Advice for a character in our party

[ZorroGames]

Currently Warlock (Hexblade) 2.

Wants to MC into Shadow Sorcerer from Warlock - which surprised me (little Sunshine doing the shadows thing) but okay... viable and powerful if done well, right?

No pretensions to Coffeelock it seems. Who knows what evil lurks in the minds of men? Or women?

Looking ahead, the question was, “At Sorc 3 What two Metamagics do I add?”

Stated a preference for two of these: Quickened, Subtle, Twinned. Which ones now and, if Sorc 10 occurs, is the unchosen third one the best “next” choice.

Never played a Sorc so I ask the GitP for opinions.

[Quoxis]

What is the intended playstyle?
Quickened is a nobrainer, two castings of eldritch blast per turn and you won’t need spell slots in combat 80% of the time.
Subtle makes most sense in social settings, though the usefulness there is determined by the GM - do they allow „hidden“ castings with a skill check? Do they assume everyone within a 30ft radius can hear your verbal components? Stuff like that decides whether subtle is broken, amazing or useless. Other situations in which it‘d be useful are mostly if you lose your spellcasting focus or have to cast while tied up (which, in a campaign of over two years i‘m a founding member of came into play exactly once - amazing and lifesaving in that situation, sure, but niche).
Twinned is good, but it needs the right spell selection. Great for buffing spells that require concentration (haste, enhance ability...), because now you can give both the paladin and the barbarian another attack per turn.

[TheFryingPen]

Twinned and Quickened fill a similar niche, so I wouldn't these 2 as starting metamagics. Subtle shines in social settings.

Quickened is good, but for low level spells/buffs and cantrips Twinned is more fun imo. It also allows for a "double action" (as in twice the damage / effect), only costs 1 sorcery point at base level and still lets you use your bonus action (e.g for Hexblade curse & smites, misty step etc.).

I'd go with twinned over quicken (+subtle) just because it will see much more use in the early levels, unless your campaign includes a lot of "1 encounter / long rest"-days.

[Vogie]

It's a good idea - You get nonmagical darkvision for free, are harder to kill, and once you get to Sorc 3, you'll be able to store your unused warlock spell slots as sorc points over short rests, get a free extra 1st or 2nd level spell slot with sorc points per long rest, or can do the Devil's Sight/Darkness combo without invocations or spell slots if the Darkness is cast via sorc points.

Quicken is good for the reasons they've said. Subtle & Twin are also used for the same reasons.

If you're looking for blasting power at range, Extend spell will double your Hex duration, allowing you to not have to recast it throughout the adventuring day. Extend will also help your Fly, Invisibility, Expeditious Retreat, Alter Self, Enemies Abound, Fear, and other CC or utility spells

[PeteNutButter]

You're playing AL right? Subtle is pretty weak in AL. Very few social situations to make it matter and few enemies have counterspell. Quicken and Twin is probably the best bet.

Twinned Haste on two martial characters is basically like having another PC as most martials only get 2 attacks, and you just gave the party 2 more attacks. Even better if there's a rogue in the mix.

[ZorroGames]

You're playing AL right? Subtle is pretty weak in AL. Very few social situations to make it matter and few enemies have counterspell. Quicken and Twin is probably the best bet.

Twinned Haste on two martial characters is basically like having another PC as most martials only get 2 attacks, and you just gave the party 2 more attacks. Even better if there's a rogue in the mix.

Yes, AL. Gracias.

[ZorroGames]

What is the intended playstyle?
Quickened is a nobrainer, two castings of eldritch blast per turn and you won’t need spell slots in combat 80% of the time.
Subtle makes most sense in social settings, though the usefulness there is determined by the GM - do they allow „hidden“ castings with a skill check? Do they assume everyone within a 30ft radius can hear your verbal components? Stuff like that decides whether subtle is broken, amazing or useless. Other situations in which it‘d be useful are mostly if you lose your spellcasting focus or have to cast while tied up (which, in a campaign of over two years i‘m a founding member of came into play exactly once - amazing and lifesaving in that situation, sure, but niche).
Twinned is good, but it needs the right spell selection. Great for buffing spells that require concentration (haste, enhance ability...), because now you can give both the paladin and the barbarian another attack per turn.

No verbal components along with no somatic in Subtle per page 102 of PHB.

[DerficusRex]

No verbal components along with no somatic in Subtle per page 102 of PHB.

Right. I think Quoxis was asking if the DM is strict about verbal/somatic components being noticeable without Subtle. If you can be relatively unobtrusive already, then there's not as much value in taking the metamagic except for cases where you want to cast surreptitiously while someone is looking directly at you (or you want to avoid being counterspelled).

[Laserlight]

Twinned is great. I still cherish the memory of ending an encounter before it got started by doing a Twinned Banish.

[Quoxis]

Right. I think Quoxis was asking if the DM is strict about verbal/somatic components being noticeable without Subtle. If you can be relatively unobtrusive already, then there's not as much value in taking the metamagic except for cases where you want to cast surreptitiously while someone is looking directly at you (or you want to avoid being counterspelled).

That was the intention behind the question. I have a tendency to think faster than i type, ending up in convoluted messages that regularly get misinterpreted, especially around this forum. Sorry to Zorro for being bad at communicating my thoughts and thanks to you, Derficus, for explaining them in my place.

[Citan]

Currently Warlock (Hexblade) 2.

Wants to MC into Shadow Sorcerer from Warlock - which surprised me (little Sunshine doing the shadows thing) but okay... viable and powerful if done well, right?

No pretensions to Coffeelock it seems. Who knows what evil lurks in the minds of men? Or women?

Looking ahead, the question was, “At Sorc 3 What two Metamagics do I add?”

Stated a preference for two of these: Quickened, Subtle, Twinned. Which ones now and, if Sorc 10 occurs, is the unchosen third one the best “next” choice.

Never played a Sorc so I ask the GitP for opinions.
Hi!

Twinned and Quickened fill a similar niche, so I wouldn't these 2 as starting metamagics. Subtle shines in social settings.

Quickened is good, but for low level spells/buffs and cantrips Twinned is more fun imo. It also allows for a "double action" (as in twice the damage / effect), only costs 1 sorcery point at base level and still lets you use your bonus action (e.g for Hexblade curse & smites, misty step etc.).

I'd go with twinned over quicken (+subtle) just because it will see much more use in the early levels, unless your campaign includes a lot of "1 encounter / long rest"-days.
This post brings a few good points about Twin, but does miss a few things imo, so I disagree on the last paragraph at least for your current context. More on that in a few.

But first, quick addendum on Subtle compared to what others said earlier.

It not only shines in social situations, it also shines...
- In ambushes: try a Subtle spell while hidden: since no movement, no sound, unless the spell effect itself would give you away -like damaging spells that hurl energy such as Firebolt- you have no reason to lose Hidden condition: meaning you can perfectly try some tricks to either turn someone (Suggestion) or set up better conditions for encounter (Hypnotic Pattern, Darkness) and still back off safely if the result is not up to your taste.

- In unadvantageous situations: you're locked/gagged up, you try to make yourself pass as a plain commoner (so you parted away with your equipment), you're restrained (up to your DM if this actually means you can't even do somatic components), stunned/paralyzed (no action nor reaction nor speaking? You can still at least Misty Step away to -relative- safety), you're underwater (bubbles of sound don't count as verbal components for most DMs^^).

- In spell fights: having a way to negate any possible Counterspell WILL make you win when you could have otherwise failed miserably. ESPECIALLY when you learn Counterspell yourself, you're now the master of "who is authorized to cast magic" (up to 1 reaction per round anyways ^^).

So... Yeah, Subtle is basically the best overall metamagic for anyone because it has the widest use-cases.


Then against Quicken and Twin.
Twin can definitely be powerful, there is no doubt about it.
And the fact it does let you free to use bonus action on built-in spells/effects (moving Hex or Hexblade, casting Misty Step) is to be kept in mind.

--
BUT, if your friend goes Hexblade, there is a significant chance (s)he wants to go Blade Pact and bring the metal to enemies' heads. Thus using either Booming Blade or Extra Attack.
However, Warlock is still a full caster, with plenty of great spells.
While indeed quite a few are bonus action ones (Hex, Shadow Blade, Expeditious Retreat, Misty Step)...
Many more use an action (Darkness, Hunger of Hagar, Blur/Mirror Image, Armor of Agathys, Fly, Shatter, Hypnotic Pattern etc).

Quicken will give a much greater flexibility to act in anormal situations such as...
"I find myself under more threat than anticipated, but I cannot just fall back" > Dodge + Quicken Booming Blade, Booming Blade + Quicken Mirror Image/Blur/AoA".
"I really need to downsize enemy danger right now in my turn" > Quickened Hold Person + Booming Blade on a single enemy, Quickened Hypnotic Pattern instead for a group then deal your damage, Quicken "special Shadow Darkness" then attack etc...

In other words: Quicken will scale much better if player goes Warlock main, because many of its spells have built-in scalability (Fly, Invisibility, Hold Person, Blindness) or don't apply to Twin (Eldricht Blast, Shatter/Fireball and all mass spells).
And even if player goes Sorcerer main, unless just wanting to twin cantrips all day, Twin will be very demanding on resources so it will basically amount to "nova attempt at winning the encounter".

--
Laserlight's example is very representative of how Twin's value may change between a Sorcerer and a Warlock:
both can learn Banishment, but that spell itself scales with level so a Sorcerer can...
- either Twin it as level 4 (4th level slot, which is worth 6 SP + 4 SP).
- or simply cast it as a level 5 spell (worth 7 SP), possibly adding another metamagic on top instead (Heightened for 3 SP, Subtle for 1 SP).
Here, it's simply better resource-wise to directly upcast Banished, but Twin still has a great value because it means...
a) You can "upcast" Banished earlier than normally
b) And/or you can keep precious 5th level slot for native 5th level spells...
At the cost of heavily eating in resources.

But a Warlock?
He gets only few slots that "force-scale": so the only added value of Twin would be between level 7 and level 9. After that, since spell auto-scale and Warlock gets up to 4 per short rest, Twin on Banishement would not only be a waste of resource, it would be plain impossible to use.

--
As for the pure "nova cantrip" deal, Quicken completely trumps Twin, largely enough to be worth the double cost.
- Much easier to set up for Booming Blade (Twin > even if DM admits, you'll have to find targets close to one another).
- Compatible with all cantrips, including GreenFlame Blade and Eldricht Blast.

In addition to that, note that it's also compatible with non-attack cantrips and basically any other action you may do...
- You want to do something with Mage Hand on that turn? Now you can: invoke it as bonus action then use your action.
- You have a friend that is down with one failed death save and an close enemy that will obviously finish him off once your turn ends? Quickened Repelling Blast, action "using healer kit to stabilize" or action "grab him and Dash back to safety" or action "Mold Earth to create some cover for him".

And even if your friend is a reasonable person (=not wanting to cheese), (s)he can at least burn one short-rest slot regularly to recover a few SP so the cost of Quicken should be bearable from the start.

So imo the choice between Twin and Quicken boils down to two questions, which we can't answer for player. :)
1. "Do I plan on using bonus action feature as often as possible"? Yes/No.
2. "What kind of split do I want to reach for a level 8-12-15-20 character?"
a) 5 Warlock / 3 Sorcerer -> 7+ Warlock -> 9/6 -> 14/6.
b) 3 Warlock / 5 Sorcerer -> 7+ Sorcerer -> 5/10 > 5 > 15.
c) 4 Warlock / 4 Sorcerer -> 50% (or nearly) split like 7/8 -> 10/10.

1Y+2a > Follow your gut (Twin wins if you plan on using it with cantrips mostly, otherwise Quicken will scale better).
1Y+2b > Twin.
1Y+2c > Follow your gut (completely depends on how you use your spell slots).
1N+2a > Quicken (unless you get Sorcerer levels later to "uncap" Twin, but it would still be very costly to use).
1N+2b > Follow your gut (Sorcerer progression and higher SP cap means Twin could be somewhat sustainable even for higher spells).
1N+2c > Follow your gut (completely depends on how you use your spell slots).

(And, imo, if no clear gut decision, go Quicken).

[ZorroGames]

Thanks, Citan, will pass this on for reading.

[ImproperJustice]

I think it really depends on the “type” of Sorc/Lock you plan to be.

Buffer?
Go Twin, extend, and subtle.

Blaster
Empower, and either twin, careful, and possibly quicken or heighten

Controller
Quicken, Subtle or Extend, and later Heighten.

Jack of all Trades?
Twin, Empower and Subtle would be my top picks.

Subtle is great when you need it. Our GM loves traps and difficult environments (like having to fight in or around water and nets, ao subtle is a life saver in those circumstances)!

[Finney]

Looking ahead, the question was, “At Sorc 3 What two Metamagics do I add?”

I would go with Quickened and Heightened. If the campaign continues to the third and fourth tiers of play, I would pick Subtle and Twinned at 10th and 17th.