Help Me Remake the Sorcerer

[tedcahill2]

I'm working on a campaign world where all casters are spontaneous casters. When I started thinking about the sorcerer I found that I really didn't like their over all build and feature set. With ever casting being able to cast spontaneously the core sorcerer doesn't have as much of a draw compared to him being the only spontaneous caster.

Then I look at the warlock and I'm thinking, god damn that seems fun. Many of the warlocks class features would work so well for the way I envision a sorcerer. I just need to refluff it to be pure arcane or elemental energy, instead of demonic energy. Plus I don't want to rewrite a bunch of invocations to fit the arcane sorcerer theme.

So my thoughts are to severely limit the number of spells that a sorcerer can cast, but give them an arcane blast, like eldritch blast, that can be shaped. So the sorcerer can choose to have his blast be fire, lightning, or ice, each having benefits and drawbacks to using it, and he can choose each time he uses it. He can gain the ability to shape his blast into cones, or lines, or little AoE bursts. He gains energy resistance, instead of the warlocks DR.

Does anyone want to help me take this on?

[Gusmo]

Use the Pathfinder version?

[Telonius]

So basically, Dragonfire Adept, but let them pick which energy they use each round?

EDIT: I've considered granting the "____ of the Mage" feats from Dragon 359 as bonus feats. Those always seemed like the sort of thing high-level sorcerers just ought to have.

[Flickerdart]

Take a look at the Dragonfire Adept, who is basically like the variant sorcerer you describe. They are typically considered fairly weak, but then so are warlocks.

One interesting approach would be taking inspiration from the Tome of Battle, 4th edition psionics, and the warlock's blast shape mechanic. Give your sorcerer a simple laser like the warlock's, and then allow him to use conventional spell slots to augment it. Want your laser to hit unerringly, and deal force damage? That's a level 1 slot (basically magic missile). Want it to explode as an area attack that deals fire damage? That's a level 3 slot (basically fireball). You could even let sorcerers get crazy with abilities like the arcane archer's, binding area of effect spells to their laser.