Li Shenron
Legend
Don't know if anybody else had the same feeling as mine, but I think that recent products are showing a trend in how metamagic works that really is making me worry. :\
If you just play with core material and early 3ed edition supplements such as Tome & Blood, metamagic has its greatest limitation IMHO not in the level increase cost but in the preparation requirements. This of course makes spontaneous casters the masters of metamagic because they can do it on the fly.
I always thought it was fair: spontaneous casters have their hardest limitation in the extrememlely limited number of spells known. Comparing the wizard vs the sorcerer, you get unlimited knowledge + faster advancement + bonus feats versus full spell slots efficiency (from spontaneous casting) + 50% more spells/day + metamagic flexibility.
Metamagic was not just something to pull the sorcerer power a little up, it was IMHO the SIGNATURE feature of sorcerer's spellcasting!
I have played a few sorcerers already and cannot have one without metamagic feats! 
However what I am worried about is that we often get supplements with possibilities to avoid the limitation to metamagic because of spell preparation. We have for example:
- metamagic rods: considering that you rarely need to use a specific metamagic feat more than 3/day, the limitation means almost nothing; the price is incredibly cheap for a minor mm rod; greater rods are effectively expensive, but if you notice that they let you do something completely beyond normal spellcasting (metamagicking 9th level spells!), if they had been epic few people would have found it strange
- variant rules from UA address the problem and offer ways to cast metamagic without preparation
- there are prestige class abilities here and there (such as the Incantatrix) or feats in the supplementary books which let you metamagic on the fly, with no need for preparation
Now to one side these things are not terrible themselves, but it seems to me like they are addressing the problem from the point of view of the preparation spellcasters only. I mean, it seems like the publishers are thinking of the poor wizards and clerics who cannot effectively use metamagic on the fly, but these cheap ways to circumvent the limitations forget that there is a whole population of sorcerers in the world who actually make a living out of it!
And guess what? No one is doing anything to help sorcerers lessen their big limitations of few spells known, it's totally unfair!
I don't know, but this trend also makes me wonder if in future editions we are going to see major changes to metamagic (if it's still going to exist, of course). I seriously think that in an eventual 4e metamagic will always be done on the fly.
If you just play with core material and early 3ed edition supplements such as Tome & Blood, metamagic has its greatest limitation IMHO not in the level increase cost but in the preparation requirements. This of course makes spontaneous casters the masters of metamagic because they can do it on the fly.
I always thought it was fair: spontaneous casters have their hardest limitation in the extrememlely limited number of spells known. Comparing the wizard vs the sorcerer, you get unlimited knowledge + faster advancement + bonus feats versus full spell slots efficiency (from spontaneous casting) + 50% more spells/day + metamagic flexibility.
Metamagic was not just something to pull the sorcerer power a little up, it was IMHO the SIGNATURE feature of sorcerer's spellcasting!
I have played a few sorcerers already and cannot have one without metamagic feats! However what I am worried about is that we often get supplements with possibilities to avoid the limitation to metamagic because of spell preparation. We have for example:
- metamagic rods: considering that you rarely need to use a specific metamagic feat more than 3/day, the limitation means almost nothing; the price is incredibly cheap for a minor mm rod; greater rods are effectively expensive, but if you notice that they let you do something completely beyond normal spellcasting (metamagicking 9th level spells!), if they had been epic few people would have found it strange
- variant rules from UA address the problem and offer ways to cast metamagic without preparation
- there are prestige class abilities here and there (such as the Incantatrix) or feats in the supplementary books which let you metamagic on the fly, with no need for preparation
Now to one side these things are not terrible themselves, but it seems to me like they are addressing the problem from the point of view of the preparation spellcasters only. I mean, it seems like the publishers are thinking of the poor wizards and clerics who cannot effectively use metamagic on the fly, but these cheap ways to circumvent the limitations forget that there is a whole population of sorcerers in the world who actually make a living out of it!
And guess what? No one is doing anything to help sorcerers lessen their big limitations of few spells known, it's totally unfair! I don't know, but this trend also makes me wonder if in future editions we are going to see major changes to metamagic (if it's still going to exist, of course). I seriously think that in an eventual 4e metamagic will always be done on the fly.
