Sorcerer Variant

[Liquidsabre]

It's funny you should mention this, because I started experimenting with pretty much the exact same concept yesterday.

Yea, it's pretty much the only reasonable option for changing things spell-wise for the sorc and maintain balance without altering the sorc spell-casting ina significant way.

Basically, I've subtracted one known spell from each level and replaced with a bloodline spell. I'm also planning on instituting additional class skills based on bloodline, and I'm planning on giving the sorcerer special blooldine abilities (possibly some sort of metamagic-esque power) at 1st, 10th, and 20th level.

Cool, if you haven't seen it there was a Dragon (#311) article by Scott Carter "Arcane Ancestry" that featured Bloodline feats and the inspiration for many folk's bloodline-esk sorcerer variants (mine included to be sure!). The problem was these bloodline spells (essentially arcane domain list of spells 1-9th levels) added to known spells and were completely unbalanced in this respect but a neat conceptual idea nonetheless (which is why it made it into the mag I suppose). There were other feats that had special abilities if I recall as well based on a sorcerer's specific ancestry and a good source to mine if you happen across the mag.

So far I've also gotten rid of the Arcane Blood and Imitate Spell abilites (though I've kept the other two, because I like them), and given the 15th level sorcerer arcane sight at will. I'm still toying with things like hit dice and BAB, as well as being able to cast in armor.

If you continue to add neat special abilities to the class, for balance reasons I wouldn't go about bumping HD, BAB, or add armor/shield casting. My preference tends towards neat flavorful abilities but if going the increase hHD/BAB/better saves routes I'd naturally cut down on the abilities.

Sounds like you're narrowing in on something you like, heh have fun with it! Oh and once complete I'd run a few solo play-testing at the least with builds at different levels (low, mid, and high), followed by comparisons between an equivalent level core sorc and wizard builds (again, for power-level comparison). This should help you really pin-point balance for the class you made and any problem areas.

Best of luck!