Actually, this is more than a homebrew; it's part of my ongoing revamp. I ask your help to add crunch to my magic system; the deal is I have 3 caster classes. Mage (wis), Sorcerer (Cha) and Wizard (Int); each gets a special class-related feat at every odd level. The wizard is limited to metamgic feats, but I want magi and sorcerers to have other options. My fluff says that magi draw their power either from their own souls or from their faith in a higher power, so I came up with the idea of Pious soul and Verdant soul. Sorcerers draw their power either from their raw emotions or from some exotic ancestry; current options include Infernal blood (not as in the Nine Hells in d&d), draconic blood, dark blood (think Far Realm) and Sylvan blood.
So, what I ask is help with creating the crunch behind these feats; preferably so that I end up with a 5-feat progression for each. Important note: I use schools of magic, but not as per d&d. There are 10 spell levels. All classes use mana points instead of spells/day. The end result should be that these feats encourage, but do not necessitate (because a caster doesn't have to take them) fantasy-medieval traditional archetypes.
It's 2:30 in the morning here so I apologize if I haven't been very gracious in this request, but I would really appreciate the help.
TS, your system sounds really interesting- could you tell us more about the classes and magic system, particularly about your “Mage” class and revised schools of magic?
My intent with the three caster classes is to provide the same archetypes as standard d&d, but still allowing the option to have atypical characters without resorting to 11 different caster classes and 77 prestige classes. The mage is fills the 'wiseman/wisewoman' archetype; a mage's feat choices dictate what particular type of wiseperson the character is. If the mage chooses to take a lot of Pious Soul feats, the 'mage' in terms of fluff becomes a priest of some sort. If the mage chooses to take a lot of metamgic feats, the character could be said to simply draw magical power from inward study of their own soul.
Metamagic feats are pretty useful; are you sure you want to restrict them just to wizards?
Sorry if I didn't make this clear, but any caster class can take metamagic feats. On a related note, metamagic feats don't work like they do in d&d. Instead of being able to apply a feat to any spell at the cost of higher spell levels, a caster must choose a school of magic which he/she can apply the feat to upon purchase of the feat. From then on all spells from that school which the caster casts have the metamagic benefit applies. It may sound powerful, but I split each metamagic feat into two feats (except for Silent and Still); though maybe this still makes metamagic too good. The purpose of this change is to encourage caster focus on a particular type of magic, because all caster classes can cast all spells.
Anyway, regarding your sorcerer bonus feats, there are various feats that might help: draconic feats (Complete Arcane, Dragon Magic, Races of the Dragon), Abyssal heritor feats (Hordes of the Abyss), illithid-related feats (Complete Psionic), aberration-related feats (Tome of Madness), presumably Infernal heritor feats in the forthcoming Hells book. This is just off the top of my head; other people can probably suggest more.
I have all of these books except Complete Psionic; what do the Illithid related feats do? I originally discarded the idea of using a psionic focus type mechanic, but now that you mention it maybe these type of feats can be the wizard's unique options.
Basically I'm just trying to gather general ideas about what the heritage (sorcerer) and pious (mage) feats will do.
Heritage ideas so far: grant a bonus language, grant physical transformations (which have a variety of effects), grant specific bonus spells, reduce mana cost of certain types of spells.
Pious ideas so far: Grant specific bonus spells, reduce mana cost of certain types of spells, grant physical transformations (this one is iffy).