Disadvantage of Sorcerers?

[Memnoch]

You definitely wouldn't want to up the number of spells they could learn because they would then be significantly more powerful than a mage, but if their spellcasting was unrestricted by max castable spells per level then they would provide a viable alternative to getting a mage. At the moment I can't see myself playing a sorcerer because I really see it as a support spellcaster role, and as a leader of the group you don't want to play a supporting role. The key would be to work out how many spell levels they can cast per level. BTW I got those numbers from the Netheril AD&D download (apparently this is how magic worked in Toril long long long ago...)

Hmm, intersting. At first glance I thought that Memnoch's idea would be too strong. However, I calculated that a level 17 non-specialist mage would only need to fire off 13 spells, if he had his max number of spells per level, to equal 80 levels:

2 x lvl 8 = 16
3 x lvl 7 = 21
3 x lvl 6 = 18
5 x lvl 5 = 25

13 Totals 80

13 seems resonable compared to a sorceror's 10 and a specialist mage would only need 12, to equal 81.

Another idea would be to allow them a percentage chance of learning a spell which has been used on them! There is nothing like learning from actual experience instead of theory. You could argue they could see the weave first hand and learn the pattern that way. For example if a sorceror was struck by lightning, they could have a % chance equal to their INT x 2, of learning it.What do you think?

Fair enough, but then the sorcerer would be learning all sorts of spells, and the poor old mage would still be scrounging around for scrolls.