Need help with a decision for a Sorcerer metamagic.

[Xaroth]

Hi there! So first of all, this is my first time posting in the 5e area of GitP, and I'm sad to say I've only got a bit.

I'm playing a Sorcerer 13/Fighter 2 for a session, and I'm playing as an infiltrator/suspicious type. Due to my race, I have innate spellcasting that gives me Detect Thoughts at will. I'd rather not share my race just because I dunno if other members of my group are going to be on the forums, but so far as a sorcerer I've taken Quicken and Twinned Spell, for my metamagic. However, I'm going to be using Detect Thoughts almost permanently. Now, here's where my predicament comes in: I'm going to be using a lot of spells that involve saving throws, too.

So basically, I dunno whether to take Subtle Spell, or Heightened Spell. I don't want the other players to know that I'm using detect thoughts all the time because I'm only going to be reading surface thoughts anyway.

Any thoughts? Need any information, aside from my race?

[Corran]

I would go with subtle. While heighten would provide you with a significant mechanical benefot regarding your save or suck spells, I think that you would make better use of subtle.

That said, ask your DM if he would allow using sleight of hand instead of the subtle metamagic to mask your casting of spells like suggestion, so that you can do without the subtle and thus save some sorcery points though at the cost of risking being found out.

If you went with wild magic origin (or with shadow origin from UA), you do have some features that could act similarly to heighten spell (bend luck and hound of ill omen), so you could skip heighten alltogether. Also, save or cast spells usually work best if you upcast them to include more targets, so you would only really miss heighten when dealing with one strong enemy instead of several equally strong enemies, but then again most such enemies (boss types) do have legendary resistances and that does play well with you spending sorcery points and high level slots on casting a save or suck spell with heighten.

Are you making good use of your other metamagic (ie twinned and quicken)? Twin for example is best used with concentratin options that compete with concentration save or suck spells, and it also spends a lot of sorcery points as does heighten. So maybe it is just best to focus on one of the two.

Bottom line, if your DM allows a sleight of hand check to substitute subtle spell, go with heighten. If not, I would go with subtle. If retraining metamagic is on the table, perhaps think about retraining one of quicken or twinned and thus getting both subtle and heighten (though I dont think you can use both of those with a single casting. Out of combat applications of save spells would favor subtle and in combat applications profit more from heighten.

ps: Sorry for the chaoticaly structured answer, I was typing in a hurry.

[Xaroth]

I would go with subtle. While heighten would provide you with a significant mechanical benefot regarding your save or suck spells, I think that you would make better use of subtle.

That said, ask your DM if he would allow using sleight of hand instead of the subtle metamagic to mask your casting of spells like suggestion, so that you can do without the subtle and thus save some sorcery points though at the cost of risking being found out.

If you went with wild magic origin (or with shadow origin from UA), you do have some features that could act similarly to heighten spell (bend luck and hound of ill omen), so you could skip heighten alltogether. Also, save or cast spells usually work best if you upcast them to include more targets, so you would only really miss heighten when dealing with one strong enemy instead of several equally strong enemies, but then again most such enemies (boss types) do have legendary resistances and that does play well with you spending sorcery points and high level slots on casting a save or suck spell with heighten.

Are you making good use of your other metamagic (ie twinned and quicken)? Twin for example is best used with concentratin options that compete with concentration save or suck spells, and it also spends a lot of sorcery points as does heighten. So maybe it is just best to focus on one of the two.

Bottom line, if your DM allows a sleight of hand check to substitute subtle spell, go with heighten. If not, I would go with subtle. If retraining metamagic is on the table, perhaps think about retraining one of quicken or twinned and thus getting both subtle and heighten (though I dont think you can use both of those with a single casting. Out of combat applications of save spells would favor subtle and in combat applications profit more from heighten.

ps: Sorry for the chaoticaly structured answer, I was typing in a hurry.

Gotcha'. Thanks!

[SharkForce]

subtle does offer more than just hiding spellcasting (for one thing, it guarantees success on making the vocal and somatic components hidden, but beyond that even). subtle works in a silence spell, doesn't require you to make noise while hiding, can be used when your hands are bound, your mouth is gagged, or while you are otherwise unable to move (climbing, half buried under rubble, etc), can be used underwater, and other scenarios. it can be fairly useful, really.

i would not generally take it as my first metamagic, because "good in a lot of niche scenarios" is not really what you should be looking for initially, but as your third, i think it's fine.

anyways, heighten is good for bosses, as has been noted; it's especially good for spells like banishment where the target gets only one saving throw.

[Dalebert]

Subtle is amazing. Use it whenever fighting a caster so he can't counterspell you. Get an ally to cast Silence when fighting casters and now you can cast but they can't.

There are so few niche cases when I'd rather have Heighened than Twinned. Most of the time you're better off twinning a spell on two creatures and it's just as likely at least one of them fails as it would that the one fails with disadvantage. But then there's the better case that both of them fail. Obviously it gets expensive with higher level slots but usually worth it and it's cheaper than heightened below 3rd level slots. I've done that with Polymorph or Banish and ended a combat in one round. Yes, Banish can be cast at 5th to hit two targets but it can also be twinned at level 4 and sometimes that's preferable.

Keep in mind cost. Subtle spell is so cheap you can use it flippantly. You'll feel the burn with Heightened.