Hypothetical metamagic that eliminates expensive components for a single spell

[Segev]

I'd normally put this in homebrew, but the actual question here is one I think this subforum is best equipped to answer. Assume the following metamagic exists:

Innate Spell: When you take this metamagic, choose a Sorcerer spell of a level you can cast. You can cast it without components by spending a number of SP equal to its level. When you cast it this way, you cannot apply other metamagics of any sort, even those which say they can be applied along with other metamagic. Unless you know it by other means (such as spending a Sorcerer spell known slot on it), you do not count as knowing it for purposes of using spell slots. You may learn this metamagic multiple times, choosing a different spell each time.

The intention here is to make a sort of "spell-like ability" metamagic representing a unique power of a sorcerer who picks it up. It is also obviously quite powerful for removing expensive material components, if the right spell(s) are chosen.

My question for this forum is: what are the most broken spells you could give a Sorcerer via this metamagic? Are there any particular builds that make any spells more or less powerful when you strip away the gp cost of casting them?

[Unoriginal]

My question for this forum is: what are the most broken spells you could give a Sorcerer via this metamagic?

Simulacrum.

[Darzil]

Revivify or other restore to life spells would no longer be gated by expensive specific components with a Divine Soul Sorceror?

[Nhorianscum]

Revivify or other restore to life spells would no longer be gated by expensive specific components with a Divine Soul Sorceror?

Hero's Feast.

[MoiMagnus]

Most components the Sorcerer has access to are not consumed. While that doesn't make the metamagic useless on them, the comparison with subtle spells makes it look quite bad.

Counting only consumed components, the only PHB spell relevant is Stoneskin. (Most interesting spells, like simulacrum, are not accessible to the Sorcerer)

Assuming divine soul cleric is compatible with this, it suddenly becomes very good.
+ Glyph of Warding
+ Revivify
+ Greater Restoration
+ Planar Binding
+ etc

[iTreeby]

Gold is dm fiat. Its kind of hard to determine a sp to fiat ratio. It's like asking how many spell points are needed to replicate a magic item for a day.

Biggest issue I can see is it makes permanent wen cast every day for a year spells cheeper, not sure how many of those a sorcerer gets natively.

[Chaosmancer]

If the 5etools site is accurate, there are only eight spells on the sorcerer list that have costly material components at all.

Chromatic Orb -> 1st level, 50 gp diamond, not consumed

Clairvoyance -> 3rd level, 100 gp focus (two different ones), not consumed

Stoneskin -> 4th level, 100 gp diamond dust, consumed

Teleportation Circle -> 5th level, 50 gp of ink, consumed, can be cast every day for a year for permanent

Circle of Death -> 6th level, 500 gp black pearl, not consumed

True Seeing -> 6th level, 25 gp oil and fat, consumed

Plane Shift -> 7th level, 250 gp tuning fork, not consumed

Gate -> 9th level, 5,000 gp Diamond, not consumed


So, if we take this at 3rd level, and go til 10th, this applies to Teleportation circle and lower.

Chromatic Orb was picked too early, so it won't matter. You either have the gem now or not. So this metamagic will never be used until 5th level. At which point it can save you... 200 gold. For 3/5ths of your daily sorcerer points


Edit: Oh wait, misread this. You will never take this metamagic at 3rd level. You only get to pick one spell when you pick the metamagic. Meaning that at 3rd level with only Chromatic orb this is worthless.

Okay, so 10th level, I get to pick a single spell I know that I can ignore the cost of. Yeah, the only one worth using this on is teleportation circle, if I am planning on making it permanent. Then, for half of my sorcery points per day, I can save a total of 18,000 gold.

But if I am literally doing anything else other than making a permanent teleportation circle, this is not worth it. Heck, if I had access to True Seeing the material cost of 25 gp per casting is far far far less expensive than the six sorcery points.




This would have been a trap option if you could apply it to any spell. Only picking one? This isn't even worth considering. Unless you are a Divine Soul who has access to the Cleric spell list. Then you might maybe want it for Revivify, Glyph of Warding, Greater Restoration, or Raise Dead. But if you are approaching a game by level 10 with the idea that you are going to have enough dead people to need to lower the costs of those spells... I'd say there are more things wrong than that this metamagic isn't going to be able to fix.

Second Edit: And remember, these are costing 3 or 5 sorcery points per casting. 30% to 50% of your daily allotment, to save between 200 and 500 gold.

[MaxWilson]

Planar Binding.

And that is why Wish is a broken spell. (One reason, anyway.)

But this metamagic WOULD let a Divine Soul repeat cast True Resurrection. I'm not sure how much that matters. It depends partly on whether a DM rules that you can resurrect any creature by name, or only if their original body "no longer exists". If the latter, that could be strategically broken, because if you can resurrect any recently-dead creature by name (i.e. within the past 200 years), you could bring all the past century's heroes and villains back to life, even the liches/skull lords/pit fiends/solars/empyreans/etc.

Chromatic Orb was picked too early, so it won't matter. You either have the gem now or not. So this metamagic will never be used until 5th level. At which point it can save you... 200 gold. For 3/5ths of your daily sorcerer points

...

This would have been a trap option if you could apply it to any spell. Only picking one? This isn't even worth considering. Unless you are a Divine Soul who has access to the Cleric spell list. Then you might maybe want it for Revivify, Glyph of Warding, Greater Restoration, or Raise Dead. But if you are approaching a game by level 10 with the idea that you are going to have enough dead people to need to lower the costs of those spells... I'd say there are more things wrong than that this metamagic isn't going to be able to fix.

Second Edit: And remember, these are costing 3 or 5 sorcery points per casting. 30% to 50% of your daily allotment, to save between 200 and 500 gold.

A bigger issue for Divine Soul is Planar Binding. You can do cost-free Planar Binding starting at 17th level anyway, but being able to do it multiple times per day starting at 10th level is amazing. It makes it worthwhile to start off an adventuring day by summoning and binding two or three earth/air/fire elementals (with the help of another caster) just so you can stack concentration spells on them, e.g. Darkness to go with Earth Elementals if the DM runs Tremorsense like Blindsight for advantage purposes, and so you don't need to worry about them going hostile.

[Chaosmancer]

And that is why Wish is a broken spell. (One reason, anyway.)

But this metamagic WOULD let a Divine Soul repeat cast True Resurrection. I'm not sure how much that matters. It depends partly on whether a DM rules that you can resurrect any creature by name, or only if their original body "no longer exists". If the latter, that could be strategically broken, because if you can resurrect any recently-dead creature by name (i.e. within the past 200 years), you could bring all the past century's heroes and villains back to life, even the liches/skull lords/pit fiends/solars/empyreans/etc.

True Ressurrection is a 9th level spell, So you could only do this if you took this metamagic at 17th level. And, like you said, this only matters depending on how the DM rules it.

And it is a level of DM fiat that, I'm just comfortable saying most players aren't going to try without talking to the DM first. Because it would be 1 great hero a day, using your 9th level slot, as high end play.

A bigger issue for Divine Soul is Planar Binding. You can do cost-free Planar Binding starting at 17th level anyway, but being able to do it multiple times per day starting at 10th level is amazing. It makes it worthwhile to start off an adventuring day by summoning and binding two or three earth/air/fire elementals (with the help of another caster) just so you can stack concentration spells on them, e.g. Darkness to go with Earth Elementals if the DM runs Tremorsense like Blindsight for advantage purposes, and so you don't need to worry about them going hostile.

Okay, there are a lot if problems with this as a plan. The first being, again, it is Divine Soul exclusive, because Sorcerers don't get Planar Binding.

So, level 10 you take Planar Binding and this metamagic. At this point you have... Only one summoning spell. The New Summon Celestial.

Because Sorcerers don't get any conjure spells, per RAW, and Clerics only get Conjure Celestial, Planar Ally, and Summon Celestial.

So, you need another caster to cast Conjure Elemental to pull this off.

Then, per the wording of this metamagic, you are spending points equal to the spells level. So, 5/10 points to get a single Elemental bound for 24 hours.

So, getting two elementals for the day costs you four 5th level spell slots, all your sorcery points for the day, and saved you only 2,000 gold.

Now, maybe, by 11th level it is worth spending the majority of your high level slots to get elementals bound for a week, and build up a small strike force of them. But, that is very expensive, not in terms of gold, but in terms of spell slots and sorcery points.

And it is only possible with a Divine Soul, only if they want the Summon Celestial or have access to a second spellcaster, and overall saves you a decent chunk of cash in exchange for the entirety or the majority of your sorcery points.

I still feel like it is a bad trade, and it really doesn't prevent the problem of this combo unless the only thing holding this combo back was having the gold to buy the gems.