So I want this, but also want that. (''Are you sure this impossible thing is impos..'

[unbutu]

(This is a 3.5 topic)

So I really love playing control mage. I guess Treantmonk is everyone's spiritual dad by now.

Except, in a lot of games it's just not... perfect. You know ? So often I have like... create pit prepared and we fight flying creatures. I'm like... Dang... I'd like to have access to many control spells, and choose between them as the fights come.

Because, (I know, I know, GitP is not like that), even if I could ''reset'' the encounter (Make the party run away somehow), my party prefer to fight trough an encounter that might kill them instead of coming back tomorrow with better spells.

And also, the GM in this game makes more, like... 12 hours workdays. And also, we rarely know what's ahead.

So long story short: I'd almost like to play a control sorcerer. Have access to all my known spells, select a few very usefull spells, and use them as the situation demands.

Except, wow... Sorcerer really don't know a lot of spells, do they ?* Is there anything, anywhere, a class, a build, a dark lord who would accept my soul for a way to improve that number of spells ?

*(Well, they know plenty of lower level spells. (5-4-3), but 1 spell of the level that really matters, even 2, is a few spells short. )

What would you suggest ? If such a thing does not exist, (it's basically the best of Wizard-mage, I know, I know) just say so, but at least I will have tried to fullfill that childhood dream. (well maybe I tought about this just for months, but still)

And last: I've done some research, just so you know I'm not a lazy bum who did not google. The closest I've found is... Beholder Mage. Since it requieres... you know.. to be a Beholder, my GM does not like the idea. (We spoke about it :P )

[Feint's End]

Sandshaper adds a good amount of spells known. A lot of them already control spells. It's in Sandstorm.

Mage of the Arcane Order can use spells from the whole spellist on the fly. The mechanics are a bit limited but I can't recall specifics now. It's in Complete Arcane I wanna say

Both can be put in the same build without much effort.

[Mystral]

Knowstones. Dragon Magazine #333.

[A_S]

It's much easier to be a Wizard and get your hands on ways to spontaneously cast from a large list of spells than it is to be a Sorcerer get your hands on an enormous number of spells known.

If you're okay with being a Wizard:
The Uncanny Forethought feat (Exemplars of Evil, but there's nothing evil about the feat) lets you leave spell slots open, which you can use to cast any spell you know as a full-round action.
The Spontaneous Divination ACF (Complete Champion) will allow a Wizard to qualify for Versatile Spellcaster (Races of the Dragon), allowing you to expend two spell slots of level n to cast any spell you know of level n+1.
As mentioned, the Mage of the Arcane Order's spellpool mechanic (Complete Arcane) lets you grab spells you don't know from the shared knowledge of your peers.
At high levels, the spells Wish and Limited Wish let you duplicate other spells. This is costly if you're casting them as spells, but if you can get some way to cast them as SLA's or supernatural abilities (like, say, Dweomerkeeper, from Complete Divine's web enhancement), it lets you use them as "whatever spell I need."
The Arcane Disciple feat (Complete Divine) keyed to the Spell domain (Spell Compendium) will let you cast the spells Anyspell and Greater Anyspell, which do exactly what they say on the tin.
The Shadow Evocation and Shadow Conjuration lines let you mimic any lower-level spell from their respective schools. For most casters, the spells will have penalties for being only partially real, but not for a Shadowcraft Mage (Races of Stone).
If you're set on being a Sorcerer, you're stuck just trying to expand your list of spells known. For that, Sandshaper (Sandstorm) and Knowstones (Dragon 333) have already been mentioned. Frost Mage (Frostburn) might also deserve a nod, though the spells it gets are not, in my opinion, terribly good.

Hope this is helpful.

[unbutu]

Sandshaper adds a good amount of spells known. A lot of them already control spells. It's in Sandstorm.

Mage of the Arcane Order can use spells from the whole spellist on the fly. The mechanics are a bit limited but I can't recall specifics now. It's in Complete Arcane I wanna say

Both can be put in the same build without much effort.

About Sanshaper
1st—bear's endurance, bull's strength, cat's grace, endure elements, parching touch, speak with animals, summon desert ally I.
2nd—eagle's splendor, fox's cunning, heat metal, owl's wisdom, resist energy, summon desert ally II, summon swarm.
3rd—control sand, desiccate, dispel magic, dominate animal, haboob, slipsand, summon desert ally III, sunstroke, tormenting thirst, wind wall.
4th—blast of sand, summon desert ally IV, wall of sand, wither.
5th—choking sands, flaywind burst, flesh to salt, summon desert ally V, transmute sand to stone, transmute stone to sand.
6th— awaken sand, mummify, sandstorm, summon desert ally VI.
7th—mass flesh to salt, summon desert ally VII.
8th—summon desert ally VIII, whirlwind.
9th—summon desert ally IX.

Maybe it was changed since ? From what I can see, it's most noticeable addition would be those summon desert ally, and very few actual control spells. What really breaks the deal is that the class has 2 levels that don't advance spellcasting. That alone puts you behind on simply advancing sorcerer on the number of spells you have access.

Mage of the arcane order
So it's a Wizard only PrC. It gives 1 ''any spell'' slot of your higher level if you leave it open, at the cost of a full round action. That's handy. It's definitly a step foward :)

The sad part is that it ties to a prepared caster, wich will need to seal in stone all his other slots for the day. (As far as in combat is concerned)

Knowstone
Yes, exactly that. It gets expensive really fast, but that's so core to the character... I might be able to save for one per new level of spells each time I get a new lvl of spells. Perhaps craft it myself.

I like that :) Dragon magazine, but I know how to speak soft, irresistible words to mens.


Edit:
Uncanny Foretought

The Uncanny Forethought feat (Exemplars of Evil, but there's nothing evil about the feat) lets you leave spell slots open, which you can use to cast any spell you know as a full-round action.
The Spontaneous Divination ACF (Complete Champion) will allow a Wizard to qualify for Versatile Spellcaster (Races of the Dragon), allowing you to expend two spell slots of level n to cast any spell you know of level n+1.

First, thanks a lot for taking the time to explain and reference it. Seems good enough: even if I casted many spells as full round actions, I still find it worth the cost to have exactly the right spell. I'll just have to remember the caster level hit, and use it for spells where it does not matter as much.

So I would guess it would be impossible to use uncanny foretought paired with metamagic.... unless incantatrix ?

[Feint's End]

@Sandshaper: you just need access to the spell list upgrades so you'll lose 1 caster level at most and for that big of an upgrade it is worth it it. There are a good amount of control spells on the list but also other utility stuff which means you can spend your regular spells on more control.

@mage: there are ways of being able to prepare spells as a sorceror. Those let you enter the class.

[A_S]

So I would guess it would be impossible to use uncanny foretought paired with metamagic.... unless incantatrix ?
This seems likely; you'd have to argue that a metamagic'ed version of a spell is its own spell you know to get around the "resolved as normal" verbiage, which seems...questionable.

Most control spells aren't terribly dependent on metamagic, though; they're not like blasting or buffs.

[Firest Kathon]

If you are playing pathfinder (or 3.P, or can convince the DM to backport it), there are two options:

The Expanded Arcana (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/expanded-arcana) feat
Alternate Favored Class bonuses (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/sorcerer#TOC-Favored-Class-Bonuses) for Humans and Drow

[Mystral]

About SanshaperKnowstone
Yes, exactly that. It gets expensive really fast, but that's so core to the character... I might be able to save for one per new level of spells each time I get a new lvl of spells. Perhaps craft it myself.

I like that :) Dragon magazine, but I know how to speak soft, irresistible words to mens.

You have to know the spell before crafting a knowstone with that spell. Makes sense, right?

[Crake]

Technically using versatile spellcaster (qualifying via spontaneous divination most likely, as A_S said) lets you cast any spell in your spellbook spontaneously, since a wizard's "spells known" is any spell in their spellbook. This would even let you blow two spellslots of the highest you have available to cast a spell level above what you normally could, assuming you have an appropriate spell scribed into your spellbook.

Is it silly? Yes. Is it technically rules legal? Yes. Will most DMs ban it outright? Yes.

YMMV

[Chronos]

You can also take Mage of the Arcane Order as a sorcerer (for whom it's even more awesome than it is for a wizard); it just takes an additional feat tax (Arcane Preparation, also in Complete Arcane). I believe that the designers even intended for this to be possible, as sorcerer MotAO are described as being very rare, not completely nonexistent.

[kellbyb]

Runestaffs are pretty cool. Make them if you're high enough level, otherwise just buy them/ask for them in treasure troves. But if you can, make them.

[Doc_Maynot]

Is it silly? Yes. Is it technically rules legal? Yes. Will most DMs ban it outright? Yes.

YMMV

Yeah, in my group it's almost expected to use Versatile Spellcaster in ways like that. Popular method is for one to use a Wizard or Archivist dip to effectively expand their spell list as a naturally spontaneous caster. Another is to make Sha'ir less convoluted to use.

[Deadline]

I'm going to second the Runestaff suggestion. They'll give you a handful of useful spells that you cast using your spellslots, rather than charges. This combined with a Knowstone or two should see you through most of your troubles.

[Crake]

Yeah, in my group it's almost expected to use Versatile Spellcaster in ways like that. Popular method is for one to use a Wizard or Archivist dip to effectively expand their spell list as a naturally spontaneous caster. Another is to make Sha'ir less convoluted to use.

I actually personally allow it as a DM, but that's because I think sorcerers suck, and I like spontaneous casting. I think it's not THAT bad to be honest, especially when there are methods like uncanny forethought that already let you do stuff like that. It's just a different kind of cost, more slots vs extra casting time (and unlimited times per day... and less feat prerequisites)

[AWiz_Abroad]

(This is a 3.5 topic)

So I really love playing control mage. I guess Treantmonk is everyone's spiritual dad by now. . . And last: I've done some research, just so you know I'm not a lazy bum who did not google. The closest I've found is... Beholder Mage. Since it requieres... you know.. to be a Beholder, my GM does not like the idea. (We spoke about it :P )

Ok, well the only other suggestion that I'd suggest is a rather convoluted way of chaotic spell recall, and a series of other feats to make a wizard cast like a sorcerer. Suggest searching something along the lines of "chaotic spell recall" + "spontaneous caster" + "Brillant Gameologists"

If you haven't found it by the time I get home (BG is blocked at work) I'll update with a link.

[A_S]

This (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7150.0;wap2) is the link, I believe. The trick is to take Chaotic Spell Recall (which lets you recover a [chaotic] spell a few times a day as a swift action) and use the Planar Spellcasting ACF from Planar Handbook to make whatever spell you want count as [chaotic].

[unbutu]

Thanks for the suggestion. It's a 1/day thing, but has the side benefit of increasing your CL for all those spells as well. Still, it's many feats.

I'm trying to look around for ways to increase the number of uses, but the only way seems to gain +1 use /2 abyssal feats possesed.

Worth it ? I'll have to compare with the uncanny foretought option. Thanks for throwing all these suggestions my way. I'm not sure wich one I prefer.

Might come down to DM preference as well.

[Gwachitallemall]

Sounds like Ultimate Magus is for you.

It combines Sorcerer and Wizard casting, Complete Mage.

You take 4 levels of wizard, 1 level of sorcerer, practiced spellcaster, enter into Ultimate Magus at level 6, by level 15 you have these benefits-

You cast spells as a 11th level wizard minimum, can get it up to 13, have a caster level of 15/17.

You also cast spells as a 8th level sorcerer minimum, can get it up to 10/11, have a caster level of 15 minimum (Depending how your DM stacks your casting, you have +4 from practiced spellcaster, another +4 from ultimate magus.)

You learn spells on both sides, but you can copy spells over to your sorcerer side.

The other trick is you can cast metamagic by expending spell slots on either side, to metamagic a spell of half your ultimate magus level.

It's a good class, not too tricky to get into, not for a sorcerer/wizard.

YMMV. You need favored class wizard or sorcerer, to succeed with this if your DM has multiclassing rules.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I would recommend Wizard/Beguiler for ultimate magus. Beguiler still has some BFC (some of it is illusion spells but its there) and gives you an Int synergy to work with. Just ignore the random FAQ about copying spells and you are good to go.

[Gwachitallemall]

Yeah, that works too. :) I just like to do it with sorcerer, don't know why.

The requirements are 1 prepared arcane class, 1 spontaneous arcane class. And yes, these may not actually be the requirements it says (Prepare arcane spells from a spellbook of 2nd level or higher, spontaneously cast 1st level arcane spells) They pretty much are.

[Jack_Simth]

And for the Sorcerer, don't forget the Bloodline feats from Dragon Compendium - each adds one specific spell known to each spell level, 1-9th, at the cost of removing spells with a specific descriptor from your class list (the Penumbra bloodline, for instance, forbids [Light] spells).

[LooseCannoneer]

Or you could try a psion if psionics are allowed. They have a massive amount of powers known (not nearly as much as a wizard, but nothing compares to wizard), and manifesters don't have to prepare spells. The only problem is that most psionic control is "will negates."