DreamChaser said:
This, IMO, defeats the point of changing the sorcerer to fit a flavor. If the domain you choose = the flavor of your sorcerer then it should help to define the flavor not be chosen based upon a spell that would not be taken anyway. Since there is all of one 1st level fire spell in the core (burning hands) of course I would take that as a fire caster but I would resent having to take it twice.
I definately see where you're coming from here DC. I do appreciate your critiques but sometimes it can be frustrating having spent nearly a year now working on the variant and most of the issues, including the one you bring up, having already hashed over them for months on each and addressed them as best as can be done without a serious overhaul of the core mechanics of the sorcerer.
Let me explain it like this: Arcane Bloodlines are simply sorcerer-flavor "in-a-can", designed for a sorcerer to have his cake and eat it too. While the sorcerer's arcane bloodline offers limited access to flavor-spells, the sorcerer still retains the same number of known spells in order to build a viable spell list for game-play. The class is
not designed to build an automatic-theme sorcerer. That would be up to the player to build using the sorcerer's known spells.
The known spells are eactly the same as the core sorcerer, so you can build whatever sorcerer you want, the same as in the core game. All the bloodline spells do is add a few extra fun spells that run along a common flavor (fire, water, fiendish, etc.). Now you bring up the point of having to take
burning hands twice and I don't see a problem with this and am having trouble why you resent the fact. A fire-bloodline sorcerer can cast
burning hands the
exact same number of times/day as the core sorcerer and a
greater number of times per day than other bloodline sorcerers. So why the complaint? Afterall, I've already gone through and made sure all spells were staple-theme spells (such as burning hands and fireball) to make sure they are useful. Should it be otherwise? Should I insert less useful theme-spells in their stead? Something you commented on disliking in the firtst place if I remember correctly. This confuses me, which is it do you think works best?
A theme-sorcerer is generally not viable in the core game (not having enough useful spells kills the core sorcerer viability), with the bloodline sorcerer you can have a bit of theme here and there and add a little more at your whim (using known spells) and still retain enough known spells to build a useful spell list for general game-play. If you manage to build a viable theme with a core-sorcerer and then make it a bloodline sorcerer, you've changed nothing what-so-ever except gain other less desirable but appropriate niche-useful theme spells (being able to cast the chosen staple-theme-spells the same number of tiems per day as the core sorcerer). Are you saying you would like to be able to cast such spells more times/day than the core sorcerer DC?
I don't mean to sound completely adversarial but playtesting requires more than making a few characters and saying its good.
It's comments that belittle the work that two game groups (11 people), another DM, and myself have done to play-test 3 campaign sorcerers and 1 sorcerer for each bloodline during test-builds against various opponents, that understandably cause me much frustration DC. Not the critiques themselves. I appreciate all critques and most notably
suggestions for possible fixes.
The long term difference between one spell known per level could not possiblity be so great that it has revealed itself that strongly.
That's just it, if you test-build enough sorcerers you'll see there's an underlying fundamental problem with the way the core sorcerer is designed. The number of known spells has a very limited threshold for change to retain viability.
Adding or removing a single known spell at each level causes problems, I've seen it, and it's not a pretty sight. You see the power of the sorcerer is literally exponential as they gain more spells known to cast/per day: (Discounting 0-level spells) you will see a sorcerer progress from 3 spells at 3rd to 10 spells at 7th, 19 spells at 11th, and 27 spells at 15th. If you increase known spells this jumps to: 4 spells at 3rd, 13 spells at 7th, 24 spells at 11th, and 34 spells at 15th. There is an exponential increase in the number of spells the sorcerer has available with the increase of just a single spell known at each spell level. Similarly there is an equally dramatic reduction with taking away 1 known spell/level to dedicate to a flavor-bloodline spell.
Though with the changes in the bloodline spells that I made in May would work alot better if folded into known spells for the bloodline sorcerer (as most of them are quite useful now, since I axed my original concept of making opposite bloodline spells inaccessible to bloodline sorcerers) but it would still condemn the bloodline sorcerer to a much smaller number of known spells with which to build a usefull spell list with, including staple spells such as magic missle, scorching ray, fireball, fly, dispel magic, alter self, dimension door, teleport, etc.
You welcomed me back to this thread and implied that you wanted my opinion which works well because I'm always happy to give it. But now I don't feel that you do; honestly, I feel like you want your beliefs about this variant reinforced.
*shrug* I may be wrong. But since you've don't nothing to answer my concerns other than say that I'm wrong or adversarial, I have no way of knowing.
DC
Sorry if the welcome rather wore itself out DC, I guess I shouldn't expect other folk to have poured over the class as much as I and my game group have. For that I must apologize. Some of the inconsistencies in your last post that inaccurately depicted parts of the class I found to be a little frustrating since you are such a strong proponent of your critique of the class.
I do value your time and should make the effort to go and explain my reasoning and research into the core class and the variant rather than simply stating the results of my own work on the class and expect others to tkae my word for it. I hope you take some of my explanation of the reasoning behind the design to heart and that it has been worked on rather extensively by more folk than only myself.
I hope I have answered your concerns to your satisfaction and look forward to a response on my own questions.
Cheers DC!
) as most of the work on the class represents a compilation of my own ideas and other ideas from many wonderful people online. I wouldn't want to put my real name to it as author, wouldn't seem right. Hope you and yours enjoy!
