sorcerers

[Felix]

Unless the Sorcerer still doesnt have the spell that would be helpful in the situation, preperation or no preperation.

That doesn't matter, the same can be done to a wizard... he won't have all the spells, after all. Furthermore, I did not say that in situations that needed immediate reaction a sorcerer would be able to respond, it's just that he will have more of an advantage over the wizard. This is true. It's a matter of relative, not absolue, advantage.

think its better to say if your caught totally unawares the Sorcerer is at less of a disadvantage than if any degree of foreknowledge is allowed.

Precicely. So, compared to the wizard, because the sorcerer has less of a disadvantage, he has an advantage. Right?

Yep, but most of the time, a Wizard can prepare as many or more spells of a given level as a Sorcerer knows.

He surely does, but he'll never know if those spells are the right ones when he prepares them. The wizard's main advantage, as we agree upon, is spell flexibility and his knowledge of many spells. But in order for him to fully take advantage of that flexibility, he needs to keep some of his spell slots open... which means he has less spells to cast at any given moment. If he fills his spell slots fully, then he has lost the main advantage of his class for trying to cast as many spells as a sorcerer... something he shouldn't be trying to do, because that's not his ballywick.

But the system is balanced around a certain number of encounters per day. Including the Wizard. So the Sorcerers extra spells per day are usualy pretty meaningless. Unless your in a game with a well above average number of encounters per day.

A balanced encounter is supposed to use 20% of the party's resources. On average, this will mean that 20% of the wizards spells will be used in any encounter; the sorcerer will lose the same number of spells, but the % of his spells lost will be lower. Meaning that after 4 encounters, the wizard will be dragging along with only 20% of his spell repitoire remaining, and the sorc will have a larger % of his spells left to him.

Especially since a party is only as fast as its slowest member so to speak. In my experience once any character runs out of spells or whatever for the day, the party then rests.

And it's very considerate of enemies to back off when the good guys need to rest to recoup spells. Because of their fewer number of spells, wizards will likely be the ones to run out of spells the soonest, and so they will more often be vulnerable to attacks when they're resting. The sorcerer will be vulnerable too, but not as much, nor as often because of his much larger spells per day.

Not neccesarily. The wealth should be equal, but theirs no requirement for it to take the same form.

But your argument was that Wizards would have access to more spells because of their ability to scribe scrolls into their spellbook. Well, Sorcerers can have just as much access. They can actually have more... they don't need to spend money scribing, and so can afford more scrolls. So as far as access goes, the sorc can be walking around able to cast many more spells than the wizard... because the sorc still has the scroll in scroll form, while the wizard has put it in his spellbook.

Now I agree that having a spell in a spellbook is more valuable than one on a scroll because it can be cast more than once. But if you're talking "the right spell at the right time", then having a lot of scrolls is much more likely to render an exact right spell that needs to be cast now than is having all those same spells in a spellbook. The wizard might have it memorized, or might not. The sorcerer will be able to cast it from the scroll.

Now yes scrolls can help to slightly increase a Sorcerer's diversity. But its still not the same as actually knowing more spells.

You're right that it's not the same. But the discussion was over how many spells each class as access to. And because of the use of scrolls, the sorcerer has access to just as many spells.

The spellbook is mainly present as a flavour element.

The draconic bloodlines for sorcerers you mention is a flavor element. Wizardly spellbooks are not. They are a game mechanic. Like KarinsDad says (we're finally seeing eye to eye KarinsDad! ) it smacks of common sense to attack a wizard's spellbook. When you fight a wizard, you fight his spells. To reduce his ability to cast those spells, you can strike his spellbook. Wizards should have to spend resources to protect their books, because an unprotected spellbook is the beginning of the end for a wizard.

But instead of making him truly unique they simply made him a non-preparing Wizard.

So your complaint is that he doesn't have a unique spell list to choose from?

But a Sorcerer isnt going to take spells like Fabricate or Mord's Secret Chest. Thats more what I meant. A Sorcerer having such an absurdly limited selection is mostly going to stick to bread and butter stuff.

For his spells known he's going to stick to bread and butter, and with its myriad uses Fabricate might well be one of those spells. But for the other spells which will likely have less occasion to be cast... that's what his scrolls are for.

Sadly in D&D thats extremely diffacult.

Silent Image
Grease
Nystul's Magic Aura
Ventriloquism
Obscuring Mist

Glitterdust
Minor Image
Alter Self
Pyrotechnics
Fog Cloud

Sleet Storm
Stinking Cloud
Clairvoyance
Suggestion
Major Image

Every Summon Monster spell
Shadow Conjuration, Lesser and Greater
Shadow Evocation, Lesser and Greater
All the higher level Image spells
Limited Wish

And the granddaddy of multiple use spells: Telekinesis

It's not that hard to find spells with a wide applicability or multiple uses, actually. You just have to look and use your imagination.

Not compared to a Wizard. Or a Cleric. Or a Druid. Having only one or two spells of a given level is having only one or two spells of a given level.

You argue that the wizard (and by association the Cleric and Druid) is more powerful because he has access to all these great spells that serve very specific functions. But in order for that to be useful at all, the wizard/cleric/druid must have those spell prepared. And if those spells are prepared, then they won't have all the great multi-use spells ready to go. And if they don't have them prepared, then the sorc will be able to create many spell effects "compared to a Wizard. Or a Cleric. Or a Druid."

And even if the wiz/cleric/druid leave spell slots open, then it's still 15 minutes between the challenge, and the right spell.

They are redundant in their spell list. They are redundant in the fact that they are both casting classes with no other class features of any meaningful kind. And they are redundant in their basic concept and archtype. Conceptually their only difference is that the Wizard is a "learned mage" and a Sorcerer is a "born mage".

Two things can be redundant either by what they do, or how they do it.

The barbarian and fighter are redundant in what they do; that they kill things by hitting it with a piece of molded steel. In this way, yes, wizards and sorcerers are exactly as redundant as barbarians and fighters. This decreases their worth exactly not a whit.

How they do things is a different matter. This entire thread has been talking about how much better sorcerers are than wizards at adapting quickly to situations while wizards are master of the prepared and researched fight. As far as how you use your spellcasting goes, that's as big a difference as there ever needed to be.

Wizard and Sorcerer are two very slightly different versions of exactly the same thing.

Spellbook
Class skills
Weapon Proficiencies
Spells per day
Spells known
Spontaneous casting
Metamagic use (which is an as yet undiscussed advantage to the sorcerer)

If that's "slight", then I must be a fool when I see that these two classes can fit different billets, have different strengths, different weakensses, and cast spells differently.

 

[Denaes]

Metamagic use (which is an as yet undiscussed advantage to the sorcerer)

That was discussed up about the 20th post or so on this thread.

 

[Merlion]

You think the Wizard has more and greater advantages because you are more predisposed to them. That is entirely subjective as to which advantages are better.

I'm not predisposed to the Wizard. Actually at this point I am not terribly disposed toward the bulk of D&D classes. I'd much rather have the AE Magister than the Wizard OR the Sorcerer.

And it isnt reallly subjective. The mechanics are the mechanics...some things are better than others. And even if which advantage is better than another is subjective, the sheer number of advantages are not.

Both classes have numerous advantages that the other doesn't and overall they pretty much even out

Not really. The Sorcerers one advantage is the ability to cast spells without preperation. That advantage is more or less negated by their extremely limited spells known combined with their slower spell level aqquisition.

So their casting is at best even...and in most situations the Wizard will be ever so slightly better off. And then on top of that, Wizards get bonus feats.

Yes they can. that is an advantage. A disadvantage is when they can't use 75% of those spells because they dipped their does into everything and specific circumstances don't come up

There arent that many circumstantial spells in the game. And those that there are are going to be rarely prepared by Wizards, and also rarely learned by Sorcerers, simply because they are circumstantial.

But its easier overall for a Wizard to devote a handful of slots of various levels each day to circumstantial or somewhat circumstantial spells than for a Sorcerer to learn any.

because a Wizard can prepare just as many spells as a Sorcerer can know at all of a given level. But the Wizard can still know many of those spells that the Sorcerer doesnt know at all, and that he doesnt have prepared. But, he has the option of preparing and casting them, himself. The Sorcerer doesnt. He has to get a scroll or other item of the spell.

Thats the big thing. And many of those circumstantial spells, it wont be a problem to wait a day for the Wizard to prepare. But the Sorcerer just doesnt have them, period. Scrolls can be somewhat of an equalizer, but even in that..Wizards get Scribe Scroll for free, and are more likely to know the spells to scribe them. A Sorcerer must find a scroll of a given spell as treasure or to buy in order to be able to use a spell he doesnt know...and he doesnt know very many at all. The Wizard knows far more, and can scribe his own scrolls AND go and try to find/buy scrolls of those spells he doesnt know.

Same goes for diversity of spells. In my experience, spell diversity is more useful more often than multiplicity of spells at higher levels.

This is almost always going to be the case. Cause having a huge multiplicity of spells doesnt do you any good if you dont have the actions to cast them. But being able to do a variety of things, create a variety of effects, is always useful. And Wizards have enough slots to get good out of most of what they have.

The number of spells a Sorcerer can cast can be useful, but if he doesn't have the right spell, all that multiplicity counts for bubkis

Exactly.

Of course then the response will be "having the right spell doesnt do you any good if you dont have the slots to prepare it". But the disparity is less. Wizards still get a lot of spell slots, and a lot of spells known. Sorcerers get even more slots, but a whole lot less spells known.

 

[Felix]

That was discussed up about the 20th post or so on this thread.

Well, by Merlion and I anyways.

 

[Felix]

Merlion, would you say who you are quoting... it's sometimes hard to follow with whom you are talking.

 

[Merlion]

Precicely. So, compared to the wizard, because the sorcerer has less of a disadvantage, he has an advantage. Right?

No....the Sorcerer is at a disadvantage, slightly, to the wizard the vast majority of the time. A total surprise attack, no foreknowledge situation would be one where they would be more or less equal. The Sorcerer would not be at an advantage to the wizard, he would just have evened out, maybe.

He surely does, but he'll never know if those spells are the right ones when he prepares them. The wizard's main advantage, as we agree upon, is spell flexibility and his knowledge of many spells. But in order for him to fully take advantage of that flexibility, he needs to keep some of his spell slots open... which means he has less spells to cast at any given moment. If he fills his spell slots fully, then he has lost the main advantage of his class for trying to cast as many spells as a sorcerer... something he shouldn't be trying to do, because that's not his ballywick.

With a little practice and experience, bad memorization picks aren't an issue

Thats pretty much it. If you have any idea what your doing the preparation thing isnt that big a disadvantage. The Wizard has enough slots to get the neccesities...that is to say basic general use combat spells...and have enough left over for some situational ones. Now yea he has to choose which situational ones to pick, but how often do you have no idea what your dealing with? At the very least you pretty much know where you are. You are unlikely to prepare Fly in a dungeon with a 6' ceiling, for instance (of course I realize people are now going to barrage me with all the reasons why one might do just that, but I assume people will know what I mean).


But the Sorcerer is stuck. He has very few spells known, and thats it. The Wizard is limited at any moment to his prepared spells (of which he has as many or more as the Sorcerer has spells known), but his spells known includes many more, and he can change them each day. Now yes if he gets caught by something totally unexpected, some of what he has prepared may not be useful, especially if its something totally unexpected (like a White Dragon living in a volcano), but in that case everyone is going to be thrown. And if they get defeated but survive, the Wizard can come back the next day with a totally different spell selection

The Sorcerer still has exactly the same spells.



Again...the Sorcerer is not unplayable. It doesnt suck entirely. I dont hate it. But it has numerous design flaws, and overall a Wizard is probably going to be more useful to a party.


It even says that in the 3.5 PH! It states under Role for Sorcerer that a party with a Sorcerer would be well advised to get an additional caster to make up for the sorcerers lack of versatility!

 

[Merlion]

Merlion, would you say who you are quoting... it's sometimes hard to follow with whom you are talking to.

If you can show me how to do that without quoting their whole post.


I dont even pay attention to names half the time...I just respond to what I see.

 

[Denaes]

If you can show me how to do that without quoting their whole post.


I dont even pay attention to names half the time...I just respond to what I see.

instead of:

[QUOTE]Quoted text here [/QUOTE]

Quoted text here

use =PostersName like so:

[QUOTE=Denaes]Something Denaes has said [/QUOTE]

Something Denaes has said

Or just make something up, it doesn't have to be a posters name:

[QUOTE=Denaes Had a Great Idea]Something great Denaes has said [/QUOTE]

Something great Denaes has said

 

[Felix]

[ Quo.te=Felix that wonderful guy] Blah blah blah [/quote]

becomes:

Blah blah blah

 

[Felix]

I am not saying anything further on that topic, as it has little or nothing to do with the point of the thread. Especially since if its as easy as you say to protect your spellbook, than it really isnt a weakness and therefore is not a disadvantage of the Wizard toward the sorcerer anyway.

It is the biggest single weakness of the wizard. Of course it has a place in the discussion about the compared strengths of sorcerers and wizards.

And it is easy to take precautions against spellbook destruction.

Multiple Books
Backup Books
Rods
Staves
Wands

Like KarinsDad said... but it costs money.

Resources that are being employed protecting spellbooks are resources not being used to expand the wizard's spell repitoire. Which means relativly fewer spells avialable in those spellbooks. Which makes that wizard relatively less versatile compared to a sorcerer.

The wizard has a choice to make between spell versatility and protection.

If he goes for maximum spell versatility (which you have repeatedly said is the wizard's strongest feature), he can not afford much protection. He is at greater risk, and has a bigger weakness.

If he goes for maximum protection, then he won't have as many spells, but they sure will be at much less risk of being swiped.

Most likely you'll find a happy balance between the two. But even if you have a slight amount of protection, you will have fewer spells in your spellbook, which means that there is relatively less versatility when compared to the sorcerer who doesn't have to worry about spellbooks.