The Sorcerer's Handbook: A Guide to Building and Playing Sorcerers

[Damionic]

Please note the spells are NOT in the right order and the lesser types will be swapped out

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Level 16 Neutral Good Drow Female
(15 Sorcerer \ 1 Bard) 
Hit Points: 54
Spell Points: 1341 
BAB: 7\7\12
Fortitude: 3
Reflex: 7
Will: 10
Level 1 (Bard)
Spell (1): Cure Light Wounds

Level 2 (Sorcerer)
Spell (1): Hypnotism
Spell (1): Ray of Enfeeblement

Level 3 (Sorcerer)
Spell (1): Mage Armor

Level 4 (Sorcerer)
Spell (1): Cause Fear

Level 5 (Sorcerer)
Spell (2): Blur

Level 6 (Sorcerer)
Spell (2): Ghoul Touch

Level 7 (Sorcerer)
Spell (3): Ray of Exhaustion

Level 8 (Sorcerer)
Spell (2): Glitterdust
Spell (3): Slow

Level 9 (Sorcerer)
Spell (4): Enervation

Level 10 (Sorcerer)
Spell (2): Command Undead
Spell (4): Fear
Spell (3): Haste

Level 11 (Sorcerer)
Spell (5): Waves of Fatigue

Level 12 (Sorcerer)
Spell (5): Cloudkill
Spell (4): Stoneskin
Spell (3): Displacement

Level 13 (Sorcerer)
Spell (6): Disintegrate

Level 14 (Sorcerer)
Spell (6): Mass Suggestion
Spell (5): Mind Fog
Spell (4): Contagion

Level 15 (Sorcerer)
Spell (7): Finger of Death

Level 16 (Sorcerer)
Spell (7): Banishment
Spell (6): Greater Dispel Magic
Spell (5): Hold Monster

[Xand_Rogue_of_Sarlo]

I enjoyed your tutorial. I have been away since mod 3 and am planning on changing from a loyal wizard player to a sorcerer. This has been helpful.

A suggestion for a couple of your reserved spots. You could make a cc and nuker specialist path. Your first post seems like a well rounded more versatile sorcerer spell path. Or you could just reply to my nuker spell thread

[Xand_Rogue_of_Sarlo]

I found your nuker thread I don't know how I missed it.

[Shade]

[CENTER][B][U]
My opinion -
In my honest opinion, there are only two races from which sorcerers should be built, from an OP perspective. These races are human and warforged. The drow sorcerer will be quite a bit more squishy than either of these racial choices, and only gains +1 DC over a human and a few spell points for his lack of hit points. He gains +2 DC over the warforged, but will be quite a bit less survivable due to the warforged's easy self-heals and racial immunities/toughness.

Pfft. Pathetic for someone trying to call themselves qualified to make a "handbook"

Drow are the best sorcerer race. Period. To say theres not even worthwhile shows a complete lack of knowledge on the class.

Fact of the matter is EVERY race is viable. Drow is just the best.

Too squishy?? Get a grip. In the current game, a Drow Sorc can reach over 300 hitpoints without taking the toughness feat. Take the toughness feat in mod9, and you netting well over 400. Not to mention they are the easiest race to hit a 39 umd on pure build, for 100% heal scroll usage.

And you don't even need that many hitpoints. My sorc melee's the pitfiend with 222 hitpoints, and has not died on his last 20 runs.

Far as I'm concerned, Drow are the toughess sorc race 2nd only to warforged thanks to the heal scroll usage. -16 hitpoints versus a Human does not make a race useless, ya madman.

[Borror0]

Aspenor > Shade.

[maddmatt70]

Pfft. Pathetic for someone trying to call themselves qualified to make a "handbook"

Drow are the best sorcerer race. Period. To say theres not even worthwhile shows a complete lack of knowledge on the class.

Fact of the matter is EVERY race is viable. Drow is just the best.

Too squishy?? Get a grip. In the current game, a Drow Sorc can reach over 300 hitpoints without taking the toughness feat. Take the toughness feat in mod9, and you netting well over 400. Not to mention they are the easiest race to hit a 39 umd on pure build, for 100% heal scroll usage.

And you don't even need that many hitpoints. My sorc melee's the pitfiend with 222 hitpoints, and has not died on his last 20 runs.

Far as I'm concerned, Drow are the toughess sorc race 2nd only to warforged thanks to the heal scroll usage. -16 hitpoints versus a Human does not make a race useless, ya madman.

As it stands in mod 9 a drow can hit a 42 cha and a human 41 cha. (+4 tomes and litany of the dead included in the loot). Of course if they somewhere add another +1 to charisma somewhere such as +5 tomes or another item then humans are the clear winner otherwise I would lean toward drow.

Regarding warforged sorcerers they are becoming more and more powerful in comparison to the others with the continued subtle changing of sorceror more toward evokers and wizards toward more of the dc arcane class (see capstones and future prestige enhancements for wizards and sorcerers). Shade speaking from a backdrop of ignorance does not make you correct it just makes you ignorant. My wf sorc is the best focused healer in the game, the most survivable character in the game and can do some all around sick things. He has less dc on spells but oh well.

[Raegoul]

Norg > Axer

[Borror0]

Norg > Axer

That too.

[Shade]

Rating people on the forums, based on their forums posts < playing DDO, or doingg anything else at all really.

I have no opinion on anyone based on their forum post.

For all I know you could be equaly awesome people. Only person I've grouped with enough to know is Norg. I rarely agree with his forums posts tho, but almost always agree with him in game when it comes down to it.

[Shade]

re: maddmatt WF sorc.

Very cool to hear you've made that Sorc repair type we've always talked about years ago. I'm sure he's awesome. I'm working on a warforged wizard currently.

[Raegoul]

Rating people on the forums, based on their forums posts < playing DDO, or doingg anything else at all really.

I have no opinion on anyone based on their forum post.

For all I know you could be equaly awesome people. Only person I've grouped with enough to know is Norg. I rarely agree with his forums posts tho, but almost always agree with him in game when it comes down to it.

Honestly, i do not know why people respond to you Axer. Everything you say revolves around what you think is the Ubarest and everyone in your groups is your personal healing or buffing servant.

You rate people all the time Axer and you rate them based on how much they help you to win the kill count.

[Junts]

Pfft. Pathetic for someone trying to call themselves qualified to make a "handbook"

Drow are the best sorcerer race. Period. To say theres not even worthwhile shows a complete lack of knowledge on the class.

Fact of the matter is EVERY race is viable. Drow is just the best.

Too squishy?? Get a grip. In the current game, a Drow Sorc can reach over 300 hitpoints without taking the toughness feat. Take the toughness feat in mod9, and you netting well over 400. Not to mention they are the easiest race to hit a 39 umd on pure build, for 100% heal scroll usage.

And you don't even need that many hitpoints. My sorc melee's the pitfiend with 222 hitpoints, and has not died on his last 20 runs.

Far as I'm concerned, Drow are the toughess sorc race 2nd only to warforged thanks to the heal scroll usage. -16 hitpoints versus a Human does not make a race useless, ya madman.

the idea that 1 extra charisma is worth sacrificing ~42 hp is ludicrous, especially given that the point is only a dc half the time. the int difference is irrelevant (same sp for both), and the +2 dex is hardly worth the hp in question.

its not that drow sorcs are poor; far from it, actually. Its that most excellent drow sorcs are more or less doing it in spite of their race, while they think they're doing it because of it. the umd difficulty is vastly overstated; again, its 1 charisma point that isn't even necessarily a bracket for a lot of characters, and the human has the extra feat to help get you there should you need the assistance while pulling your titan gloves/head/+3 tome/etc. Since the single most important thing to being a useful caster is the ability to heal yourself, the extra feat probably shouldn't be understated.

Both human and drow sorcs that don't have 39 umd are worthless, though, pretty near universally. WF have a nice head-start on getting there, though they are essentially -2 feats relative to human (since most wf are taking quicken, and losing the human feat), human are by far the easiest extremely durable+flexible casters to make, with drow tending more towards flexible and wf more towards durable, and human being rather good at both (though closer to the drow's flexibility than the wf's durability).

Its cool you're able to be very survivable with a 222 hp sorceror, but that's more an advantage of being a highly experienced and practiced player and has a lot less to do with the race or the character; I have little doubt there are significant feats your caster would achieve more easily with 50% more hp (my human sits at 350 right now), and the dc dropoff is frequently nonexistant: we'll both have 40 cha at cap until you pull your +4 tome (I'm guessing you have the 40 right now), which is probably going to take just a wee bit.

[Shade]

Honestly, i do not know why people respond to you Axer. Everything you say revolves around what you think is the Ubarest and everyone in your groups is your personal healing or buffing servant.

You rate people all the time Axer and you rate them based on how much they help you to win the kill count.

You can rate yourself as jealous.

Last quest I did I believe I ended in the lowest killcount, casted every buff in my book on the rogue continously, and spent more then 90% of the time doing CC and healing the party.

Everything I do and say revolves around doing things effectively and effeciently. Buffs are an important part of that.

You may personally not like it, thats your problem. Your the one responding.

To answer why? Because your jealous.

[Shade]

the idea that 1 extra charisma is worth sacrificing ~42 hp is ludicrous,

Ludicrous in that it's not an accurate comparison? Yea.

I get where your coming from on the adding in human adaptability stats to the tally, but you take nothing off for hte AP cost of them and give it to the drow sorc.

Also 2 con = 16 hitpoints at level16. 3 con with adapatability = 16 to 32, to be fair you could average them and say its around 24 hitpoints.

But then you also need to give the drow sorc the extra AP as well, which may be I dunno, racial toughness? suddenly the hitpoint comparison is allot closer.

Anyways this seems offtopic, as the point was Aspenors poor opinion towards most sorcs races side from human/wf. Really doesn't matter the rae you pick that much, there all fine races with there small pro's and cons. Sorc Race just doesn't have the same impact it does on some other classes.

[SimVerg]

Ludicrous in that it's not an accurate comparison? Yea.

I get where your coming from on the adding in human adaptability stats to the tally, but you take nothing off for hte AP cost of them and give it to the drow sorc.

Also 2 con = 16 hitpoints at level16. 3 con with adapatability = 16 to 32, to be fair you could average them and say its around 24 hitpoints.

But then you also need to give the drow sorc the extra AP as well, which may be I dunno, racial toughness? suddenly the hitpoint comparison is allot closer.

Anyways this seems offtopic, as the point was Aspenors poor opinion towards most sorcs races side from human/wf. Really doesn't matter the rae you pick that much, there all fine races with there small pro's and cons. Sorc Race just doesn't have the same impact it does on some other classes.

A 20 cha drow is capped at 14 con(a human can have 18 cha 18 con, a 4 con advantage before AP). Also, a 40 cha drow has the same ap cost(12) as a 38 cha, +1 con human(sorc cha 2, adaptability 2).

[Junts]

Ludicrous in that it's not an accurate comparison? Yea.

I get where your coming from on the adding in human adaptability stats to the tally, but you take nothing off for hte AP cost of them and give it to the drow sorc.

Also 2 con = 16 hitpoints at level16. 3 con with adapatability = 16 to 32, to be fair you could average them and say its around 24 hitpoints.

But then you also need to give the drow sorc the extra AP as well, which may be I dunno, racial toughness? suddenly the hitpoint comparison is allot closer.

Anyways this seems offtopic, as the point was Aspenors poor opinion towards most sorcs races side from human/wf. Really doesn't matter the rae you pick that much, there all fine races with there small pro's and cons. Sorc Race just doesn't have the same impact it does on some other classes.

We've been over this earlier in the thread, but, alright, here I'll go it again.

Drow are a 28 point build and if you max your charisma there are only enough remaining build points to take constitution to 14; that is 4 constitution behind a human and 6 behind a warforged. If drow were 32s, a: drow would be good for more things, and b: they wouldnt have this problem, but they do; drow are 5 con behind a human and -8- (wf con enhancements) behind a warforged, in addition to 10 hp via racial toughness for human and 20 for wf. If you want to make the argument that a drow is better off starting at 19 or 18 cha in order to get more constitution, then human gets even better, since they'll come out ahead no matter how you slice the bp. For 28 point drow to be better pointwise than a 32 pointer of another race, you -must- be pumping at least two of the drow-bonus stats (int, dex and cha) past 14. Since there's no reason to do that with either int or dex on a sorceror, there's no way to make it effectively more bp than a human or wf .. and since they're all maxing cha with 16 build points, the question becomes what they're doing with the others. With 16 more, human and wf can max con. With only 12, drow get to 14 con and have 2 bp left over. 15 costs them 3 more bp, and they don't have that. So they could take another skillpoint or a str bracket or something, but they're not getting more hp with those 2 bp remaining.



the idea that the difference is 24 hp is ludicrous; its not even close to accurate. Further, the idea that there's something better to spend your sp on as a sorceror is downright funny: I'm totally maxed for fire/cold, and spell pen, and still have plenty of space for my constitution and toughness enhancements. What am I going to do, max out lightning/acid so I have a better acid fog?



max endgame drow sorceror con:

14 + 3 tome + 6 item + 2 rage = 25
hp: 64 sorc levels + 20 dur + 10 argo + 18 toughness + 20 racial toughness + 45 shroud + 112 constitution (7*16) = 299 hp

human:

18 + 3 tome + 1 enhancement + 6 item + 2 rage = 30 +10 hp via enhancement drow cannot attain (racial toughness 3)
hp: 64 sorc levels + 20 dur + 10 argo + 18 toughness + 30 racial toughness + 45 shroud + 160 constitution = 357

warforged:

20 + 3 tome + 2 enhancement + 6 item + 2 rage = 33 + 20 hp drow cannot attain (racial toughness 3 + 4)

hp: 64 sorc + 20 dur + 10 argo + 18 toughness + 40 racial + 45 shroud + 176 constitution = 383


One of these things is not like the others, and it is the drow.

Yeah, I'll take an extra feat/58 hp and waiting until 20 for my 40 cha in exchange for you having the 40 now and getting 42 if you pull a +4 tome.

and I'd gladly take 84 hp/wf immunities/etc in exchange for 1 more dc, too, for that matter .. its the inability to work in spell pen feats (1 feat less, and also taking quicken) that hurts the wf, not topping out at 38 charisma.

Given the extent to which you have to be amazingly well geared to notice the difference (drow need +3 tome and litany now and +4 tome at 20 in order to be the bracket ahead), a -handbook guide devoted to new players- should go far out of its way to direct the players towards more survivable, robust and flexible builds ... which drow ain't.

[ForwardWu]

cant believe someone make the same mistake as me to count drow can start at con16 with cha20 as well.....

besides the hp...human has an extra feat to burn..which is a nice trade-off for 1/2 dc from cha compared to drow..it is just amazing that after 3 yrs of playing someone still think drow is the best and only best race for a soccy.....really amazing...

i will suggest that from now and on just skip all those race-related arguement on soccy...seems it never..never ends :/

[Raegoul]

you Can Rate Yourself As Jealous.

Last Quest I Did I Believe I Ended In The Lowest Killcount, Casted Every Buff In My Book On The Rogue Continously, And Spent More Then 90% Of The Time Doing Cc And Healing The Party.

Everything I Do And Say Revolves Around Doing Things Effectively And Effeciently. Buffs Are An Important Part Of That.

You May Personally Not Like It, Thats Your Problem. Your The One Responding.

To Answer Why? Because Your Jealous.

Rofl

[Tamryn]

That's like saying, "being poor and homeless have spoiled me."

Meh, loving sorcs is for the lame and lazy then?

[Tamryn]

Don't trust that guy. He is a noob and should reroll IRL.

Got that, Asp?

/signed