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Message: <blockquote data-quote="paradox42" data-source="post: 6179507" data-attributes="member: 29746">That's not remotely what most people who make the comment about direct-damage not being a good option mean. What it means is, magic isn't only about destroying enemies- and the spells that are designed solely to destroy enemies are usually bad options compared to other things. Put it this way: which would you rather do, put a fist-sized bolt of pure plasma through the chest of a couple of creatures that were silly enough to stand in a line for you, or fly up out of the reach of all those idiots bashing each other with metal sticks on the ground so you can consider how to screw with them next? Would you rather give an orc a joy-buzzer powerful enough to actually hurt him and knock him on his butt for a few seconds, or make a huge spiderweb that traps that orc and all his friends in place so your fighter buddy can turn them into pincushions with his longbow without interference?Usually, the best spell options aren't purely combative, they're the utility-and-control spells like Black Tentacles or Wall of Stone, or the mobility and information spells like the famous pair Scrying and Teleport.This comment makes me wonder how many Sorcerers you've actually seen in play- Sorcerers are very limited in the number of spells they can know; even a 20th-level Sorcerer only knows five spells of 1st level (not counting the Bloodline spell), though the class list he can pick those five from contains over 50 once you include the books besides Core like APG and Ultimate Magic. If every Sorcerer you've seen always picks the same five spells over and over again, then that's something to do with the group you play with, not with the class. There are lots of options.If you don't consider spells a class feature, or are bored by having them, then you really aren't looking to play a caster at all; spells are the ultimate 'class meat' as you put it above. Spells are more versatile and open-ended than any other possible class feature in Pathfinder, unless you include Psionics from Dreamscarred Press (and even if you do, psionic powers are really just reskinned spells on a spell-points system rather than vancian spell-slot mechanics).In other words, it's looking to me like your real problem is an internal one; what's blocking you is You. You've apparently always dismissed spells as "not being a class feature" because they don't show up directly in the class table like Favored Enemy or Smite Evil, and so you've never actually taken a good hard look at what they can do or be. There's a very good reason pure-caster classes get few to no class features besides spells, in PF.</blockquote>

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