Prerequisite: Spellcasting or Pact Magic feature

You've learned how to exert your will on your spells to alter how they function:

You learn two Metamagic options of your choice from the sorcerer class. You can use only one Metamagic option on a spell when you cast it, unless the option says otherwise. Whenever you reach a level that grants the Ability Score Improvement feature, you can replace one of these Metamagic options with another one from the sorcerer class.

You gain 2 sorcery points to spend on Metamagic (these points are added to any sorcery points you have from another source but can be used only on Metamagic). You regain all spent sorcery points when you finish a long rest.

Metamagic Adept: Work Your Magic

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

Sorcerers got kind of a raw deal in 5th edition; in place of getting a decent chunk of spells to work with, they’re limited to a handful (generously put) and get Metamagic in its place. The metamagic options vary from potentially game breaking to functionally pointless at most tables, making it difficult to see them used in a way that will often feel “fair”. Metamagic Adept opens up any caster to the two point or lower cost metamagic options, which for the most part isn’t going to be that worth it outside of specifically one option: Twinned Spell.

The full list of options that work with 2 or less sorcery points is Careful Spell, Distant Spell, Empowered Spell, Extended Spell, Quickened Spell, Seeking Spell, Subtle Spell, Transmuted Spell, and Twinned Spell. Most aren’t really worth a whole feat.

Careful Spell empowers the evoker fantasy, allowing you to sculpt allies out of large damaging effects as you please. Most of the time, though, you aren’t going to either care about the creature enough you're sculpting out to do it, or find that much more of an upside to include the allied creature’s space.

Distant Spell is nifty, but ultimately not that powerful in most situations. At its best I think it's turning something with range touch into a 30 ft. cast range, which can empower Cure Wounds or other touch based support abilities alongside letting higher damage touch based spells options to get applied from safety, but I’m not positive that justifies an entire feat, especially considering Magic Initiate can give you effects close enough to the Distant Spell.

Extended Spell conceptually sounds cool, but the reality of almost all duration effects is you only care about the first third or less of it. Something with a duration of a minute rarely lasts the full minute, as it's intended to be used in a fight which normally lasts less than ten rounds. A spell with an hour duration rarely requires you spending the full hour with the creature; most of the time a fifteen to twenty minute roleplay is enough before the effect isn’t needed. Going from one day to two is pretty massive, or eight to sixteen hours, as you’re doubling the time between casts per rest, but that’s often going to be on incredibly niche effects, and not likely something you care that much about.

Quickened Spell functionally lets you cast a cantrip for a bonus action. On Eldritch Blast based builds, this is critical and can double your effectiveness round to round, but those builds really want to multi-class sorcerer as soon as they’ve got Agonizing Blast. They don’t need this. Beyond that, this is an Action Surge that doesn’t let you cast 1st level or higher spells; that’s not really where you want to be. Plus, with a cost of 2 points, you get one per long rest. I’m not here for it.

Subtle Spell is for the casters out there looking to get up to some illusory nonsense with a hardass DM who tracks every element of the spell casting to ensure it's a real challenge to use. This can make it easier to get your deceptive illusions up and running; that is all it functionally does. Outside of that case, unless you just refuse to take War Caster, there is no real reason to take this.

Transmuted spell is a cosmetic variant with almost no mechanical weight attached to it. If you want to spray acid instead of fire with Burning Hands, discuss just altering the base spell with your DM. The difference in damage types at most tables will not justify use of this feat, much like how Chromatic Orb isn’t meaningfully better than a generic 3d8 ranged spell attack.

The last two I haven’t covered are really the only ones I consider to be “worth it” for the feat: Empowered Spell and Twinned Spell.

Empowered Spell is nifty, and will feel like a quality of life damage upgrade for big damage evokers. It works better on spells with higher dice size and lower dice quantities (as those are higher variance, and more likely to care about rerolling results). Still, rerolling 3s or lower on a Fireball or two that needs to deal more damage can make a major difference in your average damage. Granted, this basically requires you being a Warlock, Bard, or Sorcerer already, but if you already are a charisma caster, this gives you the ability to reroll a good chunk of dice on a spell twice per long rest. That’s pretty solid.

Twinned Spell is at its best with support spells at 1st level, and can give you functionally two extra spell slots per long rest. Additionally, this can functionally let you have two of the same concentration spell up at a time, as all Twinned Spell functionally does is add an extra target to the concentration spell. Twining Hideous Laughter, Divine Favor, Cause Fear, Protection from Evil and Good, and Shield of Faith can all, for a really low cost, have a major effect on a fight. Turning your low level spells into potent damage effects has a lot of merit; a twinned Ice Knife, for example, hitting two creatures right next to each other, can turn your one 1st level slot into 2d10 single target damage and 4d6 cold damage. That’s 2nd-3rd level slot worth of damage. That’s pretty sweet. Even as you hit the upper tiers, turning your Fire Bolt from one 3d10 attack into two 3d10 attacks can feel good enough to justify, and stretches your resources a bit further. This is all before you consider twinning one of the many worthwhile 2nd level slots; there is a good amount of flexibility and extra goodies you get with just Twinned Spell that make it worth it.

While most of these on their own aren’t really worth it, Twinned Spell is so good you could probably justify taking this feat just for it alone. Tacking on Empowered Spell, another very usable damage modifier, or a more niche option listed above makes this perfectly serviceable on most characters. If you’re already a sorcerer you probably have the metamagic options you care about, though, and probably don’t care enough about the two bonus points to pick this up.

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