I cannot recommend Evard's Hentai Black Tentacles enough. Very good spell and ironically the best place to cast it I have found is BEHIND the front-line combat monkeys of your enemies. That way you hit all of the ranged attackers and spellcasters who can't grapple for cheese.

The build for your Sorcerer generally looks pretty good.

To explain the Sorcerer (Cannon) and the Sorcerer (Squirrel-Puncher) further.

Sorcerer (Cannon) takes a lot of direct damaging spells (Scorching Ray, Magic Missile, Fireball, etc) and just pommels the crap out of anything within range that is still walking. Upside = room full of goblins just became room full of charcoal. Downside = Rogues/Assassins/Stuff with Reflex saves... they will dance all over your explosions and fillet out your kidneys.

Sorcerer (Squirrel-Puncher) takes a lot of crippling spells (Grease, Glitterdust, Hold Person/Monster, Ray of Enfeeblement, etc) and ensures that as many of the enemies are busy barely able to walk in their armour while your guys take out their trusty "Slashy McNecksnapper" and go to town. Upside = big bad mean nasty enemy turns into bumbling moron in about 3 spells, you sit back and maybe ping a few arrows/sling bullets at him to add insult to injury. Downside = Clerics/Intelligent Undead... these things have saves that are worth it, immune to most of the stuff you're doing and then cast a pile of nasty stuff back at your party.


It's always a good plan to have a small pile of scrolls with spells you may need but:
a) won't need every encounter, and
b) probably won't need more than once between trips to town


Good call on taking the Sorcerer to start with. I started with 3.5 Wizards (after 2E Wizards... *sighs*...) but for newcomers, Sorcerers are the probably the best way into playing a "my job is to cast spells in the combat" type of character.