Is there anything backing up 'Magic Mantle lets you apply metamagic to powers'?

[Evoker]

Title says it all, really. I've seen people be like 'oh, magic mantle lets you take metamagic feats on powers as though they were spells' but reading the relevant part of the magic mantle it just says 'In addition, you always treat magic and psionics as identical.'

Which doesn't logically imply 'you treat psionic powers as though they were spells' And even if it did and it let you say 'I treat this psionic power as though it was a magic spell, so I can apply a feat that applies to spells to it' wouldn't it also like, require you to have a spell slot to cast any power, because it's 'always' treat magic and psionics as identical, not an optional thing, and as long as that power is being treated identically to a spell, it would logically require an appropriate spell slot, since spells require slots to be cast.

Is there any like, evidence in some text or errata or whatever that I'm missing, or is the 'metamagic on powers' idea entirely without merit?

[Crake]

So, i have two points to bring up. Firstly if the ability was only referring to the transparency rules, then it appears as though, for 99% of games, it would do absolutely nothing. This is because the TRANSPARENCY rules arent optional, quite the opposite in fact, they are the default, its NO TRANSPARENCY that is optional. So to me, this leans against that being the limit of the scope of the ability. But secondly, regarding metamagic, it doesnt make sense to able to apply to powers, because the two pieces dont fit together. Its like trying to apply metamagic to SLAs (in fact its exactly that, since technically psionics are SLAs).

To me, this ability reads as allowing cross spell/psionics abilities, but metamagic just doesnt work due to the fundamentals of how metamagic works. On the other hand, it would allow you to take both practised spellcaster and practised manifester for a total of +8 ML (up to your HD)

[Evoker]

So, i have two points to bring up. Firstly if the ability was only referring to the transparency rules, then it appears as though, for 99% of games, it would do absolutely nothing. This is because the TRANSPARENCY rules arent optional, quite the opposite in fact, they are the default, its NO TRANSPARENCY that is optional. So to me, this leans against that being the limit of the scope of the ability.

Well, it does explicitly state 'Most campaigns already treat them in this manner, so this mantle is most useful in campaigns where they are considered different systems.'

[Crake]

Well, it does explicitly state 'Most campaigns already treat them in this manner, so this mantle is most useful in campaigns where they are considered different systems.'

Ah well, in that case, I guess it almost literally says that its referring to the transparency rules, so… yeah, I’d have to agree with you.

[Chronos]

The biggest problem with overreach of psi-magic transparency is that not all magic is spells. If psionic powers are considered magic, then that might mean that I can treat them the same way as spells... but it could also mean that I can treat them the same way as soulmelds, or vestiges, or invocations, or whatever. And how do you decide which kind of magic a given psionic thing is?

The effect is clear, for some things that affect all kinds of magic. An antimagic field, for instance, stops all magic, including spells, and soulmelds, and vestiges, and invocations, and all the rest. So it'd also stop a psionic power. But most things that affect magic don't affect all kinds of magic. An incarnate (who is magical) can't take Practiced Spellcaster to increase her meldshaper level, so why should a psion (who is magical) be able to use it to increase his manifester level?

[Troacctid]

The short answer is no. Treating psionics and magic as identical does not extend to treating specific aspects of both systems as identical, even if those aspects seem analogous to each other.