Help Tweaking the Sorcerer

[evisiron]

In an upcoming game, I am likely to be playing a sorc8/monk2.

Why monk? Short answer, sounds fun and background.
Long answer in the form of an old post. Spoilered initial post to save loading another thread.
Hi.

Character:

The idea is an arrogant son of a noble who happens to develop sorcerer powers. With his natural over confidence and charisma on his side, everything in his life comes extremely easily. So, in an attempt to help before its too late, his father sends him to a semi distant monastery to become a monk and learn the nature of hard work and patience.

The son arrives, learns to fight, gets bored and skips out to try his hand elsewhere in the world.




Mechanically, I was going to go with 2 levels in Monk and the rest in Sorcerer. Now, I am not much for power gaming here, but combining the weakest melee class with the weakest magic class (speaking core and purely opinion here) might make him a bit too underpowered. I still want to be a useful member of the group.

---Link in case you want to read responses--- http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110775

The DM feels that compared to the other magic users, the sorcerer is fairly underpowered and is willing to tweak it to bring it up to the 'standard level'. His concerns are regarding it's limited spell capacity and lack of any class features (such as the wizard bonus feats and the various warmage benefits).

I looked at the alternate class features in PHB2 (swap familiar for faster metamagic casting), but since my feats are pretty restricted this doesn't seem to fit the plan.

I am not planning to power game much, but I do enjoy having more flexibility and useful spells at my disposal to be handy to have in the group.
I am not great at making balanced suggesting, so thought I would seek advice here.

Does anyone have any suggestions or links to previous work in the field? :smallsmile:

EDIT: Added reason for monk :smallbiggrin:

[Satyr]

As a quick and dirty solution you could add the wizard's bonus feat to the sorcerer, including the heritage and draconic feats from different source books.

[Glimbur]

See if you can get new spell levels the same time a wizard does. It could be as simple as just counting yourself as a level higher on the spells known and spells/day charts, though that also gives you even more spells.

Why two levels of monk?

[Keld Denar]

Some of the common ones include:

Give the Sorcerer free bonus feats like a wizard.
Give the Sorcerer free Heritage (Draconic, Abysal, Celestial, Fey, etc) feats as he levels.
Give the Sorcerer slightly more spells known per level.
Don't make faster metamagic an alt class feature, make it a CLASS FEATURE.

etc.

Also, do you mean Sorcerer8/Monk2 or Sorcerer8//Monk2? // indicates Gestalt rules, in which case your character would be kinda lopsided. If you do mean Sorcerer8/Monk2, what are you hoping to gain from those 2 monk levels? Do you want to be an arcane melee character? If so, consider PrCing into something like Enlightened Fist or Eldritch Knight. If not, drop it all together and go Sorcerer10, or Sorcerer5/CasterPrC5 or such. The whole extra level of spells will be SOOOOOO much more useful than anything you gain from Monk2. Make sense?

[overduegalaxy]

My group has given the sorcerer Eschew Materials at first level, Improved Familiar at 4th, and bonus Sudden Metamagic feats at 9th, 14th, and 19th.

It hasn't drastically thrown the balance of power out of whack.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Consider switching to Monk 1/ Sorcerer 4/ Enlightened Fist 5, you'll be much better off.

One houserule when I'm DMing is to give Sorcerers either Eschew Materials or Draconic Heritage at level 1, and a bonus Draconic or Metamagic feat at every 5 levels. I also don't make spontaneous spellcasters take longer to cast with metamagic than normal. WotC thought initially that this was a necessary drawback, but since then there have been almost a dozen ways printed to get around it because they've realized that it isn't necessary at all, but don't want to change the core rules.

[Leon]

Keep the Monk levels, what ever you have them for is your reason.

Ask the Dm for Eschew mats as a Bonus Feat, have a look at the bloodline feats (they seem to particularity be rather popular), the Alt Feature replacing the familiar is good - with Heighten Spell as your meta magic choice

[Animefunkmaster]

Instead of Monk grab battle dancer from Dragon Compendium, Full BAB, an unarmed strike progression, Cha to AC (like monk).

As for a homebrew to make the sorcerer better (Bard, Paladin, Ranger would be the weakest in form of core casting) you could give it a few more spells known and open them up to any spell list. Opening them up to any spell list is a personal flavor thing since they are supposed to just be magic, not imitator of wizards.

Grab some good transmutation buffs and you should be set.

[grautry]

The two most important things of buffing a Sorcerer are:
A) The same spell progression as wizard instead of one level slower. This is especially important if you're multiclassing.
B) Rapid Metamagic feat for free. Lengthening casting time to apply metamagic for spontaneous casters is just stupid(why would someone to whom magic came naturally have more of a problem with modifying it than someone who "scribbled it off from Magic for Dummies"?).

Everything else is just a bonus. A couple of options to consider:
- Eschew Materials. This really doesn't change much balance-wise unless your DM is a pain about keeping track of spell components.
- Add more Cha-based skills to Sorcerer skill list. Diplomacy or UMD come to mind. So does Intimidate and Gather Information.
- Increase number of skill points available. If magic comes to sorcerers by the way of talent alone then they should obviously get more time to develop other skills than wizards. With the Intelligence that Wizards get I don't think it would be too much out of line to suggest 6 skill points for a Sorcerer.
- See if your DM will allow for you to take Leadership. This is a very broken option but it will work quite well with the Charisma focus.
- Unlimited casting of cantrips could be fairly useful and thematically fits quite well.
- For that matter, you could look into Warlock Invocations. Being able to cast as a say, a Warlock of half your level could give you some really nifty options.

[FinalJustice]

I second the Eschew Materials at first level. It's so obvious that I hate wizards for not including it somewhere.

Giving your Sorcerer 3/4 BaB and d6 Hit Dice could be good. You'll be 2 levels behind anyway, might as well get some gish boost. Sorcerer gishes need it.

[Flickerdart]

Six skill points? The Bard gets six skill points, and the 3/4 BAB won't really bring it on par with the new augmented Sorcerer casting. Four skill points, I can see.

[Zhalath]

In my group I said that sorcerers could ignore one type of spell component, be it verbal, somatic, or material (non-costly, to a point). Game-balance wise, it's working pretty well. Gish-types with sorcerer are a lot easier, and roguish sorcerers have less to worry about.
I don't know if it'll work for you, but it works for me.

[Myrmex]

If you go gish, you don't have to tweak anything. Prestige into enlightened fist. Just make your spell selection soild.

Spells like Bite of the Weretiger will give you 3 extra natural attacks you can use with your flurry of blows. Wraithstrike will allow you to land all those attacks. Use your ability to learn any spell (it's in the DMG about sorcererous learning) to pick up Lion's Charge (ranger spell) for the ability to make a full attack at the end of a charge. Wallop and Greater Wallop can add a ton of damage to your unarmed strikes. Polymorph for turning into a hydra, war troll, etc. will also make you a fierce combatant. Girallon's Blessing will give you another set of arms, for more smackagge.

For feats, pick up Ascetic Mage and Superior Unarmed Strike. Multiattack and improved multiattack could be useful if you use a lot of natural attacks, though probably won't be necessary if you wraithstrike all the time.

[ChaosDefender24]

Everyone I play with is well aware of the Divine Companion ACF.

Ahh, yeah.

[grautry]

Six skill points? The Bard gets six skill points, and the 3/4 BAB won't really bring it on par with the new augmented Sorcerer casting. Four skill points, I can see.

This ties into the Wizard vs. Sorcerer thing.

Your-average-Wizard will have 5-6 skill points/level at lvl 1. Your average Sorcerer will have 2. Maybe 3. I suggested 6 because I think that both classes should have about equal number of skill points and 6 skill points works out neatly that way.

But yeah, when you consider bards 4 does seem reasonable.