3.5 ed. - Wizard vs Sorcerer

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in NWN you only loose some hitpoints (1D10 or something? dont recal) and no constitution (Now wouldnt that scare of all the poor kids that tried the game, when their wizards got weaker and died all by "random", they would have called it the buggiest game ever!)

 

so the rule changed or is it just a NWN adjustment?

 

NWN adjustment. If a pnp mage loses his familiar, he has to roll a fortitude save (iirc) or lose 200xp per level. If he makes his save, he loses only half. On top of that, the mage has to wait a year and a day ingame (which tends to be longer than most campaigns take) before he's able to get a new one.

 

Which makes the use of a familiar problematic in 3.5. And topic wise it adds up to the value of the wizard. Multiclass it now and then with a single level of rogue and the slot(party based)can be used for a extra cleric or second mage.

 

Okay, for clarification: is this discussing about PnP or NWN?

 

Faragorn: A sort of a mix, and clarification between the two it seems.

My last wizard (P&P) was considering a Wolverine or Dire Badger as familiar. it would have fitted her personality perfect. But in the end i desided that it would be to much hazzle trying to subdue your own crazed familiar every combat when it went into rage, and try to carry it along when fleeing.

 

well if you say that this topic is 3.5 (NWN was 3.0) I would say pen and paper. But more people in my invironment play the computergames and not the tabletop. So my type of questioning will shift to the computergames now and then. I hope that future games stay true to the rules and not make to much up.

I used to favor the sorcerer. But that was with 2 ed Baldurs gate. NWN forced me to "roque" my wizard to get a fair amount of the traps done, without taking levels in it. (Multiclassed with fighter and AA) And that is where the INT factor comes in for the cross class abiity points. if I was playing in a party on table, or in game with 3.5 rules a sorcerer is arcane stronger. But the wizard can multiclass better so he or she wins it. In IWD2 and ToEE the sorcerer returned.

 

Completelly dependent upon how much you are willing to micromanage (exclude IWD2 from this one, TOEE can do it, and P&P of corse).

Okie so a sorcerer at level 1 can cast 2 spells 4 times a day.

My wizard can cast 20 spells 5x times a day.

Love Scribe Scroll

Simply put, use your scribe scroll to scribe 1-2 scrolls of all those seldomly used spells (feather fall for example) and spend your memoriation slots for the usual combat spells. You can even bolster combat with more scrolls. so in the end you have way more spells per day than a sorcerer can do. You ALSO have an amazing variation of spells, and since wizards don't need their gold for anything else anyways, and the XP cost is neglible (1XP per level 1 scroll...).

You can do it in ToEE, try it.

Also why Sorcerer cant do the same. becose they can take the scribe scroll feat (as normal feat). but they can only scribe spells they know, so they can just make more copies of the same 2 spells they already know.

So i still think wizard is superior in pure Arcana power

 

In computergames, the sorcerer generally rules supreme. They don't require the versatility you'd need in a PNP game since they're more blast oriented than PNP games.

For example, there's no reason to take 'stone shape' in a CRPG, but in an pnp RPG it has plenty of uses. There's endless examples of that.

 

Although the general consensus seems to be Wizards are better in pnp than sorcs, there is one factor that nobody seems to consider, maybe because it never mattered. It is that a sorcerer cannot loose his known spells short of a memory wipe. A spellbook on the other hand is very easy to loose or become unusable. I had two different wizards in two different campaigns loose theirs (it suffices that the dm makes you loose your backpack). One got it back afterwards, but the other character is still struggling along with a stolen spellbook, meaning I need a spellcraft check each time I want to memorise a spell.

 

I'm surprised nobody reccomended the virtuoso as a prestige class for sorcerers. Sure, you need to take 10 ranks in perform to get it...... but after that you have access to the full gamut of bardic music effects (In addition to some stuff bards can't normally do with their music), some neat new ways to conceal spellcasting, and no loss whatsoever to your casting effectiveness as a sorcerer.

 

never heard of virtuoso class, like many others.

 

It's in song and silence.

 

Heh, sounds fun... but I don't know it, and the 10 ranks won't come easily unless I dual to bard. Aaanyway, we finally got our act together after the vacation. Remarks:

- Most used spell - detect magic. Look for anything from hidden doors in a mage tower to polymorphed elves (the D&D salvaged one heck of an idea from an earlier campaign of hers). Overall, cool thing, need to get read magic asap.
- Most useless spell - ray of frost. Against undead, it simply manages to show you want to participate in the fight. And apparently we will have undead aplenty... the party needs a priest soon.
- Biggest problem: no offensive spells against undead. Honest, I was so pressed for spells in lvl 1 I had nothing that worked against them. See any sorceress spell selection rant.
- Biggest joke - managed to get the secondary spellbook of an experienced evil transmuter for bloody free. And I can't even sell it since we're going to the middle of nowhere. Why did I agree to be a sorcerer... Close second: after the first round of action, I have 97 gp and don't expect more in the near future. Who had the bright idea that summoning a familiar must be so expensive? It's not as if you can afford to summon them daily if they die on you.

[ February 03, 2006, 03:16: Message edited by: The Shaman ]

 

With an 18 charisma you should be able to take the PRC by level 9 even if you don't play a bard.

 

Wait, you said I need 10 ranks in that skill, not a total skill modifier of 10.

Anyway, just wanted to ask, does color spray count as mind compulsion? The big problem is, can it work on undead, by any chance? It wouldn't seem so, but for whatever reason skeletons in our campaign have a higher blunt damage resistance than piercing one...

Another thing: do you have house rules benefitting sorcerers? I mean, the more I read on wizards and sorcerers, the better off in skills and feats the former come. I would like to persuade the DM to allow me a modified version of eschew materials - initially working like the basic feat, eventually allowing to substitute materials worth more than 1 gp with xp at the rate of 10 to 1 and finally 25 to 1 (substituting a gold cost of 100 gp with 10xp and 4 xp, respectively). For me, that seems rather natural as sorcerers are supposed to "discover" magic within themselves, and spraying oneself with 20 kinds of pulverized gemstone just to see if anything works seems like a strange way to "discover latent powers." Besides, as a sorcerer is supposed to use all of his/her spells frequently (as s/he doesn't have that many) I don't think many sorcerers choose to know a spell with a costly material component, and this may balance things somewhat.

[ February 09, 2006, 11:15: Message edited by: The Shaman ]

 

Uhm, ask your DM how he reads the 3.5 Damage reduction stat. I didnt quite figure out that one myself right away. but a Damage Reduction of 5/blunt means that its 5 against anything EXEPT blunt, and not against blunt. so yeah.

I Agree, I do not have any good ideas how to "balance" it on the top of my head though. I also agree that a Sorcerer collecting Pearls for no good reason and then sudenlly figuring out she can use pearls to find out secrets about magic items is just nuts.

 

Oops. Looks like I let a house rule slip in.....

 

NP, I am currently pushing for a few house changes myself... If I can get the DM to agree on the improved eschew materials thing, I'd be happy... I am thinking of getting it as 3 bonus feats:
- can cast w-out materials if mat. are worth up to 1gp (standard eschew mat. feat)
- can cast without materials if substitutes 1 xp for every 10gp of worth
- can cast without materials if substitutes 1 xp for every 25 gp of worth)

I was thinking it might be ok to get them at levels 3, 6 and 9... What do you think?
Other than that, I may get together with the DM to think of a possible prestige class for my character; I posted a prototype elsewhere in the forum. A possibility I had recently was to be allowed to cast metamagic-enhanced spells as a standard action (instead of a full-round one) with a concentration check. The idea behind it is that since a sorcerer wields magic "from the inside", s/he can enhance it with an act of thought. Normally that takes time, but an attempt to reduce that time could be made by someone whose mind is focused enough.

[ February 15, 2006, 01:57: Message edited by: The Shaman ]