help me choose a sorcerer spell

[demon_jr]

i have a fairly high-level character, who is mainly a fighter, with a few levels of rogue. i have a few prestige classes as well.

for my next level, i am planning on taking sorcerer, but i am having a difficult time determining what first level spells would be best for my character. i am definately taking shield, but i am unsure what to pick as my second first-level spell.

i am contemplating the following spells:

true strike - for obvious reasons since my character is a fighter-type

charm person - for the versatility, although i am a bit wary because of the low DC for a first level spell. plus, many of the encounters our party faces deal with high-level characters. i think NPCs would have no problem beating the DC for charm person.

my main concern is that the sorcerer's number of spells known is very limited and i want to be sure that the spell i choose will be of use until next level. also, there may not be any other arcane spell-casters within our party, so i may be the primary one, albeit just a first-level one.

any and all suggestions are weclome

 

[boothbey]

I'd go True Strike. The plus to hit is too hard to pass up. Especially nasty if you have a lot of fun feats like disarm. Heh. Can make yourself look really spectacular. Also...helps make up for sacrificing to hit bonus for power attack.

 

[Crothian]

What the concept of the character? What classes and levels do you have? I can recomend a few good spells, but it really matters on what you want, what you need, and where the character is going.

 

[demon_jr]

What the concept of the character? What classes and levels do you have? I can recomend a few good spells, but it really matters on what you want, what you need, and where the character is going.

well, i am bit hesitant to post the classes i have since it may reek of min-maxing, but here they are:

human 13th level character:

3 - rogue
2 - fighter
1 - ranger
1 - barbarian
1 - shadowdancer
1 - bladedancer
1 - gladiator
3 - holy liberator

i envision my character as being a versitile type of fighter. at first i didn't want to play him as an up-front type of fighter, but lately i have been the main fighter type in the party, so i have been up front taking the blows. recently, our party mage died and may be replaced with a strictly fighter type, as oppossed to my versatile fighter type. i feel, that may have a bearing on what spell i should select since it i will no longer be the primary fighter of the party. also, there will no longer be an arcane spellcaster within the pary.

in the future, i envision having my character gaining quite a few levels of sorcerer, but that will probably have to wait until i reach epic levels. before that happens, i will probably only have 2 levels of sorcerer at most, so that is why i want to be very careful in my spell selection. in addition, the amount of real life time to actual spend reaching epic levels, may be an actual year, so the spell i choose, i will be stuck with for a while. plus, in order to not incur any experience penalties, i have to make sure my core classes are still within one level of each other.

storywise, i envision my character as becoming a type of sorcerer-king, a great warrior who is destinied to become powerful in magic and fated to save the world or destroy it. similar to Rand Al'thorn from the Wheel of Time series.

 

[Mr Fidgit]

wow, demon_jr, just...wow

i saw the list of your classes and thought, "that would drive me insane!" how do you keep track of everything? wow.


i think you shouldn't multi-class to sorcerer simply because you think your party needs an arcane caster. if you have ranks in use magic device or there's another rogue in the party who does, you can figure out what things do on the fly (or pay NPC casters to do identify spells).

as far as the damage dealing a mage or sorcerer can do with the right spells, your spells will never have that kind of power. and true strike may seem like a cool idea, but i wouldn't give up all of my attacks for a round just to have +20 for one hit. which would you rather have: two or three chances to hit, or one guaranteed hit?

personally, i would wait until you have epic levels

 

[demon_jr]

wow, demon_jr, just...wow

i saw the list of your classes and thought, "that would drive me insane!" how do you keep track of everything? wow.

hehe, well, it's not so bad keeping track of everything, i just write down my class abilities really small and have a lot of post-its on my character sheet...

but, i know first hand the drawbacks of having too many classes...if i make a new character, i would probably not do something like this again....at least not anytime soon...

anyways, believe it or not, i like the whole concept of the sorcerer, how he gets his power from within, and not through study or from the gods. i think i would rather take the wizard class, since it gets the scribe scroll feat and is much more versatile than the sorcerer, but i just like the whole idea of having power come from within rather than coming from studying a spellbook...although that is just my own opinion regarding the differences between the sorcerer and wizard

 

[Thanee]

well, i am bit hesitant to post the classes i have since it may reek of min-maxing, ...

... and rightly so!

...but here they are:

human 13th level character:

3 - rogue
2 - fighter
1 - ranger
1 - barbarian
1 - shadowdancer
1 - bladedancer
1 - gladiator
3 - holy liberator

Nice combination!

About the spell choice:

Ok, Shield is obvious.

Here are some nice options for your 2nd spell:

Protection from Evil (insanely powerful spell)
True Strike (a nice +20, but most often not worth the time)
Featherfall (always good to have handy)
Expeditious Retreat (unless you got boots of s&s, this could be useful)

I'd choose Protection from Evil! My own character is pretty high level, and this spell is still high on the daily list of spell preparations! It protects completely against mental control (dominate and like spells) and summoned meanies, which can't do better than just bash you! Unfortunately, many of those have Spell Resistance and will go through the spell like it was not there, but it's still good to protect against those dominates (and you should be a prime target for those, being a fighter type with a (probably) low Will save - at least from an opponent's point of view)!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Darklone]

I'd go for True Strike and Shield.

Do you have Power Attack? Fine. Use it with True Strike for a real nice charge attack.

I second Thanees talk about Protection from Evil though.

Thanks btw for showing me that I am not the guy with the largest number of classes around

 

[demon_jr]

thanks to everyone who has posted so far....

here is where some of that min-maxing comes into play...

protection from evil - i would have taken this spell instantly, but the only benefit i would recieve would be the +2 to will saves and protection from outsiders. i already have a ring of protection +2, which doesn't stack with the +2 AC bonus from protection from evil. also, being a 3rd level holy liberator makes my character immune to all charm and compulsion affects which is very similar to the prevention of mind-control from protection from evil.

however, my character storywise, is deeply involved with the planes and outsiders, so the protection from outsiders wouldn't be so bad. also, my character was once a victim from magic jar, so i know how useful protection from being posessed may be. i think it would also be a good spell for me to cast on my party members, but we already have a high-level cleric, plus my duration would only be 1 minute.

expeditious retreat - being a barbarian increases my natural movement to 40' a round. in addition, being a bladedancer doubles that, making my total movement 80' a round. i wouldn't benefit from any magical increases from speed, since i don't think it will stack with the supernatural ability of the bladedancer.

i try not to have my character running all over the place, so as not to abuse the ability and to not irritate my DM. all though, there was a time when my character accepted a challenge for a duel, and during the first round, fell victim to a fear affect, dropped his weapon and ran, in front of a whole army and his party. imagine some guy running away in fear at 320ft. per round....

regarding true strike, i was also thinking of the power attack combination, but i don't have the feat. i know, silly me. at the time, i didn't realize the damage potential that power attack could have. i am the type of player that shuns losing bonuses to hit in anyway, so i didn't think that, for example, -3 to hit for +3 to damage was worth it. also, i envisioned my character as someone who is more an agile fighter, one who is accurate and precise. plus, my character's natural strength is only 12. however, when we had another fighter in the party who had power attack, i really saw the advantages of the feat, especially when buffed by your party or against creatures with low AC...

 

[Thanee]

I see, then Protection from Evil is not that useful.

About the 1 minute duration, you said you were going to raise your sorcerer level further, so it'd not be a problem.

What about Featherfall then? Quite useful that!

Bye
Thanee