D&D 5E Twin spell metamagic, would it be ovepowered to work on all spells?

[Horwath]

Simple change for twin spell, it would work on all spell, just that the same target cannot be affected twice by the same spell.

I.E:
you could twin fireball, even have some part of AoE overlapping, but anyone in overlapping area would only have one instance of the spell affecting them.

Same for eldritch blast, on 11th level you have 3 rays, with twin spell you would have 6 rays, but no target could get affected by more than 3 rays, same as 1st level magic missile.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

As someone who genuinely believes the 5e Sorcerer is underpowered and needs some love:

Yes. Dear God yes. This would be completely unacceptable if it were allowed to apply to all spells.

 

[Horwath]

As someone who genuinely believes the 5e Sorcerer is underpowered and needs some love:

Yes. Dear God yes. This would be completely unacceptable if it were allowed to apply to all spells.

what spells you think that would be problematic?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

what spells you think that would be problematic?

I mean, fireball for starters. Anything that has areas-of-effect would be relevant. Sleep would become significantly more powerful--after all, you can have the two spells start on opposite ends and work toward the middle, with only a slim possibility of overlap on the last monster. Storm sphere and vitriolic sphere get a pretty major power boost too, since those are effectively summoned units, and would interact oddly (would you spend one bonus action to employ both spheres? That's clearly too powerful, but if you only employ one sphere, there's little point to the twinning.) Wall of Force becomes effectively forcecage two spell levels lower for anything that can't fly (notably, it would also be two levels lower and area of effect.) Confusion gets a pretty major boost, since limited area is one of its major drawbacks (10' radius may not be tiny but it ain't large either.) Tidal wave seems to get a major boost too, for the same reason.

Not to mention scorching ray and eldritch blast would become absolutely ridiculous. The former is a 2nd level spell. Twinned, it would be doing (up to) 12d6 damage for the cost of 2 sorcery points. Eldritch blast is a cantrip, so it still costs 1 sp, but at max level you'd be getting a free +4d10 potential damage (or +4d10+20 if you're a Sorlock) solely for spending 1 SP. That's a lot. And, again, I say that as someone who thinks Sorcerer needs some love.

 

[Horwath]

I mean, fireball for starters. Anything that has areas-of-effect would be relevant. Sleep would become significantly more powerful--after all, you can have the two spells start on opposite ends and work toward the middle, with only a slim possibility of overlap on the last monster. Storm sphere and vitriolic sphere get a pretty major power boost too, since those are effectively summoned units, and would interact oddly (would you spend one bonus action to employ both spheres? That's clearly too powerful, but if you only employ one sphere, there's little point to the twinning.) Wall of Force becomes effectively forcecage two spell levels lower for anything that can't fly (notably, it would also be two levels lower and area of effect.) Confusion gets a pretty major boost, since limited area is one of its major drawbacks (10' radius may not be tiny but it ain't large either.) Tidal wave seems to get a major boost too, for the same reason.

Not to mention scorching ray and eldritch blast would become absolutely ridiculous. The former is a 2nd level spell. Twinned, it would be doing (up to) 12d6 damage for the cost of 2 sorcery points. Eldritch blast is a cantrip, so it still costs 1 sp, but at max level you'd be getting a free +4d10 potential damage (or +4d10+20 if you're a Sorlock) solely for spending 1 SP. That's a lot. And, again, I say that as someone who thinks Sorcerer needs some love.

Why would fireball be a problem?
How many times did you fight an army, and then IF you have fireball, and IF you have twinned spell metamagic and have 3 sorcery points, well, you should be a nemesis for army tight formation.
Your single target DPS still stays the same. BBEG cant get 16d6 of damage per fireball.

also scorching ray is 12d6 only if you hit with all attack rolls and you can only target 3 at the same creature, hardly special,
and you can form wall of force as a dome or a sphere 10ft radius, so it's kind of a cage already.

Stormsphere, use bonus action to activate both spheres, cannot target same creature with both attacks.

Vitriolic sphere same as fireball, but worse.

Anything that buff tidal wave is a good thing, that spell is baaaad.


point is, if you can twin banishment or dominate, twinning any damaging spell should not be a problem.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Whether it's overpowered probably depends on how you run your game. I'd say the only thing you can do (if you aren't sure just by your own estimation) is to playtest it. Allow it in your game and see what happens. That's the only way you're truly going to know for sure. Any of our comments won't really help because we don't know your game.

 

[jgsugden]

Let's break it down. A circular fireball covers 44 squares with a 20 foot radius and a square fireball covers 64. Double those to get 88 squares and 128 squares if we twinned it and did not allow overlap to deal double damage.

A circular 30 foot radius fireball covers 96 squares, and a square one cover 144 squares. We get more area covered with less precision than with a pair of fireballs, but increasing the radius by 10 feet is fairly comparable.

What level spell would you make a fireball that had a radius of 30 feet instead of 20 feet? Circle of Death raises the radius to 60 feet while changing the damage type to something slightly less resisted. That 60 foot radius is 384 squares in a circular casting and 576 in a square casting. For three spell levels you increase the size of the spell to over 850% of the area of a fireball. Should doubling it be 1 level or 2? I'd argue 1 - so a 4th level spell.

How many sorcerery points would you charge to create a metamagic that increases the radius of spells by 50%? I'd charge 1 SP per spell level.

I don't think this breaks the game. I'd be happy to hand a magic item to a sorcerer that allowed them to twin any spell. Just make the rule that no target can be impacted twice by the twinned spell and I think it is fine.