Warmage (CA) vs. Sorcerer

[Corsair]

And yet, a lot of people have fun playing this highly effective class.

Bye
Thanee

I don't want to start an argument here, that isn't my goal. In fact, I love sorcerers and I love playing spontaneous casters in general (Sorcerer, Warmage, Psion, Favored Soul, Bard, etc) vs memorization casters.

My simple point is that the original sorcerer has a number of things going against it compared to a wizard (loss of feats, limited spell selection, delayed progression) to gain what what they get (a negligible advantage in spells per day, spell slot versatility). The only reason I played sorcerers was because at the time, they were my only other option as a spontaneous caster.

Now that I have psions, warmages, and warlocks, I have more options and I rarely find myself ever playing sorcerer (though I still do from time to time if I want a "pure" arcane caster). But for my own game, I'll probably be creating variants styled after the warmage, including an enchanter, and an illusionist.

These other options make a much better tradeoff imho, than a standard sorcerer.

 

[Thanee]

Apart from the Psion, who is simply a superior class to pretty much any other, but that's a problem with the Psion, not with the other classes IMHO , I think the Warmage and Warlock are both quite different from the Sorcerer. Some people might like their flavor better, especially the Warlock's, the Warmage is also kinda blunt, really, but I doubt, that both can live up to what a Sorcerer can do. They are both extremely limited in their spell/invocation selection. Super specialists, so to say.

Not sure, if I can agree with the better tradeoff there, they both lose a lot compared to a Wizard.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Sorcerers suck at anything but artillery and now they're second best -- no, third best, counting the warlock. They sucked before, and they suck completely.

Which is a good thing. Death to sorcerers!

You really hate the poor sorcerers, do you!

There is now no character that can be made with a sorcerer that can't be made better with some other class.

Only if you limit the Sorcerer to a artillery platform, which you obviously do. If you only pick up Evocation spells, then obviously the Warmage is the better choice for you.

But that's not the Sorcerer's problem, if people in your games do not know how to make a good spell selection (no offense, but you certainly sound that way)!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Darkness]

Apart from the Psion, who is simply a superior class to pretty much any other

You mean to say he's kinda like a Cleric or Druid this way?

 

[Thanee]

No, superior.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Darkness]

That bad? Hm. I'll have to look into this.

 

[Thanee]

Heh. I hope you noticed, that I'm not taking this highly serious.

Tho, I do think, that the Psion is superior to every core class, some more some less.
But this topic is really about Warmages and Sorcerers not Psions.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Khaalis]

Just to throw in my $0.02 worth...

I fully agree with various other posters that you really cannot fairly compare the Warmage and the Sorcerer. They are two distinctly different classes meant to fill different niches. Basically the Warmage is the 'fighter' of the arcane casters just as the 'fighter' is the generic tank of all the melee classes. It isnt meant to be utilitarian, it serves one purpose - combat.

As to Psions, I am in the camp that 3.5 Psionics are not broken. I think they were very well done and balanced. IMHO the Psion (or if not psion then warlock) is what the sorcerer should have been, rather than the wizard's stepchild that it currently is.

JMHO. YMMV.

 

[charlesatan]

Suffice to say, I've played Sorcerers and I've played Warmages. Here's my take on it:

Warmage: great offensively, but there's nothing more pathetic than a spellcaster that can't cast detect magic. Offensive-wise the warmage is great, especially at first level (he can take down a group of orcs with his fireball-esque burning hands + damage from Int modifier). Even cantrip spells like ray of frost becomes useful. But honestly, don't expect anything much more from him. Sure, he can wear armor, but it's not like he can cast mage armor or shield. At higher levels, the Int damage doesn't amount to much, unless you really have an insanely high Int modifier (I mean if you have a modifier of +7, that's more or less something like an additional +2d6 damage at most).

Sorcerer: well, in the hands of a good player (i.e. knows what spells to take), a sorcerer can be great. Of course unlike the Warmage where his spell list is fixed, there's no such safety feature for the Sorcerer. And defense-wise, the Sorcerer has access to good spells like Polymorph, for example, which the Warmage doesn't have.

Here's my take on the Psion and Warlock:

Psion: pretty much like the sorcerer, except for one vital difference; a psion has more versatility in his powers (since they can be augmented or choose a different energy type), but in the long run, a psion manifests less powers (at least manifesting them optimally) than a sorcerer. I mean a psion can easily burn all his power points in three or four rounds. If your GM is the type that gives one big encounter a day, then the psion will really outshine the sorcerer (or even the wizard for that matter). But if your GM gives three or four encounters a day (and one of them is a "really tough" encounter), then the sorcerer will shine in his environment since his real asset is his ability to cast more spells than any other class (except the warmage perhaps).

Warlock: it's good for the opposite reason the psion is powerful; if there's anything that can outlast the sorcerer, it's probably the Warlock. But really, comparing the two, the Sorcerer has a more flexible spell selection and in general more powerful spells (the Warlock has one or two cheesy invocations at least when compared to what the Sorcerer would get). However, if your GM is like throwing you ten encounters a day, a Warlock shines because he's able to consistently cast invocations. But on a round-per-round efficiency basis, the Psion would rank "high up there" (since he can manifest three powers a turn at the cost of a lot of power points), the sorc/wizard/warmage, then at the bottom would be the warlock.