Theme Sorcerers

[Chun-tzu]

Here are a few ideas. If you're interested in any in particular, I could elaborate:

Rune Mage
Psi-Mage
Shadowmage
Vampire Slayer
Skymage
War Wizard that specializes in explosions
Thunderer

 

[the Jester]

How flexible is the dm? Will he or she let you devise your own spells to fit the theme?

How about a spider sorcerer- spiderclimb, web, acid web, poisonweb, polymorph, poison/fear type spells...

"Wall" sorcerers could be neat, as could symbol/glyph oriented sorcerers.

How about a slaad-blood sorcerer? Protection from law, change self, shout (RIBBIT!), etc.

A sorcerer focused on teh funny- grease, Tasha's laughter, fools gold, magic mouth, etc.

Really, it depends on the campaign and the dm's flexibility. And, of course, on what you want your sorcerer to be like. Any ideas? (Other than the summoning focus, which you seem to have discarded.)

 

[Number47]

I think a fun theme would be "fey blooded". Not as an actual race or template, but just as an explanation of your abilities. Take things that are very fey, like Charm and Tasha's. Maybe take Spell Focus: Enchantment.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Genie blood?

Instead of taking the "blood of dragons makes a sorceror" angle, your sorceror could believe he has the blood of a Djinni or Efreeti. Preferentially go after the spell-like abilities of his suspected ancestor and appropriate elemental spells. He would, of course, wield a scimitar and wear a vest...

Considering you have a paladin and a cleric in your party, I would do with the Chaotic Good Djinni over the Efreeti (how kindly would your paladin take to you running around claiming descent from an evil outsider?). You could use most or all of the list humble minion provided for a storm mage, and it's more interesting than yet another fire mage.

 

[Ruavel]

Fire & Ice

a guy playing a Sorcerer in my campaign decided to take on a "Fire & Ice" theme...

all his offencive spells (aside from magic missile) are cold based and he took the Energy Substitution feat (T&B) with the Fire descriptor...

watching him hurl a flaming Ice Knife can be quite amusing... soon he'll take Energy Admixture (?) so he gets both types of energy in the same spell...

he's been quite an effective character for the party as well as having at least a little depth to his character...

 

[RangerWickett]

Assuming you don't want to add any new rulebooks beyond the core PHB, DMG, MM, you've still got a lot of options available to you. The main thing to do is make the DM read the last page of Chapter Six, in the section of customizing your character. Unless he has a very D&D-specific image for his game, he should let you fiddle with your spells a little. Just try not to fiddle too much. In fact, you'd only want to fiddle with maybe one spell of any given level, to make his life easier.

The Simple Ones:

• The Arcane Sorcerer - focusing on flashy force-magic, illusions, and really high fantasy-style spell. Magic Missile, Mage Armor, Shield, Silent Image, Mirror Image, Levitate, Protection from Arrows, Resist Elements, Fly, Lightning Bolt, and a bunch of wall spells.
• The Fire Mage - This one's a no-brainer.
• The Illusionist - This one's also not too hard, and it works well if you're going for some sort of trickster-style character.

The Nifty Ones:

• Aeromancer - I have an NPC sorceress of this variety in my game back home. Levitate, featherfall, gust of wind, fly, whispering wind, water breathing. Her magic missiles are wind blasts instead of force bolts, and she has a lot of spells that are similarly air-themed.
• The Mystic - Take a lot of spells to disguise and hide yourself, some divinations, and only have attack spells if their effects are subtle. Maybe try to convince your DM to let you change magic missile so it does only 1d4 instead of 1d4+1, but it just hurts the target, instead of shooting them. You basically want to be mysterious, enigmatic, and to always know more than anyone else.
• The Shapeshifter - Fairly straightforward, though you'll want to see if your DM will let you take some of the wildshape feats from Masters of the Wild.
• The Summoner - This one's been discussed a little already on the boards recently. Sure, it's a little repetitive to have all the summon monster spells, but you'll have a ton of flexibility in what you can cast. Summon Monster I, Summon Swarm, Summon Monster III, Summon Monster IV, Lesser Planar Binding, Planar Binding, Summon Monster VII, Greater Planar Binding, Gate. Either go for a lot of small monsters, or try to make all the summoned critters represent something from your character's religion. Lots of personality possibilities here.

The Weird Ones:

• The Arcane Knight - Start as an apprentice level paladin/sorcerer, and get stuff like mage armor, shield, mount, phantom steed, greater magic weapon, true strike, bull's strength, etc. At higher levels, try to lesser planar binding to get nifty mounts, or maybe use an extended summon monster spell to get a celestial critter or something. Make sure your DM will let you multi-class between paladin and sorcerer.
• The Sorcerous Scientist - Dabbling in unorthodox magic, this sorcerer would take the Wild Spellcaster template from Wild Spellcraft, and would always try to create his own spells whenever he levels up, usually to solve some problem he's been suffering.
• The Effigist - He takes some sort of feat to empower his spells, in exchange for always requiring some sort of effigy of his target for the spell to work. He'd focus on long-range spells to curse his foes from a distance, rather than confronting them in direct combat. He'd probably have a voodoo doll.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Since you're playing a themed sorceror in a party of religious characters, why not try a sorceror whose power stems from the fact that he's a descendant of one of the gods (or at least one of their servants). There are a lot of ways you could spin this depending upon what god you selected but you could start with their domains to get the concept for your spell selection.

Or you could use the domain sorceror developed by myself, Vrylakos, and a few others:

http://members.tripod.com/vrylakos/sorcerer_domain_system.htm

Pick the celestial bloodline or just pick two domains that mirror the domains of the god you select as your ancestor.

 

[Oni]

I've come to one of two ideas.

1. Something similar to the arcane knight that was mentioned (though fighter instead of paladin). Reasoning the character has stumbled across a manual to a long forgotten school of combat, and harnessing magic as a tool. The spells and feats he learns would be the various techniques and lessons from the fighting manual that he has puzzeled out through practise.

2. Peasent boy is out in the forest, when a portion of the forest floor collapses out from underneath of him dropping in into and ancient crypt of a forgotten civilization. Mucking around where he ought not he finds an ancient gauntlet which fuses to him. The gauntlet is an ancient and powerful war device as he gains levels of a sorcerer, what he is really doing is figuring out the different things the gauntlet can do, all the spells are already there he just doesn't know how to use them yet. This would make him primarily a boom boom battle mage.


Thoughts?


[edit: On a side note something I meant to ask. What would you say are the personality differences between someone with a slightly below avg Int and a slightly above avg Wis and someone witha slightly above avg Int and a slightly below avg Wis?]

 

[Chun-tzu]

I don't think the Arcane Knight is a good idea if you were concerned about the effectiveness of the summoner. A single-classed sorcerer specializing in summoning is probably much more effective than a Fighter/Sorcerer. And with a paladin and a cleric in the group, the party would benefit considerably more from a single-classed spellcaster than a multiclassed one.

The other idea is interesting, but I'm not sure how best to implement it. Let me think about it.

 

[Fenes 2]

Re: Genie blood?

Instead of taking the "blood of dragons makes a sorceror" angle, your sorceror could believe he has the blood of a Djinni or Efreeti. Preferentially go after the spell-like abilities of his suspected ancestor and appropriate elemental spells. He would, of course, wield a scimitar and wear a vest...

Considering you have a paladin and a cleric in your party, I would do with the Chaotic Good Djinni over the Efreeti (how kindly would your paladin take to you running around claiming descent from an evil outsider?). You could use most or all of the list humble minion provided for a storm mage, and it's more interesting than yet another fire mage.

I built my own sorceress up in a similar way, and tagged on a home-brew prestige class dubbed "Genie Adept" similar to the dragon disciple & elemental savant. (Nothing too powerful, gives outsider status - with vulnerability to summoning etc. - as well as resistance to fire 10, darkvision, evasion-like immunity to fire as well as a vulnerability to cold.)