Wizards vs Sorcerer

[nyjastul69]

Originally Posted by Crake

One thing that I haven't noticed mentioned: Sorcerers (and other spontaneous casters *and* all divine casters) can only renew their spells once ever 24 hours, a wizard simply needs 8 hours of quiet (easy with a ropetrick) and another 15-60 minutes of preparation time meaning that they actually get twice their spells per day, almost 3 times.

Edit: Nvm, re-reading the sorc passage, it seems they can do this as well.
Edit2: Nope I was right the first time, FAQ says wizards can, sorcs/bards cant.

How are wizards able to prepare spells more than once per day?

Originally posted by the SRD:

Like other spellcasters, a wizard can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. Her base daily spell allotment is given on Table: The Wizard. In addition, she receives bonus spells per day if she has a high Intelligence score.

[Flickerdart]

Originally Posted by Otodetu

There is more work involved in playing a wizard, and anyone that have actually played a wizard can tell you that it not always plays out as you intend it too.

Based on this it is okay if a wizard is somewhat "better" than a sorcerer.

I like how you assume I've never played a wizard.

[toapat]

well i certainly opened a can of wyrms with that barefix.

the point wasnt to fix anything, just to quick hammer out a set of changes to buff the sorc without bringing them to wizard levels, and to nerf the Wizard who really is too powerful anyway

[nyjastul69]

Originally Posted by toapat

I think a nail most people dont know about is the one that happened in the 3-3.5 conversion: Wizards in 3rd had to bar schools, and the specialization benefits simply werent there.

[nitpick] Specialist Wizards in 3.0 had to bar schools. There were benefits for specilization. A Wizard in 3.0 that wasn't a specialist had no banned schools. The change in 3.0 to 3.5 with banned schools is that 3.5 allows banning of any 2 schools you choose. 3.0 specialist wizards banned schools were mostly determined by the school of specialization. This is how specialization worked in 3.0

Originally posted by the 3.0 SRD:
The eight schools of arcane magic are Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, and Transmutation. Spells that do not fall into any of these schools are called universal spells.
Abjuration: To become an abjurer, a wizard must select a prohibited school or schools from the following choices: (1) either Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, or Transmutation; or (2) both Divination and Necromancy.
Conjuration: To become a conjurer, a wizard must select a prohibited school or schools from one of the following choices: (1) Evocation; (2) any two of the following three schools: Abjuration, Enchantment, and Illusion; (3) Transmutation, or (4) any three schools.
Divination: To become a diviner, a wizard must select any other single school as a prohibited school.
Enchantment: To become an enchanter, a wizard must select a prohibited school or schools from the following choices: (1) either Abjuration, Conjuration, Evocation, Illusion, or Transmutation; or (2) both Divination and Necromancy.
Evocation: To become an evoker, a wizard must select a prohibited school or schools from one of the following choices: (1) Conjuration; (2) any two of the following three schools: Abjuration, Enchantment, and Illusion; (3) Transmutation; or (4) any three schools.
Illusion: To become an illusionist, a wizard must select a prohibited school or schools from the following choices: (1) either Abjuration, Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation, or Transmutation; or (2) both Divination and Necromancy.
Necromancy: To become a necromancer, a wizard must select any other single school as a prohibited school.
Transmutation: To become a transmuter, a wizard must select a prohibited school or schools from one of the following choices: (1) Conjuration; (2) Evocation; (2) any two of the following three schools: Abjuration, Enchantment, and Illusion; or (4) any three schools.
Universal: Not a school, but a category for spells all wizards can learn. A wizard cannot select universal as a specialty school or as a school to which she does not have access.

[/nitpick]

[toapat]

Originally Posted by nyjastul69

[nitpick] Specialist Wizards in 3.0 had to bar schools. There were benefits for specilization. A Wizard in 3.0 that wasn't a specialist had no banned schools. The change in 3.0 to 3.5 with banned schools is that 3.5 allows banning of any 2 schools you choose. 3.0 specialist wizards banned schools were mostly determined by the school of specialization. This is how specialization worked in 3.0

then it changed even before the transition. at the very beginning all wizards had to bar a school.

[danzibr]

Originally Posted by toapat

well i certainly opened a can of wyrms

lol, this is actually quite funny in a D&D forum.

[dextercorvia]

Originally Posted by toapat

then it changed even before the transition. at the very beginning all wizards had to bar a school.

Nope. 3e specializations was an extension of 2e, which was similar, but the schools were picked for you. That in turn grew out of the illusionist class from AD&D. I may be fuzzy on the details, but there was always a generalist option.

[toapat]

Originally Posted by danzibr

lol, this is actually quite funny in a D&D forum.

to quick direct you, its originally from this topic

[Augmental]

So 3.0 Conjurors could just give up Evocation, and nothing else?

[toapat]

Originally Posted by Augmental

So 3.0 Conjurors could just give up Evocation, and nothing else?

no, in the original printings, you had to bar a school. you could bar more, but there were no benefits to doing so

[Coidzor]

Originally Posted by toapat

no, in the original printings, you had to bar a school. you could bar more, but there were no benefits to doing so

That sounds like a yes, actually.

[toapat]

Originally Posted by Coidzor

That sounds like a yes, actually.

they are missing the point, specialization had no benefits, you simply barred schools.

[nyjastul69]

Originally Posted by toapat

no, in the original printings, you had to bar a school. you could bar more, but there were no benefits to doing so

This is incorrect.

Originally posted from the 3.0 SRD:School Specialization
A school is one of eight groupings of spells, each defined by a common theme, such as illusion or necromancy. A wizard may specialize in one school of magic.
Specialization allows a wizard to cast extra spells from the chosen school, but the wizard then never learns to cast spells from one or more other schools. Spells of the school or schools that the specialist gives up are not available to her, and she can't even cast such spells from scrolls or wands.
The wizard must choose whether to specialize and how at 1st level. She may not change her specialization later.
The specialist can prepare one additional spell (of the school selected as a specialty) per spell level each day.
The specialist gains a +2 bonus to Spellcraft checks to learn the spells of her chosen school.

If you require further clarification you find the 3rd edition SRD here. My copy of the 3rd ed. PH doesn't contradict this in any way. To what version of the 3.0 rule are you refering? I can't find a version of the SRD or a 3.0 rule book that supports your claim.

@ Augmental: That's correct, conjurors could ban only evocation. The 'broken' bits of conjuration had not been introduced to the game at this time, at least not mostly...

[toapat]

Originally Posted by nyjastul69

*punch*

IN THE ORIGINAL printings.

[dextercorvia]

Originally Posted by toapat

IN THE ORIGINAL printings.

Scan or it didn't happen. Wizards were never required to give up a school for no benefit.

[Agincourt]

Originally Posted by toapat

IN THE ORIGINAL printings.

I think you're misremembering. We played non-specialist wizards in 3.0 and there was no requirement to ban a school. We bought our books right after they were issued.

[Ifni]

Just a note that frequently gets overlooked in these discussions: spontaneous casters get more mileage out of metamagic than prep-casters do (I'm not saying "wizards" and "sorcerers" because there are feats that give wizards effective spontaneous casting). Yes, you have to spend a full-round action, but being able to apply metamagic as you choose on the fly is pretty useful.

For example, some years back - the PHB and Complete Arcane were out, but not much in the way of other books - my sorcerer at L10 had Teleport as her only L5 spell. But her effective L5 spell list looked like:

-Teleport
-Sculpted Evard's Black Tentacles
-Split Ray Empowered Ray of Enfeeblement
-Empowered Fireball
(+ maybe some others I'm forgetting)

So: mobility, battlefield control, debuff, mook-clearing. And she could mix and match these as she pleased. Multiple encounters with humanoids? Sculpted EBT all the way. Need to transport the entire party across the world to answer an urgent call for help? Teleport over with the first group (cap on targets means you can't get everyone), teleport back, pick up the others, teleport again. Doesn't matter if you mess up the teleportation targeting roll, just try again. Lots of mooks attacking and EBT is going to get in the way? Empowered Fireball. Couple of big bruisers? Split Empowered Ray of Enfeeblement and see how they like having no strength. (I would probably never prep Split Empowered RoE as a wizard, because there are too many days where it'll never come up and L5 slots are too precious. But for a sorcerer, there's zero opportunity cost, so when you want it you just cast it.)

And that's just the top-tier slots. Sculpted Glitterdust, Empowered Ray of Enfeeblement - and there's no prior commitment of resources (well, beyond taking Glitterdust and Ray of Enfeeblement as known spells, but they are wonderful spells), you're not depriving yourself of any options by having to prepare these things, if you want them then you have them to hand.

To put it another way - a wizard who's cast all but one of their spells at a given level (because of encounters, or long-term party buffing) has exactly one option left at that level. A sorcerer has as many options as they started out with, and with metamagic, that can be >> than the actual number of spells they know at that level. This makes it much more feasible to do things like spend all but 1-2 of your (max level-2) slots on party buffing, because you can use the remaining slots to cast anything you normally could - it's only reducing your durability, not your menu of options. Higher-level sorcerers are going to want to use those low-level slots for something, so low-level spells known tend to be a mix of metamagic-fuel and buffs/utility that become more awesome when the whole party has them / you can recast them whenever you want.

For example; the aforementioned L10 sorcerer kept See Invisibility up all day ("cast it when you need it" is for wizards, and half the time you don't know when you need it, if invisible people are watching), and usually gave the entire party Phantom Steeds. Combat was done mostly off L4 and L5 slots, with a few L2 and L3 slots reserved for glitterdust/haste/fly/empowered-ray-of-enfeeblement etc. Everyone in the group having an all-day ridiculously-fast airwalk/fly speed at the higher levels is amazing; you can outfly dragons. Even at lower levels, the mounted combat rules heavily encourage magical sniping if you're in open terrain. You're doing full-round-action spells? No problem, just have your steed move in while you cast, fire the spell, have the steed complete its move (probably out of the range of most counterattacks). The concentration check is trivial. The biggest issues with full-round metamagic, in my experience, were (1) can't fire metamagicked spells in surprise rounds, (2) can't ready metamagicked spells, and (3) NO QUICKEN (these are in ascending order of annoyingness). Those disadvantages are bad enough that once Rapid Metamagic became available I grabbed it in a heartbeat, but they're really not deal-breakers (and as others have said, if Arcane Spellsurge is available then it makes the disadvantage into an advantage).

Now, feats that give wizards spontaneous casting will absolutely break this tradeoff, and then the balance shifts. Sorcerers got some goodies in later books to make up for it (mostly in sorc-only spells), but I can imagine it significantly changing the comparison. This is mostly a comment on games that don't include Uncanny Forethought (and to a lesser extent Spontaneous Divination), as that's the environment I'm most familiar with.

I do agree that wizards have a definite edge in games where you get to do things other than adventuring. Most of my experience was in the Living Greyhawk campaign, and in that environment (so basically all adventuring all the time, no periods of extended downtime where the group worked together, although there were allowances for crafting etc, and "adventuring" could include things like fortifying a city against attack), sorcerers and wizards were pretty balanced.

Int is a better stat than Cha, due mostly to its effect on skills. However, with a little spell support sorcerers can get very high checks in Cha-based skills, and Diplomacy/Gather Information/Bluff have some significant advantages over Charm Person etc (to whit: they don't have a set duration that wears off, they're not stopped by Prot Evil, they don't allow Will saves, and people don't get angry with you for using them). This doesn't compensate for the wizard Int advantage (Knowledge skills are also awesome) but is worth noting.

[Sith_Happens]

Originally Posted by Wonton

THANK YOU. I see the idea of the Batman wizard all the time, and maybe it's just the campaigns I play in, but the DM usually either doesn't know what's coming up, or isn't willing to reveal it. I can think of only a handful of times when my Wizard actually had the opportunity to actually be forewarned of something and prepare a specific spell. And yes, I tried leaving slots open too, but usually when something comes up you need a specific spell NOW, not "oh give me 30 minutes to prepare these spells".

Luckily, the Uncanny Forethought feat from Exemplars of Evil is specifically meant as a way of getting around this. At the cost of increasing the casting time, it lets you use an empty slot to say "Why yes, of course I prepared [spell X] today. You think I didn't anticipate this exact situation?"

[eggs]

Divinations have taken a bashing in this thread, so I'd like to point out that even though spells that ask the DM to reveal plans for a week of gametime in advance usually flop due to logistic problems, divinations with a more "scouting" mindset tend to work very well.

Things like Body Outside Body, Prying Eyes or Arcane Eye and Summoned/Planar Bound scouts (especially ones that can travel and spy from within dungeon walls and ceilings) can usually give a pretty good rundown on what the caster's going to face in a dungeon, which in turn gives the 15 minute spellslot refill tactic a lot more viability. If the party has a halfway decent scout, that can work too.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Originally Posted by eggs

Divinations have taken a bashing in this thread, so I'd like to point out that even though spells that ask the DM to reveal plans for a week of gametime in advance usually flop due to logistic problems, divinations with a more "scouting" mindset tend to work very well.

Things like Body Outside Body, Prying Eyes or Arcane Eye and Summoned/Planar Bound scouts (especially ones that can travel and spy from within dungeon walls and ceilings) can usually give a pretty good rundown on what the caster's going to face in a dungeon, which in turn gives the 15 minute spellslot refill tactic a lot more viability. If the party has a halfway decent scout, that can work too.

Indeed, the ability to read the present in distant locations is one of those powerful things divination definitely can do, no question. I was only contending that reading the future, rather than reading the present to try to predict the future, was some where between ridiculously unreliable and impossible.

Unfortunately, that 15 minutes is 15 minutes per spell or 1 hour, whichever is less, IIRC.

[olentu]

Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera

Indeed, the ability to read the present in distant locations is one of those powerful things divination definitely can do, no question. I was only contending that reading the future, rather than reading the present to try to predict the future, was some where between ridiculously unreliable and impossible.

Unfortunately, that 15 minutes is 15 minutes per spell or 1 hour, whichever is less, IIRC.

No, not really. It's 15 minutes for up to a quarter of capacity and then proportionally longer if more than that, as I recall.

[Augmental]

Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera

Indeed, the ability to read the present in distant locations is one of those powerful things divination definitely can do, no question. I was only contending that reading the future, rather than reading the present to try to predict the future, was some where between ridiculously unreliable and impossible.

And reading the present is often all you need to know what to prepare.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Originally Posted by Augmental

And reading the present is often all you need to know what to prepare.

That's entirely dependent on the situation and, worse, contingent upon what knowledge you already have. It may be all that's needed more often than not, but only by the barest of margins, especially given that divinations targeting the present have both direct and indirect counters.

It's still essentially a craps shoot.

[danzibr]

Originally Posted by toapat

to quick direct you, its originally from this topic

I was indeed curious. Very nice.

[LordBlades]

Without trying to restart the divination debates (which have been done to death, especially can/can't take 10 on int checks for CoP), I've got to say it's best to consult with your DM before starting to frequently use divinations. Not everyone is comfortable with players carefully deconstructing their plot, monsters and encounters, and this can lead ether to knee jerk reactions (I've seen DMs ban stuff like Clairvoyant Sense because 'OHNOES my <insert obvious hiding place> ambushes') or burnout (having to come up with a dozen cryptic clues for Divination per session is a bit tiring if you aren't cut out for it).

Regarding wizard vs. sorcerer, from my experience their relative usefulness is mainly related to two things: the campaign having a 'theme' and the presence/absence of downtime.

Theme: if your campaign has a general theme, like 'fighting dragons' or 'political intrigue' and most encounters deal with it, it's not very hard for a sorcerer to pick good spells and stay relevant. If your campaign is all over the place on the other hand, like one session you're in a big city uncovering an elaborate political plot, next session you get to fight the dragon that was behind the plot all along, then you need to traverse a large distance unseen through underground tunnels, then you need to help a fortress prepare their defenses, and finally you need to repel a demon horde assaulting said fortress (this was actually a story arc in one of my group campaigns) then it's much easier for a sorcerer to find himself in situations he simply can't bring much to the table.

Downtime: if your campaign lacks downtime for the wizard to acquire and scribe scrolls in spellbook, and he's stuck with the 2 spells/level he gains automatically, then he doesn't get that far ahead the sorcerer (since he would most likely have trouble acquiring the ton of situational spells that make wizard so versatile).

[Ubercaledor]

why is it that when people say X class vs Y class, the first thing people do is say:

"At level 20, this class is better, thus it is better."

Last time I checked, people USUALLY start adventures before level 20. Personally, I care more about how I get to level 20 than what I do when I get there. Usually that's "game over" territory, unless we're going into epic stuff, which I usually don't have the patience for. (It's like god-mode in more ways than one).

While yes, optimization dictates "x", this doesn't matter so much at level 5, say, where it may be much harder to acquire spells as a wizard.

[blazinghand]

Originally Posted by Ubercaledor

why is it that when people say X class vs Y class, the first thing people do is say:

"At level 20, this class is better, thus it is better."

Last time I checked, people USUALLY start adventures before level 20. Personally, I care more about how I get to level 20 than what I do when I get there. Usually that's "game over" territory, unless we're going into epic stuff, which I usually don't have the patience for. (It's like god-mode in more ways than one).

While yes, optimization dictates "x", this doesn't matter so much at level 5, say, where it may be much harder to acquire spells as a wizard.

Level 5 might not be the best example to use, since Sorcerers are still stuck on 2nd-level spells while Wizards have a minimum of 2 3rd-level spells to play with at that moment.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Originally Posted by Ubercaledor

why is it that when people say X class vs Y class, the first thing people do is say:

"At level 20, this class is better, thus it is better."

Last time I checked, people USUALLY start adventures before level 20. Personally, I care more about how I get to level 20 than what I do when I get there. Usually that's "game over" territory, unless we're going into epic stuff, which I usually don't have the patience for. (It's like god-mode in more ways than one).

While yes, optimization dictates "x", this doesn't matter so much at level 5, say, where it may be much harder to acquire spells as a wizard.

While I have seen that argument elsewhere, it doesn't really apply to sorc V wiz. The differences between the two really don't change much over the course of a career, except that while the wizard starts only a little ahead, by 20 he's leagues ahead in the objective sense.

It's a much closer match in a core only game (I've already argued this to death, just google my username and sorc V wiz), but even then the difference, no matter how small, is there.

Though ultimately playstyle is far more important than which is objectively "better."

[nyjastul69]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is that a wizard built after 1st level uses his WBL to put spells into his spell book (outside of the 2/lvl), sorcerers don't need to. It's a small advantage for the sorcerer in that regard. This carries over to material components/foci as well. The more spells you can potentially cast means the potential for more costly components/foci, which are also a small drag on WBL.

[Ubercaledor]

Originally Posted by blazinghand

Level 5 might not be the best example to use, since Sorcerers are still stuck on 2nd-level spells while Wizards have a minimum of 2 3rd-level spells to play with at that moment.

Well yes, but "has access to" and "is able to cast" are two different things. With particular DMing, the range of level 3 spells I may be able to reasonably acquire as a wizard may be much more restricted than as a sorcerer. And OK, let's call it level 6 instead.

In particular, if you were playing under the suggested guidelines of CL per population, in a small-town environment, the wizard may rapidly run out of higher CL spell sources, causing even more drag on wealth and time than if you just effectively take 10 on the whole process.