For instance, lets say you are a Drow wizard, and you have taken Quicken Spell as a metamagic feat. You wish to Quicken your innate darkness ability, so that you can throw down a cloak of magical darkness quickly as a getaway move without having to burn a spell slot on a Quickened Darkness.
Is this allowed? Is there some RAW out there that forbids this? Or is this a case that'd mandate a DM ruling?
Best Answer
No, there are separate Meta-Spell-like Ability feats, like Quicken Spell-like Ability and Empower Spell-like Ability. Metamagic only applies to spells; you can’t prepare or cast your racial darkness from a higher level spell slot to use Quicken Spell anyway.
That said, the proliferation of Meta-X feats in 3.5 is, I think, a mistake. I would support houserules to allow Quicken Spell to also count as Quicken Spell-like Ability, so if you have Quicken Spell, you can also quicken your darkness per the Quicken Spell-like Ability feat. There is no reason why someone with both spells and spell-like abilities should have to buy the same feat twice.