Paul/Frank Sorcerer Update?

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 5:24 am

Utterfail wrote:Also, sudden metamagic feats aren't OGL, but it would be really easy to keep the tomes self contained by simply altering the ability slightly. My proposed change for it is thus.
[...]
Thoughts?

Considering that a lot of the Tome material in the actual completed Tomes contains non-OGL material (a lot of the spell lists, most/all of the spheres) the Tomes automatically *aren't* self-contained unless you're acutally willing to cut out a large portion of Tome of Fiends.

Utterfail · Post by **Utterfail** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 5:54 am

Point taken, I'll concede that the Tomes wont ever be fully self contained in the sense that you wont ever want to reference another book because it's infeasible. But in this instance the Thaumaturge would be being presented as a core tome base class. And it would be nice if you had everything you needed in one handy spot.

Also, the Spell compendium makes having all (most?) the spells referenced pretty easy to find in one spot. I'd imagine most people playing 3.5 at this point have the Spell Compendium. I mean, hell, DnD expects you to have a minimum of three books to play. Having the tome PDF (which should eventually contain everything needed to play and DM), A book of some sort with monsters in it (SRD Ho!), and the spell compendium is still a 3 book minimum.

Back to Sudden Metamagic. Is there any mechanical difference to simply making it an ability he can apply to a metamagic feat he knows and actually having independent feats? The only difference is that it's slightly more flexible as far as I can see. Is there some hidden danger I'm missing?

Sunwitch · Post by **Sunwitch** » Sun Oct 11, 2009 3:12 am

Utterfail wrote: Also, the Spell compendium makes having all (most?) the spells referenced pretty easy to find in one spot. I'd imagine most people playing 3.5 at this point have the Spell Compendium. I mean, hell, DnD expects you to have a minimum of three books to play. Having the tome PDF (which should eventually contain everything needed to play and DM), A book of some sort with monsters in it (SRD Ho!), and the spell compendium is still a 3 book minimum.

I think it's worth noting that a bunch of stuff also comes from the It's X Outside series as well as Book of Vile Darkness and... I think Libris Mortis? Heroes of Horror? Some other stuff, anyway. In fact, I'm actually kind of miffed at how the Frostbite sphere has both Shivering Touch spells in it considering those things are pretty out of control.

The point being, the Tome material is not self-contained by any stretch, although you can definitely overlook the Frostbite sphere for instance if you don't happen to have It's Cold Outside.

For Valor · Post by **For Valor** » Thu Apr 01, 2010 4:54 pm

Sorry for a necrobump here, but I don't understand the benefits of the Suliin(or Sulin, Suljin, whatever) Sorcerer.

I understand the spontaneous access to every single Sorc/Wiz Spell that exists (which is damn good...), but at max, you can only cast 2 of those spells. It seems like, in that case, the Suliin Sorcerer would only be usable for a couple encounters before he/she ran out of spells and had to rest.

Am I missing something?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Apr 01, 2010 7:15 pm

Well, the point is that at level 11 for example, when other people throw out a 6th level spell each encounter, and a 5th level spell in the second combat, the Sulin Sorc has only 2 or so 6th level spells. But for his 5th level spells, he can pull out anything, so the advantage of being specifically tailored for this specific round of this specific combat against these specific enemies can be just as good.

For Valor · Post by **For Valor** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 4:13 am

wow. I had no idea that it was THAT good. I guess I've gotta test it...

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 5:29 am

The big problem with the class is that the space of options at any given moment is immense. Unless you have the Spell Compendium memorized or intentionally cut your options down to something manageable, you're going to be wasting a lot of time figuring out what to cast. It's like the polymorph problem, only with every spell you cast.

tl;dr
If you can't immediately determine the absolute best spell to cast at any given moment, everyone is better off with you playing a normal sorcerer.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 9:19 pm

Looking this up for no discernable reason, I think the Frank/Sulin Sorcerer or Thaumaasdfnasdlf or whatever, should get bonus metamagic feats that are the ones in Comprehensive Tome Errata, The ones Alpha Nerd made up.

They would be the right addition to this class.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 5:09 am

Yes. I agree with that.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 8:30 am

The funny thing about this whole experiment is that it's blatantly obvious to us by now that this entire idea behind this class is one of the worst things ever from a playability standpoint but it was the bee's knees back then.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 8:30 am

The funny thing about this whole experiment is that it's blatantly obvious to us by now that this entire idea behind this class is one of the worst things ever from a playability standpoint but it was the bee's knees back then.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 4:11 am

The funny thing is double post.

What makes it bad? It seems like a viable idea, especially if you add errata metamagics. I mean, if you don't know all the spells in the books everywhere, it's not as good as a sorcerer, but seems like a very good idea otherwise.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 4:48 am

Because it's Lago, so anything that isn't WoF must be the most terrible thing in the universe, so that something that allows them to choose from all their options at once, IE the opposite of Winds of Fate, must be bad on principle.

And of course, Lago remains incapable of distinguishing between his preferences, and what ever person ever born must love.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 4:59 am

The problem is the absurd degree of analysis paralysis it could involve. With every spell available at any time, you have to sift through literally hundreds of options every time you want to take the most optimal action. So while the class is more or less balanced, it's unplayable unless you intentionally limit your search. In that case you're better off as a sorcerer, wizard, or one of the more modern 'themed' spontaneous casters.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 8:29 am

Yeah, this would be fairly overwhelming to play in a timely fashion. Once I tried making a character somewhat like this - a Shadowcraft Mage (so spontaneous access to all Evocation and Conjuration(creation) spells), with the feat that gives spontaneous access to all Divination spells. I came to the conclusion that it would only be fully effective in a PbP game - although being a full caster, it was still plenty strong when short of its potential.

Midnight_v · Post by **Midnight_v** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 11:07 pm

... which honestly needed some editing work, but it put a cap on that mechanic (pull spells out of your ass) so it was only so often a day, and you had to burn extra spells to use it, but you got the base sorcerer progression for spells. So you had a spell selection you actually got to use but a few times a day you could improv. I'll find a link in a sec.

http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=233421#233421

The Gaming Den

Paul/Frank Sorcerer Update?

I did a tome sorcerer