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Message: <blockquote data-quote="uzagi_akimbo" data-source="post: 1381398" data-attributes="member: 15945">As for the sorcerers being underpowerered/weakest. THAT is very much a question of the level you are playing at - at low level ( say - until level 6 ) the sorcerer's player will look on in frustration in many situations, as he cannot use any of his abilities (beyond that of any living being - interaction and advice ). After that - and increasingly so at higher levels - sorcerers can be great fun to play, simply due to the fact that they can almoist at will adapt their magic to a given situation through Meta-Magic. I don't see the double stacking of Meta-Magic being taken away as the great breaker from V3.0 to V3.5. Can be, but does not need to be. Depends very much on the player and  possibly accepting that one cannot dish out obscene amounts of damage AND be extremly flexible, too. Personally, my sorcerer's tend to use the following feats - Energy Substitituion ( a must), Silent Spell, Transplanar Spell (from Unapproachable East, FR ) and  Empower Spell . Many other combinations work, but these allow for a great number of applications. No Wizard is going to beat that for flexibility. Sure he can come up with something, given time, but not on the fly, when it matters most.Still, we use a slightly amplified version of the sorcerer in our campaign which echo your ideas (and underscores  that the sorcerer is definitely not overpowered ):- Sorcerers get a free Metamagic  feat at level 5, 10, 15 and 20, which helps their accentuate their metamagic-flexibility, yet allows the character to take feats which are not really sorcerer specific to help them out - "Cosmopolitan" (FR) etc. come to mind. In most campaigns that will amount  to two extra feats at most for a very long stretch of gaming.- Sorcerers also get 4+Int skillpoints per level and get two (their pick) of the following four skills as class skills: Intimidate, Gather Information, Diplomacy  and Sense Motive. Sorcerer flavour text indicates a prevalent social bias/suspicion about sorcerers - so they should  be capable in/used to  dealing with such problems  simply through constant training (almost any ostracised minority develops such means and skills to interact with  'normal' society over a short period of time - human/sentient adaptability in action. That much as a rational explanation). This helps them acting as a social interface for their groups, without stealing a rogue's/bard's limelight. They also get  two knowledges (XYZ)  as a class skill - one of which can be the default (arcane), but need not be.- As to the problem of wizards being able to expand their available slots through pearls of power, or similar items, well, why not introduce items permitting sorcerers access to certain (less commonly taken) spells - like a divinatory item allowing access to  "Clairvoyance" and/or "Locate object" ? If it is possible to bind the matrix of a spell into an item, fully charged and ready to fire like is being done in wands and staves, why should it be impossible to bind the selfsame spell's matrix/lattice without the "charge", the power being supplied by the using sorcerer  ? Should be a feasible concept to make sorcerers more attractive, even without changing the class itself.- To adress the problem (?) of the 'shared' spelllist with the wizard,  well we tried (successfully at that  - players were happy, GMs unworried )  cutting  the Evocation  school from the sorcerer's list and instead added a  number of spells from the druid's repertoire (weaker heals, some plant magic like 'entangle' etc. ) for a more "witchcraft" type of sorcerer - who could heal in a chinch, yet still had some blasting power through conjuration spells like "Mestil's Acid Breath" (MoF) and similar stuff. Focus would then be on transmutation, necromancy and conjuration magics. Worked fine - less of a mobile artillery piece, more witchy/shamanistic in approachAlso - the relative power of the wizard (which the sorcerer is getting measured against ) is very much a factor determined by the GM (the great arbitrator) - simply by making certain spells available or unavailable, harder to get, more expensive or simply limited to a specific region /cult /race /sex.  Wizards have to get a copy of any spell before they can ever hope to cast it. And personally, I don't let a player "research" just any spell he sets his fancy on without actually spending time in-game (even if "off-screen" ) hunting for it it in a reasonable place, too. Sorcerers simply ( well - barring GM approval ) choose a spell from their available list - manifesting yet another power of their lingering innate ability. And never forget the fact, that in v3.5 you can exchange old low level spells for others of the same level later on. Oh - and of course - spellbooks are a liabilty in many circumstances - like a sudden soaking (did anyone ever claim that 'bags of holding ' etc. are waterproof ? ), a failed save vs some nasty area effect, imprisonment, thieving henchman/consorts/hired help, or simply not having the time/opportunity to memorize up all the spells upon awakening (lets try this in a rainstorm/ hurricane/  upon being attacked at dawn etc, ). All of these never really faze a sorcerer.As for sorcerer's having no real prestige classes to aspire  to - hmmm, I very much like the "Arcane Trickster" and "Mystic Theurge" from the DMG, as well as the "Alienist"  (T+B) and the revised "Spellsword"(CW)  all of which work very well for a sorcerer - usually  even better than with a wizard.  'Scarred Lands' classes and  some from publishers other than  WotC (like Green Ronin's "Shaper" from the 'Witches Handbook')  offer powerful/effective alternatives to the basic sorcerer, too....IMHO, there is no real "weakest" class - there is just too narrow a focus of a given character's concept and/or ineffective /unimaginative players who judge a character by the yield from DD spells/attacks only. Personally I really like the ability of a sorcerer to  totally debuff a group of characters with severeal area effect dispel magics in a row - no damage, but can really blow combat tactics out of the window.  But I have no problem in adding some extra skillpoints and  a some spaced out meta-magic feats in order to make him less of a one trick pony and a drgag to play at lower levels.</blockquote>

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