Non-Blaster Sorcerer

[Dr. Cliché]

I've heard a few times that Sorcerers make for the best blasters and Wizards make for the best... well everything else. :smallwink:

However, I was wondering if you can make a reasonable non-blaster sorcerer, or if you have too little versatility to make it work?

If it can be done, what sort of spells would work best on such a caster?

[Rebel7284]

Reasonable is very subjective. You can certainly make a very powerful sorcerer, after all, they have access to all the same broken spells that wizards do and there are many flexible spells.

[Juntao112]

I've heard a few times that Sorcerers make for the best blasters and Wizards make for the best... well everything else. :smallwink:

However, I was wondering if you can make a reasonable non-blaster sorcerer, or if you have too little versatility to make it work?

If it can be done, what sort of spells would work best on such a caster?

Prestidigitation, Unseen Servant, Grease, Glitterdust, Alter Self, Fly, Polymorph, Dimension Door, illusions, etc.

But don't forget Magic Missile.

[Grod_The_Giant]

For maximum flexibility, you'll want spells like polymorph, summon monster, and planar bindings-- spells that can have multiple effects depending on your choices when you cast them. Never take situationally useful spells like water breathing-- that's what scrolls and runestaffs are for.

[Agincourt]

Yes, definitely. If you compare a sorcerer to a wizard, they frequently look weak, but compared to most classes a sorcerer is quite strong. Any role you want to take up, you can do, just maybe not as well as a wizard.

Just tell us what role you would like to be and we can make many suggestions. For example, if you want to do battlefield control, take the metamagic feats sculpt spell and heighten spell. If you want to be a buffer, take chain spell and polymorph spells.

[Asrrin]

Sorcerers have a different type of versatility than wizards do. If you pick the correct spells you will have much more tactical versatility than any wizard on a given day. While a wizard can enjoy have the perfect silver bullet to any one obstacle, s/he must prepare it ahead of time. A sorcerer on the other hand, will usually have a spell that is "good enough" to get the job done, and can spam it multiple times until it does get the job done.

Level 1 is a perfect example. A wizard can cast either sleep, grease, color spray, or charm person to end an encounter, depending on which will be the most effective, but typically only once or twice a day.

A sorcerer on the other hand, will typically go with grease (it's the one with the most utility) and while not the most optimal in every situation, will nevertheless be used to great effect in multiple encounter. And the Sorcerer can spam it all day long.

Here are my planned out spells I plan to use as a sorcerer in my current campaign (Only 4th level spells give me a problem. There are so many useful ones and a sorcerer only gets 4 known, but you can use Runestaffs and Knowstones to get around that):

0 (9)
Detect Magic
Read Magic
Prestidigitation
Mage Hand
Light
Resistance
Daze
Message
Dancing Lights

1 (5)
Nerveskitter
Magic Missle
Grease
Benign Transposition
True Strike

2 (5)
Wings of cover
Mirror Image
Glitterdust
Ray of Stupidity
Alter Self
Invisibility

3 (4)
Ray of Exhaustion
Stinking Cloud
Haste
Dispel Magic* (replace with Greater)
Fly*

4 (4)
Wings of flurry
Celerity
Dimension Door
Evard's Black Tentacles
Enervation*
Ruin Delver's Fortune*
Orb of (Fire/Acid/Cold/Force)*

5 (4)
Arcane Fusion
Baleful Polymorph* (Swap for polymorph any)
Wall of Force
Cloudkill

6 (3)
Planar Binding
Disintegrate
Dispel Magic, Greater

7 (3)
Arcane Spellsurge
Limited Wish
Teleport, Greater

8 (3)
Greater Arcane Fusion
Polymorph Any Object
Greater Shadow Evocation

9 (3)
Time Stop
Shapechange
Gate

[ericgrau]

There's no reason to play any particular style. Pick whatever you want. You can pretty much select the same spells known as what a wizard would prepare without advanced notice of the encounters. Which is 95% of the time for wizards outside of theoretical op because neither the player nor DM wants to spend that much of a session on planning. So search for a wizard list and copy it.

I've done very well on multiple "batman" sorcs, one before even hearing that term.

Playing a pure blaster sorc or selecting versatile but super weak spells is a great way to fall into a trap and heavily gimp yourself though.

[jedipilot24]

Saph made a very interesting Sorcerer in the Seven Kingdom's Campaign Journal (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139572).


0-level: Detect Magic, Message, a bunch of others I hardly ever use.
1st-level: Grease, True Strike, Shield, Protection from Evil, Benign Transposition
2nd-level: Glitterdust, Belker Claws, Wings of Cover, Luminous Armour, Resist Energy
3rd-level: Dragonskin, Heroism, Steeldance, Unicorn Arrow
4th-level: Wings of Flurry, Heart of Earth, Ruin Delver's Fortune, Orb of Force
5th-level: Arcane Fusion, Overland Flight, Lesser Planar Binding
6th-level: Disintegrate, Superior Resistance

Next, I've got a Runestaff (Magic Item Compendium) that gives me access to another 7 or so ray spells, of which scorching ray, ray of clumsiness, and targeting ray get the most use. I've also got a full set of the Raiment of the Four (also Magic Item Compendium) that gives me magic missile 3/day, fireball 3/day, freedom of movement 2/day, and teleport 2/day, as well as a useful commune ability.

Then I've got seven Knowstones which each add one spell to my spell list, notably ectoplasmic armour, lesser orb of acid, wings of swift flying, and knock.

Finally I've got the Fey Heritage feats from Complete Mage, which give me disguise self, deep slumber, charm monster, confusion, dimension door, and summon nature's ally V as SLAs usable 1/day each, which don't come out of my spell slots.

All told, I have about 60 spells that I can cast spontaneously, not counting scrolls and wands.
So it can do some blasting, but it's more focused on versatility and keeping the rest of the party alive. And it was probably the most optimized character in that entire campaign.

[Psyren]

I'd do a TN Kitsune Sorcerer with the Fey Bloodline and Threnodic Spell focusing on enchantments.

[nedz]

I wanted to play an Illusionist in a previous campaign and since there are only 2-3 must have illusions in most spell levels I went with Sorcerer. It worked out fine. Now a Wizard would have given me more features, and earlier spell access, but the flexibility was handy.

I could have gone with a Beguiler, but they don't have access to all of the required spells. They also lack the ability to cast a lot of utility spells.

So it depends what you want to play: many other themes can be handled by a Sorcerer just fine.