The number of spells that allow for a magic action to be used to engender an effect over repeated rounds, and thus provide synergy with quickened metamagic, appears to be more limited in 2024 than 2014. I count alter self, cloud of daggers, control water, crown of madness, detect thoughts, dragon's breath, eyebite, flame blade, levitate, mage hand, major image, silent image, sunbeam, vampiric touch, and telekinesis. The dominate spells have lost their wording allowing for an action to be used to take total control of the target. I exclude enervation as this has not been reprinted in 2024 and spells otherwise not on the sorcerer list. Oh that there was a means to obtain call lightning...
For combat, many of the above spells are objectively weak (or being more generous, niche) for their level. The loss of the dominate spells and nerf to telekinesis (i.e., change of strength check to strength save) hit this metamagic hard. Cloud of daggers has been buffed and is very good at the level it becomes available, but this spell does not scale well. Moreover, with the exception of sorlocks, I doubt many sorcerers will take quickened metamagic as one of their early metamagic choices. Among the listed spells, the standouts to me are telekinesis, sunbeam (which is the oft-cited "synergy" spell but suffers in 2024 from some anti-synergy with innate sorcery), and perhaps major image.
I did not select it on my level 10 clockwork soul sorcerer, despite having Metamagic Adept and a total of 6 metamagic options. There are some great niche situations where you need to use your action to perform some task (helping to solve a puzzle, or operating some device), and can then use Quickened Spell to boost your action economy and cast a useful spell for a given situation. There are just not enough reliably good situations to use it that I felt it was better than some of the other options, but I'm still evaluating.
As the above poster points out through example, there's no need to limit the use of Quickened to spells that have ongoing action effects. ANY action can be taken and then quicken a spell into a BA. Disengage and Dash come immediately to mind. There are also all of the spell + Quickened cantrip options (or cantrip + Quickened spell options) as there ever was.
If you meant for this discussion to only be about how continuous spells that allow the use of a magic action to do something have decreased and thus, the power of Quickened has decreased, then I'm not sure that's a great premise. The changes to the spells didn't happen in a vacuum. That said, I think you are right to pause and evaluate Quickened more closely. I don't really think there are any "must choose" MM options anymore, nor are there any "never choose" options. In essence, this is a good problem to have.
Thanks, both. You raise valid points about dash and other non-magic actions, though my interest was in the diminished number of spells that synergize with quickened spell metamagic. There will continue to be creative applications involving cantrips (e.g., thorn whip) and non-spell actions (e.g., dash northward if one has flight, BA polymorph into something heavy, and fall onto one's intended target).
Your fighter ally gets dropped to 0 hit points. You run in, quicken Dimension Door to teleport away from the danger, then use your action to pour a Potion of Healing down the fighter's throat.
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The number of spells that allow for a magic action to be used to engender an effect over repeated rounds, and thus provide synergy with quickened metamagic, appears to be more limited in 2024 than 2014. I count alter self, cloud of daggers, control water, crown of madness, detect thoughts, dragon's breath, eyebite, flame blade, levitate, mage hand, major image, silent image, sunbeam, vampiric touch, and telekinesis. The dominate spells have lost their wording allowing for an action to be used to take total control of the target. I exclude enervation as this has not been reprinted in 2024 and spells otherwise not on the sorcerer list. Oh that there was a means to obtain call lightning...
For combat, many of the above spells are objectively weak (or being more generous, niche) for their level. The loss of the dominate spells and nerf to telekinesis (i.e., change of strength check to strength save) hit this metamagic hard. Cloud of daggers has been buffed and is very good at the level it becomes available, but this spell does not scale well. Moreover, with the exception of sorlocks, I doubt many sorcerers will take quickened metamagic as one of their early metamagic choices. Among the listed spells, the standouts to me are telekinesis, sunbeam (which is the oft-cited "synergy" spell but suffers in 2024 from some anti-synergy with innate sorcery), and perhaps major image.
I did not select it on my level 10 clockwork soul sorcerer, despite having Metamagic Adept and a total of 6 metamagic options. There are some great niche situations where you need to use your action to perform some task (helping to solve a puzzle, or operating some device), and can then use Quickened Spell to boost your action economy and cast a useful spell for a given situation. There are just not enough reliably good situations to use it that I felt it was better than some of the other options, but I'm still evaluating.
As the above poster points out through example, there's no need to limit the use of Quickened to spells that have ongoing action effects. ANY action can be taken and then quicken a spell into a BA. Disengage and Dash come immediately to mind. There are also all of the spell + Quickened cantrip options (or cantrip + Quickened spell options) as there ever was.
If you meant for this discussion to only be about how continuous spells that allow the use of a magic action to do something have decreased and thus, the power of Quickened has decreased, then I'm not sure that's a great premise. The changes to the spells didn't happen in a vacuum. That said, I think you are right to pause and evaluate Quickened more closely. I don't really think there are any "must choose" MM options anymore, nor are there any "never choose" options. In essence, this is a good problem to have.
Thanks, both. You raise valid points about dash and other non-magic actions, though my interest was in the diminished number of spells that synergize with quickened spell metamagic. There will continue to be creative applications involving cantrips (e.g., thorn whip) and non-spell actions (e.g., dash northward if one has flight, BA polymorph into something heavy, and fall onto one's intended target).
Another good use of a quickened spell:
Your fighter ally gets dropped to 0 hit points. You run in, quicken Dimension Door to teleport away from the danger, then use your action to pour a Potion of Healing down the fighter's throat.