[d20r] Sorcerer, Revamped

[Doc Roc]

This, but Spells.

Sorcerer, Simplified

Opinions are welcome and needed. As a warning, this take is quite different, but I have talked it over with Fax quite a bit. Be as that may, it's slick, it's fast, and requires little GM adjudication. However, it's not finished. I was hoping to open up the forum to some community input, as I've had an almost three month long block regarding some of the listed-but-uncrunched abilities.

[Fax Celestis]

*watches patiently*

[Glimbur]

Manifestor or Manifester?

Scholar Savant trapping seems, at a glance, really good because more secrets -> more options.

Do we want to include a way to restore more than one point a turn? Otherwise high level combats will be a very careful balancing act between being effective and having endurance. On the other hand, points only matter for Secrets and it's viable to cast without Secrets.

I like the extreme modularity.

[Mushroom Ninja]

Relatively Minor and Petty Nitpick: Manifester is spelled "Manifestor" throughout the page. In the SRD it's spelled "Manifester". It's relatively minor, but sticks out at me all the same.

More to come once I finish reading the thing.

EDIT: Apparently I'm not the only one who noticed

[Krazddndfreek]

What's this ↻ mean?

[Doc Roc]

Generally, it's how I flag things that are unfinished or in progress. It's more a personal shorthand normally, but I guess you're peeking into my studio now, so maybe I should have explained it? :)

Fixing ML issue.
edit: Fixed. is now Manifester.

[Siosilvar]

Force and Elemental both seem stronger than Sonic...

Force because (I assume) it transdimensions, and Elemental gives you +50% damage when it can... Sonic, though, is just plain damage with no chance for extra and it's resisted occasionally.

Some small damage bonus vs. objects or crystals, maybe?

[Doc Roc]

It only transdimensions if Fax is using that rule, which I'm unsure about.

[Siosilvar]

Even if it doesn't go through dimensions, it's still a little bit better than sonic because things immune to it come up more often than... uh, yeah. I can't think of anything that resists Force damage aside from a Force Dragon or things with SR, which would affect all of these equally.

EDIT: Ignoring hardness with Sonic damage would probably be enough.

[Doc Roc]

Force does have only one secret, and a somewhat weaker one at that. I'm a little more concerned about some of the other Mechanics, particularly since I just fleshed out the other secret for sonic. A lot of this is going to need to be triple checked. Later in the summer I'll build out a couple of test scripts in python for producing some basic metrics.

[Milskidasith]

This seems very good.

Problems I see so far:

Launching an attack ignoring Line of Effect is incredibly good. Luckily, you don't really have too many save or Xs, but you can still blast incredibly well while being totally protected by your tinfoil hat twice per encounter, which is a game winner (and, ignoring LoE, you don't really *need* the move action anyway).

Basically, doing something like really shouldn't exist in a "no cheese" setting:

Milski's Love's Pain Part Trial Part 2: Now with higher damage and less reliance on Mindrape.

I'm a whirlwind of love, and love hurts!

ML: 20
Seeds used: Force (Great), Acid (Minor), Sonic (Major), Thrash (minor)
Trappings used: Wild Mage (Great), Scholar-Savant
Secrets used: Showboat
Action needed: Full Round
Target: One creature in 100+10/ML ft. I do not need line of effect or sight, and cover is ignored.
Point cost: 28
Effect: Target creature must make a fortitude save or take 11d6 acid damage, and 11d6 sonic damage. Additionally, targets within 20 feet of the original target (including the original target) take 14d8 force damage, no save. The tornado may then be controlled per the Thrash rules. Any creature affected by the thrash tornado does not get a save.

That shouldn't really happen, even at the two/encounter limit, because, while the damage isn't amazing, it's still damage you can deal without even being in danger, or indeed, even being within a few rounds of being in danger; with a scrying spell or just basic maps, you can launch the tornado throughout the dungeon, rest for a few minutes, and launch it again without even leaving the original room! In any building short of a skyscraper, the Big Bad can constantly plague you with this spell while you attempt to progress, or you can, combined with explosive spell (with a slight spell variation) blast him out the window before he even knows you are there, and neither of those are very fun.

The other problem stems from the fact it's not finished, but there really aren't any status dealing effects, even relatively minor ones. There's silence, and minor knockback, but that's about it.

Thrash is also quite possibly too good, not for it's ability to grant a better, more controllable AoE than the actual "burst" seed (well, that's part of it) but also because it can, as I demonstrate with my spell, unlink a no save effect from the rest of the spell; in this case, I use it so my high force damage isn't affected by the save that plagues the (relatively minor) elemental blasting attached.

Also, the first two secrets you would learn would always be the ones that double and triple your secrets known. You might as well just say that, so low level sorcerers in long term campaigns don't get either gimped early, or gimped late, when they either have half the relevant seeds (early) or less secrets (late).

[Doc Roc]

Re: Arcane Scholar

That is actually intentional, and needs to be mentioned, highlighted, and explained somewhere. It's part of some stupid mathematical wiggling I had to do to get Sorcerer to work.

Re: Thrash

That's an important thing to have, in my mind, actually. Thrash is hard to set up early, but offers you a means of scaling your utility and increasing your variety later in life. It's too important to kill, though I might consider reducing the size of its template.

Re: Showboat.

Oops.
Got nothing else to say there. Any thoughts on fixing it without killing it entirely? Maybe a shorter range-linked bound?


Very good from you is darn high praise. I'll take.

[Lappy9000]

I-it's psionic That really is different. Psionics are awesome, but I'm assuming they're not using Spell Weaving anymore?

I know this is all in the working stage, but I can't make heads or tails of this. I'magonna wait until things are a bit more complete to give a more advanced looking at. From what I can tell so far, giving all sorcerers automatic Dispels and Contingencies is an excellent idea, and it looks like you're doing a good job of folding multiple effects into single seeds to make things more useful (Invisibility into Force? Nice!).

I've got a good feeling about this

[Temotei]

This seems very good.

Whoa. Feel proud that you got that from Milski--especially right away.

[Doc Roc]

It's not actually psionic, it just sort of tastes that way faintly, so until I know what kind of boosts to Spell Weaver level would exist, I'm calling it ML. Basically, it was a best-existing-fit thing.

[Lappy9000]

It's not actually psionic, it just sort of tastes that way faintly, so until I know what kind of boosts to Spell Weaver level would exist, I'm calling it ML. Basically, it was a best-existing-fit thing.

Ah, fair enough. Psionics makes a great fallback

[Milskidasith]

Re: Arcane Scholar

That is actually intentional, and needs to be mentioned, highlighted, and explained somewhere. It's part of some stupid mathematical wiggling I had to do to get Sorcerer to work.

I'd still just make it double/triple rather than extra after you acquire it, so, though it gives you a massive variety dump, it still offers the flexibility of what to take early game.

Re: Thrash

That's an important thing to have, in my mind, actually. Thrash is hard to set up early, but offers you a means of scaling your utility and increasing your variety later in life. It's too important to kill, though I might consider reducing the size of its template.

I'd suggest making Thrash a low cost secret for the burst seed (it's not *that* great, it just lets you hit a wider area), BUT making the de-linking either a secret of either specific seeds (Force, for instance, could have it as its second secret) or a secret of one of the trappings. I'd say it could be something like this:

Schizo Caster

Trapping Disadvantage: Your mind is a jumbled mess, making it harder to focus on the spell. The DC of any spell affected by this trapping is decreased by 2. If this is used in the great seed, the DC of the trapping is instead decreased by 5.

Secrets:

De-Link:
Limits: Spell must have a saving through used by at least one seed.
Cost: Whatever the math says it should be, you've number crunched this, Doc.
Whenever you cast a spell affected by this secret, you may "pick and choose" saves for the seeds, although the spell is not affected in any other way. If a seed originally offered no save, the portion of the spell that seed affects (needs better wording) offers no save. Otherwise, you may combine the saves in any way you want, as long as the save is of a type used by the original spell.

EX: Bob casts Blast, a spell that uses a seed that offers a will save, no save, and a reflex save. Normally, the spell would either use a will or a reflex save. Instead, the effects of the seed using no save offer no save, and he may have the spell offer a singular will save, a singular reflex save, or a will and reflex save (it is possible you could put the will save effect on the seed originally governed by a reflex save, if you so desired.)

Split:
Limits: Must be an AoE spell
Cost: Your choice again
You create two castings of the same spell, each half the size as normal. You cannot affect a target more than once with this.
Special: If this is in the greater lock, you may instead choose any number of individual targets to be affected, provided the space they take up does not exceed the area of the original spell (I.E. if you cast a burst that affected a total of 25 squares, you could hit up to 25 medium targets within range. At -5 DC)

Irresistable:
Limits: No SoD, SoLs, or basically anything greater than "Save or take damage/suffer a minor status effect. *Maybe* allow with explosive just so people can really do the whole "blow off a cliff" thing.
Cost: Way the hell up there.
Limits: Re-iterating: NO SAVE OR DIES.
The spell automatically affects the target, without a save.

(Yes, this is broken. But as long as it only works with damage, no save damage isn't huge, and neither is no save silence, or fear effects short of terrified, or such things.)

Re: Showboat.

Oops.
Got nothing else to say there. Any thoughts on fixing it without killing it entirely? Maybe a shorter range-linked bound?

It needs a significant backlash to prevent abuse, and quite possibly needs removal. Significantly reducing the range on the spell would prevent skyscraper crawl blasting, though; if it were 10 feet +5/2 sorc levels, it would only be 70 feet at level 20, which, while significant, isn't huge... provided there aren't walls anywhere between you and your enemy. It's an awesome ability, but broken... maybe daily instead of per encounter? That would at least solve the "blast away from a safe room" problem.

[Doc Roc]

Basically, I knew that ML boosting would remain fairly limited, where CL boosting is..... of unreliable quality and quantity.


Showboat:
Daily would be okay, but I think Fax wants no daily-level stuff.
How about a hard cap of 50 feet?



re: Schizocast

I think that this actually differs from thrash enough that it might merit its inclusion regardless of the fate of Thrash.
I'm not entirely satisfied with making Thrash a secret for burst, because that makes burst extraordinarily desirable as a seed.


Split would need... a lot of rewriting.

As for Irresistable, I can lock it to affecting specific seeds, since we have that rules tech already in place. It's a solid ability, but I am a little nervous about it. I'll think on it!

[Darkkwalker]

How do the locks work??? That was really unclear.

[Milskidasith]

Showboat:
Daily would be okay, but I think Fax wants no daily-level stuff.
How about a hard cap of 50 feet?

Hard cap of 50 feet helps. No daily is really a strict limitation for that; there has to be some kind of "non daily" way to keep it from casting through walls indefinitely. Maybe "You can only recover the points expended by this spell if you have line of effect to the location you cast it on?" You can blast through walls a few times, but then you have to actually head over there to recover, although that still allows the aforementioned "slowly blow through rooms" scenario. I dunno, LoE is a really, really important thing for a reason.

re: Schizocast

I think that this actually differs from thrash enough that it might merit its inclusion regardless of the fate of Thrash.
I'm not entirely satisfied with making Thrash a secret for burst, because that makes burst extraordinarily desirable as a seed.

Burst is entirely undesirable right now unless you want save causing pushing, because thrash has all the fun of burst, except with a much greater range and the ability to hit enemies surrounding your allies without missing/hitting the allies, plus the aforementioned delinking aspect.

EDIT: Yeah, split needs to be rewritten, it wasn't very clear and it was fairly stream of conscious. Irresistable is just a fun little effect for blasters, though ignoring immunity/DR would be another way to help them out, though I think I recall Fax saying immunity would be limited in d20r.

[Doc Roc]

How do the locks work??? That was really unclear.

Trapping goes in them.
Slots associated with them can then hold mechanics.

For a more visual approach:
Trace your finger outward along the diagram, starting at the circular minor slot. If you'd need to cross an empty lock to get to a slot, then you can't use that slot until you fill the empty lock with a trapping.

Hard cap of 50 feet helps. No daily is really a strict limitation for that; there has to be some kind of "non daily" way to keep it from casting through walls indefinitely. Maybe "You can only recover the points expended by this spell if you have line of effect to the location you cast it on?" You can blast through walls a few times, but then you have to actually head over there to recover, although that still allows the aforementioned "slowly blow through rooms" scenario. I dunno, LoE is a really, really important thing for a reason.

I like this, but it needs a timer, as well. Showboat is a fascinating ability, so I'm okay with it having some bizarre restrictions. This also creates situations where you end up staring at your dead enemy to regain your mojo, which I think is completely hilarious.


I'd rather improve burst than condense thrash, I think. Talk to me about that avenue?
Thrash will also be getting no secrets.

[Milskidasith]

I like this, but it needs a timer, as well. Showboat is a fascinating ability, so I'm okay with it having some bizarre restrictions. This also creates situations where you end up staring at your dead enemy to regain your mojo, which I think is completely hilarious.

I was thinking more along the lines of "You have to see it at least once before you start to recover" rather than "You sit around for close to three minutes because you have to grab your magic back" but the hilarity factor of the first one is pretty neat.

I'd rather improve burst than condense thrash, I think. Talk to me about that avenue?

Make burst kick serious ass with synergistic secrets, ways to avoid hitting allies, etc. Without nerfing Thrash (which could happen; a smaller movement range, or a movement range dependant on ML; the radius is essentially irrelevant with 50' move), you'd have to buff up burst. Stuff like "Only hits enemies," "constantly repeats" (which I just figured you could do with trail; it's kind of hilarious to cast that on somebody with burst affecting it, because you essentially get sonic force acid clouds following somebody around throughout the round which then sit there for two more rounds), "explosive spell" (which you have), and other ways of affecting bursts/cones without affecting Thrash tornadoes, and you've got a solid seed.

[Doc Roc]

I just pushed the AoE on thrash down to 10 and 20 respectively. I think that'll help a lot. I also improved the AoE on burst.

[Milskidasith]

I just pushed the AoE on thrash down to 10 and 20 respectively. I think that'll help a lot. I also improved the AoE on burst.

It's less the AoE than the movement speed; with 50 foot movement speed, you can hit all the targets in a fairly significant area with pinpoint, ally avoiding accuracy, to the point where, for anything but large numbers of targets spread out over the area of a burst with no allies there, the 50' movement makes thrash always a better AoE.

EDIT: And I've been overlooking that Thrash doesn't get all seeds guaranteed, which has problems with reducing the damage, so it's probably good as is. Granted, getting two of three damage dealing seeds is still decent AoE blasting, but losing out on damage gives Burst the edge it needs.

[Doc Roc]

Gave Oddly Selective to burst, which should also help. Couldn't figure out a good cost for it, so we're punting at 16 currently. I'll flag that as a unprovable cost.

Man, there are a lot of things here with no meat on their bones. God in heaven, this is a big project. I remember why I got overwhelmed.

[Milskidasith]

Gave Oddly Selective to burst, which should also help. Couldn't figure out a good cost for it, so we're punting at 16 currently. I'll flag that as a unprovable cost.

Seems a reasonable cost, especially if you're doing things such as AoE buffing which provide huge swings in power.

I'm just now realizing you can do AoE buffs and possibly even immediate action AoE wings of cover (if that is added in), which is... intense. Completely ignoring AoE spells (with your own AoE spell immediate action) is pretty nutty, and I take back all the criticism I had for burst.

I need to think more before reviewing sometimes; I totally overlooked the buffs because they were entirely unfinished.

EDIT: Also, more skill points. 4+int mod. Just because skills are always useful, an it's going to be maxing psicraft (weavecraft?) and concentration anyway.

EDIT X2: I just realized I apologized about misreviewing features of the class that interact with currently unfinished features. It's perfectly reasonable for me, but out of context, it sounds quite insane. Then again, I probably am crazy.

[Doc Roc]

It's hard to pay a ton of attention to unallocated phase space. Ideas there are just as slippery as sand.

Oh, and Mik, you should take a look at the new Challenges section in the ToS.

Related note:
Trailing + Buff = hilarious.

It is possible, though cripplingly difficult, to use thrash to affect Shield to affect other seeds and produce raw insanity. It's fine though, it needs to be that way. Because that way is fun.

[Milskidasith]

It's hard to pay a ton of attention to unallocated phase space. Ideas there are just as slippery as sand.

Oh, and Mik, you should take a look at the new Challenges section in the ToS.

Related note:
Trailing + Buff = hilarious.

It is possible, though cripplingly difficult, to use thrash to affect Shield to affect other seeds and produce raw insanity. It's fine though, it needs to be that way. Because that way is fun.

A tornado of buffs that cast offensive spells in retaliation?

I don't even know how to judge that. If you pressed me, I'd probably say it's about 79. On what scale, I don't know.

[Doc Roc]

I was listening to something appropriate while we discussed this. Cause there's something in the air tonight.
HAHAHAHAAHA
AHAHAHAHAHAHAH

[Milskidasith]

I was listening to something appropriate while we discussed this. Cause there's something in the air tonight. HAHAHAHAAHA
AHAHAHAHAHAHAH

On an unrelated note...

You're giving beta access to Achron away for a ToS fighter contest?

I don't know if I could even make a full fighter 20, but dammit, I want access to Achron. Time travelling RTS action, hell yeah. I actually knew about it before your reward, but I had stopped following it, assuming it would either get brought up again (as it has) or become vaporware due to funding problems.