Class Imbalance?

What is your feeling on the Sorcerer?

  • The Sorcerer is underpowered.

    Votes: 45 33.1%
  • The Sorcerer is balanced – leave it alone.

    Votes: 69 50.7%
  • The Sorcerer is overpowered.

    Votes: 5 3.7%
  • The Sorcerer is just useless – get rid of it.

    Votes: 6 4.4%
  • Other - explain below.

    Votes: 11 8.1%


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I noticed you only have 1 "Class Ability" for the Sorcerer. I think you are missing some...

The have a familiar
They are allowed to swap out spells every other level... So that adds up to what? like 8 or 10 right there?
They can cast spells "on the fly" unlike a Wizard.

I also noticed that, for spells known, you have the Sorcerer at 4 spells per level? Am I reading that correctly? And the Wizard at 37/SL (does that mean 37 spells per spell level?). I think the important factor is how many of those spells can one prepare and cast. You could know 1 million different spells, but what good is it going to do you if you can only prepare and/or cast just 3 of them (per spell level)? I very well may be reading that wrong though...

Personally, I am not a fan of memorizing spells ahead of time. I like to have one specific spell list to cast from. Maybe its just because I can be indecisive, heh.
 
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Allanon said:
KPG = Kalamar Player's guide

or at least that's what I'm guessing, since Darklone is an unofficial PIMP for the setting :D
Yeah sorry. And I am THE unofficial pimp of the setting and the crunch books. Most of them. And most of the rules. In the hands of a worthy DM. Ah heck with it [complacent grin]

On a related note, has anyone had some gaming experience with the Favored Soul from the miniatures handbook, essentially a cleric gone sorcerer?
 
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Sorcerer is a good class to get into full spell-progression prestige classes, since you lose nothing from diverting your levelling.

One way I've thought up of making "specialist" sorcerers would be thus (but we're heading rapidly towards house rules):

There are 4 kinds of "Specialist" sorcerers. Each of them has total access to 2 schools, ie their known spells are constituted of all the spells in these 2 schools. The 4 specialist sorcerers are (forgive me if the names are really bad):

War sorcerer: Access to Evocation and Abjuration
Life Sorcerer: Access to Necromancy and Conjuration
Mind Sorcerer: Access to Divination and Enchantment
Manipulator Sorcerer: Access to Transmutation and Illusion

All sorcerers have access to the Universal school.

Of course, you'll note that the Mind sorcerer is probably the weakest class, and the Manipulator the strongest (since he has the most versatility).

This, IMO, gives a little flavor to sorcerer speciality. You can complement these classes with a few special powers / abilities, such as a limited Mind Blast for the Mind sorcerer, for example.

AR
 

Pax said:
Mainly, I think that the sorceror and wizard should get comparable bonus feats offered to each; the Sorceror should have more class skills; Sorcerors should be able to specialise the same way Wizards do (IMC, I give sorceror-specialists an added spell KNOWN, rather than an extra spell CAST, per spell level).

[Edit]
Actually, I'd also like to see Sorcerors gien their own, independant spell list. Name me any two other (base) classes which share a spell list, in all of D&D.
[/Edit]

You might enjoy Monte Cooke's alternate Sorcerer from the Book of Eldritch Might II. Its available as a fairly cheap download, fully updated to 3.5. Alternatively, the Complete Book of Eldritch Might (also updated to 3.5) is available this month in hardcopy.

The sorcerer in it has a different spell list than the wizard (same spells fomr the most part, but a few are added, a few are moved, and many change levels). They get both more skill points (IIRC) and more class skills, including several of which that are tied to charisma. They also get a d6 hit die. It would appear that in Monte's mind, channeling raw magical power has a tendency to make you more resilient. I can see that.

I'm pretty sure there are some other differences as well, but I'm not sure what they are offhand.

As to sorcerers' balance: I'm fine with them as is. They could stand a little boost (mostly in skills), but they are not so far out of whack that they're unplayable.
 


Aight, nightfall.

About the sorcerer. Some other points. It's the perfect class for a newbie to D&D. They get two spells, can fire at will and don't have to learn a lot. And it's perfect for dungeoncrawls at low levels compared to a wizard. Perfect as PC opponent, no spellbook as loot.
 

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