Sorcerer as a prestige class

[Sploggle1]

This is something a good 90 percent of 3.5 players will think is a bad idea but here it is. In another campaign I am under a dm that has been running it since pre dnd. He moved from 2nd to 3.5 because of the younger players joining the table. In his campaign the sorcerer is not a starting class. I personally like this idea because he had a point. The sorcerer is what most wizards would strive to be (Most not all.) He made it to where you had to prestige into it through some home brewed runes he created (Which I am obliged not to release any information on the runes.) But you could prestige to sorcerer through that or another way which I am not privy to, so I am trying to home brew my own way.

Any Ideas?

[SweaterKittens]

You're not really giving us a lot to work with here, mate. First of all, from an RP standpoint, wizards and sorcerers have different backgrounds and things that allow them to 'work their magic' so to speak. Wizards gain prowess through study, while sorcerers have it in their blood. When you say sorcerers are something that all wizards would strive to, I don't really understand what you mean. Do you mean the ability to cast without preparing spells? If so, you could probably work that into a class feature instead of a prestige class.

Additionally, if your friend created multiple ways to prestige into it, why not use those? There's not a lot we can assist you with if we, A: don't know the changes he made to convert sorcerer into a prestige class, and B: don't know the apparently multiple ways he made that possible.

[Svata]

If we don't know the changes that wee made, and how you qualify for it, we can't do a thing to help.

[Sploggle1]

Indeed I did not have a lot of information to give because I was not privy to it sadly. Yes I think one way to shift it to a prestige is to give it a level requirement. most 3.5 prestige's seem to be level 5 so i would probably start there. Then I would move on to requirements spell mastery 2 being the main one.

[DeAnno]

I'm really not seeing how this would mechanically work. Does the Wizard lose his Spellbook feature on Prestiging in and get a Spells Known list? Making someone dump feats to do this seems pretty unfair too, especially since feats like Spell Mastery will be worthless for the Sorcerer.

[Sploggle1]

It would be one of those. Do i want to worry about a spell book being the negative of a wizard, and getting more spells being the plus. Switching to sorcerer would flip that you would get less spell slots as a negative but would no longer need a spell book.

[Quietus]

Uncanny Forethought is also an option; you can take Spell Mastery for a selection of spells, and then (subject to limitations) can use Uncanny Forethought to cast them spontaneously, either using spell slots you left empty for this purpose, or by taking a full round action to cast out of full spell slots at a caster level reduction. Essentially, for this, your Spell Mastery list becomes your Spells Known with regard to what you can cast spontaneously. No PrC required.

[Captnq]

Look into Spontaneous Divination and Initiate of Amauntor/Energy Substitution (Fire).

I have long advocated for a Spontaneous Evocation ACF, because as by far evocation is the weakest of the schools. You could simply make it that every 5 levels in Wizard base you get another School as a spontaneous casting. Except the first must be Divination, and the second your specialty school.

As for Initiate of Amauntor/ES (fire), basically it costs a 1 level dip into cleric, but you get unlimited access to any energy description spell on Cleric/Sorcerer/Wizard casting lists, except it has to be fire, and if it doesn't come with fire, you have to take a full-round action to cast it and it becomes fire. But there are quite a number of energy description spells. For example, Leomund's tiny Igloo is (Cold). Well, now you can spontaneously cast it, except that it's an igloo made of fire. And it has a comfortable temp inside of a mere 50 degrees, even in a desert!

The INSANITY that is METAMAGIC!!!

[Sploggle1]

I could say the spellbook could be a reference to flip the spells around in the slots if he wanted.

[Giddonihah]

In a fashion Sublime Chord is a way for a Bard to Prestige into Sorcerer. But If you want his specific prestige class sorcerer then we need more info.

[Sir Chuckles]

It would be one of those. Do i want to worry about a spell book being the negative of a wizard, and getting more spells being the plus. Switching to sorcerer would flip that you would get less spell slots as a negative but would no longer need a spell book.

Which is actually, in general, a drop in overall versatility.

I think the big thing here is:

In another campaign I am under a dm that has been running it since pre dnd.

3.5 is a hefty shift in thought process between many other systems, and is fundamentally different form the older ones. We frequently see older players completely unable to adjust to it, which isn't usually anything bad.

In this case, you're asking to turn a base class that has a nearly blank progression feature list into a prestige class. A further issue is that the massive roster of 3.5 prestige classes and feats can easily create a Sorcerer from scratch on a base Wizard without sacrificing anything that the Wizard could do before.

[maniacalmojo]

I would say add features to make it a prestige class. I added an ability for sorcerers and other spontanious casters to cast on the fly as an attack of opportunity within a certain radius. It give much more adaptability and playstyles of a sorcerer at that point.

[Sploggle1]

I agree 2e to 3.5 is a massive shift, and the massive amount of prestige classes are mostly ridiculous. Some are cool most are broken. I don't see much of a loss from prestiging to a sorc thus far, with an exception to losing some spells.

[Urpriest]

I agree 2e to 3.5 is a massive shift, and the massive amount of prestige classes are mostly ridiculous. Some are cool most are broken. I don't see much of a loss from prestiging to a sorc thus far, with an exception to losing some spells.

The loss is that you're no longer able to write down the class description, apparently. That's kind of a huge loss for a game, games generally need rules after all.

[Captnq]

Ah. Here's another idea...

Why would you ever want to play one?

Seriously, Sorcerers are wizards with training wheels. Great if you want to self-nerf and want to avoid the spredsheets of paperwork that come with a good wizard at high levels. I mean, you take the ACf where you trade out scribe scroll and your familiar and now you can keep spells in your head. Or just tattoo your spells on your body. Heck, wrote a whole handbook on how to min/max your Spellbook.

Sorcerers have a limited spell list. Wizards have an unlimited spell list, but have to work harder to change it quickly. But wizards can get just as many spells as sorcerers and then some. A Domain Wizard and generalist elf for example. Technically they stack. Or specialize twice, now you got more spells then a sorcerer.

Sorry, sorcerer isn't something to "aspire" to.

[Thanatosia]

The basic premise of this makes absolutely no sense to me.

First....

The sorcerer is what most wizards would strive to be (Most not all.)
I have never seen anything to suggest that most wizards want to be like Sorcerors. Giving up the ability to cast any spell you can get a copy of in order to just cast a small pool of spells over and over? I admit, sorcerors do have their adherents, I'm even one of them, but I see no reason most Wizards would be Jealous of them. It's also pretty much universally accepted that Wizards are a higher tier class then Sorcerors.

Also, from a lore perspective, it feels very backwards. Sorcerors are spellcasters that come into their magic through innate ability, not a lot of study and practice, and cast off pure force of personality (Cha) - that's the opposite of what a prestige class is supposed to represent. Wizards on the other hand have to study magic for years and gain it through intellectual mastery (Int based). If you are going to make one or the other into a prestige class, it makes waaaaay more sense to me to leave Sorcerors as a base class, and Wizards something they can 'study into' to broaden their spell selections.

[Dornith]

First of all, from an RP standpoint, wizards and sorcerers have different backgrounds and things that allow them to 'work their magic' so to speak. Wizards gain prowess through study, while sorcerers have it in their blood.

I was confused about this too. Wizards and Sorcerer's get their power from very different places. That's like saying a wizard would prestige into a cleric. They don't work of the same resources, so calling one an extension of the other doesn't make in-game sense.

Are you basically saying you just want wizards to be able to spontaneously cast spells? If that's all you care about you could probably make a feat to do something like that. A whole prestige seems a bit overboard.

[Reddish Mage]

From a sheer mechanics standpoint the 3.5 wizard seems to be the better class (and gets a higher tier). With just 8 hours of preparation a wizard has potential access to nearly any solution to a problem. Now there's nothing to one couldn't write a fantasy such that innate magic and spontaneous casting is something better, much rarer, and highly sought after, but for those that start as wizard this is better done with a wizard Prestige class that has class features (or just use the feats) that allow spontaneous casting, rather than modifying the sorcerer class.

[Gildedragon]

I would actually have it be the other way around sorcerer goes into wizard. Keep the sorcerer spells per day and spontaneity, but the sorcerer picks the spells they 'know' each day.

[Stuvius]

There is also a role-playing element here. IMHO a wizard would often look with disdain at a sorcerer's "shoot from the hip" style of magic use believing that a true practitioner devotes their life to the study of arcane arts. I have actually played in a campaign where it was role-played that way and factored into party dynamics in an interesting way.

[Psyren]

I would actually have it be the other way around sorcerer goes into wizard. Keep the sorcerer spells per day and spontaneity, but the sorcerer picks the spells they 'know' each day.

Agreed - generally PrCs represent special training. If I had to pick one to be the "trained" class it would be Wizard.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Sorcerers have a limited spell list. Wizards have an unlimited spell list, but have to work harder to change it quickly. But wizards can get just as many spells as sorcerers and then some. A Domain Wizard and generalist elf for example. Technically they stack. Or specialize twice, now you got more spells then a sorcerer.

Sorry, sorcerer isn't something to "aspire" to.

So... I accept that Sorcerer is the weaker class at high levels of play, but you do seem to be completely ignoring the adantages of spontaneous casting - chief among which is that, if you build your sorcerer at all decently, you can have a useful spell for every situation until you're out of spells entirely. Contrast a wizard, who might prepare an anti-invisibility spell, and have it sit at the back of his mind for a solid week, uncast, because he never runs into an invisible creature - then the next day, run into them in every encounter, but only has the spell prepared once. (Or have a Save-or-Suck/Die that targets a certain save, and never run into a creature weak to that save. Or have bad luck on the first attempt, and not be able to get a second because he only prepared it once, even though it's still the best option. Or never want to teleport for a week, and then have it come up three times in the same day. Or have their all-day buff get dispelled, and be stuck without their best defense for the rest of the day. )

To me, it never seems like the advantage of sorcerer is "More Spell Slots" - it's "More likely to make best use of each spell slot on a given day." A Sorcerer has the option to pick a base set of spells that will be more-or-less always useful, and, with metamagic, cover every spell level (Summons, certain buffs, orb of force), and then devote the the rest of their spell slots to more niche things that they won't want every day, but will be reliable game-changers when they are needed.

[DarkSonic1337]

Heck, wrote a whole handbook on how to min/max your Spellbook.


Ooooh, can I get a link to that?

[Telonius]

I'm going to take this in kind of a roundabout way, so bear with me.

Fluff first: the difference between Wizards and Sorcerers. The way I explain it to new players is that Wizards study magic, but Sorcerers are magic.

Leave aside (just for a moment) the fact that any player can choose to take a level in Sorcerer: from the fluff, if you don't have that magic in you to begin with, you can't be a Sorcerer. You can wield magic all you want, but you'll never be part of it in the same way a Sorcerer would be. So if you have a Wizard who's spent their whole life studying magic, and loves it to death, but can never actually be it... yeah, I can see how that motivation would work. It probably wouldn't be every Wizard, but it could apply to a good chunk of them. A Prestige Class focused on that motivation - putting mechanics to go along with the story - would definitely be something I could get behind.

So what could it look like? Well, my first thought is that you'll have to seriously alter your ideas about class balance to even attempt this. You're already dealing with one of the Big Three. Wizard can already break the world in half 75 different ways, so I wouldn't be too concerned about giving it yet another tool to do so. You do have to make the benefits important enough that someone would want to take a level in it, rather than another level of Wizard (or another full-casting PrC). On the other hand you don't want to make the PrC so powerful everyone will want it.

So, maybe something like this.

Sorcerer
Prerequisites:
Must have at least one spell from each of the magical schools in the spellbook. (Sorcerers welcome all magic)
Cannot have a prohibited school. (Same as above)
Spell Mastery feat (Training for spontaneous preparation)
Eschew Materials feat (If you're made of magic you shouldn't need bat guano to cast a fireball)
13 ranks each in Spellcraft and Knowledge (Arcana) (A Wizard is probably going to want this anyway, but it limits the level; you could adjust this if you want it to be available at lower levels)

Benefits:
HD d4
Skills: 2+Int
Class skills: Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Profession (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).
Proficiencies: None
Saves: Good Will save
BAB: Wizard

1: Lesser Spontaneous Magic, Practical Magic
2: Bonus Metamagic Feat, Irresistible Spellcasting +2, (Spells per Day) +1 Level of Existing Arcane Class
3: Spontaneous Magic, Spontaneous Metamagic, (Spells per Day) +1 Level of Existing Arcane Class
4: Bonus Metamagic Feat, Irresistible Spellcasting +4, (Spells per Day) +1 Level of Existing Arcane Class
5: Greater Spontaneous Magic, (Spells per Day) +1 Level of Existing Arcane Class

Spontaneous Magic: A Sorcerer can "lose" any prepared spell in order to cast any other spell that she knows. The spontaneous spell must be a spell that the Sorcerer could ordinarily cast (either in her spellbook, or on a list of spells known, if the Sorcerer has another spellcasting class besides Wizard). The Sorcerer can spontaneously cast a number of spells per day equal to her Sorcerer level plus her Charisma bonus (if positive). At first level, the Sorcerer can spontaneously cast any 0th, 1st, 2nd, or 3rd-level spell. At third level, the Ssorcerer can spontaneously cast 4th, 5th, and 6th level spells. At fifth level, the Sorcerer can spontaneously cast 7th, 8th, and 9th-level spells. The Sorcerer can choose to convert a higher-level spell slot into a lower-level spell, at her option. The Sorcerer can even choose to apply a metamagic feat she knows to a spontaneously-cast spell. (For example, she can convert an Arcane Lock spell into a Stilled Color Spray, assuming she has the Still Spell feat, and both Arcane Lock and Color Spray in her spellbook). Use the usual casting time for the new spell; a Feather Fall converted to a Jump spell takes a standard action to cast; a Jump spell converted to a Feather Fall takes an immediate action to cast. No other increases in casting time apply.

Practical Magic: Each level of Sorcerer counts as a level of Wizard for the purposes of determining level-dependent effects (such as damage from a Cone of Cold). The Sorcerer does not automatically gain two spells for her spellbook upon leveling up, as a Wizard does. Levels in Sorcerer do stack with levels in Wizard for the purpose of determining a Familiar's abilities.

Bonus Metamagic Feat: At second and fourth levels, a Sorcerer gains a Metamagic feat as a bonus feat. The Sorcerer must meet the prerequisites of the feat as normal.

Spontaneous Metamagic: When a Sorcerer applies a Metamagic feat she knows to any spell, she can ignore the increase in effective spell level up to her Sorcerer level each day. She can split this up among multiple uses. For example, a 3rd-level Sorcerer can apply one free Still Spell(+1) and one free Empower spell (+2), or decrease the effective increase from Quicken spell from +4 to +1. (This ability does not affect the Heighten Spell feat).

Irresistible Spellcasting: At 2nd level, a Sorcerer gains a +2 bonus on caster level checks made to overcome a creature's spell resistance. This stacks with a bonus received from Spell Penetration or Greater Spell Penetration. At 4th level, the bonus increases by +2.

[Reddish Mage]

So... I accept that Sorcerer is the weaker class at high levels of play, but you do seem to be completely ignoring the adantages of spontaneous casting.

I don't think anyone is ignoring the advantages of spontaneous casting. However, there are RAW ways for Wizards to acquire spontaneous casting to some extent or another without losing the tremendous versatility and quicker access to higher level spells. It is also possible to cheese spontaneous casting technically by plane shifting to a fast time plane. All in all however, even you agree that the wizard is simply the better caster "at high level" (though really we should add at almost any level).


I'm going to take this in kind of a roundabout way, so bear with me.

Fluff first: the difference between Wizards and Sorcerers. The way I explain it to new players is that Wizards study magic, but Sorcerers are magic.

Leave aside (just for a moment) the fact that any player can choose to take a level in Sorcerer: from the fluff, if you don't have that magic in you to begin with, you can't be a Sorcerer. You can wield magic all you want, but you'll never be part of it in the same way a Sorcerer would be. So if you have a Wizard who's spent their whole life studying magic, and loves it to death, but can never actually be it... yeah, I can see how that motivation would work. It probably wouldn't be every Wizard, but it could apply to a good chunk of them. A Prestige Class focused on that motivation - putting mechanics to go along with the story - would definitely be something I could get behind.

what could it look like? Well, my first thought is that you'll have to seriously alter your ideas about class balance to even attempt this. You're already dealing with one of the Big Three. Wizard can already break the world in half 75 different ways, so I wouldn't be too concerned about giving it yet another tool to do so. You do have to make the benefits important enough that someone would want to take a level in it, rather than another level of Wizard (or another full-casting PrC). On the other hand you don't want to make the PrC so powerful everyone will want it.

So, maybe something like this.

Losing a single level of spellcasting for really nice goodies as well as the ability to cast any spell known spontaneously This is one seriously overpowered prestige class, especially if one can continue to take it past 5th level. The metamagic goodies are also better than the existing prestige classes.

[Telonius]

Spontaneous spells would be limited to 5+Cha per day, maximum. Most wizards are going to dump Charisma; if they want the bonus, they have to invest in it. You can get a version of the same effect from the Spontaneous Casting feat from Eberron. It costs an Action Point to do it, so you won't be doing it as often; but just one feat gets you the full effect with no restriction on spell level. So it's not like it's a trick that Wizards didn't have access to at all before.

I'd considered making the ability only work for spells that the character chose for Spell Mastery, but that would kind of close off most of the higher-level spells altogether. (You have to wait until you know the spell before you take Spell Mastery).

For the metamagic, I was aiming for a much more restrained version of Incantatrix 8's Improved Metamagic, which can allow you to ignore dozens of metamagic increases per day. (The prereq of no specialization closes off Incantatrix, which requires you to specialize). And of course Cleric can still get a lot more metamagic reduction with Divine Metamagic (though it's limited to a single metamagic feat). I think 5/day is pretty reasonable. For the bonus feats, you're effectively trading a choice of metamagic or crafting, for two metamagic. (Over five levels, the Wizard gets one bonus feat).

[Reddish Mage]

Spontaneous spells would be limited to 5+Cha per day, maximum. Most wizards are going to dump Charisma; if they want the bonus, they have to invest in it. You can get a version of the same effect from the Spontaneous Casting feat from Eberron. It costs an Action Point to do it, so you won't be doing it as often; but just one feat gets you the full effect with no restriction on spell level. So it's not like it's a trick that Wizards didn't have access to at all before.

I'd considered making the ability only work for spells that the character chose for Spell Mastery, but that would kind of close off most of the higher-level spells altogether. (You have to wait until you know the spell before you take Spell Mastery).

For the metamagic, I was aiming for a much more restrained version of Incantatrix 8's Improved Metamagic, which can allow you to ignore dozens of metamagic increases per day. (The prereq of no specialization closes off Incantatrix, which requires you to specialize). And of course Cleric can still get a lot more metamagic reduction with Divine Metamagic (though it's limited to a single metamagic feat). I think 5/day is pretty reasonable. For bonus feats, you're effectively trading a choice of metamagic or crafting, for two metamagic. (Over five levels, the Wizard gets one bonus feat).

The ability to cast 5(!!!) of any spell in the spellbook is extraordinarily powerful and game-breaking. You know medium to high level wizards will have large spellbooks and this class feature means the wizard doesn't even need to memorize the spell to have the perfect solution to a problem. They can repeat that awesomeness 5 times in a single day, that's 5 problems solved, and still have many more tools in their tool-belt than sorcerers.

[Reddish Mage]

So some examples from the comic:

Vaarsuvius would have had sonic spells handy in the fight against the Druid. Also, V could have pass-walled right to the group in Girard's pyramid. Z could have used protection from arrows and V's logic about it being "difficult...to defend against every possible scenario" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0800.html) would not have been accurate at all (because with a class feature like that, it becomes cake).