Why no quicken spell for sorcerers?

[IcyCool]

Have you seen the Unearthed Arcana Spontaneous Metamagic rules?

No I have not, nor did I realize that was what you were alluding to with your (somewhat snarky) reply.

I got the impression that you were advocating that sorcerers should be able to use the quicken spell feat without the spell level increase or increased casting time.

I see now that I must have misunderstood. Of the versions you mention, the limited uses per day doesn't feel too bad, but using extra slots to power the metamagic feat could be very abusable with a sorcerer, potentially.

 

[KarinsDad]

Metamagic as a whole in standard D&D mostly stinks, because you pay to much and to many times for it. Quicken and Empower are just about the only worthwhile ones. But a Sorcerer having to take 2 feats to use it makes it totally ridcules again.

So, it is ridiculous for a Sorcerer to use 2 feats to get a Prepared Quickened spell, but it is not ridiculous for Sorcerers to get Spontaneous Metamagic while Clerics, Wizards, and Druids have to settle for Prepared Metamagic?

The difference in useability between Prepared Metamagic and Spontaneous Metamagic is huge.

Boo hoo. The poor Sorcerer has to pay 2 feats to get one metamagic ability that the Wizard can get with 1 feat, even though the Sorcerer has a huge advantage with all other metamagic. Boo hoo.

Have you ever heard of the word balance?

Btw, that is one reason why Wizards get the bonus feats. Metamagic feats are more useful and useable for Sorcerers and Bards, hence, Wizards get more feats to partially make up for that.

Another reason is that the Wizard can use the bonus feats for Spell Mastery since he can lose his spells, whereas a Sorcerer or Bard cannot (shy of Feebleminded or some such).

Balance. Pros and Cons for each class.

 

[LokiDR]

Hi all-

I'm considering an all-spontaneous casters campaign, and I'd like to keep quicken spell as an option. I have to confess I've never really understood why sorcs aren't allowed to use it - does anyone have a good handle on the reasoning behind this? Any thoughts on balance issues that might come from allowing it?

In standard D&D, as written, there are advantages to playing a class that can use and keep using almost any spell they know, along with the flexibility of metamagic at will. On the other hand, the prepared, careful casters can be more powerful if they know exactly what they need. In other words, the wizard needs to be prepared but can do better when he is. The sorcerer is just off the cuff. In that way they are balanced through a campaign.

Now, if you toss out all the prepared casters, its balanced to allow the sorcerer to play with quicken. There is no wizard to hold back. You might be undervaluing the non-casters, but I don't think by much.

As written, though it pains me, I think the quicken restriction makes sense in an adventuring party setting. If you are going to change the rules, just remember to be balanced. I would suggest the UA varient rules, as they have more thought behind them. If you want to strike out on your own, best of luck. If it works great, maybe you can publish your own system.

 

[nittanytbone]

It seems to me that sorcerers get so many spells, there's no reason why a 10th level caster shouldn't throw off a quickened Magic Missile (or some other useful low level spell) every round as a Level V spell and then cast a nasty Level IV spell as well. Its basically allowing the caster to double the number of combat spells they can throw -- even magic missile is pretty potent at taking out secondary characters or mooks, especially if you can blast with a Dispel Magic the same round.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

well I certainly don't think it would be unbalancing to let sorcerers quicken spells normally. I'm sure there is some flavor reason based on how sorceres use metamagic. But I basically accept that the designers are crack addled when it comes to metamagic balance so I'd feel free to ignore this fairly lame restriction. At +4 spell levels and a feat its balanced no matter what class is using it. I'd say its actually a bit on the weak side not massivly so, but +4 levels is frikin huge. At least it gives a unigue enough benefit, so that it doesn't suck hard like virtually every other metamagic feat.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Actions per round are of a great premium to any character, it affects so much. The CR of a single enemy has to factor in their lone action versus the iconic parties four, & this is a breaking point in the system for the mid-teen CR onwards.

It is not accurate to compare # of attacks with # of spells because the average expected damage output is what should be compared to the power of the spell, not the componant attack. This is because the spells in d&ds spell system are balanced by assigning a spell level where the spell will be singularly useful against commonly met & appropriate CR challenges.

How does this all tie into the case of the sorcerer? A typically constructed sorcerer has at least an optimized suboptimal spell for any situation, unlike a prepared spellcaster who can be caught having one or no appropriate spell. If we then augment this scenario with the sorcerer having multi-spell capacity, they could increase their suboptimized power by sheer volume of spell actions.

This blows the prepared spellcasters away in terms of balance so the game designers look to address this. The sorcerer is already emasculated enough in terms of class features so the choices are either to limit their flexibility or boost the prepared spellcasters. Boosting classes probably resulted in a merry-go-round in improvements as the boosts rippled through the classes, threatening to recalibrate the games power up a notch & thereby invalidaing all existing work on CRs. The flexibility limitation was then the best response.

Inexplicably, the game designers then eschewed the previous versions of haste & ignored their own philosophy by granting cheap extra actions. As games crashed & burned a revision was inevitable.

(Obviously, all my humble opinions.)

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm considering an all-spontaneous casters campaign, and I'd like to keep quicken spell as an option. I have to confess I've never really understood why sorcs aren't allowed to use it - does anyone have a good handle on the reasoning behind this? Any thoughts on balance issues that might come from allowing it?

The extended casting time most of the time is not a big price to pay. The biggest price is still the increased level slot, and of course the cost of a feat. With this in mind, there is absolutely no balance problem if you allow the spontaneous casters to Quicken their spells.

I think the decision to officially disallow was just because it's a simpler rule to say that all sponaneous metamagicked spell is cast as a FRA, than to say "first it becomes a FRA, but then it becomes a free action".

 

[KarinsDad]

The extended casting time most of the time is not a big price to pay. The biggest price is still the increased level slot, and of course the cost of a feat. With this in mind, there is absolutely no balance problem if you allow the spontaneous casters to Quicken their spells.

I think balance is extremely broken with Spontaneous Quickened spells.

I think the Arcane Preparation feat is broken with regard to Quicken Spell (which is the only real reason to take the feat). Having a prepared metamagicked spell just to cast it as a Standard Action as opposed to a Full Round Action is not very appealing as a feat.

The reason I think this is broken is things such as:

Round 1) Quicken True Strike, Vampiric Touch (or other touch or ranged touch attack, especially one without a saving throw and/or spell resistance)

Round 2) Quicken True Strike, Vampiric Touch
Round 3) Quicken True Strike, Vampiric Touch
Round 4) Quicken True Strike, Vampiric Touch
Round 5) Quicken True Strike, Vampiric Touch
Round 6) Quicken True Strike, Vampiric Touch

Wizards (or Clerics or Druids) really do not have these types of options with the normal Quicken Spell feat (unless they want virtually no 5th level spell slots available for anything else).


I suspect that when people do not see balance problems here, it is because they have not yet played a character on the receiving end of the combinations that Quickened and Spontaneous magic can achieve.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

You don't even have to be on the receiving end to have an issue. All it takes is for someone to routinely sieze the limelight by exploiting this to make all the other players feel overshadowed. Then the dm faces the quandary of either having to resort to overtly contrived scenarios to challenge the overpowered character or having the overshadowed players suffer until they revolt.

 

[Li Shenron]

Round 1) Quicken True Strike, Vampiric Touch (or other touch or ranged touch attack, especially one without a saving throw and/or spell resistance)

Round 2) Quicken True Strike, Vampiric Touch
Round 3) Quicken True Strike, Vampiric Touch
Round 4) Quicken True Strike, Vampiric Touch
Round 5) Quicken True Strike, Vampiric Touch
Round 6) Quicken True Strike, Vampiric Touch

Wizards (or Clerics or Druids) really do not have these types of options with the normal Quicken Spell feat (unless they want virtually no 5th level spell slots available for anything else).

I am fine with the situation above. It's pretty strong, but also quite costly.