Quote Originally Posted by Ogre Mage View Post
I just wanted to mention I recently started playing a sorcerer with careful spell (the first time I have played the class in any edition) so I find this discussion very useful.

I was wondering about Quickened Spell. Conventional wisdom is that this is an essential pick and for gishes and blaster sorcerers it certainly is. But for more of a control-oriented sorcerer like myself it seems ... solid but perhaps not essential. So I didn't take it. Is there is something that I am missing?
quicken is obviously less valuable to a control sorcerer, but still has some value. for starters, being able to burst when you need to (and sometimes you will probably need to) is obviously not a bad thing, even if you don't mean for that to be your primary role. for another thing, there are a few spells that combine well with quicken because they give you a standard action that is *not* casting a spell, in particular, sunbeam gives you an AoE blind, eyebite gives you a targeted effect of your choice, investiture of ice gives you an AoE slow and a zone of difficult terrain to use with it, investiture of stone gives you an AoE prone (which combines well with careful spell again), and investiture of wind gives you an AoE push (which can also combo well with careful, depending). watery sphere also gives you a potentially useful action (depending on whether you've filled the sphere or not). there are a few others as well. the main point is that quicken prevents you from casting another spell in the same round other than a cantrip, but activating a sunbeam or moving a dust devil is *not* casting a spell. so go right ahead and quicken a spell of your choice in the same round that you activate sunbeam. or, for that matter, quicken sunbeam, and then activate it with your regular action too (nothing limits you to using it once per turn).