Is the Sorceror as bad as I think?

[Olive]

This rather depends upon how you play wizards. As the player of a wizard myself, I've found that, 95% of the time I stick with a short and specific list of prepared spells. Consequently, adding any significant number of spells to my spellbooks rapidly becomes a matter of diminishing returns.

i think this is generally true. however, your DM should be giving you the opportunity to use that felxability, just to make it more fun to play the wizard!

 

[JChung2003]

The last few posts indicate that the real power of wizardry is metamagic. Wizards whose style lends itself to using the same set of spells over and over again may find it useful to apply metamagic to their spells, making their spells stronger, faster, etc. Sorcerers have the option to use metamagic as well but are limited by the full-round requirement to apply metamagic to their spells as well as the number of metamagic feats they may acquire in their spellcasting advancement.

 

[Hypersmurf]

But metamagic is one of the real powers of the sorcerer...

Or at least, the tactical flexibility that spontaneous metamagic allows.

-Hyp.

 

[JChung2003]

But metamagic is one of the real powers of the sorcerer...

Or at least, the tactical flexibility that spontaneous metamagic allows.

-Hyp.

Don't get me wrong! I agree that metamagic makes sorcery powerful. I'm just saying if you're the kind of wizard who isn't into broadening his spell selection, like the last few posters were, you may find it useful to apply metamagic feats -- of which you are likely to have as many, if not more of, than a sorcerer, because of wizard bonus feats -- to your spells.

Additionally, applying metamagic to your spells as a wizard does not require you to make spellcasting a full round action like it does for sorcerers (ed. note: removed incorrect portrayal of metamagicked sorcerer spell as a one round spell).

Alternatively, a wizard might gain item creation feats as his bonus feats, making himself a self-styled "sorcerer" who not only can use his crafted magic items to emulate the spells/day a sorcerer can cast but can make them more cheaply than a sorcerer can (see the item creation price charts for details).

Alternatively, a wizard might gain the feats that make his spells harder to resist (Spell Focus, Spell Penetration). It's a given that a specialist wizard will get the Spell Focus feat in the school of magic of his choice.

 

[Pax]

I dislike the notion of forcing character behavior to maintain game balance. Do you force players to divide treasure equally?

As a DM, I leave it to the players.

As a player ... wether I'm Lawful or Chaotic, I insist on fair and equitable division of the spoils of an adventure -- the motivation to do so may change, but the insistance doesn't.

Not a bad system, and it sounds like it works for you. That's great. My party does things differently. Again, should I force them to divide treasure differently to make sure that the sorcerer gets "as much loot" as the wizard?

The sorceror should be. Lawfully-aligned, nonevil characters should note the imbalance, and work to correct it. Chaotic Good characters should seek to redress the unfairness rendered the nonwizards. Chaotic Neutral characters hsould consider the especial, burgeonig wealth and power of the wizard to bea threat. Etc.

IOW, the CHARACTERS really shouldn't be behaving that way.

Wow. Thanks for totally missing the point of my post, and couching your reply in as sarcastic a manner as possible.

You're welcome, for being taken at your literal word and for my responding appropriately to same.

Yes, I understand the notion of "intraparty balance", and I certainly understand that - strictly in terms of game mechanics - scribing cost are weighted to to try and maintain equity with sorcerers.

The game ASSUMES you do, actually. As a DM, if your players are deviating from it, it is your beholden duty to redress the balance. Added expenses for the wizard; a slight lean towards items the nonwizards will get more mileage out of; and so on.

I get it, I just don't particularly like it. It forces a specific type of roleplaying behavior to maintain game balance.

Welcome to the world of non-freeform gaming, where artifical constraints areoften put in place in order to keep things fair and balanced for everyone.

A party shouldn't have to keep a "running total" of who-has-what, or worry about the sorcerer getting more loot than the wizard; it detracts from the game. Correction: it detracts from _our_ game, and encourages a style of play that doesn't suit us.

The GM should be keeping that running total; the party merely needs to fairly distribute the "spoils of war" among it's members.

Cover expenses and replacement costs of expendable items, then figure out what the remainder is worth; calculate the absolute coin-value of each character's fair share of that remainder.

Then, distribute equipment-category treasure to those in whose hands it will do the most good. Figure out the coin-value of that distributed equipment, and make everyone's shares up to the fair mark with coins, gems, and salables.

The system presupposes treasure is distributed equally. If you deviate form that evenness of treasure division, you deviate from the system itself.

So, as designed, barring captured spellbooks or scrolls scribed intothe wizard's spellbooks, the Wizard won't know THAT many more spells than the sorceror will. Including those spellbooks and scrolls, the Wizard will have to have sunk some of his share of the proceeds of adventuring into that expanded repertoire ... meaning, the Sorceror probablyhas some other doodads to compensate(a wand, a scroll or five, some otions, etc).

My players would be apalled if I suggested that they should withold items from the wizard to "make up for all of the spells he has".

You've misinterpreted me. When dividing up the loot, the Wizard, IF SHE WNTS, gets first crack at scrolls and spellbooks, and the coin she needs to scribe 'em. Butthe coin and scrolls count against her share of the loot.

Let's suppose the party (of five characters -- a fighter, a rogue, a cleric of Pelor, a wizard, and a sorceror) comes across a small hoard .. a Mithril Shirt +2 (Silent, Shadow), a Greater Holy Symbol of Pelor (conveniently enough), a +3 weapon of some sort or other, around eight scrolls of assorted spells (none of which the wizard knows, collectively worth, say, ~15,000gp), and a pile of assorted coin, jewelry, and jewels. Total treasure value is, oh ... 200,000gp.

Per-character share should be 40,000gp.

The fighter gets the +3 weapon; it's a type compatible with his fighting style and feats, and (conveniently) his previous weapon has been irretrievably lost somehow. +3 weapon is worth (roughly) 18,000gp, plus cost of the masterwork weapon. He shuld get coin-and-so-on worth roughly 22,000gp.

The Cleric takes the Greater Holy Symbol (worth about 5500gp), and coin (etc) worth about 35,000gp.

The Rogue happily takes the mithril shirt, which is worth about 17,000gp; she also gets about 33,000gp in con and other valuables.

The wizard, naturally, takes the scrolls ... and 25,000gp of coin.

The sorceror, though there is no item for him, gets a full 40,000gp in coin ... not one copper more or less than his fair share.

Tell me how that's artificial and unfair? Your share is worth X gold pieces; you want a magic item from what was found, it counts against your share; the rest is mde up out of the coin and other "liquid assets" type loot.

In our case, the party thought that it made sense for the wizard to have access to clairvoyance, detect scrying, teleport, see invisible and a host of other spells that we - as a party - otherwise couldn't use. They had to convince him over the course of ten minutes to spend their money. He felt awful, and didn't want to use it all up, but they successfully convinced him to buy and scribe every spell they could afford.

That's not treasure division, and I daresay, not the norm either.

So, how do I handle this? Do I encourage them to track wealth to make sure they "get their share"? Suggest that they make the wizard sell some of his items to pay for the new spells? Do you honestly see their behavior as something I need to correct?

For game balnce purposes ... you should have adjusted things on the fly; a few piles f loot more useful to the other characters, etc, until everyone had caught up.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Don't get me wrong! I agree that metamagic makes sorcery powerful. I'm just saying if you're the kind of wizard who isn't into broadening his spell selection, like the last few posters were, you may find it useful to apply metamagic feats -- of which you are likely to have as many, if not more of, than a sorcerer, because of wizard bonus feats -- to your spells.

Additionally, applying metamagic to your spells as a wizard does not require you to make spellcasting a full round action like it does for sorcerers. It stinks when you are casting a metamagic spell as a sorcerer to have it counterspelled by an opposing spellcaster because the full round it took you to cast the spell gave them the opportunity to ready their counterspelling actions after you started casting your spell.

The "Full round action"/ "1 round casting time" distinction (or more precisely the lack of it) strikes again!

For sorcerors, using a metamagic feat is a full round action just like a fighter making a full attack action. It takes place on the sorceror's initiative on the same round he began the spell, just like a full attack action.

That is different from a spell with a casting time of "one round" like Summon Monster X. Such spells have no analogous action in melee or ranged combat and do not take effect until the beginning of the caster's next round.

If applying metamagic turned gave spells a one round casting time, it would be pretty lousy for sorcerors. But it doesn't. It makes the casting a full round action instead. And that is usually not a drawback at all.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

You're misreading that a bit. I'm not complaining and so far, the 11th level character (played since first level) has spent less than 3000gp on expanding his spellbook. (3 1st level spells, 3 2nds (2 of which were probably mistakes and the 3rd or which will only be really useful when 3.5e makes my other 2nd level spells useless), and 2 3rds).

The character is a fighter/wizard (currently fighter 2/Wizard 7/Spellsword 2) geared for melee combat. Consequently, the mechanical enjoyment of playing him is much more similar to the enjoyment of playing a fighter (partial charge, full attack, and then expert tactician kicks in for another attack; Wohoo! Lots of damage! . . . Sorry Mr DM, AC 33 just isn't good enough--you're looking for AC 38 this round ) than that of playing a traditional wizard. He doesn't really need or want to vary his spell-list much.

The benefit he derives from being a wizard instead of a sorceror is being able to cast improved invisibility and stoneskin when the sorceror is just learning Haste and Blink or being able to cast Haste when the sorceror just learned Cat's Grace. (And that's pretty significant because he's three levels behind the spellcasting power curve as it is so the extra level that being a sorceror would put him back would be more significant than usual).

i think this is generally true. however, your DM should be giving you the opportunity to use that felxability, just to make it more fun to play the wizard!

 

[JChung2003]

The "Full round action"/ "1 round casting time" distinction (or more precisely the lack of it) strikes again!

If applying metamagic turned gave spells a one round casting time, it would be pretty lousy for sorcerors. But it doesn't. It makes the casting a full round action instead. And that is usually not a drawback at all.

Ack, you're right! It's not quite as bad a drawback as I painted it to be, although it is still a drawback (e.g., no Quicken Spell). Thanks for the correction.

 

[Quidam]

Haven't read all the thread (seems to be a bit bickerish here & there) so I'm not sure if it's been mentioned that:

In 3.5e the cost & time of scribing new spells for a wizard is going to go WAY down.

Seemed germaine.

 

[Darklone]

Haven't read all the thread (seems to be a bit bickerish here & there) so I'm not sure if it's been mentioned that:

In 3.5e the cost & time of scribing new spells for a wizard is going to go WAY down.

Seemed germaine.

Now that's nice, my party wizard will love it... Right now, in a tight time campaign, he's desperately hoping for a three days ships travel now and then

Pax:
I do know that the system assumes that you distribute wealth to the whole group and each gets his own share.

The treasure tables try to emulate this (poorly IMHO).

But I rather apply my own common sense to the treasures my group gets. And since I have a large group, the resulting roleplaying is tremendously enjoyable.

It works like this:
The group consists of 8 members (usually all come to play). The more lawfully inclined members tried to pool the treasure and money from the beginning, but some (right now 3) declined. We've been playing now for 18 months and they still keep arguing about it

The groups wizard (they have a cleric, a bbn1/cleric, a bbn1/sorcerer, a fighter, fighter/rogue, paladin, druid) plays an enchanter and enhances his charm spells with a nice selection of social feats and skills (Cha is his second highest attribute, he's really weak, clumsy and thin). Since he has chosen evocation as his forbidden school, the group often complains that he's not contributing much to their efforts.
How he manages to get about 50% of the groups cash in treasures for his scrolls and spells to book costs? He barters and haggles. E.g. he offered the fighter (who feels soooo weak) to prepare one Bull's strength per day if the fighter bought him the scroll and paid the costs to write it in the book (at least for a certain time). For others, he offered similar things, sometimes a few potions or scrolls instead of a slot/day.

Till now, I don't see a reason why I should intervene and stop this