Marionnen's Musings: Featless?

[Larkas]

Just to put things in perspective: to be able to cast as many spells as a sorcerer, a wizard have to forgo three spell schools. Evocation and Enchantment are pretty much a given, as KaiiLurker put, so you'll only have to think hard on the third school. Will it be Necromancy? Will it be Abjuration? Whatever your choice was (and chances are you'll never choose to ban Conjuration or Transmutation, which by itself increases your versatilty greatly), you can never cast spells of that school. Seems like a harsh requirement, right? Well, only if you're "thinking wizard". Consider the sorcerer. Every time you select a new spell, you are forgoing every other spell you could have chosen at that level. It doesn't matter if you're forgoing a Necromancy spell, an Abjuration spell, an Enchantment spell or an Evocation spell. It doesn't even matter if it's a Conjuration spell or a Transmutation spell, once you have chose one spell at that level, you can't choose another spell in its place until you gain new levels or retrain. A wizard need only prepare a different spell the following day. As a wizard, you work by choosing what you'll subtract from your list; as a sorcerer, you work by choosing what you'll add to your list. As a wizard, you may presume that you potentially know every spell in existence, and go from there. As a sorcerer, you must presume you don't know any spell, and work your way to a usable spell list.

Now, don't take me wrong, I totally understand your goals. You want to simplify the game, which is a very lofty goal, and a great idea if you intend to teach new players the basis of the system. In such a game, a specialist wizard probably won't be played, let alone a focused specialist. The wizard can still prepare for any situation, but if it doesn't have those many spell slots, this won't have so big an impact, and the sorcerer will keep its turf of "spellcaster with an insane number of spells per day". A generalist wizard won't have much use for the metamagic feats it can take with its bonus feats, so in the end, it won't matter much.

But the point about a sorcerer being much harder to build than a wizard still stands. Even with retraining, it can't quite have the best tools for any situation at any given time. In a way, it has a swiss army knife, not a full toolbox. It can improvise, sure. But it can't be the best always. Now, that isn't a bad thing. Actually, I think that is part of the charm of playing a sorcerer. But it goes counter to your goals of simplifying things. By using PF's sorcerer, or at least allowing the sorcerer to take a bloodline feat at 1st level, you take a bit of the load from the shoulders of the newbie: if the player decides to take the Fey Bloodline feat, for example, he can choose to learn Alter Self with a little bit more of confidence when he reaches 4th level, for example, since he will automatically know Glitterdust. That is huge, and shows how a single feat can greatly simplify character creation, management and evolution.

Anyways, just my 2 cents. YMMV, and I don't intend to show you that "the sorcerer need to be balanced against the wizard". I just want to show you that, as it is, building a sorcerer can be made simpler and more fun simply by giving it a single feat.

 

[airwalkrr]

As a dedicated sorcerer player, I will tell you the sorcerer takes longer to be created than a wizard, but once done it play smoothly faster, you don't have to decide between preppared spells, you only gaze at the number of spells you have casted so far, period. I suggest you try to play the class at least once in order to understand it better, don't try to change what you don't know.

Please do not pretend that you know everything about me before you make blanket statements like this. I have played many sorcerers, a couple into high levels.

I do not mean to sound pretentious, but in fact, I have played every class in the Player's Handbook for at least five levels. I have played a large number of characters in home games and ran several different characters in the RPGA campaigns during the years of 3e support. Not to mention all of the NPCs I have played and created as a DM over the years. I think I know a thing or two about sorcerers.

Finally, this is not the entire story. I know I am introducing ideas piecemeal here, but I have some prospects specifically in mind for the wizard that will probably tone the class down a bit in the process of simplifying the class, at least as far as their combat ability goes. I actually agree with you in the sense that wizards should have fewer spells per day relative to the sorcerer, but that is a discussion for another day. I appreciate your input, but please do try not to take my suggestions so personally as it seems you have.

 

[MoonSong]

Please do not pretend that you know everything about me before you make blanket statements like this. I have played many sorcerers, a couple into high levels.

I do not mean to sound pretentious, but in fact, I have played every class in the Player's Handbook for at least five levels. I have played a large number of characters in home games and ran several different characters in the RPGA campaigns during the years of 3e support. Not to mention all of the NPCs I have played and created as a DM over the years. I think I know a thing or two about sorcerers.

Finally, this is not the entire story. I know I am introducing ideas piecemeal here, but I have some prospects specifically in mind for the wizard that will probably tone the class down a bit in the process of simplifying the class, at least as far as their combat ability goes. I actually agree with you in the sense that wizards should have fewer spells per day relative to the sorcerer, but that is a discussion for another day. I appreciate your input, but please do try not to take my suggestions so personally as it seems you have.

Ok, sorry, didn't quite intended it to sound like that. But the truth is without access to metamagic sorcerers are extremely handicapped, so I'm hoping you at least consider a propper compensation for it's loss. (On the other hand wizards will run rampant if you don't remove their class feats)

I know you are also probably working on ways to tone down wizards, just try to make sure those changes don't end up affecting sorcerers too much. (And again metamagic isn't as complex, really.)

 

[airwalkrr]

It could be as simple as giving sorcerers the same bonus feats that wizards get. I am still deciding whether or not I want to rewrite the classes. If I do, I end up walking into sticky territory. So right now I am simply considering a few simple fixes.

 

[the Jester]

I always felt that feats are one of the best things about 3e. I wouldn't enjoy 3e half as much without them, as a player or a dm (or as a consumer of D&D products, for that matter!).

I skipped past most of the thread, but if you're debating giving sorcerers bonus feats like wizards, I have a suggestion: Take metamagic off the wizard bonus feat list, and add in a bunch of other appropriate feats (and keep all the item creation feats).

Then, for sorcerers, give them bonus metamagic feats only. As the innate spellcasters, I always thought it made a lot of sense that they should be able to tweak their spells when they cast them. And ditch that silly "full round casting time with metamagic" rule... it was a balancing agent that was completely unnecessary IMHO.

 

[airwalkrr]

I actually think keeping wizards with item creation plus adding perhaps spell focus and spell penetration then giving sorcerers bonus meta magic feats only to give both classes something of a shtick beyond simply spontaneous vs. prepared wouldn't be a horrible idea. I am striving for something simple though. I don't know if that really coincides with my goals.

 

[epicbob]

I've seen a custom rule where you get feats based on your BAB. That is, you get a feat every time your BAB increases. Nothing more, nothing less.