Sorcerer Build (not full-optimization)

[Behold_the_Void]

All right, so here's the deal. I'm going to be running a sorcerer in an upcoming game (it's still a month off, but I like to think about characters well in advance whenever I have the chance) and would like a bit of help with him. I'm not going for uber-optimization, but I want him to be reasonably effective within certain perameters.

The character is going to be for a Faerun, sea-based adventure, one I believe was just recently published in Dragon Magazine (although I can't recall which, and I'm not going to go look up the adventure myself because it will ruin the surprise. The Dragon Magazine article may not be Faerun exclusive).

So, background. He's a rather flashy figure with a strong personality due to his high charisma. He likes spells that are highly visual and have dramatic effects. He will likely have a good number of blast spells for this reason.

I'm already thinking I want to take him into Archmage to give him Mastery of the Elements, as well as a few others. This means I can learn a few blast spells with different areas of effect, and swap the element when appropriate. I technically have access to all of the complete books, but I'm not terribly interested in using them. If possible, I'd like to restrict myself to the books that I personally own, being the core rulebooks, PHBII, Unearthed Arcana, and (probably entirely irrelevant for this build) Heroes of Battle, Tome of Battle, and Psionics Handbook.

Also, if possible I'd like to give him some decent social skills. Due to the Sorcerer's abominable skill points, even as a human he needs Knowledge (Arcana), Spellcraft, and Concentration, so I'll have to try to get him a decent intelligence. I recall there's a feat that gives you some skills as permanent class skills, and I'd like to try to make Intimidate and possibly Diplomacy as class skills if at all possible. Simply naming that feat would be enough, I'm almost sure one exists somewhere.

Obviously as a human my first three other feats (in addition to the feat that will get me those skills on my class list) are accounted for. Suggestions for good Metamagic feats would also be appreciated. Also, suggestions for the Spell school focuses I should take are also welcome (I'm leaning towards Evocation, since I'll likely be using a lot of those spells) and Enchantment (since he likes to be able to influence people), but if other schools make more sense, then I may go with that.

The main advice I'm looking for, however, is spell selection. I want him to have a good range of blasting spells so that when I eventually hit Archmage, I'll be able to do a good amount of damage with them as well as have a wide range of area of effect patterns to utilize. I'll likely want some of the charm-type enchantment spells as well, it suits the character. The question is, what else needs to be taken?

This campaign is supposed to be able to take characters from level 1 to level 20, so full builds are welcome and much appreciated for those who have the time to give them.

[Hario]

Well one of the feats you are looking for is Dragon Heratage which allows you to add intimidate or a few other class skills permenetly and gives you some nifty abilities, like you can take the dragon breath feat afterwards and get free 'blasty' evocation spells, Energy Alteration or breath weapon alteration is nice to have. Metamagics: either Enlarge/Maximise/ or Empower.
If you aren't so stuck on being a sorcerer (though I personally love him) a beguiler looks to be the class you'd probably want the most, They rely on intelligence but are bards with 9th level spells, awesome skill points, and take spells from the bard list but learn wizard/sorcerer spells too that you can cherry pick. Overall seems to be what you want, also they get the same number of spells a sorcerer gets and can wear light armor. So overall they are an overly optimised sorcerer/bard/rogue if not broken. You can find it in the PH2 if you are unaware of them.

[Felan]

as far as spells - prismatic spray and glitterdust are both fairly effective (and flashy). If you don't mind spells from the Spell Compendium, prismatic ray is both flashy and blast-y, and defenestrating sphere is might dramatic.

[Felan]

As for feats and skills - I believe the able learner feat is in races of destiny - makes all skills class skills for you, but you must be a human to qualify (you did mention being human, eh?)

[endersdouble]

As for feats and skills - I believe the able learner feat is in races of destiny - makes all skills class skills for you, but you must be a human to qualify (you did mention being human, eh?)

Wrong. Makes all cross-class skills cost 1 point/rank. I'd be much happier if it was how you said, but, well...

[Felan]

Wrong. Makes all cross-class skills cost 1 point/rank. I'd be much happier if it was how you said, but, well...

Alas....

[ImperiousLeader]

Playing in Faerun cries out for Incantatrix (Player's Guide to Faerun). This is the gold standard of Sorcerer prestige classes, in exchange for one metamagic feat, Iron Will and access to one school of magic, you get a full caster prestige class that will enhance metamagic and give you four bonus metamagic feats. It's not nearly as broken for sorcerers as for Wizards who take Incantatrix and Persistent Spell. Incantatrixes do have Intimidate on the class list too, their skills are slightly better, unless you're planning of taking Bluff all the way.

Consider: Sorcerer 6 / Incantatrix 10 / Archmage 4 or another prestige class.

As it's been noted, blasting is suboptimal, but an Incantatrix can make the most of it with efficient use of metamagic. Consider Empower, Twin Spell for blasting and Sculpt Spell is very good for firing area-of-effect spells into melee.

As for skills, Able Learner may not be able to break your cross-class limit, but it'll save you a lot of points. If there's just one skill you want, you may be able to find a Draconic Heritage (Complete Arcane, reprinted in Races of the Dragon with more heritages) that grants you that skill as a sorcerer skill.

Spell-wise, Glitterdust is key. Limit yourself to a only a few DD spells, but support them with mobility and battlefield control spells. Have a few save-or-dies and have Heighten Spell so you can make them stick.

If you can get Complete Mage, I highly recommend "Residual Magic" for a blaster sorcerer. What makes this feat sweet? Use a spell with metamagic in one round, then cast it again the next round with that metamagic still there, but without the higher level spell slot. IOW, cast an empowered Scorching Ray, if you cast Scorching Ray next round, it'll be automatically empowered.

[Falrin]

Even if you're not going for optimization, have a look at this

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30344

As a rule of thumb:

1 Good spell / Save
1 No save
1 No SR

[Behold_the_Void]

We already have a rogue, but we don't have any primary arcanist and a Wizard is out of the question because of how little access I'll have to scrolls. The DM said that while I'm welcome to play a Wizard, there probably won't be a lot of times that we make port and that I can go scroll shopping. Sorcerers allow for a bit more spell versatility than Beguilers, although I do agree that Beguilers are awesome.

If I can I'll likely be using the Metamagic Specialist variant presented in PHBII, so I'll likely pick up Quicken Spell at some point. Dragon Heritage sounds good, is that from Dragon Magic? I think someone has access to it so I'll look into it.

Defenestrating Sphere does sound like a lot of fun too. I'll keep that one in mind if I can get access to a Spell Compendium, I'm not sure that's in the books I have access to at the moment.

I shy away from the Incantrix because I'm not trying to make an uber-build and constantly hear about how Incantrix is one of the cheesiest things in existence (one of the reasons I'm not even considering Initaite of the Sevenfold Veil, I've heard too much complaining about it to be able to justify using it myself). I just want something effective and fun. From what I've seen of this group's style, being able to absolutely dominate everything isn't what I'm going to need, but being able to use effective arcane magic isn't bad. I also want to keep spell selection within character, and I won't be taking ALL blasting spells because I'm not out to make something completely useless. I just want a good selection.

[Douglas]

Draconic Heritage is from Complete Arcane, and if you pick red dragons for your heritage you get Intimidate as a class skill. If your DM allows material from Dragon Magazine, Flexible Mind gives you any two skills of your choice as class skills for all classes and gives a +1 bonus to those skills as a nice extra. For other feat choices, realmshelps is a great resource with full text of feats from a lot of sources, and crystalkeep.com has indexes with short summaries for a lot of stuff. Sadly, neither of them includes material from Complete Mage yet, which is where the Reserve feats I'm going to suggest come from. Their actual usefulness depends very much on the campaign, but they allow you to (for example) toss around low-powered bursts of fire any time you want with no cost, so you can do some blasting just for dramatic effect without actually spending a spell slot that you might need in combat later.

[cupkeyk]

Incantatrices need to have an item creation feat to be effective. A sorc with craft wand or craft staff is bizarre, they already cast the same few things over and over. But what the hey why not.

Get conceal spellcasting from Complete Scoundrel. Let's you cast stuff during social interactions. Like Glibness and Charm Person/Monster and Detect Thoughts: these will be your bread and butter for being a social Sorc.

Here's my suggestion for skills. Take your first level as a Human Paragon. You can snag all the social skills and their max ranks will be your level +3. Taking able learner lets you spend only one point per rank for all ten skills you selected as your Human Paragon class skills (Take Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Intimidate, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand...)Take your first level of Sorc then two more levels of Human Paragon for the caster advancement as well as the +2 Charisma boost. Take up more Sorc Levels til you meet your prestige class prerequisites. You might wanna take up Wayfarer's Guide. LOLz. Consider Silent Spell, casting requires breath and you immediately start to drown if you cast underwater if you can't breath water.

[Karsh]

You might want to look into the Spell Thematics feat from the 3.5 Player's Guide to Faerun.

It lets you choose a theme for all of your spells, making them flashier, and makes it harder for people to identify the spells you're casting. Also, you choose one spell from each level of spells you can cast to be a Thematic Spell that casts at +1 caster level.

[Fizban]

How to play a sorceror well:

One good will save spell.
One good fort save spell.
One good reflex save spell.
Heighten Metamagic feat.
Make sure that for the rest of your sorceror career, you cast the spell which targets the enemy's weak save.

One good spell with no save.
One good spell with persistant effects, like Evard's Black Tentacles.
Vampiric Touch, because its functionally a healing spell.
Polymorph.
Consider all bases covered.

As you level up, replace your attack spells with higher level spells, and move the lower level slot into something based around utility.
Remember to take generically useful buffs, like polymorph, then cast them on the entire party. Lots of problems can be solved by casting polymorph four times in rapid repetition.
Bloodline feats are not a bad idea, they give you many more spells known, and add flavor to your character.
Keep an eye out for spells which scale on their own better than normal. Evard's Black Tentacles grapple check scales by caster level, for example.

Remember that you get more out of metamagic than a wizard, because you always have it when you need it.
Still Spell means you need never fear grappling again, just remember which spells have no material component.

I quote that quote every single time. Quote source.
The rest of my old post:

Other metamagic feats that are good include:
Sculpt spell (get huge shapeable areas with those low level color sprays, greases, and glitterdusts).
Chain spell (as noted, with reach spell or other such ability can buff the entire party with one spell).
And some others I can't think of cause I'm tired. In general, if it's good meta for a wiz, it's probly better for a sor. (this means check out TLN's batman guide for ideas to steal :) )

New feats I like:
Spell Versatility: spend two spell slots of level X to cast a spell of level X+1, great if you run out of high level slots.
Split Ray: after actually looking this up, it makes some spells into the shnizzle, it's like twin spell for single target rays, but 1 level cheaper.
Residual Metamagic: let's you conserve higher level spell slots while spamming metamagiced spells. Ex: cast a maximized fireball, next round cast a maximized fireball using a lv3 slot. Awesome. Awesomer with other metamagic strategies.

Second: any spellcaster's player should go get access to the spell compendium. It's that good. Spells for all situations, a number that would be quite useful for your aquatic campaign, even if they aren't the kind of spells a sorcerer takes (that's what limited wish/wish are for).