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In all seriousness, the whole concept of the Sorcerer having to re-learn spells at higher levels at all is an unnecessary complication that prevents the class from keeping up with its prepared brethren.
The implementation of the feat that auto-heightens specific spells just puts the sorcerer back where it was: short on feats and still not able to match up to prepared casters. Heightening should be free for ALL casters for ALL spells, because having to take the same spell multiple times isn't fun for anyone.
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I'm confused by this as well. Of the universal set of spells, a rough estimate is that only about half can be heightened, with a smaller number still of ones that a sorcerer would want in his repertoire (A sorcerer repeatedly casting Heightened Negate Aroma would definitely be a very niche character :)). I'd guess that a 10th level sorcerer, knowing 20 spells, would only have about 10 spells from levels 1-4 that even could be heightened, and the given situation would lessen that number even further. I honestly don't feel freely allowing Heightening would be over powered or bog the game down more than the number of choices open to other classes.
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I actually had a player working on their character for the final Doomsday Dawn chapter, who had hated the limited heightening, specifically mention that they'd changed their mind. Their spell list had expanded to a four page document already and would have been paralyzingly long without that limitation.
So I think there's a place for that limitation, particularly to maintain one casting class that doesn't have a ton of overhead.
If the sorcerer needs to get more powerful, I hope the devs can find a way to do that without exponentially increasing the decision points in play.
Cheers!
Landon
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Halfway may actually be something of an overstatement as well, given the bloodline spells sorcerers get.
Heightenable Spells By bloodline:
Aberrant: 4
Angelic: 6
Demonic: 9 (but...)
Draconic: 8
Fey: 4 and one not found
Imperial 5 and one not found.
Note: I can't find an entry for Arcane Eye or Irresistible Dance.
Demonic is interesting, it sounds good for heightenable spells, but given how restrictive their spells are (and the feat not coming online til 10th level) the utility of it is less impressive than it sounds.
Slow is only heightenable to 6th level, banishment to 9th.
So basically, you're going to be heightening divine wrath and burning a higher level slot for +1d8 damage. Whee. Resist Energy may matter more (and more often), but its very limited.
Draconic has similar problems. Actually worse, since nothing beyond resist energy is heightenable until you hit 13th level and can actually use the improved forms of fly and chromatic wall.
Fey is an outright terrible choice unless you really like charm.
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Sorcerers should auto-highten spells by default. All of them.
Spell heightening options fall into two groups: increasing the effect to level appropriate values like for damage/healing spells, and providing new effects like for invisibility or slow. For the first group casting the spell at the highest level is required for it to be appropriately effective, so giving free heightening amounts to using lower level spells known for higher level spells. For the group of spells with new effects, heightening amounts to a new spell known. The two groups are very different, so spells that add new effects should be separated into multiple spells, in order to allow spell heightening be balanced for the group of spells that need to be near max level to be level appropriate.
Sorcerers should auto-highten spells by default. All of them.
They tried this with early playtests. It wasn't a good experience.
- If you auto-heighten everything, you "have" to pick spells that heighten. If a low-level spell doesn't heighten, why would you take it and have fewer options?- It ended up leading to choice paralysis during combat (the worst time to slow things down).
(You can see a different solution in 5e's design. No restrictions on heightening, but seriously restricted spells known; Sorcerer eventually gets fewer than one spell known per level.)
Anyway, I like bloodline heightening as a feat. That way, bloodlines don't have to focus on which of their spells can be heightened, and just pick appropriate spells. If it's not worth it, you don't take the feat.
I would say a majority of the spells that don't heighten are defensive or utility spells that don't need heightening to still be useful at higher levels. And all of them benefit from now using the same Save DCs.
But if complete auto-heightening isn't desirable, I would think some kind of compromise could be reached by some static increase to the original 2 spells/day. Even 4 per day would allow for at least one heightened spell per combat per day.
I had made a point of something like this in another thread but I still feel like giving sorcerers a much more limited list of spells known, but being able to heighten all their spells at will would be more appropriate to the "untrained/instinctual" nature of their magic. They may not know a lot about how their spells work, or know a lot of spells, but they definitely know how much oomph they can put into it. Quite frankly I feel like their bloodline should be their defining class feature.
I agree with you, sir. My take on this is that bloodlines may be the most distinctive attribute that thematically separates sorcerers from other caster (Spontaneous casting is in the same realm of prepared casting - not a class specific thing). Let bloodlines spells be auto heightened, auto stretch, sculpt, etc. These new features could locked behind a skill requisite for balancing. Finally, double down on the blood aspect of the class.
That would be fine... but the blood aspects of the class need to be made worthwhile first.