I do agree with you that the 7 point cost versus the Empath/Cleric/Wizard costs of 6 is a sore point.

I disagree that anyone is 'forced' into Lore. (And I emphatically disagree with LadyFleur that Wizards are "hamstrung" by first being forced into Lore in the first place, and then forced to diversify those ranks across 4 areas.)
To both points' address: Lores are extras. The spells still have their base function, whether you train in Lores or not. People who do sink in the points, get a version that is more shiny.

.

With that said, though... why are pre-cap Sorcerers even screwing around with non-Sorcerous Lore ranks, anyhow?
(Except, possibly, for picking up a few Summoning ranks (3-10 == +2-4 targets) to let their Fire Spirit splash a bit bigger.)

Even with the ELR, I don't see anything flashy enough in the Minor Elemental list to make my (admittedly, languishing at 25th level) Sorcerer want to split his attention away from the two Sorcerous Lores.

Like the song - good stuff! Just a minor curiosity, how long did it take?

Doug

>You can't just cherry pick a single statistic (TPs spent to max lore training) like that.

This. You could make claims about unfair training costs all day. For example, it seems very counter-intuitive that wizards pay more for elemental mana control than sorcerers do. Sorcerers pay more for spell aiming than wizards, and clerics pay even more still. Everyone pays double for AS/MIU compared to wizards. Etc., etc.

Really I think the important question is balance, looking at the big picture. Is a 1x cap sorcerer weaker overall than other 1x cap pures? What about at 2x cap? 3x cap? Pre-cap? If the sorcerer really is weaker than other pures at any given training level, are lore training costs to blame?

>You can't just cherry pick a single statistic (TPs spent to max lore training) like that.

>Yes, sorcs pay far more to max lore training.

>The tradeoff is that for their main circle, clerics have to choose between different 3 lores topics, wizards 4 different lores, and empaths 5 different lores (but split 2/3 across two lore types). Sorcerers have essentially 2 lore topics for their main circle.

Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope.

Each pure profession has about 75 spells, for us to lore modify our 75 spells we need to spend 0/20, wizards 0/6, clerics 0/6, empaths 0/12

That is one statistic. Here is another.

When a wizard trains in fire lore, he gets benefits in the 400s, 500s, 900s. Three spell circles. When a cleric trains in summoning lore or blessings it is much the same.

The number of circles, the number of spells, granted a benefit for each individual rank of any given lore is exponentially higher among wizards and clerics than among sorcerers. Empaths sitting somewhere in between.

So you can put forth your poorly thought out rebuttal and hope I can't do things like division, but sorry, I can, I've done it in the past.

But when you say things like this:


>For the same number of TPs spent on lores, Sorcerers get far more access to their lore benefits. 606 MTPs in, a 0.5x/0.5x sorcerer is doing just fine.

I think you struggle with math. Simply add up the number of spells modified by a lore and compare. You're training in a lore to modify spells in 3 circles, and you think you get less utility out of that than a sorcerer modifying a single circle? You do know sorcerers know the 100s and 400s right? Those are ours too. Every time we train in a sorcerer lore we get precisely nothing to help 66% of our spells.

Finally, you are correct in one thing, That with 202 ranks to play with a wizard must choose how to allocate between the four elements to benefit 3 circles. Similar how, with 202 ranks to play with, a sorcerer has to allocate how he might want to benefit a single circle. Not that any sorcerer under 30 million experience is likely to have 202 ranks in elemental lore. What, its the choice? There are some really good lore implementations in the 900s and 500s that make choosing hard? A good powerful lore implementation is a negative? Really? This you will hang your hat on?

Well okay, but I will say one last thing. You know who knows about the needs to make these choices? GMs do. There is no standard lore seed progression used on all spells, every single lore seed progression is based upon the relative power being granted and the relative ability likelihood of it being attained. A GM knows a wizard with 202 fire lore has a tremendous opportunity cost, and every single wizard spell has been designed accordingly. So you can't really say "well you're .5x in each sorcerer lore and you're doing fine" which is about as objective as a russian figure skating judge, by the way, because the relative power of each spell is completely based on training expectations. This is similar to how 425 is known as a phantom bonus, which you can Google if you've never heard that before. The issue is the minor circles, minor circle lore modifications are built under the assumption you are single training in that respective lore, as wizards do, as clerics do, as sorcerers start typically postcap. That is the rub. We get far less utility for 66% of our spells.

Now, you could go and edit 50 spells in the 100s and 400s and come up with a sorcerer lore tie-in for each and then maybe your comment of us "doing just fine" with only sorcerer lore training would have held water. But as I'm sure you know, you need elemental lore training to modify the 400s, and spiritual lore training to modify the 100s.

And if there was some universal lore seed progression standard you might have a point about the choices made, but there isn't. Every single elemental lore implementation was designed with the knowledge that players would have to make a choice between 4 lores, and the bonuses were designed accordingly. Our magic system is not a science that has to follow natural laws like real world physics, it is whatever the GMs want to do in the name of fun and game balance. If sorcerers did not know the 100s and 400s and instead knew the 1500s and 1800s and had BananaLore for the 1500s to train in and AppleLore for the 1800s to train in I wouldn't have nearly as strong a position because you could accurately say that those circle's lore implementations were of course designed knowing that sorcerers would be paying so much for lore they would have very few ranks. Alas we share the 100s and 400s with like a half dozen other professions so if the GMs designed these lore implementations for the average sorcerer lore training (which is probably 0.05x precap), they would be intensely overpowered for wizards or clerics (probably 1.25x precap), so they're designed toward the strong and there you have it.

The bottom line is it is neither right nor fair for sorcerers to basically not be able to afford any significant lore modifications to 66% of their spells until they're postcap. It is quite frankly ridiculous. And remember, we don't even pay 0/6 for single lores LIKE EVERY OTHER PURE PROFESSION. We're paying 0/7. zero seven. It is like a surcharge on a penalty. The logic train has gone off the rails.

There is also a factoring bug in how training points are calculated whereby any profession, such as sorcerers, with a prime stat that is aura or discipline ends up with fewer total TPs. This also of course affects wizards. I've mentioned this for years but no one seems to care. I forget the exact numbers off the top of my head but the end result is the maximum TPs for a sorcerer with all 100s in his stats is 57/57 whereas for a cleric or ranger it is 60/60.

Its like an onion, so many layers of how sorcerers get the short end of the stick with training points.

"[Clerics as] "masters of mana"" -- Virilneus

This goes back a ways. :)

In RoleMaster, the act of sending Power Points from one character to another was called "channeling". The skill you spent your Development Points in to do that, was called Channeling.

One of the three Realms of Magic was also called, Channeling. (The other two being Essence [Mages], and Mentalism [nothing ever implemented in GemStoneIII].)
Clerics and Healers were both casters in the Channeling Realm, so they had cheap DevPt training costs in the Channeling skill.

That mindset carried straight across into the deICE, and our current training costs.

>Again, it doesn't make sense to look at these things in isolation. Yes, higher MC cost than all other pures, but lower spell aim and AS/MIU than others. Question is whether it causes imbalance on the whole. I'm not sure you're making that case.

I'm not looking at these things in isolation. I'm underscoring the situation as a whole, just because you're using the words "in isolation" does not mean that is actually going on.

Saying "Every profession should be the best at something, sorcerers are the only profession where this is not true." is not looking at things in isolation.

Pointing out how we're the only pure expected to train in three lore skills, and for each of those skills to modify only 1/3rd of our known spells, is not looking at things in isolation.

We're also the only pure without access to a major circle, which by definition is more powerful than a minor circle.

Maybe once upon a time there was a tradeoff because we were the best hunters because critters had a base 3 TD per level (and that was it) and wizards didn't have a good CS attack spell, empaths had no attack spells, and clerics only had one that worked on the undead, meanwhile we had old style DC. But you couldn't really say that now. Every pure (and some semis) have a riff on DC (a multiple damage warding spell). DC itself was vastly weakened, and critter TDs are not longer as easy to hit (in fact, the AS based spell system enjoys higher hit rates now). Sorcerers haven't been the kings of hunting power in 15 years. Empaths probably are still, though Boneshatter was downtweaked it remains the best sub level 10 warding spell, Wither is as good as any similar spell, and the strong influence PF training has on maneuver defense has given hunting empaths an incredible gift. And because armor hindrances bias against elemental they're doing it in thicker armor than either a sorcerer or wizard.

You would seem to posit that there is some sort of counteracting benefit we get for all of these slights. Well, what is it? A fun component based spell casting system?

Kaedra, a cleric, recently became the first person to reach the true cap of Gemstone, full training in every single skill. It took her ~68m experience. I haven't done this calculation but do you want to guess how long it'd take a sorcerer to do the same? I'm thinking probably closer to 90 million experience. Now that is certainly not in isolation, that takes into account everything.

Here are some more statistics.

PHYSICAL TRAINING COSTS
Aggregate Total for all weapon/armor/cm/dodge/moc skills

Cleric: 128/57
Wizard: 158/66
Empath: 159/68
Sorcerer: 160/68

UTILITY TRAINING COSTS
Aggregate Total for all pt, first aid, survival, climb, swim

Empath: 13/2
Cleric: 18/3
Wizard: 21/3
Sorcerer: 21/3

MAGICAL TRAINING COSTS
Aggregate total for HP, Spell Aiming, MIU, AS.

Wizard: 2/7
Empath: 3/9
Sorcerer: 3/9
Cleric: 3/10

MANA CONTROL TRAINING COSTS
This one is harder to calculate, because of hybrid status. Mana control can function as a lore skill, so a wizard can train in 1 control and get benefit (after the lore review) to 3 circles. Same with clerics. Empaths to two circles, a sorcerer to one each, or one and a half each. As such, on that sorcerers pay the most for the least benefit. But ignoring that. Looking at mana return benefit…

Cleric: 900 MTPS for +15 mana return per pulse.
Wizard: 1200 MTPS for +15 mana return per pulse.
Sorcerer: 1200 MTPS for +15 mana return per pulse.
Empath: 1200 MTPS for +15 mana return per pulse.



You'll notice sorcery never makes it to first place.


If Simu did what I asked, make sorcerer lore training costs 5/6/6 instead of 6/7/7, switched us to 0/1 on AS. We would still have the highest training costs of the pure professions. We would be last for physical costs (clerics first), we would be tied for last for utility skills (empaths first), we would be second for magical skills (wizards first). And still last on lore and tied for last on mana control. The only real positional change would we would move from tied in 2nd on magical to a true 2nd place, thats it. It just wouldn't suck quite as bad, we'd still be behind everyone else, we'd just not be quite as far behind. This should not be controversial.

>This amuses me to no end, given the vituperative posts over in the Wizards about how much bolts suck at cap and they're unreliable as a means of killing. According to over there, it is all about Teh Warding Spells at that level range.

Well I put my mana where my mouth is, I primarily hunt with AS spells because I find them more effective.

>I still don't see any reason why a Sorcerer would even want to train in non-Sorcerous Lores any substantial number of levels before cap.

Because we like to modify 66% of our spells that would otherwise remain unmodified?

>Empath spends 52 mtps
>Cleric spends 56 mtps
>Wizard spends 56 mtps
>Sorcerer spends 40 mtps

When you're that disingenuous I think it only reflects poorly on yourself. You've hit upon a brilliant discovery sir, sorcerers pay less for elemental lore than clerics do. Bravo! Where will you publish this incredible finding?

> Basically the Sorcerer has access to more lore training than any other profession.

That is like saying airline passengers today have access to more surcharges than 10 or 20 years ago. It isn't really a good thing.

Yes, when you're at 30 million experience, a sorcerer is likely to have more total lore ranks than a cleric or wizard, and they will have paid dearly for them, with a higher average cost per rank than any other pure. This is obviously a huge benefit to sorcerers because total lore ranks are used in a myriad of game formulas such as..... well.... hmmm... maybe, no.... ummm... Okay, I got one, it is a runestaff skill. So the sorcerer is likely to have a slightly higher runestaff DS, meanwhile the wizard and cleric will have a higher overall DS thanks to the 100 ranks of dodge they were able to afford by having cheaper overall training costs.

I think you're forgetting about Return on Investment, or ROI. What you get for what you give. Total lore ranks is a meaningless metric, what matters is what you get for them, and with sorcerers only getting a single circle (with basically one exception in DC) out of each lore type, they have the worst ROI for lore training.

Think of it like bullets, do you remember that old movie Sniper? It was subtitled "One shot, one kill." except at the very end in the climax they call for "One shot, two kills" like the scene in Indiana Jones where he uses a luger to shoot through a column of nazis in a single shot. Wizards and clerics get three kills with one bullet. Empaths get 3 kills with 2 bullets. Sorcerers need a full 3 bullets to get 3 kills.... and you say this is an advantage? We got to shoot more bullets, yay us? Like Chewbacca living on Endor, this does not make sense.

>On top of this, Sorcerers tend to get the most from lores because of how they leverage scrolls so frequently.

That is entirely specious. As if the drastically reduced benefit from a non self cast spell makes up for tripled training costs, even if sorcerers use scrolls marginally more than other pures, which on balance is doubtful. Wizards, after all, have the easiest arcane symbol skill advancement. Plus, you know, magical items exist.

On the other hand, the Cleric is unlikely to even bother with Elemental Lore, no matter how much it helps with activated wands or scrolls. (Until/unless they are incredibly bored post-capped people like Kaedra.)
(And by the same token, substitute "Wizards" and "Spirit", likewise.)

The Sorcerer DOES get a gain. And they get it cheap, to start.
(But again, I wouldn't bother with either, until I was done with Sorcerous Lore.)

In fact, the Sorcerer pays only a single point more (to DOUBLE) than the opposite-Realm caster pays (to single). And that is the metric that you really should be using when you compare, not the in-Realm specialist. In-Realm is always going to be best. Period. Same with Weapon Skills, and Arms Realm (i.e. "squares").

.

Where we are hampered, is in there being Only One Spell List in the minor spot. Compare with RoleMaster, where there were like a bajillion lists considered "Open" (Minor), half a hojillion "Closed" (Major), and of course Profession list(s) for each Profession. When you're a spellcaster learning spells from over here (for cheap) and more spells from over there (for cheap) and some from somewhere else (for cheap), those savings add up.

Some things do not translate well to a more limited environment, which is part of why I think the Spirit/Elemental Lore is largely a fail for Sorcerers. (Until/unless they get to be fully trained up in Sorcerous, and are bored with points to throw at it.) Flexible, sure, I can make use of Spirit scrolls/items (with Lore benefit) and I can make use of Elemental scrolls/items (with Lore benefit), but I can't CAST anything to benefit from either of them, really.
If the Sorcerer base list had Spirit/Elemental tie-ins, IN ADDITION TO the Sorcerous Lore tie-ins, that would be much sexier.

>Your math is off here because you're not accounting for how hybrids work (and probably for other reasons -- I have no idea what assumptions you made to get sorcs/empaths on the same level as wizards). +15 is 150 ranks, which even at cap necessarily spans a jump from 1x-2x training (or 2x-3x) for clerics and wizards, but not for sorcerers and empaths because they can 1x both their skills for more ranks and for the equivalent effect. At lower levels of training sorcs, empaths, and clerics are equivalent on a training point basis, while clerics fare worse in high post-cap, and wizards are always worse on this count.

You're right, a slight error. I did that calculation back in 2009 so I don't know what was going on with it. I pulled it off an old blog.


>Every profession should be the best at something. There's no reason it has to be "best" in terms of "lowest base training costs".

No, good game balance and game design would dictate that the scales are always balanced. If every single other profession has something they're the best in, you can't randomly say "well some unknown nebulous other game feature undoubtedly makes up for your lack of being the prime profession for any one training skill." You're picking something from a completely different aspect of the game to "balance" something from another aspect of the game, when the former might actually exist to balance something completely different.

>And maybe sorcerers have already been balanced overall against other professions on the assumption they will be training these lores just like other pures (e.g. 1x total lore training spread across all their lores).

This is impossible because the 100s and 400s are shared spell circles, shared by warriors, rangers, bards, rogues, wizards, empaths, clerics, and paladins. Their lore implementations are not "balanced for sorcerers" who mostly cannot afford any lore training precap for 66% of their spells. They're balanced against wizards and clerics and empaths because, otherwise, they would end up too powerful for wizards and empaths and clerics which would disrupt hunting balance. Think about this, a level 90 ranger, bard, or paladin is likely to have more lore modifications for their minor circle than a sorcerer does. They're not even pures.

>Also, I think the other posters made a good point about the ability of sorcerers to access out of circle spells with their scroll skills, and that their relatively lower training costs across three different lore categories are an added bonus to their out-of-circle spells. It is one advantage no other pure has. This is one piece of the big-picture balance question.

Ya, no. You obviously still have no concept what ROI is, I prescribe Google to rectify that. It is like you don't understand that clerics and wizards don't need to train in opposite sphere lores, its a very strange position to hold. The only person I've seen ever to state that clerics needed to train in elemental lore, or wizards in spiritual lore is Doug, and I'm beginning to suspect you're an alt of his.

A. Clerics and wizards can train in one lore sphere for 6 mtps and modify 75 native cast spells with it.
B. Sorcerers can spend 7 mtps and modify 25 native cast spells, and then another 7 and modify another 75 native cast spells, and then another 6 and modify another 25 native cast spells.

Any profession can use scrolls, any profession can use magical items. The game is literally crawling with self chargers nowadays (I use more magic items when spelling up for a hunt than scrolls, they're just so easy to get). You get 1/3rd lore benefit for professional circle spells cast in this way, you get 1/2 benefit for non professional circle spells cast in this way. We're talking at the end game 5 million experience, that would take someone like me 2 and a half years to obtain. You think two and a half years of hunting is balanced by a tiny marginal utility of being slightly more likely to have lores to modify more non native spells when used off a scroll or magic item?

Do you know why sorcerers have scroll infusion? It isn't so we can take advantage of our lore training by using non native spells. The reason we have it is because for the majority of our existence we were the only pure without any utility spells. The thing was, we were the best hunters, but we missed out on utility. Then we were nerfed in our hunting ability and that sucked for many years, I call those the dark ages. We went from being one of the most popular professions (when the fame lists first launched it was dark elf sorcerer city) to one of the least (and actually stayed that way until ensorcell came out, since then numbers have recovered some). Finally, after much complaining by myself and others, they said they'd give us utility spells to make up for the hunting prowess they took away. So we got scroll infusion and there was a plan for ensorcell, it took a long time to come out though. Do you know why I know these things? I lived through them, and also these were the official Simutronics positions on the matter. I'm not guessing about motivations for any of these changes, we were told by game management these reasons.

Our lore implementation exists because hybrid spellcasting was poorly thought out in the transition to gs4, it has nothing to do with the fact that we have scroll infusion.

It would help if there were Sorcerous Lore effects in the two minor lists.

I'm not sure what, but it would help. :)

>Sooooo, you're just going to ignore the fact that Sorcerers can 2x in both Spirit and Elemental lores, and then use scrolls better than any other profession to gain the advantages of those lores - for less TPs than any other profession?

Yes, I've disputed that several times, and so if you want to characterize that as me ignoring it, so be it. It is quite frankly an asinine argument, that these 0/7 lores are worth it for the either half or third bonus you might get should you choose to gain an outside spell from a scroll. And that this balances with the cleric or wizard ability to boost 75 native spells for a cost of 0/6.

Do you want to know how I know that lore benefits on scroll-invoked spells are not the justification for the poorly done hybrid lore implementation sorcerers "enjoy"? Two reasons. 1. Its crazy, and GMs sometimes make mistakes, but they're not crazy. 2. You probably don't know this, but lore benefits for invoked spells did not always exist. It wasn't until March of 2008 that this was done. ~ 5 years after lores were introduced and mangler skill costs were set.

So if we're looking to solve the mystery of why sorcerers got the short end of the lore implementation stick when GS4 was designed in 2003, we should, you know, look at something that at least existed in 2003.

>Ya, no. You obviously still have no concept what ROI is, I prescribe Google to rectify that. It is like you don't understand that clerics and wizards don't need to train in opposite sphere lores, its a very strange position to hold. The only person I've seen ever to state that clerics needed to train in elemental lore, or wizards in spiritual lore is Doug, and I'm beginning to suspect you're an alt of his.

Seriously, dude? For the number of times I've called you out on basic arithmetic errors in this thread, I really don't know why you'd assume MY unfamiliarity with basic concepts from econ 101 that aren't really all that pertinent to this analysis. More generally, you've been more than a little dismissive and insulting to everyone who's responded on this thread. It's a wonder anyone's responding at all at this point... and you're certainly not persuading anyone this way.

Anyhow, this is a straw man argument. I never said clerics HAVE TO train in any lores other than spiritual. I just noted that the fact that sorcerers can train two extra lores to a greater number of ranks and at lesser cost than other professions (yielding some benefit to outside spell-casting) is ONE benefit that should factor into the analysis. Not the entire justification for this setup, to be sure. But one factor of the big-picture balance question. Do you really deny it's of any benefit at all?

Another part of the overall balance equation would be if a sorcerer's spells plus their outside circles standing alone own (maybe with something less than 1x sorcerous lore) were as good as the spells of other pures across all three circles (with 1x in their respective lores). Lores aren't all THAT great in general for other professions. Many people don't even do 1x with them before cap.

Another source of balance could come from the fact that all lores have diminishing returns. You don't account for this at all in your base training cost analysis (ranks 1-100 are much more valuable than ranks 101-200). Meaning that, at least in post-cap training, non-hybrid pures are spending double training points to get from 1x to 2x in their only source of lores, at diminishing benefits. Meanwhile, sorcerers at the same level of experience are training their two secondary circles up to 1x (at nearly half the cost, each) for much greater benefits on a per-rank basis. It's kind of like the mana control analysis for the hybrids, but a bit harder to quantify since lore benefits don't reduce to a hard number (like +10 mana return or whatever).

Your complaint about each lore affecting only one circle each isn't strictly accurate, as others have pointed out, because elemental lores affect some sorcerer spells. (Also, SL:summoning affects cursing.) Sure, sorcerous lores don't affect the minor circles, but I would say the question is whether their benefits to sorcery spells are strong enough to make them worth it, taking into account that they only modify one circle.

Your complaint is also not accurate with respect to clerics... like sorcerous lore, SL:Religion doesn't affect two of their three spell circles at all. And unlike sorcerous lore, they have to actually make a trade-off on this one with their other two SL skills (and again, above 1x training, this is a trade-off involving double TPs). I could write a long and myopic essay on how unfair it is compared to empaths (or sorcerers!), who don't have to make such a trade-off with their spiritual lores... but I'd have to think about it more, because maybe that apparent imbalance is made up for elsewhere. This is what I mean when I say you can't look at these things in isolation.

At the end of the day, your argument is half-baked at best and you can't seem to tolerate genuine debate on this issue, so I disagree with you just on general principle and am signing off on this one. Toodles.

-Amminar, who is most definitely not Doug.

>Seriously, dude? For the number of times I've called you out on basic arithmetic errors in this thread,

Once, which I admitted.

> I never said clerics HAVE TO train in any lores other than spiritual.

Backtracking already? When I was wrong on something I admitted it, I don't pretend I was saying something else. You made a little list of aggregate lore costs for each pure profession including lores for which a profession gains no native benefit and in which GMs do not intend for them to train. My complaint involves only skills in which a profession is intended to train.

>I just noted that the fact that sorcerers can train two extra lores to a greater number of ranks and at lesser cost than other professions (yielding some benefit to outside spell-casting) is ONE benefit that should factor into the analysis.

Again, I don't know you, but I'm guessing you've only recently started playing having such a poor grasp of historic development in this game. Lores for non native spells did not exist for a full 5 years after lore mangler costs were created. If one had anything to do with the other they would have come about the same time.

You also conveniently ignore the fact that every single profession can use non native magic spells, clerics and empaths even can steal spells from other casters, and wizards are the best at using magic items. Using non native spells is not a sorcerer exclusive skill.

>Another source of balance could come from the fact that all lores have diminishing returns. You don't account for this at all in your base training cost analysis (ranks 1-100 are much more valuable than ranks 101-200). Meaning that, at least in post-cap training, non-hybrid pures are spending double training points to get from 1x to 2x in their only source of lores, at diminishing benefits. Meanwhile, sorcerers at the same level of experience are training their two secondary circles up to 1x (at nearly half the cost, each) for much greater benefits on a per-rank basis. It's kind of like the mana control analysis for the hybrids, but a bit harder to quantify since lore benefits don't reduce to a hard number (like +10 mana return or whatever).

So it is now a penalty to single sphere pures that by cap they've already got 100 ranks in a primary lore affecting all their spells? Seriously? They got to enjoy lore for those spells for 7.5 million experience, they now to get reach higher levels of lore benefits, and yes they pay more per rank for this marginal utility, but that is only because you always pay more for marginal utility. 8x weapons are only double 4x weapons, they are not double the cost. Then, later in post cap, the sorcerer will start paying (even more, because of the nonsense that is 0/7) for those same marginal utility increases, only of course they only affect one native spell circle at a time so they're getting a much lower ROI. At this time the wizard will have finished lore and moved on to something else to train in, and the sorcerer will still be working on lore, and then the wizard will move on to something else, and the sorcerer will still be training lore.

This squishy logic you've presented would sort of be like saying it is an advantage to be level 0 instead of level 50 because if you're level 0 the next 50 levels come faster than if you're level 50. It doesn't really make any sense whatsoever.

>Your complaint about each lore affecting only one circle each isn't strictly accurate, as others have pointed out, because elemental lores affect some sorcerer spells. (Also, SL:summoning affects cursing.) Sure, sorcerous lores don't affect the minor circles, but I would say the question is whether their benefits to sorcery spells are strong enough to make them worth it, taking into account that they only modify one circle.

I'm rounding, when I say 25 spells or 75 spells that also is not accurate since not every circle has 25 lore modified spells in it (or even 25 spells at all). I did mention DC as an exception, 730 the lore tie in is so light and specific I've never actually ever used it while hunting, and 710 is not a very frequently used hunting spell. Summoning is only relevant to cursing in a pvp sort of scenario. Those four examples do not change the calculus at all that sorcerers get the short end of the stick with lore training costs.

>Your complaint is also not accurate with respect to clerics... like sorcerous lore, SL:Religion doesn't affect two of their three spell circles at all.

You finally noticed that, I was wondering if anyone ever would. Yes, I know. SL Blessing does affect all 3 circles, as does SL Summoning. Of course, again, the 300s are a closed spell circle, no one else trains in them, GM's know this. Thereby GMs can design the lore benefits within that circle to take into account the choices a cleric must make. If sorcerers had access to 3 closed spell circles, a closed special elemental one, a closed special spiritual one, and sorcerers, with our same lore training costs, I wouldn't have as strong a position because of this reason. But of course in truth we have the two most shared spell circles in game so this is not the case for us. GMs cannot edit the lore thresholds in the 100s and 400s (as they can the 300s for SL religion) to take into account the difficulty precap sorcerers have in obtaining those spells.

They actually do this a little bit with empaths as well. ML Telepathy I think is supposed to be mostly for monks and savants, for the empath circle few spells are modified by it and those that are achieve very nice benefit at few ranks, almost as if the GMs knew the typical empath was going to focus mostly on manipulation and transformation.

>tolerate genuine debate on this issue,

There isn't really anything to debate. It is a fact sorcerers have the highest aggregate training costs of any pure. It is a fact that sorcerers are the only pure (probably the only profession) without a commonly trained mangler skill in which they are the lowest cost profession. It is a fact that sorcerers are the only pure with 0/7 as a training cost in a native lore. It is a fact sorcerers are the only profession expected to train in a lore that affects only one native spell circle, and it is a fact that we're expected to do this for 3 different lores. In the EG of 2006 there was a store that sold sorcerer lore enhancive wearables off the shelf. The nicest lore enhancive wearables sold off the shelf ever, no other lore has gotten this treatment, only sorcerer lore. They were profession limited too, only sorcerers could use them. Why do this for sorcerers and no one else? They said at the time that it was because our lore implementation was so challenging where it may have been too powerful to allow other pures to just get +10 to whichever lore than wanted, they could allow it for sorcerers since we had such a hard time affording lore training. This issue is not a new thing, nor am I making it up.

If you think this is such a great thing would you support say making "Wizard Lore" a new skill, having it affect only the 900s, erase all elemental lore benefits from the 900s, and change wizard training costs to 0/6 for wizard lore and 0/7 for elemental lore? I think any wizard reading this would have just spit out their coffee. Or we could port SL-Religion to "Cleric Lore" make that 0/6, and have clerics spend 0/7 for spiritual lore, and remove all spiritual lore benefits from the 300s. How excited would you be for that?



I have a new thing sorcerers are the worst at. Thanks to the new 520, which I'm not hating on, I play 3 wizards, and only play 1 sorcerer, but man that is a nice spell. Free crit padding, free dispel immunity in a typical hunting scenario (without any lore training required - you rarely get dispelled more than once every 30 seconds), just wow. And only a 20th level spell, to me it sounds like a level 40 spell atleast. Anyway, thanks to that spell. Sorcerers are now the pure with the weakest armor. Because of how hindrance favors spiritual spells empaths and clerics can both wear thicker armor while hunting, and wizards now have really nice free crit padding. And by the way, even if you could find it on a scroll, which would be hard considering the level 19 common scroll cap for non-arcane, they didn't allow non-native caster lore to modify it.

Let's stop the attacks towards each other, please. Discuss the topic and not each other or accusations towards one another.


~Aulis
Forums Manager
QC'er