Rewriting Metamagic

[Turial]

Its useful seeing the spell list that you would use MT. To see any holes in the system we need to have a wizard to post their normal spell set and then what one would look like should this system be implemented.

[Racolus]

This concept is what I have been thinking after I played my wizzy to 14. Ya it should be done that way, in the middle of a thick battle, asking you to change 'stance', even just 2 sec, is insane.

However, considering the code and the intricate system (to me its fine), I just gave it up. Not likely to have them work on it, more importantly, to have them work on it and bug free. Considering the time they took to fix the enchantment spells, I prefer to leave it alone, rather than running to have a chance that get metamagic system screwed for months.

[MysticTheurge]

Mystic has Cleric healing spells listed under spontaneous in his OP.

Yes, those would be the "7 specific cleric spells" Gimpster mentions. Normal cleric spells use the normal system, Cleric's pre-memorized healing spells would have to use whatever system is in place for Spontaneous Casting.

... massive advantage.

I'd rather not have this devolve into a rant on the relative merits of Wizards vs. Sorcerers.

With specific regard to the system, yes it would give sorcerers a bit more flexibility with their metamagics. However, if you implemented "full round" casting times on spontaneously metamagic'd spells, that'd certainly go a long way to balancing it out (as it does in D&D). Likewise, you have to recognize that wizards get 3 (soon to be 4) more metamagic feats than sorcerers do. That means that wizards are already a step up in the metamagic arena.

Playing on Elite, you wind up using metamagic on at the very least 50% of your spells, if not more.

And consider just how many SPs you're wasting by doing that.

I can use heighten on nearly every spell I want in the current system and overall it doesn't cause any problems for me due to overuse of SP.

Heighten is the odd man out here, because it actually charges spell points in line with the D&D metamagic system, which is to say, it simply heightens it to the highest level possible and then charges for a spell of that spell level. Every single other metamagic feat costs significantly more in the current system than it would under the proposed system.

And there'd be no reason I wouldn't just want everything automatically heightened to L7.

You might not mind everything being heightened automatically, but there are plenty of clerics who do. Likewise there are plenty of things I don't want extended (Hold Person, Greater Command) and others that people don't want empowered/maximized (Finger of Death)

Under this proposal, that would be impossible and it would seriously reduce the number of functional spells in game.

Yes, it would be impossible. But maybe you don't really need to heighten everything to that level. Maybe having some of those spells have a DC that's one or two (or three) points lower isn't such a big deal. Maybe, if there weren't casters running around with heighten on all the time then enemies wouldn't have saving throw bonuses that were quite so high.

I honestly believe, this system would only serve to hamstring casters even further at the endgame.

Whereas I think being able to cast 133% (or more) as many spells between rest shrines would do a lot to allow them additional usefulness and flexibility. I mean, having an incredibly wide variety of spells memorized doesn't do you that much good when you're spending 100+ spell points on one spell, or you're paying an extra 3-13 spell points for every single buff you cast (and so on).

Out of curiosity, what spells do you usually memorize now? And what would your spell lineup look like under the proposed system?

[grizzly_ruin]

And consider just how many SPs you're wasting by doing that.

That's an issue with the power of spells vs. the power of items at endgame.

Not using metamagics on those spells, would just see those spells go unused.

You might not mind everything being heightened automatically, but there are plenty of clerics who do. Likewise there are plenty of things I don't want extended (Hold Person, Greater Command) and others that people don't want empowered/maximized (Finger of Death)

Which is why I'm all for setting up which metamagics affect which spells with some form of a lock system.

I am not however up for a system that will force me to lose higher level slots to use lower level metamagic enhanced spells, since so many of them need to use metamagics to be effective.

Yes, it would be impossible. But maybe you don't really need to heighten everything to that level. Maybe having some of those spells have a DC that's one or two (or three) points lower isn't such a big deal. Maybe, if there weren't casters running around with heighten on all the time then enemies wouldn't have saving throw bonuses that were quite so high.

The major problem would be the loss of the number of spells that could actually get heightened, I also save enough SP with the heighten enhancement that anything this system would add would only be negatives.

Having those spells at 2 or 3 DC lower is a big deal, otherwise casters wouldn't be heightening L4~6 spells currently. But they do, and they need to if they wish to be effective and not waste SP by casting the same spell multiple times.

Whereas I think being able to cast 133% (or more) as many spells between rest shrines would do a lot to allow them additional usefulness and flexibility. I mean, having an incredibly wide variety of spells memorized doesn't do you that much good when you're spending 100+ spell points on one spell, or you're paying an extra 3-13 spell points for every single buff you cast (and so on).

In the case of Heighten, there would be no gain of 133%.

Any gain of SP would see me casting only the spells that have metamagics as those would be the only ones that are effective.

That would reduce my flexibility, and reduce my power.

What it would do is allow me to cast more of the metamagic'd spells more often, effectively pushing a wizard further into the realm of a weak sorcerer.

Which is to say, hammering away with more uses of the same spells.

Quicken and Enlarge are more of "irregular case troubleshooting" metamagics.

Empower and Maximize are the only ones where people spend 100+ spell points on a spell. And they only usually do that when it's pretty much "all or nothing" on a boss or some such.

If you wanted to propose a system where the base direct damage spells have a higher output and then you can only empower OR maximize, that would be beneficial.

This is not PnP, the nature of this game is frequent, repetitive combat.

Metamagics are not used in DDO the way they are used in PnP and they exist in the DDO game environment which is solely combat oriented. Trying to wrap the PnP system around them would only do a disservice to casters IMO.

Out of curiosity, what spells do you usually memorize now? And what would your spell lineup look like under the proposed system?

That I'll have to get back to you on, need to head out to work.

[Qwanderer]

Okay, so I play two different caster types. A cleric and wizard, and both of them often suffer from wasted SP in the middle of battles due to unwanted Meta-magic combinations. I don't really want to extend my hold monster, but I like extend for my charm monster. I like to maximize blade barrier, but hate maximizing cure serious wounds. The list is extensive.

So my thoughts on this proposal:

I love the notion of being able to select specific spells to apply meta-magic feats to. This would solve any problems I would ever have with the metamagic system. It would completely eliminate any wasted SP on meta-magic feats I didn't want to use or didn't have time to toggle off in the middle of a heated combat. This would ideally be implemented as separate hotbar shortcuts in the spell selection tab.

I love the idea of being able to save SP by basing the cost of using meta-magic feats by adjusting the spell point cost based on the new effective level of the spell. A maximized magic missile spell would cost the same ammount of SP as a 4th level spell instead of triple the base SP cost. At higher levels, this would mean a very large difference in SP costs.

I dislike the restriction that certain metamagic spell selections would limit my higher level spell slots. Somtimes I like to heighten and extend enchantment spells, and the current way the heighten feat works would make using heighten and any other metamagic feats impossible. Not only that, but it would severely limit my enchantment build wizard who basically heightens pretty much every crowd control spell to maximum level. So I could have a heightened hypnotism but I would lose out on a 7th level slot doing so? Seems far too limiting in this kind of game environment and I think it would further reduce the variety of spells we see used in game. There would be alot more cookie cutter spell lists than ever before and expectations of wizards would be further increased. I don't want some fighter telling me I shouldn't be using FoD because he can't get his greater Heroism extended.

I think the best idea would be to implement a new meta-magic system that allowed SP costs of spells to be higher than the actual level of spells you are currently able to cast. So if you maximized and empowered a spell like chain lightning it would cost you the base SP price of an 11th level spell instead of what we are paying for it now. (I believe that would be 60 SP instead of 140 SP.) This doesn't really break any of the current DDO rules since we've always been able to get spells that normally shouldn't be able to exist in PnP but I don't really see it as much of an issue. Perhaps the base spell point costs for spells above 9th could be exponentially raised higher and higher to help balance this.

[MysticTheurge]

Somtimes I like to heighten and extend enchantment spells, and the current way the heighten feat works would make using heighten and any other metamagic feats impossible.

Actually, the proposed system uses a slightly different variation on Heighten. You'd be able to heighten things to whatever degree you want to.

So suppose we're looking at a second level spell. Extended that spell gets converted to a third level spell. You can then heighten it from a third level spell to a 4th, 5th, 6th or 7th level spell using heighten for a +1 to +4 bonus on the save DC.

[Talias006]

...Which is why I'm all for setting up which metamagics affect which spells with some form of a lock system.

I am not however up for a system that will force me to lose higher level slots to use lower level metamagic enhanced spells, since so many of them need to use metamagics to be effective...

Um, the system you would want, the lock system, would probably have limits for the metamagic you wanted to add to certain spells, such as being only able to Maximize a certain level of spells, or Extend, or whatever. Unless you're thinking the system needs to be redesigned so that a caster can just click whichever meta-feat they want to have applied to a given spell, which might have more than a single meta-feat able to enhance said spell.
Meh, I'm beyond tired at this point but still can't sleep, so if my logic seems, well illogical, you know why.

[Mad_Bombardier]

MT, I realized upon seeing your spell list example why this system would never work. I can't Maximize my BladeBarrier until level 15! And can't Extend/Maximize it until level 17!

Sorry, that's the nail in the coffin. Nuh-uh, no way, forget it. Don't go messing with a dwarf's Blade Barrier.

[Solik]

Yes to reducing the costs. Metamagic should have added costs, not multiplied costs.

Yes to maxing the level. You should not be able to apply metamagic to make a spell a higher level than you can actually cast.

No to changing from a stance to memorizing specific spells. If for no other reason, hotbars for casters are just plain stupid in terms of the number needed; let's not add more icons. You can leave it as a stance while still changing the costs and limiting the max level of the spell that you can apply the metamagic to.

[grizzly_ruin]

snip... Unless you're thinking the system needs to be redesigned so that a caster can just click whichever meta-feat they want to have applied to a given spell, which might have more than a single meta-feat able to enhance said spell.

Yeah that's what I'm thinking.

However, what I think would be sufficient is to just make metamagics instant on/instant off.

Also, a system like this would certainly result it people have a wider variety of spell lists built. Currently, one of the things that's odd about DDO is that people pretty much build a list and stick with it, and across different characters those lists can tend to be pretty similar. A system like this would certainly mix things up a bit more.

I wanted to comment this as I had missed it the first time I read through the thread.

The part of the quote in red is true. The rest I disagree with completely.

People build lists and stick with it because of the nature of the game, pure combat.

Once you get to a certain level, you figure out which spells work and which spells are pointless.

A system like this, rather than mix things up as you put it, would see a reduction in the number of spells people actually use not an increase.

This system might make sense for your character, but from your own statement you only seem to use extend. For Sorcerers and Wizards, we pretty much exist on our metamagic feats or the few spells that have no saving throw.

Out of curiosity, what spells do you usually memorize now? And what would your spell lineup look like under the proposed system?

Empower EM : Maximize MX : Extend EX : Heighten HT

Any metamagic that is italicized means the use is situational. Example Extend EX.

Otherwise, assume that the attatched metamagics are always used with the corresponding spell.

A few notes.

In the current system, Heighten is a casters best friend. You get a great discount if you have the Enhancement for it and basically allows you to continue using lower level spells that would probably see little to no use without heighten.

I occaisionally have uses for Quicken and Enlarge, however use of those metamagic feats would actually become non-existant under the new system as their use is totally situational.

I usually just use Maximize, however I occaisionally used both Empower and Maximize depending on the situation. Recently I find myself Extending quite a few Walls of Fire so sometimes I can't spare the SP for Max or Empower.

That being said, I don't cast that many direct damage spells beyond Scorching Ray, Wall of Fire and the odd handful of Magic Missles. Any other direct damage spells you see listed are generally used when the **** has hit the fan, or against mobs with an elemental weakness.

Since Maximize takes 3 spell slots higher, I would probably be forced to drop it. We just don't have enough L5+ spell slots yet.


"alts" refers to alternate spells that see sporadic use depending on the quest.


My current general spell list

L1: Hypnotism HT / Jump EX / Magic Missle MX EM / Ray of Enfeeblement / Shield EX
alts: Niac's against Velah (hardly needed anymore)


L2: Blur EX / Otto's Dance HT / Resist Energy EX / Scorching Ray MX EM/ Web HT EX
alts: False Life (soloing only) / Glitterdust HT / Hypnotic Pattern HT EX


L3: Displacement EX / Fireball MX / Haste EX / Suggestion HT EX/ Prot: Energy
alts: Halt Undead HT (used rarely, only if a quest has mindless undead) / Hold Person HT(for quests with persons)


L4: Dimension Door / PK HT / Solid Fog EX / StoneskinEX / Wall of Fire EX MX EM
alts: Fear HT / Enervation - these are rarely used since the above spells are pretty much memd 100% of the time


L5: CK HT EX / Cone of Cold MX / Hold Monster HT / Mind Fog HT
alts: Teleport


L6: Flesh to Stone / Greater Heroism / Mass Suggestion EX HT
alts: Disintigrate


L7: Finger of Death / Waves of Exhaustion
alts: Otto's Sphere EX / Control Undead


It's a bit late here, I don't have time to work out my spell list under the new system, if I have time tomorrow I'll give it a shot.

As you can see however a change like the one you are suggesting would be another large hit to CC type casters (My build's primary focus).

[Stanley_Nicholas]

Effectively having more spellpoints would be a big plus for this proposed system. However, I think what it mainly comes down to is bringing metamagic more in line with P&P, while bringing spells farther out of line (in a manner which makes them less effective) with the monsters we use them on.

Having fewer high level spells available, and no longer being able to max/empower fireball, disintegrate, delayed blast fireball, not being able to extend otto's sphere (as a sorc/wiz), etc., would be too big a nerf to casters IMO if the monsters were left unchanged. And they can't change the monsters sufficiently without nerfing down the melee classes, which would mean massive changes all around. More in line with P&P, possibly better for the long term (debatable; not that I want to), but it would likely require a huge amount of effort and introduce who knows how many new bugs.

Frankly, I think we would be better served with a simple toolbar locking mechanism, and letting the devs focus the rest of their attention on fixing old bugs and adding new content.

Edit: Maybe a better option still for the environment we're already in would be to simply adjust the number of spellpoints metamagic feats consume, by making the spell cost an amount equal to the level the metamagic raises the spell to. So instead of the current system where extending a spell increases the cost by 50% and raises blade barrier from 35 to 53 spellpoints, we would have the cost raised by 2 levels from 35 to 45. This much is akin to MT's proposal, but I suggest that the changes stop there and not limit spell slots or the level of the spell to which you can apply a given metamagic feat, for the reasons I described before the edit.

[Mourning_Star]

the current system is fine and easy to understand, your suggestion makes people think and takes some of the fun out of casting

That's the problem with the vast majority of ddo casters, they don't think!!
Being a caster in D&D is THE most difficult class to learn and play successfully. Playing a caster is all about playing smart and utilizing your spells in the most effective way.

I think MT is dead-on with the proposal to bring meta-magic feats in line with pnp and I would love to see it implemented.

[Jorval]

My current general spell list

L1: Hypnotism HT / Jump EX / Magic Missle MX EM / Ray of Enfeeblement / Shield EX
alts: Niac's against Velah (hardly needed anymore)


L2: Blur EX / Otto's Dance HT / Resist Energy EX / Scorching Ray MX EM/ Web HT EX
alts: False Life (soloing only) / Glitterdust HT / Hypnotic Pattern HT EX


L3: Displacement EX / Fireball MX / Haste EX / Suggestion HT EX/ Prot: Energy
alts: Halt Undead HT (used rarely, only if a quest has mindless undead) / Hold Person HT(for quests with persons)


L4: Dimension Door / PK HT / Solid Fog EX / StoneskinEX / Wall of Fire EX MX EM
alts: Fear HT / Enervation - these are rarely used since the above spells are pretty much memd 100% of the time


L5: CK HT EX / Cone of Cold MX / Hold Monster HT / Mind Fog HT
alts: Teleport


L6: Flesh to Stone / Greater Heroism / Mass Suggestion EX HT
alts: Disintigrate


L7: Finger of Death / Waves of Exhaustion
alts: Otto's Sphere EX / Control Undead

Taking this spell list and prioritizing it according to how my caster does it, which may or may not be right for him, this is what he'd look like.

L1: Ray of Enfeeblement, Hypnotism, MM, Niac's Cold Ray, Chill Touch
L2: Extended Jump, Extended Shield, Ottos Dance, Web, Glitterdust
L3: Extended Blur, Extended Resist, Protection from Energy, Fireball, Suggestion
L4: Stoneskin, Extended Displacement, Extended Haste, Dimension Door, Solid Fog
L5: Maximized Scorching Ray, Extended Wall of Fire, Hold Monster, Cone of Cold
L6: Extended Cloudkill, Flesh to Stone, Greater Heroism
L7: Finger of Death, Waves of Fatigue

He ends up not Empowering anything at any time.
He ends up not Heightening anything at any time.
He drops the spells Mass Suggestion and Mind Fog from his list.
He can't Maximize Fireball.
He picks up the spells Niac's Cold Ray, Chill Touch, and Glitterdust.

Wow, the first two alone are huge, and probably enough to offset any mana increase by having to cast the spells over and over to cause the same damage or to get them to stick. The third one doesn't hurt me, but I'm sure it would the OP. If he's a nuker, he won't like the fourth one. The fifth is a benefit, but not Heightening Glitterdust makes it iffy pick up.

At the VERY least, it's going to make Wizards spend a LOT more time changing their spells out for particular dungeons to come up with the optimized set of spells for that particular dungeon, a good thing if you like PnP because that's what you do, but a bad thing if you're into fast paced gaming.

It's also going to make CC spells much harder to land and cause damage spells to take DPS hits because you have to cast more in a single fight to do the same damage. You may have the mana to do it, but you certainly won't be able to do it as fast. This means more deaths, wipes, longer dungeon times, etc. You're going to segregate casters into "buffers" and "nukers" even more because of the need to be able to Empower/Maximize spells and drop Extended bufs in their place.

I'll leave it up to you all to decide, I like my Rogue/Ranger much more than my caster anyway.

[Draiden]

Well thought, MT. I've given the idea time and evaluated several scenarios. Kinda short on time, though, as I'm between classes so I'll give you my 2 cents instead of the full dollar.

Your proposition kinda steps casters backwards a level or two in potency. yes, I know scorching ray could be max/emp'd, but heightened/max'd/emp'd lvl 6 and 7 spells can be a lot more effective. Although I agree that nuke-type spells do need to be fixed, and the MM costs seem a bit much right now. And having fewer spell slots just adds to the difficulty. I would reconsider my view on a sorta hybrid situation, however. (ie. Wizards having this option, but sorc's not... or any caster type simply having the option to work in the MM feats either way.) Overall, though, I see this as more of a nerf than anything.

Also, since you're the community's knowledge base... why don't the dev's scale the MM'd spell cost as per PnP? Meaning, if heightening a spell in PnP would require a spell slot higher than the base, shouldn't it cost (in DDO) the base amount of 1 spell lvl higher? In other words, if I heightened a magic missle, shouldn't it cost 15sp as opposed to 10? ... or a heightened Fire Wall cost of 30 sp as opposed to 25 base? Using this method, MM feats are suddenly quite valuable and no changes need to be made to spell damage to bring them in line.

Yes, the MM enhancements need to be reworked, but you're talking about implementing an entirely new system which would require a ton of changes in several areas. The current system is great, really. Just needs some fine-tuning.

One great point I saw above which I didn't quote on this reply was the idea of having a 2nd pop-up window with all the MM options available (similar to the resist energy window). Great idea! That pretty much alleviates the time required to 'toggle on, cast, toggle off, cast'.

[MysticTheurge]

No to changing from a stance to memorizing specific spells. If for no other reason, hotbars for casters are just plain stupid in terms of the number needed; let's not add more icons.

Oddly enough this is one of the things I was thinking about when tossing around the ideas for this system. Since every spell, metamagic'd or not, goes into a slot casters would actually be guaranteed to have fewer hotbar icons under the proposed system than under the current system. And massively fewer than you'd have under any kind of "Metamagic Sets" system where you can combine spells and feats on the fly to create an expontentially-increasing number of possibilities (regular Niac's, empowered Niac's, maximized Niac's, enlarged Niac's, heightened Niac's, empowered and enlarged Niac's, empowered and maximized Niac's, empowered and heightened Niac's, maximized and enlarged Niac's, maximized and heightened Niac's, and so on).

[grizzly_ruin]

Oddly enough this is one of the things I was thinking about when tossing around the ideas for this system. Since every spell, metamagic'd or not, goes into a slot casters would actually be guaranteed to have fewer hotbar icons under the proposed system than under the current system. And massively fewer than you'd have under any kind of "Metamagic Sets" system where you can combine spells and feats on the fly to create an expontentially-increasing number of possibilities (regular Niac's, empowered Niac's, maximized Niac's, enlarged Niac's, heightened Niac's, empowered and enlarged Niac's, empowered and maximized Niac's, empowered and heightened Niac's, maximized and enlarged Niac's, maximized and heightened Niac's, and so on).

I had an idea about that.

Instead of turning on all the metamagics for each spell, or instead of making metamagic hotbars:

1) Turn on/Turn off of Metamagic is instant
2) Each spell icon has a "metamagic block" menu.

So you right click a spell, drop down menu of all your metamagic feats appears.

You click the ones you don't wan't to affect the spell in question.

Casters keep the flexibility to use metamagics on the fly, and they no longer have to worry about casting a heightened fireball or an empowered/maximized Finger of Death.

Honestly looking at my spell list I have no idea what I would do to change to the new system. It would definitely make the extra metamagic feats of a Wizard relatively pointless.

For one thing, try casting any level 5 spell and under without heighten in an Elite quest and you'll see that it's pretty much all or nothing when it comes to those spells. (all or nothing meaning either you heighten it, or you just don't use it)

A change like the one you proposed MT would probably be the nail in the coffin for me with DDO.

[Tija]

I like the Idea of a drop down for the meta magic, but I also like the idea of being able to heighten spells up multiple levels.

So what my alternative would be is to treat spells like weapon slots in your inventory, but on your toolbar with a twist.

Lets call them metaslots

Niac at 1st lvl = 1 metaslot
Niac at 3rd lvl = 2 metaslots
Niac at 5th lvl = 3 metaslots
Niac at 7th lvl = 4 metaslots
Niac at 9rd lvl = 5 metaslots
Niac at 11th lvl = 6 metaslots

Probably should be a maximum number which I would probably set to the current number of meta feats (6)

Allow stacking of metamagics so if i want to at 11th level I can have a Niac that has a DC of +6 (6x heighten)

If Max/Emp can be stacked (not sure about this) the dmg modifer may need to be looked at, maybe add 1-2dice extra damage per slot taken

Possibly even take it a bit further and allow 2 weapons to be added as well. Casting times would have the take into account the weapon change as well (unless its already in your hand).

[Solik]

Oddly enough this is one of the things I was thinking about when tossing around the ideas for this system. Since every spell, metamagic'd or not, goes into a slot casters would actually be guaranteed to have fewer hotbar icons under the proposed system than under the current system.

This is only true if you switch out your hotbarred spells every time you change your spell selection. I prefer to leave my "common" spells on my hotbar, even when they're not prepared, for two reasons. One, it keeps me from having to continually change my hotbars every time I play with my spell choices. Two, and more importantly, I get used to where on my hotbars specific spells are. This is important for quick and accurate clicking, and even more important for keyboard shortcuts.

If you have to prepare the spell with metamagic applied, then in order to leave the spells on the hotbars, you'd need to place more spells there to accommodate metamagicked versions of other spells.

I think the stance method is simply easier. It's also a power boon to casters, who sort of need it.

[KristovK]

In PnP the concept works ok because you don't generally use metamagics on spells at lower levels anywhere near as often as we do in DDO, usually because it's not needed(damage for spells fits in PnP as opposed to DDO). It's a system designed for how PnP scales spells with levels and CRs of mobs, which we all know DDO doesn't do, a system where a caster gets no where near the spellcasting power they do in DDO. Take a 14th wiz with a 22 Int(that's high for 14th in PnP ya know). Said Wiz would get 6 1st, 6 2nd, 5 3rd, 5 4th, 4 5th, 4 6th and 2 7th level spells per day when you include the bonus spells for the 22 Int. That's all per 24 hour period.... Can't use metamagic on the 7th level at all, and using metamagic on any 6th or 5th level take up those 2 7th level slots and so on. Not a big deal in PnP, you've got a LOT more spells to pick from, and you don't need to do more then extend some, maybe empower a few low level damage spells(magic missile springs to mind). Metamagic doesn't get abused like it does in DDO, not until epic levels at least Of course, then you get into the Epic spells, which are a whole other catagory...

For DDO, the current system of metamagic works well. Don't blame the system for people not paying attention and wasting sp's casting heightened Cure spells or Empowered Finger of Death, that's a USER problem, not a software problem or a game system problem. I know I can't possibly be the only person who plays casters, both divine and arcane, who's always aware of exactly what metamagics I've got enabled before I go clicking on icons or pushing buttons. Yes, it does indeed cost more sp's with the system DDO uses then how it costs in the PnP system..but by the same token, we can cast a whole hells of a lot more spells per level then can be done in PnP, so we still come out ahead in that respect in DDO. 14th PnP Wiz, as noted above, can cast a grand total of 715 spell points worth of spells per 24 hours. My own 14th wiz in DDO has 1330 sp at the moment, almost 2x that amount..and that's without using a tome on his Int or having a Wiz5/6 item(giving the PnP Wiz the same 28 int my DDO Wiz has STILL leaves the PnP Wiz well short of spell casting power, 1 1st, 1 5th and 1 7th extra per day, 80 more sp in DDO terms).

Sorry, the way DDO works, your idea of using the PnP metamagic system just doesn't work and would seriously **** off the players who already whine about how nerfed they are now as it is. Can you imagine how people would react if they were told that they could only cast an emp/max'd magic missile IF they gave up a 6th level slot for that(2 level bump for emp, 3 for max), and they can't emp/max a fireball or anything over 2nd level for that matter. 14th level Wiz has 3 7th level slots..that's it, and having to give up even 1 in order to max/empower a Scorching Ray? And Sorcs..well..I really can't see them taking well to that at all

[FlyinS]

Issue: Spontaneous Casters. Bards, Sorcerers and Cleric-Healing-Spells are not "memorized" like other spells, and so this system can't work the same way for those casters (and spells). An alternative method of applying metamagics to known spells for spontaneous casting, would have to be worked out. Theoretically, it could be as simple as having a set-up that automatically "memorizes" any possible application of your spells known-metamagic combinations. Thus, a sorcerer with empower would have icons on his list for any empowerable spell he knows set at the appropriate level/cost. You might also need to increase the casting time (as per the D&D rules) and/or cooldown on these metamagic'd spells to maintain appropriate balance.

Thoughts?

I'll start of by saying I admit I have not read the entire thread.

I definitely think Metamagic needs to be reevaluated, and I was thinking along the lines of what (I think) you are eluding to here. I'll use Magic Missle as an example with the Empower feat. I can have the MM in my hotbar as per normal, but I can also add in an icon for an Empowered Magic Missle as a separate hotbar item. It could have the little metamagic icon up in the corner so you know it's the Empowered one. On your spell list page you could have separate slots, much like weapon sets, where you can add in the spell and then add in the metamagic feats you want applied to it. The drawback I can see right off the bat to this is that hotbars are very filled for a lot of people as it is.