Open access to Metamagic feats

[Helaman]

IF spell casters could effectively know all MM feats and apply them on the fly (ala the sorcerer) would that throw game balance in the toilet?

Sure they are capable of being a one shot tac nuke but after that? They are gonna be light on the good stuff.

The pro I am seeing is that magic becomes incredibly fluid and well... more magical. Sorta like words of power.

Now take my insanity - because it is over the top... and give casters the same spell levels for casting and open access to boost the cost through the ceiling... and instead of spell slots give them a much more limited number of spell points instead.

Consider a ratio of a level 1 spell is 1 point and a level 3 is 3 pts but they had only about Spell Casting stat + 1 per spell casting level to work with. Remembering they can use any metamagic feat they want, which increases the spell level (and thus the cost)

Thoughts?

What if we were then to give them the option of either taking damage (Evil Lincoln has a thread up) or con damage to continue casting?

I'm getting through an revamp of how I would like magic to run but leery of the balance issues.

[Pizza Lord]

I think if all spellcasters had access to every metamagic feat to boost their spells, with the same costs and such, the game would be fine. It really would benefit spontaneous casters a lot more than it would prepared casters, but it wouldn't turn the world on its head.

That being said, there may be certain classes or feats which allow the caster level increases of most metamagic feats to be ignored or mitigated. These would have to be seriously looked at and curtailed since their presence would upset the game balance. For instance, a class that can ignore 1 increased spell level when using metamagic is fine right now, because to benefit they must have expended feats to access the metamagic, without that cost and balance you'd have what I would envision to be a huge problem waiting to happen.

Otherwise, I think it'd be fine.

[aboniks]

Maybe group the existing MM feats into tiers based on the existing level increase, and then require a feat to access the tiers, and to scale up the ones that have variable increases.

+0 tier - make these free to all
+1 tier - Metamagic Feat
+2 tier - Improved Metamagic Feat
+3 tier - Advanced Metamagic Feat
+4 tier - Metamagic Mastery Feat

If the existing MM feat has prerequisite MM feats, add +1 tier per feat prereq.

If you give them all away cost-free and let casters ignore the existing feat prerequisites, you definitely make magic a more interesting proposition, but you're also freeing casters up to be a lot more powerful (not necessarily in numbers, but in their ability to change the world and control the battlefield.)

In a world with completely unrestricted MM access, a level two caster with Magical Knack could probably dominate most level-appropriate encounters without effort.

Just my 2 cents, of course. I'd love for MM to be free, speaking as a player.

[Bwang]

I played in a 3.0 that worked something like this. The MM feats were limited by the Int modifier and functioned similar to preping spells. Life got interesting and the Wiz became a serious 'go to' in every situation. sessions without her were...hard. Her incredible versatility made her every game's MVP.

[Helaman]

Was that a good thing or a bad thing?