Preview: The Sorcerer

[Justin D. Jacobson]

The general theme is more power, more risk. Obviously, the wild mage has some variability. Not to be overlooked is the dragon mage's lack of discrimination. Note, for example, that burning spray and tempest breath affect all creatures in the burst--not just enemies.

The more power part is self-evident. Compare acid orb and eldritch blast. Identical ... except that the former has twice the range of the latter.

On a related note, for those who are worried about the controller not getting any love, don't forget Rob Donoghue's Witch Doctor, the full version of which should be released soon.

 

[Kinneus]

For instance, crazy things happen when you roll a 20 with Chaos Bolt. You maximize your damage, you resolve the critical effect on your implement, you ignore some psychic resistance if you happen to have psychic resistance for the encounter, you resolve any critical effects from feats, you gain a +1 AC from Chaos Burst, you slide the target 1 square and knock it prone from Unfettered Power, and you make a secondary attack. What are the odds you’ll forget to do one of these because they are not written in the same place?

You know, that's a great point, and something that kind of irks me about 4e in general (and, keep in mind, I really, really like 4e). All the crazy 'until end of turn' modifiers are difficult to keep track of, and really bog combat down.
Still, the Chaos build is really attractive to me, both from a fluff and flavor perspective, but also due to personal preferences. Some of us like to be continually surprised, some of us like to gamble. If you want tactics and elaborate battleplans, play a Warlord. If you want crazy chaotic-good "holy crap what is this spell going to do next" randomness, go with a Chaos Sorcerer.

 

[Rechan]

Some of us like to be continually surprised, some of us like to gamble.

You gamble every time you roll a die.

 

[webrunner]

Regarding the "risk" theme: Chaos orb
1) targets 'creatures'
2) doesn't say "may" when it tells you to make a secondary attack.

Presumably you can pick the target, but if you're out of enemy targets..


It's certainly not a spell to use against solos...

 

[mhacdebhandia]

There are numerous enjoyable features and powers for the Sorcerer. But the Chaos Sorcerer is definitely not a newbie friendly build. I can easily see some memory issues with what did I roll last turn? Even or Odd? What was my resistance again during the last short rest? The Archer Ranger still holds the torch for easiest to play class, hands down.

Wizards of the Coast have commented that the Dungeon Master's Guide 2 will assume that you've learned a bit more than the basics of how to run the game through experience, and will present some more "advanced" techniques. Perhaps the Player's Handbook 2 is assuming something similar - that you'll be comfortable with playing something a little more complex after rocking your archery ranger for a while.

 

[Rechan]

Wizards of the Coast have commented that the Dungeon Master's Guide 2 will assume that you've learned a bit more than the basics of how to run the game through experience, and will present some more "advanced" techniques. Perhaps the Player's Handbook 2 is assuming something similar - that you'll be comfortable with playing something a little more complex after rocking your archery ranger for a while.

The Barbarian certainly gives that impression to me. "I raged. How'd that affect all my powers? Am I bloodied, is my enemy bloodied? I critted. I make another basic attack." There is a lot going on with the Barbarian, as opposed to 3e where it was the Newb Class.

Although I didn't get that impression from the Invoker.

 

[Kinneus]

You gamble every time you roll a die.

Yeah, but some of us like to gamble even more.
See: Casinos

 

[mach1.9pants]

I haven't read the whole thread (ENW is sooooo slooooooooooow for me at the mo, almost unusable) but I just had to put in my 2c on the At Wills...again the Wiz looks like rubbish. This is a striker with more controllery AW than the Wiz...C'mon Arcane Power publish already!

 

[Cadfan]

The Barbarian certainly gives that impression to me. "I raged. How'd that affect all my powers? Am I bloodied, is my enemy bloodied? I critted. I make another basic attack." There is a lot going on with the Barbarian, as opposed to 3e where it was the Newb Class.

Although I didn't get that impression from the Invoker.

The Invoker is tough to really analyze, because its got that new "Summoning" keyword that is as of yet undefined.

 

[Stalker0]

The new sorc is pretty neat.

The archer ranger is still king of the strikers for consistent damage for me...but could this top it? Your going to get a likely +3 to +4 extra damage out of the box with no requirements, and you can apply that on all area effects. Combine that with very high damaging powers, and the sorc may have just become the most powerful class for raw damage.

I do wonder about their survivability though. No armor, and their main stat is not an AC one...that often leads to a crappy AC, especially the chaos mage.

I like that the chaos mage's powers do things on even numbers, but I don't like the +1 AC or saving throw with die rolls, too frequent to track for my liking.