Well I guess it depends on what you want to do with it. I mean one of my favourite is the Stormborn sorcerer but then again I'm a sucker for lightning based abilities.
Saying that since it is E6 you don't need to spend that many feats on effectiveness, you can use the free 'shock' that stormborn gives you to be good at ranged damage. Take a decent Dex based race and have maybe a 1 or 2 str mod. Your 'blasting' can be done with ranged attacks and you can pick up arcane strike later. You'll only be 1 attack away from the 3/4 classes.
The rest of your spells can be battlefield control spells and/or useful spells for NPC interactions. (You can use things like gust of wind to defend your allies and not be hindered it yourself as you reduce the step by one.)
I can't say it's the most optimised but a sort of lightning version of the arcane archer is flavourful.
Human example: Arcane strike, PBS.
STR 12, DEX 16 (+2 race), CON 12, INT 10, WIS 7, CHA 16.
Ranged attack, with mighty mwk shortbow: +5, 1d6+1d6+3. Within 30ft and using arcane strike. Of course the build doesn't really start to work until you get more rounds of shock instead of just one (Since it's standard action to cast which sucks.)
The other option of course is using the shock to buff a two weapon fighter or any other martial.
Edit: If you find a race or trait to get you trained in Longbows you can then get gravity bows, so level one damage can be something like 3d6+2 which ain't too bad.
Reading optimization guides for flavor is a bad idea. They just tell you what they believe is potent. Flavor is what appeals to you. Do you like chocolate or vanilla? Or Strawberry? Or Fudge Ripple?
You need to pick a bloodline that appeals to you. Then build spells from there. There are some really good spells for first and second level, and haste can really be a game changer. Sleep and Color spray should be great for most of the campaign.
Some of the best blasting options are in ultimate magic, so sticking with some battlefield control might be the best way to go. Magical lineage and some metamagics can be very useful, and fits in with the flavor of a sorcerer.
The bloodlines that seem flavorful to me are Arcane, Boreal, Draconic, Fey, Infernal, Undead and Verdant. All of them have some good things about them, you just have to decide, and people here won't necessarily be helpful in that regard.
I can recommend Serpentine Bloodline for controlling foes. Just take spell focus necromancy and threnodic spell at level 6, so you can control undead too. That´s pretty much fun.
The other thing is marid or elemental bloodline, with the Irrisen icemage feat and rime spell. I think that´s really funny too. You can switch between fire and other spells, change everything to cold and slow them.
You can take a jinxing halfling or a gnome for both. That brings many other funny boons.
I suggest Fey bloodline, it gives nice spells not even normally available and the +2 compulsion DC will help for social situations as well as combat. Laughing touch is one of the better level 1 powers.
Be a Human, extra spells known is great. The first 3 levels will be limited to cantrips, but levels 4-5 you can get extra 1st level spells known and at level 6 an extra 2nd level spell.
Only problem I see with the suggestions of the controlling foes through mind altering effects is Helaman says they will be likely interacting with undeads which none of those spells or abilities work on. So if it becomes a major part of the campaign he won't be using them often.
I'll suggest the Verdant bloodline: Entangle and Barkskin are handy spells for a sorcerer and the vine attack should remain vaguely useful in an E6 game. And a free Ring of Sustenance is nice too.
Hmm, Verdant is also pretty good, I still like Fey better but Verdant is similar. Presumably not all enemies will be undead, and the control spells shouldn't be taking up more than a few of his spells known anyway, sorcs should always diversify. The Command Undead spell alone can largely take care of any non-mook undead you encounter anyway.
Yeah, Sorcerer is bad for E6. I'd certainly play a wizard in a E6 campaign over a Sorcerer.
Especially since you can keep learning spells from scrolls in a level limited campaign.
What if the Sorc's one 3rd level spell known is Paragon Surge?
:D
What if the Sorc's one 3rd level spell known is Paragon Surge?
:D
And give up Haste? Yuck.
Well, you can get Haste, it just would take 2 rounds and 2 spell slots instead of 1 of each. In any case, it's not from core or APG, so the suggestion is nothing more than a joke as far as this thread goes.
Well, you can get Haste, it just would take 2 rounds and 2 spell slots instead of 1 of each. In any case, it's not from core or APG, so the suggestion is nothing more than a joke as far as this thread goes.
Fair enough.
Threnodic spell is a metamagic feat that lets you charm undead, despite their traits.
... I have re-thought about the sorcerer and consider it to be very much inferior to the wizard, in just about every respect. They get less spells, their slots are APPROXIMATE in number, get less bonus feats and at higher levels and its only the Bloodline powers that somewhat sling the balance somewhat back in their favour... overall weaker than other options...
As has been said before. That weakness or strength is extremely dependent upon the individual play style, rest of the group, campaign, and GM.
1 - Some players absolutely hate having to try to pick different spells all the time and/or tracking what they do have in their spell book.
2 - When they do find a spell that works in the situation, they want to go ahead and use several of them in a row.
3 - Some want to be the party face which is sometimes difficult with a wizard.
4 - Some groups will not cooperate with the needs of a wizard to constantly expand their spell book
5 - Some groups don't want to pause before every day to plan out what spells to take, or hide for a few minutes while filling an empty slot.
6 - Some campaigns make wizards very difficult. Few/no opportunities to find or buys scrolls or otherwise learn new spells.
7 - Some campaigns have incredible time pressure or constant threats can make it very difficult to pause to fill an empty slot or otherwise prepare spells.
8 - Some GM's give very little (or at least misleading) info on what will be encounter/needed in the future. Spying, scrying, information gathering, etc... just gives very little specific useful information. {I admit, I have tendencies this way and have to constantly reign myself in and remember that not everything has to be a surprise/ambush.} This makes it so you really can't customize an ideal list of spells prepared.
9 - Some GM's rule that nearly no place is 'safe enough' to study and prep spells or fill an empty spell slot.
Any 1 or 2 of the above can make it so the wizard almost always has the exact same list of 'general' spells prepared. In which case, you might as well be running a sorcerer.
In the games I've played on or people I have talked to have played in, I find that it runs about 50/50 for the games where a prepared caster is better or worse than a spontaneous caster. Admitedly, this is a very small sample size but it is enough for me to dis-believe the 'wizard is always god' crowd.