Sorcerer Metamagic Guide for Dungeons and Dragons 5e 

Jump ahead to a specific discussion: 4:19 Careful Spell 5:53 Distant Spell 8:55 Empowered Spell 10:45 Extended Spell 14:00 Heightened Spell 16:52 Quickened Spell 22:15 Subtle Spell 26:00 Twinned Spell

I'm surprised they didn't mention Subtle Counterspell! Denying an opponent's spellcasting ability without an apparent cause is an amazing intimidation tactic. Whether it's denying someone else their own charm spell in the middle of a negotiation they expected to easily get the upper hand in, or causing the enemy wizard's opening fireball to simply "not work" while you stare them down with no aggressive action, Subtle Counterspell is an excellent way to get opponents to just *back off* and possibly avoid a confrontation.

I really wish every sorcerous origin had a unique metamagic, the way clerics get extra channel divinity features based on domain. Guess I'll have to homebrew that.

Lesser known use of subtle spell: if you are playing a campaign where you’ll spend a lot of time around water, subtle spell can allow you to cast spells underwater if you are completely submerged.

Subtle Spell: The entire reason I would play a Sorcerer.

Distant Counterspell has saved my party more than once.

The most important part about the Subtle Spell metamagic is the fact that it cannot be Counterspelled (unless it also has material components). This is because Counterspell requires the Counter-caster to know that a spell is being cast. Subtle Spell makes it imperceptible.

I have recently created a character completely built around subtle spell. He's a Divine sorcerer And all his spells are based around Battlefield manipulation. He also acts as if he's an old man who doesn't know why he's there so in the combat he's just huddling in the corner. But in actuality he's casting crown of Madness or command on the enemies.

Subtle Spell also allows the caster to use spells when bound and/or gagged. Makes the caster way harder to pin down or imprison

On that same note, I run Subtle and Empowered (Running Quickened later) and I have to say, Subtle Counterspell is probably the single most hilarious thing when the enemy cast is looking at themselves like: "Uh.....this doesn't happen all the time, I swear!" And that's not even including the shenanigans subtle casting can bring when being a nuisance. XD

It's great that these guys actually go into the positives and possible uses & synergies for each metamagic, not just the "strongest" choices, rather than just going "lol these suck" like so many other guides do

Wish I could *twin* my like. You guys deserve more than one!

Spell Sniper & Distant Spell. For when you just don’t want to get out of bed.

I really like quicken especially at lower levels just to be able to dodge or disengage or dash and still cast a spell it's very very handy

Twinning Haste is a personal favorite. Sending a Hastened barbarian and fighter into combat is a beautiful thing!

I have homebrewed that each subclass is given a free metamagic option that matches the flavor of that origin. Divine gets careful, Draconic gets empowered, Shadow gets subtle, Storm gets extended, Wild Magic gets quickened (Matt Mercer's Runechild gets Distant). This leaves off Twinned which is probably the best one and Heightened which can't be used until you get 3 points.

i once used the fact that I was known to cast spells subtlely to deceive a boss to waste reactions and spell slots during a fight by use of deception

One of the backup character I made was a changeling who had grown up in a Dragonborn tribe, and used subtle spell to “copy” the Dragonborn breath weapon.

Excellent video guys! (Could you please add a timestamp index to the video description, so I can refer players to this vid as a tutorial resource. Thanks!)

I can see a dragonborn sorcerer using quickened meta magic to cast a spell as a bonus action, then use his action to use his breath weapon

Wow I'm early. Must have Quickened my click.

Quickened spell: action- health potion+bonus action- spell Subtle spell: can use if captured and tied up, also can still cast spells under the silence effect

subtle spell can save your (and your party's) hide when you are gagged and bound.

Personally what I thought might have been cool is to allow sorcerers to change their metamagics on a long rest. Like the idea for me is that while the spells a sorcerer knows cannot change easily, how they're able to manipulate their spells can.

I have a dream of one day casting a delayed blast fireball and holding it for 2 minutes.

Spell casting rules say "BONUS ACTION A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn. You can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of I action." PHB 203 This means you can quicken a cantrip, but if you wish to cast another spell, then it has to be another cantrip. I'm posting this because it's very efficient and it's important that spell casters know how their classes work. At (pick your melee class) 2/sorcerer 3 you can cast booming blade for weapon damage + 1d8 thunder and then quicken and hit em with it again. That's 2 weapon attacks and 2d8 thunder damage for the equivalent cost of a level 1 spell slot. The neat thing is when the cantrip becomes more potent, quickened spell becomes more efficient because then it becomes 2 weapon attacks + 4d8 or 6d8 thunder damage for the equivalent cost of a level 1 spell slot.

The Twinned Spell option reminded me, I could never figure out why Sorcerers only get Polymorph but not True-Polymorph.

My Favorite Caster class in all of 5e is getting love from the Dungeon Dudes today? IT WAS MEANT TO BE!!!

Quicken spell fireball. Following up with Eldritch Blast.

Honestly, I think sorcerers are just underpowered enough that I don't think it's too out of line to let them choose double the metamagic options, eventually unlocking all eight. The cost of using them is generally high enough, and some of the seemingly really powerful ones have some serious limitations, so giving more options with how to manipulate a relatively small list of known spells seems like a fair trade to me. I'd be comfortable making that homebrew call if someone wanted to play a sorcerer in my game.

Twinned spell is incredible for a Divine Soul. I often twin Healing Word/Cure Wounds. I regularly save us from a tpk

I really like how you guys really go into detail and give your input based on your experiences. Thanks!

Divine Soul Sorcerers also get some pretty awesome touch based debuffs like “Bestow Curse” and “Contagion” are viable if you want to ruin someone’s day out of punching and stabbing range.

I wonder if you can cast Mage Armor + Extended Spell before a long rest (if you have a Sorcery Point and Spell Slot left over) so you save a spell slot the next day? (For the first 8 hours anyway.)

Also for subtle spell, you can cast magic from a zone of silence where magic would normally not be able to be cast, for those pesky people who prefer to use silence against enemy spell casters.

Hi dudes, sorcerer main here. Love the video and you hit most of the things I know and some things I didn't know! I have a couple more tips, tricks and comments to add: Careful Spell + Sleep: (edit) as stated in a comment below, this does not actually work. Please disregard this portion of my comment. Distant Spell: Really good point about the ability to use buff touch spells at a distance, I have never put much stock in this but I've probably been overlooking it. I may just have to try this out next time I make a sorcerer! Empowered Spell: Good for blasters of course, but you trade away your ability to add another metamagic to your character sheet in return for reliable damage. I rate this one similar to heightened spell, it is good in general but if you want to get creative with your character it actually hinders that, I only recommend this metamagic for players who dislike the randomness and risk of dice. Also I really wish it worked for spells like Sleep and Color Spray, because they use dice too, but RaW doesn't allow it. Quickened Spell: You guys nailed this one, but I want to emphasize it. Absolutely right, no 2 spells in 1 turn and it's usually not worth the extra damage of a cantrip. But that's not what makes this metamagic cool. It's actually still really useful in lower tiers of play, because of the way it frees up your action to interact with objects, take the disengage, dodge or attack (shove, grapple, etc) actions, escape a grapple, do skill checks and more! It allows you to safely get out of range of an enemy and then still cast a powerful spell with that bonus action. This is actually really powerful in a game like D&D where the action economy can force you to choose between a safe or tactical action and casting a cool spell. Subtle Spell: Here's something really cool... Because it removes the verbal and somatic components, you can still cast spells while bound and gagged, or grappled. I've used this several times in Curse of Strahd to pull off some amazing tricks while the party was captured and restrained. Twinned Spell: Can be used for healing spells as much as buff and debuff spells. This only really applies for Divine Soul sorcerers or players who take Magic Initiate, but it's still worth noting. You mention that mileage may vary with the tradeoff between twinning spells and buying a spellslot, the major tradeoff is action economy again - you can cast the equivalent of 2 heal spells with one action. It's worth it sometimes to give up generating a spell slot in return for twinning a buff, debuff, or heal spell.

Also,the detect thoughts spell and subtle is a great combo,since basically you can always learn everyone's secret when you want

6:55 1200 FEET! THAT'S INSANE! But you would probably never need that much range.

about distant spell: although it doesn't do damage, Plane shift is a touch spell. Using the banish effect of the spell, you could be say, 30ft away from a death tyrant or so, but you can still send it to the plane of fire

Subtle spell also allows you to cast spells with verbal components in areas of silence or while underwater. Those situations may not come up often in a lot of campaigns, but when they do subtle spell is a game-changer.

Great video guys! The strategy breakdown at the end is very helpful. I love that kind of stuff.

I had Distance and Subtle for my divine soul sorcerer with 1 level of life cleric dip. Distance was really good for mass healing word, counterspell and dimension door. Subtle was mainly used for counterspell while in combat and outside of combat it's pretty nifty to be able to cast spells without people noticing.

Great work. I love how you broke down such a complex part of the game so simply! Love your work Monty and Kelly

Interrogation with Detect Thoughts and Heightened spell is one of my favorite things to do. DMs and players alike usually forget how much impact that can have on a session and it's awesome to pull out of your back pocket. By the time they can resist with INT usually you can get what you need or even go again if they fail that contest.

One homerule I like is to give sorcerers a couple sorcery points back per short rest, say equal to CHA mod or proficiency bonus. So far as I know, sorcerers are the only full caster which receive 0 resources back on a short rest. Metamagic is pretty much Sorcerers only unique feature, so in my opinion they should be using it all the time.

Quickened also let's you take other actions to dash or disengage allowing you to get away from a melee attack and still get that spell attack

One great use of extended spell that you guys might not have mentioned is mage armor. Extending the duration from 8-16 hours on mage armor means that you can cast it when you wake up and pretty much permanently have a boost to your AC without having to worry about if it’s been 8 hours from dawn.

Planning on playing a sorcerer so this was a very needed video for me since I've never played one before. Thanks guys!

You two nailed it, my thoughts and yours are identical. I'll give you my 2 coppers worth of extra tidbits......Distant Meta, if you are on the ocean and doing ship to ship combat, this will provide range for the sorcerer to snipe enemy ships. Twin spell and damage, Dragon's Breath in Xanathar's guide might be one of the best uses...load up them from line types and cross fire the bad guys.....uncommon, but fun. This also brings us to Careful Spell, decent, but situational. It is better, if you are throwing damage around, take two levels of wizard and specialize in Invoker, which gives you Sculpt Spell, which is Careful spell on Steroids for damage, and you get ritual spells of level 1, which is quite a number, so you won't necessarily miss that feat as much by multi-classing.

One of the best things to extend is things like Mage Armor. Increasing AC to 13 + dex for _16_ hours! If you cast is just before a long rest, it has the same effect as casting it normally when you wake up, but for free! no spell slots or points needed.

As always, I enjoy and appreciate the work you two put into this. These are great refreshers/tutorials for us. Nice job.

Oh good! I've been really wanting you to make this one. Sweet!

Just one thing I feel was missed about the twinned spell... it's especially good early game to use with level 1 damage spells! The ability to use just one sorcery point to replicate a level one spell like chromatic orb, is especially good. Especially considering the economy of spell slots vs sorcery points... the math behind conversion simply values spell slots to be more valuable. So for just one sorcery point to be able to not just replicate a level one spell slot spell, but to also cast it as an additional attack on the same turn, is ridiculous to be able to do at level 3! The reason why I felt this was a notable consideration, is because this video only emphasized the benefit of twinning a buff spell like polymorph or haste, or emphasized how bad of a waste it would be to lose 6 sorcery points plus a level 6 spell slot for a spell that may inevitably miss, which I agree would suck, but the video missed the best use of twinned spell... the great economically efficient benefit of twinning level one damage spells as an additional attack at only level 3 Sorcerer!

I just multiclassed into Divine Soul Sorcerer and I think, once I get to the level for Metamagic, I'll get Subtle and Twin Spell as my first pair of options.

Hey guys, I’ve just been listening to this for the second time - long time fan of your videos. So weird today with the UK in lockdown. Went for my ‘one allowed exercise’ with my little girl in the pram to get her to sleep. Loved the video, you fellas have been so integral at reeling me back into D&D - the school that I teach at now has 2 D&D groups and the students love it. Thanks again.

Honestly, I don’t exactly know what I’m going to choose for my tabaxi stone sorcerer just yet, but I will definitely be taking empowered spell! This guide helped so much and I had moments of “well I think this would fit my character well in this situation”. So thank you so much for this guide!

Kinda surprised you guys never mentioned Shadow Sorcerer's Hound, it's the same SP as Heightened spell and has the same effect plus some bonuses

Actually I once had a sorcerer twin a disintegrate, one-shoting an entire miniboss encounter of two wraiths.

Thank you so much for this video! It was fun, and so informative for me as a sorcerer player :) I took twinned and quickened spell knowing very well I won't be using twinned spell too much until she gets Haste or Polymorph, as she has a high AC so I spend much more time quickening two Green-Flame Blades or a blast spell and going in for Green-Flame Blade.

Subtle Spell is also a perfect way to circumvent the effects of Silence, or to get around what I consider the greatest Achilles heel of spellcasters: being bound and gagged (so long as the spell doesn’t need material components). I’m working on a character right now that is a multiclass of rogue and sorcerer. Think of Corvo or Daud from Dishonored and you’re pretty much there.

Quickened is also good for putting down a teetering foe or use some kind of damage+control cantrip, such was Shocking Grasp (to let you not get AoOed) or Chill Touch (to prevent a foe healing).

Now I see how Overlord’s meta magic was created

Very helpful guys, thanks! Trying to build my first Sorc.

This is very helpful, thanks. I’ve recently made a Sorcerer, but haven’t had a chance to play her yet. It’s great to be familiar with meta magic before I have to make any of these decisions.

Silence + subtle spell. Knock out the enemy caster ability to cast most things, but still be able to cast yourself.

I killed a troll.

Extremely useful. Thanks guys.

One of my first ever characters was a sorcerer, and I took Subtle and Twinned for my metamagics. I like to play support casters, and as such, I found myself almost always using Twinned Invisibility/Enhance Ability/Haste/etc., and we got a ton of good mileage out of it. Subtle Spell also saved our asses on more than one occasion, and even when it’s not a critical part of our interactions, it’s still always good to have around.

There should be a feat option, allowing you to add a metamagic to your list of known, and also use it on a L1-3 spell 1/ long rest.

Twinned spell's ability to double concentration is tiers above all other metamagic.

Really enlightening stuff. Thanks.

Heightened Spell always seemed like a good one to pick up at higher levels. Same with Quicken. Both are most useful once you've gotten higher level either save-or-suck spells for Heightened or concentration spells for Quicken. Though you guys made a good point about Quicken letting you do a lot of different things with your action like for instance run away while also casting a spell to prevent the baddies from chasing after you.

Interesting Twin Spell - last night I ruled “incorrectly” with a Magic Missile that was only one missile, and I let them do it.

I've seen a party that was 4 rogues and a sorcerer. Really odd, because they had to do some funny stuff for some encounters, but the sorc took careful spell, and...well, Evasion is a thing.

I remember when we were waiting for our contact in a room and Bard realized he forgot to buy something. I excused myself for a moment, flipped birds with a Barbarian and came back with a thing after using 2 Distant Dimension Doors. One of my favorite Metamagic combos

A really great and informative video I've always wanted to play a sorcerer but it seems like a lot of work just makes it seem easier to have a clear path and a plan

Just found you guys and fell in love with the content. Perhaps a few compliments and critiques? Extremely professional! Very knowledgeable about what you're talking about! A lot of charisma. Incredibly smooth editing! Honestly my only criticism is that your hand movements sometimes become repetitive and can be distracting. Ultimately didn't take away from my enjoyment and learning, but it could be easily improved by varying the way your hands move. Really enjoyed the vid! Subbed!!

Sorlock, quickened spell. Witch bolt. Need I say more

you guys nailed quicken spell! Cheers

Keep up the amazing work guys. The amount of stuff I've learned from this channel is amazing. And I twinned haste for the first time a couple sessions ago and my party said the same thing. "Steven you are doing this every encounter"😂gotta love it.

I’d like to add that even using Twinned Spell for damage dealing cantrips can be an efficient use of Sorcery points, particularly at higher levels. Remember cantrips often increase in damage as you level - I think a *lot* of players forget this. For instance, at 5th level a firebolt deals 2d10 damage; at 11th level a firebolt deals 3d10 damage. If you Twin-Spell a firebolt at 11th level, you can potentially deal an insane 6d10 damage (across the two targets) for the cost only 1 solitary sorcery point! So, for literally half the cost of a First level Spell, you can deal 4d10 damage by 5th level, 6d10 by 11th level and, if you’re really game, 8d10 by 17th level, all in one round. Of course, the down sides are that (1) this damage has to be split across two targets and (2) if an attack misses or the target saves, there is no ‘half-damage on a successful save’ as you often get for true levelled spells.

The meta magic I want is "store spell" allowing an object you touch to hold a spell for x amount of time, and released by a predetermined trigger like when damaged, damaging something, an action like rubbing or twisting, a phrase, etc. Also all effects happen at the location of the triggered object. So a rock with fireball stored in it will go off at the location of the rock. As for cost, I think 1 per spell level would be appropriate or 2 per level if this metamagic seems too effective. I see how it could impose on subtle spell or other meta magics.

Currently playing as a Divine Soul support caster with twin and extend. Extend has been amazing to use on the Aid spell. Every night before my character goes to bed if he has the spell slot and sorcery point he says an extra prayer and and casts an extended Aid to give my party of 3 all bonus hp/max hp for 16 hours. Then he goes to bed, gains that spell slot and point back and there's still roughly 8hrs left on the buff that was essentially free.

Currently using Distant and Quickened Spell. Multiclassed into Rogue Inquisitve and have made Shadow Blade my preferred spell. Superior Arcane Trickster achieved.

Hey, twinned spell. I argue dragons breath works. When you cast the spell it can only ever target one creature similar to haste.

I feel like I've got so many characters on standby but never get to play any of them :(

A thing is not often mentioned with quickened spells is that it provides you a far better version of cunning action. A caster action is usually spent for .... well casting. Conversely bonus action options are usually scarse for casters, unless there is something baked in the class (like pet actions). Quickening a spell nets you a free action (dash, dodge, hide, attack, use object, cast cantrip). In this regard, it can be considered a very flexible and worthwile option even without taking into account all the boons already mentioned in the video. Anyway great content guys, keep it up Cheers!

Another valuable part of subtle spell is that it can be used to gain the upper hand in mage duels. Disabling the ability of other casters to counterspell you means that if applied to counterspell itself, opponents cannot counter your counterspells.

distant spell and subtle spell on counterspell makes you the ultimate counter speller. Take 2 levels in bard and Bam; Cha mod + 1/2 prof and they will never be able to counter spell your counterspell.

23:10 detect thots: my favourite spell

That intro causes such a nice endorphin drip. Love your synchronicity.

It’s good that Kelly played through a Sorcerer in your online campaign and can speak to all of this through his own practical experience. I’ve seen too many guides online where people are just theory crafting.

Just take a familiar.... no need for distant metamagic...my divine soul sorcerer uses his owl familiar to heal the party “on the fly”😆

When you realize that you can twin spell Dragon's breath and the errata is in your favor. "time to hand out double breath weapons and cross the beams.

Great food for thought, thnx guys

I think a lot of people misread careful spell’s description to just mean their allies are automatically fine or just homebrew it that way. Cudos for pointing out the real RAW text

Guide to metamagic: ask your DM to let you have all of them, otherwise you will just always pigeonhole yourself into the 1 or 2 most useful and never experience the flavor of the class.

We can all agree that metamagic is the meta

Super helpful! Abt to play my first sorc and I appreciated this

Read the errata on twinned spell late. Was causing 100+ damage (2 crits, had advantage) on twinned agonizing blast + quickened agonizing blast at lv7. Good thing the DM asked me to look it up once more.