What do YOU do with sorcerors?

[Dalenthas]

Don't have them. I've made divine magic sorcerer type, kept arcane to spellbooks, and psionics with power points. Thus there are three distinct 'systems' for the three kinds of 'spell casting'.

 

[EOL]

I make every player decide for themselves the origin of their sorcerous power and that's the same for all the NPC's each has a unique origin which helps define their spells and their goals and personalities. I think it depends on how your campaign world works.

 

[Carnifex]

While there is no general explanation for all teh socerors in all the nations IMC, in the land of Naseria it is ruled by five noble Houses - Tarravus, Merlihr, Corvus, Thrazan and Fayen (an elven House). Any member of the nobility is a sorceror automatically, while House Tarravus rules and hence the king is a sorceror-king.

The reason for this is that after the war between the Elder Gods and the Younger Gods, the Younger God Naskha, once a powerful planewalking sorceror now ascended to deityhood, took the remnants of the army of sorcerors he had led into the war on the side of the Younger Gods, and they established Naseria. Thus the noble houses all have sorcerous blood as an integral part of them, and claim it comes from Naskha's blood in their veins (he ascended to the godhood of magic).

 

[Oni]

I have a hard time trying to reconsile the supposed infused magical nature of the sorcerer with the fact that they are so formulaic in their casting. According the rules of the game if a wizard and a sorcerer both cast a spell you would have no way of telling which was wich as they both use the same gestures and verbal components down to the last detail. How does someone who powers lie in their innate magical abilities come to be part of and use such an orderly formulaic approach to magic. My only thought on this is that sorcerer is something that is taught just like magic. Simply a different tradition based around internalizing spell patterns permanantly rather than temporarily holding them in their mind. My problem with this is that it tends to make the sorcerer lest distinct from the wizard.


I've had thoughts of changing this, such as completely revamping the academic nature of the sorcerers skill list, and well as adding penalties to anyone trying to tell what spell they are casting with spellcraft to represent the unique nature of their magical powers. Also dropping spell components, but have to pay an xp cost to use any spell with a costly material component. I think the most organic thing would be to open them up to have access to all the spell list, but I don't know how to do that without creating balance problems.

 

[Tanager]

I tend to view arcane magic as an art, take painting as an analogy :

Both sorcerors and wizards are people who are naturally gifted in the art, as one needs to be to cast arcane spells at all. The difference is that wizards are those who have trained their talent formally (through academia, mentorship, etc..) while sorcerors are those who have trained that talent themselves, usually after having learned the basics from a mentor of some type.

Wizards are the Leonardos, Raphaels and Titians of the arcane world while sorcerors are more akin to Van Gogh or Albert Pinkham Ryder. The power is the same, it's merely it's expression that is different.

of course YMMV,

Tanager

 

[Breakstone]

Superheroes.

'Nuff said.

 

[Blackwind]

My old campaign started before the release of third edition, and I accounted for the sudden appearance of sorcerors through a plot event. To make a long story short, the campaign culminated in an epic battle in which the PCs destroyed The Emerald, a high-level mage who had been trapped in the gemstone many centuries ago. When the Emerald was shattered, it produced a tremendous explosion of raw magical energy. A high percentage of people within the several-mile blast radius, and progressively lower fractions of the populace throughout the world, were infected with this raw, chaotic arcane power. Hence, the sorceror. Not to mention the Tainted template, but that's another story.

 

[Jack Daniel]

In my campaign, sorcerers are wizards who have taken to studing that dodgy path of dealing with extraplanar entities for magic. They have just as much natural talent as wizards, but anyone can be a sorcerer. The magic system in my world works like this:

1) Paladins, rangers, crusaders, and vicars are the divine miracle-workers. Their powers aren't spells, but rather miracles straight from God. They still have to request them ahead of time via prayer, demonstrating foresight, so aside from a good-only restriction on rangers and what used to be clerics and druids, the system hasn't changed. Of course, wizardly trappings like wands and potions had to be done away with for flavor reasons, so for divine miracle-workers, Craft Wand was replaced with Craft Icon, Brew Potion was replaced with Water to Wine, etc.

2) Everything else is based on the planar cosmology of the setting. The Prime Material is surrounded by three other planes, the Spirit World (Astral Plane) that separates it from the Heavens, the Shadow World (Ethereal Plane) that separates it from the Hells, and the Pure Energy Plane, a dimension that overlaps the Prime Material and represents its nature magic and life force. Druid-type casters, like adepts and shugenja, as well as monks, draw on the Pure Energy Plane (think Jedi here). Psions pull mana, or ectoplasmic energy, off the Astral Plane to fuel their powers. Arcane casters pull ether, or quentissential energy, off the Ethereal Plane to power their spells.

3) Wizards and bards alike study arcane lore to learn their spells, but sorcerers take a more dangerous road. Their casting methods are the same, but sorcerers need no books because they're granted supernatural powers by big-shot elemental lords and outsiders, sort of like standard-setting clerics. A sorcerer has to be within one alignment step of his elemental patron, and he does better when casting spells from his patron's element or alignment but worse when casting opposing spells. For the elementals, I pretty much took them off of Final Fantasy, so my game has sorcerers of Bahamut, Ifrit, Shiva, Quetzalcoutal, etc. It seemed like a good idea, since I dropped the standard clerics, and so far, it works.

 

[Ravellion]

I use psions instead

Rav

 

[Da Man]

I have a hard time trying to reconsile the supposed infused magical nature of the sorcerer with the fact that they are so formulaic in their casting. According the rules of the game if a wizard and a sorcerer both cast a spell you would have no way of telling which was wich as they both use the same gestures and verbal components down to the last detail.

Actually, I do not see it this way. (Or, the more appropriate way of saying this would be, 'In my campaign world, I interpret the rules differently.' =)

Spellcasters hurl magic by opening portals to a dimension of magic, letting bits of 'pure' magic out and then focusing it into a spell.

Sorcerors are actually able to feel the magic around them, starting at a young age. They learn, through trial and error (if it does not kill them first=) how to open portals to it and control the power that is unleashed.

Wizards, through many years of study and no small amount of natural brainpower, actually learn how to open the portals into the realm of Magic.

Now, to my point (took long enough, didn't it?!). A Wizard and a Sorceror access this Realm of Magic through very different means. But, both of them 'shape' this magic the same, when attempting to cast the same spell.

How does 'general' spellcraft work for non-spellcasters? It doesn't.