Sorcerer Heritage feats--too good, sorely needed, both, or neither?

[Felon]

Complete Arcane and the PHB II offered a number of heritage feats for sorcerers (draconic heritages in CA, celestial and infernal in PHB II). They seem quite potent IMO.

For instance, feats like Draconic Breath, Celestial Sorcerer Lance, and Infernal Sorcerer Howl all allow a spell to be turned into an short-range area attack that's as potent a damage-dealer as any attack spell of a similar nature, and more potent than a good many. A sorcerer with one of these feats can say goodbye to burning hands, right? He's got something vastly superior. As time passes, I can see that sorcerer not even casting that many offensive spells, but rather just using his spell slots primarily to power his heritage attack.

Then again, that's what he spent two feats to get, so it should be pretty good, right?

If you're familiar with them, please share your thoughts.

 

[drquestion]

I like the Sorcerer Heritage feats, and don't think they're overpowered.

The damage-dealing ones are nice for low-level sorcerers. As you point out, they can outdo low-level damage spells, at least until llevels 5-8 or so. I see this as a positive, however.

Low-level sorcerers have very few spell choices, and taking one of the damage-dealing heritage feats allows them to concentrate more of their early picks on utility rather than damaging spells, which should make them less boring to play. Plus, as you say, a sorcerer is spending two feats to get the ability, so he ought to get a benefit out of it, and it's not like they're staggeringly powerful even at low levels - 2d6 area damage out of a 1st-level slot seems reasonable to me.

Unlike you, I don't see too many sorcerers primarily relying on these spells for damage, unless their build really isn't focused on blasting. Consider that by 8th level, a scorching ray does 8d6 damage (albeit not to an area) vs. 4d6 for using a slot on the feat. Fireball is 8d6 (with a much longer range and a generally better area) vs. 6d6. And the feats only get weaker in comparison from there - at 10th level sorcerer could use a 5th level slot for an empowered fireball (if he has the feat) to do 15d6 damage.

The feats will still be situationally useful - they're Su, and the Celestial and Infernal ones do rare damage types - but they're not going to approach the raw damage output of spells once the sorcerer hits the low-mid levels.


The other, non-damaging, heritage feats are generally nice, but a little underwhelming. Most of them are designed so that a sorcerer has to devote most of his feat slots to them to get significant benefits, which really cuts down on his ability to take metamagic and other useful feats.

 

[Thanee]

I only really know the Draconic ones, and I consider them cool and fluffy, but rather weak.

Bye
Thanee

 

[VirgilCaine]

I only really know the Draconic ones, and I consider them cool and fluffy, but rather weak.

Bye
Thanee

Ditto that. I like the Celestial/Fiendish feats much better than the Draconic ones. Whee, fly until the end of the round! A few points of natural armor, whee! Not useful at all compared to the Celetstial and fiendish ones.

 

[Psion]

I prefer the bloodline feats in Dragon compendium, and think they shore up the weak sorcerer nicely.

Of course, the complain could be that you need to take a feat to make a sorcerer balanced. The solution would be to make it part of the sorcerer by giving one as a bonus feat at 1st level.

 

[Thanee]

The sorcerer isn't really underpowered, just lacking some options. Their spellcasting is quite powerful.

The DRAGON feats are pretty good, ya, maybe even a little on the overpowered side of things (9 spells known for 1 feat), but since the spells are not freely chosen and distributed over all levels and not all 'first picks' they are probably alright. Definitely more useful than the draconic feats.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Greylock]

Currently playing a Sorceror who is tricked out with Draconic Feats. They work well in play.

And those wings saved his butt several times at first and second level.

 

[Crothian]

They are needed to give the class some guidance and ability.

 

[Beckett]

In my AOW game, the sorcerer has the dragon breath feat. It has been pretty handy, and allows him to concentrate more on utility spells since he can always convert slots into the breath. He hasn't hit 4th yet, so he's still limited to 2D6, but it is an area effect spell, and it was very useful against some swarms.

As a drawback, it is a line or a cone, the two most difficult areas to make use of since the fighters are always getting in your way. Magic Missile or Fireball are easy to toss from the back, a cone (unless you're willing to fry your allies) requires you to find some opening. And finding this opening exposes you to danger; the above mentioned sorcerer moved to the front and firebreathed a trio of fighters the party found. The three made there saves, and on their turn one of them walked up to the exposed sorcerer and struck back: Great Axe+ Favored Enemy does not do well for a sorcerer's HP.

So, pretty useful feats, but not all-powerful. It'll be interesting to see how things go as he gets higher level spells and more of the feats.

 

[wayne62682]

I think they are pretty cool and help out an otherwise-weak class. I think it would be better if they got bonus feats like a Wizard, however, with the requirement that they be used either for Metamagic or Heritage.