Can a sorcerer us the SAME metamagic option multiple times on the same spell?

[Damon_Tor]

I'm DMing a game where a player brought up an interesting point about the wording of metamagic:

You can use only one Metamagic option on a spell when you cast it, unless otherwise noted.

You can only use one option, but I had to admit the wording is somewhat ambiguous as to whether that one meta-magic option can be applied multiple times.

Case in point, the sorcerer is trying to play their character as a "soul knife" heavily invested in the Shadow Blade spell, and wanted to use multiple uses of Extended Spell to make it last all day. So by her thinking, 1 sorcery point would make it last for 2 minutes, 3 sorcery points would make it last for 4, 4 for 8, 5 for 16, 6 for 32, 7 for 64, 8 for 128, 9 for 256, 10 for 512, which hits the "all day" mark of ~8 hours. Basically she was willing to sacrifice a bunch of her spell slots to make sorcery points to make this happen.

EDIT: Crawford answered this goes against the intent of the rules. I think I'll allow it anyway since I'm inclined to let her have fun and RAW is ambiguous.

[JackPhoenix]

It's not really ambiguous. "You can only use one" means exactly that, not "you can only use one, and then that one again". Besides, same effects don't stack, unless specifically noted otherwise.

[sophontteks]

Jeremy hates sorcerers. His rulings on metamagic frankly aren't very fun.

Strictly, any spell that can possibly target multiple targets can't be twinned. So you can't twin chaos bolt, for example. Just throw that ruling out the window. The spell is single target, who cares if on condition it may target someone else. This isn't the same as twinning hypnotic pattern or fireball, and thats the kind of spells this rule was supposed to exclude.

If you empower chaos bolt, you can't use the new values to hack the bolt into striking another target. Why not? Its hardly game-breaking.

There is nothing I see about this that is game-breaking either. Just do it. Its fine RAW, as you are using one metamagic. Its ambiguous, but lets face it, what else is extend spell really good for.

Actually, I would just make whole new rules for extend. 1min-> 10min->1 hour-> 8 hours -> 1 day

[Kadesh]

Does it say you can do so? Then no. The rules do not allow you to do so.

[sophontteks]

Does it say you can do so? Then no. The rules do not allow you to do so.

Well, it actually does say you can.

" 3rd level, you gain two of the following Metamagic options of your choice. You gain another one at 10th and 17th level.

You can use only one Metamagic option on a spell when you cast it, unless otherwise noted."

The rules allow you to use metamagic, and the exception says you can only use one option. Using that single option as much as you want is written as being ok. Since Jeremy ammended this, he meant to say "You can only use one metamagic." But as its written, its allowed.

Basically the rules here allow sorcerers to cast metamagic, which is where they allowed it. They outlined exceptions to this blanket allowance, and this is not one of those exceptions.

[HappyDaze]

Well, it actually does say you can.

" 3rd level, you gain two of the following Metamagic options of your choice. You gain another one at 10th and 17th level.

You can use only one Metamagic option on a spell when you cast it, unless otherwise noted."

The rules allow you to use metamagic, and the exception says you can only use one option. Using that single option as much as you want is written as being ok. Since Jeremy ammended this, he meant to say "You can only use one metamagic." But as its written, its allowed.

Basically the rules here allow sorcerers to cast metamagic, which is where they allowed it. They outlined exceptions to this blanket allowance, and this is not one of those exceptions.

Well that would mean that the Battle Master can only use one Maneuver per attack, but so long as it's the same maneuver you can keep doing it until you're out of dice. Seems wrong to me, and so does doing the same thing with metamagic.

[Kadesh]

That's a lot of words to say that no it does not say that you can use Metamagic multiple times on the same spell.

Using Extend, followed by another extend is more than one option.

[OvisCaedo]

I feel like if you try to invest this much into making a melee spell last eight hours, you might run into issues with actual concentration...

Not sure on this one, really. Dumping everything into having shadow blade for the day is one thing, but there might be much more troubling spells that could be re-extended like this, and it also sounds like it would sort of open the door to tripleting spells or more instead of twinning them.

As written, I can see where the specific language is ambigious. It does say one "option", which is still technically different wording from the battlemaster's one maneuver. But it does seem pretty clearly against intention, and there are probably a lot of cases that could really break by allowing it.

I'd suggest just working with them to come up with something more custom if you want to let them lug a shadowblade around all day, rather than potentially opening some floodgates. A unique attuned item hilt that you can power off of sorcery points to replicate the spell, or something...? I dunno.

[Erys]

Well, it actually does say you can.

" 3rd level, you gain two of the following Metamagic options of your choice. You gain another one at 10th and 17th level.

You can use only one Metamagic option on a spell when you cast it, unless otherwise noted."

The rules allow you to use metamagic, and the exception says you can only use one option. Using that single option as much as you want is written as being ok. Since Jeremy ammended this, he meant to say "You can only use one metamagic." But as its written, its allowed.

Basically the rules here allow sorcerers to cast metamagic, which is where they allowed it. They outlined exceptions to this blanket allowance, and this is not one of those exceptions.

No... the rules as written is you can use one and like effects don't stack.

The RAI is:

The intent is that a sorcerer can use a Metamagic option once with a spell, not the same option more than once.
cite

Don't like it, fine. House-rule till your hearts content. But the rules, as written and confirmed, its a hard and clear: no.

[Galithar]

This is the part that doesn't allow you to repeat Metamagics on a spell

When you cast a spell with a duration of 1 minute or longer,

The Metamagic can only be triggered when you cast a spell. I can Shadow blade, and use a the Metamagic extend. I cannot use the Metamagic extend again on that spell because the trigger requires me to cast a spell which I cannot do again.

The Battle master is worded very much the same in that each maneuver specifies 'when you take the attack action' 'or when you hit a creature with a weapon attack' requiring the attack action to be taken each time you use a maneuver and/or a creature to be hit.

So being able to use multiple Metamagics or manuevers under RAW would require multiple triggers to allow multiple uses.


Now that's RAW. I would absolutely allow stacking for Shadow Blade because it's fun, but be sure to make sure they know that this is a special circumstances and is NOT repeatable on another spell unless approved ahead of time.

[sophontteks]

This is the part that doesn't allow you to repeat Metamagics on a spell



The Metamagic can only be triggered when you cast a spell. I can Shadow blade, and use a the Metamagic extend. I cannot use the Metamagic extend again on that spell because the trigger requires me to cast a spell which I cannot do again.

The Battle master is worded very much the same in that each maneuver specifies 'when you take the attack action' 'or when you hit a creature with a weapon attack' requiring the attack action to be taken each time you use a maneuver and/or a creature to be hit.

So being able to use multiple Metamagics or manuevers under RAW would require multiple triggers to allow multiple uses.


Now that's RAW. I would absolutely allow stacking for Shadow Blade because it's fun, but be sure to make sure they know that this is a special circumstances and is NOT repeatable on another spell unless approved ahead of time.

Good point!

The rules are pretty ambiguous there. We hold RAW like its the gospel when none of us actually use it. The rules do require some interpetation. Jeremy apparently isn't a lawyer. :P

[sophontteks]

No... the rules as written is you can use one and like effects don't stack.

The RAI is:


Don't like it, fine. House-rule till your hearts content. But the rules, as written and confirmed, its a hard and clear: no.

Sorry, I'm talking RAW only. RAI has been established in the OP. Unless you can show where it says the first part in the handbooks.

[Erys]

Sorry, I'm talking RAW only. RAI has been established in the OP. Unless you can show where it says the first part in the handbooks.

Yeah, and the RAW says you can only use one metamagic per spell and like effects don't stack.

You acting like the RAW supports an extended-extended spell is simply wrong. There is nothing written that supports this stance.

[Kadesh]

Sorry, I'm talking RAW only. RAI has been established in the OP. Unless you can show where it says the first part in the handbooks.

You are still to provide proof that says you can, and why using Metamagic twice is only using it once when it is the same Metamagic.

[Grondsmash]

It clearly states you can use only one OPTION per spell, then it gives a specific exception to Empower.
It does NOT say anywhere that you can't use multiple Sorcery Points (SP) for the Option you are using on a singular spell.

Let us look at where you can and can't use, and what effect multiple SP have on each option:

There are only limited number of Metamagic Options that doubling up might work with:

• Careful Spell: Give auto-save to more creatures, not OP and since 99% of the time it's for your own party/allies, probably don't need more than 1 additional SP anyway.
  
• Distant Spell: Keep doubling the distance; probably not that OP either as you're burning sorcery points for potentially silly distances, but you still need to be able to see a target. It's not a metamagic that I find comes up all that much personally. Its most powerful effect is changing touch spells to 30 ft., keeping healers far behind the front lines.
  
• Empowered Spell: Can already be used with a different option, however you must use the second result, so this eliminates using a 2nd SP.
  
• Extended Spell: Keep doubling the duration; 24 hour limit keeps it from being abused, and you'd need to burn a huge amount of SP to get one of the short lived spells to any kind of useful duration.
  
• Heightened Spell: Could give disadvantage to additional targets of a multi-target spell; niche casting and at 3 SP per use, you'd burn through all of your SPs fast, making it a once per long rest usage.
  
• Seeking Spell: Must use the new roll, so can't re-roll more than once, so this eliminates using a 2nd SP.
  
• Quickened Spell: You only get one bonus action in a turn, so this eliminates using a 2nd SP.
  
• Subtle Spell: Spell can't get more subtle, so this eliminates using a 2nd SP.
  
• Transmuted Spell: There's no benefit to using this more than once on a spell, so this eliminates using a 2nd SP.
  
• Twinned Spell: The spell is ineligible for a second stacking, so this eliminates using a 2nd SP.

So yeah, it's really just Careful, Distant, Extended and Heightened that you could actually use multiple Sorcery Points in any kind of way, and not OP enough that it unbalances the game.

As to the "Different game features can affect a target at the same time. But when two or more game features have the same name, only the effects of one of them—the most potent one—apply while the durations of the effects overlap" rule in the DMG...

Careful, Distant, Extended and Heightened do not produce multiple effects for this rule to apply. Careful and Heightened affect multiple targets, but only once each, so they follow this rule. Distant and Extended only modify one spell, and it still has the same effect(s), only farther away and lasting longer, which the Metamagic Option already does. Neither has any affects which "overlap" with anything else and there is no different game feature being used. So using these Metamagic options in this way does not violate the above rule in the DMG, so it does not apply.

[LibraryOgre]

With a sorcerer, especially, I'd be inclined to say "Yeah, how about I let you upcast that with an X level slot to make it an 8 hour duration?" Or a new, higher-level, spell that does that.

Since Shadow blade is a 2nd level spell, I'd say 3rd level to let it last an hour without concentration is reasonable, and 4th to let it last 8 without concentration is also good. This keeps it at the 2d8 psychic; more damage would cost still more levels.