Sorcerer

A sorcerer, or sorceress, is an arcane magic user, and weak in mêlée combat. Sorcerers have innate magical ability as opposed to wizards who study for their magic. They are often at odds with each other; wizards tend to think of sorcerers as sloppy and undisciplined, while sorcerers generally consider wizards obsessive and distant.

Abilities

Familiars

A familiar is a normal animal that gains new powers and becomes a magical beast when summoned to service by a sorcerer or wizard.

Spell Preparation and Casting

Sorcerers may cast spells depending on their experience and charisma. Although they are generally smart people, the act of casting does not require them to be. Sorcerers have an innate affinity towards the arcane and are not required to learn spells, they are instinctive; however, most will attend magic schools to better learn how to channel the magic. There may be a temporal limit in spell casting and this could be the reason why sorcerers can only cast a certain number of spells of various degrees in one day.

• Resting: Sorcerers need to rest in the same way as wizards or else they may fall into mental fatigue after too many castings.

• Preparing: Sorcerers do not need to prepare spells prior to using them. They may call upon whichever spell they innately know and may cast it using only the trigger sequence. Reasons for this are speculative at best, but some philosophers believe that sorcerers continually subconsciously recall the bulk of the spell at all times that they are awake. Sorcerers usually claim that their magic comes from draconic blood and it is indeed derived from a dragon ancestor. In D&D, people with dragon ancestors are more common than most would think.

• Casting: When sorcerers want to cast a spell, they know instinctively which spell to use. They may then (as mentioned above) perform the same trigger sequence as a wizard would.

Comparing Sorcerers and Wizards

Compared to wizards, sorcerers cannot learn as many spells, but they can cast more spells per day and without needing to prepare them in advance. Sorcerers do not use spell books but rely on their innate magical abilities instead. Thus, they are unable to obtain new spells by copying them from scrolls or spell books. Conversely, however, they do not need to carry spell books or worry about having them stolen. Since sorcerers can only have a limited amount of spells in their arsenal, most tend to specialize in offensive magic. This specialization places sorcerers among the most powerful individuals in terms of sheer destructive force. Their biggest strength is also their most fundamental disadvantage: sorcerers, on account of their limited spell selection, lack the versatility of wizards, who can have a virtually limitless number of spells in spell books and decide which to prepare based on what situation they expect to find themselves in.

Weapons and Armor

Sorcerers and wizards do not wear armor or use shields. However, sorcerers are proficient with more weapons than wizards are. A sorcerer is proficient with all simple weapons, an example being the short spear.