alt.Sorcerer... drastic

[seasong]

Originally posted by handforged
I agree that the the Divine Oracle is overpowered, I was merely stating that there are clerical prestige classes that will most likely be more advantageous because they do have higher HD and BAB+save progressions, in addition to weapon and armor proficiencies, than wizard or sorceror PrC's.

Yes, and I'm saying those are badly designed . If it allows arcane spells as a prereq, it should be balanced for arcane casters. The new sorcerer does not introduce this issue - it applies even more strongly to the sorcerer and wizard.

And as Technik4 said, this is better solved by requiring PrCs which were designed only with divine spell casters in mind to have a prereq of divine spells. I would go a step further and state that they should only gain divine spellcaster levels as well .

Don't take my thoughts as negative criticism, I am just thinking here to see what other people have to think about my concerns.

I won't! I may disagree, but I still consider feedback valuable.

 

[seasong]

Hey Technik4, I 've been meaning to ask you... I'd like to put your lasting spell metamagic feat in my campaign setting, but I wanted to make sure you don't mind. Anything I publish on the web would have you in the OGL copyright notice, of course!

Edit: I should probably get your real name, too, unless you'd prefer I use your ENWorld ID.

 

[Technik4]

No problem!

My real name is Nik Perez.

Can't wait to see your campaign webpage in its entirety

Technik

 

[Capellan]

Hey seasong,

The class looks good. A couple of quick notes:

First, you still have the text "In addition, sorcerers may not learn spells which have a material component which costs more than 1 gp. " in the description of how sorcerers are limited in learning spells, even though earlier it states that they can learn and cast them.

Second, had you considered replacing the GP costs of high-materials spells with an XP cost instead, a la Monte Cook's alt Sorcerer? I think it fits the concept better ... just a case of working out a reasonable balance (1/25th of the GP cost, as used by Cook, seems fairly balanced)

Finally, I didn't see anywhere that you had specifically stated what spell list your Alt Sorcerer uses. Is it the standard Sorcerer/Wizard list? I expect it is, but it might be wise to spell that out. If it's not, and they can theoretically learn any spell (so you could have plant Sorcerers, who use Druidic spells, for instance) then what level should spells that vary their level from class to class be treated as?

These questions aside, consider the class yoinked for further tinkering

 

[handforged]

Capellan,

the class can choose spells from any class's list, with unaltered levels. It would be advantageous then to choose from the list with the lowest level number for the spell. I'm not sure, but this might need to be addressed with the Bard list, because there are some spells that a bard gets at lower levels than sor/wiz, but balances since their spell progression is different. Modify Memory is a powerful 4th level spell that a Bard would not get until 10th level, but the sorceror would have access to it at 8th level if an enchantment specialist, and at 9th if not. This spell is a bard only spell as is, and probably shouldn't be stolen, as it is one of the few chances the bard has to out-magic anyone. Mislead is a Bard 5, Sor/Wiz 6 which means that the spell would be available two levels earlier than regular sorcerors, one level before wizards and three levels before the bard. I don't think that this is nearly as big a deal as Modify Memory, since it is sort of a Bard flavor spell.

~hf

 

[Capellan]

the class can choose spells from any class's list, with unaltered levels. It would be advantageous then to choose from the list with the lowest level number for the spell. I'm not sure, but this might need to be addressed with the Bard list

If that's the case, I'd also be concerned about the Alt.Sorcerer's ability to access spells such as Bless Weapon, which at low levels (they could get it at 1st, under this structure) would be very powerful. It would also drastically alter the value of Necromancy, as Create Undead drops from 5th level to 3rd level. Break Enchantment might be another that is oerpowered as a 4th level spell or Sorcerers (it's Brd4). Charm Monster looks dodgy at 3rd, too. In fact, Charms and Holds in general will all be accessible a bit earlier than might be appropriate.

So I'd say that both the Paladin and Bard spell lists are going to be problematic (I'd also point a finger at the Ethereal related spells, which the alt.Sorc can get 4 levels earlier by taking from them clerical lists).

What about spells that are Domain only, such as Chaos Hammer? Can they be accessed? Also, If a spell is a lower level in a domain list than anywhere else, that level can be used?

I think this issue needs some more attention.

 

[seasong]

Hey Capellan, good to see you .

I've considered the XP for GP schema, and that might be a good one. I haven't had a chance to sit down and really see how it compares, though. My knee jerk thought is that XP is more efficient - you get XP at a faster rate than GP, typically. A 1,000 GP spell only costs 40 XP; a sorcerer who spends that three times in an encounter will almost certainly make it back in XP, but probably won't make that back in GP.

Regarding bards and paladins and domain spells... yeah. You could pretty easily limit it to "wizard and cleric base lists only". I need to take some time and think about just how bad this would be for breaking purposes .

Actually, another fix would be "for the sorcerer's purposes, treat spells from bard, paladin, ranger and other slow-advancing caster lists as twice their actual spell level". This would prevent the too-early casting ability without taking away the sorcerer's ability to learn anything.

I'm interested in any comments.

 

[seasong]

No problem!

My real name is Nik Perez.

Cool, got it .

Can't wait to see your campaign webpage in its entirety

It may end up being a PDF instead, at this point. I'm at 51 pages right now, and it hasn't got much fluff.

 

[handforged]

What if the restriction were worded such that the sorceror "can only learn spells that can be accessed by a character of the same level of the class whose list from which it comes." This would mean that the spells would keep their lower levels, but would be inaccessable until later.

This might limit the number of high level spells known a little bit more, if a sorceror uses one of her two level 18 spells to go back and learn a 6th level bard spell, rather than a 9th level spell, but the ability to cast said spell more times a day, probably balances this out.

There has got to be a better way to word the restriction than in my first sentence, but I can't figure out how to get rid of all of the prepositional phrases at the end.

On the other hand, limiting the sorceror to the Clr, Drd, and Sor/Wiz lists would not really be that bad, as there are few spells that only a Ranger, Paladin, or Bard have access to. Those few spells might be better off remaining limited to those classes for flavor purposes anyway.

I definitely think that Domain lists should be off limits, because their level ratings are generally balanced not only by the fact that they could only be cast once a day, but also by the power of the domain ability.

~hf

 

[seasong]

Okay, I dropped it down to just the clr/drd/wiz lists. That's still more than 95% of all available spells, so it's not like I'm kicking the sorcerer in the nuts or anything .