Talk:Thoughts on Sorcery (3.5e Other)

Alignment Requirements

Having alignment requirements for the Celestial Blooded, Fiendish Blooded and Draconic Blooded struck me as odd at first reading... and I've had a tough time figuring out why. With alignment restrictions, it seems almost mean to limit a character with such flavoring. I mean, aasimars are only listed as "usually good" and tieflings as "usually evil", so why would something with less potent plane-touched blood have a greater restriction? Perhaps if they only gained a caster level bonus if they had such an alignment (which would still allow for regular sorcerer abilities, just not fancy alignment bonuses to alignment-based descriptor spells). Draconic Blooded alignment restriction just bugs me period... not sure what else to say about that (since none of the granted powers are alignment based). --Ganteka 13:32, 26 December 2008 (MST)

thats because celestial/fiendish blooded are about igniting your celestial/fiendish blood. and that doesn't make sense to me if you aren't of that alignment (maybe if your neutral. heck, that would be cool, demon-blooded demon hunter). still, what do you mean by saying that they shouldn't have caster level bonus if they didn't have that alignment? these are not special extras, theyre feats. and the only benefit from the feat are the caster level increase.

however, the restrictions on draconic blood, i can see, was stupid. ive removed them. -Hijax 08:34, 3 January 2009 (MST)

Alright, a revision to my previous statement. Alignment isn't static, characters do experience changes in alignment from time to time. If a neutral evil sorcerer takes the Fiendish Blood feat early on in his career, but then later has a change of heart and becomes neutral, under standard rules, he would lose all benefits of the feat. However, all I'm really saying here is, that instead of evil being the requirement for Fiendish Blood, to have it be "any non-good", so a neutral character could additionally take advantage of the feat, though still, he would lose the powers granted by it if he became good aligned until a time that he either returned to neutrality or evil. My basis for this I suppose stems from neutral clerics getting to choose to channel positive or negative energy (while this is different in a great many aspects, the basic idea of neutrality choosing is the same). Additionally, this opens the way for fun (albeit poorly optimized) character concept with a character that could have both Fiendish and Celestial Blood. Just a thought. --Ganteka 12:15, 3 January 2009 (MST)

Inborn magic

Your argument against sorcerors being able to choose their spells is flawed.

Firstly, any aspect of a character is chosen. A person can't decide to have a high Charisma or be Lawful Stupid; this is just an arbitrary decision made by the player creating the character because that's what he wants to play. If I (in a game using your rules) decided I wanted to play a sorceror, and I rolled crappy random spells, I would simply not play that character, same way I wouldn't play if I had to randomly roll alignment and got something I didn't feel like.

Secondly, I don't believe that spells are all there is to magic. This would be really weird! I mean, what are the chances that two (or three, or twenty, or a thousand) different sorcerors who have never met each other would all have a fire spell with exactly the same potency, range, duration, casting time...? I would argue that spells are more like the culmination of the mage's experimentation/research into a single, optimal format. What keeps a sorceror from discovering his power as a teenager, then poking around at these strange powers he seems to have (the tiny sparks leaping from his fingers now and then; the little jolt people get if they touch him when he's agitated; his strange desire to mount the nearest hill when there's a thunderstorm) until he figures out a way to really consistently project a bolt of electricity?

That brings me to my last point: the "first level or bust" part. What keeps a person with the inborn power from not developing it and instead focusing their attention on swordplay, or music, or worship? What keeps this same person, five levels later, from finally giving in to curiosity and starting to really dig into their arcane aptitude? I don't see why a feat is necessary to allow this. Someone who's always known they've had a talent for singing doesn't need to take a feat to be able to multiclass into bard at level 12 (and believe you me, a good singing voice can't be taught).

I applaud and commend your efforts on sorting out what you perceive to be really stupid features of D&D magic (because Mystra knows there's a lot of them); I just disagree on the particulars. --Henrebotha 19:57, 29 July 2009 (MDT)

(Cringe) I have rolled poorly. I start the game with Detect Poison, Touch of Fatigue, Mending, Open/Close, Hold Portal, and Detect Secret Doors. I immediately die as the universe mercy-kills me out of existence.

But yes, the random is... terrible. Sorcerers are already weaker than wizards, and MUST choose good spells to their goal in life in order to succeed. A blaster sorcerer who's ultimate spell is "Knock" is no more useful than someone who is playing a cleric with Wisdom 6. If your goal was to prevent "why is all magic the same", well you have above, and you also have the fact that flavor is mutable. What is Magic Missile to me is Swarm of Stars to you. What appears as glowing balls of ki appears as flaming birds with 3 heads for you. In the end, 1d4+1 damage is still the name of the game, and that need not change.

I'll belay commenting on the rest, but the random thing makes my hair stand on end. A wizard can afford to pick a few bad spells. Spells grow on trees for him. If a sorcerer gets shafted, well he's done for. -- Eiji 21:18, 29 July 2009 (MDT)