This is reposted from a friend on Deviant Art, I like his take on it, but expect others to call Shenanigans or that me and my friend are Mad! Insane! ... well, we are.. but lets run with this any way.
Take it away Doc.
"One of the advantages modern D&D characters have is Feats. These special abilities, for the most part, aid a character and give them more flavour. They aren't perfect. I've seen a lot of Feats that were basically useless and badly designed; but the majority are good. This brings me to Metamagic Feats.
While the Feats themselves are very good for magic-users, the rules governing them are idiotic.
As an example, I'll use the Extend Spell Feat. The benefit of the Feat is that any spell cast using it doubles its duration, not including spells with a duration of concentration, instantaneous or permanent (for logical reasons). The downside (and enter the stupidity) is that use of the Feat "uses up a spell slot one level higher than the spell's actual level." This means that, for example, if you use the Feat on a 2nd lvl spell, you lose one of your 3rd lvl spells. Here's the list of Metamagic Feats in the PHB, and the slots they use:
Empower Spell: 2 lvls higher
Enlarge Spell: 1 lvl higher
Extend Spell: 1 lvl higher
Heighten Spell: Actually, costs nada
Maximize Spell: 3 lvls higher
Quicken Spell: 4 lvls higher
Silent Spell: 1 lvl higher
Still Spell: 1 lvl higher
Widen Spell: 3 lvls higher
This is ridiculous, and stupid. Further, while a 1st level spell-user may take any of these Feats, they couldn't actually use them, because they would have no higher spell slots to spend. AND some of these could only be used by very high level characters, but then only with low level spells. For example, Quicken Spell could only be used on a 5th lvl spell at most, and you'd have to be able to cast 9th lvl spells (e.g. a 17th Lvl Wizard).
Characters have few enough Feats and spells as it is, and for wizards and sorcerers, spells are their life. Literally. Why should Metamagic Feats be so crippling in cost so as to be useless? They shouldn't, obviously. Luckily, there's a simple solution, one myself and my best friend *MarJak use in our own D&D campaign: eliminate the spell slot cost.
Simply put - you take the Feat, and you use it whenever you want, no cost. So, for example, if you have the Silent Spell Feat, any spells you cast no longer need a verbal component.
I'm an old-time gamer, and I do NOT believe in power gaming, or munchkinism. For me it's about ROLEplaying; telling a good story, playing an interesting character with depth, and having exciting and fun adventures. But D&D is far from perfect, and often the game designers come up with some bad ideas. Those bad ideas need to be corrected.
Lastly, magic-users have, for the entire history of D&D, been given the short end of the stick. Sod-all hit points, no armour, laughable fighting skills, limitations on which races could be magic-users... and of course not many spells, and the spells themselves are often feeble.
D&D 3.5 did some to correct these problems (not the hit points though) but not enough, in my opinion. At least with the revised versions of Metamagic Feats I've discussed, wizards and sorcerers have a better chance to actually LIVE."
Thank you Doc.
