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One topic of discussion I see pop up frequently is the overwhelming tendency for the sorcerer and wizard to multiclass. I believe this is strongly correlated with the overall lackluster class features and abilities that they get. There just isn't a strong incentive to pick your own class options, because others prove to be better with just a little math. I think the best way to approach this problem is not to further deconstruct the other multiclass options, not to place limits on how many feats you can take from outside your primary class, and certainly not to reduce the number of class feats that these classes get to pick from.
Rather, I posit that the best and most effective solution is to make the class options better, so that there's more of an incentive to stay within your class. Ideally, any given multiclass character should be pursuing that path because they wanted those other features, not because they didn't want their own features, as we see so frequently at this stage in the game.
I'm not one to propose a problem and solution without offering up some specifics of how I think this could be accomplished. In this thread I'll be focusing on the Sorcerer specifically. And for the Sorcerer, I think the biggest avenue for improving their class features revolves around their biggest draw: the bloodlines. Currently, each bloodline gives you three bloodline abilities (until 1.3 these were not optional). To go along with giving Sorcerers the same number of class feats as everyone else (a topic I discussed HERE) I would propose expanding the amount of bloodline abilities to 7. In this scenario, each bloodline is providing some sort of class feat option at levels 1, 2, 6, 10, 12, 16, and 18. I will give examples of these expanded bloodline options, as well as make some points about some of the other Sorcerer class feats which could be made into more usable and/or attractive options.
Level 1 Feat: Tentacular Limbs
- Reduced to Somatic Casting only. I also added Heightened (+3): Increase the reach by 5 feet.
Level 2 Feat: Rubbery Skin
- Provides a small resistance to bludgeoning damage, as well as a conditional bonus on attempts to squeeze, escape, or break a grapple. Also provides a small conditional penalty on opponent attempts to grapple you.
Level 6 Feat: Aberrant Whispers
- This one is largely unchanged, except I added Heightened (+2): Increase the duration by 1 round.
Level 10 Feat: Unusual Anatomy
- I also left this one largely unchanged, except I added Heightened (+1): Increase the resistances by 2 and the acid damage by 1d6
Level 12 Feat: Bizarre Grace
- You become a master of Reflex Saves. Functions as evasion.
Level 16 Feat: Unspeakable Presence
- Gives you an aura that can sicken or even confuse creatures depending on their Will save.
Level 18 Feat: Unnaturally Limber
- You become entirely boneless, automatically critically succeeding on a check to Squeeze. You also gain the effects of freedom of movement.
Level 1 Feat: Angelic Halo
- I left this one largely unchanged, except that it now also functions as the light spell.
Level 2 Feat: Holy Conduit
- Adds a small amount healing to any spell you cast on an ally.
Level 6 Feat: Angelic Wings
- I left this one largely the same, except that I scrapped the reduced duration for extending the spell and just made it simply that if it would expire, you can spend spell points to extend the duration by the base amount.
Level 10 Feat: Celestial Brand
- Reduced the casting to Somatic Casting only and extended the base duration to 3 rounds. Changed to Heightened (+2): Increase the damage by 2d4 and the duration by 1 round.
Level 12 Feat: Discerning Judgement
- You become a master of Perception. Creatures you can see take a -2 penalty to Deception and Thievery checks against you.
Level 16 Feat: Righteous Spell (metamagic)
- You change the damage type of the spell to Good damage. Creatures critically hit by the spell (or that critically fail their save against it) take persistent Good damage.
Level 18 Feat: Truespeech
- Constant tongues and a circumstance bonus on Deception, Diplomacy and Intimidate checks.
Level 1 Feat: Glutton's Jaws
- Reduced the casting to just Verbal Casting. Heightened (+2): Increase the piercing damage by 1d6 and the temporary Hit Points by 2d4. Add an Item bonus to attack rolls equal to the number of additional dice of piercing damage.
Level 2 Feat: Covet Spell (Reaction)
- You attempt to steal the spell from a caster within 30 feet of you. Spell Roll vs Spell DC. Success: The spell treats you as the target (or origin) for all purposes; Critical Success: The spell has no effect on you if harmful.
Level 6 Feat: Swamp of Sloth
- Reduced casting to Verbal and Somatic only. Increased base poison damage to 3d6. Heightened (+1): Increase damage by 1d6
Level 10 Feat: Abyssal Wrath
- Increased base damage to 5d10. Heightened is now +1 levels instead of +2 levels
Level 12 Feat: Overwhelming Pride
- Become a master of Will saves, functions like the Bard's Mental Prowess
Level 16 Feat: Lustful Caress
- Free action, triggered on a success or critical success with a melee touch attack. Target becomes stupefied 1 or 2 for short duration depending on success vs critical success.
Level 18 Feat: Greedy Consumption
- When you use a consumable with variable effects, you get maximum effect.
Level 1 Feat: Dragon Claws
- Changed to Heightened (+2): Increase the piercing and energy damage by 1d4 each, and increase the resistance by 3. Add an Item bonus to attack rolls equal to the number of additional dice of slashing damage.
Level 2 Feat: Draconic Hoard
- Gives a conditional bonus to all saving throws as long as you have a threshold value of money in coins on your person.
Level 6 Feat: Dragon Breath
- Left this one largely the same, but changed the heighten to add 2d6 damage instead of 1d6.
Level 10 Feat: Dragon Wings
- Left this one mostly alone, except made the same alteration as to Angelic Wings above.
Level 12 Feat: Draconic Fortitude
- You become a master of Fortitude saves. Functions like the Barbarian's Juggernaut ability
Level 16 Feat: Frightful Presence
- Gives you an aura that can frighten creatures based on their Will save.
Level 18 Feat: Power of Wyrms
- Grants scent, immunity to paralysis, and a bonus to initiative and saves against magic.
Bloodline Skills: Acrobatics, Athletics
Bloodline Spells: Cantrip: ray of frost; 1st: shocking grasp; 2nd: acid arrow; 3rd: lightning bolt; 4th: wall of ice; 5th: elemental form; 6th: chain lightning; 7th: fiery body; 8th: polar ray; 9th: meteor swarm
Special: At 1st-level, choose the elemental plane that influenced your bloodline. This will affect how some of your bloodline feats function. You can’t change your elemental type later. The elemental planes and their associated energy types are air (electricity), earth (acid), fire (fire), and water (cold).
Level 1 Feat: Elemental Assault (Power 1)
- Verbal Casting. Targets 1 weapon. For 1 minute the weapon deals +1d6 damage of your element type. Heightened (+2): Increase the damage by 1d6.
Level 2 Feat: Elemental Versatility (Reaction)
- You alter a spell you cast that deals acid, cold, electricity or fire damage, and change the damage type (and traits) to match your bloodline element.
Level 6 Feat: Elemental Movement (Power 3)
- Functions like the Angelic and Draconic Wings powers in terms of casting and duration, but grants either fly, burrow, swim or double speed depending on your bloodline element.
Level 10 Feat: Ride the Blast (Power 5, Reaction)
- You teleport to any space within the area affected by a burst, cone or line spell that deals acid, cold, electricity or fire damage.
Level 12 Feat: Elemental Invulnerability
- You gain a scaling resistance to the energy type of your bloodline.
Level 16 Feat: Lingering Spell (metamagic)
- An instantaneous area spell that deals acid, cold, electricity or fire damage persists, blocking line of sight and continuing to damage creatures that begin their turn or move into the lingering spell.
Level 18 Feat: Elemental Ambassador
- You gain the ability to speak with creatures that have a trait matching your bloodline element. Such creatures are not hostile to you unless you act hostile toward them.
Level 1 Feat: Faerie Dust
- Increased base duration to 2 rounds. Added Heightened (+2): Increase the duration by 1 round.
Level 2 Feat: Otherworldly Beauty
- Bonus to Deception, Diplomacy and Intimidate checks against creatures that could be sexually attracted to you.
Level 6 Feat: Fey Disappearance
- Left largely the same. Added Heightened (+2): Increase the duration of the invisibility by 1 round.
Level 10 Feat: Ridiculous Notion
- Changed the bolstered result to part of a critically successful save. Added Heightened (+2): Increase the duration by 1 round.
Level 12 Feat: Bizarre Grace
- Same as the Level 12 Aberrant feat.
Level 16 Feat: Blinding Beauty
- Gives you an aura that can blind creatures for a duration depending on a will save.
Level 18 Feat: Natural Ambassador
- You can speak with living animals, plants and fey at will. Such creatures are not hostile toward you unless you act hostile toward them.
Level 1 Feat: Ancestral Surge
- Increased base duration to 3 rounds. Added Heightened (+2): Increase the duration by 1 round.[/b]
Level 2 Feat: Scion of Royalty
- Gives a circumstance bonus on Deception, Diplomacy and Intimidate checks against creatures with whom you share an ancestry.
Level 6 Feat: Metamagician's Shortcut
- Removed requirement of choosing the metamagic feat in advance. Instead can apply whenever you would use a metamagic feat within the duration
Level 10 Feat: Ancestral Countermeasure
- Left largely unchanged. Added a clause that if the spell can't be reduced in level, it instead increases the circumstance bonus by 1.
Level 12 Feat: Overwhelming Pride
- Same as the Level 12 Demonic feat.
Level 16 Feat: Persistent Spell (metamagic)
- Targets that attempt to save against the spell must roll twice and take the worse result.
Level 18 Feat: Ancestral Versatility
- Gain additional resonance and spell points. You can assign your Spontaneously heightened spells on the fly each day, until you have assigned all your available heightened spells.
Bloodline Skills: Deception and Intimidation
Bloodline Spells: Cantrip: chill touch; 1st: ray of enfeeblement; 2nd: ghoulish cravings; 3rd: vampiric touch; 4th: talking corpse; 5th: drop dead; 6th: vampiric exsanguination; 7th: mask of terror; 8th: horrid wilting; 9th: wail of the banshee
Level 1 Feat: Grasping Dead (Power 1)
- Skeletal arms do a 5' burst AOE Slashing Damage. Reflex save, can knock targets prone.
Level 2 Feat: Feign Undeath
- Can use Deception to trick undead creatures into treating you as undead
Level 6 Feat: Stench of Decay (Power 3)
- Creates an aura that can sicken creatures based on their Fortitude save
Level 10 Feat: Toll the Bell (Power 5)
- Spectral bell deals sonic damage to 1 living or undead target, and deafens it with a duration based on its fortitude save
Level 12 Feat: Negative Energy Affinity
- Treated as undead for purposes of Positive and Negative energy
Level 16 Feat: Necrotic Spell (metamagic)
- Spell can affect undead creatures, even if they would normally be immune to the effects
Level 18 Feat: One Foot in the Grave
- Bonus on saves with the emotion or mental traits, or that specifically targets living creatures. Improves your success with Feign Undeath.
Arcane Evolution: You become trained in one skill of your choice. Additionally, each time you make your daily preparations, you can choose one scroll in your possession and add the scroll’s spell to your spell repertoire until the next time you prepare. If the scroll leaves your person or the spell is expended from the scroll, you immediately forget the spell.
Divine Evolution: You become trained in one skill of your choice. Additionally, when you make your daily preparations, you can choose a holy or unholy symbol in your possession. Add one spell that deity grants to your spell repertoire until the next time you prepare. If you violate that deity’s anathema you immediately forget the spell.
Occult Evolution: You become trained in one skill of your choice. Additionally, once per day, you can spend 1 minute to choose one spell you don’t know of a level you can cast with the mental trait to add to your spell repertoire for the day. You lose access to this temporary spell the next time you make your daily preparations.
Primal Evolution: You become trained in one skill of your choice. Additionally, once per day, you can spend 1 minute to choose one spell you don’t know of a level you can cast with the acid, cold, electricity or fire trait to add to your spell repertoire for the day. You lose access to this temporary spell the next time you make your daily preparations.
Additional Notes
I tried to balance these options theoretically against other, similar options where they existed, but have not gotten a chance to rigorously test them. Additionally, these suggestions are not exhaustive - there's absolutely still room to make other adjustments to Sorcerer class feats to make them more attractive options. Finally, while I provided some specific options here, they are intended to be examples rather than demands - as in I think the Sorcerer would benefit from changes like these rather than necessarily these specific changes and only these specific changes
I'd love to hear other thoughts on what can be done to improve the bloodlines, and just generally make the Sorcerer a more attractive class in general. I think the design space of a class that alters itself so dramatically based on your choices is so fascinating to explore, and I started thinking about this because I want to explore it more - the playtest version feels like a timid dipping of a toe in these waters, and I'd love for it to do a full-on cannonball instead. This has been a fun exercise to go through, even if nothing ever comes out of it but house rules, and I'd like to thank everyone who stuck with me through the whole thing!
Not a bad idea, though I'd have to ponder on it a little more, though I do think Imperial feels more Arcane, as it seems the most 'classic sorcerer' of them, and Undead seems more Divine (or maybe Occult?) than Arcane, but if we're going for 2 of each, I'd see Imperial and Undead switched.
Also, I'm unsure if the evolution feats are balanced. Arcane basically grants you any spell, so long as you don't use the scroll, where Occult and Primal have most of those spells on their list anyway, so it seems like a limited extra spell from their list, in most cases, with some cases where they can get from another list. Divine is interesting in that it gives spells not on their list, but the spells you get from deities is still quite limited, let alone the looks you'd get, if you decided you wanted disintegrate, so you start asking around to see where you might find a symbol of Rovagug.
I, too, like some of the ideas here.
Not a bad idea, though I'd have to ponder on it a little more, though I do think Imperial feels more Arcane, as it seems the most 'classic sorcerer' of them, and Undead seems more Divine (or maybe Occult?) than Arcane, but if we're going for 2 of each, I'd see Imperial and Undead switched.
This is really only based on my own personal taste, I don't think it would break anything if they were switched. I just feel much better in the brain if there are 2 of each. I also rather like how it worked out (without planning) that at level 16 half of each spell list type got a metamagic feat and the other half got something different.
Also, I'm unsure if the evolution feats are balanced. Arcane basically grants you any spell, so long as you don't use the scroll, where Occult and Primal have most of those spells on their list anyway, so it seems like a limited extra spell from their list, in most cases, with some cases where they can get from another list. Divine is interesting in that it gives spells not on their list, but the spells you get from deities is still quite limited, let alone the looks you'd get, if you decided you wanted disintegrate, so you start asking around to see where you might find a symbol of Rovagug.
Like I said, I didn't rigorously test them. I expect the usefulness of each of them will continuously expand as more options are eventually released. The more varied deities there are, the better (or at least less situational) the Divine one gets. Also I didn't state explicitly, but expected that these feats would most often be used for grabbing spells along your theme from the other spell lists - although they can also be used for grabbing a spell that's too situational to be one you have in your repertoire. It's a fine line to walk, though, because while I wanted them to be good often, I tried to avoid making them so good compared to other level 4 options that they become mandatory. Achieving that sort of balance is tricky. Right now I'd expect a Fey sorcerer to get more use out of Primal Evolution than an Elemental one.
EDIT: A curious thought just came to me - what if the spell list prerequisite was removed from these feats? As it stands, they can already be used to grab spells from any spell list - so is it actually necessary that they be gated by bloodline segments? There aren't a lot of areas for the Sorcerer where you get the chance to spread out laterally into the territories of the other paths, like say a bard or druid. This could be a minor burst of that feeling. Hmmmmmm.
Considering that I played an elf divine sorcerer and picked up the natural magic ancestry feat so I could even HAVE ranged damage, a single spell from anywhere isn't crazy.
Especially since the divine evolution that exists is "you can cast heal, once." Woo.
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I would also like that class feat for any classes have some kind of auto scaling (less than Powers of course because they don't use ressources) mainly to avoid the "You pick that feat at level 1 so now you MUST pick this one at higher level, then this one, then this one" because they are chained together and making another choice is crippling your character
I think animal companions are the worst offenders at this, hands-down. The game asks every few levels "do you want a feat, or would you like to keep your companion relevant?" I think the structure is fine, with the progression from "young" to specialized, etc, because it allows different animal companions to grow at different rates: the ranger's feats are available levels behind the druid... but you can get that same effect just by stating at which levels they gain their steps.
And then, to make up for the "options" you just took away, you add feats which instead alter how the animal companion plays. Things like allowing your companion to continue spending 1 action each turn to continue following your last command if you stop commanding it (no net change in number of actions/turn). Or give your animal companion the AOO feature (and ability to use it) while it is commanded to defend, and so on.
To prevent this tangent from becoming a true digression: I think it would be interesting if some of the bloodlines (like Fey, especially) had the option of getting an animal companion as a bloodline feat.
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Alchemical bombs ask the same thing: "do you want a feat, or do you want your bombs to do more damage?"