So the design focus phase has come to the Sorcerer and the Wizard - or the Boomstick and the Bookworm, as I like to call them.
In 3e, the classes were different in a number of ways:
So far, the first part was emphasised greatly, especially for sorcerers, whose ancestry is now more than some background flavour text - it manifests in game rules.
But the second was lessened somewhat: With some wizards getting at will attacks (energy ray), and all of them getting bonus spells (including a 1st-level spell they can cast up to 10 times a day), I think the sorcerer's advantage of blasting away all day was lessened - and now the level lag hurts even more!
But what to do?
Complete arcane introduced a class that many find interesting: The warlock. His main feature was an arcane attack that could be used all day.
I say let the sorcerer kill the warlock and take his stuff:
Bloodlines' flavour text can be expanded to not only mean supernatural ancestry, but also "mutation" from "radiation" (a child that was conceived, carried to term, born, and raised in a place where world-altering decisions were rendered would get the destined bloodline without any powerful parents or ancestors) and abilities granted by pacts with supernatural beings (the classical faustian pact being the best example).
I'd also grant every wizard an at will magic attack. Call it Eldritch/Arcane Arrow/Bolt, and make it something like 1d6 plus 1d6 every two extra levels (or every four extra levels).
Expand upon this eldritch bolt with some extra abilities:
I say let the sorcerer kill the warlock and take his stuff:
The warlock fails his save and succumbs to your tenth-level spell!
I applaud this sentiment. Let Pathfinder brutally assimilate all the coolest stuff to create the best path for each core class. I'd like to see core classes that are so cool, so distinctive, so packed to the gills with options, anything else is shrugworthy.
Ramble on!
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I applaud this sentiment. Let Pathfinder brutally assimilate all the coolest stuff to create the best path for each core class. I'd like to see core classes that are so cool, so distinctive, so packed to the gills with options, anything else is shrugworthy.
Ramble on!
*shrugs*
oh wait...now wasn't the time for that was it?
I'm in complete agreement with the idea of folding the Sorcerer and the Warlock together.
Both represent parts of what I have always felt a Sorcerer should be.
It was suggested in another thread, that some of the bloodline abilities should be more like the "at will" invocations of a Warlock, and as I have thought about the idea, I'm liking it more and more.
I was pretty much "out the gate" trying to figure a Pathfinder version of Warlock for this very reason, but was concerned about stepping on the Sorcerers toes.
Since Bloodlines, can just as easily be discribed as Pacts, I think it's logical to move more in this direction, and fold the two into a distinct class, that is obviously different from the Wizard.
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I remember when Complete Arcane came out, looking at the Warlock and thinking, 'Oh, *this* is what the Sorcerer was supposed to have been!'
I'm seriously thinking that the Pathfinder Wizard needs to have the specialist (and especially Universalist!) powers stripped back out and made into a four or five feat chain that any Wizard can pick up with his bonus feats. (Meaning that a Specialist Wizard who wants all of the toys for his specialty school is going to have less metamagic / item creation stuff than a 'universalist.')
*Then* the Sorcerer would also gain the bonus feats of a Wizard at 1, 5, 10, 15 and 20, and each Bloodline would become a four or five feat chain as well, able to be taken with these bonus feats, allowing the Bloodline Sorcerer to have a cool list of toys, and a *non-bloodline Sorcerer* whose daddy and mommy shared the same phylum and genus, could have instead some cool bonus metamagic feats.
More options, less shoehorning or pigeonholing or whatever.
All of the Bloodline and Specialist stuff would then be ported over to the Feats chapter, and be partitioned off so that two different Infernal Bloodline Sorcerers might have chosen different feats, and have 'expressed' their Infernal heritage differently. The feats might also build off of each other, so that an Infernal Sorcerer might get bonus X from his first Infernal Heritage feat, but X increases as he picks up more Infernal Heritage feats, allowing for larger bonuses to eventually accrue as feat synergy builds up.
Using this 'feat synergy' idea, a starter 'Draconic Heritage' feat that allows for a 1d6 breath attack could increase as new feats are added, becoming a more useful blast at higher levels and not stuck at '1d6+X' because it was a Feat you picked at 1st level. This would be the 'warlock's blast' for the Sorcerer, based off of his heritage, and with dice increasing based on how much further he develops his heritage.
Making them feats also allows for a Bard to pick up some Fey Ancestry or a Monk to claim Draconic Bloodline, instead of leaving them as class abilities, unavailable to any other class, regardless of how many Dragons built nests in their family tree.
Great ideas,Set!
Incidentally,if the sorceror is going to take over the warlock's stuff,does that mean that sorceror/wizards would use the eldritch theurge Prc instead of the ultimate magus Prc? (Both Prc are n the Complete Mage.
I'm asking this because if people are complaing about the mystic theurge,they haven't looked at the ultimate magus.
Unlike the other "combo spellcasting" prestige classes,the ultimage magus only provides full spellcasting advancement to the weaker spellcasting class.While a character can enter the class as a 4th-level wizard/1st-level sorceror given a decent Charisma score,the 1st level of ultimate magus would only raise the sorceror level,and the same goes for 4th and 7th level.