graymachine
2007-11-29, 12:43 AM
I just had a rather odd idea that made fair strides at redeeming the sorcerer class. Before I begin, since it's important to the inception, think of D&D nations on the level of sophistication as the United States, Britain, and the USSR, when there was money to throw around on military advancement.
Now, given that, I can imagine sorcerers becoming the doomsday weapon these nations threaten each other with! Let me explain: while wizards tends to be stronger at magic than the sorcerer a wizard needs years of education and, if the government wants to reliably make anything useful of them, a rather controlled environment. But the massive advantage here, from a governmental perspective, is that you can breed sorcerers! Based on the flavor text of the class, the magic of the sorcerer is passed on by blood; I could easily see a developed enough government using this fact to massive enhance their military forces. Instead of having, let's say, 1 arcane caster for every 2500 troops, I could see the number being drastically reduced to something like 1 arcane caster for every 200 troops.
You ask, well what about the wizards? Wizards beat sorcerers every day of the week, you say. Well, it seems reasonable to say that sorcerers outnumber wizards significantly, given heritage vs extensive education. So, the enemy hires a mighty wizard to decimate your forces. Well, simply by virtue of odds, you have a high-level, crack team of sorcerers (possibly PCs?) to deal with him. A wizard can easy deal with a party of sorcerers, you say? Well, what about 10? or 50? or 100? A wizard loses his edge since the enemy here uses the same thing he does (arcane magic) and whatever advantage he has in class is simply outweighed by the numbers.
Thoughts on this? Is this a campaign-feasible idea? I just came up with it on the spur, so tell me where the holes are. :smallamused:
Now, given that, I can imagine sorcerers becoming the doomsday weapon these nations threaten each other with! Let me explain: while wizards tends to be stronger at magic than the sorcerer a wizard needs years of education and, if the government wants to reliably make anything useful of them, a rather controlled environment. But the massive advantage here, from a governmental perspective, is that you can breed sorcerers! Based on the flavor text of the class, the magic of the sorcerer is passed on by blood; I could easily see a developed enough government using this fact to massive enhance their military forces. Instead of having, let's say, 1 arcane caster for every 2500 troops, I could see the number being drastically reduced to something like 1 arcane caster for every 200 troops.
You ask, well what about the wizards? Wizards beat sorcerers every day of the week, you say. Well, it seems reasonable to say that sorcerers outnumber wizards significantly, given heritage vs extensive education. So, the enemy hires a mighty wizard to decimate your forces. Well, simply by virtue of odds, you have a high-level, crack team of sorcerers (possibly PCs?) to deal with him. A wizard can easy deal with a party of sorcerers, you say? Well, what about 10? or 50? or 100? A wizard loses his edge since the enemy here uses the same thing he does (arcane magic) and whatever advantage he has in class is simply outweighed by the numbers.
Thoughts on this? Is this a campaign-feasible idea? I just came up with it on the spur, so tell me where the holes are. :smallamused: