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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack Simth" data-source="post: 4513732" data-attributes="member: 29252">It's a part of the Dragon Compendium bloodline feats.  The penumbra bloodline, for instance, forbids the casting of spells with the [Light] descriptor.It doesn't matter which bloodline you take - in most cases, there will only be a relative handful of spells you would have chosen anyway, and the others are choices you would not have made - you have less choice with your house-ruled Sorcerer than with the standard PHB sorcerer - and a reduction in flexibility without a boost elsewhere is a reduction in power.So basically, you've houseruled the class to the point where someone who was satisfied with the existing setup no longer has that option.  Interesting, no?The Core Sorcerer has more "power" over the course of one day than do the other Core casters.  The other Core casters, though, can fairly easily have more power over one round (Quicken Spell - and yes, I know this can be overcome if you branch out to any of a particular set of non-core sources - but that basically always costs something that all the other CFC get for free), and have more flexibility over the course of a campaign (can change spells on a single day's notice to adapt to "oh, this spell isn't as good in play as I thought?  Let's try this one" or "Oh, we're running against a lot of undead?  Okay, time to get away from Mind-Affecting spells" or "Unbeatable SR?  Well, time for the no-SR spells, or maybe some ally-buffs") - all the Core Sorcerer has going for him is per-round flexibility (the Sorcerer generally has more options on any given round than does the other Core casters) and endurance.The closest the PHB writeup for the Core sorcerer comes to implying that the powers are caused by their heritage is that "some sorcerers claim that the blood of dragons courses through their veins"Seriously, the first line of the fluff is that "Sorcerers create magic the way a poet creates poems." - do you require Bards to have a bloodline from somewhere explaining their ranks in Perform?  The supernatural abilities that Bardic Music gives?Ah, yes, so anyone who wants to play a sorcerer without your relatively arbitrary restrictions that reduce the class power must first write up a backstory.  Do you require Fighters to write up a backstory for where they learned power attack?  For their specific choice of weapon-related feats? That's what you're doing to Sorcerers that don't want the arbitrary categories.For the most part, you're reducing open-ended choices to a selection from a number of sets - "package deals", as it were.  All else being equal, a reduction in options is a reduction in power.   If things weren't equal for some other reason - aka, you boost the sorcerer elsewhere - that wouldn't be so bad.  If you were doing something similar to the other Core Full Casters, it wouldn't be so bad (because then everyone is on equal footing).  With nothing else being listed, however, you're nerfing the Sorcerer somewhat for no particularly good mechanical reason.</blockquote>

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