Verty's page

Hey Guys,

I am yet to try out the Sorcerer to have a real comparison to the Universalist Wizard I playtested, but I do intend to.

From the discussions here and for a few other threads I have seen and from my own opinions as to some of the differences I'd like to put below.

Note this is how I personally view it so understandably I am not saying I am 'right' and that the way other people view it is 'wrong'.

I always considered Sorcerers to be your big combat casters, the innate power to just be a walking nuke in combat for whatever combat situation arises, in this example the Spontaneous casting over prepared casting is essential, your spells are limited but geared to really using exactly the type of combat (control, damage, energy or otherwise) with a mix of a few utility spells in there for good measure (normally the utility has some use in combat as well though, like fly or invisibility)

So when compared to the wizards Quick Preparation feat where they take 10 mins, it's really to only have one of their listed spells for an out of combat situation. This is quite powerful yes but to me the Wizard is all about study and utility. So in my mind the feat really equivalent to saying 'Sorcerers as spontaneous casters are useless with this feat'. That said the feat is powerful, almost a must have at level 4 for Wizards (almost).

As for the heightening? I definitely agree that Sorcerers should just get Heightening as a thing that is really their schtick, To me any spell they know at a low level that has the ability to Heighten should be available to a Sorcerer if they just spend the spell slot. No need to relearn at a higher level or to only have a limited number of heightens per day (I am not fully across the rules here for Heightening, but in general I think that's how it should work) this then allows the Sorc to still be that big Nuke package but give access to some more spells to round out either the combat or add a little utility in, but it's a big advantage over prepared casters and gives them that very definite identity. This also ties in with them having a large amount of skills, even if the amount of skill points are the same in the end thanks to the Wizard's high In they tend to (usually, not always) spend them in knowledge, lore or crafting skills, whereas the Sorc can be a bit more liberal with Social or Physical skills.

I actually think the less spells per day is ok since they supplement with more Cha for resonance anyway. potentially they need some feats around boosting resonance but I don't really know if that is actually needed. People have varying opinions on this that the Sorc should have a lot more magic than a Wizard but I think that is going to come down with how you think the class should be, and personally I think that is less the identity than the combat spellcasting.

Anyway long post, again just my opinion there. I am intending to playtest a few things and see how they compare.

I've been reading up on the universalist wizard as for the playtest story I am making a character that really suits that style over going a specialist. I am noticing when using RAW though that they seem to give up a lot over specialist ones.

At level 1, they lose a spell slot (which the specialist gains) and a cantrip. Sure those slots must be in their specialisation but that is not hard to chose your other spells around that. sure the universalist is supposed to get more uses out of the arcane focus drain but at level 1 this is still only a single use.

At higher levels the arcane drain looks like it beefs up to keep pace with the specialist spell slots... but specialist can still use the arcane drain at least once which gives them an extra spell in total to use.

specialists also get access to a pool of spell points with some power that function like some free spells.

the trade off is supposed to be a level 1 wizard feat, which considering they lose a full spell, a cantrip and give up powers seems to be a poor trade off. I understand you can choose a power for the universalist wizard so basically you are trading your feat to equal that power. but the lack of spell selection early and given the arcane focus can only recast previously cast spells (whereas you can simply prepare another spell as a specialist) seems a bit underwhelming.

I would think the idea for a universalist is to give them the ability to be more utility? If so they have less utility than a specialist which just seems weird.

I can think of a few ways this could be altered but going RAW I think it needs another pass. Unless I am reading it way wrong.