D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5] Quicken spell and Sorcerers

[Nail]

I can't imagine that anyone would give up versatility and damage capacity to get volume!

"That's quantity you want, not quality."
....

As for the "versatility" arguement:
You'll have to look that over again.

• Wizards are versatile, as with time they can (often, but not always!) prepare the spells they need.
  
• Sorcerers are versatile, as they can cast as many, or as few specific spells as they need.

Again, the kind of "versatility" you want is going to depend on your DM and campaign.

That, to me, does NOT make the sorcerer the "3.5e ranger", which is what we're argueing about, eh?

 

[sithramir]

Maybe he's never seen a sorcerer with one of the higher summoning spells or with limited wish? He suddenly gets VERY interesting as he can cast it like 3 times a day getting that level and 2 levels higher he's doing it like 5 timers per day. Thats pretty insane.

Summon monster at like 7 starts getting some nice buff creatures. They have some useful spells they can cast to help out also. Your wizard can do this maybe once. The Sorcerer can do it several times and not worry. And if he doesn't want that he can use empowered fireballs or maximized lightning bolts or other such things to fill the slots too. He doesnt' have to worry about "hmm if I cast this dispel magic i won't have it in the future when I might REALLY need it". Cause he's got like 8 of them!

 

[AuraSeer]

But I'm not sure I "buy" that arguement per se. That is, the longevity arguement is highly DM dependent.

Well, of course. Most class abilities depend strongly on DM cooperation. Rogues are suboptimal if you only fight undead, tank fighters don't do well in high places, etc. This bit is just slightly more obvious than the others.

If the DM only runs 1 or 2 encounters per day, spellcasters are already slightly more powerful than they should be, relative to noncasters. (This because they're not hampered by that pesky "spells per day" limit.) It should not come as a surprise that the balance between individual caster classes is also thrown off.

Moreover, the "burn twice as fast" arguement doesn't play. "Casting twice as fast" means "dead twice as fast" means "stopped casting spells twice as fast".

You're correct if the spellcaster is alone, but that's why I specified that I was talking about PCs. In a party situation, the spellcaster isn't responsible for killing everything himself.

Doubling the mage's casting speed does not imply a halving of the combat length. Even if the mage does as much damage by himself as the rest of the party put together, using Quicken every round will only cut the combat by one-third. In fact it'll be even less of a cut than that, because a Quickened mid-level spell is less effective than the high-level spell whose slot it uses up.

 

[Nail]

You're correct if the spellcaster is alone, but that's why I specified that I was talking about PCs. In a party situation, the spellcaster isn't responsible for killing everything himself.

Sure. And I suppose part of what you point to can be explained as "..but, I wanna do something!" Our sorcerer does it all the time: near the end of the battle, when the rest of us have the bad guys well in-hand, the sorcerer continues casting spells. We don't need the help, and we'd like to "save it, just in case", but that's just not the player's style.

So, although a wizards with quickened spells doesn't have to go through his spells twice as fast....he does anyway, just because he can.

"Short-sightedness is not only a human trait....."

 

[Crass]

If the rods allowed sorcerers to Quicken, they would be the single must-have item for every sorcerer in the game, full stop. It'd be like the 3.0 Blessed Book for wizards; no one who could afford the item would be without it. As the BBB removed one of the wizard's worst limitations (scribing costs), a sorcerous Quickening rod would remove one of the sorcerer's big drawbacks.

There are two tradeoffs between sorcerer and wizard. The first is the only one everyone thinks of, flexibility vs. firepower. But there's also speed vs. longevity. The only way to cast 2 spells in a round now is with Quicken, which gives the Wiz better speed. But a Wiz who takes advantage of that will burn up his slots twice as fast, which is especially harsh since he has fewer slots to begin with.

IMO this makes for good game balance, when you're comparing PCs. The wizard can unload all his best spells in just a couple of rounds, yet that leaves him SOL if he gets in another fight that day. A sorcerer can handle more fights in between rest periods, but takes longer to kill each opponent. Allowing the sorcerer to use the rod would give him the benefit of wizardly Quickening without the associated drawback.

First, let me say that I hate HATE HATE!!! the sorceror class. That rant aside, how "balancing" would it be if the quicken spell feat, IN CONJUNCTION WITH another feat, allows 1 action spell casting rather than full round, ie that quicken removes the full round casting time? An example: quicken extend Bear's Endurance cast as a single action rather than full round. Admittedly, this would be a 2+4+1=7th level spell. Any suggestions on this? Maybe in 4.0e...

 

[nimisgod]

Spell Volume: Sor (relevance/ease of replacing with magic items?)

At what cost can a wizard match the sorcerer's spell volume? EXP? crappy DCs?

If all things are equal between the two (including EXP gain), the wizard loses out the more items he makes. And that matters on the long run.

 

[nikolai]

My thoughts...

Why sorcerers shouldn't be able to quicken

The big mechanical difference between wizards and sorcerers with quicken (as a free action) is that - if wizards want to use it - they have to prepare the spell in advance and take a slot out of commission. If it turns out that the wizards doesn't desparately need to knock out two spells in a round, or quickened the wrong spell, he's done himself out of the availability of a higher level spell.

With a sorcerer, any time he needs a second spell to save his hide (invisibility or obscuring mist) or to take out an opponent that needs finishing off quickly (blindness or fireball) he can do it just like that. There's no trade off. Once he has the feat anytime he really needs to crank out the spells he can do so at will (and has no problem making sure it's the right spell).

Solutions

The way this has been gotten around - so far - is with arcane preparation feat taking a slot out of commission in return for the free action. The bad thing is that this just doesn't go well with the spontaneous casting gig. It's also a bit clunky (both as an add on and the 2 feat cost) - wouldn't it be better, and not that unbalancing for the sorcerer class to have a "can prepare spells in return for standard/free action metamagic" in their class description?

I think spontaneous casters should have the ability to cast two spells a round, otherwise they're second rate in spell duels. The trick is coming up with a decent mechanic for it. Perhaps there could be a feat which allows then to elect a spell to keep in the fore of their mind (as a full round action), the spell can then be cast as a free action. Another full round action is then needed to prep another spell for the same treatment. The feat can be taken repeatedly for more than one spell preped for a quicken at a time. But I'm not sure this would limit the advantage enough.

nikolai.

P.S. Oh - quickened spells don't draw AoOs. So the feat isn't totally useless for sorcerers. If they want to cast while threatened without being AoOed an spontaneous quickened spell as a full-round action would do the trick.

 

[Pax]

Re: My thoughts...

Why sorcerers shouldn't be able to quicken

The big mechanical difference between wizards and sorcerers with quicken (as a free action) is that - if wizards want to use it - they have to prepare the spell in advance and take a slot out of commission. If it turns out that the wizards doesn't desparately need to knock out two spells in a round, or quickened the wrong spell, he's done himself out of the availability of a higher level spell.

The same can be said for ANY metamagic. Did the Wizard need that Silent spell? The Stilled one? Sorcerors -- aside from the increased casting time -- already pay the same level-increase cost.

With a sorcerer, any time he needs a second spell to save his hide (invisibility or obscuring mist) or to take out an opponent that needs finishing off quickly (blindness or fireball) he can do it just like that. There's no trade off. Once he has the feat anytime he really needs to crank out the spells he can do so at will (and has no problem making sure it's the right spell).

Anytime the sorceror needs a stilled spell, he can cast just that. Anytime the sorceror needs to cast not just a Fireball, but a WIDENED fireball, he can do just that.

Why is Quicken any different?

P.S. Oh - quickened spells don't draw AoOs. So the feat isn't totally useless for sorcerers. If they want to cast while threatened without being AoOed an spontaneous quickened spell as a full-round action would do the trick.

Yes it is, too, worthless. Max concentration ranks and Combat Casting means you don't draw an AoO, not even with your highest-level spells.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The only way* to cast 2 spells in a round now is with Quicken, which gives the Wiz better speed.

* until, of course, you get access to Shapechange, which works just as well for both Wizards and Sorcerers...

-Hyp.

 

[ForceUser]

Sorcerers

There's a 14th level sorceress in my group. She can cast FIFTY spells a day. Last night she was incredible - chain lightning/cone of cold/prismatic spray over and over and over. With her Rod of Empowerment she was empowering/maximizing magic missles on top of that ("35 damage no save!" "35 damage no save!")

There is no such thing as a gimp sorcerer, Quicken Spell or not. In terms of sheer damage output they are unbelievably powerful. I'm sorry - anyone who believes differently is a freaking [edit: no need to be inflammatory, I made my point ], or is woefully misinformed.