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Message: <blockquote data-quote="evilbob" data-source="post: 2550209" data-attributes="member: 9789">Edited the original post to reflect the above (still under development) Paladin/Ranger idea.  I also had a few more thoughts on sorcerers and included those above as well.Generally, I was thinking sorcerers could do one of two things.  They could either regen magic faster, regardless of resting (for example, level + cha modifer per hour) - which would be neat, and not too powerful - or, they could have some new dynamic that no other caster had.  For example, being able to use metamagic feats on spells before they should be able.  One possible mechanic would be a subrule such as:  if a sorcerer casts a spell using a metamagic feat that would normally take the "level requirement" of that spell above the maximum spell level the sorcerer is currently able to cast, for each level over their maximum the sorcerer must cast the spell one "spell level" higher than it already is.  In other words, casting a spell 2 slots higher than you normally can would make the spell point-cost of the spell 4 slots higher, and something 3 slots higher would make the cost of the spell equivalent to 6 slots higher.  (The actual level of the spell is not changed.)  For example, a 6th level sorcerer casting a fireball normally uses 9 points for a 3rd level spell.  If that sorcerer wishes to empower the spell, she would normally pay 15 points for casting a 5th level spell - however, since she can only cast 3rd level spells, and the metamagic feat adds 2 "spell levels" to the casting cost of the spell, she would have to pay the equivalent number of spell points equal to a 7th level spell - or 4 slots higher - which would be 21.  At 8th level, that same sorcerer could cast an empowered fireball as if it were a 6th level spell (since she is casting only 1 level higher than she could, 5 becomes 6), and the spell would cost 18 points.  At 10th level, it is cast as a 5th level spell as normal for 15 points.  Spell point costs above 9th level would scale up accordingly (3 x level).This is an interesting dynamic that may be too powerful, but in the above example an 6th level sorc would be using about 1/4th - 1/5th (depending on stats) of her total spell points for the entire day to cast an empowered fireball, so I don't think it would be too out of hand.  It also allows the sorcerer to be the only caster who can use metamagic on 9th level spells, albeit at a very steep cost.  For example, casting a "quickened" time stop would be like casting a 17th level spell (9 + 4 + 4 again), which would cost 51 spell points.  Even using a 20th level sorc with a +9 modifier, that would still drain over 1/10th of her total points for the entire day.  And most importantly, it's something no one else can do that really sets the sorc apart as a playable character while giving you something interesting that you can always pull out as a show-stopper.  Another good way to balance this would be that every time you "overcast" a spell, it does 1d4 points of non-lethal damage to you per overcast level (so the 6th level sorc above would have taken 2d4 for the empowered fireball, and the quickened timestop would do 4d4 non-lethal damage).  (It might also be worth re-instating the metamagic penalties for "overcasting," but that provides too many exceptions to exceptions and would be confusing.)The main downside that I see to all of this is that the sorc's feat progression (as-is) would be extremely cookie-cutter, since all sorcs would want to take as many metamagic feats as possible to take advantage of this ability.  It might be worth giving them extra metamagic feats for free (again:  cringe) just to encourage diversity - perhaps at the cost of a lower spell pool, or something similar.ps. "Overcasting" is now my new favorite word.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />pps.  An empowered, maximized, quickened time stop:  27th level spell cost, 81 spell points (and 18d4 non-lethal damage).  (Typically between 1/6th and 1/4th of a 20th level sorc's total spell pool.)  For when you absolutely, positively, have to have 7 rounds of extra time, RIGHT NOW.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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