Sorcerer help

[SangoProduction]

Many consider Sorcerer to be strictly inferior to Wizard. I imagine a good deal comes from the idea that a wizard can basically prepare anything he wants, meanwhile the sorcerer only has a limited number of possible spells to cast. But, once a wizard locks in what he's preparing, he's not going to be able to change what he'll be using.

So, what if Sorcerers gained spell slots equivalent to the Wizard? Would that even out the power?

[Deadline]

Many consider Sorcerer to be strictly inferior to Wizard. I imagine a good deal comes from the idea that a wizard can basically prepare anything he wants, meanwhile the sorcerer only has a limited number of possible spells to cast. But, once a wizard locks in what he's preparing, he's not going to be able to change what he'll be using.

So, what if Sorcerers gained spell slots equivalent to the Wizard? Would that even out the power?

I'm a bit confused, you want to give the Sorcerer fewer spell slots than they already get? That would make the power gap even wider.

[Honest Tiefling]

Meanwhile, the poor samurai sobs quietly in the corner chugging cheap sake. I wouldn't personally do it, since I often prefer the balance of the sorcerer to that of the wizard (and a lot of people I've played with want to be the boomstick...) so...Why are you doing this? I think that question is quite vital, what exactly are you trying to achieve? A better list of tier 1 classes for a high powered game?

[Deadline]

Also, a Wizard has some flexibility with spells through Uncanny Forethought, or simply leaving a slot unprepared to be filled in later.

[SangoProduction]

I'm a bit confused, you want to give the Sorcerer fewer spell slots than they already get? That would make the power gap even wider.

I am running a game that is specifically Sorcerer and Wizard only.

And...I'm sorry but the Sorcerer gets a 2nd level slot at level 4 while wizards get them at level 3. I'm not sure how that's supposed to make them cast less.

EDIT: OK. I see. Perhaps I didn't make it clear. I meant specifically "spell slot" progression, not "spells per day" progression.


Meanwhile, the poor samurai sobs quietly in the corner chugging cheap sake. I wouldn't personally do it, since I often prefer the balance of the sorcerer to that of the wizard (and a lot of people I've played with want to be the boomstick...) so...Why are you doing this? I think that question is quite vital, what exactly are you trying to achieve? A better list of tier 1 classes for a high powered game?

I'm running a game that's specifically Wizards and Sorcerer only, where Sorcerer's are those who've practiced with a select few spells to cast them "from memory", while Wizards can prepare different spells each day, but have the normal restrictions.

[Honest Tiefling]

Some ideas:

Yes, give them more spell slots, but the same progression as the Wizard.
Make the familiar more formidable. The wizard has the benefit of feats as well.
Yoink the bloodlines from Pathfinder, or use the UA bloodlines. Wizards are scholars who learned, sorcerers call upon unnatural (and possibly, unholy) bloodlines. Heritage feats
Free eschew materials feat.
Make the sorcerers blasters, which is typically popular but harder to do with a wizard. Such as abilities to increase damage with damage dealing spells. Depending on your optimization levels, it might not help much but some people will be giggling madly as they light everything on fire.
If you do indeed, like me, have that sort of people in your groups, and are going with the bloodline thing, I'd seriously consider some rules to get some Hellfire action in there.
Failing that, free LA? Again with the bloodline thing.

[Deadline]

Ah, I see. Hmm, that change would make sorcerers a little better, but not much. How big a change are you shooting for here?

One possibility, building off of one of Honest Tiefling's suggestions, would be to let the Sorcerer turn one of their known Evocation spells into a Spell-like ability (similar to the Archmage's ability), possibly more than one with a progression. That would cement their role as regular blasters. Sort of like a super-powered Warlock with more versatility.

[Honest Tiefling]

Then what about the ability to poach spells from the divine spellcasting lists? Through I think the spell-like ability thing is quite thematic especially if there is no desire for the bloodline thing.

[SangoProduction]

I like the suggestions.

[DMVerdandi]

Many consider Sorcerer to be strictly inferior to Wizard. I imagine a good deal comes from the idea that a wizard can basically prepare anything he wants, meanwhile the sorcerer only has a limited number of possible spells to cast. But, once a wizard locks in what he's preparing, he's not going to be able to change what he'll be using.

So, what if Sorcerers gained spell slots equivalent to the Wizard? Would that even out the power?

Are you saying you want the sorcerer as strong or stronger than the wizard.
Giving them equal spell progression would help to alleviate some of the weakness of the sorcerer ITSELF, but the fact that a wizard change his whole daily prepared list is incredibly awesome.


Personally, my suggestion would be this.
Wanna make sorcerer as strong or stronger? Give the sorcerer warlock invocations, bonus feats every 5 levels and eldritch blast.

Have a "Draconic Sorcerer" variant that gets a breath weapon and draconic invocations, instead of the warlock abilities.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Many consider Sorcerer to be strictly inferior to Wizard. I imagine a good deal comes from the idea that a wizard can basically prepare anything he wants, meanwhile the sorcerer only has a limited number of possible spells to cast. But, once a wizard locks in what he's preparing, he's not going to be able to change what he'll be using.

So, what if Sorcerers gained spell slots progression equivalent to the Wizard? Would that even out the power?

The fact that sorcerer's are less obscenely powerful than wizards is frequently exaggerated well out proportion to how big the difference really is.

Point, the first: wizards get their next spell level one level earlier than sorcerers.

So? Most good spell choices remain useful for 4 or 5 levels after selecting them and some remain valuable throughout the caster's career. Further, being one level behind almost never matters in practice since the enemies the party faces will rarely be exactly one level off from the party. They'll either be several levels ahead, making it a moot point, or they'll be the same level or lower, making it an equally moot point.

Point, the second: sorcerers get a limited list of spells known while the wizard can learn as many as he likes.

This is where the real difference in power lies but it's still not a huge deal. A well selected pool of spells will leave a sorcerer with fairly few situations in which he doesn't have something that can turn the tide of a battle or that he can leverage against the current circumstance. Simply keeping up on the polymorph and summon monster X lines can squash most problems. Silver bullets are nice but if you're dropping bombs then who cares what they're made of?

Point, the third: sorcerers actually have some advantages over wizards.

The sorcerer's spontaneous casting mechanism makes knowing what's ahead much less important. If he knows a spell that can be applied to the current challenge (and he probably does), he can apply it immediately; no need for a 15 minute break, no need to worry about disruption wasting the ability to apply the spell next round, just cast and go. The sorcerer also natively has more spells per day than a wizard of his top few levels, allowing him to shut down just a couple more situations each day.

Point, the fourth: a wizard can spend build and character resources to give himself the advantages sorcerers normally enjoy over them.

So can a sorcerer. Runestaves can expand his spells known, the spell preparation feat can allow him to apply multiple metamagics to a single spell, metamagic specialist can even give him an advantage in allowing him to apply metamagic on the fly rather than on prep, you can even jump through a few hoops to cast spells early, and so on.

Point, the final: I'm not saying that sorcerers and wizards are equal. The wizard is undeniably ahead. All I'm saying is that the gap is much smaller than people sometimes think.


To answer your question, I wouldn't bother but it probably wouldn't hurt anything either.