Are you playing a sorcerer?

[Dalebert]

The "warlocks suck" thread inspired this one. Warlocks seem like one of the most popular classes. I'm playing one and enjoying it though still pretty low level so we'll see. Sorcerers, on the other hand, seem like they could have used a little more love in 5e. Here's what bugs me.

Sorcerers are all about their spells. Clearly they're not supposed to be as versatile as a wizard and have far fewer spells known, but they used to be able to cast more spells a day in exchange. Now wizards get to regain spell slots once a day. Yes, sorcerers get MM which they could use to cast a very few more spells with but then they're sacrificing actual MM uses of those points, the one class feature that sets them apart.

Also, warlocks have historically been very focused, having even less diversity than a sorcerer but lots of at-will things which is like having even more spells per day than a sorcerer. Now warlocks are still heavy hitters with high level slots that come back frequently. But on top of this, they can potentially know a LOT more spells than a sorcerer when spells are practically all a sorcerer has, and even have more spells "prepared" than a wizard.

I feel like the proof is in the pudding. Lots of people love warlocks so they must not suck too badly. Quick unscientific survey then--how many of you are playing a sorcerer and loving it? A wizard? What are your thoughts on how they balanced out the casters?

[Giant2005]

I'm playing a Sorc and loving it although he isn't single classed.
He has 2 levels of Warlock which gives him some extreme oomph. Even though he has more Sorc levels than Warlock, I consider him more of a Warlock in practice so I'm not so sure he even qualifies for this discussion.
I will say this though, even if he plays more like a Warlock than a Sorc, that focus in Sorcerer makes him far better at Warlocking than a pure Warlock could ever dream of. Pure Warlocks are far from optimized and pure Sorcs aren't particularly amazing either but when you combine the two, you get something far superior to the sum of the parts.

[Ashrym]

I will point out that it's not clear that sorcerers are meant to be as versatile as a wizard. I don't see that indicated in the text and definitely not in the mechanics.

I playtested the sorcerer and I don't like the existing subclass options. Metamagic is a good feature but the points available force converting slots into sorcery points to use the feature at low levels and only 2 meta's with few spells known seems a bit restrictive, but as more spells, meta's, and sorcery points become available the class blossomed well later.

The class is more about significant use of spells on a limited basis than it is about versatility on consistent output.

What I would like to see is more interesting subclasses.

[SliceandDiceKid]

What I would like to see is more interesting subclasses.

I will agree to that!

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

I will agree to that!

Aye, me three. The Dragon-blood seems like the caster equivalent to the Champion; Numerically solid but rather boring. And the wild mage is fun if that's your thing, but mechanically weak.

[Demonic Spoon]

I don't understand how they're mechanically weak. Isn't tides of chaos basically at will, as long as you deal with a roll on the surge table (whose effects are mostly either neutral or positive)?

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

I don't understand how they're mechanically weak. Isn't tides of chaos basically at will, as long as you deal with a roll on the surge table (whose effects are mostly either neutral or positive)?

That's only if your DM chooses to play it that way. If he/she doesn't give you the wild surge rolls, then it's once per long rest.

[Demonic Spoon]

That's only if your DM chooses to play it that way. If he/she doesn't give you the wild surge rolls, then it's once per long rest.

Why would you play a wild magic sorcerer if your DM doesn't give you wild magic surge rolls?

I'll be the first to say that the "DM may have you..." piece of that is poorly-written, but talking about the mechanical power of the wild magic sorcerer assuming they don't get their most iconic class feature is absurd.

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

Why would you play a wild magic sorcerer if your DM doesn't give you wild magic surge rolls?

I'll be the first to say that the "DM may have you..." piece of that is poorly-written, but talking about the mechanical power of the wild magic sorcerer assuming they don't get their most iconic class feature is absurd.

Assuming once per long rest would be about as absurd as assuming you'll get it every single time. They both sit at one end of the possible extremes.

[Freelance GM]

I see where you're coming from. Sorcerers were my favorite caster class in 3.P because of spontaneous casting, and the sheer volume of spells they could throw out in a day. Since everyone casts spontaneously (sort of) now, Sorcerers kind of lost their main appeal.

Also, the fact that they only got 2 subclasses when 8 out of the 12 got three is also kind of disappointing.

In spite of all that, my organized play character (when I'm not DMing) is a Dragon Sorcerer with the Guild Artisan background. He has no idea where the scales on his arm came from (some kind of disease?) and assumes anyone can create torrents of fire with their mind if they concentrate hard enough.

[Demonic Spoon]

Assuming once per long rest would be about as absurd as assuming you'll get it every single time. They both sit at one end of the possible extremes.

Not all extremes are equally absurd. It's reasonable to expect that a good DM will give you wild magic surges, if not every single time you use tides of chaos (though that is still pretty likely), at least fairly frequently. It is not reasonable to expect that a good DM would try to ignore the surge mechanic.

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

Not all extremes are equally absurd. It's reasonable to expect that a good DM will give you wild magic surges, if not every single time you use tides of chaos (though that is still pretty likely), at least fairly frequently. It is not reasonable to expect that a good DM would try to ignore the surge mechanic.

Why are these assumptions reasonable, exactly?

It's easy to assume that a DM will give you just few enough surges to keep you from becoming powerful. Unless the player complains a lot, then it's to the squeaky wheel goes the wild magic.

[Demonic Spoon]

So...your argument is that the DM is going to give too few wild magic surges for the wild magic sorcerer to be not mechanically weak?

Doesn't that fall under the DM being bad?

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

So...your argument is that the DM is going to give too few wild magic surges for the wild magic sorcerer to be not mechanically weak?

Doesn't that fall under the DM being bad?

No, my point was that making assumptions is easy.

Tides of chaos can be powerful if you can come to an agreement ahead of time with the DM that he/she's going to give you that power. It's not inherent to the class though. I guess this class truly is wild and unpredictable, with no two tables being alike.

[Dalebert]

I will point out that it's not clear that sorcerers are meant to be as versatile as a wizard.

I thought I conceded that. They're clearly not intended to be as versatile. They have a limited number of spells know while a wizard can keep learning more and prepare different ones as needed. Given that, they're supposed to have something to offset that. In 3.5, they could at least cast more spells (though wizards had ways around that, meh). In 5e, the apparent primary benefit of a sorcerer is metamagic points and what seems obvious to me is that a sorcerer should have some ability comparable to the wizard whereby he can get maybe half his sorcerer points back with a short rest once per day. They can't. So it just seems like wizards far outshine them in total spell slots per day. If a sorcerer blows points to cast more spells, well they don't get very many, plus they're giving up doing MM with those points, plus I don't know if that would even be enough to make up for a wizard's ability to rest and get half their level in spell slots. And the compare them to the warlock. Warlocks can actually know more spells than a sorcerer and also get invocations and recover spell slots with a short rest and have better subclasses.

I really feel like sorcerers kinda got screwed a little. I'm going to dip sorcerer and it may compliment warlock reasonably well but I can't imagine playing a full sorcerer. I would almost certainly be dipping wizard instead if not for sharing a casting stat with sorcerer already.


I don't understand how they're mechanically weak. Isn't tides of chaos basically at will, as long as you deal with a roll on the surge table (whose effects are mostly either neutral or positive)?

I got the impression that there was a 1 in 20 chance of a wild surge with any sorcerer spell and thus a 1 in 20 chance of getting Tides of Chaos back. Pretty slim; almost negligible really. Am I misunderstanding? Is the idea that using Tides of Chaos makes it potentially a 100% chance of a wild surge next sorcerer spell? If so, that reduces the suckage of this subclass option significantly.

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

Sorcs do have advantages in action economy. By having MM points to spend, they can get more out of a single casting or turn than other casters can.

[Quarterling]

I've seen a very nice Sorc player kick but in our campaign, I like the meta magic quite a bit and their ability to be versatile with their spells I really like what they did with the class

[Demonic Spoon]

I got the impression that there was a 1 in 20 chance of a wild surge with any sorcerer spell and thus a 1 in 20 chance of getting Tides of Chaos back. Pretty slim; almost negligible really. Am I misunderstanding? Is the idea that using Tides of Chaos makes it potentially a 100% chance of a wild surge next sorcerer spell? If so, that reduces the suckage of this subclass option significantly.


The same clause that talks about rolling on the surge table when you cast a spell also exists in the description of tides of chaos, except without having to roll a d20 - it just happens.

You use tides of chaos.

Then you roll on the surge table (unless the DM says no because you're abusing it somehow)

Then you get tides of chaos back.

[Dalebert]

You use tides of chaos.

Then you roll on the surge table (unless the DM says no because you're abusing it somehow)


You don't roll immediately. You roll after the next sorcerer spell you cast, right? So you're saying it raises the chance of a surge from casting a spell from 5% to (potentially) 100%?

[Demonic Spoon]

You don't roll immediately. You roll after the next sorcerer spell you cast, right? So you're saying it raises the chance of a surge from casting a spell from 5% to (potentially) 100%?


I thought it was immedately? I don't know, not at my book. Either way, it's pretty common.

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

It's as common as the DM wants it to be, which may not be as common as one wants it to be.

Relevant passage:

Tides of Chaos
Starting at 1st level, you can manipulate the forces of
chance and chaos to gain advantage on one attack roll,
ability check, or saving throw. Once you do so, you must
finish a long rest before you can use this feature again.
Any time before you regain the use of this feature, the
DM can have you roll on the Wild Magic Surge table
immediately after you cast a sorcerer spell of 1st level or
higher. You then regain the use of this feature.

[Rummy]

Sorcerers are awesome. Twinned scorching ray from a Dragon Sorc is a thing of beauty. Twinned Haste on the Ranger and the Fighter makes me weep with joy.

[Dalebert]

It's quite vague. Until this thread, I had taken it to mean that if you roll a 1 after casting a sorc spell (as typical), you wild surge and get the ability back. So I was just taking it as being a perk of the very occasional wild surge. I actually like the idea of the use of this ability creating a build-up of wild magic that induces a wild surge the next spell you cast. I can picture party members trying to discourage use of this ability after a particularly nasty surge effect which can make for fun games.

[Ashrym]

Sorcerers are awesome. Twinned scorching ray from a Dragon Sorc is a thing of beauty. Twinned Haste on the Ranger and the Fighter makes me weep with joy.

Twin scorching ray isn't valid per Jeremy Crawford and listed on the sage advice page. It doesn't matter if a spell is only cast on a single target if it can be cast on multiple targets.

Twin haste is awesome.

[Kyutaru]

The Sorcerer and Wizard have done a role reversal in this edition. Wizard is the more flexible versatile one with loads of spells while Sorcerer focuses on spell quality through Metamagics. If you want the old gobs of magic version, you go with Warlock.

Honestly, I don't see why there's any concern. You may not get as many spells as Wizards, but you also don't really need all those spell slots to begin with. Combats rarely last more than a few rounds so your main focus is getting the strongest spells in during that limited timeframe. This makes stuff like Twinning extremely important! If you're the kind of player who wants to see huge swings of power like the ancient 2nd edition Wizards were capable of with a single spell, this is the class for you.

It's natural there would be a cost associated with Phenomenal Cosmic Power™ and that cost is the Itty Bitty Spell List.

[Regulas]

Sorc's are more of a "burst" caster class with their features generally guaranteeing them maximum effect when they do act. I.e. giving a target disadvantage on their save can make many "one shot" spells far more useful even against stronger targets.

Notably the one type gets the damage boost at level 6 turning scorching ray in particular into an exceedingly devastating damage spell. And it's important to note that while Evocers can get this at level ten, 5-9 is often the main part of a campaign

They also make for less MAD Illusionist/Enchanters then strait wizards, and they make possibly the best caster to splash Assassin 3 with since you can combo the MM with the crit abilitiy for maximum effect.

[Rummy]

Twin scorching ray isn't valid per Jeremy Crawford and listed on the sage advice page. It doesn't matter if a spell is only cast on a single target if it can be cast on multiple targets.

Twin haste is awesome.

I missed that Crawford over ruled Mearls. So now we have a reason for chromatic orb? Also, twinned disintegrate is awesome.

[Dalebert]

What about twinning Hex?

#1 Can it even be done? It's normally single target but the target can be switched which I could see being interpreted that it's not against a single target.

#2 If it can, how does this work for switching targets? If you kill both targets with say, another twinned attack or an AoE, can you now switch the hex to two new targets?

Anyone else care to chime in on Tides of Chaos and how exactly they're interpreting it? Does it automatically induce a wild surge on your next spell (if DM allows)?

[MaxWilson]

Anyone else care to chime in on Tides of Chaos and how exactly they're interpreting it? Does it automatically induce a wild surge on your next spell (if DM allows)?

I've never dealt with it yet in practice, but I certainly wouldn't make it always trigger on the next spell. The wild surge option is supposed to be a disadvantage with a compensating consolation prize--it allows me to make life more "interesting" for the wild sorc without being unfair to him, because he volunteered for it. Therefore I would only use it when it was likely to be interesting: in high-stakes combat, or when sneaking or something. I wouldn't trigger a wild surge if he was just casting an Alarm ritual or something. I also wouldn't trigger it if there were too many things going on in the scene already: Wild Surges just add more complexity.

Normally I'm a simulationist and fairly neutral as a DM, but playing a Wild Sorcerer and using Tides of Chaos is literally an invitation from the player to the DM to mess with this PC, at least when it comes to wild surges. The PC can avoid the risk by not using Tides of Chaos or by timing his spells.

[Dalebert]

FWIW...

I did a very quick count and came up with about 15 negative(ish) effects on the list of 50 (I think) possible results. Included in that are things like grease centered on you, not being able to speak, only able to shout, going to the astral plane. Basically there's maybe 10 things that are clearly bad and about 5 things that are kind of bad to just annoying depending on the circumstances. There are far better odds that a wild surge will either be beneficial or just kind of flavorful but neutral like making your hair fall out for a day or making you grow a feather beard. It's actually possible a wild surge will simplify a crazy combat by letting you cast a bonus magic missile or lightning bolt three enemies or boost upcoming spell effects.

[Demonic Spoon]

yeah. Wild Surge effects are mostly either hilarious or positive. I have no idea why you think it's meant to be a disadvantage.

[odigity]

FWIW...

I did a very quick count and came up with about 15 negative(ish) effects on the list of 50 (I think) possible results. Included in that are things like grease centered on you, not being able to speak, only able to shout, going to the astral plane. Basically there's maybe 10 things that are clearly bad and about 5 things that are kind of bad to just annoying depending on the circumstances. There are far better odds that a wild surge will either be beneficial or just kind of flavorful but neutral like making your hair fall out for a day or making you grow a feather beard. It's actually possible a wild surge will simplify a crazy combat by letting you cast a bonus magic missile or lightning bolt three enemies or boost upcoming spell effects.

But even 100 free magic missles wouldn't make up for being stranded in the Astral Plane at level 1.

[Oscredwin]

But even 100 free magic missles wouldn't make up for being stranded in the Astral Plane at level 1.

Or getting the fireball centered on yourself at level 1.

[Dalebert]

But even 100 free magic missles wouldn't make up for being stranded in the Astral Plane at level 1.

Pfft. You're only there one round. Depending on the timing, it could even be a good thing. :smallbiggrin:


Or getting the fireball centered on yourself at level 1.

That's one of the scarier ones. Having that happen at lvl 1 could be the suck.

[Oscredwin]

Or getting the fireball centered on yourself at level 1.
That's one of the scarier ones. Having that happen at lvl 1 could be the suck.

So it's 8d6 damage, which is 28 if you fail the save, 14 if you pass or have evasion, 0 if you pass and have evasion or shield master. 28 damage will kill a wild sorcerer with a 14 con (who has no save prof, evasion, or shield master and a 50% chance of failing the save +5% for every 2 pts their CHA is higher than their DEX thus having a 55-65% chance of FAILING the save)

Sorcerer:
level 1 8hp - down and dead
level 2 14 hp - down and dead
level 3 20 hp - down if failed the save
level 4 26 hp - down if failed the save
level 5 32 hp - survive the wildsurge

Let's look at the Sorcerer's Barbarian friend who has the most chance of surviving. Again, 14 con (point buy, STR the highest, not a Dwarf):

Same odds of failing the save
Level 1 14 hp - down and dead
Level 2 23 hp - down if failed the save
level 3 32 hp - survive (also can get bear totem so pretty safe)

What about a rogue (17 dex, 14 con +5 dex save and a DC of 13 so 60% chance of passing the save)?

Level 1 10 HP - down and dead
Level 2 17 HP - 60% still up, 40% of the time down
level 3 24 hp - 60% still up, 40% of the time down
level 4 31 hp - survives

So what I'm seeing is that for at level 1 a Sorc has 2% chance per wild surge of wiping the party. Assuming 10 encounters to level up, and a DM who is generous with wild surges (a player used tides of chaos every fight, DM gives them a surge every fight, plus a 1/20 chance of a surge). That's 1-.98^28 = 46% chance of getting fireballed before level 4.

So give fewer surges than 1 per fight, fudge the roles to avoid the fireball (or fudge the fireball damage if you get it), or don't stand next to the sorceror.

[Celcey]

Ignoring the side conversation, what are the benefits of a sorcerer in this edition? I mean, they have some good options, but a it seems the only reason to choose one over a Wizard is for flavor/RP/fluff.

[Oscredwin]

Ignoring the side conversation, what are the benefits of a sorcerer in this edition? I mean, they have some good options, but a it seems the only reason to choose one over a Wizard is for flavor/RP/fluff.

Metamagic(twin lets you do things with haste at level 5 that no other caster can, quicken is a big damage boost, heighten and empower make your spells a lot more reliable, distant, careful, and subtle can be incredibly useful depending on the campaign). Best blasting. At will fight without concentration.

[Ashrym]

Ignoring the side conversation, what are the benefits of a sorcerer in this edition? I mean, they have some good options, but a it seems the only reason to choose one over a Wizard is for flavor/RP/fluff.

Metamagic is the reason. IMO, it's the only reason outside of flavour but it is definitely a valid reason to play a sorcerer.

[GiantOctopodes]

In our campaign we have a sorcerer, he seems to have a good time with the class. He's not only a wild magic sorcerer, but also a totally useless drunk, who rolls on a 'drunkenness' chart to determine his personality ('type of drunk') and preferred actions on a regular basis, so he contributes far less to the success of our party than he might, but he's hilarious so I don't mind.

We play in a naval campaign, so the worst I've seen so far was when he rolled the result where you ignite all flammable materials you touch (such as our ship and everything on it), and the most amusing was when he rolled that he was immune to the effects of alcohol for X number of days. So, though I definitely agree they are mostly positive, there are certainly negative ones on there, and they can definitely make things more interesting.

The one I wonder about are the permanent age and size modifications. Has anyone ever rolled a bunch of those results, with the effects stacking over time rather than cancelling out, until they become a child or old man, or a foot tall or 10 feet tall? Basically, has anyone seen or even heard of a character being rendered unplayable but not dead through those results? Probably too small of a sample size so far, but I think it would be interesting to get to the point (maybe around the 8-9 foot mark) where the DM is forced to say "ok, yeah, you're a large creature now".

[Naanomi]

The one I wonder about are the permanent age and size modifications. Has anyone ever rolled a bunch of those results, with the effects stacking over time rather than cancelling out, until they become a child or old man, or a foot tall or 10 feet tall?
We had a Halfling lose 9 inches and questioned whether someday she would just disappear but never got any smaller