Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

There's been a lot of back & forth in my Sorcerer topic on the discussion thread, but there seems to be a general consensus on one thing: there's virtually no reason for a sorcerer to stay pure. So let's come up with some ideas to fix that. All suggestions are welcome so long as they give incentive to play as a pure sorcerer and not just to give a power up that can be used for further power building. Here's some of my ideas:

Bonus Feats
Wizards can choose bonus feats at levels 5, 10, 15, & 20. I suggest sorcerers also be able to get the same selection of bonus feats at the same levels. If 4 is too much, then make it just 2 at either levels 5 & 15 or 10 & 20.

Familiar Power Ups
Buffs that are applied to familiars as a sorcerer levels up. Kind of like Augment Summon but far more gradual with smaller doses. It should be spread out so that a sorcerer's familiar by level 30 would be close in power to a Druid's animal companion.

Skill Boosts
This can be kind of like how bards get a boost to all lore skills, but instead sorcerers will receive a boost to concentration and/or spell craft.

Battle Caster at 20
Self explanatory and a fair reward for a Sorcerer with 20 levels in the class.

And from the other topic:

metaquad4 wrote:One way to make sorcerer come out into its own is to give it more spells/day. 50% more would do it (raising it from 6 spells to 9 spells per day). In addition, make it so that when sorcerer reaches pure (no practiced spellcaster or +CL feats) 21 CL, they get another level 1 spell. At CL 22, they get another level 2 spell. At CL 23, they get another level 3 spell. This goes up until CL 30, at which they get another spell of each spell level (1-9).

I don't think a flat 50% is good. A sorcerer would be able to carry that benefit into any other PrC. But I think the latter part is a great idea since it can only be obtained in the epic levels.

I don't know if the sorcerer needs more spells, but I support everything else!

I would say 5e Bloodlines they are an awesome addition to sorcerers.

Bear in mind, Familiars can't attack. Unless this can be changed, but I'm pretty sure its hardcoded into nwn2. Combat familiars were put into Haven, but I found that they were unable to attack when I tried them out. It might be different here, but I doubt it. Just one of nwn2's things, perhaps.

The reason I suggested the flat 50% increase was because it represents what a sorcerer is supposed to be good at: sustainability. A wizard can be flexible with their spellbook and a sorcerer is more sustainable when in the field. This has been applied to other servers in the past, and I do believe it evens the odds (it has certainly seemed to, at-least).

Remember also: For pure bonuses, you are competing with PRCs (and the spellcasting ones are pretty strong here). Making it worthwhile, or at-least worth glancing at, is going to be tricky and will require more than minor boosts.

Lyna wrote:I would say 5e Bloodlines they are an awesome addition to sorcerers.

I think this is a great idea for enhancing RP (there was a similar idea floated for warlocks a few years ago which sadly doesn't seem to have come to much)

Multiclass sorcerers don't need any more power though, so the bloodline powers would need to start out pretty insignificant. We could blend in Daimond's skill boost suggestions into different bloodlines.

I'm fully in support of a bonus feat every ten levels in addition to these powers.

Pathfinder Bloodlines would be easier to adapt to NWN2 which uses a 3.5e system, right? I haven't looked at 5e bloodlines, but 5e has lower numbers in general for most things than you'd see on 3.5e or Pathfinder, from what I've seen.

I was thinking homebrewing something mechanical and just using the general "fluff" of the 5E system.

Unfortunately I'd be great at writing nice flowery descriptions of the feats but not so good at determinhnthe numerical quantities that would be balanced and appropriate

I started a poll on Sorcerers that take the ASoC PrC. Knowing the percentage of sorcerers that take this PrC should give us an idea of what a Pure Sorcerer is competing against.

Ariella wrote:Adding Diplomacy and Intimidate to their skill list would be nice.

I saw this in the discussion topic and thought it would be a good idea. I find it strange that a class that's so heavily invested in Charisma only has access to one of the conversation skills and it's bluff no less. Technically, this can be carried into PrCs but you either have to get able learner or be willing to spend double the skill points if the PrC doesn't have it.

Someone in the sorcerer's thread under General Discussion suggested granting SLAs of RP spells to sorcerers. I like that suggestion and perhaps it could be implemented as every 6 levels of Sorc gives you 1 RP spell SLA. So a pure Sorc 30 will have 5 SLAs of RP spells.

This to me is a good compromise with folks who are concerned about giving additional power to a pure sorc class. It also brings a pure sorc class a little nearer to a pure wiz class.

That would be nice but then we have to figure out what counts as an RP spell. Is it just any of the spells that can be selected that require a DM for use or does it mean any non-combat spells like teleport?

Daimondheart wrote:That would be nice but then we have to figure out what counts as an RP spell. Is it just any of the spells that can be selected that require a DM for use or does it mean any non-combat spells like teleport?

I guess it can be a bit of a slippery slope. Off hand, the RP spells I can think of would be those like Whisper Wind, Sending etc. Maybe, spells like Scrying or even Hovering Skull could be added but some may cry foul.

Teleport would be hard to justify as a RP spell IMO. It confers quite a substantive mechanical or functional benefit. Trace Teleport on the other hand would be considered a RP spell for me.

I guess it would be best to let QC decide what counts as an RP spell if they accept these suggestions.

Im not sure i understand why we need to change them.... they have their upsides and down like all classes..

Also when was the last time you met a caster who introduced themselves "Hi im bob and im a sorcerer arcane scholar archmage palemaster" .... The class system is just a way for us to choose directions as players.. someone who is a base sorc will always draw their power as a sorc would... they tap in to it more often and it tends to be tied to their emotions...

Hell if anything Just let them cast in armor and be done with it. rather than cast spells like wizards do with years and years of study they just innately tap in to their power therefore do not need to worry about all the little details like wizards do.

The point is there is virtually no incentive to stay a pure sorcerer. Every other base classes get bonuses ranging from extra feats to special combat abilities. Sorcerer doesn't get anything like this. The only benefit for staying a pure sorcerer is a level 30 familiar and the same 3 extra epic feats that every base class gets. (Granted, I didn't know about the upcoming improvements to familiars at the time, but a pure wizard will have access to the same thing and then some.)