Do you think spontaneous and prepared casters would be more balanced with each other if they got to new spell levels on the same level
So wizard would get level 2 spells on level 4 or sorcerers would get them at level 3 instead?
Also, which whey would you move the casting?
It would definitely shift the power in favor of Spontaneous casting in most games, but they are still limited by spells known, which is their biggest drawback in the end, so by 20th level at the absolute endgame, Wizards would still win out.
But that's a bunch of hypothetical Schrodinger stuff that's unlikely to see the light of day.
unless I've proof it's broke, I don't fix it, so I'd leave stuff the way it is.
If you're okay with wizards currently then moving spontaneous up a level just make wizards good by a little bit rather than a lot. And there is a difference between having 1 or 2 hastes at lv5 vs have 4 hastes at lv5.
Currently I feel that are already pretty balanced. So if you feel that sorcerers are weak then moving them up boosts them. If you feel that wizards are too strong then moving them back weakens them.
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I've played a lot of both spontaneous and prepared casters, and I actually really like the spontaneous spell progression. See, with a spontaneous caster, getting a new spell level isn't as big a deal as it is for a prepared caster. When a prepared caster learns a new level of spells, a whole world of options opens up before them. That's great. When a spontaneous caster accesses a new level of spells, they learn one thing from that level(plus extras like cures and mysteries if appropriate). The big influx of options comes at odd levels when they learn spells known of every level they can cast. In general it's more fun to me to learn 4-5 lower level things than one higher level.
Delayed spell level access was a bigger deal when everybody wanted to ditch their base class into a prestige class, and requiring "x level spellcasting" meant a one level delay to entry. Now it's really just a menu choice, and in fact has no effect at all on scroll or wand use for those utility spells you want anyway.
As others have said, the real difference between spontaneous and prepared in late games is the (at least theoretical) flexibility of prepared, not the direct power.
One thing to understand though, is that while Spontaneous casters get later spells, they also get more daily spells. Therefore moving them up a level would have a pretty dramatic change.
A 3rd level wizard, counting school specialization but not bonus spells for INT can cast 5 spells per day, 3 first and 2 second. A third level sorcerer also gets 5 per day, although all first level. If you bumped up the sorcerer casting by a level, they would get 9 spells per day, 6 first and 3 second.
Later game, this wouldn't be such a huge deal, since generally both would have 'enough' but early game it would be a huge increase to spontaneous casters. I would say that for the first 5 levels at least spontaneous casters would be clearly superior to prepared ones with that change, especially since less spell slots lowers the practical benefit of the flexibility of prepared casting unless you have some really excellent intelligence on what you will be facing.