D&D 5e Best Metamagic for Sorcerers Ranked
by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
Level three rolls around and you get an exciting opportunity as a sorcerer: the opportunity to get Metamagic. These let you customize and enhance your spells for a few of your sorcery points. Picking the right options for you can be tough; here, I’ll rank each in an attempt to help guide you toward picking the best options to bring your sorcerous fantasy to life.
For more on each in the broader context of the Sorcerer class, you can check out my full in-depth guide to Sorcerers here!
What Metamagic Do Sorcerers Get?
When you reach 3rd level, you gain two Metamagic options and you gain an additional option at levels 10 and 17. Each spell cast typically can only benefit from one Metamagic, unless the Metamagic specifies otherwise.
Eight were printed in the original Player’s Handbook, and two additional were released in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.
PHB Metamagic Options
Careful Spell. When you cast a spell that forces other creatures to make a saving throw, you can protect some of those creatures from the spell's full force. To do so, you spend 1 sorcery point and choose a number of those creatures up to your Charisma modifier (minimum of one creature). A chosen creature automatically succeeds on its saving throw against the spell.
Distant Spell. When you cast a spell that has a range of 5 feet or greater, you can spend 1 sorcery point to double the range of the spell. When you cast a spell that has a range of touch, you can spend 1 sorcery point to make the range of the spell 30 feet.
Empowered Spell. When you roll damage for a spell, you can spend 1 sorcery point to reroll a number of the damage dice up to your Charisma modifier (minimum of one). You must use the new rolls. You can use Empowered Spell even if you have already used a different Metamagic option during the casting of the spell.
Extended Spell. When you cast a spell that has a duration of 1 minute or longer, you can spend 1 sorcery point to double its duration, to a maximum duration of 24 hours.
Heightened Spell. When you cast a spell that forces a creature to make a saving throw to resist its effects, you can spend 3 sorcery points to give one target of the spell disadvantage on its first saving throw made against the spell.
Quickened Spell. When you cast a spell that has a casting time of 1 action, you can spend 2 sorcery points to change the casting time to 1 bonus action for this casting.
Subtle Spell. When you cast a spell, you can spend 1 sorcery point to cast it without any somatic or verbal components.
Twinned Spell. When you cast a spell that targets only one creature and doesn't have a range of self, you can spend a number of sorcery points equal to the spell's level to target a second creature in range with the same spell (1 sorcery point if the spell is a cantrip). To be eligible, a spell must be incapable of targeting more than one creature at the spell's current level. For example, Magic Missile and Scorching Ray aren't eligible, but Ray of Frost and Chromatic Orb are.
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Metamagic
Seeking Spell. If you make an attack roll for a spell and miss, you can spend 2 sorcerer points to reroll the d20, and you must use the new roll. You can use Seeking Spell even if you have already used a different Metamagic option during the casting of the spell.
Transmuted Spell. When you cast a spell that deals a type of damage from the following list, you can spend 1 sorcery point to change that damage type to one of the other listed types: acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, thunder.
Ranking Each Metamagic Option From Worst to Best
My criteria for ranking these is largely based on how many sorcerers would majorly benefit from including the Metamagic on their character sheet as well as just how impactful it will be when used.
#10. Transmuted Spell
The odds Transmuted Spell will alter a damaging spell to avoid resistance or immunity is already low; combine this with Sorcerer's robust and appealing damaging options they already want to learn and you’re left with next to no situations where you’d need to cast Transmuted Spell.
Its only major upside is on characters who want to specialize in one damage type; there aren’t many compelling reasons to do this outside of the character’s aesthetic, but this can be a way to both convert spells of a non-specialized type to your specialized one or give you a way to get around creatures’ immunities and resistances that work against your chosen type.
#9. Careful Spell
Careful Spell barely squeaks by above Transmuted Spell, and only because a handful of times per campaign you’ll need to cast Fear over top of some allies, and this can functionally sculpt them out of it.
In most fights, you’re not going to struggle to line up your area of effect spells to miss allies. In instances where you do need to include allies, they don’t even necessarily avoid all of the consequences outright- they always suffer whatever effects occur on a successful save, making the use cases for it just too narrow for me.
#8. Extended Spell
A lot of spells have issues, but those issues aren’t typically related to their durations. Spells that last an hour usually last long enough to make it through a few fights- doubling that isn’t often going to extend its benefits.
Spells that last a minute getting bumped to two won’t extend it to work in multiple fights likely, making it moot to consider. 10 to 20 minutes might help you get a third encounter in or a second in a dungeon crawl, but knowing when that will be the case can be challenging.
Sometimes doubling a duration from an hour to two will extend its duration to work for an entire dungeon, or even let it persist through a short rest. That earns it the #8 slot over its competitors, but there is little else redeeming about it.
#7. Distant Spell
Like duration, spells often have enough range they don’t need the boost. Unlike Extended Spell, more spells can meaningfully benefit from this, and there will be apparent windows when that’s useful.
Spells with a range of 30 feet tend to work best with this effect- doubling it to 60 helps keep you out of your enemies’ speed and dash ranges, aiding in your survivability. Turning Touch to 30 feet is another real mode that can come up from time to time, especially with supportive touch spells you want to deploy on a threatened ally without simultaneously putting yourself in danger.
#6. Quickened Spell
Quickened Spell suffers from a system that doesn’t allow for two 1st level or higher spells to be cast on the same turn if one uses a bonus action. That being said, Quickened Spell shines brightly on sheets that want to fire off a lot of cantrips; an average sorcerer won’t mind spending 2 points to Quicken a 2nd level spell to give them room to also fire off a Fire Bolt.
I do want to point out Eldritch Blast builds, as it is the most common use case for Quickened Spell. For 1 sorcery point, you’re doubling the number of blasts you can fire in a round, and all of those can stack up tons of damage when augmented with features like Agonizing Blast. You do need to be some multi-class Warlock to bring this to life, but it’s a powerful route to explore.
#5. Seeking Spell
Seeking Spell is majorly hampered by how few ranged spell attack spells exist. Sorcerers have access to fourteen spells total that you can even augment with this, and most aren’t big winners. The highlights are Ice Knife, Chromatic Orb, Storm Sphere, Crown of Stars, and Blade of Disaster.
What saves it is how it can turn misses into hits alongside always working agnostic if you’ve used other Metamagic on the cast that round. Missing with Chromatic Orb feels awful- this can mitigate that in a major fashion, saving you the slot from doing nothing a lot of the time.
#4. Subtle Spell
Removing spell components can empower characters to cast spells with unparalleled discretion. It also can offer you spellcasting while your hands are fully occupied, making it a decent option for sword and sorcery sorcerers who have Extra Attack from another class.
What I like most about Subtle Spell is it asks you to look at how the spell is physically cast, then rewards you for coming up with ideas that involve pairing that spell with deception. It also gives you a way to cast in a Silence, which does have some meaningful applications in campaigns dedicated to interacting with spellcasting on multiple fronts.
#3. Empowered Spell
If you want to deal a bit more damage with your large dice-pool spells, Empowered Spell is an easy option to take. The more dice you roll, the better, and with the cost of just a single sorcery point, this can help mitigate unlucky Fireballs, giving you rerolls on 1s, 2s, and 3s.
As a general rule, if you’re deciding which dice to reroll, you’re more likely to upgrade damage than downgrade it on results under half of the dice’s size- 3 or lower on d6s, 4 or lower on d8s, etc.
It's cheap and adds around a 22% damage bump. Props to /uICEFANG13 for this awesome statistical breakdown!
#2. Heightened Spell
Heightened Spell offers you meaningful empowerment to some of the most busted spells in the game. Some spells remove entities' ability to fight back and are hinged around them failing a single saving throw. Heightened Spell gives you a way better shot at getting that effect to connect.
If you’ve got any critical save spells, like Hideous Laughter or Disintegrate, Heightened Spell is a massive boon to your sheet, especially in the upper tiers when the 3-point cost is comparatively much lower.
#1. Twinned Spell
Twinned Spell is the most defining Metamagic in the game. It doubles the damage single target spells can deal and has sweet interactions with spells like Ice Knife that technically qualify while dealing damage in an area additionally.
Like Heightened, this is often taking some of your most powerful tools and empowering them further. Twinning 4th-level spells like Polymorph or Banishment act as a full extra 4th-level spell cast for free for 4 points. Most characters have some spells that work with this, and many more will take spells because of how Twinned Spell doubles their effectiveness in some encounters.
Empower Your Spells to their Max
With this ranking in mind, you’re set to get the perfect meta-magic options on your character sheet to best empower your spell selection.
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