Why I Hate Sorcerors

[Bastoche]

In our new campaign, there is a sorceror and a wizard. A vicious team indeed !!! And I agree what Pax. The problem is the player. Or more precisely, the fact that the player's playing style are incompatible. Heavy roleplay in FR ?

 

[Speaks With Stone]

Down Time

I've heard the "I can't get the other players let me take time off" complaint lots of times. I find that really odd. Your characters adventure 24/7 without ever a break in between. Holy _____!! I work at a desk and I still get 2 weeks vacation and weekends off. What is up with that?!?!?

One adventure hook seemlessly follows into the next without time passing in between? That seems really odd. My group tends to like having a block of time where we can say, "My character catches up on the simpler duties at the church, hangs out in bars drinking and telling tall tales, studies in the library, scribes some new spells, fasts for 10 days to attone for all of the recent killing, test the limits on a fortitude ring at the local brothel, visit family and friends, and so on.

Doing this takes virtually no time in game as it happens between play sessions (presumably between adventures). I get the impression that this is not the case from comments by others. This would certainly impact the wizards scribe spell ability, but it seems that few characters could really be placed in perspective if they don't have quiet time to not live on the edge - something to be fighting for other than loot, fame, and experience.

 

[Zhure]

I've been in campaigns with almost zero downtime (like the last two), and in ones where the PC's get years off. The most odd one was where we had an entire generation of downtime. Lots of different campaigns out there.

 

[Lucius Foxhound]

Lack of downtime sucks for Wizards. We were in a huge campaign underground for months... my Wizard went from 3rd to 7th level without ever being allowed to scribe a spell. The party refused to even let me take 4 days to scribe one spell (one particular bitc*y player insisted that the party could leave me while they went on adventuring -- she was later kicked out of the gaming group). So I had a STACK of captured spellbooks with no time to scribe them... it was then I realized that a sorcerer would have been a better choice.

My current Wizard has insisted on some downtime.. it was at the point where I offered to skip a session or two so I can scribe spells. Once the other players realized their powerful Wizard wouldn't be with them while adventuring, they had no problem taking a few months off.

 

[LokiDR]

Some guys replied to my and other comments that it's a problem of the player who plays the sorcerer if that character is generic. Right. To my first sentence about Diablo2 kids lured to the RPG table... It was meant similar.

I made bad experiences with such players. And I don't think they abused the class... That class has been built to be used that way. Such problem players who get annoyed by "too much talking" (since they think that roleplaying means killing something) tend to play sorcerers.

I admit that you can play sorcerers different. I did so too, played a gnome illusionist that was reincarnated as sorcerer kobold... With a suboptimized spell selection.

What I missed or better, would have liked to see: Elemental specialists (not only by Prrrr classes), theme spellcasters, spellcasters with certain powers ... all things with a certain feeling that is not supported by the existing spellcasting system for sorcerers with the only change to the wizard being the spontaneous casting.

Sure, you can use houserules or 3rd company d20 products... But I still hope to see a revised sorcerer in the new books.

I agree that sorceror would be a lot more interesting if it was elemental mage, or themed. But if you think the class is straight out of Diablo, what do you think about a fighter? At least a sorceror can choose other spells. All the fighter feats apply to combat because they are....FIGHTERS. Does this mean you can't roleplay well and just want to kill things? I don't think so.

The rules of D&D support a campaign with a decent amount of combat. If you don't want that level of combat, you have to look hard and long at the rules to change them for your game. If a DM doesn't do this, don't be surprized when players revert to those things their characters do best.

 

[Nail]

The party refused to even let me take 4 days to scribe one spell (one particular bitc*y player insisted that the party could leave me while they went on adventuring -- she was later kicked out of the gaming group).

Oh, but that's just 'cause it's you, Lucius. No one else ever gets treated like that!

The problem here, of course, is team work. Some groups (but not all) know that it's the team that'll get 'em thru the tight spots. The "group of loners" mistake is a typical newbie foible, brought about, in part, by an inexperienced DM. As always, the tone of the game is set by the DM.

As leverage, the wizard is usally best off talking about all of the magic items he can create for the party. That gets people to perk up a bit. Perhaps those wizard PCs "without any time" weren't acting like a team either. That is, they never offered their services to the fighters, rogues, etc.

I mean, look: Make it explicit. Tell the group what you can do for them if they can give you some time off.

Dragging us back to the original topic: Why I hate sorcerers.

I'm a bit surprised the idea of PrCs hasn't really come up yet. Sorcerers are the best, bar none at those arcane PrCs, since they really lose nothing when taking a PrC with "+1 caster level". There's no feats wasted, no BAB to worry about, and they're only gonna gain in the Saves department.

True, skill selection is a problem, but....hey, Rule Zero a few cross-class skills, and yer all set.

And come on: Anyone not rule zeroed some stuff?

 

[Nail]

i also hate sorcerers but just because i think they're lame...

Trolling is cute, tleilaxu, but I guess I expected something a bit more insightful from you.....

 

[LokiDR]

I've been in campaigns with almost zero downtime (like the last two), and in ones where the PC's get years off. The most odd one was where we had an entire generation of downtime. Lots of different campaigns out there.

This changes the balance of the classes itself. I think the game assumes some downtime, else the wizard has lots of issues. If a DM doesn't allow downtime, then perhaps some rules should be modifed to account for this, like scribing time. Perhaps a wizard could scribe into their spellbooks during rest times, 4 hours at a time. This, along with reducing scribing time would allow the wizard to keep some of their advantage.

I occasionally rip on monks. Well, I never had those times when a monk would be very useful come up in my game. In other people's games, they came up a lot and the monk was very useful. It is another issue the DM needs to balance.

 

[Apok]

Once again, back to the original topic. I don't really hate sorcs, per se, but I can sum up my feelings for them with the following;

Copied from my post on the General Discussion forum

As it stands now, there is nothing unique or unusual about the Sorcerer to warrant it being a seperate class. We might as well scrap it and use the Spells Know/Spells per Day spontaneous casting system as an option for Wizards to choose at first level. Yes, the Wizard is supposed to be the "wiseman" but that's reflected by the fact that he gets every Knowledge skill as a class skill. Sorcs need other skills (especially some Cha based ones) to differentiate them. A d6 for HD wouldn't hurt, either.

 

[Sixchan]

As it stands now, there is nothing unique or unusual about the Sorcerer to warrant it being a seperate class. We might as well scrap it and use the Spells Know/Spells per Day spontaneous casting system as an option for Wizards to choose at first level. Yes, the Wizard is supposed to be the "wiseman" but that's reflected by the fact that he gets every Knowledge skill as a class skill. Sorcs need other skills (especially some Cha based ones) to differentiate them. A d6 for HD wouldn't hurt, either.

I'm not sure about the Wizard having spontaneous casting as an option, but I agree that Sorcerors aren't much of a class without some charisma class skills. Perhaps some new ones, or having some magical skills as charisma skills for them...