.x's implementation of them. My problem has always been especially with the more "boring" metamagics, like empower spell, maximize spell and heighten spell. Players always had the option of preparing/casting spells with higher level spell slots than the spell required, but unless they applied a metamagic to it, they got nothing extra in return. All that extra energy was simply wasted. That always bothered me. If I prepare fireball as a 5th level spell, why shouldn't it deal more damage? Why then, even bother, when I can just prepare a 5th level spell instead? The whole thing was really akward and clunky.

I hope that we see metamagics in 5e. I love things like silent spell, still spell, and so on. I think some of the old spells like contingency and permanency would even work better as metamagics than as spells, since, after all, all they do is modify other spells. I just don't want to see things like empower or heighten spell again. Casting a spell with a higher level spell slot should provide a boost to damage without requiring a feat tax to do so. The types of metamagics I want to see are those that actually let you modify your spells in fun and interesting ways.

I would even like it if metamagics didn't modifiy spell levels at all. Perhaps they could have other drawbacks or limitations. Metamagics might require some kind of roll, increases the spell's casting time, cause fatigue, have a risk of backfiring, or have any number of other drawbacks, as appropriate to the metamagic feat in question.

 

[mkill]

Fully agree! Simple effects like extra damage, extra range or longer duration should be possible by default, without feats.

Reserve metamagic feats for the fancy stuff, like casting fireballs under water or summoning monsters wearing party hats.

 

[Mattachine]

Something I like about 4e: Metamagic. Rather than being a category of feats, metamagic was spread out through feats, utility powers, and class features. For example,

1. Sorcerers in 4e got spells that modified the effect of the next spell cast. This was the origin of metamagic in 1e, by the way, with the Incantatrix NPC class, presented in Dragon Magazine back in the 80's.

2. Some 4e feats add to the damage or certain types of spells, make spells harder to resist, or allow options to range or area.

3. Class features of some classes and paragon paths modified the effects of spells, such as increasing duration, change ranged attacks to melee, and so forth.


Just as there are plans for 5e to get away from a long list of formalized jargon for damage and effects, I think the game would be well served to go back to an earlier style of metamagic, rather than a list of feats (like 3e).

 

[Astrosicebear]

I might like to see metamagic as feats go away. Instead let them be folded into a theme system or class feature.

 

[Li Shenron]

I was quite fine with 3ed metamagic, except that Silent and Still spell were quite expensive compared to the frequency of usefulness. But overall the mechanic seemed solid to me, and gave the Sorcerer and other spontaneous casters a nice edge and tactical differentiation from full-vancian casters.

I don't really think metamagic should be a mechanic available for everyone. Overall I think that the idea of using feats (or whatever) to "unlock" metamagic abilities is in line with the underlying concept that versatility equals power. Thus, while a character can choose to have some extra options, another can instead choose to have no options but static boosts to its numbers. Therefore, you have to pay to be able to use metamagic, just like the fighter has to pay to be able to use alternative combat options (e.g. Power Attack) or to use them efficiently (e.g. Sunder, Two-Weapon Fighting) when others would struggle.

Clearly, it's debatable... If your group's gaming style is more about boosting its numbers in combat, and flexibility is not regularly turned into tactical advantage, then it all seems a waste to "spend" feats on it.

It can also be the opposite, that a gaming group wants everyone to have lots and lots of options to try, and in fact I've seen games where all those combat tactical feats were "free" for everyone (i.e. turned into regular combat mechanics), and the same could be done for metamagic I guess. But IMHO this always makes the game much more complicated, with a potentially enourmous amount of options. Something like this can be fun and workable for an experienced gaming group, but could be a nightmare for inexperienced gamers and therefore I am against having such solution as the core.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I was quite fine with 3ed metamagic, except that Silent and Still spell were quite expensive compared to the frequency of usefulness. But overall the mechanic seemed solid to me, and gave the Sorcerer and other spontaneous casters a nice edge and tactical differentiation from full-vancian casters.

My biggest problem with the metamagic system in 3E was that in a lot of cases taking a spell of the increased level was better than using a metamagic spell. I felt many of the effects were not worth the increase (Still/Silent were the two offenders that leap to mind for me as well). There were attempts to ameliorate this effect later on with ways you could use a free metamagic feat per day. I was also a little bothered by the double cost of the ability - once via feat and once via increased spell level. It seemed overly harsh.

 

[Argyle King]

I like how the perk system in Skyrim works. Something like that might be a way to do metamagic for casters. Perhaps different schools of magic could have different perks; a way to make a sorcerer casting a fireball a little different from a wizard casting a fireball; a way to add a personal style touch to an ability.

 

[thewok]

After the initial "Why are they making another edition already?" phase I went through after the 5E announcement, I started thinking about stuff I liked and disliked from 3E and 4E (the only editions with which I have experience), and I came up with this:

I like the idea of action points, but I think Eberron 3E and D&D 4E seriously undervalued this concept.

One of the things I want to see in 5E is an expansion of the Action Point concept, and metamagic was one of the things I thought would fit really well into that idea. You get a certain number of action points per day. Melee characters can use them for extra attacks, flashy maneuvers, and so on.

But magic users would use these action points to modify how their spells worked. Maximize damage, increase range, modify the spell shape, exclude areas (squares) from the effect, and so on.

I never liked how metamagic was tied to spell levels in 3E. I just never used them because I wanted the variety of higher-level spells. I like the idea of being able to modify spells during casting, rather than at the memorization stage. It makes more sense to me. But then I never cared for the idea behind Vancian casting in the first place.

 

[Li Shenron]

My biggest problem with the metamagic system in 3E was that in a lot of cases taking a spell of the increased level was better than using a metamagic spell. I felt many of the effects were not worth the increase (Still/Silent were the two offenders that leap to mind for me as well).

I mentioned in fact Still/Silent because they are a special case. Those two metamagics were meant as an insurance against being unable to move (e.g. grapple) or to speak (e.g. Silence), but they were a bit too difficult and costly for a Wizard because of spell preparation, so you ended up eventually only preparing e.g. one Stilled Grease or teleportation or one Silenced Dispel Magic. But I think they were totally decent for a Sorcerer.

I agree only partly with your first sentence. For instance the core Empower Spell seemed to be quite in line with the damage by level. Probably Heighten and Maximize Spell were not, they were worse than a higher-level spell. But again... if you consider how few spells a Sorcerer get to learn compared to a Wizard, many of these feats were a bless as they allowed to skip spells that could be covered with metamagicked lower-level spells, thus giving you the change to select different ones.

Personally I believe that most issues on 3ed metamagic came from the habit of evaluating them against the Wizard class... I don't know if it was deliberate by the designers, but Wizard was simply not the class for metamagic, the Sorcerer was.

I was also a little bothered by the double cost of the ability - once via feat and once via increased spell level. It seemed overly harsh.

This can not be made better for 3ed, but I suppose a completely different system for metamagic can be designed to make you pay only once. In 3ed it's not possible because if you remove the slot level increase essentially all your spells will have all your metamagic feats applied (not exactly balanced...), and if you don't require feats then obviously everyone has access to all metamagic, possibly including splatbooks.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I like metamagic feats. They work thematically. The mechanical problem is that your spell slots were reserved by level, so by applying a metamagic feat, you were sacrificing a very precious resource.

But under a variant spell slot system, they could work very well. Say, instead of having a fifth level spell slots, you instead had a bunch of generic spell slots and a fifth level spell required five of them.

Now, when you apply a metamagic feat to a spell, it simply requires more slots to prepare that spell, letting you sacrifice lower level spells instead of higher level spells.


A easier to use system might be to have metamagic spells that take up lower level slots, but can be cast simultaneously with higher level spells to boost them.