sorcerers and bonus feats.

[krupintupple]

is there any particular reason that sorcerers don't get the bonus feats that their wizard counterparts do? would it be overpowering for me as a DM to allow them to take the same, except replacing item creation with something like the various 'heritege' (things like draconic, infernal or celestial, from PHB2 and complete arcane/mage) feats?

 

[blargney the second]

It can't hurt to try...

 

[Derro]

I think the original idea was that the sorcerer's impressive battery of spells per day was the balancing factor between sorcerer and wizard. The sorcerer receives in the area of 50% more spells per day per level than the wizard. That's noteworthy until you consider that the wizard is infinitely more versatile than the sorcerer. Even with the spell retraining ability of the sorcerer the spell arrays just don't compare.

To answer your question, no, it would not be overpowering to give the sorcerer heritage based feats at an equal rate to the wizard. I house-ruled this in a few games and saw no abuse or tip of power in the sorcerer's favor.

I had a few different generations of this house rule. Sometimes it was a codified series of bonus feats based on the heritage of the sorcerer. I also tried giving the sorcerer bonus spells based on heritage. These were moderately successful although I have since found a much more satisfying method.

I suggest looking at the Pathfinder Beta and what they did to the sorcerer. The class therein has really focused on heritage and given them a lot more depth.

 

[Runestar]

My guess is that wotc severely overestimated the value of being able to spontaneously cast any spell you know, so they overcompensated by stripping away any other class ability the sorc may have had (leaving only the crappy familiar behind). But empirical playtesting has shown that the wizard is much stronger than the sorc, so it shouldn't hurt to give the sorc bonus feats.

 

[Kristian Serrano]

Save-VS-DM has an excellent revised sorcerer that grants bonus feats. You can get a copy of it from the Downloads section of Geek on the Borderlands.

Here's the section explaining the bonus feats.
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Bonus Feats: At 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th level, a sorcerer gains a bonus feat. At each such opportunity, he can choose a metamagic feat, a draconic feat, or a heritage feat. The sorcerer must still meet all prerequisites for a bonus feat, including caster level minimums.

These bonus feats are in addition to the feat that a character of any class gets from advancing levels. The wizard is not limited to the categories of metamagic feats, draconic feats, or heritage feats when choosing these feats.
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I've personally added reserve feats to that list.

 

[Save-vs-DM]

I've personally added reserve feats to that list.

This is a very common addition to the bonus feats, though I didn't add them as a default just to differentiate the sorcerer from the wizard a bit more.

One other thing we house ruled for all casters was the ability to cast any cantrips known or memorized at will. (After doing this we took out Cure Minor Wounds and replaced it with Stabilize). It mostly helped in the first 1-2 levels, giving the spellcasters a 1d3 ranged attack that was at least magical.

 

[Shin Okada]

It depends on situation and kind of campaign. But I found that with appropriate spells known, Sorcerer is effective enough, or even more effective than Wizard, as it is. Especially if you use metamagic specialist option in PHB II.

I have heard and read many play-report of RHoD campaign (and run that campaign once by myself) and in most cases, Wizards had hard time because of fewer spells per day, lack of on the fly versatility, and dependency on time to write spells on their spellbook or creating items.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

While I haven't gone quite as far as giving Sorcerers an equal # of bonus feats to the Wizards, I have modified them to give them a bonus Heritage (WotC)/Bloodline (DCv1) feat that is essentially the "reason" why they are innate casters- the blood of their arcanely powerful ancestors gives them innate spellcasting abilities.

My only real problem is that the Heritage Feat trees are deep and give a variety of benefits, whereas the Bloodline Feats are structured more like Domains- adding 1 spell/level to the Sorc's spell list (but without domain powers) and typically have only one additional dependent feat.

So I'm trying to redraft them into a general format that combines both models.

 

[Runestar]

I dunno - I dislike the idea of them getting bonus heritage feats because to me, that just ends up reinforcing the theme that they must be descended from some exotic power, and I hated the way wotc tried to tie just about every sorc to some draconic ancestor.

But that's just me.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I dunno - I dislike the idea of them getting bonus heritage feats because to me, that just ends up reinforcing the theme that they must be descended from some exotic power, and I hated the way wotc tried to tie just about every sorc to some draconic ancestor.

But that's just me.

Well, first of all, I actually dock them 1 spell per level. No worries, though, because it gets replaced with the bonus spell that the bonus DCv1 Bloodline Feats provide.

Second, the Bloodline feats cover a wide variety of ancestries- elementals, celestial, infernal, fey, illithid, undead erm and so forth, including dragons. IOW, Sorcerers are delivered from being linked to dragons exclusively.

Third, it gives a mechanical justification for their being innately gifted with arcane spellcasting ability. He can do something normal human(oid)s can do- cast arcane spells without studying to do so- because he's more than human(oid).

The subsequent heritage feats, however, must be taken as normal, if any are taken at all.