Known Spells and Un-Knowing Them

[Pax]

Can a Bard or Sorceror un-know a spell they Know and replace it with something else?

Example: A first level Bard takes cure light. Once he gets second level spells he takes Cure Moderate. He decides he doesn't need the Cure Light anymore and wants to replace that Known spell with something else, Cause Fear we'll say. Is that allowed?

No.

The entire point of limiting which sells a Bard or Sorceror can know, is one of balance. Sorcerors and bards lack strategic flexibility, gaining instead ultimate tactical flexibility.

Allowing a Sorceror or Bard to swap out "old" spells, without levying a truly HEAVY price in return, is simply unfair. Wizards are the ones that are supposed to be able to change their entire repertoire as they advance inlevels ... not Sorcerors, not Bards.

 

[Pax]

See, the problem with saying "no upgrades!" is that if your campaign doesn't start at first level your characters turn out completely different. A first-level Sorcerer might take Mage Armor, but want to drop it once he gets high enough to get Bracers of Armor. You could require a Feat to let people upgrade, but it's still unbalanced. If you create a level 15 Sorcerer it's easy to say "oh, I never would have taken that spell in the first place" to get out of taking the Feat, but it looks a lot different when you're low-level.

Only if the Sorceror in question didn't have a pre-plot of which spells the player wanted to take at each level, with an eye to long-term viability. For example, MM is a good spell for a Sorceror to start with. Sleep is not.

I also allow a Sorcerer to "know" a metamagicked spell if he has the correct metamagic Feat. So, I could use a 5th-level slot to know Empowered Fireball to get around the longer casting time (but it's still a 3rd-level for purposes of save DC, etc., and it doesn't allow you to cast without that metamagic) These, of course, would count as an "upgrade" so you could un-know the basic Fireball.

I presume you mean the pre-Metamagicked spell occupies one of the spells the Sorceror can know at that level? Otherwise, that's a crock.

And IMO, the "upgrade for free" is a bit of a crock too (this said by an occasional powergamer who's favorite class is Sorceror ... which definitely says something, now, doesn't it?!).

 

[MeanGenes]

quote:

Originally posted by MeanGenes
Get yourself level drained until you lose the known spell. Then when you gain
another level, you can add a different known spell. Otherwise, I guess you'd
need a wish.


I don't think you loose the knowledge of the spell... just the ability to cast it.

My understanding was that when you gain a negative level, you get -1 hit, saves, etc. for 24 hours. After that 24 hours, the character must make a fort save or lose the level permanently. In which case, the character loses xp and the level as if he had never gained the level in the first place. If the character gains the xp back, then he could take another class instead of sorcerer/bard or take sorcerer/bard again and choose a different spell if he wanted to.

 

[tarkin]

MeanGenes you are correct completely about what happens when you gain a negative level. Also see my early post stating that officially it takes a Wish spell to change your spells (Simbul).