Half-Sorcerer-y / Half-Wizard-y alternative.

[BlueStorm]

I've been thinking over a character concept that doesn't fit... Neatly between Wizard or Sorcerer. It's more of a halfway thing; focused primarily on the Spontaneous vs Prepared part, but also on the bloodlines part and Limited spells part.

Problem is, Treating a Multiclass between the two as the normal rules ask one to, kind of leads to a weaker character. Really, it's probably better to come up with a solution that fuses the two.

The version I came up with is the inverse of one solution I heard elsewhere. Take the Sorcerer, in all it's limited spell glory, give them a spell-book, and allow them to sacrifice one of their Spontaneous slots to Prepare a spell that is written in the spell-book, that they haven't learned "Off by heart".

Treating them this way allows them to prepare for future situations without cost blowouts, and yet still be able to cast their most used Sorcerer spells that are much harder to predict how many uses of one would need.

After thinking about that for a while I also noticed that a few Wizard Archetypes can easily be applied to Sorcerers, and that they might fit really well together in some circumstances. Such as the Wizard's Spell-Slinger, which apart from the whole "Loose four schools" thing fits with sorcerer without complaint (Assume that when it says "Replaces Arcane Bond", for Sorcerers that means "1st Level Bloodline Power" which Arcane Bond shows up as in one of the Bloodlines... you know the one.)

I think this method solves a few problems I'd have with a few things I'm trying to work with...

...but I know someone out there is not going to approve of this lightly, so I submit this For your Scrutiny; so I can judge better whether Including it in a campaign is worth the Risk.

[TeShen]

There was a feat in 3.5 that did the same thing. It was intended to let spontaneous casters get around increased metamagic times. It was called Arcane Preparation and was from the Players Guide to Faerun. It was commonly used to allow sorcerers to qualify for the Mage of the Arcane Order PrC...

If you should allow the sorcerer a comparable feat... I'm am not really sure.

[Elghinn Lightbringer]

BlueStorm wrote:

I've been thinking over a character concept that doesn't fit... Neatly between Wizard or Sorcerer. It's more of a halfway thing; focused primarily on the Spontaneous vs Prepared part, but also on the bloodlines part and Limited spells part.

Problem is, Treating a Multiclass between the two as the normal rules ask one to, kind of leads to a weaker character. Really, it's probably better to come up with a solution that fuses the two...

I think this method solves a few problems I'd have with a few things I'm trying to work with...

...but I know someone out there is not going to approve of this lightly, so I submit this For your Scrutiny; so I can judge better whether Including it in a campaign is worth the Risk.

Hey BlueStorm, it sounds like what you are trying to do is the same process I and my collegues have spent the last year+ developing and perfecting. We have called the process MultiClass Archetypes (MCAs). Essentially you slam two classes together (one primary and one secondary), finding a good balance between existing abilities inherent in both classes, and if needed, developing new ones to more perfectly splice the two together. Although we haven't done a sorcerer/wizard MCA, we have done a wizard/sorcerer.

Take a look at the following links:

MCA Wiki
Absolute Arcanist (wiz/sor)
MCA Thread III

On our MCA Wiki we have 50+ MultiClass Archetypes posted and the guidelines we use to create them, the Absolute Arcanist is a direct link to the wizard/sorcerer MCA, and the other is the current thread we post on, where people who are interested in developing their own MCAs can come and get help in doing so personally from one or more of the 5 developers of the method.

So, if you are looking to develop an amalgam sorcerer/wizard, have a good idea what aspects of the two classes you want (and don't want), and need some help, then come on over. There's no need in your rehashing things and wracking your brain to develop a viable process that may have already been developed by others. :D