What flavor are sorcerers in your campaign?

[Gnome]

I perfer mint-chocolate myself.

Seriously though, I've always felt that sorcerers weren't different enough flavor-wise or mechanically from wizards. They use a different mechanic for casting spells, and there's some vague fluff about the "blood of dragons", but that's about it.

How do you treat sorcerers in your campaigns? Same as in the PH, or have you added different fluff, or tweaked the mechanics of the class to give it its own feel?

 

[Stormborn]

I perfer mint-chocolate myself.

Seriously though, I've always felt that sorcerers weren't different enough flavor-wise or mechanically from wizards. They use a different mechanic for casting spells, and there's some vague fluff about the "blood of dragons", but that's about it.

How do you treat sorcerers in your campaigns? Same as in the PH, or have you added different fluff, or tweaked the mechanics of the class to give it its own feel?

I give Sorcerers Eschew Materials, with the option of spending XP for material components greater than 1gp, and a d6 HD and a starting Bloodline that represents their heritage. Those Bloodline feats can be found in Dragon #311 and #325 or in the Best of Dragon Compendium out about now-ish.

Depending on the campaing world I may limit which bloodlines the sorcerer has accesses to, and further tweek the effects and flavor.

 

[DragonLancer]

IMC sorcerers are either dragonbloodied or have very distant outsider parentage. Also, if a cultists serves a demon/devil prince they become sorcerers not clerics. Clerics are for gods not demons. Sorcerer becomes a traditional witch/warlock type.

 

[JimAde]

I also give them Eschew Materials and add Use Magic Device as a class skill. I also allow sorcerers to use an alternate casting mechanic called Unlimited Mana. It's actually a GURPS option created by S. John Ross, but I've adapted it to d20 and all my NPC sorcerers use it. There are no PC sorcerers in my game, so the decision hasn't come up yet.

 

[smootrk]

I don't really like them as written. I would prefer them to have completely unique spell lists that omit certain groups/types of spells that seem to be of the 'learned' type of magic (which would remain Wizard exclusive).

Briefly, spells that come to mind are ones involving writing (glyphs, magic circles, runes), divinations that do not involve detection (although arguable), conjurations involving beings... to name a few initial thoughts (without going through all the books).

Spells that seem ideal for a sorcerer IMO involve energy manipulation (evocations come to mind), those goofy Orb spells (although IMO Broken spells), personal augmentation, detection spells....

I am sure there are many individual spells that defy these general guidlines, and are appropriate as well. These are just some initial and random thoughts on your topic.

 

[Ambrus]

IMC, sorcerers are the decendants of specific families of elves who secretly interbred with dragons eons ago to help broker a peace between the warring dragon and elven nations. Sorcery is innate dragon magic. Wizardry is elven magic; the shaping of external quintessence which permeates the whole world from a single arcane source. Currently the dragons and elves have a tenuous peace between them; a cold war of sorts. The elven empire is founded on a traditon of wizardry. The elven sorcerers know that the source of all wizardry is meant to one day be taken from the world and returned to the gods from which it was stolen, leaving the empire without wizardry. They work to create a secret society of sorcerer families to prepare for that day when they will be needed to fortify the elven empire by replacing the then powerless elven wizards.

 

[Jon Potter]

I haven't actually played this way, but I've been toying with the idea of letting Sorcerers choose Draconic feats (from CA) at the same levels that Wizards get bonus feats.

To further differentiate them I'm considering keeping familiars for Sorcerers and replacing that feature for Wizards with the magic staves from a recent Dragon magazine issue. In my mind it fits with the image of the Gandalf-archetype and also plays on the idea of a witch's familiar whispering the secrets of magic to her.

Not sure how it'll play out, but I'm thinking of implementing it in my next campaign.

 

[Crothian]

IMC it is up to the player to choose where the power comes from and then the flavor goes on from there.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Well, in my current campaign, we just went by the book, and it's really up to the player.

In my largest homebrew setting, however, the rules go as follows:

Sorcery and wizardry are both arts that you learn; sorcerers are not "instinctive" casters. (And in fact, sorcerers in that setting may choose whether their spellcasting is based off of Charisma or Intelligence.) Wizards learn many spells; sorcerers learn a narrower selection, but they learn those spells so thoroughly, they need not prepare them in advance.

Additionally, sorcerers are able to do this due to development, during training, of a closer link with the magics of the natural world, represented by the familiar. In this setting, sorcerers must have familiars--it's not an option--whereas wizards cannot. (Their familiar is replaced by an extra bonus feat.) Because sorcerers must have familiars, I've increased the advantages and reduced the risks.

The only instinctive casters in that setting are the warlocks.

 

[mattcolville]

I perfer mint-chocolate myself.

Seriously though, I've always felt that sorcerers weren't different enough flavor-wise or mechanically from wizards. They use a different mechanic for casting spells, and there's some vague fluff about the "blood of dragons", but that's about it.

How do you treat sorcerers in your campaigns? Same as in the PH, or have you added different fluff, or tweaked the mechanics of the class to give it its own feel?

There are no sorcerers in my game. I think it was a mistake of WotC to make them a core class, I think they belong in the DMG as an alternate wizard.