D&D 3E/3.5 - Is Sorcerer the weakest 3.5 base class now?
I have not done any sort of quasi-scientific modelling of the advantages and disadvantages of the specialist wizard and sorcerer, but from my playing and DMing experience specialist wizards are generally superior to sorcerers in both combat and non-combat situations. The key difference is depth of flexibility. A sorcerer's flexibility is that he can cast any spell he knows at any time (slots being available). This is very superficial flexibility because the sorcerer only knows a limited number of spells - at most 5 of any particular level (not counting 0-level). Because sorcerers can cast a few spels many times, they don't tend to take the handy long-duration spells that you only want to cast once a day - that is, until they've taken all the spells they reckon they'll use more than that. If a wizard has some inkling of the obstacles to be overcome on a particular day, and has a sufficienly diverse spelbook, he can prepare the most appropriate spells. And a good wizard has access to the divination spells needed to determine the likely obstacles he'll face. He'll also prepare the long-duration spells he needs for the day and leave a slot or two free for later preparation if he's uncertain about anything (he only needs 15 minutes to memorise a spell during the day). Further, because of his Intelligence and access to all Knowledge skills, a wizard is a typical know-it-all and is very useful at solving many of the non-combat problems faced by adventurers (provided your DM acknowledges that the wizard is probably a large measure smarter than the person playing him!).I have found that sorcerers are handy bad guys, because as a DM you can set up their spell selection to match the particular scenario you're designing. However, as PCs they are generally relegated to support character. Sorcerer PCs tend to need benign DMs to accommodate their specific spell selections.
As the player of a specialist wizard myself, I'm naturally biassed. However, my observation is that my character changes the dynamic of any battlefield because his array of spells (and excellent tactics on the part of his player, naturally!). The party of 6 would be substantially weakened if he was changed to some other character class. The 1/4-barbarian, 3/4-sorcerer in the party is a support character, who could be replaced by just about any other charcter witout affecting the overall effectiveness of the party.
As to the sorcerer being the weakest of the core classes, I'd vote bard and probably paladin over sorcerer. And in my experience, every rogue I've ever come across is multi-classed,which is a sure sign of a character class whose capabilities don't increase with level on par with those of other classes. [At the other end of the scale, and this is a personal gripe of mine, what kind of psychoactive substance were people on when they re-designed the ranger for 3.5E? Is that a broken class or what?]
Cheers, Al'Kelhar
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