Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 112 - Class Series - Sorcerer & Wizard

Episode Date: February 13, 2022

At last we wrap up the class series with the Sorcerer and the Wizard.  We're finally talking about some of those arcane spellcasters who can wield SUPREME COSMIC POWER with a tiny amount of hit points.  How should you arrange their ability scores?  What feats should you take?  Come on in and find out.   Note:  There is an error in this episode in the Pathfinder 1e section.  Strength should be your lowest ability score.  I didn't notice the error until after the episode was published.  Sorry about that.

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. Wizards were one of the classes in the original game systems that used something called Vancean magic, where you have spell slots in your head that you fill with spells that are selected ahead of time. In the case of Wizards, these slots are filled early in the morning as you prepare spells for the day. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 112 of the Taking20 podcast. This week, concluding the class series all about the sorcerer and the wizard. This week's sponsor, Shovels. When they were invented, they really were groundbreaking.

This week, we'll be wrapping up the class series with those wacky arcane casters. Well, some of them anyway. In memory of the singer Meatloaf, two out of three ain't bad. This obviously isn't the last class that we could cover in the games. Fifth edition has the Warlock, the Artificer, the Blood Hunter that I didn't talk about, and Pathfinder 2e has the Alchemist, the Inquisitor, Swashbuckler class that I haven't even mentioned. And Pathfinder 1st Edition? God. It has, I think at my current count, 31 classes that I didn't talk about,

including unchained versions of the Barbarian, the Rogue, the Monk, and the Summoner. Not to mention classes in other gaming systems like Starfinder, Shadowrun, and various other game systems. So if you want more episodes on other types of classes, send me a message to feedback at taking20podcast.com. But enough about those other classes, let's start off today focusing on the sorcerer. So what is a sorcerer? Sorcerers carry magical ability in their body and soul. Magic for them is ancestral, and they've inherited it because of some exposure to an otherworldly force by some ancestor in the past. You can't become a sorcerer any more than you or I could become a bird by studying wings really, really hard. You're either born with this

power or not. Magic is a part of every sorcerer. Their body, mind, and spirit has power that waits to be tapped. Some sorcerers wield magic that springs from the ancient bloodline, while others carry just a raw, uncontrolled magic within them, a chaotic storm that manifests in unexpected ways. Sorcerers are generally what we refer to as spontaneous arcane spellcasters. Unlike wizards who have to select the spells that they memorize every morning, sorcerers have those spells in their blood and they can draw on an energy to cast them anytime they need to in any ratio they need. The mechanics for doing so

obviously varies by game system. When comparing a sorcerer to a wizard, the watchword for sorcerers is flexibility. Wizards have to carefully and methodically choose which spells they memorize and study for the day when completing their morning preparations. Sorcerers, in contrast, have a smaller selection of spells to choose from, but they have the flexibility of choosing any of their spells that they know to cast any given number of times per day, limited only by their capacity to cast spells. A moderately high-level wizard may have 14 different first-level spells in his spellbook, but can only choose to prepare, say, six of them today. A sorcerer, on the other hand, may only know eight first-level spells, but has the capacity

to cast six of them in any combination he or she wants throughout the day. So sorcerers are more flexible within a more limited set of spells that they have at their disposal. So what are the party roles for your average sorcerer? Sorcerers slot in well as a blaster. It's the most obvious role for a sorcerer, doing magical damage from range or touch and able to do so consistently round over round with the flexibility to cast the spells they need to. Most sorcerers, when it comes to spells, have the greatest hits on their spell list, like Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and other ranged area-of-effect damage spells. But it's important to know that sorcerers can do more than that. spells. But it's important to know that sorcerers can do more than that. They have the opportunity to select spells when they level up, and it gives them the ability to expand their limited spell selection. Besides blasters, sorcerers can also be great battlefield controllers. All they have to do

is to select any spell that can make it difficult for opponents to move on the battlefield. Everything from transmute rock to mud, various wall spells, black tentacles, obscuring mist, countless others. Well, okay, not countless, but more than I feel like counting right now. There's a lot of them, that's my point. Sorcerers are all about that charisma too, so they serve well as the face of a party. They can be built such that their diplomacy and intimidation skills can be really high and they can be really good at it. Just keep your sorcerer out of melee. When going toe-to-toe with creatures, they usually get turned into cat food.

So let's get system specific. In 5th edition, when it comes to ability scores, charisma is going to be your main stat. You want to get it as high as you possibly can. Secondary would be the constitution and dexterity ability scores. Why constitution? Because you only get 1d6 hit points per level, which means even at a high level, if a gnat lands on your sorcerer's shoulder, they may need healing. And why dexterity? Because you can't wear armor and you need to somehow stay alive. Any opponent worth their salt, by the way, will fill a slow-moving sorcerer with arrows, bolts, slingstones, darts, ballista bolts, gunshots, whatever they can bring to bear on the sorcerer.

Otherwise, you know, if sorcerers get the time, they will set their opponents on fire, and most smart opponents know that. on fire, and most smart opponents know that. So when it comes to class features about a sorcerer, sorcerer magic either comes from some dragon somewhere in their bloodline, or their body and soul is tied to chaotic wild magic in some way. This is called the sorcerous origin of the sorcerer. One origin could be draconic, which improves your AC, makes you resilient to certain damage types depending on the color of dragon you choose. Later on, you can gain wings and even radiate fear or charm in a certain radius. 5e Sorcerers have a certain number of spells that they know. At first level, it starts out at two spells they know, so maybe they know, I don't know, I'm picking two, Burning Hands and Magic Missile.

To complicate matters, Sor sorcerers also have spell slots. So, for example, they may know two first-level spells and they have two first-level spell slots at first level. So, since they've got two spell slots and two possible spells, they could fill those slots with either one of those spells. Meaning, they could cast Burning Hands twice, they could cast Magic Missile twice, or each spell once in any given day. Again, sorcerers are all about flexibility, whereas a wizard in that same situation would need to choose whether he memorized Burning Hands twice, Magic Missile twice, or one of each. Sorcerers are also granted something known as sorcery points or SPs. SPs can be exchanged for additional spell slots to cast additional spells in a day,

but in addition, sorcerers are granted access to metamagic capabilities which allow them to modify their spells in some way at the cost of these SPs. Earlier, I mentioned that sorcerer points can be exchanged for spell slots in a day, but also the reverse is true. Spell slots can be sacrificed for additional sorcerer points in the day. By the way, have your sorcerer grab a feat like Fey Touch to increase the variety of spells available to the character. It really gives them even more flexibility than they already have. Tasha's introduced a number of sorcerer subclasses

that give a lot more flexibility to an already flexible class. Aberrant Mind, Divine Soul, and Shadow Magic are particularly powerful min-max choices, so look into those if you're building a sorcerer. For what race you want to be, Drow Half-Elf is a great choice. So is Lightfoot Halfling and Gith, but remember, if you're playing the variant race rules that were introduced in Tasha's, any race can be an optimal choice for being a sorcerer. Make sure you keep your charisma skills up if you're going to be the party face. If you're going to have to do diplomacy and intimidate, you're going to want to focus on those skills. For backgrounds, an unusually strong choice for faces is the urban bounty hunter oraction Agent. Most of the rest are pretty good except for Hermit, which is atrocious. Avoid that one like the Plague. Noble isn't great because you

probably don't have that high of an intelligence, so I might steer clear of that one as well. For Feet, besides Fey Touch that I mentioned earlier, since you have a great charisma already, grab Inspired Leader to pad your party's hit points. Metamagic Adept makes you better at doing what you already do. I also took Spell Sniper on my 5e Sorcerer, which doubles the spell ranges, ignores half and three-quarters cover, and grants you an additional cantrip. The interesting thing about the cantrip that it grants is it can be from another class's spell list. Grab Eldritch Blast as your cantrip. It's a superb choice because hardly any monsters are immune to force damage. One spell you'll definitely want to grab Mage Armor. You can't wear armor so this spell will save your bacon. When you level up your

spell selection will be critical to your character's theme and survivability. You have an extremely limited variety of spells once you pick, so choose carefully. You will depend more on scrolls and wands than other arcane spellcasters since you can't pick a huge variety of spells. For example, Detect Magic is really, really useful, but if you have another arcane spellcaster in the group, let them worry about Detect Magic. They can choose to memorize it or not. You ain't got spell slots for that shit. So if you don't have another arcane spellcaster, though, grab a wand of Detect Magic so you don't have to waste one of your spell slots on it. Grab a light crossbow for reliable range damage at low level. Grab a dagger for melee. And I am

not suggesting your character use a dagger against any monsters. It gives your character something to fall on and end your life quickly rather than be eaten by a monster. I am not suggesting that a sorcerer try to use it to stab the other guy because they suck at it. Last piece of advice for 5e sorcerers. Grab a Staff of Fire or Staff of Ice for additional spells to cast and consistent damage. Moving over to Pathfinder. For ability scores, 1st edition and 2nd edition are similar to the 5e sorcerer. Charisma first, that needs to be your highest score. Then

Constitution and Dexterity, dump stat strength as low as you can if you're doing a point buy system. For Ancestry, Gnomes, Half-Elves, Halflings, and Humans are all excellent min-max choices for 1e. And as an aside, I think I've said Humans are a good choice for every class I've talked about, and they really are. They're so flexible. For 2nd edition, add in Catfolk, Kobold, and Tengu as excellent choices. Not only do those three have bonuses to charisma, but depending on how you build them, they can also have natural weapons so you're never unarmed and you don't have to worry about drawing a weapon if something gets into melee. For skills, in Pathfinder

1e, you'll want to bump up your knowledge arcana as well as your social skills if you're the party face. If you're playing second edition, the charisma skills are good to have. I made a sorcerer built to run Intimidate one time that had the skill feat Battle Cry. That meant at the very beginning of every fight, I got a free attempt to demoralize and intimidate the other side. She was a ton of fun to play. Role initiative, instant demoralize attempt. Also, in 2nd edition, consider stealthing everywhere you go, so you can use that skill as your initiative instead of perception, which may not be as high. Your dexterity is probably going to be better than your wisdom anyway. When it comes to feats,

spell focus if you can specialize in a particular school of magic like invocation, spell penetration to get through those monsters' pesky spell resistances, and you can't go wrong with improved initiative. Get those battlefield control spells and damaging range spells out there before your opponents move. Generally, I focus on feats that make me a better spellcaster or allow me to cast safely from a greater range. But there's one feat in 2nd edition I have to mention. Spell Relay. It's a 6-level feat, so you don't get it for a while, but it allows an

ally to cast a spell but use you as the point of origin for Spell's effect. I took it and we had a wizard in the party, so the wizard cast a spell from behind cover. It allowed my character to be the point of origin for the lightning bolt they just cast. We use this to flank baddies in cover all the time. It's really situational, but man, it was fun and I had never seen a tactic like that before. When it comes to weapons in Pathfinder, you'll want a light crossbow, but for a different reason than 5th edition. In Pathfinder, the crossbow should just be your backup ranged attack for when you run out of spells. In 5th edition, until about 6th level, your crossbow honestly probably does more

consistent damage than your low level spells do. Just like in 5th edition though, take a dagger for melee if you don't have some sort of ancestry with natural weapons, but pray to whatever gods you believe in that you will never have to use it in combat. If you do, then you're probably going to have a bad time. Armor, you're not proficient in most armor, and you'll probably want to avoid that Arcane Spell Failure chance anyway, because those can ruin your battlefield-changing spell. Grab a Haramaki or a Silken Ceremonial Robe for that plus one to AC, and then rely on Mage Armor after that. Class Features.

First edition Pathfinder. When it comes to class features, the Sorcerer is one of the weakest, period. Spellcasting is great, but that's about all you get that's great. Your hit points suck. Your saving throws are okay. You only get simple weapons. You don't get anything complicated that can do decent amounts of damage. You get no armor proficiencies. You are a fairly weak class once your spells run out. Second edition Pathfinder, though, no better. Sorcerer is a relatively weak class. You get the same features as first edition. Your perception

proficiency is really slow. You gain defensive training at level 13. Yay! Your AC goes up a little, but you're going to want to stay out of melee with the baddies and out of range against the baddies. Matter of fact, you may be better off doing sorcerer stuff from base camp. Failing that, nuke them from orbit. Always be aware of your positioning is what I'm saying. It's like they want sorcerers to die in both 1e and 2e. Might as well hand sorcerers robes that say kill me first and send them out on the battlefield. Don't get me wrong, sorcerers are very flexible and can do tons of damage. One sorcerer could drop four fireballs on a single encounter, including maximized and enlarged versions that do even more damage.

But everything else about the class reinforces its lack of survivability. In all three game systems, I would sum up sorcerers as being the ultimate glass cannons. They can do a ton of damage, but they are very fragile and will need care and feeding to keep them alive. So let's move on to wizards. Wizards are the iconic arcane spellcaster, and it's what most people think of when they think of spellcasters.

Studious people who pour over their own personalized tomes of eldritch knowledge that teach them how to say the right words, trace the right symbols in the air, and hold the correct material components in order to cast spells. Wizards were one of the classes in the original game systems that used something called Vancean magic, where you have spell slots in your head that you fill with spells that are selected ahead of time. In the case of wizards, these slots are filled early in the morning as you prepare spells for the day. When they cast spells, wizards forget the spells until they prepare them again the next morning. You think you might need magic missile today?

Great, you better study it in the morning. You prepared magic missile once and you need to use it a second time? Too damn bad. You get the grease spell you prepared and like it. In a way, wizard spells are like arrows in a quiver. If you need an arrow that gives bonus damage against undead, you better hope you brought it. Likewise,

wizards have to guess what spells they will need throughout the day and hope they guess right early in the morning. They don't have the flexibility of filling spell slots on the fly or casting multiple versions of spells that they know when they only prepared it once. To compensate for that, wizards usually get more spells per day than sorcerers do. It allows wizards to memorize more obscure, situational, one-off spells at the beginning of the day because they have the extra spell slots to be able to carry these unusual spells. And that's how wizards maintain their flexibility. The number of spell slots they have allow them a wider variety of spells every morning. Wizards can only prepare spells they've written in a spellbook. Think of this as a catalog of possible spells available

for them to prepare every single morning. For example, the wizard may have the spell Unseen Servant written in his or her spellbook. They could memorize that in the morning and then cast it later on if they needed it. Hey, Unseen unseen servant, go wash the dishes for me. I've got abjuration spells to learn. To quote Paizo in Pathfinder First Edition, wizards are those with the ambition and intellect to rise above the common folk and grasp true might. These shrewd magic users seek to collect and covet esoteric knowledge, drawing on the cultic arts to work wonders beyond the abilities of mere mortals. Wizards are powerful, powerful characters, and they can serve a number of possible party roles.

They maybe are, by the way, the most versatile class on the battlefield, and if not, they're second only to druids. Just like sorcerers, wizards are great blasters. They are really good at making stuff go boom zap or brrrr. They have a ton of damage spell options from chill touch to meteor swarm and can rain damage from one side of the battlefield to the other. Even though they may not get a lot of skill ranks every single level, wizards can be good skill jockeys too. They have a very high intelligence

score, so in Pathfinder 1e they tend to get a good number of skill ranks to spend as levels increase. Skills that take advantage of their intelligence, things that can let them know more about creatures or situations, knowledge checks in Pathfinder like arcana, planes, religion, and so forth. Wizards make great controllers on the battlefield. They can control battlefield and opponents either physically or mentally. They have a wide array of charm spells like Suggestion or mental effects like Hypnotic Pattern, Hold Person, Fog Cloud, Dispel Magic, Control Winds, Wall Spells, Temporal Shunt, and my favorite, counterspell. Just ruin a caster's day over and over and over again by having lots of counterspells. A lot of spells also have a

somatic component, meaning your character has to move a certain way to make a spell work. My headcanon is that the counterspell somatic component is a giant middle finger shown to the opposing caster. Wizards make great support characters too. They have a wide variety of spells available and many of them can be used to hinder enemies or in this case help allies on the battlefield. Foresight, Sending, Clairvoyance, Dimension Door, Teleport, Polymorph. Your ally's grappled? No she's not, now she's a bear. Go by just face off. Something a lot of people don't think about is that wizards can make great scouts.

They can make themselves invisible, silent, transform themselves into another form to blend into whatever area they're in, like some sort of small forest animal or a bat. They can learn to fly because of spells, tunnel, gain a swim speed, climb walls like a spider, and even move places via other planes of existence like the ethereal and astral planes. Wizards with the right spells have the capacity to go places unseen and undetected. Not sure if I'd trust them to be stealthy without spells, but that's what magic is for. Let's go system specific. Fifth edition, ability scores. You're going to want intelligence, intelligence, intelligence, and also intelligence. Pump that number up as high as you can get it, as fast as you can. Next, grab some dexterity and constitution for survivability. Same reason

as the sorcerer. Strength is not for wizards. You shouldn't be trying to play Gandalf the Swole. is not for wizards. You shouldn't be trying to play Gandalf the Swole. If you want to punch something, choose a different class. Charisma? Let somebody else be the face of the party. You've got studying to do. Being nice to people is for chumps.

For 5e races, Human, Githyanki, Forest Gnomes, Humans, Certain Tieflings, and Wanti Purebloods will make excellent min-max choices here. But if you want a little more survivability, try a mountain dwarf wizard. You gain medium armor proficiency. What, you want to be Merlin while wearing fucking half-plate armor? You can make that happen as a mountain dwarf. So you're Merlin, just a little shorter.

And with a Scottish voice, you know, why do everyone play dwarves with a Scottish voice? I need to work on getting that headcanon out. When it comes to skills, I love Arcana and Religion. They're flexible, and I use them a lot when I'm playing. History's not a bad alternative, though.

Backgrounds, I love Sage, Acolyte, and Cloistered Scholar as good min-max choices. When it comes to feats and 5e, as good as Metamagic Adapt is for scholars, it's even better for wizards. Extend the durations of spells, re-roll damage dice if you didn't dump stat charisma too hard. Extend a spell, quicken a spell to make it a bonus action.

It's a great feat for any caster, but for wizards especially. If you can't help but get into melee, Warcaster is a good feat to choose for that. Jumping over to Pathfinder 1e for ability scores, same as 5e. Intelligence highest, Strength and Con second, Wisdom's a third tier, and then Dumpstaff the other two. For Ancestries, Human, Elf, and Half-Elf, there's Human again, they're all really good, strong choices. I also like Gnomes as a slightly less optimal choice. I'd go Dwarf if I knew my character was going to be in a lot of magical duels. That plus two on saving throws comes in really, really handy.

In Pathfinder 1e, Wizards have an Arcane Bond. You choose this at first level, and you either bond with a familiar, so a small animal, or an object. You can bond with whatever you choose based on that initial choice. I covered familiars in episode 95, so see that episode for more detail there. But bonded objects, they become central to your ability to cast spells. If you don't have it on your person or in your hand, there's a chance you'll lose the spell you're trying to cast. Your bonded object also lets you cast one spell in your spell book each day that you didn't prepare. If you take a bonded object, I'd take an appropriate crafting feat so

you can make your object more powerful as your character grows in power as well. You want a magic staff? Great! Make sure you take whatever craft ability allows you to modify and improve your staff. Also, wizards may, if they so choose, specialize in one school of magic, gaining additional spells and powers based on the school that they choose. Once you make this choice, though, it cannot be changed. You don't have to specialize in a school. A wizard that doesn't receives the universalist school instead. But a wizard that does choose to specialize in a school of magic, here's the downside. You have to select two other schools as opposition schools, meaning that you're sacrificing knowledge in those schools to gain more powerful in the one

that you choose. A wizard who prepares schools from either of the opposition schools must use two spell slots of that level to prepare the spell. Also, you take a minus four penalty on any skill check made when crafting a magic item that has a spell from an opposition school. A universalist wizard, though, can prepare spells from any school without restriction. So why the hell would you specialize? Because specializing gives the wizard a number of school powers. In addition, specialist wizards receive additional spell slot in each spell level where he can cast from first level all the way up to as high as you can cast.

Each day, the wizard can prepare a spell from his specialty school in that slot. So it's a lot like clerics and domain powers. in that slot. So it's a lot like clerics and domain powers. This spell must be in the wizard spell book and can modify it with metamagic to prepare it in a higher slot if you slow choose, but it uses up that higher level slot if you do. Wizards with a universalist school do not receive this spell slot. What are spell schools? Fuck, I'm almost five minutes over time. I'll have to do an episode on spell schools in the future. Alright, when it comes to traits, there's lots of great options. Reactionary is my go-to.

Getting better initiative rolls means you can drop spells on baddies while they're grouped up. Oh look, they're nice and close to each other. Fireball! Now that you've burned half of the opponent's medium rare, and half of them are dead, you may act in combat. Similarly, Elven Reflexes or Warrior of Old if you're an elf. But if you want to be a flexible wizard, grab the trait Pragmatic Activator. It gives you a good shot at using even Cleric Wands and other divine spells thanks to a better used magic device skill. When it comes to skills, grab Knowledge fucking everything. Especially the

class builds like Arcana and Dungeoneering. Nature, planes, religion. It's hard to go wrong with any of these. You're the smartest character in the party. Time to show off that big brain of yours. Grab ranks and spellcraft so you can figure out what a magical item is. It'll save your party lots of identify costs in the future. For feats, improved initiative. Again, going first is huge for a wizard. Spell penetration, especially in higher level campaigns, because you're gonna encounter a whole bunch of stuff with spell resistance. You need to make sure that that spell you hit it with will actually get through the SR and ruin that monster's day.

Alternatively, you can take arcane discoveries in place of feats. True name isn't bad if you're dealing with a lot of extraplanar creatures like Demons, Devils, D.Va, and so forth, but it's very situational. Arcane Builder Discovery may be good if you're doing a lot of crafting, but that's even more situational than the True Name. I mostly stick to Feats. Weapons, same as Sorcerer, Light Crossbow and Dagger. Armor, same as Sorcerer, Hamaki or Silken Ceremonial Robes. For Pathfinder 2e, ability scores, same as the others. Maybe don't drop wisdom quite as low. Strength is damn near useless.

Ancestries, Kobold, Gnome, and Human are great choices. Class features, you can be a Generalist or Specialist Wizard. Generalists give you the ability to recast one spell at each level that you had previously memorized. I like that a lot. Specialists get an extra spell slot for their spell school of choice. Both are good. I like generalists just a little bit more, but that's just down to personal preference. They choose an arcane school, just like 1E could. They have an arcane bond, but it works a little bit differently than 1e.

The 2e arcane bond allows you to recast a spell you prepared today. Also, wizards choose an arcane thesis, and I love spell substitution here. Gives you the flexibility to cast some obscure spell you had no idea you'd need today. They gain defensive robes just like sorcerers do at level 13. For skills, arcana and occultism come in handy. Nature and lore are great choices as well. Pathfinder 2e has so many feats it's hard to adequately cover this. Recognize spell early on to figure out what enemy spellcasters are casting so you know how to counter it. Clever counterspell at 12th level if you want to ruin other spellcasters' days, and you can't go wrong with spell penetration.

Also, overwhelming energy if you want to be an evoker and burn through the opponent's energy resist faster. Wizards are the nerds of the RPG world. They are studious intellectuals, most of whom have a low charisma and prefer the company of esoteric knowledge to other people. The only difference is that if you don't like it, they'll run a bolt of electricity through your face and out your butt, and then turn you into a sheep to give you time to think about how you'll never taste anything sweet again. Arcane casters are so much fun to play, but require a little more work than your sword-and-board fighter or great-axe-swinging barbarian. a little more work than your sword and board fighter or great axe swinging barbarian. The work pays off, though, because with the right build, the right party composition,

and good spell choices, you have the powers of a literal god on the battlefield, and you and your fellow players can have fun doing it. If you like my little podcast, please consider telling your gaming friends about it. I believe some of you have been because my per episode listener rate is slowly climbing. Thank you everyone who has helped me spread the word. Next week, a very special interview episode with Shane from the Ventureforth podcast. And we're going to talk about conflict. Before I go this week though,

I want to thank our sponsor, Shovels. If you have the right kind, wintry precipitation is no big deal. This has been episode 112, ending the class series, this time covering sorcerers and wizards. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking 20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube Media Production. Copyright 2022. References to game system content are copyrighted by their respective publishers.