Str is the most optional of those 3. At the least, keep it high enough that you aren't encumbered if you pick something up, but if you can spare the points, more Str is ALWAYS a good investment.
Sure, Con bonus ends at 16 if you aren't a fighter class, but there's an item that gives -2 to con for a bunch of other bonuses. 18 (or 17 + con book) means you can use it and lose nothing. On that note, and slightly off topic, dwarves can start with 19 con. With the con book, that will bring you 20, and you regenerate 1hp/turn (10 rounds, or 1 minute). This means unless you utterly hacked your character to have some obscene level of base HP, you're going to fully heal every time you rest or travel. If you hit the magic number of 20, you might want to not use the claw. Also, shorty saving throw bonuses. Halflings/dwarves get pretty broken saving throw bonuses with high con, max benefit at 20 iirc. Might be off topic though, since I don't know if they can be sorcs. Never actually rolled one.
Dex...lets be honest, if you create a character with anything but max dex, it's because you're trying to make the game harder. If you're up for a challenge, go for it. If you aren't trying to make the game so much more difficult for yourself, you're doing it wrong if this stat isn't maxed. note: there are bracers that set Dex to 18 that you can get if you REALLY want to distribute points to other stats, but other characters meant to be attacked need those a lot more.
Wisdom of 15+ would be nice so if you're doing a full playthrough and use the wisdom books you are guaranteed to have at least 1 not-awful option while using wish spells. Note that extra wisdom gives you a higher lore score as well (I THINK it's +5 per point above 14, but don't quote me on that). Higher lore means you can identify more items just by looking at them. Anything below 10 (again, don't quote me on that) gives you negatives to your lore.
Int: Not sure if it has a minimum for the class, but I think it's 9 minimum to cast off a scroll. So keep it above that. Note that extra int gives you a higher lore score as well, same as wisdom. Of course, if you plan on grabbing Garrick, you'll only have better lore than him if you max out int and wisdom and use the int book and all 3 wisdom books. Even then, he'll still outstrip our lore by the end.
Charisma: You get a few extra bonuses by having high enough charisma, but nothing actually worthwhile that I know of. You can set this to minimum and merely use a different character as a "face" to talk to merchants for discounts. Max this if you're trying to play a sorcerer "properly" though since it's supposed to be the main stat. It's a matter of "Do I want to min/max or RP this?".
@Tok Sorcs are probably the strongest single class in the game and can solo the game at the highest difficulty levels with the hardest mods. That said, that's pretty much par for the course for most casters. When you level them up your going to get one extra spell or maybe nothing at all later on. Its only on certain "threshold" type of levels where they all of a sudden get a new rank of spells or 4-5 extra spell slots that you notice a big improvement.
My sense of RP won't let me put more than 11 or possibly 12 in str, dex or con when playing a wizard or sorcerer, whereas int and to some degree wis and cha have to be high even if they mostly don't help. I'm just too fond of the physically awkward but mentally awesome stereotype.
My sense of RP won't let me put more than 11 or possibly 12 in str, dex or con when playing a wizard or sorcerer, whereas int and to some degree wis and cha have to be high even if they mostly don't help. I'm just too fond of the physically awkward but mentally awesome stereotype.
I'm guessing your not a fan of Fighter/Mages then
Also, Dragon Desciples have a very good RP reason to have high STR and CON, so maybe you can talk yourself into one of those?
My sense of RP won't let me put more than 11 or possibly 12 in str, dex or con when playing a wizard or sorcerer, whereas int and to some degree wis and cha have to be high even if they mostly don't help. I'm just too fond of the physically awkward but mentally awesome stereotype.
I'm guessing your not a fan of Fighter/Mages then
Also, Dragon Desciples have a very good RP reason to have high STR and CON, so maybe you can talk yourself into one of those?
You guess right. 8) I tend to think of my casters as in questionable shape and getting severe migraines where they basically have to be carried around by Minsc, Dorn or Sarevok - but also as the ones coming up with all the plans and tactics for the party.
My sense of RP won't let me put more than 11 or possibly 12 in str, dex or con when playing a wizard or sorcerer, whereas int and to some degree wis and cha have to be high even if they mostly don't help. I'm just too fond of the physically awkward but mentally awesome stereotype.
I'm guessing your not a fan of Fighter/Mages then
Also, Dragon Desciples have a very good RP reason to have high STR and CON, so maybe you can talk yourself into one of those?
You guess right. 8) I tend to think of my casters as in questionable shape and getting severe migraines where they basically have to be carried around by Minsc, Dorn or Sarevok - but also as the ones coming up with all the plans and tactics for the party.
But yes, have yet to try a DD.
Since Sorcerors don't rely on Int for their inate magic anyway you can even play a dumb caster for once who acts more on instinct
Aye, I've tried.. I'm just too fond of the scholarly types I guess.. much of the appeal lies not in the spellcasting, but the idea of being a scientist in a fantasy world.
If you pick a female sorceress, Minsc should take you as his witch. Or is that in the game already? If not, it should be!
@nano God, I always wanted this and it crossed my mind whenever I wanted to play an arcane user, but I couldn't find any evidence on google that he would take you. But it makes so much sense. Honestly, even Imoen would be a cool option if Aerie isn't in your party
I've enjoyed playing with a sorcerer, but I don't like the way it's implemented, even though I understand that it's for balance purposes.
A sorcerer is described as somebody with a natural gift for understanding magic, thus they don't need to learn spells from scrolls. Yet this ability to understand stuff apparently has nothing to do with intelligence?! A stupid sorcerer seems... well... stupid! As a concept.
Also if I were so naturally talented at magic, and can figure stuff out without studying, why can I not study at all to enhance my natural talent? I understand that it's for balance purposes, but it seems to make no RP-sense why all sorcerers are lazy sods who can't be bothered to learn more magic than what they work out whilst sitting on the toilet.
I wish there were some other downside... maybe a sorcerer must select half the magic schools and cannot learn spells from the other half, thus becoming even more specialist mages. Or maybe reduce the number of spells they get per rest... I dunno... or maybe just make sorcerers even more OP anyway. It's not like the classes are balanced anyway, and I don't think it matters for a singleplayer game.
A sorcerer is described as somebody with a natural gift for understanding magic, thus they don't need to learn spells from scrolls. Yet this ability to understand stuff apparently has nothing to do with intelligence?!
I like to think of sorcerers as having the innate power to cast arcane spells, which is why (in third edition onward) charisma is their primary statistic, since it allows them to express that power.
@Heindrich1988 I would originally agree with you, but I have started to think of sorcerers differently lately. This change was triggered by a realization that I put magic akin to "talent" or a specific skill. So, just like atheletes or master musicians have to practice around 10,000 hours to become incredibly skilled (talented), and that the amount of training is the single important feature to become accomplished and that would be the most important factor for accomplishment (some genetics will factor in of course, but as long as you have a functional body it seems to be that this, along with intrinsic/autonomous motivation is the deciding factor for those individuals who become particualrily accomplished within a certain field). However, I realised (or rationalised in my own head) that that is the case for Mages, but not for sorcerers. So, I can compare mages to people who practice and practice for hours to become extremely accomplished in their field.
On the other, (the way I see it) sorcerers are born with a gift of controlling magic and practice this *innate* gift rigolously - it is not conditioned solely on practice. However, this is not neccessarily bound by any one stat, I guess it can just as likely be bound by constitution as intelligence or charisma. But nevertheless increasing the level of control of magic that is already present. Of course, just like the master musician the sorceror has to practice to become accomplished, but as I said the innate ability is more important than the training. This doesnt compare well to the real world (as they are born with a *special gift*) and therefore difficult to understand - for me at least.
Look at it this way: Batman is a mage, Bane is a sorcerer and darkness is magic.
"I was born in darkness, you merely adopted it." Bane to Batman
Okay, I guess, but this certainly doesn't explain why sorcerers, with their 'innate' and 'intuitive' grasp of magic (which requires no formal training, etc.), should be able to use exactly the same scrolls (which requires reading magic, which requires training!), magic items, etc., as mages.
The niche for casters with an 'innate' power already was filled by psionicists (IMO). The sorcerer just seems like a hamfisted kludge.
But I confess that I'm wedded to the image of the 'scholarly' wizard. Sorcerers just rub me the wrong way.
Hmm, I much prefer sorcerer because their casting makes much more sense to me. I can accept but could never really wrap my head around the way wizards have to first copy a scroll into their spellbook (they can't memorize off a scroll?) and then memorize the spell in such a way that it disappears from memory when they cast it... but they can somehow memorize it more than once if they want to cast it multiple times (how do you memorize a piece of music or a poem more than once? But for some reason it works for spells).
Sorcerer is much more intuitive. You know a certain number of spells, you have a certain amount of power represented by your spells/day, and you can cast the spells you know as long as you have power. There is some weirdness with the spell levels, like if you cast all your magic missiles you're too tired for another but can still bust out a time stop, but it still makes more sense to me than what wizards do. And they do have to work at their power, that's what leveling up is.
Having been used to 'mana' or some other form of magical energy in other fantasy settings, I too struggled with the concept of mages memorising spells from a spellbook. But I had it well explained by somebody on this forum, which I can now totally understand/rationalise.
When a mage prepares a spell, he isn't simply 'memorising it'. He's is preparing it in a way that stores the spell in his mind like Potential Energy (think physics). In battle, once he utters the triggers to release this energy, the spell is cast, and will need to be prepared again before he can use it once more.
I remember that thread, I guess you can say it's like drawing a crossbow and keeping it around until you need to fire it. For me it only raises more questions though. Like how does that even work? Aren't you in danger of unleashing magic everywhere if someone hits you in the head? Magic missile can't be that hard to use, because my level 1 sorcerer can toss one out in a second, but my level 30 wizard still has to spend a night preparing one. Shouldn't he get better at this?
Eh, I'm sure there's reasonable explanations for everything and it doesn't bother me much but it feels too much like real-world magic to me, where magicians spend tons of time preparing for one moment of illusion. I'm not much of a showman myself. I like feeling genuinely powerful and not like the Wizard of Oz who puts up a spectacular front for others but has to spend a lot of time to keep that front up. I don't want to be reliant on my spellbook and totally helpless without it.
I can't remember right if it applied to forgotten realms but some DD settings require arcane magic to use spell components, so I would liken it more to a thief preparing his traps than to a crossbow. You only have five human skulls treated with the right chemicals prepared so only 5 skull traps
I would begin it in bg 1 to make the rolls more realistic to get but allocate this way:
16+con 18+dex 14 wis maybe 13 5 or 10 INT Up to you for CHA whatever you want to to you can use the ring 18+STR
Int only matters in multiples of 5 for tanking mind flayers and you can use the tome to hit 6 or 11
Con always helps as does Dex Str affects slings and this will let you get up to 22
Wis with 14 you get enough to use wish by the time you first get the spell in wk with 13 you can use it after hell trials.
This way a mid 80s roll is enough.
Intelligence should be at a minimum 9, as any lower than that and they can't use scrolls. Of course, you could have another mage do that, but it's well worth having the sorceror just put the extra point or two into intelligence. 10 means you can lose a point in Spellhold and keep the literacy ability, which might also affect the capacity to use wands (Can't remember on that one).
@nano I used to find it odd that mages can "memorize" a spell *twice*. If they can do it twice, why not three times? I think it's more 'prepare' than 'memorize', but there doesn't seem to be a consistent opinion
The funny thing is, people with basically no magical training become Wizards all the time in D&D. I mean, just think of the ever popular Dual Classes in BG.
Comments
Str is the most optional of those 3. At the least, keep it high enough that you aren't encumbered if you pick something up, but if you can spare the points, more Str is ALWAYS a good investment.
Sure, Con bonus ends at 16 if you aren't a fighter class, but there's an item that gives -2 to con for a bunch of other bonuses. 18 (or 17 + con book) means you can use it and lose nothing. On that note, and slightly off topic, dwarves can start with 19 con. With the con book, that will bring you 20, and you regenerate 1hp/turn (10 rounds, or 1 minute). This means unless you utterly hacked your character to have some obscene level of base HP, you're going to fully heal every time you rest or travel. If you hit the magic number of 20, you might want to not use the claw. Also, shorty saving throw bonuses. Halflings/dwarves get pretty broken saving throw bonuses with high con, max benefit at 20 iirc. Might be off topic though, since I don't know if they can be sorcs. Never actually rolled one.
Dex...lets be honest, if you create a character with anything but max dex, it's because you're trying to make the game harder. If you're up for a challenge, go for it. If you aren't trying to make the game so much more difficult for yourself, you're doing it wrong if this stat isn't maxed. note: there are bracers that set Dex to 18 that you can get if you REALLY want to distribute points to other stats, but other characters meant to be attacked need those a lot more.
Wisdom of 15+ would be nice so if you're doing a full playthrough and use the wisdom books you are guaranteed to have at least 1 not-awful option while using wish spells. Note that extra wisdom gives you a higher lore score as well (I THINK it's +5 per point above 14, but don't quote me on that). Higher lore means you can identify more items just by looking at them. Anything below 10 (again, don't quote me on that) gives you negatives to your lore.
Int: Not sure if it has a minimum for the class, but I think it's 9 minimum to cast off a scroll. So keep it above that. Note that extra int gives you a higher lore score as well, same as wisdom. Of course, if you plan on grabbing Garrick, you'll only have better lore than him if you max out int and wisdom and use the int book and all 3 wisdom books. Even then, he'll still outstrip our lore by the end.
Charisma: You get a few extra bonuses by having high enough charisma, but nothing actually worthwhile that I know of. You can set this to minimum and merely use a different character as a "face" to talk to merchants for discounts. Max this if you're trying to play a sorcerer "properly" though since it's supposed to be the main stat. It's a matter of "Do I want to min/max or RP this?".
Sorcs are probably the strongest single class in the game and can solo the game at the highest difficulty levels with the hardest mods. That said, that's pretty much par for the course for most casters. When you level them up your going to get one extra spell or maybe nothing at all later on. Its only on certain "threshold" type of levels where they all of a sudden get a new rank of spells or 4-5 extra spell slots that you notice a big improvement.
Also, Dragon Desciples have a very good RP reason to have high STR and CON, so maybe you can talk yourself into one of those?
But yes, have yet to try a DD.
God, I always wanted this and it crossed my mind whenever I wanted to play an arcane user, but I couldn't find any evidence on google that he would take you. But it makes so much sense. Honestly, even Imoen would be a cool option if Aerie isn't in your party
Okay, they cast their spells by means of 'intuition' alone. I don't like that idea, but whatever.
What makes that explanation silly, though, is that sorcerers' spells resemble exactly those of mages. *sigh*
And they can read scrolls. But why? If they use 'intuition' alone, why should they be able to read and use mage scrolls?
It just makes no sense...
A sorcerer is described as somebody with a natural gift for understanding magic, thus they don't need to learn spells from scrolls. Yet this ability to understand stuff apparently has nothing to do with intelligence?! A stupid sorcerer seems... well... stupid! As a concept.
Also if I were so naturally talented at magic, and can figure stuff out without studying, why can I not study at all to enhance my natural talent? I understand that it's for balance purposes, but it seems to make no RP-sense why all sorcerers are lazy sods who can't be bothered to learn more magic than what they work out whilst sitting on the toilet.
I wish there were some other downside... maybe a sorcerer must select half the magic schools and cannot learn spells from the other half, thus becoming even more specialist mages. Or maybe reduce the number of spells they get per rest... I dunno... or maybe just make sorcerers even more OP anyway. It's not like the classes are balanced anyway, and I don't think it matters for a singleplayer game.
Sorcerer=Ibrahimovic, Suarez, Messi
and of course Elminster=Totti
Batman is a mage, Bane is a sorcerer and darkness is magic.
"I was born in darkness, you merely adopted it."
Bane to Batman
I would originally agree with you, but I have started to think of sorcerers differently lately.
This change was triggered by a realization that I put magic akin to "talent" or a specific skill. So, just like atheletes or master musicians have to practice around 10,000 hours to become incredibly skilled (talented), and that the amount of training is the single important feature to become accomplished and that would be the most important factor for accomplishment (some genetics will factor in of course, but as long as you have a functional body it seems to be that this, along with intrinsic/autonomous motivation is the deciding factor for those individuals who become particualrily accomplished within a certain field). However, I realised (or rationalised in my own head) that that is the case for Mages, but not for sorcerers. So, I can compare mages to people who practice and practice for hours to become extremely accomplished in their field.
On the other, (the way I see it) sorcerers are born with a gift of controlling magic and practice this *innate* gift rigolously - it is not conditioned solely on practice. However, this is not neccessarily bound by any one stat, I guess it can just as likely be bound by constitution as intelligence or charisma. But nevertheless increasing the level of control of magic that is already present. Of course, just like the master musician the sorceror has to practice to become accomplished, but as I said the innate ability is more important than the training. This doesnt compare well to the real world (as they are born with a *special gift*) and therefore difficult to understand - for me at least.
The niche for casters with an 'innate' power already was filled by psionicists (IMO). The sorcerer just seems like a hamfisted kludge.
But I confess that I'm wedded to the image of the 'scholarly' wizard. Sorcerers just rub me the wrong way.
Sorcerer is much more intuitive. You know a certain number of spells, you have a certain amount of power represented by your spells/day, and you can cast the spells you know as long as you have power. There is some weirdness with the spell levels, like if you cast all your magic missiles you're too tired for another but can still bust out a time stop, but it still makes more sense to me than what wizards do. And they do have to work at their power, that's what leveling up is.
Having been used to 'mana' or some other form of magical energy in other fantasy settings, I too struggled with the concept of mages memorising spells from a spellbook. But I had it well explained by somebody on this forum, which I can now totally understand/rationalise.
When a mage prepares a spell, he isn't simply 'memorising it'. He's is preparing it in a way that stores the spell in his mind like Potential Energy (think physics). In battle, once he utters the triggers to release this energy, the spell is cast, and will need to be prepared again before he can use it once more.
Eh, I'm sure there's reasonable explanations for everything and it doesn't bother me much but it feels too much like real-world magic to me, where magicians spend tons of time preparing for one moment of illusion. I'm not much of a showman myself. I like feeling genuinely powerful and not like the Wizard of Oz who puts up a spectacular front for others but has to spend a lot of time to keep that front up. I don't want to be reliant on my spellbook and totally helpless without it.
No, that's called building an IED.
Bad Nano. Don't do it again! :P
I think it's more 'prepare' than 'memorize', but there doesn't seem to be a consistent opinion
That wording has ALWAYS bothered me. In my head, my mages scribe their spells, then prepare them. Sorcerers memorize and prepare.