Mechanical Elements of Each Class, Compared
The following tables show a complete breakdown of each metric by which the four classes in question can be directly and objectively measured. Certain portions of the table will be then discussed in further detail in their own sections, where they benefit from commentary. All numbers involved are either taken directly from the relevant wiki (with PotM's wiki taking precedence over any conflict with the NWN wiki), or are extrapolated from that information with the assumption the character benefits from no relevant racial bonuses (neither attribute modifiers, nor human benefits.)
Metric | Beguiler | Sorcerer | Warmage | Wizard |
Hit Dice | d6 | d4 | d6 | d4 |
Skill Points (Base) | 6+Int Mod | 2+Int Mod | 2+Int Mod | 2+Int Mod |
Skills (Practical) | 234 | 46(92) | 142 | 142 |
Available Skills, Total | 18 | 5 | 7 | 4 |
Available Skills, Listed | Appraise Concentration Disable Trap Disguise Hide Influence Listen, Lore Move Silently Open Lock Parry Search Sleight of Hand Speak Language Spellcraft Spot Tumble Use Magic Device | Concentration Heal Influence Lore Spellcraft | Antagonize Concentration Discipline Heal Lore Parry Spellcraft | Concentration Heal Lore Spellcraft |
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Proficiencies | Armor Proficiency (light) Weapon Proficiency (Beguiler) Weapon Proficiency (Simple) | Weapon Proficiency (Simple) | Armor Proficiency (Light) Shield Proficiency Weapon Proficiency (Simple) | Weapon Proficiency (Wizard) |
Class Features | Armored Mage Cloaked Casting Silent Spell Cloaked Casting II Still Spell Cloaked Casting III Cloaked Casting IV | Summon Familiar | Armored Mage Warmage Edge Armor Proficiency (Medium) Improved Combat Casting | Summon Familiar |
Feats Provided by Class | 10 | 2 | 7 | 2 |
Feats Gained by Advancement | 19 | 14 | 19 | 19 |
Total Feat Economy | 29 | 16 | 26 | 21 |
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Casting Attribute | Int | Cha | Int | Int |
Casting Method | Spontaneous | Spontaneous | Spontaneous | Prepared |
Spells Learned From Levels: Level 1 | 9 | 5 | 7 | 6 |
Level 2 | 14 | 5 | 7 | 4 |
Level 3 | 12 | 4 | 10 | 4 |
Level 4 | 8 | 4 | 7 | 4 |
Level 5 | 6 | 4 | 8 | 4 |
Level 6 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 4 |
Level 7 | 6 | 3 | 8 | 4 |
Level 8 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 4 |
Level 9 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 8 |
Total | 69 | 34 | 65 | 42 |
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Spell Slots Per Day: Level 1 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4(5) |
Level 2 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4(5) |
Level 3 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4(5) |
Level 4 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4(5) |
Level 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4(5) |
Level 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4(5) |
Level 7 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4(5) |
Level 8 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4(5) |
Level 9 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 4(5) |
Ability Scores and the Secondary Effects ThereofOne of the most fundamental difference between sorcerers and the other caster classes is the reliance on Charisma over Intelligence. This plays an important part in the class concept and role-play perception, but has a significant effect on the overall capabilities of the classes relative to each other.
Mechanics Directly Influenced ByIntelligence | Charisma |
Skill Points Languages Known "ability to speak properly" | OCR Mitigation "A Compelling Presence" |
Even at the most superficial level, the difference in benefit is obvious. Skill points are one of the primary building blocks that determine what our characters can be good at. Language slots are less dramatically beneficial, but have a significant hard impact on RP opportunities. By contrast, the theoretical benefits of both OCR and Charisma (by way of Examine) are largely soft rules, relying on someone deciding they want to care rather than plugging into hard mechanical systems. The only firm mechanical benefit of OCR is a binary pass-fail determining your hostile status with NPCs. Provided you are below a certain threshold, your actual OCR is irrelevant and even imperceptible to other players. Beyond that point, the only benefit to improved OCR is gaming the fees at the Vallaki Bank. Meanwhile, in actual practice even the soft benefit of Charisma on RP is less beneficial than simply having additional language slots and points to spend on social skills. Which brings us to...
Skills Governed ByIntelligence | Charisma |
Appraise Disable Trap Lore Search Speak Language Spellcraft | Animal Empathy Antagonize Disguise Influence Perform Use Magic Device |
While both Intelligence and Charisma govern the same number of skills, there is a fairly significant difference in the mechanical weight and utility thereof. This has the unfortunate effect of meaning that in addition to Intelligence granting more skill points, period, the ability grants benefits to
more mechanically useful skills than the alternative.
For Intelligence
every skill has a hard mechanical benefit. Appraise and Lore are both money-makers. Search and Disable Trap are necessary adventuring skills that are also hardcore money-makers for the ninja-loot crowd. Spellcraft is useful for both counter-spelling and saves against spells. The weakest link is Speak Language, but even that has a hard benefit of granting more language slots.
Compare this to Charisma and we get a very different story. Animal Empathy and UMD are extremely useful, but both hard-locked behind specific classes. For anyone else (including the casters in question) they don't exist. That leaves us with Antagonize, Disguise, Influence and Perform. Disguise is arguably the most hard mechanical benefit of the four, granting a unique role-play opportunity -- even if it is one easily outmatched by its countermeasure, spot. The remaining three are soft-benefits at best. Antagonize and Perform have hard mechanical applications for some classes (melee folks and bards), but for casters they are in the same category as influence: a flex you can make in an attempt to support your RP, the results of which are entirely non-binding. As PCs are in no way required to care how high you roll, the primary benefit is to show off in front of NPCs, but DMs are neither required to care how high you rolled, nor does the official server stance support any kind of reliance on DM interaction. They are a hard mechanical investment into skills that are only optionally useful with DMs on a sever where you should not count on DM interaction.
Feats Opened ByIntelligence | Charisma |
Agrippa's Fundamental Guards Bonetti's Defense Expertise Improved Disarm Improved Expertise Improved Knockdown Improved Parry Thibault's Geometry Whirlwind Attack | Muse Sterling Reputation Warding Gesture |
In a last-ditch attempt to find some avenue where Charisma might unexpectedly provide a benefit, I combed through every feat listed in the PotM and NWN wikis and looked for what opportunities investing in either ability score would afford. Any feat that was locked to a class or dependent on a feat that was locked to a class outside of our scope (arcane casters) was discarded as irrelevant.Instead, I concentrated on feats which had a prerequisites tied to the abilities in question.
Unfortunately, this lead us in a familiar direction. A certain quantity of Intelligence is a prerequisite for a number many combat-related feats that would pair nicely with any form of caster (particularly Expertise and Improved Expertise). The remainder are very viable options for a combat-caster, Polymorph/Shape-change enthusiast, or Tensers muscle mage. With the possible exception of Whirlwind Attack, every Intelligence-based feat is useful for some flavor of caster or another.
By contrast, I was able to find only three Charisma-requiring feats (discounting Unremarkable, which actually requires a
neutral Charisma), period. Sadly, they make no stronger case for themselves than Charisma-skills. The most mechanically potent of these is Warding Gesture, which functions something like a poor-man's Turn Undead, but selected from a wider variety of enemy types. This actually isn't awful, but lacks Turn Undead's primary benefit: powering the Divine X family of feats. It is thus situationally useful and for our arcane casters suffers from two drawbacks: first you must also invest 11 Wis into this for a character who doesn't receive any particular benefit from increasing Wis (this is, in fact, often dumped entirely), and by the time your DCs are high enough to be worth using it, you probably have better options. Still, nice flavor if you can afford to spend ability points and a feat on it. Sterling Reputation is significantly less useful. Much like the OCR discussion above, the only real benefit is if you have accidentally increased your OCR penalty over time and are using this to get back under NPC auto-hostile range. Situational, at best. Of the three, Muse is the most likely feat to actually be taken. It has a unique benefit of interacting with the crafting system, as well as providing a bonus to perform. It is very likely to make you some fast friends among bards and crafters. Unfortunately, it is a benefit to everyone
but you unless you intend to make a side hustle out of it. Which brings us finally to...
Crafts Affected ByIntelligence | Charisma |
Alchemy (Con, Int) Distillation (Con, Int) Gilding (Con, Int) Enchanting (Cha, Int) | Enchanting (Cha, Int) Tailoring (Cha, Dex) |
These really don't even need to be compared, but let no one claim I have not been thorough: Alchemy and Distillation lead to two of the most lucrative and useful crafts, with varnishes and alchemical arrows both disposable products that sell quickly and are in relatively constant demand. The only craft arguably more lucrative is herbalism. Gilding is an important part of smithing, and easily next highest on the return-on-investment metric for crafters. Meanwhile, in Charisma-town: Tailoring. Once again useful for supporting RP in a fuzzy sort of way, but the fruits thereof primarily reinforce the same soft skills backed by Charisma itself. When the Tailoring system is eventually revamped, this may be of some actual benefit to someone but for now it's unfortunately negligible. Thus the only thing Charisma has going for it is that it's equal to Intelligence in Enchanting.
Ability EconomyTaken together, the above has a further, second-order effect on the relative capacities of the arcane caster classes. Because of the difference in mechanical weight between the two abilities, Intelligence-based casters not only receive a greater benefit from their highest attribute, they end up with more ability points available to play with overall. A sorcerer who dumps intelligence is crippled on skills, has a very limited number of languages, cannot access a number of common and useful combat feats, and lacks even the ability to speak clearly -- completely undermining the primary benefit of their Charisma, however nebulous it might be. As a result, a Sorcerer will end typically have to invest at least 2 points into Intelligence just to be functional, and often as many as 6 for Intelligence 14 in order to have a couple languages and some skill points to play with. Meanwhile, the other caster classes can dump Charisma entirely with little or no ill effects, allowing them to start with a higher casting stat, or invest in other ability scores with greater impact on their overall quality of life.
Hit DiceBeguiler | Sorcerer | Warmage | Wizard |
d6 | d4 | d6 | d4 |
This section does not require a great deal of commentary but from the start of our class data analysis, we see a trend begin. One of the ways in which the game tells us the fitness of a class for getting in a more combat-oriented role is by the hit dice it is assigned. One of the primary bits of flavor for the sorcerer is that they are not frail academics, their lives devoted to study. The flavor text calls out that they have used that time to broaden their repertoire, specifically calling out "fighting skills." Unfortunately, when we begin to actually compare things we see that other casters -- themselves Intelligence-based and presumably also developed through intensive study -- managed to be significantly more robust. This is an unfortunate pattern that will only deepen as we explore further.
Skills and Skill PointsThis is the first major area worth comparing when it comes to the overall capabilities and quality of life of a character on the server. The difference in ability score utility has already been discussed at length above and will not be reiterated here. Instead, we'll be focusing on the input of the classes themselves.
Skill Point GrantedBeguiler | Sorcerer | Warmage | Wizard |
6+Int Mod | 2+Int Mod | 2+Int Mod | 2+Int Mod |
The base skill points is pulled directly from the wiki and on the surface seems roughly fine. Unfortunately once we plug in the difference in casting attribute, things change dramatically. The following table assumes that each class is built in the typical way, where the caster begins with a 17 in their primary attribute and improves it at each opportunity thereafter. Sorcerer further assumes that at least 2 further points were spent on Intelligence to bring them to functional minimum of 10. The parenthetical value is listed as a more practical figure, if they are willing to make the sacrifice to get to 14 Intelligence.
Skill Points at 20 (Practical)Beguiler | Sorcerer | Warmage | Wizard |
234 | 46(92) | 142 | 142 |
Once again we run into a result that runs counter to the narrative offered by the fluff text. Despite sorcerers theoretically having the time to learn other skills compared to their wizard counterparts, they will have far, far fewer skill points overall. If we assume an equal investment in Ability points (17 int, 10 cha vs 10 int, 17 cha) the sorcerer will have less than a third of the points to spend compared to the wizard or warmage. If they spend significantly more to get int 14, they still have just barely half the same resources and spent 6-8 points more for the privilege.
The easy counter here might be that academic types would obviously be more broadly knowledgable than others, but the unfortunate mechanical truth is that 3e (and thus NWN) makes nearly everything a skill -- the academic thus not only has more
knowledge skills than you do, but can afford to sink more into everything else as well -- ninja-looting (disarm trap, pick lock, search), RP skills (antagonize, influence, disguise, perform), and yes, even fighting skills (concentration, discipline, parry, tumble).
Class Skills AvailableBeguiler | Sorcerer | Warmage | Wizard |
18 | 5 | 7 | 4 |
Appraise Concentration Disable Trap Disguise Hide Influence Listen, Lore Move Silently Open Lock Parry Search Sleight of Hand Speak Language Spellcraft Spot Tumble Use Magic Device | Concentration Heal Influence Lore Spellcraft | Antagonize Concentration Discipline Heal Lore Parry Spellcraft | Concentration Heal Lore Spellcraft |
Here the comparison grows even worse. Beguiler clearly wins on being the "Rogue, but a mage" category, but we also quickly find that even the claim about "fighting skills" falls short for sorcerer -- not only do they not have the skill points to spare, but they don't have access to the literal fighting skills as class skills. Contrast this with warmage, who will both get far more actual skill points and also gain all of the combat skills as class skills. The most fair point of comparison to sorcerer here is with wizard, as they occupy the same extremely minimal class skill selection (with the minor exception of sorcerer gaining Influence), but sorcerer doesn't have the abundance of points to casually cross-class other skills the way wizard can. More unfortunate still is that while the class is billed as something of a Face and diplomat, so many of even those skills are cross-classed for you even if you had the points to spare on them. This ends up meaning that even with all your Charisma, the 8 cha beguiler will end up with better scores in them for the same points spent - while having vastly more points to spend, in general.
Feat EconomyThe feat economy of a class is the next major building block that defines what that class is capable of. For any class
but the arcane casters, it is arguably the single largest chunk of what defines capability.
Proficiencies GrantedBeguiler | Sorcerer | Warmage | Wizard |
Armor Proficiency (light) Weapon Proficiency (Beguiler) Weapon Proficiency (Simple) | Weapon Proficiency (Simple) | Armor Proficiency (Light) Shield Proficiency Weapon Proficiency (Simple) | Weapon Proficiency (Wizard) |
This is a largely unsurprising spread, save for that we once again run into the same theme: one of the points made in favor of sorcerer as a Charisma caster over their Intelligence-based study-types is that they had more time to learn other skills. Specifically, fighting skills. This is why they were granted the simple weapon proficiency. Unfortunately, both beguiler and warmage gain the full benefit of intelligence casting (spontaneous, at that!) while also getting a far superior suite of proficiencies from the start. This is compounded further when we get to...
Class FeaturesArmored Mage Cloaked Casting Silent Spell Cloaked Casting II Still Spell Cloaked Casting III Cloaked Casting IV | Summon Familiar | Armored Mage Warmage Edge Armor Proficiency (Medium) Improved Combat Casting | Summon Familiar |
Not only do we find that beguiler and warmage both begin with better "combat skills" in terms of their proficiencies granted, they can actually cast in the armor they wear. Beguiler and warmage both come out dramatically ahead in this department even over wizard. Either class not only receives a better suite of starting proficiencies and retains the ability to cast while wearing armor, they gain a series of class features that provides specializations that make them without reserve the best in their chosen niche. Sorcerer and wizard are granted only the use of a Familiar, which while a nice RP tool and even capable of some clever tricks in the earliest part of the game, is not especially useful overall.
Feats Gained By levelBeguiler | Sorcerer | Warmage | Wizard |
19 | 14 | 19 | 19 |
This puts the final nail in the "learn other skills" coffin. While Wizard may be an academic that dedicates their entire life to study, they end up coming away with more skills
and feats than sorcerer, meaning that in terms of raw capability the exact opposite is true - whether or not their inborn talent meant the sorcerer had time to learn other things, they apparently did not. They will know less and can do less than any of the Intelligence-based academic casters, full stop. This was actually a surprise to me, when I begun this analysis. While I had known wizards got a lot of bonus feats, I hadn't realized that extended to beguiler and warmage who already get a ton of class features as they level up.
Added together, this grants the sorcerer not only the worst feat economy of the casters (proficiencies given+class features+feats gained by level), but the worst
in the game, at least as far as has been implemented by PoTM.
Feat Economy Across Base Classes
Class | Proficiencies | Class Features | Free Feat Slots | Total Feat Economy |
Barbarian | 5 | 17 | 14 | 36 |
Bard | 3 | 2 | 14 | 19 |
Beguiler | 3 | 7 | 19 | 29 |
Cleric | 5 | 1 | 14 | 20 |
Druid | 4 | 10 | 14 | 28 |
Favored Soul | 4 | 8 | 18 | 30 |
Fighter | 6 | 0 | 27 | 33 |
Hexblade | 5 | 8 | 18 | 31 |
Monk | 1 | 24 | 14 | 39 |
Paladin | 6 | 9 | 14 | 29 |
Ranger | 4 | 8 | 19 | 31 |
Rogue | 2 | 8 | 18 | 28 |
Sorcerer | 1 | 1 | 14 | 16 |
War Mage | 3 | 4 | 19 | 26 |
Wizard | 1 | 1 | 19 | 21 |
Voodan | 2 | 4 | 16 | 22 |
By raw numbers, the average base class has a feat economy of around 28, accounting for all benefits. Sorcerer has nearly half that, at 16. The only class that scores anywhere near as poorly is Bard at 18, but Bard has such a strong suite of features and quality of life benefits that the comparison becomes irrelevant.
Spells and SpellcastingSpellcasting is the final major factor in what a class becomes capable of. For the classes we are examining, it is the most important and defines how they interact with their primary role. All of the following data disregards cantrips entirely, because cantrips.
Casting Method and AttributeBeguiler | Sorcerer | Warmage | Wizard |
Intelligence, Spontaenous | Charisma, Spontaneous | Intelligence, Spontaneous | Intelligence, Prepared |
Little we haven't already discussed here, save that it is worth highlighting that spontaneous casting is no longer a unique selling point of the sorcerer.
Spells LearnedCircle | Beguiler | Sorcerer | Warmage | Wizard |
Level 1 | 9 | 5 | 7 | 6 |
Level 2 | 14 | 5 | 7 | 4 |
Level 3 | 12 | 4 | 10 | 4 |
Level 4 | 8 | 4 | 7 | 4 |
Level 5 | 6 | 4 | 8 | 4 |
Level 6 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 4 |
Level 7 | 6 | 3 | 8 | 4 |
Level 8 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 4 |
Level 9 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 8 |
Total | 69 | 34 | 65 | 42 |
This section makes two assumptions based on the wiki data. First as beguiler and warmage both know all of their available spells on reaching the level they can be cast, it simply totals their available spells as spells learned. The second assumption is that as wizards will learn two additional spells each level, they will take those two spells from the highest spell circle they can take -- particularly once they hit 9th circle, which are much harder to find in scroll form.
Unmentioned in the table data is that wizards acquire spells at a lower level than any of the other arcane casters, giving them access to their spells faster than other caster classes. Beguiler, sorcerer, and warmage acquire spells at the same levels.
For whatever reason, this section really surprised me. While sorcerer is advertised as knowing fewer spells but can use them more often, the actual difference is pretty startling. Warmage and beguiler are far and away the winners on this end, getting to know
all of their available spells the moment they can cast a spell of the appropriate level. This is not only an incredibly strong feature to an already strong feature set, but the end result is that either of the pre-set niche-casters have twice the spells learned as compared to the Sorcerer. Even stranger still, the wizard has a functionally infinite capacity for spell-memorization, limited only by the number of arcane spells in the module and yet they
also learn more through level-advancement alone than the sorcerer who can
only learn through level advancement.
Spell SlotsCircle | Beguiler | Sorcerer | Warmage | Wizard |
Level 1 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4(5) |
Level 2 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4(5) |
Level 3 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4(5) |
Level 4 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4(5) |
Level 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4(5) |
Level 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4(5) |
Level 7 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4(5) |
Level 8 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4(5) |
Level 9 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 4(5) |
This is the final meaningful metric of spell casting and our sorcerer's chance to shine. The promise was that sorcerers know fewer spells, but get to use them far more often. The results bear that out. Barely.
Once more, beguiler and warmage make the sorcerer's advantage seem negligible. In this case, they wind up with identical spells per day across the board, save for a single level 9 slot. This is both an incredibly marginal difference, and one that only merges at 9th level, when sorcerer goes from 4 to 6 9th slots per day, compared to 4 to 5 on the other two classes.
Meanwhile even wizard isn't that far behind. While there's a reasonable difference between generalist wizard and sorcerer, specialist wizards are only one slot per circle short. In exchange they give an entire school of magic, but this is a trivially easy sacrifice compared to what any of the other casters are giving up. Due to the server meta, specializing in illusion (and thus giving up enchantment spells) is such a painless sacrifice that it seems to have become a default position in wizard build conversations.
Spells and Module EcologyThe differences in balance between the classes is further exacerbated by the module itself. In vanilla NWN, there are 172 spells available to wizards and sorcerers (once more ignoring that cantrips exist). PotM has increased this number by nearly half, to a total of 256 entries on the wizard/sorcerer list. For a wizard, this is a straight buff. That's 84 new spells to add to their repertoire (or a measly 78, if you chose to sacrifice Enchantment for those sweet sweet base 5 spell slots), many of which offer unique opportunities or solutions if used at the right place and the right time. Both beguiler and warmage profit from this in turn: while they are tied very tightly to their respective niches, they end up with nearly every possible spell directly tied to that niche, including those that have very limited or situational applications. The sorcerer profits least from this exchange, going from knowing about 20% of spells potentially available to 13%. That in itself is not inherently a detriment -- the existence of more spells does not make the spells they choose inherently less viable -- but it does mean that they are not receiving the same benefit from the expanded spell lists that the other arcane casters are. While this or that spell might be absolutely amazing in a very specific instance, few sorcerers can afford to sacrifice one of their precious few known spells to take something that is only situationally useful.
Where it
does become a detriment is in the actual spells that were added. One of the chief benefits of "can cast more spells per day" is in areas like playing party support and providing wards. This is such a vital area of the server ecology that most content requires a mage or two around for the task -- or an herbal facsimile thereof. In the early game, the increased number of casts per day give a sorcerer something of an edge in this department - only a tiny handful of spells are regularly useful, and they have enough slots to give them to two or three front-liners. Wizards may be learning newer spells faster, but at this level can cover fewer people. Balance! Unfortunately, by mid level the wizard begins accessing Mass spells, allowing a single casting to cover the entire party. At this point and forward, the increased spell slots have a decreasing return on investment as mass versions of buffs make having 8 level 2 slots increasingly irrelevant.
The problem is further compounded by how the social aspects of the server, IC and OOC, interact with the design of the module itself. Many dungeons are set up with certain spells being the clearly optimal route, whether that's in area control/denial for the enemies or in wards for the party going in. Your fellow players know this and will want you to have them, may even simply expect for you to have them, because why wouldn't you? For a wizard, it is a trivial thing to learn all of these and pull them out when the time is right. For a sorcerer, you are faced with the unpleasant prospect of either spending a great deal of your known spells catering to the expected needs of those you travel with, or risk having the "I don't know that one" conversation many, many times going forward -- a thing thing that can easily mean that you become a "tag along, I guess" rather than someone sought out for inclusion. This is even hinted at by the PHB description, under roles:
A party with a sorcerer should strongly consider including a second spellcaster, such as a bard, cleric, druid, or even a wizard, to make up for the sorcerer’s lack of versatility.