Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="MostlyHarmless42" data-source="post: 7536913" data-attributes="member: 6845520">And I would argue from your spell selection that you have just rolled a FIRE sorcerer. See my previous post about how there are two sorcerer specs that are leaps and bounds more effective than any other. Show me how to roll a blaster build that is just as effective focused around the element of acid, or God forbid poison, which several dragon sorcerers are incentivised to do. Heck, there are *multiple* origins focused around lightning despite there not being a single ranged lightning cantrip (a 15ft spell that pulls enemies toward you does NOT count as ranged, nor does blowing all your spell points to make shocking grasp 30ft), and the only lightning damage spell below 3rd level being one of the worst spells in the game without serious houseruling. Speaking of awful spells, enhance ability and alter self are both contenders as well, albeit the latter is quite effective out of combat despite you arguing that spell slots should not be used for precisely that.Where 2 more spells known does make a big difference is ritual casting, where the wizard can infinitely cast detect magic or identify on the fighter's new magic sword or a magic puzzle all by the party agreeing to take a quick breather or short rest, or read the future using augury for a player or npc, or help the party sleep safer from ambushes by placing an alarm or two while setting up camp. Ritual casting is a bigger deal than most realize, often more so for roleplaying purposes than actual optimization, granted, but it is a noticeable quality of life impact.The reason why optimizes dont rate the feat highly is because it requires a character to use the respective ability score for ritual casting of the class they pick a list from. Wizards have the best list for spell selection for the feat, but use Intelligence, forcing the sorcerer to need to boost a second ability score for casting that would otherwise be "useless" from an optimization standpoint. All of the charisma options for the feat have like five or six spells that are ritual tagged at most because they were not designed with ritualcasting in mind. The exception being the bard, which has 14 spells all of whom are out of combat utility spells. Granted I personally think that this is quite a hell of a feat for a sorcerer to take and have seen it done no less than twice at my table by various non-ritual casters who are charisma based, but again most optimization guides tend to only focus on combat potency.Again, see my post about Devine Soul and Fire sorcerers being far superior to every other build. Show me a sorcerer who focuses on illusions and enchantments that is as fulfilling to play as an illusionist/enchanter wizard, any bard, trickery cleric, or Fey warlock, especially at a table where your DM allows players to try and "bluff" hiding their spells with a d*** skill check (I can stress how commonly I've seen this done due to previous editions).Yes, again, at the cost of needing a high intelligence. They should of gone bard. ;-)This is perhaps the real core of the issue I have with the class of the sorcerer. It falls into the same problem that the bard does: it is the best 5th man in the party. It can fulfill the party face quite well, the problem is that bards and warlocks do it better because the sorcerer spell list and origins force them to be blasters outside of divine soul, which then feels like cleric light (the support). Heck, even the paladin is arguably a better party face as they also can tank and the party face tends to get punched a lot when negotiations get more aggressive. The problem is their roleplaying fluff and spelllist/origins being focused on damage makes the players believe that they'd be a better "arcane guy" which frankly the sorcerer is probably the absolute worst at compared to the wizard using Int, warlock invocations being amazing at that roll, and (again) bard have skill proficiencies.I want to love the class. I really do, it's just that every time I want to roll a sorcerer, I inevitably end up flipping the pages to either the bard or warlock instead, with the rare exception of playing a fire blaster (which I'd still debate with an evoked wizard long and hard) or a "charisma cleric" divine soul. And unfortunately with most parties I seem to find falling into the 3-4 player ranger, being "okay" at being "the magic guy" doesn't cut it.Of course I think all of this is perhaps symptomatic of a larger problem: the limitations of a class based system or in the case of being relevant to this thread, what is the actual...point of sorcerer being a class? I'd hope we all agree that a sorcerer shouldn't out "wizard" a wizard. The problem is I still think that warlock and sorcerer should have been combined into a single class with the roleplaying focus being built around supernatural beings having a direct personal impact on your character's life rather than presenting the sorcerer as a "master of weaving magic" and giving us a neutered wizard. The player would merely have chosen if it were external (a pact aka the flavor or warlock) or internal (i.e. your grandpappy was seduced by a demon/fae). The cleric's toes arent even stepped on either, as they agree to follow a set of lifestyles and ideals by their supernatural force while the "external" option is like the warlock, a contract at best. Whether invocations, warlock casting, or metamagic would've gotten the axe or have been assimilated into another is to be debated.</blockquote>

Verification