Class Imbalance?

[Stalker0]

In my mind there's two kinds of balance: power balance and coolness balance.

The second was the problem with the 3.0 ranger and continues to be with the sorc. They can hold their own, but there kind of bland.

Sorcs and metamagic feats are great, but saying a class is balanced because of feat choices it could make is the same as saying its underpowered.

I hate that sorcs seem to always take the same spells over and over. They have such a tight selection that they have to pick those really useful, really poweful, or really utilitarian spells or they are chump. You don't see a lot of sorcs getting leomund's secure shelter and I don't blame them. So many of the phb spells have tight effects that the sorc is very limited and with 3.5 that just got worse.

 

[Darklone]

If you play a "typical" D&D campaign, a bland spell choice is the only thing that keeps the sorcerer alive.

And yupp, I've seen different sorcerer builds.

 

[irdeggman]

I have to disagree with many of the assumptions conserning sorcerers.

For one Cha is no longer the least important ability. There a many, many things that are no dependent on Cha. Many skills and many abilities (turn undead, most of the paladin's abilities, bard abilities, etc.)

The sorcerer does gain spells at a slower rate that a wizard, but he can freely cast them and doesn't have to worry about getting his spellbook lost, stolen or destroyed (a biggie when it comes down to it, since a wizard must lug his spellbook around with him or be rendered useless). The sorccerer does have level-dependent class abilities they are just focused around his familiar. And now he gets to 'change out' spells at certain levels - a real benefit that wasn't around in 3.0.

A cleric has no level added class abilities, he gains spells and his turning ability goes up - but overall he has nothing new gained.

Try multi-classing options to see how poor the Cha-based sorcerer is: a bard/sorcerer is a tremendously adaptive combination and all of their class abilities are Cha based. A sorcerer/paladin is another potentially powerful combination.

There was a proposal on the WotC site that one of the developers had and that was to add Use Magic Device as a class skill for sorcerers. Seems pretty approriate to me.

 

[swrushing]

my game ran for three years and had a sor and a wiz. i have seen and played in other games with them.

As usual, the balance will depend heavily on the Gm and the campaign. The balanceable elements are, IMX:

Reactivity favors sorcerer while proactivity favors wiz. Specifically if the game is event driven with the NPCs initiating most of the action and the players reacting a lot (invasion campaigns for instance) the sorcerer gets the nod. His selection of (presumably) pragmatic spells always at the ready and ability to hammer the one or two needed for the setup will prove potent. By contrast, if the campaign is more proactive, where the PCs dictate the pacing and can take plenty of time for preparation as well as in and out and back in again type runs, the wizard's prep and plan ability will get the top billing.

Free money and time favors the wiz while less money and limited free time favors the sor. The wizards largest draw on time and money is feeding the spellbook. in order to have a drastic advantage in spells know he needs time and money to make it all happen. So, if your campaign fits the "module then rest" model where the players head off to a specific short run task and then have "all the time they want" between "adventures" and rarely have surprise starts that interrupt their time and efforts, the wiz will grow greatly in power. this is particularly true if the sorcerer or other players really aren't allowed to do things. The wizard has a built in "convert downtime to power" mechanic in his class, so if (as i have seen often) this is about the only "beneficial activity done in downtime" the Gm allows this will benefit the wizard above others greatly. By contrast, if know safe free downtime is rarer, money is tight, or if everyone is allowed to parley their capabilities in "downtime" for benefit (sorcerer and clerics and such might be making magic items or making contacts while fighters and such might be taking short "jobs" for Xp or money or even favors) then it evens out more. If their is practically no downtime at all, even excluding short and unpredicatble lulls, the wizard will drop below the others in performance.

Indestructable, unlosable equipment and gear campaigns favors the wiz while campaigns with real chance of loss or destruction of possessions favors the sor. While it came as a surprise to me, there are campaigns where the very notion of potential real lose of equipment is an impossibility, something that wont ever happen and you wont ever have to worry about it, do exist. These make the chance of wizard spellbook loss a non-issue and negate that built-in class balance aspect. if a wizard never loses his spellbook(s), knows they are safe andn never has to replace them, then he fares much better than in a campaign where the chance and the reality of their loss exists. In my game, the risk encouraged the wizard to spend yet again more time and more money to keep multiple spellbooks and some copies here and there so that he would not lose everything at once. When the party's camp got raided while they were exploring, he lost a couple spell books and something like 1/3 to 1/2 his spells but because of his precautions and backups, he did not lose the whole set.


These are the main things i have seen set the balance in play in specific campaigns. IMO, class balance is meaningless without specific campaign considerations anyway. Its really not going to matter how "balanced" the classes are in a mythical "neutral setting" no one ever plays. Its much more important for the classes to be "balanceable in play" in specific campaigns actually ran and for that they just need to have aspects that favor them and aspects that disfavor them and a Gm who knows the difference.

As an aside, i do not mention item creation as a boon for sor/wiz. thats because i saw it balance itself out in play. The wizard can certainly get more feats to make items but since time and money are being diverted into his spellbook, he has less resourcs to actually use them. (Taking multiple feats for this basically means the list of things you do not have time or money to do grows larger.) While the sor will likely have fewer feats, thus limited in the types of items he can make, he has more time and more money to make items. if he takes the wands feat and has similar access to found/bought scrolls, he can do real well by comparison in the item department. if he cannot gain access to found/bought scrolls, then the wizard, likewise limited, cannot gain new spells as quickly as people like to imagine them doing so.

My vote was leave them as is. Heck, i prefer 3.0 sor. i really dislike the unexplained forgetfulness-on-demand which allows a 3.5 sor to suddenly forget how to use a spell.

 

[swrushing]

A brief comment or two on the blandness or boring nature of the sorcerer.

I like that. i consider it to be an important class feature. it is integral to the role of the sorcerer class in the game.

he is bland just like the fighter is bland.

Specifically, the class serves its role as the GENERIC arcane caster, just as the fighter serves the role as the generic combat machine They both serve to provide you a customizable character fitting the general role.

The wizard, like the paladin and the ranger, serves a single specific character archtype... the academic mage luggin spellbooks and spending his days hunched over musky tome. in play the wizard spends a lot of his free time feeding the spellbooks. how many of the mages from fantasy lit and films does this archtype match? Some? sure! Most? not hardly.

On the other hand, using the sor (having seen it played by those in my games, played by me in other games, and played by others in still other games) i have never seen two sorcerers who were very similar as a character.

Now at this point many are typing furiously "thats nonsense, look at their spells..." and while i agree that there are significant overlaps in the spell selections of sor's due to pragmantic concerns, those overlaps are not dominating and as rigid and IMX if you look at the spellbooks of the wizards, there are a lot of overlaps there too.

I ran an elven spellsinger (not the class) who spent lots on perform skill and whopse spell list included mount (he got tired of having to worry about stabling his horse), magic mouth, gaseous form and a number of other spells not as typical on the "spells a sor has gotta have." This "character" was radically different in play and performance to the gnomish jokester sorcerer who ran in my own game. Even more both were different from the combat mage sorcerer in that other game. Each spent their "time off" doing very different things and in many ways those things played larger roles than the 1-2 spells per level they overlapped.

My experience is that playing the sor you can build your own mage without a ton of baggage that limits your concept. EVERY wizard i saw in play did the same things 90% of the time which means they spend almost all their time huddled over books or making items. The role their character played was almost identical, because there are so many demands on time and resources built in and hardwired into their class abilities.

The sor, without those strings, can be whatever you want.

After spending 1-2 spells per level on the "pragmatic" side of things, you have 2-3 spells per level to define yourself magically. Your feat choices, skill choices and personality will then do what they are supposed to do... make you have a "character" who is not boring or bland.

Thats why the sor is a good fit for the role of "generic mage where you fill in the personality and style" and the wizard fails in that role.

 

[rtricher]

I think the sorcerer is balanced and the only thing I might think of changing would be to increase his hit die to a D6 instead of a D4.

 

[Knight_Errant]

Argh. Neither Montes Sorcerer nor any other special feats or lineages from Scarred Lands stuff gets the mark "balanced" in my book. I don't mind if others use it... but making a class that might be a little bit weak lots stronger is no fix for me.

Agreed. It seems many of the fixes for the sorcerer are either extremely overpowered or continue to lack any real improvement. This is a tricky class to "fix" indeed. I do not want to see a new version of the sorcerer be twice as powerful as a wizard (or any other base class for that matter) or continue to feel as underpowered as it does currently.

I think it can be done though. Keep up the good work all.

 

[Pax]

Well, again, I thint he soreror needs just a few, small things to improve it's balance.

Cheif among these would be a seperate, unique spell list. That'd be the biggest change, but I would like sorcerors to be somethign other than, in essence, "wizards with built-in spellbooks".

Next up, reassessing what is or isn't a class skill. I think one or two wopuld be a good idea to add; Use Magic Device is a wonderfully appropriate way to go about that, IMO.

Third, I'd allow sorcerors to Specialise -- representing an innate bent or trend in their inborn ability to wield magic. Same costs as a Wizard, but, let them know one additional spell -- within their specialty school - per spell level they have access to. This could even come int he form of a specified list - "Necromancer-Sorcerors get X spells added to their spells known list" - rather than "choose whichever you like".

Fourth, bonus feats, at the same rate as Wizards - metamagic or Bloodline (a la Dragon #311) only; the first level feat should IMO be Eschew Materials; alternately, you could require the player to select a bloodline feat or eschew materials, as their first-level bonus feat.

Fifth, I honestly think the sorceror should have a d6 hit die.

Note, that none of this is meant to truly increase the power of the sorceror dramatically; a little nudge here, a little tweak there, and a lot of flavor-differentiation to enhance how different a Sorceror is from a Wizard!

 

[Steverooo]

The advantage non-spontaneous casters have, really,is the ability to decide "my standard spell list SUCKS, it's never useful" ... and change it, entirely. The party wizard, in the same campaign as my sorceror above, changed his spell list regualrly, constantly fine-tuning his array of options to match the evolving conditions of the campaign.

The real problem, here, apparently, is the non-enforcement of the rules...

While the Cleric and Druid have access to all spells of any level they know, Wizards (IIRC) get all 0-Level Cantrips, plus two spells per level (excluding ones found on scrolls - which, incidentally, is why Sorcerers have Spellcraft skill... You can't determine what spell's on a scroll without either taking Read Magic as a spell, or deciphering it with this skill - your friend's Wizard should have had access to all Cantrips, four first level, four second level, and two third level spells, at fifth level.

If your GM is allowing him to choose from all the spells in the PHB, without regard to what spells are in his spellbook, then he is, indeed, giving unfair advantage to the Wizards. If he enforces the rules as written, the Sorcerer is just about as powerful, and balanced.

Now flavor is a whole 'nother thing, and (IMHO) ALL the D&D Classes need a stronger dose of it!

 

[Pax]

Steveroo, you completely misunderstand what I said.

I never said -- nor intended to imply -- that the wizard has the whole PHB to select form.

But for an investment of downtime and money (and the downtime only has to come in small stints of a few days here, a week there, etc) ... the wizard can buy scrolls of spells he doesn't yet "know", and with them, scribe the new spells into his spellbook. He is then in aposition to utterly change what sorts of spells he or she prepares on a daily basis; the wizard is then able to have one soprt of "spells for today" list for urban settings, another for travel through the wilderness, yet another for venturing into dank dungeons nd crumbling ruins, etc.

And, with sufficient investmentof the wizards share of the loot, and his or her available downtime ... no two of those lists have to bear even a passing resemblance to each other.

Meanwhile, the Sorceror knows what he knows, and that's it.

...

And I'm spekaing about this from direct experience, in a low-money, low-down-time campaign (a couple times, we had to stage an outright rebellion out of character, to insist the DM give us some downtime that was longer than 2-3 days at a stretch!). I was the sorceror (until level 6, when he died and I brought in a half-celestial cleric ... who promptly died, and was replaced with a Necromancer-Loremaster)), the guy across the table from me was the generalist wizard throughout all fifteen-ish levels I played with that group.

several times, I watched him assess how encounters were going, decide "okay, I need tochane how I'm handling this", buy maybe 2-3 scrolls of spells he didn't know, and - combined with the 2 free spells from his next level increase - completely re-define himself as a wizard, by utterly rearranging the sorts of spells he prepared each day.

Gave the DM noend of fits, when his newest encounter -- carefully constructed to take advantage of some hole or other in the wizard's OLD spell-list patterns, ran face-first into the brick wallof his NEW spell-list concept.

And that was the wizard, who had to actually invest, oh, maybe 300gp per character level into expanding his spell selection, on average. We won't discuss how oftenthe Druid changed her feathers (so to speak) ...