Metamagic?

So, i've noticed that sometimes when i want to do something with a spell that isn't in the description (ie: making a spell happen slower or faster than normal, or changing the area of a spell) i am not able to do it. But i don't think it should be impossible for a mage to have a spell and not be able to play with it a little bit. Hence, i present to you, Metamagic. these are abilities that add onto spells that alter them in some way. Like in Dungeons and Dragons, they add an additional cost to the spell you are casting, as well as taking up a higher slot in your pool. Basically, if you cast a D rank spell with a D rank Metamagic, it becomes a C rank spell and costs as much magoi to use as a C rank would. however, this is not a free pass to cast high ranking spells. if you would normally not be able to cast a B rank spell, then you could not put a D rank Metamagic on a C rank spell for instance. You must be able to cast the rank of spell you are adding up to. i've prepared this example to show you what i mean.

Cedric is an A rank Magician. He is fighting a horde of saber-toothed monkeys. He has a B rank spell that would hit a lot of them, but wouldn't take them all out. So, he combines his B rank spell with a D rank Metamagic called Widen Spell, as shown here:

Name: Widen Spell
Tier: D
Cost: 10 Additional Magoi
Element: Metamagic
Class: Supportive
Range: Personal
Duration: Instantaneous
Cool-Down: 3 posts
Description: The user ranks up his spell's Scale to the next rank. This must be used in conjunction with another spell.

Now his spell takes up an area of 25 m instead of 15 m, allowing him to hit and kill all the monkeys. Both his B rank spell and his Metamagic spell enhancer are now on cooldown, but he needn't worry as his opponents are defeated.

I think this kind of spell-play will add another element to the game. instead of having to retrain a skill every time you want to alter it a little, you can now alter it on the fly with Metamagic.

So, that's my idea. Please give me some feedback on what you think!

oh, to add onto this, if we were to split up the current specializations into different groups, we could have two types of magicians. the first is your typical mage, having the ability to create different levels of spells with different abilities, and can learn up to 3 metamagics to alter them with. then you have the Metamage. The Metamage can only learn D rank normal spells, but can learn an unlimited number of Metamagic spells and can cast them for half cost!

Just an idea i had, not even fully formed. tell me what you think, or if this would even work.

This wont work because of future changes I have planned for magic.

awww... well, can i at least get a preview of these changes so i can maybe try to work my idea around it?

Sorry, I should have waited to reply when I had more time.

I'm working on a complete overhaul with the way all abilities work. Instead of a one size-fits-all approach, each specialization will have it's own standards on abilities. For magic, casting spells on top of other spells to change aspects about them is already part of this overhaul, but the way spells work in general will change as well and there is a lot of information I need to re-write.

I ask that you be patient about site system updates until after the events get wrapped up when I have time to present a proper prototype.

ok. i will wait until you can post something more then. Hope to see the new system prototype soon!