D&D 3E/3.5 Is Sorcerer the weakest 3.5 base class now?

[jgsugden]

Everyone points to the example of the wizard who arrives in a situation with the wrong spells prepared. I've got news for you. The sorcerer falls prey to that FAR more often. The wizard can at least attempt to modify his spells based on the situation. Also, if you face a recurring enemy who figures out what spells you know, you are screwed because you can't change tactics.

Tzarevitch

This is incorrect based upon my experiences.

By 5th or 6th level a sorcerer has enough spells to cover the basics: movement, damage, disabling, defense and utility:

1.) Movement (mount, fly, alter self)
2.) Defense (mage armor, shield, mirror image, invisibility)
3.) Damage (magic missile, acid arrow, fireball) - multiple energy types are easily possible
4.) Disable (sleep, hold person, web)
5.) Anti SR (conjurations)
6.) Utility (unseen servant, rope trick)

If he needs a special rarely used spell (knock, etc ...), he can carry around a scroll or wand.

If a recurring enemy (a rare situation in most games) figures out *all* your useful spells, you'll probably advance a level before meeting him again - at which point you'll gain a new spell. Even if you don't get any new spells between combats, you can use wands or scrolls to throw him a curveball.

Many people think that a sorcerer only gets to have about twice as many spells as a wizard. In my experience, the wizard has a lot of spells that are useless each day, so a sorcerer ends up with two or three times the number of useful spells as a wizard.

I've played a sorcerer in a campaign with a wizard twice. In both situations, both characters were effective, but my sorcerer was by far the 'power' character in the party. My sorcerer was far more effective and rarely found himself without any spells that were useful.

 

[Plane Sailing]

though everyones agrees the Sorc needs something.

On the contrary, quite a few of us (who are actually playing sorcerers) think that they are fine as they are thanks very much


My sorcerer started in 3.0e with a conscious effort to avoid the "must have" sorcerer spells and feats... her initial spells were "resist elements", "Burning hands" and "charm person" at 3rd. At 4th level her first 2nd level spell was "pyrotechnics". At 3rd level she took the Enlarge metamagic feat.

No shield, no mage armour, no magic missile, no invisibility... and I had a ball. She was (is) full of character and has plenty of fun. On more than one occasion her pyrotechnics turned the tables in the partys favour (it is a much overlooked spell).

Unfortunately a change to 3.5e was really bad news for her - resist elements became useless, enlarge spell could no longer be used to make a huge burning hands spray... the DM kindly allowed me to retcon certain elements.

Any player who tries to seek out the "one optimum list of spells" for his sorcerer is denying themselves the chance for a lot of fun in the game. I've gone for a fire and charm themed sorcerer. I'd have equal fun playing a conjuring sorcerer (look ma, instant armies!) or an illusion and necromancy sorcerer or a transmuter sorcerer.

(I'm sure that nobody would say that the only fighter worth playing is a plate armoured two handed sword wielder, even though that gives a great AC and great damage giving potential - certainly more so than a leather armoured rapier wielding fighter. Does that mean that the rapier fighter shouldn't be played? By no means!

Cheers

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

My take from others responses and my own observations: As a Sorcerer progressess and achieves a larger (and more diverse, though spread at diff levels) spell list the Sorcerer reaches it's Power, but in the early levels the Sorc falters. On top of this a Sorcerer will tend towards certain given spells for most folk, for utility reasons, also making this a rather dull spellcasting class. So what to do? Well, I suppose that's a question better left to the hosue rules forum. As for what changes to make I prefer to make only a few simple changes to the Sorc.

I generally agree. But dullness is only a result of predictability. There can be a lot of variety depending on what other spellcasters are in the party.

 

[jgsugden]

Everytime you play a Sorcerer you play with the same spells because you naturally gravitate towards the utility/versatality of certain spells. Then there's all the useful out-of-combat spells that a Sorcerer is unlikely to take such as Divinations, some enchantments, some abjurations, etc. that are incredibly useful but will never be utilized by a Sorc. through spellcasting.

The 'same spells' argument is true of wizards too. They all tend to grab the same spells as well for their core spells - the spells they prepare almost every day.

Most sorcerers tend to gran these 'out of combat' spells as well, usually with their third, fourth or fifth spells at a given level. This is more true of low level spells than high level spells, but a sorcere needs to have roughly 3 defensive spells and 6 combats spells - everything else can be noncombat stuff. That means that he should start picking them up around 7th level.

And, if a sorcerer wants to cast a noncombat spell not in his spells known, he can always get a wand or scroll. For those spells that you're going to cast once or twice in a career, that is often the better way to go, even for a wizard.

 

[Thanee]

On the contrary, quite a few of us (who are actually playing sorcerers) think that they are fine as they are thanks very much

Bye
Thanee

 

[med stud]

I dont think that the sorcerer is weaker than the wizard by the same reasoning that a lot of people have brought up; lots of spells and a very flexible application of the spells.

If a wizard gets caught with his pants down he will be caught with the pants at the ancles. A sorcerer will be much faster to adapt to the situation. Also, the specific spells are needed pretty rarely IMX. Most of the time it is invisibility, fire ball, magic missile and dispel magic that are used. A cleric can compensate for the many of the utility spells and if the party really needs some arcane only scrying spell scrolls arent that expensive; buy three scrolls of scry or whatever and you can see what the bad guys are up to. Wands of each of the big divination spells are of course much more expensive but since they are not used very often they last forever.

By using wands for rare but useful utility spells one of the big weaknesses of the class is compensated for.

 

[DarkMaster]

Eagle's Splendor was only an example. The 3.0 version allowed you to multi empower it allowing a sort of scaling with level. Now past a certain level it's worthless. Take for example Invisibility. In 3.0 the sorcerer could use it to scout and spy and do other interesting things with it. Now with it's drastically shortened duration, the sorcerer either twiddle their thumbs whilst the other party members go on a stealthy romp or they give up some other spell in order to get a scouting type spell that last longer eg Clairvoyance. Again the sorcerer is straightjacketed.

Actually less than a wizard cause most of the time he can cast it again to extend the duration as for the wizard he probably didn't study it twice. Therefore the wizard will have a tendency of not studying the spell unless he is absolutly certain that it will be needed. I house ruled that the sorcerer was getting extra metamagic feat like the wizard in my campaign. The sorcerer in the group took sthealty and put some skill points in cross class skill in hide and move silently and took the sthealth feat. After reading the various thread here I am tempted to give him 4 skill points per level and 2 bonus class skill. Back to my point
The sorcerer is very often with the rogue and the ranger scouting in front. anytime there is a problem he can cast invisibility on all three or just on him or the ranger(the rogue is max out in hide and move silently).

When the party is outdour often he used his owl to back up the sometimes too curious rogue, when things become dangerous, the owl with a precast invisibility dive on the rogue and make her disapear.

I found the sorcerer much more of an adventurer arcane caster than the wizard. The sorcerer in my group doesn't care much about making magic object, he his optimised for adventuring, he has very few attack spell (that he uses in repetition with metamagic) and take a lot of utility spell. He often saves the party by casting utility spell on all the members, a very few wizards would study all their 2nd level slot with invisibility. When there is a major combat then he never have too worry with all the ray of enfeblement and lightning bolt (he only two offensive spell) he can cast he is a 6th level.

Most of the time I found that wizard study useless spell just in case. Wizard usually finish the day with spell slot unused and the sorcerer in an adventure will usually have cast most of them.

The other great thing about the sorcerer is that he doesn't need to study those spell, sleep 8 hours and he his ready for action again. Get caught by the enemy and the next morning he is as potent as ever. The wizard without a spell book is useless.

Wizard are good for studying magic in their tower, Sorcerer are the real arcane adventurer.

 

[DarkMaster]

Might be just me, but my Sorcerers rarely learn useless spells!

Of course, I know what you mean, in some situations, you just won't have the right spell, but with a good spell selection, those situations will be extremely rare (next to non-existant) from my experience.

Bye
Thanee

But if a sorcerer has only one useful spell for that event he can cast it as much as he want. The wizard who has only one useful spell can only cast it once.

And that is a great weakness of the wizard. Unless you can see in the futur the wizard spell selection will never be optimal. Wizard lover will tell me yes but I can leave spot open. Yeah it Takes 15 minutes to study.

Ok the barbarian Ogre are running on us.
Group run away get in front of a wall with an escape hole 100 meter high
Wizard: sorry guys I only have one fly spell good luck with them, bye bye
or worse wait I need to study more fly spell for everybody,
Barbarian: How long will it takes, they will be here in 30 seconds.
Wizard: Heuuuuu, 15 ..... minutes.

 

[Darklone]

IIRC, that leaving a slot open for a wizard is a houserule...

 

[Liquidsabre]

IIRC, that leaving a slot open for a wizard is a houserule...

What makes you say that?

PHB p. 178, first column, last paragraph: "When preparing spells for the day, a wizard can leave some of these spell slots open."