Sorcerer Conundrum and the issue of action economy versus spell versatility

[Mordaedil]

Now, in my group we are quickly approaching 4th level spells and I've been steadily making plans a few levels ahead, but as the sessions move on and what seemed like a solid baseline, my higher level setup has fallen under constant reworking. Now we all know the sorcerers weakness lies in the number of spells they know and the need to plan around them and I think I am doing an alright job juggling my spells as appropriate for my campaign right now (albeit orbs hit a lot less than I'd like them to) but I find myself struggling planning the high level setup with the king of action economy spells in play.

So the spells in question are:

Celerity(x3): An excellent series of spells coming in lesser, normal and greater form affording you actions out of your turn, in exchange for a loss of a turn of you own. Can either make or break a big battle, but practically a free victory delivered with combination of timestop.

Arcane Spellsurge(x1): The spell that reduces the time-cost of spells and makes metamagic completely open and free, this also makes arcane fusion an even stronger choice.

Arcane Fusion(x2): These spells, coming in two varieties allow you to go truly wild if you want to, just add a metamagic to it to make it stronger with Arcane Spellsurge active.

Timestop, Wish and Limited Wish:Technically not a series of spells, but part of my problem here, addressing both economy and versatility, at a hefty price in the latter case.

That is a lot of spells that eats up spell slots and brings me to why I named this the sorcerer conundrum. This eats up a lot of spells and frankly I'm not entirely sure grabbing all of them is worth it. I end up with very few spells to actually spend my earned actions on.

So what are my best options here, assuming runestaffs and knowstones are not available, due to DM deciding he controls what magic items are available. If my spells come from items, they don't all benefit from these spells. And the xp cost from wish and limited wish makes them expensive alternatives to having actual spells worth a damn.

Which of these are worth cutting for having a broader selection, if at all?

[Kayblis]

You need spells that either have a nonlinear use(like Wall of Stone, good BC at any level of play) or give a lot of mileage for each casting(like Animate Dead). Assuming cheese like Polymorph isn't available, you should specify what is your intent with your Sorcerer - do you want to manipulate elements and blast? Or do you want to litter the field with minions? Or maybe you want to buff your allies into demigods? A Sorcerer is less efficient for battlefield control because he can't learn the tens of spells that work for each scenario, but that's an option too.

Choose a focus and we can work with it. General utility isn't a good idea if you're already focusing on having many actions per turn.

[PunBlake]

Personally, I'd rather use the Metamagic Specialist ACF in PHB2 (losing familiar) than use a spell known slot on Spellsurge.

Time Stop is worth it. Wish and Limited Wish are fine.

The Arcane Fusion line is good in a pinch to, say, throw up a low-level defense or buff while using a higher level offensive/BFC spell (Shadow Conj or Evo), and they excel at this in lower level play. Once you get Time Stop, it doesn't matter as much, but it still lets you take advantage of your Time Stop actions fully.

The Celerity line requires condition mitigation to be truly great but is good in a pinch.

Both Celerity line and Arcane Fusion line serve the same purpose: use in a pinch for more actions per round. You probably don't need both lines. Arcane Fusion has spell level limits, which makes it objectively worse on one hand, but Celerity requires condition mitigation items to not be dangerous on the other. I think char-op forums at large prefer Celerity; I personally prefer Arcane Fusion. YMMV.

[tyckspoon]

For 9th level, you're probably better off picking up Shapechange or even Gate rather than Wish for versatility purposes; almost anything you could do as a safelist Wish effect you can probably find a Shapechange form with an appropriate SLA/Supernatural power or Gated minion to achieve, and it'll cost a lot less. If you're not planning to stick to the generally accepted safe effects, Wish is of course theoretically capable of anything, but be prepared for a lot of negotiating with your DM as to exactly what you can expect to accomplish.

Of the Celerity line, I'd suggest just sticking with standard Celerity; Lesser only provides a Move action, which needs some significant extra resources to turn into a major combat trick, and Greater's full round action will still typically only allow you to cast one spell. Celerity's Standard Action should allow you to do what you need most of the time.

[Fizban]

Medium Celerity, both Arcane Fusions, and Limited Wish.

-As noted, there's never a need for full-round Celerity
-Arcane Fusions give you both the speed of extra spells and the not wasting spell slots of casting extra spells, and you can take Versatile Spellcaster (?) to combine slots to pay for them at a cost which is still better.
-Limited Wish lets you rebuild your character (read: spells known) with the Psychic Reformation dupe, and even without it the sheer utility of duping so many spells in an instant easily outweighs the small xp cost compared to your xp for encounters cleared. Limited Wish is as good as knowing so many spells it's just good, the main downside simply being that first-picking it means you're relying on lower levels spells for most of your 7th slots for a while, which feels bad.

Wish is overkill, but by the time you hit your final 9th level spell it might be worth picking up, if the game warrants it. Arcane Spellsurge is only really good if you can vary the speed cost of metamagic, and comes at the same level as the far more broad and life-saving Limited Wish, 7th is also the level of spells you can put in Greater Arcane Fusion so you want more of those available, and swift actions clash with Celerity (and Wings of Cover, and. . . ). If you need Time Stop to win then frankly you shouldn't be playing a Sorcerer in that game- while you're at it, check if your DM even runs it the way you think they do.

And of course don't forget that you can just spend feats on spells known. It doesn't take very many feats to hit full enough power, most of which you can do by 12th, after which you can just go for Extra Spell if you need to.

[Mordaedil]

You need spells that either have a nonlinear use(like Wall of Stone, good BC at any level of play) or give a lot of mileage for each casting(like Animate Dead). Assuming cheese like Polymorph isn't available, you should specify what is your intent with your Sorcerer - do you want to manipulate elements and blast? Or do you want to litter the field with minions? Or maybe you want to buff your allies into demigods? A Sorcerer is less efficient for battlefield control because he can't learn the tens of spells that work for each scenario, but that's an option too.

Choose a focus and we can work with it. General utility isn't a good idea if you're already focusing on having many actions per turn.

My angle with my sorcerer comes from my teammates insisting I do a themed build, which I know is usually terrible, but I read that apparently Frost Mage can make it work, so I decided to do that. I took some flaws (which are mostly negligible, some penalties to hide and a need to make a check to sleep or be fatigued/exhausted) and got frozen magic and snowcasting, and due to circumstances, I took the celestial bloodlines feat from the Dragon Compendium, affording me several extra spells, but not all that are super useful. Also I found the DM doesn't really do temperature or snow into the campaign, so frozen magic and snowcasting are kinda sitting unused, but I figured I'd use summon component and control temperature for an easy +3 to casterlevel.

Ahem, but the idea is to go into blasting. I initially wanted to be a support type, but the others were not really positive for that kind of character (a sniper, a teleporting warblade/jaunter and a favored soul) just telling me unhelpfully to focus on having fun on my own, rather than concentrate on spells that benefit a party. So I read up on some guides like the mailman and the like and it's just a shame I won't be able to squeeze Incanatrix into it, except maybe near the end. The DM has revealed the campaign will go to roughly 14 for the main quest, but he might keep playing after, if we want to.

That said, I did consider wall of ice for a 4th level, but orb of cold is what I'm considering using an arcane thesis on,as I also plan to pick ocular spell and split ray to pull off some Cyclops death lasers.

Since I am going Frost Mage, Piercing Cold at least assures I won't have to worry about resistances, except from cold subtypes. But yeah, it's pretty blast-heavy.


Personally, I'd rather use the Metamagic Specialist ACF in PHB2 (losing familiar) than use a spell known slot on Spellsurge.

Time Stop is worth it. Wish and Limited Wish are fine.

The Arcane Fusion line is good in a pinch to, say, throw up a low-level defense or buff while using a higher level offensive/BFC spell (Shadow Conj or Evo), and they excel at this in lower level play. Once you get Time Stop, it doesn't matter as much, but it still lets you take advantage of your Time Stop actions fully.

The Celerity line requires condition mitigation to be truly great but is good in a pinch.

Both Celerity line and Arcane Fusion line serve the same purpose: use in a pinch for more actions per round. You probably don't need both lines. Arcane Fusion has spell level limits, which makes it objectively worse on one hand, but Celerity requires condition mitigation items to not be dangerous on the other. I think char-op forums at large prefer Celerity; I personally prefer Arcane Fusion. YMMV.

I know, I had already made a sorcerer using that ACF before, so I wanted to see what I could do with a familiar, took an arctic fox for thematic purposes and uh... It kinda became the party mascot so I can't get rid of it. Even our group name is the White Foxes.

Seeing as I mostly want Wish for the inherent bonuses, is maybe gambling on finding the tomes a better idea?

I reckon I can probably eliminate the greater and lesser celerity spells, and for late game use I suppose using timestop with celerity would be a pretty strong combination for escaping pretty much any dangerous situation.


For 9th level, you're probably better off picking up Shapechange or even Gate rather than Wish for versatility purposes; almost anything you could do as a safelist Wish effect you can probably find a Shapechange form with an appropriate SLA/Supernatural power or Gated minion to achieve, and it'll cost a lot less. If you're not planning to stick to the generally accepted safe effects, Wish is of course theoretically capable of anything, but be prepared for a lot of negotiating with your DM as to exactly what you can expect to accomplish.

Of the Celerity line, I'd suggest just sticking with standard Celerity; Lesser only provides a Move action, which needs some significant extra resources to turn into a major combat trick, and Greater's full round action will still typically only allow you to cast one spell. Celerity's Standard Action should allow you to do what you need most of the time.
Only reason I still consider greater celerity is because of ocular spell honestly. But let's face it, I'll probably spend that long before I chain it into a greater celerity.

Would Aspect of Bahamut work in place of Shapechange? Or is that one too weak to bother with?

Also for theme, is Iceberg a good choice or a waste for a 9th level spell?


Medium Celerity, both Arcane Fusions, and Limited Wish.

-As noted, there's never a need for full-round Celerity
-Arcane Fusions give you both the speed of extra spells and the not wasting spell slots of casting extra spells, and you can take Versatile Spellcaster (?) to combine slots to pay for them at a cost which is still better.
-Limited Wish lets you rebuild your character (read: spells known) with the Psychic Reformation dupe, and even without it the sheer utility of duping so many spells in an instant easily outweighs the small xp cost compared to your xp for encounters cleared. Limited Wish is as good as knowing so many spells it's just good, the main downside simply being that first-picking it means you're relying on lower levels spells for most of your 7th slots for a while, which feels bad.

Wish is overkill, but by the time you hit your final 9th level spell it might be worth picking up, if the game warrants it. Arcane Spellsurge is only really good if you can vary the speed cost of metamagic, and comes at the same level as the far more broad and life-saving Limited Wish, 7th is also the level of spells you can put in Greater Arcane Fusion so you want more of those available, and swift actions clash with Celerity (and Wings of Cover, and. . . ). If you need Time Stop to win then frankly you shouldn't be playing a Sorcerer in that game- while you're at it, check if your DM even runs it the way you think they do.

And of course don't forget that you can just spend feats on spells known. It doesn't take very many feats to hit full enough power, most of which you can do by 12th, after which you can just go for Extra Spell if you need to.

I originally had versatile spellcaster as my third level feat, but DM nixed it. Good note on limited wish though, it might be worth dropping given wings of cover being a thing in my lineup. Good point on extra spell, I kinda forgot to account for that at higher level feats.

I'm not one that would use time stop in the most effective way possible and given the lack of spells I have that would be effective in time stop, maybe you are right... I'll take it back to the drawing board.

[tyckspoon]

Also for theme, is Iceberg a good choice or a waste for a 9th level spell?


It probably should be level 8 instead, but it's not bad - no save for targets under the main impact is nice, and although I don't have the book on hand to confirm exactly what it does my memory says 'buried in snow' as referenced by the spell is actually a pretty nasty control effect. Less effective when there's a good chance a large number of your enemies will be able to teleport, turn/be incorporeal or ethereal, or have access to Freedom of Movement type effects. Fixed damage is a bit of a downside, since it won't get any benefit from your CL increases.

[PunBlake]

I know, I had already made a sorcerer using that ACF before, so I wanted to see what I could do with a familiar, took an arctic fox for thematic purposes and uh... It kinda became the party mascot so I can't get rid of it. Even our group name is the White Foxes.

Aww, that's cute. Usually, familiars are not so successful for me, and I don't like managing an "extra character" after running a druid up to 20.


Seeing as I mostly want Wish for the inherent bonuses, is maybe gambling on finding the tomes a better idea?

I agree with Fizban and Kayblis here; you want spells that give more potential options as spells known, and even with the XP cost, Limited Wish can be a get-out-of-Maze-jail-free card.


Would Aspect of Bahamut work in place of Shapechange? Or is that one too weak to bother with?
Also for theme, is Iceberg a good choice or a waste for a 9th level spell?
Shapechange is more busted than Polymorph. Iceberg is fun when combined with other Frostburn spells (ie. Blood Snow, and a bunch of spells not on the Sorc/Wiz list), since it makes snow and buries things in it. There are easier ways to make a bunch of snow, but this isn't the worst.

[Mordaedil]

Oooh, I was a bit worried about Blood Snow for a second, but it's apparently only using the Cold descriptor and isn't Evil? That's pretty good news for me (Celestial bloodline prevents me from casting Evil descriptor spells) so I'll definitely put that in line for when Iceberg comes online. Also one of the things I really like about Iceberg is that it has a 60-foot radius effect and it gets more disastrous for people the closer they are to the center, a feature I feel like other spells could learn a lot from. I didn't think too much about the burial bit until you mentioned manipulating the remains though.


Aww, that's cute. Usually, familiars are not so successful for me, and I don't like managing an "extra character" after running a druid up to 20.


Last battle we were in, I was out shopping with our warblade for disguises, when my familiar and the rest of our party got ambushed by a wizard that blasted an entire town square with a fireball. My familiar evaded the fireball and proceeded to chew out his throat and somehow single-handedly killed the wizard(does help that he fireballed himself, smart as he was). Better still was that he almost got to kill the fighter as well, but I flubbed the last attack roll.

This while doing 1 damage per hit. It was bizarre how well that little tyke did, despite not being able to output much.



I agree with Fizban and Kayblis here; you want spells that give more potential options as spells known, and even with the XP cost, Limited Wish can be a get-out-of-Maze-jail-free card.


Yeah, good point. Frost Mage also gets a few spells for free, albeit I feel like it could be a bit more generous with the summons it grants, I can't complain that it gives me access to Conjure Ice Beast of all things.

Even though I've had pretty massive successes with silent image and major image so far, I also have the feeling I annoy the DM slightly when I ask for things like "a field of bears" and he starts putting down bear minis everywhere.

[RoboEmperor]

The best sorcerers are specialized sorcerers so I'd suggest you keep all of your action economy shenanigans and just dedicate your sorcerer to one thing. But that's just the optimizer talking. If you want your character to have versatility then go for it. It's your choice to play suboptimally for more fun. But sorcerers are not about versatility. They are about spamming that 1 spell more than wizards in exchange for slower spell acquisition and no versatility.

[Mordaedil]

The best sorcerers are specialized sorcerers so I'd suggest you keep all of your action economy shenanigans and just dedicate your sorcerer to one thing. But that's just the optimizer talking. If you want your character to have versatility then go for it. It's your choice to play suboptimally for more fun. But sorcerers are not about versatility. They are about spamming that 1 spell more than wizards in exchange for slower spell acquisition and no versatility.
The party consists of a warblade/jaunter, a custom gunslinger class (that acts like a rogue with unlimited range sneak attack as long as it uses a firearm), a battledancer infected lycanthrope aasimar, a favored soul/exorcist aasimar and my aasimar frost mage sorcerer.

I would feel really bad optimizing in this party and the DM has been really fair on balancing difficulty so far. I don't mind hard focusing into the Orb of Cold blasting strategy using Arcane Fusion to mix in True Strike either, but I just feel I need a few more answers, but that's probably just because I am a slight bit paranoid.

[Mordaedil]

I just read over Snowcasting again and I think I misunderstood something. This only increases the spell level, not caster level, correct? It's confusing when they use "effective level" so haphazardly.



If you add a handful of snow or ice as an additional material component to a spell when you cast it and that spell already has the cold descriptor, you increase the effective level of the spell being cast by +1.

[ericgrau]

Level 6-8 is too early for orbs. Your attack bonus is too low, SR isn't common yet, and single target damage in general isn't great. In a couple levels they will make great backup spells.

The sorcerer's actual weakness lies in not being able to swap spells. As for number of spells prepared, you're pretty close to a wizard. The trick is to simply take more general purpose spells like what a wizard would take on a general day without casting any divination spells.

Celerity is great as always. Arcane spellsurge is great if you have the dragonblood subtype. Still good without it but d&d combats are brief & early actions are more valuable than later ones, so you risk breaking even on actions in many fights. Limited wish is great if you say "xp is a river" and plan on spamming it for superb spell versatility. Otherwise it could be a trap, as you are versatile in theory but too afraid to pay the price to use it except in emergencies.

You can search the forums for good ideas for a spell list, and what you pick as a sorcerer should be the same as what you pick as a wizard on an average day. I'll give an example of what I would do with a level 8 sorcerer. I'm trying to be quick so I'll mainly use PHB + a little spell compendium, but hopefully it will give you an idea and then you can improve on it.

Level 1 (5): ray of enfeeblement, nerveskitter, mage armor, unseen servant, magic missile
Level 2 (3): swift fly, invisibility, false life
Level 3 (2): sleet storm, haste
Level 4 (1): Solid fog (or celerity of course)

Relevant feats (change based on spell selection): empower spell (ray of enfeeblement, magic missile and maybe false life; later enervation & orbs), point blank shot, precise shot.
Scrolls: 1-3 each of nearly every level 1 utility spell + shock and awe. A few level 2 utility including my favorite, spider climb.

If possible I'd grab a wand of invisibility and replace invisibility with levitate or something else. It has many charges while encounters for an entire campaign are few. Don't be shy about spamming even 10 copies when a good opportunity arises, and don't forget both fellow party members and objects.

Resilient sphere, wall of ice and greater invisibility are also strong alternatives for level 4. Again these are just example spells. It looks like you use high optimization so you might sub in spells like [empowered] shivering touch + heart of earth, wings of cover, obscuring snow + snowsight (on whole party), luminescent armor, etc.

Now here's why. Notice how on level 1-2 I have 4 hour/level and swift/immediate spells to burn my extra low level spells per day without eating any precious combat rounds on them. As you level up you would continue to do this with [max spell level - 2] and lower level spells, while swapping out in-combat spells. Likewise higher level spells are good general purpose combat spells like BFC. Specifically there's solid fog to auto-win tight spaces, sleet storm to auto-win wide open spaces, and empowered ray of enfeeblement if there's a solo tough baddy. If you take celerity then you might want web to replace solid fog for tight spaces. And then a good round 1 combo is haste + celerity BFC => watch the party wreck your poor foes. I'd take orb spells eventually but they're too weak, narrow in application, unreliable at low level as you found, and really only good as backup spells against future SR. For now magic missile is more reliable backup. And see how empower spell adds 2-3 more good options? Almost like having more spells known. Even if you don't get empower, you can do the same with another metamagic and perhaps optimize more. Like fell drain.