Introduction: Metamagic in the SRD

V3 D&D introduced metamagic feats to allow spellcasters to modify various parameters of the spells they cast. There are two general categories of spellcaster: "preparation casters", like Clerics, Druids, and Wizards, and "spontaneous casters", like Bards and Sorcerers. There are both similarities and differences in how metamagic works for the two categories.

Every metamagic feat applies a "spell level modifier" (SLM) of from 0 to 4 spell levels to the spell being modified. For example, Still Spell has an SLM of +1. Therefore, a spell modified with the Still Spell feat uses up a slot one level higher than normal, although it doesn't actually become a higher level spell for the purpose of Saving Throw DC.

A spellcaster can apply more than one metamagic feat to the same spell. The required spell level modifiers stack. In V3.0, certain feats, such as Empower Spell, could be applied more than once to the same spell, but as of V3.5, the spellcaster can never apply the same metamagic feat more than once to a spell.

Metamagic Level Cap

When a spellcaster applies one or more metamagic feats to a spell, she adds up the spell level modifiers required by all the feats. The sum of the spell's level and the total metamagic spell level modifier must result in a spell slot that is within her normal casting capability: 5th level spells for a 9th level Wizard, or 6th level spells for a 16th level Bard, for example. An epic character with the Improved Spell Capacity feat will have a spell slots higher than the normal maximum spell level for her class. These slots are used specifically for spells with metamagic applied to them.

Except for certain exceptions, this "metamagic level cap" is "hard"; the spellcaster may not exceed her highest spell slot by applying metamagic to a spell.

Exceptions to the Metamagic Level Cap

I know of three exceptions to the "hard" metamagic level cap.

First, the SRD contains rods of metamagic that allow any spellcaster to add a metamagic feat on-the-fly to a spell she casts herself, without applying the customary "spell level modifier" to the spell. For example, a 5th level Wizard could cast a 3rd level fireball spell, but applying the Empower Spell feat to it would require a 5th level spell slot, which is beyond her power. But, a simple lesser rod of metamagic, empower would let her Empower three fireballs a day.

Second, the Complete Divine introduced the Divine Metamagic feat. This allows a cleric to apply the effect of a chosen metamagic feat to a spell without applying any sort of spell level modifier to it, and without preparing the spell ahead of time with the metamagic feat by paying for the feat's spell level modifier with the positive or negative energy generated by turn or rebuke attempts. The cleric must sacrifice (1 + SLM) such attempts to spontaneously apply a feat that normally requires SLM extra levels to be cast. Thus, a 7th level cleric could use the Empower Spell feat on a 4th level holy smite spell simply by expending three turn attempts at the time she casts the spell.

Third, the Complete Arcane introduced a series of "Sudden" metamagic feats. These allow any spellcaster to apply the effect of a metamagic feat, once per day, without applying any sort of spell level modifier to it, and without preparing the spell ahead of time with the metamagic feat (for spellcasters that need to prepare spells). Thus, a 5th level Wizard could use Sudden Empower to add the Empower Spell feat to a single 3rd level fireball spell, making the decision to do so at the time she casts the spell.

Heighten Spell

The Heighten Spell feat is special. That feat places a spell into a higher level spell slot and actually does raise its spell level to match. You can think of this feat as having a variable spell level modifier: the difference between the slot the spell is placed into and the level of the spell.

The resulting spell slot must not only be within the spellcaster's spell capacity, but her pertinent ability score must be high enough to cast a spell of that level. For example, a 9th level Wizard with Intelligence of 14 has a 5th level spell slot, but is only Intelligent enough to cast a 4th level spell. She can place a lower level spell into that slot and cast it with no problem, but if applying metamagic to a spell requires it to be placed in a 5th level slot, she will find such a spell just as difficult as a 5th level spell without metamagic, and will be unable to cast it.

When Heighten Spell is combined with other metamagic feats, its variable spell level modifier must be applied along with that required by all the other feats. The resulting level of the spell is the original spell level adjusted by the spell level modifier supplied by the Heighten Spell feat alone; other metamagic feats may the spell to be placed in an even higher spell slot, but the spell will not be Heightened all the way to that slot. For example, an Empowered (+2) fireball (3) Heightened to level 5 (+2) takes a level 7 spell slot but has the save DC of a level 5 spell.

Preparation spellcasters

Casters that prepare spells, like Wizards, Clerics, and Druids, must choose which metamagic feats to apply to their spells when they prepare them.

This appears no more onerous than having to plan which spells to prepare ahead of time, in general - you can think of a Still version of a spell as being simply a different version of the spell that lacks a Somatic component - but in practice I know no player of a Wizard or Cleric who has any interest in using her character's precious & limited feats on metamagic. For many of the metamagic feats, you have no idea which spells will benefit from a given feat. If somebody casts silence on you, you want a Silent Spell - but which one? Perhaps you apply Widen Spell to your fireball - but if the foes you happen to meet are bunched up, that will have been a waste.

Confirming that impression, look at the stat blocks of any number of NPCs in published sources. You frequently see a Wizard with one or more metamagic feats, but if you examine the list of spells she has prepared, it is a rare NPC, indeed, who has prepared any of her spells using those feats. Adventure designers give metamagic feats to NPCs - but can't figure out how to make their characters use them.

And yet, the published rules seem to encourage Wizards, at least, to learn metamagic: every five levels, a Wizard gains a free feat which must be selected from Item Creation, Metamagic, or Spell Mastery.

Opinions vary on this: Tessarael says that Wizards can use the "offensive" feats (Empower, Maximize, Quicken, ...) effectively. But he agrees that the "defensive" ones (Silent, Still, ...) tend to be fairly useless. CapnZapp agrees with this assessment.

Spontaneous spellcasters

Bards and, especially, sorcerers have it a lot easier. They do not need to prepare spells; they can choose the most appropriate spell for a given situation from any spell they know. And their use of metamagic is similarly more versatile: just as they choose their spells on-the-fly, they apply metamagic to their chosen spells at casting time. But even they pay a cost: applying metamagic to a spell turns the casting into a full round action. It does not actually lengthen the casting or delay when the spell takes effect, for a spell that normally takes 1 standard action to cast, but the spellcaster no longer has a move action available in the round in which she modifies a spell with metamagic.

Clerics can spontaneously convert a prepared spell into cure or inflict spell. These spells can be modified with metamagic on-the-fly, which turns the casting into a full round action.

In V3.0, druids could not spontaneously convert prepared spells. In V3.5, they were granted the ability to spontaneously convert a prepared spell into a summon nature's ally spell, but the paragraph on metamagic was not updated to allow them to apply metamagic to such spells, even though the language describing this ability is identical to that describing the cleric's ability. This may have been an oversight and a druid should therefore be allowed to apply metamagic to her spontaneous summon nature's ally spells, but perhaps not: unlike cure and inflict spells, summoning spells have a one round casting time, and metamagic thus would lengthen them to two rounds of casting.

By special exception, the Quicken Spell feat is useless for such a caster. Normally, that adjusts the casting time of a spell that is one full round or less into a free action, allowing the caster to have a full round to do other actions as desired, but Quicken Spell as written does not override the rule that metamagic lengthens a spontaneously cast spell to take a full round action.

Variant: Heighten Spell is not a feat

Many people do not like the fact that a spellcaster needs to use the Heighten Spell feat to increase the save DC of a spell placed into a higher spell slot than normal; they believe that this should be a natural part of spellcasting.

This can be done regardless of any other modifications to metamagic. Consider Heighten to be a "virtual" metamagic feat, with a variable spell level modifier, which any spellcaster can apply to her spells as desired.

Thus, a Wizard could Heighten a level 3 fireball spell to 5th level simply by placing it into a 5th level spell slot. If she also wants to Empower it, she would place it into a 7th level slot, as before. The only difference is that she no longer needs to take the Heighten Spell feat to do this; all Wizards know how to do this.

A Sorcerer could do the same thing, on-the-fly, as with any metamagic that he knows, but since Heighten is no longer metamagic, the casting time does not become a full round action.

In any case, the spellcaster must have a suitable ability score to cast a spell of the Heightened level in order to do this; our example level 9 Wizard with an Intelligence of 14 could still place a fireball into her 5th level spell slot, but could Heighten it to at most level 4.

Pricing Metamagic Feats

In the core rules, a feat is a feat is a feat. A character gets a limited numbers of them, and two characters of identical race with the same classes will have the same number of feats. But, the feel and general power of the two characters will vary dramatically depending on the character's feat choices, since all feats are not created equal.

This becomes vary clear with metamagic when we consider how useful the various feats are to a preparation caster.

Some feats, like Empower Spell, will always have their full effect: if a Wizard prepares an empowered fireball, it will do 50% more average damage than a fireball wihout the feat. True, circumstances may make her wish she'd taken an empowered lightning bolt instead, but there are no circumstances in which the spell without the feat is just as useful as the one with the feat. I'll call such feats "strong" metamagic feats.

Other feats, like Widen Spell, sometimes are useful, but other times provide no benefit whatever. A Wizard who prepares a widened fireball will be very happy she'd done so if her foes are spread out in a wide area, but if they are bunched up within the spread radius of a unmodified fireball, having applied the feat will provide no benefit whatever. I'll call such feats "weak" metamagic feats.

Several people have tried to rank the various metamagic feats.

On the Wizards of the Coast message boards, Haldrik has a thread to determine What is the most powerful feat? His approach is to consider a level 2 character with 20 hit points and ask "how many HP would you be willing to permanently give up to have this feat?" Many experienced players, including skillful and ingenious min-maxers, chimed in, ultimately resulting in a very believable power ranking for the standard feats, rated in "HP".

Sean K. Reynolds also realizes that not all feats are created equal and invented his Feat Point System. In this system, a "benchmark" feat costs 10 "Feat Points" (SFP). A "weak" feat will be worth 5, and a powerful one as much as 11 or 12. Later discussion prices benchmark Epic feats at 20 SFP. Therefore, non-Epic feats should all be in the range of 5 - 10 with only really useless ones costing 4 and really powerful ones being 11 or 12.

Sean initially characterized all of the metamagic feats as "weak" and rated them at 5 SFP. That can't be right, but, since one of Haldrik's HP generally corresponds to about 2 SFP, we can use Haldrik's research as basis for pricing feats in SFPs

Here is a list of feats, subjectively ranked from strongest to weakest. In general, a more powerful effect pushes the feat up, but a higher SLM pushes it down.

I include Haldrik's HP price (for the feats from the SRD) and, usually, double that for the SFP price. These are the prices a spontaneous caster should pay for the feat, since they are the ones who can best use metamagic. A preparation caster should spend 1 SFP less for at least the "weak" feats, and possibly all of them.

Feat	Source	Strong?	SLM	Effect	HP	SFP
Quicken Spell	SRD	Yes	+4	Casting spell becomes a free action. Equivalent in power to an "Epic" feat.	11	20
Empower Spell	SRD	Yes	+2	Damage × 1½	6	12
Chain Spell	Complete Arcane	Yes	+3	Caster level # of extra targets at ½ damage.	-	10
Maximize Spell	SRD	Yes	+3	Damage × ~1.7: max(d6) ÷ average(d6)	5	10
Energy Admixture	Complete Arcane	Yes	+4	Damage × 2	-	10
Repeat Spell	Complete Arcane	Yes	+3	Repeats damage next round, second save	-	10
Split Ray	Complete Arcane	Yes	+2	Damage × 2, but only for rays. SLM is probably too low...	-	10
Twin Spell	Complete Arcane	Yes	+4	Damage × 2, 2 saves	-	10
Energy Substitution	Complete Arcane	No	+0	Change energy type	-	10
Extend Spell	SRD	No	+1	Duration × 2	5	10
Sculpt Spell	Complete Arcane	No	+1	Area effects can miss allies	-	10
Widen Spell	SRD	No	+1	Area of effect × 2	4	8
Enlarge Spell	SRD	No	+1	Range × 2	4	8
Delay Spell	Complete Arcane	No	+3	Delays effect	-	7
Still Spell	SRD	No	+1	Eliminate somatic component	3	6
Persistent Spell	Complete Arcane	No	+6	24 hour duration	-	5
Silent Spell	SRD	No	+1	Eliminate verbal component	2	5
Heighten Spell	SRD	No	varies	Changes actual spell level	0	0

Variant metamagic systems

The major problem that I want to "solve" is that metamagic, by the book, is not interesting to spellcasters that prepare spells: only the "strong" feats are useful.

Sean K. Reynolds acknowledged this with his Feat Point System by characterizing all of the metamagic feats as "weak" - 5 Feat Points each - for such characters, but proposing that the metamagic feats should be more expensive for spontaneous casters.

Similarly, in a discussion on a metamagic variant that allowed Wizards to either spontaneously apply metamagic or prepare spells modified by the feats, CapnZapp said "no wizard will ever prepare any metamagic versions of his spells, he'll always save all of his free levels for spontaneous use."

But, perhaps this should be a differentiating factor between the two styles of spellcaster? One of the things that makes spontaneous casters an appealing alternative to preparation casters is their flexible use of metamagic. Variant metamagic systems that make preparation casters more flexible with metamagic might make spontaneous caster seem less desirable.

CapnZapp holds this view, opining that if a wizard can spontaneously apply metamagic, then "with every MM feat the wizard takes, the difference between wizards and sorcerers becomes smaller and smaller; i.e. there's fewer and weaker reasons for taking the Sorcerer class."

And Sean K. Reynolds has some house rules, mentioned in his Review of chapters 1-3 of the V3.5 PHB, intended specifically to make Sorcerers a more appealing character choice. He lets a Wizard spend his every-five-level Feat on Item Creation and gives a Sorcerer a similar every-five-level Feat to be spent on Metamagic, thus declaring that the Wizard is the "Item Creator Extraordinaire" and the Sorcerer is the "Master of Spontaneous Magic."

I believe that a system that makes metamagic less onerous to spell preparation casters need not make spontaneous casters less desirable. My ideal variant will also remove some restrictions on spontaneous casters, and they will still make better use of metamagic than preparation casters, even if the metamagic line between the two kinds of casters is blurred.

In any case, I like giving Sorcerers free metamagic feats.

Sean's Variant: Metamagic is Easier for Sorcerers

Sean K. Reynolds has a couple of house rules for Sorcerers. He added these in an effort to make that class more appealing, since in the core rules, the only thing a Sorcerer gives up by entering an appropriate prestige class (one with full arcane spellcasting progression) is Familiar advancement. Additionally, Sorcerers are often seen as somewhat weaker than (specialist) Wizards, due to their limited spell selection.

To address these problems, Sean added two rules for Sorcerers. Either of these rules could be combined with other variant metamagic systems, if you wished to make the Sorcerer base class more appealing.

First, Sorcerers, as the "masters of spontaneous magic", gain a free metamagic feat every five levels, much as Wizards do in the core rules. Therefore leaving the Sorcerer base class to enter a prestige class has a higher cost; you give up these feats. This also makes a Sorcerer more powerful by granting him more feats. Metamagic was always useful to that class, but now that metamagic feats are "free", a Sorcerer is likely to spend his general feats on non-metamagic feats.

Second, a Sorcerer can apply metamagic on the fly with no increase in casting time. As a corollary, Sorcerers can use the Quicken Spell feat, as desired; the mechanical conflict between metamagic lengthening casting and Quicken Spell shortening it no longer exists.

Unearthed Arcana: Daily Uses of Metamagic

Andy Collins proposed an alternative scheme in which any character who takes a metamagic feat can use it three times a day for free: she can apply it, on-the-fly, to any spell she is about to cast. Spells do not need to be prepared with metamagic, and for casters that don't prepare spells, the casting time is not lengthened, so the Quicken Spell feat becomes usable.

In this variant, although higher level spell slots are not actually consumed by applying metamagic to a spell, which spells the caster can apply a feat to still depends on the spell level modifier of the feat: if a metamagic feat requires an modifier of 2 spell levels, only spells at least 2 levels below the highest the caster can normally cast can have the feat applied to them. In other words, the "metamagic level cap" remains in place.

The Heighten Spell feat can also be used three times a day and boosts a spell's effective level to the maximum level the spellcaster is able to cast, without boosting the actual spell slot used for the spell. This apparently can break the "metamagic level cap", if combined with other feats.

Tessarael's Variant: Daily "Free" Uses of Metamagic

This is based on the Unearthed Arcana version, but differs in several ways.

Rather than a fixed "3 uses per day" per feat, each feat grants a certain number of "free uses" per day that is inversely related to the power of the feat.

"Free use" of a feat allows any caster to spontaneously apply the feat to a spell, on-the-fly, without lengthening the casting time. A caster is allowed to use her feat more often each day, but any extra uses must either be prepared ahead of time, using a suitably higher spell slot, or, for a spontaneous caster, not only consumes a higher level spell slot but also lengthens the casting time, as per the rules in the SRD.

How many daily "free uses"?

Originally, Tessarael had a table.

I proposed that he simplify it to (5 - SLM), where SLM is the "Spell Level Modifier" required for the feat. Thus: 5 uses of Energy Substitution, 4 of Still Spell, 3 of Empower Spell, 2 of Maximize Spell, or 1 of Quicken Spell.

His current feeling is that he'd grant (4 - SLM) daily on-the-fly uses to only the "weak" metamagic feats, as those are the only ones that can be completely wasted by a preparation caster; the "strong" feats don't need any new rules to make them useful.

Although a "free use" of a metamagic feat does not actually consume a higher level spell slot, the "spell level modifier" of the feat still applies by restricting the highest level spell you can apply a feat to: Quicken Spell is still restricted to spells four levels below the highest available to the spellcaster, etc. In other words, the "metamagic level cap" remains in place.

The Heighten Spell feat is gone. If a spellcaster uses a higher level spell slot than strictly necessary to prepare or cast a spell, she can automatically increase the spell level, for increased save DC, if desired, assuming her spellcasting ability score is sufficient to cast the higher level spell. Only a spontaneous spellcaster can do this "on the fly"; a Wizard must Heighten her spells when she prepares them.

A caster that applies any real spell level modifier to a metamagic spell (because she is out of daily "free" uses, perhaps) must apply extra levels to also Heighten the spell, as in the core rules.

CapnZapp's Variant: Daily "Free Spell Levels" for Metamagic

When a character takes a metamagic feat, she gains four free metamagic spell levels per day to pay the spell level cost of applying metamagic on spells. Spells using metamagic don't actually need to use a higher level spell slot unless the spellcaster doesn't have enough "free" spell levels available; the first four spells cast with Silent Spell each day do not consume a higher level spell slot, but the fifth one would.

These free spell levels stack. If a character takes both Silent Spell and Quicken Spell, she has eight free spell levels and can use them to use Quicken Spell twice, Silent Spell eight times, or a combination of the two feats as desired. Additionally, the spellcaster does not need to pay the entire cost of metamagic feat with free levels; she can cast a Quickened Spell using a slot two levels higher than normal by using two "free" levels.

Spellcasters that prepare spells must still apply metamagic to them at spell preparation time. Spontaneous casters still have their casting time lengthened, and Quicken Spell is still unavailable to them. Therefore, a metamagic feat that doesn't require an increased spell slot (like Energy Substitution) doesn't benefit from "free" spell levels, although the feat still grants four "free" levels which can be used to pay for other metamagic feats.

The Heighten Spell feat is gone. If a spellcaster uses a higher level spell slot than strictly necessary to prepare or cast a spell, this actually increases the spell level, for increased save DC.

To do this, the spellcasting ability score must be sufficient to cast the higher level spell. If her ability score is inadequate, she may not place a spell into the higher slot; unlike the core rules, a spellcaster may not use her higher level slots for anything except metamagic spells not using "free" spell levels, which consume a higher level slot without increasing the actual spell level.

Only a spontaneous spellcaster can do this "on the fly"; a Wizard must Heighten her spells when she prepares them. In neither case can "free" spell levels be used to Heighten a spell; Heighten is part of the core spellcasting system, not metamagic.

The biggest change, however, is that this method places no restrictions on the spell level of spells that can have metamagic applied to them. If the cost is paid for using "free" spell levels, the "metamagic level cap" can be broken, if desired. CapnZapp justifies this by pointing to Metamagic Rods.

Brianna's Variant: Daily "Free Spell Levels" with Spontaneous Metamagic

This is similar to CapnZapp's scheme, but with spontaneous casting for all casters when using "free" spell levels, and retaining "metamagic level cap".

When a character takes a metamagic feat, she gains four free metamagic spell levels per day to pay the spell level cost of applying metamagic on spells. Spells using metamagic don't actually need to use a higher level spell slot unless the spellcaster doesn't have enough "free" spell levels available; the first four spells cast with Silent Spell each day do not consume a higher level spell slot, but the fifth one would.

These free spell levels stack. If a character takes both Silent Spell and Quicken Spell, she has eight free spell levels and can use them to use Quicken Spell twice, Silent Spell eight times, or a combination of the two feats as desired. Additionally, the spellcaster does not need to pay the entire cost of metamagic feat with free levels; she can cast a Quickened Spell using a slot two levels higher than normal by using two "free" levels.

Spellcasters that prepare spells can cast spells on-the-fly with metamagic, as long as "free" spell levels pay for all the extra spell level cost of adding the feat. If any portion of the spell level modifier is not covered by a "free" spell level, the spell must be prepared ahead of time.

Similarly, spontaneous casters do not have their casting time lengthened, if and only if the entire spell level modifier is paid for by "free" spell levels. This implies that if they use nothing but "free" levels to pay for it, they can use the Quicken Spell.

For both cases, the "metamagic level cap" remains firmly in place: the caster may not cast a spell modified with metamagic if the level of the spell plus the total spell level modifier exceeds the highest spell level she is normally able to cast.

For metamagic feats that don't require an increased spell slot, like Energy Substitution, a caster that prepares spells can apply the feat "on the fly," but must use one "free" spell level to pay for it. Similarly, a spontaneous caster can apply such a feat to her spells without increasing the casting time by using a "free" spell level.

The Heighten Spell feat is gone. If a spellcaster uses a higher level spell slot than strictly necessary to prepare or cast a spell, she can automatically increase the spell level, for increased save DC, if desired, assuming her spellcasting ability score is sufficient to cast the higher level spell. Normally, only a spontaneous spellcaster can do this "on the fly"; a Wizard must Heighten her spells when she prepares them.

However, any spellcaster can use her "free" spell levels to Heighten a spell "on the fly," trading one "free" level per spell level increased.

All usage of the Heighten Spell ability, either for spells prepared ahead of time or for spells spontaneously Heightened, with or without metamagic, with or without "free" levels, must observe the "metamagic level cap".

Tessarael's Second Variant: Only "weak" feats give "Free" Levels

This is a toned-down version of Brianna's variant in which only the "weak" metamagic feats provide "free" spell levels, although any metamagic feat can draw from the pool. Tessarael likes the flexibility provided by a pool of free levels that all the feats can draw on, but worries that a dedicated metamagic min-maxer could create an abusive build if the spell pool is too generous.

When a character takes a "weak" metamagic feat, she gains three free metamagic spell levels per day to pay the spell level cost of applying metamagic on spells. "Strong" metamagic feats do not grant any free spell levels.

These free spell levels stack. If a character takes Silent Spell, Still Spell, and Quicken Spell, she has six free spell levels (three each from Still and Silent, and none from Quicken) and can use them to pay some or all of the cost of any of the three metamagic feats.

Beyond that, this variant is like Brianna's variant.