Talk:Metamagician (5e Feat)

This feat is of a variety similar to that of the Martial Adept, which grants the same abilities as the Battlemaster Maneuvers class feature. Unsure why feats shouldn't ever refer to class abilities, when some clearly do. What would be considered questionable in regards to balance here?--Kahz (talk) 13:10, 15 June 2016 (MDT)

Yes, sorry, meant to come back to this, I'm just seeing if many of these class feature-related feats can be rewritten to avoid referring to the feature at all (and instead build on the underlying mechanic). I don't think it's avoidable in this case, so I will remove the template. Marasmusine (talk) 13:20, 15 June 2016 (MDT)

I feel like having only one Metamagic option and only two sorcery points makes this actually a very weak feat, even more than the Martial Adept feat. I think the user should be able to learn two Metamagic options. In addition, I think they should have more sorcery points, maybe equal to their proficiency bonus if they don't already have sorcery points. I'm not entirely sure. Would that be too many? Thoughts? Carcabob (talk) 23:01, 8 November 2016 (MST)

The reason I only gave one is because of how few metamagic options a sorcerer gets. These options can be incredibly powerful with how they're used, and because I didn't want to exclude or overpower sorcs, I kept it at 1. Consider that a sorcerer gets 2 metamagic at 3rd, 1 more at 10th, and another at 17th. If you had it give 2, that's giving out 50% more metamagic options.

With sorc points, again, for the similar reason above, I wanted this to be something that was tempting for a sorc to get (2 extra sorc points and an extra metamagic), and also useful for a standard caster. At most, I was considering increasing the sorc point gain to 3, so that Heightened Spell could be used, however that means than 1 point cost metamagics could be used 3 times, and if you pick a metamagic option that used 2 points, you have a 1 left over, completed wasted.

Metamagic is valuable, and particularly powerful for any caster. If anything, I felt that this was at least as equally as strong as martial adept, if not stronger.

For a comparison with martial adept, there are 16 maneuvers to choose from, and you pick two. There are 8 metamagic, so picking 1 is the exact same ratio. You get a single superiority die, a d6, which is lower than the base battlemasters die. With this, you get 2 sorc points, allowing you to use most metamagic options twice, instead of once (though yes, some only once, and never for heightened). A battlemaster gets 4 superiority dice, which increase up to 6, so you get between 1/4 to 1/6 of a battlemasters allotment. 2 sorc points isn't much at first glance; it starts out at early levels being a 50% increase (100% if human sorc variants it), though it doesn't scale well, having the same ratio of a battlemaster adept at lvl 12. However it's enough to use the metamagic at a comparable rate within a close enough balance that it shouldn't be an issue, and neither is it enough to overpower the sorcerer.

The other thing is, getting the martial adept feat as a battlemaster only benefits your maneuvers, and provides a bit of variety from the large array of maneuvers. Getting metamagician as a sorc gives you more sorc points in order to use -all- the other features of the class and its archetypes that rely upon that resource, of which there is great variety, plus the additional versatility from the extra metamagic.

All told, I don't feel this is weaker than martial adept, merely different. The numbers make it seem weaker, but it's really very similar in scale.--Kahz (talk) 00:17, 10 November 2016 (MST)

To be completetly honest, I've never actually played a game with a sorcerer in it. Literally every other class except sorcerer. So not really knowing how powerufl metamagic actually it, it makes a lot of sense when you bring up the ratios. I definitely agree now about limiting it to 2 points. Although I still think that having two metamagic options doesn't necessarily make you more powerful, just a little more versatile, but the ratios do seem to follow as you pointed out. Carcabob (talk) 07:58, 10 November 2016 (MST)