First, a caveat: the War Mage, the Dread Necromancer, and the Beguiler are not Open Content. They cannot be used without permission.
That being said, the Specialist casting classes have a lot of traction and have all but replaced the Sorcerer in everyday play. And well they should. Their method of casting ensures that they stay competitive, versatile, and thematic at every level.
So why not capitalize on that? Why even have "Sorcerers" who are basically just Wizards who are less versatile and harder to play? We could kill two birds with one stone: eliminating all the Specialist Wizard sub-classes and the Sorcerer and put in new specialist casting classes. The ones from various official WotC supplements are closed content, but we can write our own:
- Elementalist Concept: you control elemental forces of fire, water, earth, and wind. Functionally you can throw several kinds of energy damage and you summon up battlefield control like walls, clouds, storms, and grease.
- Necromancer Concept: you are a frickin necromancer. None of this crap about crawling on your tongue for seven levels shooting negative energy at people and such, you get to start stitching corpses together and raising tiny groups of zombies starting at level one. You get limited versions of Animate Dead at 1st and 2nd level, and expanded versions of Animate Dead at levels 4+. The other death magic you get does various stuff, but you get to do your actual thing from day one.
- Illusionist Concept: you are the original AD&D Illusionist, you use Illusions. While you get to throw Shadow Magic and some genuine "Reality Manipulation" around, your primary schtick is and should be illusions. Starting early on you're dumping color spray on people, and at higher level you get to shoot the prismatic line of spells as well.
Others that people think that they desperately need?
-Frank
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First, a caveat: the War Mage, the Dread Necromancer, and the Beguiler are not Open Content. They cannot be used without permission.
That being said, the Specialist casting classes have a lot of traction and have all but replaced the Sorcerer in everyday play. And well they should. Their method of casting ensures that they stay competitive, versatile, and thematic at every level.
The Sorcerer is really just a tiny tweak on a Wizard, barely worth calling a class of it's own.
I'd definitely like to see some specialists that aren't just 'Wizard who can't use *a few spells* and has *a few extra spells* of School X.'
That's not a specialist, IMO. That's just someone who read 'Necromancy for Dummies' in Abjurations class and ended up flunking Abjurations.
It is a pity that the Dread Necromancer and Beguiler won't be available, since both are awesome classes, IMO. (The Warmage? Not so much.) On the other hand, it's hardly difficult to whip up something else along those lines. It's not like four other 'Necromancer classes' don't already exist, between Green Ronin and Mongoose and whatever.
I'd definitely be all for an Illusionist that works more like the 1e Illusionist with a dash of Shadowcraft Mage, and not just some Wizard who has one extra Illusion spell per day, but still throws Fireballs just like everyone else. Wrap the class around the schtick fully. A Summoner summons. An Enchanter uses mind-affecting spells (and cries when mindless critters are encountered, sticking to buffing his allies with Good Hope, Rage, canceling Fear effects, etc.).
Some will be pretty challenging. An Abjuror might be half-Fighter, wearing armor and surrounding himself and his allies with defensive spells, more of a spoiler than a direct-damage-dealer (although he'll likely know some spells that will 'abjure' people by holding them or blocking them from certain actions). A Diviner might be half-Rogue, with a dash of Bard (or, Archivist), every round seeking information to give his allies momentary bonuses against the foes they face, pointing out weak spots and warning of attacks, like a group-wide use of Aid Other that can grant bonuses to saves or initiative or skill / ability checks, as well as attacks and AC.
I would like to see an Abjurer class with a Full BAB. If your spellcasting is to cast protection from evil, shield, and the occasional dispel magic or banishment, you seriously need something vaguely worthwhile as an offense that isn't magic based. In fact, that should probably just be the Paladin.
Full BAB.
All Good Saves.
Spell Resistance.
Cast in Heavy Armor.
Warmage style spellcasting off a primarily Abjuration list.
Sounds huge on paper, but offenses are sufficiently bigger than defenses in this game that such a character wouldn't be all that impressive.
-Frank
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I like the separate Sorcerer and Wizard. It makes sense to the flavor of the game and not the mechanics. The problem I see was that WotC was too scared to actually make the Sorcerer stronger than it currently is. That's why they created all those heritage feats, to help the Sorcerers but with a lack of means to obtain a whole set quickly enough, it just didn't work out too well. I think that a Sorcerer should get the heritage from the get go as a bonus feat and as his level progresses, he gets bonuse heritage feats. That way, most characters can actually focus on their heritage and their casting or fighting abilities.
I'd like to see specialist mages get specialised familiars too.
(I am very fond of the idea of Summoners with Imps, Elementalists with well elementals, Illusionists with whatever they can imagine...)
I honestly don't think it would take much to get the familiar to be a real contributing member of the team. A Necromancer should go all pet cemetery on the world with her stitched up cat. And it should matter.
The thing where familiars only provide their bonus while within 5' really leaves them as just a bonus that hides in a familiar pocket and never does things.
If you allowed familiars to provide their bonuses when they were more than 5' off and also nixed the XP loss for them croaking people would use them a lot more.
-Frank
I would like to point out I had a thread on familer and maybe we should leave familer topics there I think they could use a boost and I would like to have peoples options complied on one thread not scattered around a dozen makes it easier for people to share input
I like the separate Sorcerer and Wizard. It makes sense to the flavor of the game and not the mechanics. The problem I see was that WotC was too scared to actually make the Sorcerer stronger than it currently is. That's why they created all those heritage feats, to help the Sorcerers but with a lack of means to obtain a whole set quickly enough, it just didn't work out too well. I think that a Sorcerer should get the heritage from the get go as a bonus feat and as his level progresses, he gets bonuse heritage feats. That way, most characters can actually focus on their heritage and their casting or fighting abilities.
I know the Kobold Sorcerer was that way with Draconic Heritage as a first level sorcerer.