I still say sorcerer! ...
Yesterday I got to play my sorcerer once again, at the end we were up against a chuul and if I had played a wizard we would all be dead! Chuuls are tough! ...
I think this suggests the standard situation -- sorcerors can cast their offensive spells as often as needed, making them disproportianately reliable in combat.
They are usually less useful otherwise, given a shortage (and for some sorcerors a complete absence) of non-combat spells.
Just my experience and opinion, that some may refute :)
Jack
Not refuting, It's a valid point and It has been true in our games before. But my sor is lvl 7 and apart from scorching ray, (man I love that spell) he has few attack spells. In fact he has two third lvl spells and neither of them is fireball. I took fly and major image. And I don't know any spells as versitile in or out of combat as illusions.
Not refuting, It's a valid point and It has been true in our games before. But my sor is lvl 7 and apart from scorching ray, (man I love that spell) he has few attack spells. In fact he has two third lvl spells and neither of them is fireball. I took fly and major image. And I don't know any spells as versitile in or out of combat as illusions.
I agree with you -- regardless of my preference for wizards, it only takes a few well-chosen spells to hugely increase a sorceror's versatility. Play wisely to the strengths you have and you can kick butt.
Sadly, the sorcerors I've played with don't choose wisely -- one guy's version of 'versatile' is to make sure that he has every type of orb spell available (in case the opponent is fire-resistant, for instance).
Fly is perhaps my favorite non-combat spell -- it solves so many problems :)
Regards,
Jack
The player in my campaign opted to have each and every one of her spells selected randomly by rolling for it. She's a really good player and has managed to make great use of what's dealt her.
The player in my campaign opted to have each and every one of her spells selected randomly by rolling for it. She's a really good player and has managed to make great use of what's dealt her.
If only we could all play with (or be) that player.
My gamiing group had this discussion a long time ago, which caused a unch of wizzies and srocs to be rolled up and pitted against each other. The wizzies at various levels won hands down, and that was thought to be the end of the discussion. However in game play the sorcs performed much better due to their high cha, and wider variety of skills.
Thusly IMO they both have roles. If you want to min-max your damage, and work solely to the goal of achieving lvl 20 wizards are your best bet.
however the adventuring parties like the sorc better.
The player in my campaign opted to have each and every one of her spells selected randomly by rolling for it. She's a really good player and has managed to make great use of what's dealt her.If only we could all play with (or be) that player.
Hey!
This is so cool! That's my next character sorted; thank you!
And I was about to vote wizard too... ;D
Peace,
tfad
Hey!This is so cool! That's my next character sorted; thank you!
And I was about to vote wizard too... ;DPeace,
tfad
I'll let her know you said that! Great thing was that the "randomness" of her abilities really plays well into her character's background. (She was the youngest child in a big farm family, always picked on. She ran away to become an adventurer when she didn't want to marry the butcher's son. ;-) )
As they say in China, ge you suo chang!
I like both, for different reasons and different situations. I do think, though, that the warmage from Complete Arcane kind of trumps the Sorcerer in a lot of ways. That isn't to say you can't build a cool sorcerer character that can do some very different things than the warmage, but just to say that warmage appeals to the "I want to do the most damage to the most enemies set" and the sorcerer is now second best in that regard.
I really like using Dragon's bloodline feats with sorcerers--it gives them a bit of a spellcasting boost, but a huge roleplaying boost. In my homebrew, basically all sorcerers have some kind of bloodline, although it may not manifest in a bloodline feat.
...at the end we were up against a chuul and if I had played a wizard we would all be dead! Chuuls are tough!
I wonder what kind of wizard would have had the good sense to prepare for such an impromptu encounter, you can have all the flexibility in the world but a wizard would have been dead, no doubt about it.
I doubt it!
a prepared wizard has a scroll for any occasion.
How did your sorcerer effect the battle? Just curious.
Just cause I like wizards over sorcerers doesn't mean I don't like sorcerers. I have had fun playing sorcerers before.
I wonder what kind of wizard would have had the good sense to prepare for such an impromptu encounter, you can have all the flexibility in the world but a wizard would have been dead, no doubt about it.
The kind that reads the first line of wizard abilities -- the line that says Scribe Scroll :)
Regards,
Jack
Personally, gimme a Sorceror anyday.
Whilst the Wizard is the brain of a party and knows just how to plan best, Sorcerors have confidence, and in my case, common sense and a lót of creativity.
The type of creativity few Wizards can match. There are so many things you can do with spells that are not 'limited purpose' like Fireball.
An example ( let's see a Wizard copy this approach... )
---
We were entering a damned tower, fighting our way up, until we reached the top floor. Whispered report from the rogue indicated the bad guy, a Druid Blighter to be inside. Sorceror looks around, thinks for a few seconds and comes up with the following plan.
The entire party turns invisible. The Sorceror casts an Explosive Runes spell on a sheet of paper which only read 'you're screwed' ( he thought it was funny. so did the other players. )
Rogue sneaks in, still invisible to get behind the Blighter, places the piece of paper on the desk behind the Blighter. The others carefully sneak into the chamber.
The Sorceror casts a Presti to create this big, glowing arrow pointing to the sheet of paper. The Blighter glances over his shoulder, and explodes. At this point, an entire party of adventurers burst into his room, screaming their lungs out.
This is, of course, an illusion, since the real party had already entered the room.
The instance the Blighter engages the illusionary party, the others circle him. Everyone attacks at the same time. There are now 2 party's in the room. The Sorceror casts Major Image again. There are now 3 party's in the room. The Blighter is confused, and becomes mush in like 2 rounds.
Bye bye final encounter. ( the adventure was a module our DM was making, which had characters included. After my play test, he removed the Sorceror and took a Wizard instead. )
a prepared wizard has a scroll for any occasion.How did your sorcerer effect the battle? Just curious.
Well my sorcerer was once again the main source of damage to the creature, all the "rogue's" of the party were not doing their part (throwing 1's again and again), furthermore had I been a wizard I would have had no spells whatsoever, 1st encounter I lightning bolted a naga (and party members) twice, 2nd and 3rd encounters saw me going through all my 1st level slots and the 4th encounter was the chuul.
scribing scrolls is fun and all but it costs money and time and we are playing in a campaign involving an insurrection against the rulers of a city there isn't much downtime available.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned here is the pearl of power. Unavailable to Sorcerers (as they don't prepare spells), this may be one of the biggest overlooked magic items in the game. They don't take up an item slot, and for 10k, you can get 10 (!) 1st level pearls of power. That's 10 more magic missles/rays of enfeeblement per day, every day. And when the fighter is thinking about adding 'holy' to his favortite weapon, you can buy 4 second level pearls for the same price. (That's 4 more 12d6 scorching rays @ 12th level with no save).
The problem usually is that by the time your able to afford this sort of thing you already have a fair number of 1st and 2nd level spells and are probably also casting 3rd and 4th level ones. Sure now you can cast more lower level spells but in most fights you'll want to be using your rounds to lash out with the high powered stuff.
Also the Witch from AE is phenomally cool.
I could never figure this class out - as far as I could tell it retched. Eventually I went with the Mage Blade - very similier but seemingly better as far as I could tell. Same number of spells at the same levels but able to use weapons and armour and with better hit points. Witch's get their special power but they seem generally limited and you only get a power every so often - since you don't have enough spells to use them all the time you generally take the sword power - which makes the Witch and teh Mageblade seem even more similar - except that the Mage Blade has more hps, has at least as good a weapon with their Athame has armour etc.
Later on I guess they diverge - the Mage Blade will tend to become a fighter that buffs himself before combat with spells while the Witch will get access to more powers, probably get some complex class spells and will have to stop entering hand to hand combat for fear of being ripped to shreds - but even here I fin the Witch to be sub par, if your not in combat then everything you devoted to making yourself semi-viable in hand to hand early on is simply wasted meanwhile your outclassed by an order of magnitude by the Magistar. Basically Witch's always seem to be playing second fiddle. Mage Blades are similar except that its more along the lines of most combats you can't compare to the more combat orientated types but for one or two combats a day - against the big meanee you pull out all the stops, cast every buff spell you know on yourself and become one lean mean fighting machine - as a side benifit with charisma as a key stat one gets good roleplaying opportunities, though since Intelligence and Wisdom are the dump stats roleplaying opportunities tend to be along the lines of - my guy is healthy and strong, he looks like Btad Pitt and he's charming. He's also dumb as a box of rocks and does not understand the concept of 'consiquences'. My AE character leaves a trail of women behind him who wake up the next morning trying to figure out how they ended up in bed with guy who actually needs their help to tie his own shoes and realies on his horse to make the hard choices (like where to go next).
The problem usually is that by the time your able to afford this sort of thing you already have a fair number of 1st and 2nd level spells and are probably also casting 3rd and 4th level ones. Sure now you can cast more lower level spells but in most fights you'll want to be using your rounds to lash out with the high powered stuff.
Furthermore, at caster level 17.....there shouldn't be all that many pearls of power out there, it's not like there is an NPC out there who is just mass producing them. But it is a good suggestion.
Somebody has already mentioned the war mage. This class just about knocks the sorcerer out of the ball park, particularly since the sorcerers spells are always either offensive or defensive spells, and the war mage excels at offense.
If you were to exclude war mages (and warlocks, dread necromancers, etc.) and just stick with wizards and sorcerers the question of which one is better is quite interesting. Some people think both classes need a boost in power (just ask James Jacobs himself) while others are set in their likes and dislikes regardless of what evidence people provide, so the point is probably mute.
if we were to look at the differences between the two lets examine what has already been mentioned:
1. Skill points - wizard's tend to get more that sorcerers (that's a given)= 1 point to the wizard
2. Many more skills are Charisma-based than Intelligence-based (if you lump Craft and Knowledge skills into one big mess) = 1 point to the sorcerer
3. Sorcerers can cast more spells per day than wizards (though has anyone mentioned specialisits?) = 1 point to the sorcerer
4. Wizards know more spells and thus have greater versatility = 1 point to the wizard
5. Sorcerers are natural leaders with their high Charisma's, and are much better than every other class when it comes to roleplaying situations other than the bard (so some people say on this thread)= 1 point to the sorcerer
6. Wizards are the people you turn to when you want magic items made or research done/information on various topics (again let's put the bard up there as the class that does this just as well) = 1 point to the wizard
7. both get familiars = 1 point each (or -1 point depending on how you feel about it)
Seems like a tie to me ;)
Really, wizards versus sorcerers is boring. How about:
Barbarians vs. paladins
Clerics vs. druids
Monks vs. rogues
Warlocks vs. hexblades
Swashbucklers vs. scouts
and the list goes on...
I love wizards for the 8.32 billion skill points they get but dragging that spell book can be a hassle.