PDA

View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Sorcerous Origin - Arcane Prodigy (PEACH)



Gr7mm Bobb
2017-03-30, 04:12 PM
Going to say it RIGHT NOW, the groundwork on this is not of my own design. This is an adaptation of something that I thought was cool af, but for one reason or another unfitting for my groups needs/desires. The original work can be found in HERE (https://sterlingvermin.com/2017/03/01/the-sorcerer-class-revisited/). This is a shout out to SterlingVermin for having some really cool stuff that they make. My imitation is only intended as a form of flattery. Now that the hopefully sufficient groveling and background have been dispersed, here is the Arcane Prodigy Origin from my perspective.

The idea came from a questioned I posed a couple of years ago of what would a sorcerer who studied under a wizard or in a wizards academy have gained from such an experience? Would they have picked up the the nuances of fundamentally understanding magic alongside their natural talent to intuitively use it? What could be gained from such a marriage of will and understanding? Each ability presented in this archetype was an attempt to portray a measure of growth that such an individual would have. From greater casting flexibility, to having a better grasp of the changes that can be done to magic on a fundamental level. Another is the benefit of having learn magic through repetition and practice.

Spellbook
At 1st level, you have a spellbook containing three 1st-level wizard spells of your choice. Your Spellbook is the repository of the wizard spells you know.


Preparing and Casting Spells
You can prepare an additional list of spells that are available for you to cast. To do so, choose a number of spells from your spellbook equal to your Intelligence modifier + ⅓ your sorcerer level (rounded up, a minimum of one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots. Casting the spell doesn't remove it from your list of prepared spells. These spells count as sorcerer spells for you.
You can change your list of prepared Spells when you finish a Long Rest. Preparing a new list of spells requires time spent studying your spellbook and memorizing the incantations and gestures you must make to cast the spell: at least 1 minute per Spell Level for each spell on your list.


Ritual Casting
You can cast a wizard spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag and you have the spell in your spellbook. You don't need to have the spell prepared.


Learning Spells of 1st Level and Higher
Each time you gain a sorcerer level, you can add one wizard spell of your choice to your spellbook for free. Each of these spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots, as shown on the sorcerer table. The maximum level of spell you may add to your book is 5th level. On your adventures, you might find other spells that you can add to your spellbook (see “Your Spellbook” PHB page 114).

Expert Arcanist
Starting at 1st level, if you are proficient in the Arcana skill or become proficient later, your proficiency bonus is doubled when making ability check using the Arcana skill.

Genius Spellweaver
Starting at 6th level your personal mental drills have strengthened your mind. You gain proficiency in Intelligence saving throws. You also learn one additional metamagic.

Improved Metamagic
Starting 14th level you learn one additional metamagic. Additionally you may select two of your known metamagics. Whenever you apply one of your selected metamagics to a spell, you can reduce the number of sorcery points required by 1 (to a minimum of 0).

Arcane Thesis
Starting at 18th level you may select up to three spells of 1st level or higher that you can cast. Whenever you spend a spell slot to cast one of the selected spells, you regain a number of sorcery points up to the level of the spell slot used.

The gain of 2 metamagics may be a little much, but considering that the fighter normally only has 1 style and champion increases his # of styles by 100%, I didn't have too much of an issue with incrementally increasing the # of meta's known by 50%.

PS - To the people at Sterling Vermin, please don't hate me.:smalleek:

Gr7mm Bobb
2017-04-04, 02:57 PM
I'm just going to take the pure radio silence as a sign that there is one of 2 things going on with this.

A) It's perfectly fine the way it is and I'm just paranoid.
or
B) Its so busted that its not even worth peoples time to try and salvage.

My inner voice may have a flair for the dramatic. I'm also really hoping that I haven't broken some community rule by using someone else's stuff as a foundation.

Arkhios
2017-04-05, 12:31 AM
Or C) some people who might have opinions haven't seen this yet ;)

I think letting the Arcane Prodigy to prepare spells depending on your level might be unneccessary complication. In theory it's a nice idea, but in practice, you could have up to 11 spells (with Int 20) from wizard's list, starting from 18th level.

Also, I'm assuming that the rest of your spells would still be keyed off of Charisma. Multiple Ability Dependency for class features is a bit contradictory to the official rules, especially when it comes to spellcasting. I doubt anyone would want to play a class that needed both int and charisma to be even half-decent to be effective, on top of constitution and likely dexterity as well.

My suggestion(s): instead of forcing to be MAD, sorcerous origin feature being at the first level is a great opportunity (imho) to change the ability score for spellcasting from Charisma to Intelligence. Furthermore, I think you could give proficiency to Intelligence saving throws. Maybe not at first level, but at a later point, alongside of something else.

Also, what comes to the wizard spells prepared, I'd let the prodigy prepare one spell from the spellbook containing your wizard spells per each spell level you can cast. Two reasons, to simplify the feature, and up to 9 spells as opposed to max. 11 spells isn't a huge difference. Having the spellbook is a nice touch though. However, on hindsight, seeing that the latest revision to Favored Soul went into the direction of not gaining bonus spells known, even those 9 bonus spells prepared might be too much. An alternative could be to be able to prepare those wizard spells temporarily in place of spells you have learned through your sorcerer levels.

Personally, until the dev's admit it was a mistake to limit the sorcerer's spells known to as few as it is, I have no reason to question that bit of RAW.

Gr7mm Bobb
2017-04-05, 10:42 AM
First off ty for the Feedback, I have a couple of things that might need clearing up for you though.

As for the casting stat of these spells, it is still Charisma. They just get a boost the the number of spells for the day they get to prepare out of their book from having a higher Intelligence.

As is, with 20 intelligence, the spellbook feature provides the Sorcerer with 2 (because 1/3rd rounded up) more spells available each day than that of a druid/wizard/cleric with max casting stat before taking into account bonus spells from archetypes.

15 known + 12 prepared = 27 total, also I feel it necessary to point out that none of the prepared spells can exceed 5th level.

The cleric with any domain blows this out of the water with 35 spells available (level + Wis + Domain spells), the same goes for the Circle of the Land Druid.

Not sure exactly how to phrase it to read as intended atm. But with a +5 int, the max number of spells that can be prepared from the spell book is 12 (1/3 level rounded up + Int). I have it set to scale the way I do to ensure that even the sorcerer without a beastly Intelligence would still benefit from their own archetype.

I did make a point to keep the Arcana Expertise from the original Sterling Vermin design because it was just simple and clean. For your concerns with Intelligence saving throws, that kicks in @ 6th level plus an additional metamagic known.

Overall really hoping that forcing the spellbook feature to behave like the Cleric/Druid/Wizard will allow for leeway in this idea of the "sorcerer expanded spell list". Hopefully I can hammer out the validity of the features concepts and then tweak the numbers to fit into a semblance of balance.

Some of the UA that WotC has been putting out has been really off. Like the recent warmage, that thing was just a pile of hot garbage, the only thing that was really even worth salvaging was the +2 while concentrating thing.

The_Jette
2017-04-05, 05:00 PM
Casting the spell doesn't remove it from your list of prepared spells.

The question I have is about this. Are you saying that when you cast the prepared Wizard spell you're using up Sorcerer spell slots; or something else? If so, this is useful for expanding the Sorcerer's spell known list quite a bit, especially since you can change out every day, as long as you have more spells in your spell book. That would greatly increase the versatility of the Sorc, in my opinion. Of course, I don't see that as a bad thing. I just need some clarification.

Gr7mm Bobb
2017-04-05, 05:19 PM
Casting the spell doesn't remove it from your list of prepared spells.

This piece of text is a direct copy ouy of the wizards spellbook feature. My best guess as to why it exists is to clarify spellcasting for wizards in 5e.

In 3.X generation, prepared casters were required to prepare in advance how each slot was going to be used (like 2 magic missiles, 1 mage armor, 1 color spray etc.) When you cast a spell, that spell was expended from your spells prepared.

My best guess was that, the above mention text was to clear up potential cross generation confusion. I kept the text in transference to do the same as well as maintain continuity. Hopefully that helps clarify that.

As it stands, the prepared spells the prodigy gets are to be a form of ultra flexible expanded spell list.