Brainstorming: Impacts of Accelerated Sorcerer Casting Houserule

[DivineOnTheMind]

I'm thinking through the implications of altering the Sorcerer spell progression to match prepared casters (level 2 spells at ECL 3, level 3 spells at ECL 5, etc.), with mirrored advancement for other level 9 spontaneous casters.

Leaving balance judgments of the direct impact aside:

What other mechanics would be disproportionately impacted, or need reevaluation along with this change?
What uses or abuses does this introduce which aren't already present for out-of-the-box Wizards?


The first couple items I can think of:

Advanced Learning class features become much more frontloaded/topheavy for Warmage-lookalikes. I'd want to think about whether they should also be staggered up a level.
The Versatile Spellcaster early-entry trick goes from 1 level faster than a vanilla Wizard to 2 levels faster (assuming it's permitted).

I'm struggling to remember any powerful prestige classes that use spell-levels of spontaneous casting as a level-gate, but maybe there's one I'm missing?

Are there other considerations that should be on the table when evaluating this rule?

[RandomPeasant]

There are various things that bump you up a level in Sorcerer casting, like the Kobold rite. Those things should probably be banned under any circumstances, but they should be extra banned if you are fixing the progression gap. Similarly, don't let people do Versatile Spellcaster early entry. If early entry is balanced, just let people enter early, and if it's not don't allow them to just because they found an exploit.

Advanced Learning should be normalized anyway, because there are three classes that get it and they all get different progressions. IMO, the solution that produces the overall healthiest dynamic is to make it happen on all levels where they don't get new spells and allow PrCs to advance it (there is an argument that the latter is how it works by RAW). This means that the classes get new toys at every level, and it removes annoying juggling to move your Advanced Learning around to get better spells. It makes the classes stronger, but not dramatically so, and my view is that good mechanics should be prioritized.

There are also some other class features that should at least arguably get moved around, like the Dread Necromancer's Undead Mastery, which should probably come online at the same level they get animate dead.

Depending on the specifics of your table, I would say that you might want to give the Sorcerer some extra love even on top of this. A 7th level Sorcerer gets one 4th level spell under this scheme, while a 7th level Dread Necromancer gets over a dozen, which include everything from downtime minionmancy to SoD effects to BFC to summoning to even a buff spell (and death ward is a pretty critical buff spell for the party to have).

[Kurald Galain]

Are there other considerations that should be on the table when evaluating this rule?
Yes. Consider the skill and optimization level of your group. While it's true that in the hands of an optimizer, "Johnny"-type player, or GITP forum user, the wizard is much stronger than the sorcerer; it is also true that in the hands of a novice, casual player, or basically 95% of the playerbase, spontaneous casting is much better than prepared. The discrepancy in casting exists for good reason, it's just that this reason tends not to apply to GITP forum users.

[RandomPeasant]

Not for the Sorcerer. Spontaneous casting means very little when you are choosing to spend your spell slots on whichever of the one spell of a given level you know you want to. I can see the argument for the Warmage-types (at least, the Beguiler and Dread Necromancer, probably not the Warmage itself), but the Sorcerer is not better than the Wizard at any level of optimization. Sometimes individual Sorcerers are better than individual Wizards, but that's because at very low levels of optimization spell choice outweighs virtually everything else and sometimes the Sorcerer is the guy who picks sleep.

[Kurald Galain]

That's funny, because in the other thread you just wrote,


In my view, the big thing you are casting is spontaneously. That gives you valuable flexibility during the day, and it means that you can afford to fill more of your slots with silver bullet spells
If spontaneous wizard > wizard, then it also follows that sorcerer-with-faster progression > wizard.

[RandomPeasant]

If spontaneous wizard > wizard, then it also follows that sorcerer-with-faster progression > wizard.

That quote was not about a spontaneous Wizard, it was about a Shadowcraft Mage. Who casts spontaneously from "all the Evocation spells, most of the Conjuration spells, whatever spell you prepared, and technically also silent image". Would you describe that as "more spells than a Sorcerer has access to"? Because I would describe that as more spells than a Sorcerer has access to, and it is therefore entirely unsurprising that it might be better. I mean, really, who are you trying to fool here?

[Zanos]

That's funny, because in the other thread you just wrote,


If spontaneous wizard > wizard, then it also follows that sorcerer-with-faster progression > wizard.
Delayed progression is only part of why sorcerers are worse. The main reason is their limited spells known.

[RandomPeasant]

Delayed progression is only part of why sorcerers are worse. The main reason is their limited spells known.

I think which is bigger depends on what you think the spells known should be corrected to. Accelerated casting is probably a bigger advantage than one more spell known per level, but it's a smaller one than just bumping them up to Wizard spell acquisition would be. I'm not sure exactly where I'd put the tipping point at, but I'm pretty sure it'd be more spells known than most people would give the class if they tried to fix it.

[DivineOnTheMind]

Thanks for the feedback so far!

It's been a while since I spent much time thinking 3e, and I'd repressed all memories of details about Kobolds' whole general thing. Good call there.

I like the suggestion about flattening Advanced Learning into the Spells Known mechanic. I'll think about it. I've only played Beguilers, and I had assumed Warmage and Dread Necro shared the same progression, because it felt very deliberately timed. On one hand, in the past, I found game depth in weird class quirks like the Warblade's level 4 Stance that gives a little motivation to do unintuitive level-staggering, and AL seems similar, but that's exactly the kind of spreadsheety too-much-time-on-my-hands beancounting that people I play with don't enjoy.

I appreciate the balance warning, but like I mentioned in the OP, I don't think that's an especially valuable road to go down. I think the direct power-level effects are pretty clear. And to that point, I'm thinking about this houserule with a specific game in mind where I'm totally comfortable with the power implications; I'm just trying to look ahead so when a new player shows up to make a new character under these rules, there's no obvious exploit I'm overlooking.

[Anthrowhale]

Versatile spellcaster + a level increaser potentially makes spells of one level higher than normal castable. If that's in play, it accumulates with avoiding delaying spellcasting. For example, it may be possible to cast Necrotic Domination at level 5.

[redking]

Wouldn't giving sorcerers feats as wizard equalize these classes better?

[RandomPeasant]

Wouldn't giving sorcerers feats as wizard equalize these classes better?

Maybe it would if people took more than five levels of Wizard or six levels of Sorcerer with any kind of regularity.