3.5 Sorcerer Prestige Classes

[eggynack]

Sentinel of Bharrai is good, almost unbearably so.

You fool! You mustn't unleash the might of bear puns upon this thread. I couldn't bear it. There must be a claws somewhere stopping prohibiting this cruelty. I'm really grappling with the horror of it all. The effect on a thread is so often grizzly and polarizing that there's no escape.

[ericgrau]

Archmage is also good, though you get it very late in the game. You large amount of spells per day helps to fuel the High Arcana requirements, and If you choose to grab SLAs you can retrain the spell you used for another spell! for instance, take teleport as an SLA and then trade out that spell known for something else!

I prefer elements, shaping, and sometimes spell power with the right shenanigans. What I would do as a sorcerer with the SLA is to take a 3rd or 4th level spell as an SLA then immediately pick up the quicken SLA feat to get quicken as a sorcerer without losing any high level spell slots. Then you can nova for 3 rounds every fight with max level spells and quickened spells without running out. But there are other ways to get quicken too.

It's a bit dangerous and costly to obsess over the sorcerer's spells known as if they were the biggest weakness when they are the farthest thing from it. You are losing other nice options with this unhealthy obsession and by the time you get into archmage you know plenty of spells already. At level 6 a couple extra 3rd level spells known would be nice if you can get them, but as you get into higher and higher level you already have a lot of options.

[Urpriest]

I prefer elements, shaping, and sometimes spell power with the right shenanigans. What I would do as a sorcerer with the SLA is to take a 3rd or 4th level spell as an SLA then immediately pick up the quicken SLA feat to get quicken as a sorcerer without losing any high level spell slots. But there are other ways to get quicken.

Come to think of it, are there in Core? Thinking from a Core perspective (yes, not what this thread is dealing with here), this actually seems like the only way for a Sorceror to get Quicken.

[ericgrau]

Correct. Quicken SLA is quite amazing in core. And ya, I didn't want to tangent too much in a general thread. Core or not, quicken SLA is also nice for others who can't get quicken spell for some reason, like those who have SLAs but not true casting.

[gorfnab]

Ruathar (RotW) - easy to get into, advances spellcasting, gives lots of skill points to use for qualifying for other prestige classes

[Zweisteine]

Sand Shaper has the glorious class feature of learning as many bonus spells as a twentieth-level sorcerer gets without any bonus spells known. Yes, that many. 43 bonus spells. And some of them are at lower levels than normal (bear's endurance, bull's strength, and cat's grace as level 1 spells).
It also has free resurrection as a capstone.

Also, if you are planning on playing a sorcerer, you should try to convince your DM to add this houserule (I, starting now, call it the "odd sorcerer variant"): Sorcerers learn and cast spells as if they were one level higher. This means a third-level sorcerer, for example, gets second-level spells, just like a third-level wizard. This allows the sorcerers to keep up, and to lose more casting levels, which is especially important to a class with as few spells known as a sorcerer. (I call it "odd sorcerers" because they get spell levels on odd levels, of course. )

EDIT:

Ruathar (RotW) - easy to get into, advances spellcasting, gives lots of skill points to use for qualifying for other prestige classes

This might not be so easy to get into. It effectively (not by RAW, but by flavor, and by some DMs' ruling) requires an invitation, and some DMs might not let your elven party-fellow invite you.

[Amphetryon]

EDIT:

This might not be so easy to get into. It effectively (not by RAW, but by flavor, and by some DMs' ruling) requires an invitation, and some DMs might not let your elven party-fellow invite you.

The issue here is that 'by some DMs' ruling' is an unknown and unknowable limiter on every. single. aspect. of the game, so concerns about what random DM Zeta-Bop might or might not allow are not especially helpful. If building for a specific DM's campaign, of course, knowing what that particular DM rules in these cases is vital.

[Lokd0wn]

Anyhoo... got 4 good 4th level abjurations above before all this, out of 2 needed. So there ya go, initiate of the sevenfold vale. To explain greater resistance, it's only a +3 but it's 24 hours. Save the party thousands of gp on improved survivability. Any wall at level 4 is amazing, and wall of good is perhaps better than wall of ice or illusory wall. And mass energy resistance is what it says on the tin.

A level 4 Abjuration I'm quite keen on is Nezram's Emerald Energy Shield from LEoF. It's got some crap about sonic resistance and bonuses to saves vs sonic but the important thing is the blanket immunity to mind-affecting spells and effects. It is only 1-min/level but it's quite nice a stop gap for Mind Blank.

[Zweisteine]

The issue here is that 'by some DMs' ruling' is an unknown and unknowable limiter on every. single. aspect. of the game, so concerns about what random DM Zeta-Bop might or might not allow are not especially helpful. If building for a specific DM's campaign, of course, knowing what that particular DM rules in these cases is vital.

This is true, but the Ruathar is something of a special case. It is the "elf-friend" class, and so requires elves to be your friends (well, not quite, but that's the basic gist). I'd guess it's far more likely that DMs will require you to actually meet the somewhat-flavor-based-prerequisite of "you must have performed a great service to an elf community, such as participating in the defeat of a monster of at least CR 10, recovering a valuable elven magic item, or risking death in order to save an elf's life."

[BowStreetRunner]

I actually did a piece on some of the sorcerer's options a while back that you can check out here. As you can see, there are quite a few options depending on what you are looking for.

[Mizr]

Dip a few levels into Elemental Savant, and go into Frostmage as well. Metamagic spellshaper, and you've got a mean cold mage.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Add in another vote for Sandshaper or Mage of the Arcane Order. Or both, if you can fit them in somehow.

[HighWater]

(MotAO)
It's helpful but remember, you need to jury-rig your way in with Arcane Preparation. You also get less use out of the spellpool than a wizard would - you can only pay your magedebt with prepared spells, meaning you can only pay it with the spell you have prepared in your AP, rather than with a combination of lower spells as a wizard might choose to do.

You don't have to pay the pool back immediately though. You get 1 day respite per level you have in MotAO, which may lead to you paying off the spellpool debt with prepared spells during downtime, that's pretty awesome. As long as your respite still holds, you can keep using the Pool every day (racking up a debt if you must) without paying back. Not paying back in time only means you can't use it 'til you do pay back (just don't let it take longer than a year)...
Although sorcerers have trouble with sacrificing "today's spells", MotAO-sorcerers have two advantages over wizards:

- Wizards need to explicitly leave spellslots -open- in order to be able to cast from the spellpool. They generally only leave a few slots open (for the 15-minute preparation trick), so combining that with Spellpool access is the source of some decision-stress (am I going to leave -two- slots open for every spell-level, or just chance it). A sorcerer can decide to prepare some spells if that fits his strategic scheme, but he will pretty much always have open spellslots as long as he can still cast spells of the needed level. That's nice.

- Both wizards and sorcerers pay double for spells cast from the pool (once with the open spellslot of appropriate level, which gets "cast", and once with one or more prepared spells to pay the spellpool debt). Sorcerers tend to have more spellslots to play with, so that's a bonus.

Summary for sorcerers: Be an irresponsible debter! Cast now, worry about paying back later! (Just prepare spells on the day you expect you can spare them, then use them to repay at the end of that day, you can afford to burn some spellslots for extra versatility in moments of need.) MotAO is absolute sorcerer gold, too bad it's got a pretty nasty feat tax (cooperative spell is quite useless, blowing a feat on Arcane Preparation is just painful, maybe try to convince your DM you don't need thatone ;) ) You get a refund on those feats though: it gives you 2 MM feats during progression, so it's still definitely a net win over Sorc20.

[Dr. Azkur]

Sorcerer is the best way into Anima Mage.
Lose 1 Caster Level and spend a feat but get like ten thousand goodies in return. Including the amazing ability to persist any spell from 0 to 9.

[zingbobco000]

It seems as if this thread is back up, sooooooo...

I give my vote to incantrix which like anima mage allows you to persist any spell. The requirements are also quite easy and you gain some other nifty goodies like the ability to do apply metamagic to wands etc...

I also give a vote to Ultimate Magus because if you use loredrake, GDRoP, and the increase in casting thanks to the dragonspawn template, you get a finishing casting of: SOR 18 (level 9 spells) / WIZ 13 (level 7 spells) now here's the interesting thing. Take spellhoarding and you get 31 having a nice caster level of 31 at level 20 is good some spells. I like the non-spellhoarding route though.