Why WotC thought spontaneous casters are stronger then prepare one?

[With a box]

Like They delayed Sorcerer's spell known progression a level late then wizard's and they think that's not enough so they give a bunch of bonus feats to wizard.
Why?

[Curmudgeon]

Because the early 3e playtesters just prepared a lot of Fireballs and the like. The Sorcerers got more of the same spells without having to prepare anything.

[TrollCapAmerica]

Because the limiting factor of old school Wizards was supposed to be limited spell count and "never" being able to have whatever spells you needed

They also thought spamming fireballs and magic missiles would be powerful and AD&D experience taught that there were only a handful of spells worth casting

[Troacctid]

Spontaneous casting is a more powerful mechanic. Imagine if a Wizard could prepare his spells normally, but instead of deciding ahead of time how many slots to dedicate to each spell, he could just cast them as many times per day as he had spell slots, like the Arcanist from Pathfinder. That would be indisputably better.

Obviously they overcompensated to the extreme by giving the Wizard unlimited spells known on top of faster progression and bonus feats, but what else is new.

[Shining Wrath]

Because more spells per day is better than more spells, right?

Because they didn't anticipate the 15 minute adventuring day, where a party with a wizard that runs into a situation where the wizard can't solve it with a finger waggle stops and waits until the wizard can do so.

Because they thought scrolls would be rare treasure and didn't think through Ye Olde Magic Mart meaning that gold = spells = full spell book.

Because they never thought of just how much effort people would put into scry and die.

[nyjastul69]

I don't know of a definitive answer. My guess is that they were erring on the side of caution. I think they wanted a full progression caster that didn't over shadow a wizard, because wizards have been a classic class throughout the history of the game. I think the non prepared casters were deemed too easy or lazy for balance purposes. They were incorrect in this assumption IMO.

[A Tad Insane]

Imagine two adventuring parties going through "the dungeon of evil demons and spooky skeletons".One party has a wizard as the arcanist, the other has a sorcerer. Both have the 5th level spells "banish evil demons" and "burn spooky skeletons". The wizard has to think about how many demons and skeletons the part will face. If he prepares too many of either, shame on him. The sorcerer doesn't have that concern.

The problem is the wizard has "look through the dungeon and tell me everything I'll come across", and can prepare "stake vampires" for the surprise count Dracula boss at the end, too

[Necroticplague]

They didn't. The sorceror was intentionally made weaker than the wizard. The reason for this varies based on which dev you ask. According to monte carlo, the game is intentionally unbalanced to reward system mastery. So in this case, the wizard is better, while appearing to have a trade-off, to reward the people who realize how much more powerful the wizard is than the sorceror.

The other possible reason is more of a rumor spread by a former WOTC dev, but it may be relevant; the dude in charge of development hated Sorcerers, saying "if you want to play a wizard, play a f****** wizard". So the sorceror was nerfed because of the gorgnard running one of the rings couldn't think beyond his own definition of a caster (never mind there being a fairly wide variety of caster since 1e).

[Chronos]

There's also the matter that they were trying something very new to the game, and not knowing whether it'd be more powerful or less, decided to err on the side of making it less powerful. A class that's not powerful enough won't matter, because people will just decide not to play it, but a class that's too powerful will break the game.

[nyjastul69]

They didn't. The sorceror was intentionally made weaker than the wizard. The reason for this varies based on which dev you ask. According to monte carlo, the game is intentionally unbalanced to reward system mastery. So in this case, the wizard is better, while appearing to have a trade-off, to reward the people who realize how much more powerful the wizard is than the sorceror.

The other possible reason is more of a rumor spread by a former WOTC dev, but it may be relevant; the dude in charge of development hated Sorcerers, saying "if you want to play a wizard, play a f****** wizard". So the sorceror was nerfed because of the gorgnard running one of the rings couldn't think beyond his own definition of a caster (never mind there being a fairly wide variety of caster since 1e).

I think you mean Monte Cook. His diatribe about system mastery and Timmy cards sounds to me like a retrofit rather than a design philosophy.


There's also the matter that they were trying something very new to the game, and not knowing whether it'd be more powerful or less, decided to err on the side of making it less powerful. A class that's not powerful enough won't matter, because people will just decide not to play it, but a class that's too powerful will break the game.

Yes, erring on the side of caution combined with a necessity to make 3rd edition compatible with 2nd edition.

[awa]

its possible they also over valued the Sorcerers simple weapon proficiency i recall that being a talking point when 3.0 was first coming out. Ignoring of course that in practical play they might as well not have any proficiency for all the good is does them.

Its possible they also considered the spell book a bigger liability then it typically is

[nedz]

Who knows ?

There are theories and rumours, but as to why they thought that — we don't know.

That said

Sorcerer 1 > Wizard 1

and spontaneous casters are stronger tactically, although weaker strategically.

[Telonius]

I think you mean Monte Cook. His diatribe about system mastery and Timmy cards sounds to me like a retrofit rather than a design philosophy.

I think of that particular episode as "Three-Card Monte."

[PsyBomb]

I read in one of the commentaries a long time ago, might have been in Unearthed Arcana, that a Sorcerer is much better at using Metamagic feats due to modifying on the fly. This supposedly is the reason for both the slowed progression and the full-round cast time

[squiggit]

Without system mastery it kind of makes sense. On the fly metamagic and on the fly spell use is a strong mechanic, especially for utility metamagics like still or silence in the face of some condition that stops verbal or somatic components and niche spells that you might have to cast twice when the wizard only prepared it once.

Falls through in practice, but you can sorta see where the idea is coming from.

[Grim Portent]

The part that puzzles me is that even as time passed and they got better at balance the new spontaneous casters all stuck to the same delayed progression model. You'd think they'd have fixed it in later casters.

[atemu1234]

I read in one of the commentaries a long time ago, might have been in Unearthed Arcana, that a Sorcerer is much better at using Metamagic feats due to modifying on the fly. This supposedly is the reason for both the slowed progression and the full-round cast time

And one of the things Pathfinder fixed, if I remember.

[Psyren]

And one of the things Pathfinder fixed, if I remember.

What Pathfinder fixed is that you no longer need Rapid Spell or an ACF to be able to Quicken spontaneous spells.

[Stegyre]

Why WotC thought spontaneous casters are stronger then prepare one?
My short answer: I don't know.

My longer answer can be stated by reframing the original question: "Why do we have bugs in programs (or errors in game design) even after beta testing?"

Because no one of us, and no small group of us (beta testers, play testers), is as smart, thorough, inventive, and unpredictable as all of us together.

Release a game system to the world-at-large, and you will inevitably learn things you failed to consider before, design errors, unintended consequences.

Such is life.

[Libertad]

Because more spells per day is better than more spells, right?

Because they didn't anticipate the 15 minute adventuring day, where a party with a wizard that runs into a situation where the wizard can't solve it with a finger waggle stops and waits until the wizard can do so.

Because they thought scrolls would be rare treasure and didn't think through Ye Olde Magic Mart meaning that gold = spells = full spell book.

Because they never thought of just how much effort people would put into scry and die.

Don't forget the ability to leave spell slots open! I kind of wonder why they made this rule, especially when it's been so easy for people to miss all these years.