Would the inability to change repertoire except when leveling up (sort of like a D&D 3.5 sorcerer) count towards a custom power tradeoff, and if so, for how much?
Hmm, if you’re using random initial repertoire generation this is a really severe starting condition, but it looks like RAW is for the Judge to select the starting spell(s), and most of the templates guarantee something obviously useful.
This is about your ACKS Sorcerer build, correct? I actually think an inability to change repertoire is less painful in ACKS than in 3.x D&D. The problem in 3.x was that many spells were only useful at a given level range. This meant, in particular, that many spells that were very useful at low level were nearly useless at mid- to high-level. ACKS just doesn’t suffer from this to the same extent.
As for how many powers this is worth, I think it really depends on how the spells are selected. It’s a rather significant trade-off if spell selection is totally random, but much less so if the spells are player-selected.
I think bob has the right of it. randomly provided starting spells with the ability to change repetoire would be about equal to in power, if not a little bit weaker than, letting players select the spells and not be able to change them.
If you wanted this to be balanced, you would need to power down arcane casting by getting rid of “breakthrough” spells like sleep and fireball which, by the PC spell design rules, are overcosted for their level, representing the long-ago innovation of some mage that became common use.
Yeah, that’s a really good point about the “breakthrough” spells. I’m pretty sure LibraryLass has expressed a desire (elsewhere) for as little tinkering as possible, but I can see the need to re-work a couple spells using the rules in the PC for this class. Helpfully, I think some of them have already been done on the forums here.
Yeah, this is for my Sorcerer. I decided to go back to my original tack of bloodlines, taking a little inspiration from how the Witch and its bloodlines work, but where the Witch (I think, I’d like to get a good look at its build value) is a divine caster and could swap out its Turn Undead for custom powers… an Arcane class has less to work with. Maybe I need to just go Arcane 3/Thievery 1 like the Warlock.
if you really need special powers, you could create a race (possibly even still call it human) that grants some amount of class powers or even thievery ranks (and therefore skills that can be traded for special powers).
The gnome is probably a good reference. just use their racial XP values and dump the gnome powers for ones that make more sense for the sorcerer.
Standard RAW for a mage’s spell selection is:
-The Judge selects one spell at first level for the mage’s repertoire.
-The mage rolls randomly for the others (a number equal to his Int bonus). If he rolls the same spell twice (or more), he has an empty slot.
-When they gain a level, they may return to their masters and be taught spells equal to the number and level of spells they can cast in a single day. The Judge presumably selects these spells, but depending on the relationship between mage and master, the player will have varying levels of input. (Also presumably, this bit means ‘up to’ the number and level they can cast in a day. You probably don’t get taught two new first level spells each level from two to six.)
-At 9th level and higher, mages are no longer taught spells by their masters, and must find or research all spells. It does cost time, adventuring, and/or gold, but the player has full selection.
(Source: ACKS page 67).
This being the case, clearly, the player does not have the ability to select all the spells they would want at the beginning, and it becomes easier and easier as they level up. For a class that got their spells identically to a mage, I would rate the inability to change repertoire as 2 custom powers. (It might be worth 3 depending on exactly how random it ends up being and what the spell list looks like, but I would rather lowball it at first.)
If the class selects spells more like a 3.X Sorcerer, where they would be allowed to fill their repertoire to max every time they leveled up with spells of their choice, but could not overwrite an old spell (I know 3.X sorcs could overwrite sometimes, not the point!), I would allow it as a single custom power. In that case, however, I would probably do something about restricting or removing the more significant breakthrough spells. (Fireball is honestly pretty fine, but Sleep is a massive outlier in terms of power level. Earth’s Teeth isn’t all that much less lethal than Fireball; it requires an attack throw, but has much less friendly fire.)