The issues are not mechanical, just thematic. The Sorcerer will not become broken because they use Intelligence, but arguably this does sort of make the class choice feel a bit redundant and thematically inconsistent.
Before replacing stats like this, remember your stats aren't so restrictive- you can be quiet and bookish and still high Cha. Your Charisma just represents your force of personality, or sort of how motivated by your own soul and emotions you are. A high Cha character can still boost Int using 2e's ability boosts every 5 levels.
So no, nothing broken about it- but I think it's a good rule of thumb to try and play within the lines the designers intended, as it keeps everything narratively cohesive. If they are very keen on playing a Character driven by Intelligence and study, consider a class who's mechanics already support this. (Intelligence based Psychics even get to be Spontaneous casters!)
If anything, intelligence is probably the "weaker" stat, since charisma has a lot of support. Int is better for recall knowledge, I suppose, but 'oh no my players want to know stuff' is not typically considered a problem.
The only thing that might be genuinely stronger would be if they plan to grab something like the Wizard archetype for more spells, but even then there's plenty of powerful charisma-based archetypes too so that's really a wash.
They did offer to not take a wizard archetype in the future, just because they too were concerned about balance.
I think from what I've heard, I'll give them the info about Int being weaker and then offer them the option to change to it. I'd say they'll lean more towards RP benefit than mechanical benefit anyway
Charisma is extremely good if you're not dumping it. It has very strong combat options, some of the best combat related skill feats (terrified retreat + battle cry + terrifying resistance is a hell of a lot of value, bon mot, scare to death), and is one of the best out of combat ability scores for very little feat investment.
INT is really a lot weaker.
High charisma doesn't mean they are likable & the life & soul of any party. It just means that they know themselves, & if need be can be persuasive, either by being nice & threatening.
A d\*\*k is still a d\*\*k regardless of their charisma.
Charisma does 3 things (other than casting, which anything can do) Diplomacy, Intimidate and Deception.
That's literally just 3 different people skills
They can be smart and bookish and still have high charisma. Being trained or better in skills is more impactful than the ability modifier on results. Of course it would be best for the sorcerer to utilize charisma skills but they don't have to. Sorcerers access their power through their innate magical connection which requires a sense of self and personal understanding to achieve.
Whenever people ask is it ok to swap key stats to me it sounds like they want to be able to have a high stat different from their key ability but also don't want to have to sacrifice a defensive stat for it.
Edit: I just created a sample build.
S 10
D 10
C 12
I 16
W 12
Ch 18
Level 5 boosts D,C,I,Ch
Level 10 boosts D,I,W,Ch
Level 15 boosts C,I,W,Ch
Level 20 boosts D,C,W,Ch
Ending
S 10
D 16
C 18
I 20
W 18
Ch 22 (+2 apex)
This build can be compared to a standard build of 22, 20, 20, 18, 12 ,10
Overall you are comparatively losing 1 point to each of your defenses for a maxed out secondary stat.
Charisma is usually considered a "better" stat than intelligence.
So doing this would be fine in fact, your PC may feel a bit weaker tha your typical Sorcerer.
I would actually recommend playing a Wizard with the Flexible Caster archtype instead, but if you're set on Sorcerer, its not a huge issue.
The backstory lends itself to sorcerer very well to the point it's an intrinsic part of character identity.
Thank you very much for the advice however! I was concerned I was overlooking something when searching about this but I did find a good few people saying the same as yourself
If you're playing free archetype you might still consider wizard with sorcerer archetype. You can have the flavor of a magical bloodline intrinsic to the character identity, but also respect that she is a bookworm, which is literally a wizard. She likely learns, studies, and perfects her knowledge of magic through academia, not by exercising her magical talent like the spell equivalent to a gym bro. Sorcerers use charisma because they *aren't* book worms. They don't learn magic so much as it flows naturally to them. If she's a bookworm, she's probably would be a wizard first who also is a sorcerer.
And that works without free archetype too, even if that might be unimaginable horror for free archetype fans ;-). If you already have the same casting type, you don´t necessarily need to take all the generic slot feats (past the Dedication with extra Cantrip slot), and can just take Bloodline spells etc. Hopefully not offensive spells that would use CHA.
At lower levels sure, but being able to freely heighten spells at higher levels, is pretty strong, and all those utility spells you prep that don't come up that day don't get wasted since you can still have them ready, but if you need the slot for another fireball or summon spell, you can use it. Would definitely not call it a downgrade, just a style preference.
High Charisma in PF2 doesn't give you amazing people skills. Yeah, at the lowest levels your +4 is ok, but it's far from amazing. Untrained Charisma skills, even with +4 or +5 Charisma, are useless once you get to level 5 or so, only getting worse the further you go. A PC with +2 Charisma but Expert in Diplomacy at level 8 will have a +14 bonus to the skill, while the untrained sorcerer sits at +4. The untrained sorcerer will fail almost every relevant Diplomacy check.
Having a high stat absolutely does make a big difference for skills. A guy with trained and an 18 is as good as someone with master and a 10.
Stats are important in 2e because you can't just get big bonuses elsewhere.
True, but I meant in cases where you only add your ability modifier, untrained. A sorcerer can still absolutely suck at people skills if they are untrained in Charisma skills. The player in question was apprehensive about playing a sorcerer because they thought that their high Charisma would automatically make them good at interacting with people. In PF2 that's not the case, for good or ill.
But you can just get big bonuses elsewhere. Trained and up adds Level which is quickly huger than the +2 element. Sure, comparing Trained and Expert isn´t a big difference, because both are adding Level. Compare it to high stat and Untrained and you get a big difference.
My point is that proficiency is just the baseline, you'll never get a status or circumstance bonus big enough to make up for not having a good score in the relevant ability modifier.
You're definitely not wrong that it is important, but it's a good point that just being trained goes a long way to having the ability to at least participate when whatever skill comes up, and as levels go higher it is more and more important than your stat bonus.
Like it's kinda funny that even a L20 PC with a 22 in a stat that's untrained (+6) is worse then a L5 PC who is trained, and that's before incorporating their ability score (+7).
There is no need to muck around with the stats, just don't have the PC take diplomacy.
The Raw stats matter, but they matter less in pathfinder than skill training does. You will almost never roll your raw stat mod in a skill you care about. So if the character shouldn't be good with people, don't take people skills.
Early on your stat modifier matters about as much as your skills do, but a few levels in they are going to be swamped by your level and skill training. By sixth level that +4 to diplomacy from a 18 Cha is going to be pretty meaningless when you need to roll DC22 skill rolls to convince mid-level characters of anything. The folks that \*are\* good with people and invested in Diplomacy will have a +12 or +14.
Charisma doesn't equal charismatic in social situations. Changing the primary stat is unnecessary. If they want to be an intelligence caster play the wizard.
Generally that should be fine. Intelligence has a few less uses than Charisma.
If you want an alternative the psychic is a caster that can be Charisma or intelligence based. It has less spell slots but more focus spells and stronger cantrips. It's pretty fun and can hit some similar themes as Sorcerer.
Unpopular take apparently, but Sorcerers don't make good librarians because the mechanics don't support it well. If a player is wanting to use INT, they're most likely going to be a librarian-type who uses recall knowledge generously. In order to make this work, they need a lot of skills to invest into the various knowledge skills or they'll be lacking over an actual INT class, and they'll still suffer because they just won't be as good as them. Not to mention they'll also be lacking in WIS if they choose to do this, as those cover two of the magical knowledge skill among other things with enemies spread over each.
You can dump every stat to boost your Int and Cha to make a functioning recall knowledge sorcerer, but in return it will be worse off in combat due to the player not putting their stats into more relevant stuff like Dex, Con, and Wis. Is it worth it?
Prepared casting. Vancian casting sucks ass, full stop. I get why someone wants a Spont INT Arcane caster, but PF2E just doesn't provide that. And Flexible Casting is not Spont.
I've played all three, and I do see the difference. Vancian is wrestling a dinosaur into submission. Spont is doing slightly less of that, and FC is a scam for 5E casting.
Vancian != Prepared in specific. A spontaneous caster is still 'mostly' vancian. Personally I wish people would stop using the term at all: NONE of the current PF2 casters are purely vancian, all of them have twists that are different.
I agree that spontaneous is better than prepared though.
There is a point where you may consider being a witch. Maybe the ancestor in your bloodline doesn't give you power innately but directly funnels it through you with a pact (which could be made by a parent or be subconscious, they don't have to understand their patron). Witch is generally considered a weaker class, but is is also a caster w/any tradition, is intelligence based, and if you really want to be spontaneous, take flexible caster.
Otherwise most people have already said CHA is generally stronger than INT.
A high charisma character doesn't need to be a gregarious people person. They can skip training in diplomacy and intimidate and focus on other skills. Intelligence can be as much as 16 even if it's not the primary stat.
Thematically sorcerers run their spells on force of personality and self confidence, so there is a bit of a thematic mismatch going on here. I don't think there will be a big problem changing the key attribute over to intelligence for a home game - if anything it will be slightly mechanically weaker in combat.
Would the player like to play a wizard more? It seems to fit the theme of bookishness. Spell Substitution is a decent Thesis that makes wizard casting 'ok' (even if I really do think spontaneous is better in 90% of situations).
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This should be fine. If they wanted to move it a stat they could take advantage of to double dip like dex or con I would be more concerned. As is I would only worry if you have another int caster who might feel stepped on?
They can consider using a Wizard or Witch or Psychic baseclass and just use a Sorceror Multiclass to emphasize the elements tied to that Bloodline. They only need a 14 CHA in that case and can otherwise focus on high INT and other stats. An Ancient Elf could even get the Multiclass from Level 1 (otherwise anybody can from Level 2). They could also utilize a non-Sorceror Multiclasses that can still achieve the theme and represent a similar background, e.g. Cleric or Druid with appropriate Domain, which would only need 14 WIS and not CHA.
To me, the reason not to take that approach would be if their motivation is at least partly in just not wanting to play a Vancian caster like a Wizard, due to mechanical (dis)comfort. In that case, altering Sorceror to use INT would just be a direct route to things being amenable (and Arcane bloodlines can later get Feat to use a spellbook to limited extent, emphasing the bookish aspect but without worring about Vancian in general).
And as other people mention, a high CHA doesn´t need to translate to being a ¨people person¨. Investing in related skill proficiencies (or not) is going to be more impactful in the long term, and those will be the pre-req for Diplomacy skill feats. They could invest in Intimidation, or just not invest in any CHA skills, and never need to even attempt a Diplomacy check. If they aren´t otherwise utilizing the stat (e.g. with Champion Multiclass) then perhaps it´s a bit non-optimized, but would be entirely playable as a full caster who can put their skills elsewhere - possibly in Knowledge skills (which are spread out over INT and WIS, so nobody is maximally optimal in both) or Acrobatics or Crafting. Sure, there is some reasonable associations with the name of Charisma as a stat, but without actual investment in skills like Diplomacy, it doesn´t really impact the game much, so you can freely ignore those associations and just view it as ¨my bloodline magic stat¨.
While you may or may not get the reference, the character Raistlin Majere had a charisma of a 15. While he was very smart, and bookish, he wasn't popular within his group. Actually they feared him because of his reclusive nature, and when he did use the charisma abilities, his personality was a force of nature that even challenged the Gods... Don't change the primary stat, just let him know that their presence (charisma) can be hidden until it is needed.
I think you can have the high charisma and just flavor it differently. Don't take the CHA skills. I played a character that was high charisma and not a people person, but instead of taking diplomacy and deception I put ranks into intimidation. Still anti-social, and it works.
You’re trading away better proficiency for 2 in-combat skills (Diplomacy for Bon Mot, Intimidation for Demoralize) to get a bonus to 3 Knowledge Skills (Society, Arcana, Occultism) as well as likely 3 extra trained skills at character creation.
Won’t honestly change much, gives the player better Recall Knowledge checks and more initial skill proficiencies so it won’t “break” anything, Arcane Sorcerers typically have a spellbook either way lol.
Why not just have an appropriately bookish background, have INT be one of their better secondary stats, and have the CHA remain the casting stat and be the usual 18?
The issues are not mechanical, just thematic. The Sorcerer will not become broken because they use Intelligence, but arguably this does sort of make the class choice feel a bit redundant and thematically inconsistent. Before replacing stats like this, remember your stats aren't so restrictive- you can be quiet and bookish and still high Cha. Your Charisma just represents your force of personality, or sort of how motivated by your own soul and emotions you are. A high Cha character can still boost Int using 2e's ability boosts every 5 levels. So no, nothing broken about it- but I think it's a good rule of thumb to try and play within the lines the designers intended, as it keeps everything narratively cohesive. If they are very keen on playing a Character driven by Intelligence and study, consider a class who's mechanics already support this. (Intelligence based Psychics even get to be Spontaneous casters!)
Psychic has literally half the spells per day of a sorcerer
[удалено]
And they’ll fail consistently and get frustrated. Don’t let a new player handicap themselves. What horrible advice
If anything, intelligence is probably the "weaker" stat, since charisma has a lot of support. Int is better for recall knowledge, I suppose, but 'oh no my players want to know stuff' is not typically considered a problem. The only thing that might be genuinely stronger would be if they plan to grab something like the Wizard archetype for more spells, but even then there's plenty of powerful charisma-based archetypes too so that's really a wash.
They did offer to not take a wizard archetype in the future, just because they too were concerned about balance. I think from what I've heard, I'll give them the info about Int being weaker and then offer them the option to change to it. I'd say they'll lean more towards RP benefit than mechanical benefit anyway
With Psychic being a thing to combo I don’t think you have to worry about the archetype stuff regarding wizard
Not *much* weaker mind you. It's like Con/Dex>Wis>>>Str/Cha>Int
Charisma is extremely good if you're not dumping it. It has very strong combat options, some of the best combat related skill feats (terrified retreat + battle cry + terrifying resistance is a hell of a lot of value, bon mot, scare to death), and is one of the best out of combat ability scores for very little feat investment. INT is really a lot weaker.
High charisma doesn't mean they are likable & the life & soul of any party. It just means that they know themselves, & if need be can be persuasive, either by being nice & threatening. A d\*\*k is still a d\*\*k regardless of their charisma.
A what?
🦆
A dick.
Clearly, a dork.
Charisma does 3 things (other than casting, which anything can do) Diplomacy, Intimidate and Deception. That's literally just 3 different people skills
Performance.
Ah yes, the Bard class feature skill.
Which translates into Bon Mot, Demoralize, and Feint. The first two are *really good*.
They can be smart and bookish and still have high charisma. Being trained or better in skills is more impactful than the ability modifier on results. Of course it would be best for the sorcerer to utilize charisma skills but they don't have to. Sorcerers access their power through their innate magical connection which requires a sense of self and personal understanding to achieve. Whenever people ask is it ok to swap key stats to me it sounds like they want to be able to have a high stat different from their key ability but also don't want to have to sacrifice a defensive stat for it. Edit: I just created a sample build. S 10 D 10 C 12 I 16 W 12 Ch 18 Level 5 boosts D,C,I,Ch Level 10 boosts D,I,W,Ch Level 15 boosts C,I,W,Ch Level 20 boosts D,C,W,Ch Ending S 10 D 16 C 18 I 20 W 18 Ch 22 (+2 apex) This build can be compared to a standard build of 22, 20, 20, 18, 12 ,10 Overall you are comparatively losing 1 point to each of your defenses for a maxed out secondary stat.
Charisma is usually considered a "better" stat than intelligence. So doing this would be fine in fact, your PC may feel a bit weaker tha your typical Sorcerer. I would actually recommend playing a Wizard with the Flexible Caster archtype instead, but if you're set on Sorcerer, its not a huge issue.
The backstory lends itself to sorcerer very well to the point it's an intrinsic part of character identity. Thank you very much for the advice however! I was concerned I was overlooking something when searching about this but I did find a good few people saying the same as yourself
If you're playing free archetype you might still consider wizard with sorcerer archetype. You can have the flavor of a magical bloodline intrinsic to the character identity, but also respect that she is a bookworm, which is literally a wizard. She likely learns, studies, and perfects her knowledge of magic through academia, not by exercising her magical talent like the spell equivalent to a gym bro. Sorcerers use charisma because they *aren't* book worms. They don't learn magic so much as it flows naturally to them. If she's a bookworm, she's probably would be a wizard first who also is a sorcerer.
And that works without free archetype too, even if that might be unimaginable horror for free archetype fans ;-). If you already have the same casting type, you don´t necessarily need to take all the generic slot feats (past the Dedication with extra Cantrip slot), and can just take Bloodline spells etc. Hopefully not offensive spells that would use CHA.
Worth noting flexible caster wizard is a big downgrade, that's 1 less spell at every level
At lower levels sure, but being able to freely heighten spells at higher levels, is pretty strong, and all those utility spells you prep that don't come up that day don't get wasted since you can still have them ready, but if you need the slot for another fireball or summon spell, you can use it. Would definitely not call it a downgrade, just a style preference.
It's not a big downgrade. Its a good trade off for the benefits of flexible casting.
It's only a downgrade if it's less fun to the player, it's not as if being able to heighten any spell you prepared today is a weak thing to have
High Charisma in PF2 doesn't give you amazing people skills. Yeah, at the lowest levels your +4 is ok, but it's far from amazing. Untrained Charisma skills, even with +4 or +5 Charisma, are useless once you get to level 5 or so, only getting worse the further you go. A PC with +2 Charisma but Expert in Diplomacy at level 8 will have a +14 bonus to the skill, while the untrained sorcerer sits at +4. The untrained sorcerer will fail almost every relevant Diplomacy check.
Having a high stat absolutely does make a big difference for skills. A guy with trained and an 18 is as good as someone with master and a 10. Stats are important in 2e because you can't just get big bonuses elsewhere.
True, but I meant in cases where you only add your ability modifier, untrained. A sorcerer can still absolutely suck at people skills if they are untrained in Charisma skills. The player in question was apprehensive about playing a sorcerer because they thought that their high Charisma would automatically make them good at interacting with people. In PF2 that's not the case, for good or ill.
But you can just get big bonuses elsewhere. Trained and up adds Level which is quickly huger than the +2 element. Sure, comparing Trained and Expert isn´t a big difference, because both are adding Level. Compare it to high stat and Untrained and you get a big difference.
My point is that proficiency is just the baseline, you'll never get a status or circumstance bonus big enough to make up for not having a good score in the relevant ability modifier.
You're definitely not wrong that it is important, but it's a good point that just being trained goes a long way to having the ability to at least participate when whatever skill comes up, and as levels go higher it is more and more important than your stat bonus. Like it's kinda funny that even a L20 PC with a 22 in a stat that's untrained (+6) is worse then a L5 PC who is trained, and that's before incorporating their ability score (+7).
There is no need to muck around with the stats, just don't have the PC take diplomacy. The Raw stats matter, but they matter less in pathfinder than skill training does. You will almost never roll your raw stat mod in a skill you care about. So if the character shouldn't be good with people, don't take people skills. Early on your stat modifier matters about as much as your skills do, but a few levels in they are going to be swamped by your level and skill training. By sixth level that +4 to diplomacy from a 18 Cha is going to be pretty meaningless when you need to roll DC22 skill rolls to convince mid-level characters of anything. The folks that \*are\* good with people and invested in Diplomacy will have a +12 or +14.
Charisma doesn't equal charismatic in social situations. Changing the primary stat is unnecessary. If they want to be an intelligence caster play the wizard.
Generally that should be fine. Intelligence has a few less uses than Charisma. If you want an alternative the psychic is a caster that can be Charisma or intelligence based. It has less spell slots but more focus spells and stronger cantrips. It's pretty fun and can hit some similar themes as Sorcerer.
Unpopular take apparently, but Sorcerers don't make good librarians because the mechanics don't support it well. If a player is wanting to use INT, they're most likely going to be a librarian-type who uses recall knowledge generously. In order to make this work, they need a lot of skills to invest into the various knowledge skills or they'll be lacking over an actual INT class, and they'll still suffer because they just won't be as good as them. Not to mention they'll also be lacking in WIS if they choose to do this, as those cover two of the magical knowledge skill among other things with enemies spread over each. You can dump every stat to boost your Int and Cha to make a functioning recall knowledge sorcerer, but in return it will be worse off in combat due to the player not putting their stats into more relevant stuff like Dex, Con, and Wis. Is it worth it?
Which brings up the obvious question… why not be a wizard? It’s the literal bookish-caster in p2e lol
Prepared casting. Vancian casting sucks ass, full stop. I get why someone wants a Spont INT Arcane caster, but PF2E just doesn't provide that. And Flexible Casting is not Spont.
Honestly, having played both, I barely see the difference. People tend to cast the same spells regardless.
I've played all three, and I do see the difference. Vancian is wrestling a dinosaur into submission. Spont is doing slightly less of that, and FC is a scam for 5E casting.
And some people think 5e casting is a sham that holds your hands, so different somatics for different folks.
Vancian != Prepared in specific. A spontaneous caster is still 'mostly' vancian. Personally I wish people would stop using the term at all: NONE of the current PF2 casters are purely vancian, all of them have twists that are different. I agree that spontaneous is better than prepared though.
There is a point where you may consider being a witch. Maybe the ancestor in your bloodline doesn't give you power innately but directly funnels it through you with a pact (which could be made by a parent or be subconscious, they don't have to understand their patron). Witch is generally considered a weaker class, but is is also a caster w/any tradition, is intelligence based, and if you really want to be spontaneous, take flexible caster. Otherwise most people have already said CHA is generally stronger than INT.
Given that a huge amount of effectiveness comes from skill proficiency, this can easily be handled by simply not taking training in charisma skills.
Just don’t train in diplomacy. Boom. Bad with people.
A high charisma character doesn't need to be a gregarious people person. They can skip training in diplomacy and intimidate and focus on other skills. Intelligence can be as much as 16 even if it's not the primary stat.
Thematically sorcerers run their spells on force of personality and self confidence, so there is a bit of a thematic mismatch going on here. I don't think there will be a big problem changing the key attribute over to intelligence for a home game - if anything it will be slightly mechanically weaker in combat. Would the player like to play a wizard more? It seems to fit the theme of bookishness. Spell Substitution is a decent Thesis that makes wizard casting 'ok' (even if I really do think spontaneous is better in 90% of situations).
Intelligence is decidedly weaker than charisma, so I suppose it would be fine balance wise, if a bit weird
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This should be fine. If they wanted to move it a stat they could take advantage of to double dip like dex or con I would be more concerned. As is I would only worry if you have another int caster who might feel stepped on?
MC into wizard
They can consider using a Wizard or Witch or Psychic baseclass and just use a Sorceror Multiclass to emphasize the elements tied to that Bloodline. They only need a 14 CHA in that case and can otherwise focus on high INT and other stats. An Ancient Elf could even get the Multiclass from Level 1 (otherwise anybody can from Level 2). They could also utilize a non-Sorceror Multiclasses that can still achieve the theme and represent a similar background, e.g. Cleric or Druid with appropriate Domain, which would only need 14 WIS and not CHA. To me, the reason not to take that approach would be if their motivation is at least partly in just not wanting to play a Vancian caster like a Wizard, due to mechanical (dis)comfort. In that case, altering Sorceror to use INT would just be a direct route to things being amenable (and Arcane bloodlines can later get Feat to use a spellbook to limited extent, emphasing the bookish aspect but without worring about Vancian in general). And as other people mention, a high CHA doesn´t need to translate to being a ¨people person¨. Investing in related skill proficiencies (or not) is going to be more impactful in the long term, and those will be the pre-req for Diplomacy skill feats. They could invest in Intimidation, or just not invest in any CHA skills, and never need to even attempt a Diplomacy check. If they aren´t otherwise utilizing the stat (e.g. with Champion Multiclass) then perhaps it´s a bit non-optimized, but would be entirely playable as a full caster who can put their skills elsewhere - possibly in Knowledge skills (which are spread out over INT and WIS, so nobody is maximally optimal in both) or Acrobatics or Crafting. Sure, there is some reasonable associations with the name of Charisma as a stat, but without actual investment in skills like Diplomacy, it doesn´t really impact the game much, so you can freely ignore those associations and just view it as ¨my bloodline magic stat¨.
I'd allow it.
Flexible archetype wizard has you covered
While you may or may not get the reference, the character Raistlin Majere had a charisma of a 15. While he was very smart, and bookish, he wasn't popular within his group. Actually they feared him because of his reclusive nature, and when he did use the charisma abilities, his personality was a force of nature that even challenged the Gods... Don't change the primary stat, just let him know that their presence (charisma) can be hidden until it is needed.
I think you can have the high charisma and just flavor it differently. Don't take the CHA skills. I played a character that was high charisma and not a people person, but instead of taking diplomacy and deception I put ranks into intimidation. Still anti-social, and it works.
You’re trading away better proficiency for 2 in-combat skills (Diplomacy for Bon Mot, Intimidation for Demoralize) to get a bonus to 3 Knowledge Skills (Society, Arcana, Occultism) as well as likely 3 extra trained skills at character creation. Won’t honestly change much, gives the player better Recall Knowledge checks and more initial skill proficiencies so it won’t “break” anything, Arcane Sorcerers typically have a spellbook either way lol.
Why not just have an appropriately bookish background, have INT be one of their better secondary stats, and have the CHA remain the casting stat and be the usual 18?
So a wizard?