Oooooh - A sorcerer with flavor

[IceBear]

Anyone with experience playing a sorcerer want to comment on the Wild Sorcerer from Dragonlance?

http://dragonlance.com/fan/rules/display.asp?id=11631

IceBear

 

[Mordane76]

At first glance, I'm skeptical of this change. I don't know if I like the concept of the Spheres -- I'd almost be happier if they functioned just like Domains, granting bizarre secondary powers to the Wild Sorcerer. However, Spheres as written do expand the class' spells known, which I don't think is a bad idea.

I'd also be happier if a sorcerer metamorphosed over the course of his levels, much like an elemental savant. But I think the wild sorcerer might a be step in the right direction in the spells department.

 

[demon_jr]

I don't really play a sorcerer, but I find this class interesting. I just gave it a quick perusal, but I like the idea of "spheres".

In my humble opinion, this adds more flexibility to the otherwise inflexible sorcerer, while not making it more unbalanced.

I briefly remember taking a look at the Monte Cook version of the sorcerer, but forget what the major changes were, although I remember feeling that version of the sorcerer was unbalanced.

 

[AuraSeer]

First off, as the player of a sorcerer who was recently eaten by a white dragon, I object to this thread title.

But the class is very interesting. The spheres will allow sorcerers to maintain a theme in their spell selection, without having to sacrifice their precious early slots. (If you try to play a core sorcerer who likes water-based spells, do you take Water Breathing as your first 3rd level spell? Or do you put it in the queue behind Haste and a damage spell, which are probably necessary to party survival?)

Inverse metamagic as a class ability is very nifty, and extremely strong in certain cases. How about an anti-Enlarged Magic Missile, which does full damage from a 0-level slot?

 

[IceBear]

First off, as the player of a sorcerer who was recently eaten by a white dragon, I object to this thread title.

Hehehehehe

IceBear

 

[Mordane76]

Inverse metamagic as a class ability is very nifty, and extremely strong in certain cases. How about an anti-Enlarged Magic Missile, which does full damage from a 0-level slot?

I agree about spells; I'd even be willing to give out more extreme advantages as one progresses in the Spheres (or something similar) to a sorcerer. I'm a little iffy on the true usefulness of the ability to invert metamagic feats, though. Okay -- I spell-shape an enlarged magic missile so that is 1/2 it's damage. Now it does 5((1d4+1)/2) as a 0th level spell at 10th level... I don't know... it's 10 points of damage for a 10+ level caster maximum, but still, it is only a cantrip.

What about Quicken Spell? Does this mean I can take a full-round action to cast a meteor swarm at 5th level? Did I miss something in the ability?

 

[Fenes 2]

I'd also be happier if a sorcerer metamorphosed over the course of his levels, much like an elemental savant. But I think the wild sorcerer might a be step in the right direction in the spells department.

I made a homebrew 5-level Prestige Class for such a transformation into a genie, and it added lots of flavor to my character.

 

[AuraSeer]

I agree about spells; I'd even be willing to give out more extreme advantages as one progresses in the Spheres (or something similar) to a sorcerer. I'm a little iffy on the true usefulness of the ability to invert metamagic feats, though. Okay -- I spell-shape an enlarged magic missile so that is 1/2 it's damage. Now it does 5((1d4+1)/2) as a 0th level spell at 10th level... I don't know... it's 10 points of damage for a 10+ level caster maximum, but still, it is only a cantrip.

That's not quite right. Spell-shaping does the opposite of whichever metamagic feat you choose. The example used anti-Empower, which applied a -50% damage modifier.

If you used anti-Enlarge, you would cut the range in half, but other values of the spell would remain the same. The Magic Missile would still do 1d4+1 damage per missile, with a range of 50'+5'/level.

You could also cast an anti-Enlarged Fireball for full damage as a 2nd level spell. Or if you're only attacking one target, throw an anti-Enlarged anti-Widened Fireball for 10d6 damage from a 1st-level slot. Very powerful, especially since the save DC is not lowered.

 

[Mordane76]

Sorry... you're right... I mixed Empower for Enlarge.

Still... what about the Quicken Spell Feat? If I'm not mistaken, you could increase a lot of powerful spells down to ridiculously low levels with this, and start raping opponents with anti-Quickened, Anti-Enlarged, Anti-Widened meteor swarms as 3rd level spells. You've cut the casting time to a full-round, cut the range in half, and cut the area... so you can now concentrate the full damage on someone very special.


This makes me very uneasy.

 

[AuraSeer]

Well, obviously some metamagic feats cannot reasonably be reversed. Quicken Spell would be one of them, since it doesn't have a clear inverse. Changing to a full-round action seems inappropriate, since it's clearly not worth four spell levels. Perhaps if the casting time changed to two rounds, or something, it'd make more sense.

Metamagic feats like Silent Spell and Still Spell also don't seem subject to being reversed. Would you just speak louder? Wave your arms in bigger gestures? Neither applies any real penalty in the game, so they shouldn't be worth spell levels.

Methinks the exact use of this ability needs to be clarified.