Useless sorcerers no one wants in the party

[Altamont Ravenard]

Who ever casts Gliterdust!

Truthfully, I couldn't consider playing a sorcerer that didn't have that spell.

On a related note, when I ran the Sunless Citadel, I made the

Spoiler

gnome fighter/cleric prisoner

into a half-elven sorcerer. I chose spells that the rest of the party thought were stupid (or at least, not very useful) (sleep and burning hands - I didn't want to take Magic Missile) and the party never stopped dissing my sorcerer, and made no attempts to save him when he fell unconscious and died.

AR

 

[the Jester]

I find the thought of someone telling me what spells my sorcerer should have offensive. Go play a sorcerer of your own if you wanna see those spells tossed around.

In my campaign there was a sorcerer whose first level spells started out as reduce (3.0) and mount. It sounds like a lame combo, but you'd be surprised. Another started off with grease and, er, can't remember but nothing damage-dealing.

 

[MerakSpielman]

I completely disagree, each caharacter needs to be usefull. Once the battle starts they each need to be able to pull there own weight. If your DM includes them when judging the CR of the encounter, and then they cant do anything usefull once the fighting starts then they need to choose different spells.

Adventuring is dangerous, and if your Sorc cant help you all stay alive then he has done something wrong. I am not saying every Sorc has to choose nothing but combat spells, but he needs to have some basic ideas covered. At least one single target nuke is all it takes to be usefull.

You play for fun, but death is rarely fun.

Interesting persective. My next character concept that I'm really looking forward to playing is designed to be totally useless in combat, but very useful outside of it. He's going to be an Expert, with only Knowledge skills. Starting at 75 years old for the bonus to Int. I hope somebody gets new campaign started soon so I can play him.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I think as a player I would be upset if someone had the audacity to pick spells that were lame for the sole purpose of being a jerk. It is another matter entirely if someone picks a questionable set of spells because they think it fits their character concept or something along those lines.

 

[Stone Angel]

In my experience I find that there are really no useless sorcerers the fact that they can cast so many...


The Seraph of Earth and Stone

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I generally play a very tactical game. Glitterdust and grease have done far more for the party than fireball.

An effective sorcerer in particular shouldn't blow his very limited spells on the awful direct damage selection. Scorching ray is worthwhile, but more than one direct damage spell per level is excessive and foolish; heck, one per level is seriously pushing it.

I would certainly pick up mage armor, shield and grease before magic missile. Scorching ray first, but then invisibility or glitterdust. Haste before fireball, certainly, and perhaps flame arrow first, too. Or even slow.

 

[Pants]

Heh, I once started play as an Elven Sorcerer named Marthus with no combat applicative spells (Expeditious Retreat and Mage Armor), but he was a coward. He also had the Run feat, so running away when things got tough was his forte.

Thing is, he was a greedy coward and his greed usually managed to overbear his intense cowardice. Fact was, even though he was useless in combat (he had a 6 Str too...), he was a blast to play and the other players liked him just because he was an accomplished liar and just funny. However at 2nd level, I did pick up magic missile, just so I could do something in combat.

Stil, to this day, he remains my favorite character of all time...

 

[diaglo]

the sorc in our party ... JoeBlank on this message board.... tends to ask the group for suggestions each time he gains new spells.

and each time he wringes himself out before finally deciding.

currently he just reached lvl 11

so has to pick

2lvl
3lvl
4lvl
and 5lvl

Mass Darkvision for 4th and Seeming for 5th seem to be the current leaders...

either way the decision is always his... it is his character.... but it is nice for the rest of the party to know what he chooses... so we can figure out tactics....

 

[Andre]

We started 8th level characters, and the only Damage Dealing spell he picked for hiw Neutral Good Sorc was Fireball. He had Glitterdust, Displacment, Featherfall, and Ray of Enfeeblement. He wasn't completely useless, but it was damn anoying. About 3 rounds into the fight he kept mumbling things like, "Well I cant do this, and I cant do that..." Acting like it was our fault that he couldn't be usefull. It got bad, a few levels in he picked up Melf's Acid Arrow and things were fine.

I have to agree with the others that this isn't a bad choice of spells - depending on the situation.

In a recent game I played a sorcerer with almost exactly these spells. The first encounter was at night, with us being ambushed by owlbears. The sorcerer was not very useful and the fighters hacked the owlbears down in a few rounds.

The next day we were attacked by a tough stone giant. He was on an outcropping bombarding us with stones as the fighters struggled to get near him. After I cast an empowered ray of enfeeblement, and then a glitterdust spell, the weakened, blinded stone giant was an easy kill. The party was singing my praises.

Same character, two different outcomes.

 

[Pants]

the sorc in our party ... JoeBlank on this message board.... tends to ask the group for suggestions each time he gains new spells.

I tend to do that too, even though the group never really decides on what spells to pick. One guy will invariably go for the next blow-em up spell and the rest never agree or don't care, so I end up picking them myself usually...