Clovenhoof
Mongoose
Since sorcerous Scholars are probably the single most difficult class to manage, plan and maintain, I thought we should maybe exchange notes.
What makes building a Sorcerer so difficult is the prerequisites for the individual spells and the GM fiat involved in choosing them. If you just start levelling without a prior plan, you are more than likely to get stuck pretty soon, and not be able to learny any spell for one or more levels.
On the other hand, even the most carefully laid out plan can go astray depending on your background:
- if you are an Acolyte or a Lay Priest, your peers (i.e. the GM) have the final say what you learn and what not. Besides, I consider these backgrounds as hardly suitable for a world-travelling adventurer.
- if you have a Demonic Pact, you may be able to learn everything you want (or not), but you will have to make quite a lot of Corruption and Insanity saves, and chances are you will succumb to either in the mid levels.
- Independent is IMHO the way to go - but you'll have to roll for every style and spell you want to learn, and especially the Advanced Spell DC is not easy to meet in low levels. The Style DC is easier to meet, but here a botched roll (and thus a random assignment) can thwart your carefully written character build.
So here are my suggestions (made to my best knowledge) How To Build A Sorcerer (with Core book only, no SoS)
1. Race:
I strongly(!) suggest Hyborian, because this is the only race that grants you Favoured Class bonus feats AND allows you to boost your Knowledge:Arcana skill AND does not carry any Saving Throw penalties.
2. Class:
this is pretty much a no-brainer, Scholar all the way -- unless you want to go more into the Martial Disciple direction, in which case some minor multiclassing may be viable, for Soldier bonus feats or other class features you'd like to have.
3. Abilities:
Your main attributes should be Wisdom, Charisma, and not quite as important, Intelligence. You need Int only for Knowledge:Arcana and to get bonus spells. You can get all the bonus spells if you start out at Int 14 and then boost the ability at the right levels.
4. Skills:
Getting your Knowledge:Arcana skill as high as possible very early on is vital for an Independent scholar, so pick this as preferred skill, and boost it with a feat, i.e. Knowledgeable and/or Skill Focus.
Other skills you may need for certain spells are Knowledge(nature, religion), Perform(various), Sleight of Hand, Craft(Herbalism).
Actually you need four different Perform skills to make full use of the Summon Elemental spell.
5. Feats:
as stated above, take at least one feat that boosts your Arcane Knowledge skill. Another feat I love to take at 1st level is Eyes of the Cat, that's a good choice for _any_ character (except Thief who gets it free).
Ponder how you are going to get by the PP you need in the long run. Like it or not, the best way to always have a good supply of PP is with the Ritual and Opportunistic sacrifice feats. So those would be good choices for levels 5 and 6 or 9 and 10, your choice.
6. Sorcery Styles:
make a list of the styles you want to learn and which you can do without. Over 20 levels, you can learn seven styles, so you'll definitely have to scratch three.
Make careful planning when you try to get which style. Also better expect that about one of your three lowlevel styles may be one you did not want.
Pay attention to the spell prerequisites. You can also make the prereqs work for you in low levels, if you select your styles so that even a botched Spell Choice roll won't do harm -- you'll still get a random spell that you meet the prereqs for, so you just have to pick the styles so that you only qualify for spells you also want to have.
As soon as your Knowl.(Arc.) hits 19, you cannot botch the roll anymore and can always select any spell you qualify for. That should be the case from around level 7 on if you have the two skillboosting feats.
Counterspells: not bad to have, but not necessarily as first style. The important Greater Warding becomes available only at level 7.
Curses: there's a lot of them, and spread quite evently over the levels. The effective level requirements are 3,4,6,8,8,12,14 so if you are into curses, it should be good to take at level 4.
Divination: this is also good over a range of levels, the e.l.r. being 3,5,5,7,9,10,13.
"Visions of Torment and Enlightenment" is actually a spell you may want to get cast on yourself later on, it's a bit of a gamble but if you're good, you can boost your Wisdom with this, and thus your BPP.
Hypnotism: a lot of good spells, including Dread Serpent which is maybe the deadliest spell in the game. This has a level req. of 8 so this may be a perfect style choice for your level 8 pick.
Nature Magic: you have to pay XP for a number of these spells, so you may want to save this for later levels, when a hundred XP more or less don't make such a difference, even though all the spells are pretty lowlevel. May also be okay to skip altogether.
Necromancy: downright stupid to take this at low levels, since all the Advanced Spells have level requirements of 10 and up. So if you're into Necromancy, maybe make this your Level 12 choice, but certainly not before level 8 at any rate.
Oriental Magic: a decent lowlevel choice, though there are only two lowlevel Advanced spells. These go down well with the Martial Disciple approach. The highlevel spells have ridiculous PP costs so you may want to skip them altogether.
Prestidigitation: very good as first choice, because you have several lowlevel spells available. You can't go wrong with either of them so even a botched roll won't spoil your advance.
Summonings: stay clear of the Demonic Pact approach - the GM won't allow it for short term campaigns, and you probably won't survive very long in high levels, since you have to make Corruption/Insanity saves every time you learn a new style or spell. Besides, a summoned Demon will turn on you as soon as he finds a loophole in your instructions.
Rather, wait till 12th or 16th level and learn Master-Words and Signs, then learn Summon Elemental. That's really all you need in this category. To repeat, you need one Perform skill (at 10 ranks) for each type of Elemental, so if you can only blow the flute, you are restricted to summoning Air Elementals, and so on.
Also, if you decide to also learn Summon Demon, the MW&S approach protects you from Corruption: you kick the Demon's ass and force it to do your bidding, so it's not peaceful contact and thus doesn't require a save. Still, the Demon will try to cross you, so caution is advised.
Also keep in mind that you will only be able to learn a single Advanced Spell of the 7th and final Sorcery Style you acquire, at level 20, if you ever get that far and keep playing after that.
So much for now. I will edit further build tips into this post as we go along, and post a sample sorcerer build in a new reply later on.
What makes building a Sorcerer so difficult is the prerequisites for the individual spells and the GM fiat involved in choosing them. If you just start levelling without a prior plan, you are more than likely to get stuck pretty soon, and not be able to learny any spell for one or more levels.
On the other hand, even the most carefully laid out plan can go astray depending on your background:
- if you are an Acolyte or a Lay Priest, your peers (i.e. the GM) have the final say what you learn and what not. Besides, I consider these backgrounds as hardly suitable for a world-travelling adventurer.
- if you have a Demonic Pact, you may be able to learn everything you want (or not), but you will have to make quite a lot of Corruption and Insanity saves, and chances are you will succumb to either in the mid levels.
- Independent is IMHO the way to go - but you'll have to roll for every style and spell you want to learn, and especially the Advanced Spell DC is not easy to meet in low levels. The Style DC is easier to meet, but here a botched roll (and thus a random assignment) can thwart your carefully written character build.
So here are my suggestions (made to my best knowledge) How To Build A Sorcerer (with Core book only, no SoS)
1. Race:
I strongly(!) suggest Hyborian, because this is the only race that grants you Favoured Class bonus feats AND allows you to boost your Knowledge:Arcana skill AND does not carry any Saving Throw penalties.
2. Class:
this is pretty much a no-brainer, Scholar all the way -- unless you want to go more into the Martial Disciple direction, in which case some minor multiclassing may be viable, for Soldier bonus feats or other class features you'd like to have.
3. Abilities:
Your main attributes should be Wisdom, Charisma, and not quite as important, Intelligence. You need Int only for Knowledge:Arcana and to get bonus spells. You can get all the bonus spells if you start out at Int 14 and then boost the ability at the right levels.
4. Skills:
Getting your Knowledge:Arcana skill as high as possible very early on is vital for an Independent scholar, so pick this as preferred skill, and boost it with a feat, i.e. Knowledgeable and/or Skill Focus.
Other skills you may need for certain spells are Knowledge(nature, religion), Perform(various), Sleight of Hand, Craft(Herbalism).
Actually you need four different Perform skills to make full use of the Summon Elemental spell.
5. Feats:
as stated above, take at least one feat that boosts your Arcane Knowledge skill. Another feat I love to take at 1st level is Eyes of the Cat, that's a good choice for _any_ character (except Thief who gets it free).
Ponder how you are going to get by the PP you need in the long run. Like it or not, the best way to always have a good supply of PP is with the Ritual and Opportunistic sacrifice feats. So those would be good choices for levels 5 and 6 or 9 and 10, your choice.
6. Sorcery Styles:
make a list of the styles you want to learn and which you can do without. Over 20 levels, you can learn seven styles, so you'll definitely have to scratch three.
Make careful planning when you try to get which style. Also better expect that about one of your three lowlevel styles may be one you did not want.
Pay attention to the spell prerequisites. You can also make the prereqs work for you in low levels, if you select your styles so that even a botched Spell Choice roll won't do harm -- you'll still get a random spell that you meet the prereqs for, so you just have to pick the styles so that you only qualify for spells you also want to have.
As soon as your Knowl.(Arc.) hits 19, you cannot botch the roll anymore and can always select any spell you qualify for. That should be the case from around level 7 on if you have the two skillboosting feats.
Counterspells: not bad to have, but not necessarily as first style. The important Greater Warding becomes available only at level 7.
Curses: there's a lot of them, and spread quite evently over the levels. The effective level requirements are 3,4,6,8,8,12,14 so if you are into curses, it should be good to take at level 4.
Divination: this is also good over a range of levels, the e.l.r. being 3,5,5,7,9,10,13.
"Visions of Torment and Enlightenment" is actually a spell you may want to get cast on yourself later on, it's a bit of a gamble but if you're good, you can boost your Wisdom with this, and thus your BPP.
Hypnotism: a lot of good spells, including Dread Serpent which is maybe the deadliest spell in the game. This has a level req. of 8 so this may be a perfect style choice for your level 8 pick.
Nature Magic: you have to pay XP for a number of these spells, so you may want to save this for later levels, when a hundred XP more or less don't make such a difference, even though all the spells are pretty lowlevel. May also be okay to skip altogether.
Necromancy: downright stupid to take this at low levels, since all the Advanced Spells have level requirements of 10 and up. So if you're into Necromancy, maybe make this your Level 12 choice, but certainly not before level 8 at any rate.
Oriental Magic: a decent lowlevel choice, though there are only two lowlevel Advanced spells. These go down well with the Martial Disciple approach. The highlevel spells have ridiculous PP costs so you may want to skip them altogether.
Prestidigitation: very good as first choice, because you have several lowlevel spells available. You can't go wrong with either of them so even a botched roll won't spoil your advance.
Summonings: stay clear of the Demonic Pact approach - the GM won't allow it for short term campaigns, and you probably won't survive very long in high levels, since you have to make Corruption/Insanity saves every time you learn a new style or spell. Besides, a summoned Demon will turn on you as soon as he finds a loophole in your instructions.
Rather, wait till 12th or 16th level and learn Master-Words and Signs, then learn Summon Elemental. That's really all you need in this category. To repeat, you need one Perform skill (at 10 ranks) for each type of Elemental, so if you can only blow the flute, you are restricted to summoning Air Elementals, and so on.
Also, if you decide to also learn Summon Demon, the MW&S approach protects you from Corruption: you kick the Demon's ass and force it to do your bidding, so it's not peaceful contact and thus doesn't require a save. Still, the Demon will try to cross you, so caution is advised.
Also keep in mind that you will only be able to learn a single Advanced Spell of the 7th and final Sorcery Style you acquire, at level 20, if you ever get that far and keep playing after that.
So much for now. I will edit further build tips into this post as we go along, and post a sample sorcerer build in a new reply later on.
