Well, there's the Story feat Eldritch Researcher. It's completion benefit reduces the metamagic cost for original spells you invent yourself, but it wouldn't come into play until higher level (the completion benefit only applies after you invent a spell of 6th or higher level).
You can get around the level cost of metamagic completely, with (slightly cheesy) metamagic rods or the (completely cheesy) Sacred Geometry feat. Make sure to talk with your GM before you take the latter.
There are no traits for -1 spell level for an entire metamagic feat, according to a search at Archives of Nethys. Feats appearantly make it work only for small groups of spells (see Zog's example or Maleficium for evil spells).
Personally I think you are fine with healing by fireball. Without any damage boosts the spell already heals nearly twice as much as a cleric's channel energy. And metamagic is sometimes worth its level cost anyway, without any reduction.
Spell Perfection allows you to imbue a MM feat without increasing your spell level. You still can't go past spell level 9, but you could effectively Maximize your spell for free this way. And this doesn't become available until level 15. So if you're looking to MM for free on a consistent basis prior to lvl 15, MM rods are the best way to do it.
As SheepishEidolon already said, Sacred Geometry or metamagic rods are the best ways to reduce metamagic level adjustment costs.
There are a few class abilities that grant certain metamagics at a lower cost [e.g. Quicken: Astral sorcerer capstone], and some class abilities that add certain metamagic to specific/any spells for free [e.g. Flame/Waves/Stone/Wind oracle capstone]. However, there are few such abilities and usually they come only at very high levels.
As a sorcerer, there's the Seeker archetpye (also available for oracles), that grants a powerful ability at level 15: Reduce the cost of every metamagic by -1, but only for bloodline spells (oracle: mystery spells). Depending on how your GM sees it fit, you could get this ability already at level 11 while wearing a Robe of Arcane Heritage.
Sometimes there are ways to avoid the need for certain metamagic feats, but you'd have to be a little more specific about which metamagic you want to reduce in cost.
For example, the Flow of Elements teamwork feat allows you to apply the Elemental metamagic for free, but your ally needs to be of a specific race [fire:ifrit; water:undine; wind:sylph; acid:oread]; combined with the Undine Loyalty trait, you can ignore the adjacency & teamwork prerequisites, not the race issue though.
So which metamagics are you aiming for? Any specific strategies?
Metamagic feats and the casters that can employ them effectively are already hands down the most powerful things in the entire game barring 20+CR demon lords, which are only stronger because they're 9th level casters AND highly powerful melee combatants.
That said, Sacred Geometry is what you want if you wish to make the entire table hate you. You'll get what you want 90% of the time if you're bad, and 100% of the time if you're good, but you'll take three times as long to do your turn as the rest of the party unless you're using apps or extremely fast math.
My suggestion: Don't. Just play the sorcerer. your party will love your big blasty spells and your big blasty heals even if you don't focus on metamagic, and if you do focus on metamagic, you're likely to have more than enough spells per day to employ your feats without spell level reductions.
|
Be Mythic.
3rd-Tier Archmage Path ability Metamagic Mastery does a variation on this, though you have to take it multiple times to affect the larger increases (like Quicken).
The Arcane Bloodline also gets Metamagic Adept/Arcane Apothesis.
Magician Bard gets Metamagic Mastery.
Magician Bard VMC Arcane Sorcerer gets both...
I just wanted to know if a feat or trait was out there that reduced the Cost of the Metamagic Feat, like making the metamagic feat itself cost a +1 or +2 instead of its normal +3 to spell level for the feat Maximize Spell.
Only way I know of was the old 'Easy Metamgaic' feat. It was a 3.5 feat from Dragon Magazine #325 I believe. You would apply the feat to one metamagic feat you already know when you learned it and it would reduce the level increase cost on that metamagic by one, with a minimum one level slot increase.
So you could lower Empower Spell to a one slot increase but not reduce Silent Spell to 0 slot increase, for example.