Yun E. Bears's page

I think that Bloodline Spell should have been a first level feat instead of being cooked into general progression. I say this because of two reasons.
1) Not everybody wants to grow claws and wade into melee combat. Bloodline powers are cool and interesting, but they are not for everybody, and it puts pressure into you to choose a bloodline that has the focus spells that have the best synergy with the way you are going to play -because otherwise you are stuck with an ability you don't care for and could have easily traded for, say, a familiar-.

This also increases diversity even among sorcerers of the same bloodline. And it isn't as if it would water down bloodlines, these are already very different by virtue of spell list, granted spells and trained skills.

Now, this is also a problem for people multiclassing into sorcerer. You may be into it for the spellcasting, but you may be doing it for the bloodline spells as well. And if you take this path, you have a problem. You see, imagine your monk or Barbarian wants to have a bloodline, you start with the dedication, easy, two cantrips. Then you take basic bloodline spell at fourth, cool. Now at a later time you plan to take advanced bloodline potency to get advanced bloodline and/or greater bloodline and find you can't until you take basic bloodline potency. The problem is, there is nothing you can take for this character type, so it ends up turning into a feat tax (Unless you are doing it for both spellcasting and bloodline...)

Turning Bloodline spell into a first level feat -and turning the feature into a feat slot- would solve both situations, you can now choose to grab your bloodline spells or not, or to grab something else that catches your fancy. And characters mutliclassing into sorcerer for the bloodline can use basic bloodline potency to grab the first bloodline spell. (I mean both feats are the same level, it isn't breaking anything!)

Well at least those are my thoughts...

I share many of the concerns about sorcerers, number of feats, limited support for non-arcane bloodlines, comparing negatively to other classes, having to study like a wizard to get uncommon and rare spells, etc.

One thing that bothers me that has been barely mentioned about the sorcerer is having to make daily choices, it feels wrong. IMO the sorcerer shouldn't have to make daily choices, they make the class feel more like a learned wizard and less like an innate spellcaster. Sorcerer abilities work best when they are something "hardcoded" -or at least mostly permanent- or something entirely reactive -tactical not strategic-, so having abilities like "choose an arcane/occult spell every day to prepare..." takes away that feeling. Very much the same with familiars and spontaneous heightening, having to choose which two spells get the benefit -and which ones don't which renders them essentially useless if having more than two- forces the sorcerer to be a planner. Sorcerers shouldn't have to plan ahead!.

The more I think it, the more I feel that such day to day changes don't belong in the sorcerer. I would feel better about the sorcerer if these features worked differently.

Spontaneous Heightening.- There's two possibilities, either they are fixed at each level up as some sort of signature spells -and maybe add one more if making them static proves to be too limited-, or keep them malleable, but instead of playing pretend wizard every morning, you get to assign them and shift them on the fly with one or two actions. -Or maybe using a minute to change them if that proves too good, or maybe lower them to one at the time-.

Arcane Evolution.- Feels wrong, prepare a different one each day is wizard lite, and having to rely on an external object is quite unsorcery. Maybe just add the spell permanently -with the chance to retrain at level up-, and perhaps add a second/third spell if it turns out to be too weak.

Occult Evolution.- Again, just make it one or two permanent spells known.(Maybe allow for uncommon spells?)

Familiar.- Having to rebuild your familiar everyday feels wrong. How about making it static outside of level-up? and maybe get one extra ability if it being fixed is too weak.

What do you think? does anybody feel the same, or am I just babbling incoherent thoughts?