Giving the sorcerer bonus feats...

[Klaus]

I am tinkering with the sorcerer class (UA´s battle sorcerer, to be precise).

Would it be a fair trade to take away the familiar class feature and give the sorcerer a bonus Heritage feat at levels 1, 5, 10, 15 and 20?

Heritage feats were first introduced in Complete Arcane (Draconic heritage) -- which were reprinted in Races of the Dragon. The PHBII introduced Celestial and Infernal heritage feats.

I am also giving Eschew Materials as a bonus feat at 1st level.

 

[Jack Simth]

Well, the familiar is commonly considered a weak class feature (although there are ways to make it a very strong class feature, depending on permitted sources), and there's a feat (in Complete Arcane, I think) that grants a familiar.

Thus, replacing the familiar with a suite of feats is stronger than the apparent WotC view on the strength of the familiar, and thus a power boost to the Sorcerer.

Mind you, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, as Sorcerers are commonly considered the weakest of the primary spellcasting classes....

 

[Graf]

Heritage feats are pretty cool and stack nicely.
Familiars are rarely particularly useful.

Your sorc would have a significant advantage over baseline sorcs.

I don't know if I'd dump all over your parade if I were your DM, but I'd look closely at it.

 

[Imruphel]

I give the sorcerer bonus feats (2nd, 4th, 8th, etc...), 4 skill points, additional skills including use magic device and the ability to use spontaneous metamagic without increasing the casting time and they seem fine.

Edit: and I don't use material components.

 

[Klaus]

Heritage feats are pretty cool and stack nicely.
Familiars are rarely particularly useful.

Your sorc would have a significant advantage over baseline sorcs.

I don't know if I'd dump all over your parade if I were your DM, but I'd look closely at it.

I am the DM in this case. I am making a PC.

IMHO, the sorcerer suffers from the same problem as the cleric, i.e., 19 levels of *yawn*. I think Heritage feats add a lot of flavor to the class (and customisable flavor, at that), so I thought it'd be a good idea to allow a character to develop that while freeing up feat slots for other stuff.

 

[Dante Inferno]

I agree absolutely that the sorcerer suffers from the "get prestige class as early as possible" phenomenon. It would be nice if there were some kind of reason to stick with the class for 20 levels...bonus feats might just fill that need. I also agree that they are frequently perceived to be underpowered...I've had the same thought myself. In actual play though they can really surprise you.

Be careful about what you give them without taking something significant away. They are pretty weak at 1st-3rd level...but from that point on (assuming solid spell choices) they can be very powerful indeed. I've had sorcerer PCs in multiple campaigns that I've run and they are generally the powerhouse of the party. This happens even with my players and I preventing gate/shapechange/polymorph/summon monster tactics from dominating play....tactics that the sorcerer could really abuse.

My suggestion, if you are going to give them a bonus feat everytime a wizard gets one (1st, 5th, 10th, etc), would be to take away the familiar and trim their spells per day by one per spell level. Have it top out at 4 or 5 instead of 6. They'll still have plenty of available resources but noticeably less than they currently do. 4 would give them the same number of slots as the wizard, but with their spontaneous caster ability they would in practice still enjoy a spell slot advantage...it's probably a tad over-restrictive though, I think 5 is a better number.

If you were going to use a system like Imruphel suggests (bonus feats every other level, 4 skill points, etc) I don't know what would be an appropriate penalty but it would have to be huge. Those bonuses are, IMHO, way over the top.

 

[smootrk]

I am the type who feels the Sorcerer class ought to be broken up into specific roles in a similar fashion to Warmages, Beguilers, or Dread Necromaner, but honestly those classes don't work for me as-is.

As to the actual topic, a sorcerer ought to have more skill points, and additional skills that refect his/her 'force of personality' aspect (Charisma). A few special abilities, or feats that work to this aspect would be in-sync with the Charisma based caster aspect. My rationale for approaching from this angle, is that I think the standard Sorcerer already has enough raw spell power, and simply needs another avenue to explore than just # of spells/day - or dropping in more spell-like abilities.

 

[Klaus]

I agree absolutely that the sorcerer suffers from the "get prestige class as early as possible" phenomenon. It would be nice if there were some kind of reason to stick with the class for 20 levels...bonus feats might just fill that need. I also agree that they are frequently perceived to be underpowered...I've had the same thought myself. In actual play though they can really surprise you.

Be careful about what you give them without taking something significant away. They are pretty weak at 1st-3rd level...but from that point on (assuming solid spell choices) they can be very powerful indeed. I've had sorcerer PCs in multiple campaigns that I've run and they are generally the powerhouse of the party. This happens even with my players and I preventing gate/shapechange/polymorph/summon monster tactics from dominating play....tactics that the sorcerer could really abuse.

My suggestion, if you are going to give them a bonus feat everytime a wizard gets one (1st, 5th, 10th, etc), would be to take away the familiar and trim their spells per day by one per spell level. Have it top out at 4 or 5 instead of 6. They'll still have plenty of available resources but noticeably less than they currently do. 4 would give them the same number of slots as the wizard, but with their spontaneous caster ability they would in practice still enjoy a spell slot advantage...it's probably a tad over-restrictive though, I think 5 is a better number.

If you were going to use a system like Imruphel suggests (bonus feats every other level, 4 skill points, etc) I don't know what would be an appropriate penalty but it would have to be huge. Those bonuses are, IMHO, way over the top.

I am applying this to UA's Battle Sorcerer. For those not in the know, a battle sorcerer is just like a sorcerer except as follows:
- HD = d8
- BAB = cleric
- Skills = lose Bluff, get Intimidate
- Weapons = All simple + one light or one-handed martial weapon
- Armor = Light armor.
- Armored Mage (light) = no arcane spell failure in light armor
- Spells known = 1 less spell known per level (minimum 1)
- Spells per day = 1 less spell per day per level

 

[Dante Inferno]

Well, with that collection of abilities, I'd still recommend charging them 1 spell per day per level for those bonus feats. That cuts them down to 4 per level....but like I said, that will still leave them competitive with the wizard for amount of spells per day. I'd trim it off the top end though (3 1st level spells at 1st, 4 at 2nd)

Thats a powerful collection of additional abilties that they receive with the Battle Sorcerer...losing a spell known per level is a big cost but one that is balanced out by the bonuses that they receive.