Metamagic Adept 5e

Published on March 12, 2022, Last modified on May 16th, 2022

Few classes have as much flexibility over their spellcasting as sorcerers. Now, with Metamagic Adept, any spellcaster class can get a taste!

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Table of Contents

What is Metamagic Adept in 5e?

Spiraling off of the other Adept feats from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, we’ve got another feat that allows you to add some of the core class abilities of another class, though in a smaller form. Today we’ll be covering Metamagic Adept, giving characters a taste of the sorcerer’s metamagic ability.

How does Metamagic Adept work?

As long as you’re able to cast a spell or have Pact Magic, you can pick this feat. When you do, you get two new features:

You can learn two Metamagic options of your choice from the sorcerer class. In most cases, you cannot use more than one Metamagic option when casting a spell (unless that option says different). You can replace one of these Metamagic options whenever you get to a level that would grant you an Ability Score Improvement.
You get two sorcery points to spend on Metamagic, but these can only be used for Metamagic. You regain these after finishing a long rest.

This feat allows you to dip a little into the sorcerer class without a full commitment, allowing spellcasters to get a little more flexibility in their powers. However, it still ends up being somewhat limited due to the limited number of sorcery points.

Is Metamagic Adept good?

In our 5e Feats Tier List, Metamagic Adept was given a B Tier rating, making it a niche feat that can improve some builds in D&D 5e.

This is a very similar feat to Martial Adept in the sense that you gain a good class feature, but its usefulness is limited by the number of times you can use it per long rest. This feat is teetering on the edge of being an A Tier feat because of the utility it can offer casters, the lack of uses per long rest just weighs it down.

This is also similar to Martial Adept because Metamagic Adept is arguably the most useful when taken by a sorcerer, though it can work decently well in any CHA-based caster class. The best options to take for non-sorcerers are:

Careful Spell – Being able to weave your AoE spells around friendlies is an amazing feature limited to sorcerers and School of Evocation wizards. This can be hugely helpful when you want to bomb a group of enemies but have a martial party member in the mix. Works best with CHA-based casters.
Extended Spell – 5e combat typically doesn’t last more than 10 rounds, but this can provide solid value in conjunction with other, longer-duration spells.
Quickened Spell – Being able to get a full-action spell off as a bonus action is awesome action economy, especially for half-caster martial classes as it allows them to be able to use the Attack action.
Subtle Spell – 1 sorcery point in exchange for an un-counterspellable spell is insane value when going up against enemy casters. If you’re a full caster/blaster build, this is the choice for sure.
Twinned Spell – This spell helps provide solid value when buffing/debuff targets with low-level spells. If you’re planning on using spells like protection from good and evil or shield of faith this allows you to double the spell’s effect.

Which Classes Make the Most of Metamagic Adept?

The color code below has been implemented to help you identify, at a glance, how good the Metamagic Adept feat is for a specific class/subclass.

Red isn’t going to contribute to the effectiveness of your character build at all
Orange is an OK option
Green is a good option
Blue is a great option, you should strongly consider this option for your character
Sky Blue is an amazing option. If you do not take this option your character would not be optimized

This feat is exclusively for spellcasters, but it’s limited to the small number of sorcery points you have at your disposal. This makes it a tough recommendation for those with a lot of spells available to them, as they will be pretty limited with only two points.

Artificer: Since this class doesn’t get a lot of spell slots, this feat allows artificer to customize their limited spells a little better. Melee-focused artificer builds will love being able to cast heat metal as a bonus action and then using their action to attack.

Barbarian: Because they can’t cast spells, barbarians cannot take this feat without multiclassing.

Bard: Bards will love the ability to cast their spells subtly to avoid counterspells and weave big AoE effects, like hypnotics pattern, around friendlies. Only getting two sorcery points is a bummer, but bards can still make those points work for them to produce insane value.

Cleric: Offers some exciting synergies with the sorcerer’s metamagic ability. You could get Twinned Spell to improve heroism or a healing spell, or Quickened Spell to cast a powerful heal and still attack.

Fighter: Only Eldritch Knights can pick this feat up, but it works well. Most of their 3rd and 4th level spells would work great with double duration, but even just having a subtle spell to prevent counterspell can be ideal. Picking up blur at 8th-level and being able to cast it as a bonus action while maintaining the ability to attack with your action is an awesome way to start off initiative.

Monk: Monks cannot gain spellcasting or Pact Magic, so they can’t pick this feat up. They do gain the ability to cast some spells through Way of the Four Elements, but it’s not traditional spellcasting as required by this feat.

Paladin: Most of the time, paladins will want to hang onto their precious spell slots for Divine Smites. Picking up this feat definitely allows for some versatility in the paladins casting, like being able to double the targets of buffs/healing. Most of the time, this spell is a pass for paladins, unless you're very dedicated to your spellcasting.

Ranger: While they get a few spells, rangers are typically only using theirs for utility or hunter’s mark, making this just okay. Most rangers will not be casting many spells anyway, and adding metamagic won’t improve it by much, making it average at best. You could use this feat to buff your hunter's mark by extending its duration or doubling the targets, but it's not really worth it.

Rogue: Only the Arcane Trickster subclass can take this feat, but it works great for them. Not only is extending the duration of spells nifty, being able to cast spells with Subtle Spell will allow them to get out of tricky situations quickly.

Sorcerer: Naturally, sorcerers will benefit the most from this feat, giving them more than the measly 3 metamagic options they get with their class feature. While sorcerers can only use the added sorcery points for metamagic, it does allow them to have more than the cap of 20.

Warlock: Grabbing this feat as a warlock is kind of a mixed bag. Because warlocks don't have control over what spell slot they cast their spells with, only having access to two sorcery points limits some of the awesome metamagic features like Twinned Spell to the 10th-level. If you're planning on playing in a campaign that goes beyond the 10th-level, Metamagic Adept can still offer some versatility in the forms of Subtle Spell and Careful Spell.

Wizard: The sorcerer is an extremely powerful class partially due to the flexibility Metamagic provides. Combined with the extensive spell list available to wizards this feat opens the door to some strong combos. Subtle Spell will be your wizard's best friend when fighting spellcasters, Twinned Spell is good value for low-level spell slots, and Quickened Spell is there when you need to really put the hurt on.

Conclusion

Like the other Adept feats from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, this feat is one of the more unique additions to 5e. Unlike the Eldritch Adept feat, though, this works excellently across almost any spellcasting character under the right circumstances.

How do you use Metamagic Adept? Do you twin your hex spells, or perhaps quicken a few spells? Let us know your combos in the comments, and keep your focus at hand!

Jeff Nabors

Jeff Nabors has been playing D&D ever since he stumbled upon the 3.5E core books in his high school library. When he isn’t running a campaign or designing a game, you can find him on Twitch, writing about game design, or staring off into the endless abyss.