Metamagics & Metapsionics: the good, the bad, and the ugly

[Frozen_Feet]

I've finally progressed to the point in my feat variant (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=14643065#post14643065) that I really can't avoid metamagic & metapsionic feats anymore. However, especially metapsionic feats are pretty much foreign to me, never used them in my games.

As the amount of feedback I've received has been inversely proportional to the amount of progress I've made, I decided to come here and ask resident meta[FOO] experts what to do with them.


Which meta[FOO] effects are overpriced, and should be made cheaper?
Which meta[FOO] effects are underpriced, and should be made costlier?
Is there any big, underlying change to how metamagics or metapsionics work that you'd like to see implemented?
What kind of synergy effects would you like to see? Free uses-per-day? Reduced costs? Ability to place metamagicked stuff into items? Sudden metamagics rolled into the base feats?


EDIT: forgot to explain: I'm not interested in non-SRD meta-effects. Forget they've ever existed. Instead, focus your attention on the material available in SRD. Do note, I might want to make some "epic" meta-effects available non-epic.

[Essence_of_War]

For metamagic, all of the costs are probably fine as long as you close all of the loopholes w/ respect to cost reduction, or at least eliminate the best ones.

Off the top of my head: Incantatrix, Dweomerkeeper, Halruaan Elder, Easy Metamagic, some readings of Arcane Thesis combined with +0 metamagics, DMM...

None of those cost-reducers are SRD things.

I'm generally of the belief that psionics does virtually everything better, and that includes meta-effects. None of the SRD metapsionics are particularly abuseable, there aren't any terribly abusive cost reducers, and since each metapsionic effect still require expenditure of psionic focus, even if you have cost reducers you're not going to be able to stack multiple scary effects to do something gamebreaking. Moreover, the fact that powers don't auto-scale to ML, that total PP expended is capped by ML, and metapsionics add PP cost, means that even basic metapsionics are typically less scary than basic metamagics.

If you don't blanketly toss out cost-reducers, I would like to see metamagic get an equivalent to psionic focus expenditure. I would be VERY wary of any sort of cost-reducing synergy effect, but it would be kind of neat for the Sudden Metamagics to not be so weak. I've noticed that the few times I've played with new players, they are attracted to the flexibility of the Sudden line, but they end up feeling that they're a little weak. I haven't really put much thought into a coherent fix, but perhaps something like getting an additional use of a sudden metamagic of your choice whenever you take an additional sudden metamagic feat?

\endmytwocents :smallsmile:

[Rubik]

I know it's not a question you asked, but remember that the same metapsionic feat can be stacked on a power multiple times (so long as you pay the cost and the focus). Nowhere in the psionics rules is there a statement forbidding you from doing so. This sometimes has no effect at all -- such as on Quicken and Maximize. However, it's not at all broken to double-Extend or double-Empower a power, since there IS a cost for it.

However, I'd leave the restriction on metamagic, considering how much more abusable it is.

[Frozen_Feet]

Thanks for the input. I got Metamagic feats done. Still puzzled about what to do regarding metapsionics - have a hard time coming up with any appropriate Synergy effects.