[3.5] Alternate Rules: (NE)w (R)ules for (F)ull spellcasters!

[Neon Knight]

This is certainly an interesting approach to the issue. I find the focusing on metamagic a bit dubious, as traditionally the over meta-magicked approach is used by optimized blasters, which usually aren't the focus of these debates. Sure, these affect the batman pattern wizards just as surely (who doesn't love Quicken?) but they really hammer on the direct damage types. It takes the edge off of most casters, but I think batman types might still find their powers far beyond the ken of their fellows.

I do like the change, though, for a few reasons. Typically, metamagic at large isn't that useful or great; often the effect you got wasn't worth the higher spell level it cost you. With metamagics only cost being the opportunity cost of only getting to use one per spell, and with metamagics on a cooldown meaning you can't spam the best metamagics over and over again, it might be the case that previously underused metamagics might find some value. Of course, it also means that if you have any metamagic available, you might end up using it just because; you don't always need to move, and you're not always within someone's reach. Most spell's nature as ranged effects allows them to sidestep the whole AoO/movement issue more readily than a full attacking fighter, even if they can do it less readily under this variant.

I think the need to apply the full caster/partial caster/exception label to each class in order to apply this change might become a little unwieldy though, although you seem to have some solid guidelines/reasonings for each category in place.

How do these changes interact with the Wu Jen's Spell Secret ability? This ability, as a reminder, permanently upgrades one spell in the Wu Jen's library with one metamagic, causing it to be cast with that metamagic in effect at all times for free.