Sorceror Spells...

[Crissa]

I've got a twinkling of an idea...

...For a hack to d20, would it work to differentiate the spell list between Sorcerer and Wizard?

'Cause Sorcerers and other limited-spell-casters depend upon open ended spells, spells which remain useful at all levels... Whereas Wizards can know an unlimited number of spells.

So for instance, Sleep would be a Wizard spell, but not a Sorcerer spell.

Fireball is fine for a Wizard to offhand, but a Sorcerer needs to be able to change damage types because they can't memorize a different spell. A Sleep version for a Sorcerer wouldn't have a hard limit but would only affect one target per caster level instead. Polymorph (ala the tomes) would require a Wizard to research and scribe each form, but a Sorcerer could have an additional form every three levels.

I know, spell lists are annoying. But everyone has to go through and make feat lists and skill lists and class and race lists for their campaign, why not a spell list, too?

-Crissa

Wish and Planar Binding are just off the lists anyhow 'cause I don't know how to use them as effectively as they should be.

[JonSetanta]

If anything, I'd rather shrink the concept of 'spellcaster' to one giant spellgroup, and individuals choose their Domain or School subgroups within.
The number of spells they could retain as ready-to-cast would depend on how sucky their "Hit Dice" or combat/defenses were, and how much closer the character was to the iconic Wizard/Sorc full-caster.

[Crissa]

That, uhh, seems like alot more than my players will accept.

Besides, I'm going with the paradigm that a Wizard is the point of balance.

-Crissa

[JonSetanta]

Hm. Lately these last 2 months I've been considering holding the Sorcerer as an interclass balance point.
With some tweaks, of course, such as swapping spells out by retraining (PHB2.. or rather... "1 day per spell") and amped up basics such as more HP, 3/4 BAB, 4 Skill Points, and so on.
That would be the center.
And then the archetypes would deviate from there, which means that while everyone has spells, the 'Expert' and 'Warrior' would have less variety at the expense of utility and combat (weapon?) focuses, respectively.
But as you wrote, probably out of range for your friends.

For Plain Ol' Cornbread D&D, I can't help much there. I really haven't played 3.x D&D out of the box as-is with no house rules since, well, never.

[Harlune]

I'd say just take the psion's list and adapt them to arcane spells. (Hell there's probably at least one person who's actually made an vancian version of the psion, you could steal that and just call it a 'sorcerer' instead) Generaly, they work far better for casters that only get a limited number of spells than the massively clunky wizard and cleric lists.

[JonSetanta]

Yep. Just goes to show how much changing elements is like putting a colored lens on a flashlight; does the same damned thing anyway.
Although, Psionics has that stupid bonus to Fire and Ice just because..... uh... the designer wanted Lightning and Acid to have other bonuses? wtf.
I'd make it all [Energy] type and say "Done. Now pick your color, element, smell, texture, whatever stuff you can think up when you cast it."
Doesn't matter.

But the problem with versatile spells is that they might suffer from the Alter Self/Polymorph bloat and revisions easily.

[Surgo]

It's not like anyone actually uses the energy spells anyway. Excuse me, "powers". Damn psionics.

[Jacob_Orlove]

Psionics does a ton of stuff completely backwards, though. How many Fire Magic people have you seen in fiction? Ice Magic? And how many "any kind of elemental energy, but only in a spherical burst" Magic people?

Flavor wise, that's stupid. You should pick your energy type and get to make Scorching Rays, Fireballs, Lightning Bolts, and Cones of Cold out of whatever "your" element type is. That produces a character that is simultaneously more coherent, and more predictable for the DM. It's a good thing when you have some monsters you rock extra hard against and some that are strong vs you, because that gives the DM more options than if you were just "I do 50% extra damage to anything that's vulnerable to some kind of energy".

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Not sure where I stand on this one. I don't want every sorcerer to have "hooray, I do extra damage because I picked up 1/2 blasting spells and we are fighting a monster vulnerable to those". At the same time, many sorcerers already do that (it's 1 feat for that ability).

I guess what I want is themed casters (The TK-mage that I made which sucks, the Wind Warrior someone else did, the Fire Mage F+K did, etc.). The problem is that the actual themes suck. I want a Fire Mage, but he needs to do more than throw fire in the same way that the fighter needs to do more than hit something with something else.

I don't want the Ice Mage to be useless against an Ice Dragon, I want him to throw physical Ice Shards, knock the dragon prone by freezing the Ice under him, add to the fighter's mobility with Ice Tracks, and blind the dragon with a blizzard. I don't feel that this flexibility is well represented in the Focused-Magi.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I want a Fire Mage, but he needs to do more than throw fire in the same way that the fighter needs to do more than hit something with something else.

It's really not hard to come up with fire-themed non-blasty effects. Fire mages can plausibly remove curses by 'burning them away.' They can scry by gazing into fire (a limitation on that which somehow makes it cooler is if they can only see out of other fires). Hell, Gandalf gets to be all metaphorical with his fire and inspire courage by 'rekindling hearts to the valor of old.'

I don't want the Ice Mage to be useless against an Ice Dragon, I want him to throw physical Ice Shards, knock the dragon prone by freezing the Ice under him, add to the fighter's mobility with Ice Tracks, and blind the dragon with a blizzard. I don't feel that this flexibility is well represented in the Focused-Magi.

An Ice Dragon should be resistant to ice/cold effects, and an Ice Mage's effects should be no exception; but an Ice Mage should totally be able to exert control over an Ice Dragon, because controlling icy things is what an Ice Mage does.

[Harlune]

Really what Sorcerers need in their spell list are spells that scale upwards really well. Unfortantly... a lot of the Spells That Actually Fucking Kill People don't, at all.

When you have only four or five total spells for that level it's hard to waste one on a spell that will be really useful for two more levels then become a complete dead weight because it no longer works at all. And you only have so few swaps to work with... a class shouldn't need to make a damn flow chart and plan out 20 levels worth of spell gains and trades just so it can be always be effective AND still not have any dead spells wasting slots.

All the sorcerer's save or die and save or suck spells need to be reworked so that they stay useful at any level or there needs to be some special spell swap rules made for them that say that you can trade out lower level spells for free if you have a higher level version of it so it doesn't count towards a sorc's spellswap limit.

So a Sorc could choose to learn a Deep Slumber spell when he gained a level and then swap out Sleep for some other level one spell for free and such.

[JonSetanta]

So, like I'm leaning more towards, smaller spell lists with more options within each spell.
Or rather, Spell Competency. No more worthless spells, either by letting others do the same job as.. say... Knock, or by folding many similar spells into few.

[socrates999]

Why not just let sorcerers swap out their whole spell list every level? This prevents people from loading up on spells for just one encounter that they know they're going to have, but allows the character to grow and change with time. Take sleep now, and when you hit some level where it is no longer useful to you, swap it for something else.

Seems a reasonable compromise to me. . .

[Jacob_Orlove]

Not sure where I stand on this one. I don't want every sorcerer to have "hooray, I do extra damage because I picked up 1/2 blasting spells and we are fighting a monster vulnerable to those". At the same time, many sorcerers already do that (it's 1 feat for that ability).

It used to be one feat. Now Energy Substitution lets you turn all your energy-typed spells to the single energy type of your choice, chosen when you take the feat. That's pretty terrible, but it can at least actually enhance your character concept instead of diluting it.

And honestly, it's not like full casters need that much of a boost. A Sorcerer is only 90% as good as a Wizard (well, more like 80% if you give Wizards Abrupt Jaunt, Focused Specialist, and Spontaneous Divinations, but honestly, who does that?), but that's still plenty good enough to contribute if you have at least a few decent spells in your arsenal.

And here's a list of Spells that Kill People that Sorcerers can use for a good long time. Note that most have useful effects even if the target(s) save, and overall have a heavier emphasis on battlefield control. I'll stick to core:

1st: Color Spray, Silent Image, Grease
2nd: Web, Glitterdust
3rd: Major Image, Stinking Cloud
4th: Charm Monster, Black Tentacles, Fear, Solid Fog

Note that spells like Fear are actually better for Sorcerers than for Wizards, because Sorcs can spam them out to stack fear effects even on failed saves, if necessary.

I'll stop there, because I hope no one is arguing that spellcasters in the double digits need any help at all.

[Username17]

D&D has haphazardly attempted to follow the original line of reasoning. Books like Races of Weaboo provide a big pile of Sorcerer only spells that are substantially superior to other spells of their level. Wings of Flurry, for example is a 4th level spell that does a d6/level. But it does it to every target you select in the area, and enemies who fail the save for half are also dazed for a level - a condition that you can use to juggle undead and such.

-Username17

[Crissa]

I was just thinking that if a Wizard gets to have spells that are thrown away, you shouldn't give those same spells to a Sorcerer. The Sorcerer wants spells which are open-ended or slightly adaptable.

I certainly wasn't thinking of giving them spells which were just outright 'better'. o-o Just making sure that stupid spells weren't on their list.

-Crissa

[JonSetanta]

D&D has haphazardly attempted to follow the original line of reasoning. Books like Races of Weaboo provide a big pile of Sorcerer only spells that are substantially superior to other spells of their level. Wings of Flurry, for example is a 4th level spell that does a d6/level. But it does it to every target you select in the area, and enemies who fail the save for half are also dazed for a level - a condition that you can use to juggle undead and such.

-Username17

Blasting a swarm of gigantic glowing, sharp wings from your back to slice foes is also one of the coolest weaboo spells any medium-level caster can accomplish.
Non-elemental, too.

[Koumei]

/tg/ has some Touhou-fans who seriously get hard over Wings of Flurry. Especially when combined with metamagic and the various "My caster level is over 9,000!!!!" and "I lower MM costs" tricks. You know the drill, the "Standard action: I fire 4-8 of these out of my eyes, all at the one target. Also, it happens again next level, regardless of what I do."

[JonSetanta]

Eye-wings, you say?