I don't get the Sorcerer

[Eric Diaz]

So, after playing the game for a while, I'm thinking the sorcerer has no strong role and that the game might be better without it.

- Mechanically, I dislike the whole idea of "flexible magic". Well, scratch that, I LOVE the idea, but hate the implementation. You have points, and slots, and can trade one for the other... why not just say any spellcaster can double the ranged of a spell by spending a higher slot, or some other trick?
- I don't see the strong archetype tied to the class. In a world while other spellcasters learn magic though book and patrons, you have wild funny magic, or maybe you were born with magic because your ancestors were dragons. Who is that? Rincewind? Daenerys?
- Wild magic was played for laughs all the times we've tried it. It also slowed the game down. BTW, is it 100% decided by the DM RAW? "The DM can...". No guidelines I can remember...
- Draconic resilience just makes the sorcerer a d8 class (i.e., warlock) with natural armor. So, if you're lizardfolk, you wouldn't want draconic bloodline. Go figure.
- The game has enough spellcasters without the sorcerer.
- The game DEFINITELY has enough Charisma spellcasters without the sorcerer.
- It seems that the class is there for mechanical reasons akin to what we had in 4e, which I dislike - "we need a primal defender based on dexterity" or something.

I see it might have something to do with the spell list, but I don't see the need for a whole class based on that. Metamagic also is not enough of a reason IMO.

What am I missing?

EDIT: the worst part is that with so many spellcasters, it feels like every splat will ado more spellcaster options to make everyone happy... While it should be the contrary IMO. BTW, I really wish we had a warlord.

EDIT 2: I get that the sorcerer is artillery but... still not enough reason IMO.

[TheUser]

Subtle, Twinned, Careful and Empower Spell are real game changers. They help the sorcerer outperform other casters trying to accomplish the same thing.

[Anonymouswizard]

The sorcerer is meant to be the person with inherent magic they don't need to train, while the wizard/bard is the person who spent years training to get magic, and the warlock is the one who gets magic from an outside source.

(Really it's the Sorcerer who's redundant, with the cleric.)

That said, the Sorcerer as is leaves a lot to be desired. A lot makes sense compared to the bard (who has spent long years learning a lot about magic and a bit about everything else), the bard knows more spells but has a lot less control over them, while the sorcerer can invoke less effects but can shape them less. But the Sorcerer needs more metamagics drawn from a larger list, to really give the idea of 'master of this handful of spells'.

FWIW I suspect that spell points were meant to be the standard for 5e rather than slots, but the core rules use slots because of divine bovine. The Sorcerer makes a lot more sense if Sorcery Points are just bonus Spell Points and Spell Points are used for metamagic.

I'm having trouble thinking of who they're supposed to represent in literature, but it's a definite archetype. They're based more on the idea of the power of the blood and ancestry sculpted into a PC-friendly package, as well as a bit of spontaneous talent, and so Wild Magic feels a bit weird to me. I think the Sorcerer should have had five PhB bloodlines, one Dragon one and then one for each of the four classical elements.

I totally agree on too many spellcasters, that's why I refuse to run 5e. If I'm running fantasy I'll use Fantasy AGE (or maybe Lamentations of the Flame Princess if I can ever pick it up) because magic is a lot rarer. I don't like 'every class has access to spells'.

[Foxhound438]

You aren't alone in thinking it's a bad class most of the time, but twinned spell+natural con save proficiency makes the sorc easily the best buff/debuff caster around. Forget about damage, that's a nice tack on to double haste on your front-liners or heightened blindness on enemies.

You could argue that the bard already exists for that, and bard does have its advantages, but they both do the same thing in different ways. Like how barbarian and fighter are just different approaches to "run up and hit it" machines.

[thereaper]

So, after playing the game for a while, I'm thinking the sorcerer has no strong role and that the game might be better without it.

- Mechanically, I dislike the whole idea of "flexible magic". Well, scratch that, I LOVE the idea, but hate the implementation. You have points, and slots, and can trade one for the other... why not just say any spellcaster can double the ranged of a spell by spending a higher slot, or some other trick?
- I don't see the strong archetype tied to the class. In a world while other spellcasters learn magic though book and patrons, you have wild funny magic, or maybe you were born with magic because your ancestors were dragons. Who is that? Rincewind? Daenerys?
- Wild magic was played for laughs all the times we've tried it. It also slowed the game down. BTW, is it 100% decided by the DM RAW? "The DM can...". No guidelines I can remember...
- Draconic resilience just makes the sorcerer a d8 class (i.e., warlock) with natural armor. So, if you're lizardfolk, you wouldn't want draconic bloodline. Go figure.
- The game has enough spellcasters without the sorcerer.
- The game DEFINITELY has enough Charisma spellcasters without the sorcerer.
- It seems that the class is there for mechanical reasons akin to what we had in 4e, which I dislike - "we need a primal defender based on dexterity" or something.

I see it might have something to do with the spell list, but I don't see the need for a whole class based on that. Metamagic also is not enough of a reason IMO.

What am I missing?

EDIT: the worst part is that with so many spellcasters, it feels like every splat will ado more spellcaster options to make everyone happy... While it should be the contrary IMO. BTW, I really wish we had a warlord.

EDIT 2: I get that the sorcerer is artillery but... still not enough reason IMO.

And if you let the Sorceror prepare spells, all of a sudden the Wizard looks a bit redundant.

I mean, when you get right down to it, the Wizard is the one who has a whole bunch of random crap thrown together. The Draconic Sorceror has a pretty unique theme that works together quite well. They are born with magic. It runs through their veins, and everything else flows naturally from that. Of course they are physically altered by it. Of course they can manipulate it to their will. They are the purest of all spellcasters; the only ones for whom magic is truly natural. From the perspective of a sorceror, everyone else is just a cheap imitation.

So, really, the question shouldn't be "why do we need the sorceror?". The question should be "why do we need any of the others?". Ultimately, it is they who are variations on the theme of the sorceror, not the other way around.

[Nifft]

And if you let the Sorceror prepare spells, all of a sudden the Wizard looks a bit redundant.

Nah, a Wizard gets powerful class features.

Abjurers can tank.

Diviners can give dice the finger.

[coredump]

Give the sorcerer more metamagic, and it becomes much more flavorful and much more useful.
But still not over powered.

[Sigreid]

And I don't care for the warlock. No need to feel all the classes. It's just for someone else.

[Eric Diaz]

Just to emphasize, I'm not saying the class is "bad" as in "nerfed"... I understand it can be powerful and blasty... Just that I don't see its role in the "story". Elric, Grey Mouser, Conan, Aragorn... Where is the sorcerer?

Also: if I'm saying the sorcerer is redundant, I tend to agree that you could keep the sorc and ditch the wizard or warlock. The reason I wouldn't ditch the wizard is because it is an INT-caster that is in the game from the very first edition (MU, etc). As for the warlock, it is different enough when compared to the wizard: light armor, d8 HD, and the "pact" thing is certainly more common in Appendix N than "I was born a sorcerer because my ancestors were dragons" and "I summon sheep by accident".

OTOH I do not really care for the source of magic. Should a trained wizard be more precise than an instinctive one, or the other way around? Both work. Also, the Wild sorcerer manages to control their magic more than the wizard... AND less!

In my clone I let people get spells any way they choose: trough prayer, study, stealing another MUs spellbook, making a deal with a demon, etc. It doesn'1t really affect how magic works. 5e is not that different: cleric spells and wizard spells work basically the same way.

[Unoriginal]

Where is the sorcerer?

Merlin, all the casters who got power from their ancestry, etc.

[Citan]

So, after playing the game for a while, I'm thinking the sorcerer has no strong role and that the game might be better without it.

- Mechanically, I dislike the whole idea of "flexible magic". Well, scratch that, I LOVE the idea, but hate the implementation. You have points, and slots, and can trade one for the other... why not just say any spellcaster can double the ranged of a spell by spending a higher slot, or some other trick?
- I don't see the strong archetype tied to the class. In a world while other spellcasters learn magic though book and patrons, you have wild funny magic, or maybe you were born with magic because your ancestors were dragons. Who is that? Rincewind? Daenerys?
- Wild magic was played for laughs all the times we've tried it. It also slowed the game down. BTW, is it 100% decided by the DM RAW? "The DM can...". No guidelines I can remember...
- Draconic resilience just makes the sorcerer a d8 class (i.e., warlock) with natural armor. So, if you're lizardfolk, you wouldn't want draconic bloodline. Go figure.
- The game has enough spellcasters without the sorcerer.
- The game DEFINITELY has enough Charisma spellcasters without the sorcerer.
- It seems that the class is there for mechanical reasons akin to what we had in 4e, which I dislike - "we need a primal defender based on dexterity" or something.

I see it might have something to do with the spell list, but I don't see the need for a whole class based on that. Metamagic also is not enough of a reason IMO.

What am I missing?

EDIT: the worst part is that with so many spellcasters, it feels like every splat will ado more spellcaster options to make everyone happy... While it should be the contrary IMO. BTW, I really wish we had a warlord.

EDIT 2: I get that the sorcerer is artillery but... still not enough reason IMO.
Hmmm...

Well, as for the fact you dislike the fluff, well, there is nothing around that, it's your taste and it's legitimate, it's your strictest right.
Just note as others said that it takes a big fluff place in that it's the one that has intrinsical power, whereas Warlock's come from infernal pact, Wizard from studies, and Bard from... Whatever?

If one asked me, I'd say that Bard is the oddball here. Not that I don't like it, I LOVE it, but honestly? Its spellcasting seems bland to me. They kept the "skillmonkey" part but dropped all the "sing and dance buff" mechanics. I understand why they did it (simplicity) and overall approve, but still can't feel there is something missing. Especially since they only get a handful of really exclusive and thematically fitting spells.

Anyways for your other points...

1. Why Sorcery Points?
Probably because, after many tests, the designers came to the conclusion that the relative benefit of each Metamagic was very different from one another, and that as such using a "higher cast" would be much more detrimental to the player (and feeling frustrating) than having a separate pool resource.
In fact, with normal spellcasting being based on slots, they probably determined that any other solution would be harder to make fun and balanced.
Which brings us to the next point.

2. Why spell slots instead of spell points?
I have no hard opinion on this, but I'd guess there were several combining factors...

a) The "draw back fans from older editions", maybe? Started playing with 4E so wouldn't know but from what I understand 3.5 was on slots too.

b) The "keep things simple": this was certainly an important factor: while you may think at first all these leveled slots are a pain to track (which is true, to some extent), the fact its are tied with leveling makes it actually easy enough to appropriate by the players. And with now any (decent) character sheet having dedicated counters or pages for that, it's really not that big of a bookkeeping.
Compare to that, the fact that with spell points, each player has to track himself the current number of points, remember how much points cost a spell and make a substraction whenever he casts a spell... Let's be honest, I'm sure anyone would do this as he breathes once he has a few dozen hours of gaming behind.
But this is the kind of thing that may rise fear for newcomers. It is also a source of problems in case of distrust between DM and players (much harder to track), although certainly, in such situation, this is the problem tree (spell points) hiding the problem forest (actual distrust between humans).

c) The "keep power in check": this may be hard to fathom at first, but let's remember how many low level spells are actually extremely useful, possibly game-changers in many encounters.
The fact that by default, you will always have a limited number of each spell, unless upcast (if possible), helps making meaningful tactical choices for the player, and help DM design encounters with a minimum of predictability on how much players will deplete resources over a day.
Now, if everyone could use spell points (besides the Warlock which would need heavy lifting to adapt), a Cleric could keep Spirit Guardians every day while spamming dozens of Healing Words, Wizards/Sorcerer could spam Fireballs or Polymorph etc...
Not a bad thing per se, at all. It does quite change the whole array of how a party could manage its resources over a day, so in the right hands (read: smart party), it would make a greater challenge for DM to make meaningful encounters.

I think c) is by far the strongest factor from a game-design point of view, which is why they put it as a variant rule: if the DM is ready to be challenged by that kind of "free-form", "auto-optimized" resource management, he and all players can have a blast.
For all others, having a "curve of predictability" (some spells are worth upcasting, others not even whey they offer that possibility) helps naturally keeping things in check. And that is also why, I suspect, they made so many spells upcastable.
In my view, it's a fragile balance that both ends sustain (upcast + slots). Remove one and you break the balance. Whether it's good or not depends on each group.
Then comes b) which certainly weigheted in too, since they clearly tried to make D&d "simpler to get into" in that edition.

3. Wild Magic
As every class feature that has actual value varying greatly depending on each DM, it is loudly booed on these forums. But these boos are just inept because they are each very individualized feedback (so with each a very particular context), so you cannot "agregate" them to decide of the value of that feature. What didn't work for a player/group may work for another...

The only thing to do with Wild Magic is to try it, a few times, with different DMs, before making the "keep or break" choice.
At some tables it can be tremendously fun, at others it can be a chore or even a game-breaker...
One could regret the lack of guidelines, but I suspect it was a conscious choice, precisely because it has the potential of either bringing great thrills or being a bore for DM/players, so they prefered letting each DM decide freely how to manage it.
If you as a DM needs advice, there are some discussions about "Wild Surge management policy" on these forums.
If you as a player are having a bad experience with Wild Magic, the only things you can do is speak to DM out of game to try and find a solution, or kill your character (preferably in a memorable way), or quit the table.

4. Draconic Resilience
Well... I don't get your point really, it happens in other occasions: for example if you are a mountain dwarf but go Barb/Fighter, you also get a redundant feature. If you are a Wood Elf that goes Ranger, you also get a redundant feature.
Let's see the half-full glass here: if you are anything else than Lizardfolk, you get great defensive feature. Where is the harm? :)

5. Game has enough spellcasters.
Well, that's your personal opinion, which I respect. If you want to breed agreement from other people here, it's gonna take more than that. A lot more. XD

6. Too many CHA casters.
Well, I'd tend to agree with you on that one, I'd like to have at least one less CHA-based caster and one more INT-caster.
But, take 10 seconds to think about it and you will realize they had no choice.
Once you consider that you will bring Warlock, Sorcerer and Bard into your edition because marketing (they are classic ones after all).
CHA for Bard is so obvious there is not even need for explanation.
CHA for Warlock was a bit unintuitive to me, but when reading fluff which basically revolves to "an extremely powerful creature get interested in you / accepted to contract with you", seems that charisma may indeed have a strong role to play in that. Anyways, WIS wouldn't be good (because fluff associates it strongly with ties between character and environment, and ability to perceive the environment) as INT (Warlock doens't "study" the spells, they are directly granted).
It's the same analysis for Sorcerer: once you said "hey, these are guys that have innate magic in themselves"... INT is out because it's not a matter of memorizing/reading/analyzing lots of things. WIS is out too because it's some power that comes from inside you, not outside. Making it CON-based could have worked fluff-wise, but would have obviously broken balance beyond reason. What's left? STR? Irrelevant. DEX? Same. So... CHArisma.

7. Class just exists for mechanical reasons
I'd disagree on that one, but I guess this is also in the field of personal feedback...
In my view the class exists first because it has been there since old times, second because they felt useful/needed to have some class representing the innate magic. Then they slapped Metamagic on it because Wizard was too loaded already, or because altering magic on the fly was fitting the idea of "inside power", or both maybe...

8. "Warlord is missing"
I really agree with you on that one. Fortunately you can do something not too far with multiclassing, but really a true class would be better for sure.
Unless you play with DM that refuse any homebrew by principle, look on internet, some people tried to make it.

9. Sorcerer is a blaster
Blasting is actually, by far, the less interesting thing a Sorcerer can do, although you can indeed make him quite good at it if you so want. :)
But the fact that blasting is the blandest option is something you could say of any caster to be honest... ^^

(Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to try and react to each point in an argumented, constructive way, and I have trouble doing so in a concise manner ;)).

[SharkForce]

the sorcerer is unsatisfying for a lot of people. you may wish to take a look in the homebrew forums for Kryx's reworked sorcerer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?535488-Kryx-s-Houserules). it is a rather heavily reworked version. metamagic is removed (he puts it into feats, which are not required to use rework, they're just there if you want metamagic to be available in your game). instead, the class focuses on the subclasses a lot more, so that it is much more focused on the bloodlines.

[Kane0]

Well we did just get over a many-page thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?534114-Sorcerer-the-most-unsatisfying-class) covering this, but there are plenty of answers to those that don't like the stock sorcerer including new metamagics, subclasses, rewrites and metamagic-as-a-feat. I've got one in my sig and The Middle Finger of Vecna (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/) has plenty of neat sorcerer options to expand options beyond 'dragon magic' and 'lolrandom mage'.

[Eric Diaz]

First, thank you all for answering. Lots of food for thought!

Trying to answer all that I can here:

- Reworking the sorcerer: I'm not really into getting a new class or changing a class I dislike, but a "meta-magic feat" might work for my tastes. In nay case this is just a discussion, not really looking for a solution, just more understanding of 5e. I would still allow sorcerers in my table...

- Sorcerer gets powers from ancestry, Merlin: I like that aspect. What I dislike is making a whole class because of that. Is a warrior good at fighting because he trained a lot or because he is talented and muscled? Did the paladin chose the deity or was it the other way around? I don't think the distinction is enough to create a new class.
Merlin is a very good example, indeed. In D&D (and The Winter King TBH) terms I see him as a scholar, but I concede he is a strong archetypal precedent.


Hmmm...

Well, as for the fact you dislike the fluff, well, there is nothing around that, it's your taste and it's legitimate, it's your strictest right.
Just note as others said that it takes a big fluff place in that it's the one that has intrinsical power, whereas Warlock's come from infernal pact, Wizard from studies, and Bard from... Whatever?

If one asked me, I'd say that Bard is the oddball here. Not that I don't like it, I LOVE it, but honestly? Its spellcasting seems bland to me. They kept the "skillmonkey" part but dropped all the "sing and dance buff" mechanics. I understand why they did it (simplicity) and overall approve, but still can't feel there is something missing. Especially since they only get a handful of really exclusive and thematically fitting spells.

Anyways for your other points...

1. Why Sorcery Points?
Probably because, after many tests, the designers came to the conclusion that the relative benefit of each Metamagic was very different from one another, and that as such using a "higher cast" would be much more detrimental to the player (and feeling frustrating) than having a separate pool resource.
In fact, with normal spellcasting being based on slots, they probably determined that any other solution would be harder to make fun and balanced.
Which brings us to the next point.

2. Why spell slots instead of spell points?
I have no hard opinion on this, but I'd guess there were several combining factors...

a) The "draw back fans from older editions", maybe? Started playing with 4E so wouldn't know but from what I understand 3.5 was on slots too.

b) The "keep things simple": this was certainly an important factor: while you may think at first all these leveled slots are a pain to track (which is true, to some extent), the fact its are tied with leveling makes it actually easy enough to appropriate by the players. And with now any (decent) character sheet having dedicated counters or pages for that, it's really not that big of a bookkeeping.
Compare to that, the fact that with spell points, each player has to track himself the current number of points, remember how much points cost a spell and make a substraction whenever he casts a spell... Let's be honest, I'm sure anyone would do this as he breathes once he has a few dozen hours of gaming behind.
But this is the kind of thing that may rise fear for newcomers. It is also a source of problems in case of distrust between DM and players (much harder to track), although certainly, in such situation, this is the problem tree (spell points) hiding the problem forest (actual distrust between humans).

c) The "keep power in check": this may be hard to fathom at first, but let's remember how many low level spells are actually extremely useful, possibly game-changers in many encounters.
The fact that by default, you will always have a limited number of each spell, unless upcast (if possible), helps making meaningful tactical choices for the player, and help DM design encounters with a minimum of predictability on how much players will deplete resources over a day.
Now, if everyone could use spell points (besides the Warlock which would need heavy lifting to adapt), a Cleric could keep Spirit Guardians every day while spamming dozens of Healing Words, Wizards/Sorcerer could spam Fireballs or Polymorph etc...
Not a bad thing per se, at all. It does quite change the whole array of how a party could manage its resources over a day, so in the right hands (read: smart party), it would make a greater challenge for DM to make meaningful encounters.

I think c) is by far the strongest factor from a game-design point of view, which is why they put it as a variant rule: if the DM is ready to be challenged by that kind of "free-form", "auto-optimized" resource management, he and all players can have a blast.
For all others, having a "curve of predictability" (some spells are worth upcasting, others not even whey they offer that possibility) helps naturally keeping things in check. And that is also why, I suspect, they made so many spells upcastable.
In my view, it's a fragile balance that both ends sustain (upcast + slots). Remove one and you break the balance. Whether it's good or not depends on each group.
Then comes b) which certainly weigheted in too, since they clearly tried to make D&d "simpler to get into" in that edition.

3. Wild Magic
As every class feature that has actual value varying greatly depending on each DM, it is loudly booed on these forums. But these boos are just inept because they are each very individualized feedback (so with each a very particular context), so you cannot "agregate" them to decide of the value of that feature. What didn't work for a player/group may work for another...

The only thing to do with Wild Magic is to try it, a few times, with different DMs, before making the "keep or break" choice.
At some tables it can be tremendously fun, at others it can be a chore or even a game-breaker...
One could regret the lack of guidelines, but I suspect it was a conscious choice, precisely because it has the potential of either bringing great thrills or being a bore for DM/players, so they prefered letting each DM decide freely how to manage it.
If you as a DM needs advice, there are some discussions about "Wild Surge management policy" on these forums.
If you as a player are having a bad experience with Wild Magic, the only things you can do is speak to DM out of game to try and find a solution, or kill your character (preferably in a memorable way), or quit the table.

4. Draconic Resilience
Well... I don't get your point really, it happens in other occasions: for example if you are a mountain dwarf but go Barb/Fighter, you also get a redundant feature. If you are a Wood Elf that goes Ranger, you also get a redundant feature.
Let's see the half-full glass here: if you are anything else than Lizardfolk, you get great defensive feature. Where is the harm? :)

5. Game has enough spellcasters.
Well, that's your personal opinion, which I respect. If you want to breed agreement from other people here, it's gonna take more than that. A lot more. XD

6. Too many CHA casters.
Well, I'd tend to agree with you on that one, I'd like to have at least one less CHA-based caster and one more INT-caster.
But, take 10 seconds to think about it and you will realize they had no choice.
Once you consider that you will bring Warlock, Sorcerer and Bard into your edition because marketing (they are classic ones after all).
CHA for Bard is so obvious there is not even need for explanation.
CHA for Warlock was a bit unintuitive to me, but when reading fluff which basically revolves to "an extremely powerful creature get interested in you / accepted to contract with you", seems that charisma may indeed have a strong role to play in that. Anyways, WIS wouldn't be good (because fluff associates it strongly with ties between character and environment, and ability to perceive the environment) as INT (Warlock doens't "study" the spells, they are directly granted).
It's the same analysis for Sorcerer: once you said "hey, these are guys that have innate magic in themselves"... INT is out because it's not a matter of memorizing/reading/analyzing lots of things. WIS is out too because it's some power that comes from inside you, not outside. Making it CON-based could have worked fluff-wise, but would have obviously broken balance beyond reason. What's left? STR? Irrelevant. DEX? Same. So... CHArisma.

7. Class just exists for mechanical reasons
I'd disagree on that one, but I guess this is also in the field of personal feedback...
In my view the class exists first because it has been there since old times, second because they felt useful/needed to have some class representing the innate magic. Then they slapped Metamagic on it because Wizard was too loaded already, or because altering magic on the fly was fitting the idea of "inside power", or both maybe...

8. "Warlord is missing"
I really agree with you on that one. Fortunately you can do something not too far with multiclassing, but really a true class would be better for sure.
Unless you play with DM that refuse any homebrew by principle, look on internet, some people tried to make it.

9. Sorcerer is a blaster
Blasting is actually, by far, the less interesting thing a Sorcerer can do, although you can indeed make him quite good at it if you so want. :)
But the fact that blasting is the blandest option is something you could say of any caster to be honest... ^^

(Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to try and react to each point in an argumented, constructive way, and I have trouble doing so in a concise manner ;)).

Thanks for the in-depth response. I'll try to address some points, but I agree with much of what you've said, the whole thing was very useful.

1. Why Sorcery Points? - makes sense. Still, could be a feat IMO.

2. Why spell slots instead of spell points? I 100% agree we should have spell slots because tradition. Not that I particularly like them. What I meant is why does the sorcerer needs spell slots and not just spell points, not why does the game uses them.

3. Wild Magic I do not dislike "wild magic" per see, but the table with flumphs and sheep is a bit annoying to me... Also, "wild magic" feels like a campaign option to me, not a character concept. Mercifully, the designers put using this in the hands of the DM, which creates new problem - I have to limit a PC's uses of his own stuff?

4. Draconic Resilience My point is that lizard men "look" and speak draconic... They would thematically be a good fit for draconic blood... Dragonborn are seem like supobtimal draconic sorcerers. Elemental Affinity is less useful to them. So, the races that could actually have dragon blood are not good dragon blooded sorcerers.

EDIT: on a second thought, unless I am missing something, Dragonborn are specially bad because Strength would be useless for a build that should be using Dexterity for AC and melee.

EDIT: on a THIRD thought, I think at least the Dragonborn can make Elemental Affinity work by choosing ancestors of different colors.

5. Game has enough spellcasters. Cool. Yeah, 5e has too many spellcasters for me, but IMMV.

6. Too many CHA casters. Well, we mostly agree.

7. Class just exists for mechanical reasons See above.

8. "Warlord is missing" Any good ones out there? :smallsmile: I am not a fan of 4e, but my problem with this is that the warlord is a much more common archetype IMO. I like commanders, tacticians, leaders... King Arthur, Captain America, Eddard Stark, etc. I dunno, feels like 5e needed that more than a sorcerer.

9. Sorcerer is a blaster Yeah, I agree, there are multiple ways to play a sorcerer, blasting is one of them.

[Eric Diaz]

Well we did just get over a many-page thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?534114-Sorcerer-the-most-unsatisfying-class) covering this, but there are plenty of answers to those that don't like the stock sorcerer including new metamagics, subclasses, rewrites and metamagic-as-a-feat. I've got one in my sig and The Middle Finger of Vecna (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/) has plenty of neat sorcerer options to expand options beyond 'dragon magic' and 'lolrandom mage'.

Thanks; hadn't seem the thread. It makes sense to me that the sorcerer might be an "unsatisfying" class. Their powers slow down play, IMO, and it seems that many people are unhappy with the spell list. My problem with the sorcerer is a bit more conceptual than mechanic.

[Kane0]

Well you could look at it this way: Spellcasters come in essentially three basic varieties. The first receive magic from an external source, which would be your Clerics, Druids and Warlocks. The second gain access to magic through study and/or practice which would be Wizards. The last category are the ones who have innate access to magic, which are your Sorcerers. Bards would either also fall into the last category or somewhere between the latter two. Paladins and Rangers are a less clear, one could make arguments for multiple categories depending on the character and DM/gameworld.

Putting aside the stats used for each kind of caster, the 'Granted magic' variety is the oversaturated one, not the 'Innate magic' variety. I'd argue that Warlocks could be tweaked in the fluff to be halfway between granted and learned and thus use INT instead but thats probably a discussion for another thread.

[Strangways]

Sorcerer metamagic is very powerful. Being a sorcerer is largely about using metamagic to hit much harder than a wizard would, slot for slot, but with a much narrower range of spells. If you just deleted the sorcerer class from the game, and gave metamagic to the wizards, the wizard class would be overpowered and you’d have to remove something from the wizard class to compensate. Sure there’s some overlap between sorcerer and wizard, just like there is between Cleric and Druid, or between Monk and Rogue but, having played both, I think the feel of playing a sorcerer is quite a bit different than the feel of playing a wizard. I would say the wizard has the greater burden of remember what all his spells can do and trying to anticipate which ones he’ll need to prepare, while the sorcerer has the greater burden of making decisions in real time during combat in terms of how to burn his sorcery points to augment his spell casting.

[Sigreid]

The sorcerer works really well for my friend who really wants to play a magical wizard like character, but is intimidated by all the information she'd need to keep track of to play wizard well. She's pretty happy with the way the sorcerer lets her play a wizard like character, but with tight boundaries.

[AttilatheYeon]

Sorcs are great for anyone who wants to do 1 or 2 things really well, but don't care about doinf anything else. Wanna blast and debuff really well, play a sorc. Wanna area denile without effecting your team, sorc with Careful Spell, etc. Sorcs are great at being one trick ponies.

[SharkForce]

Sorcs are great for anyone who wants to do 1 or 2 things really well, but don't care about doinf anything else. Wanna blast and debuff really well, play a sorc. Wanna area denile without effecting your team, sorc with Careful Spell, etc. Sorcs are great at being one trick ponies.

this makes sense. if you want to trade in all the versatility you could have from another class for doing one or two specific tricks (some of which are pretty cool, but still, just one or two tricks for most of your adventuring career), sorcerer will work well for what you want. personally, i'm not convinced that trade-off is worth it, but hey, if you are making an informed decision and you feel like being able to twin haste and enhance ability and polymorph is worth everything you're giving up, you should be able to enjoy sorcerer.


The sorcerer works really well for my friend who really wants to play a magical wizard like character, but is intimidated by all the information she'd need to keep track of to play wizard well. She's pretty happy with the way the sorcerer lets her play a wizard like character, but with tight boundaries.

this does not make sense to me. the sorcerer has to track plenty of information. fewer spells, sure, but you have to be aware of how those spells interact with each metamagic and you have to keep track of when each metamagic is valuable for you to use as well because you're paying a hefty extra cost when you use them. and of course, you *really* have to consider all of that, in advance, by theorycrafting, each time you level up, if you want to be effective as a sorcerer.

i would not recommend sorcerer for someone who feels intimidated by options. you still have lots of information to keep track of, but now every decision you have to make based on that information is more important to make well. a wizard who picks a crappy spell just changes it tomorrow. a sorcerer who picks a crappy spell is stuck until the next level. and metamagics can never be changed, so if you make a poor decision on that, you're gonna be stuck with for as long as the character exists. when you burn a resource, you're not just throwing away one resource, but often two, and good use of that second resource is what makes or breaks the character.

if you're looking for a caster-like experience with few things to keep track of, i would recommend battlemaster archer (with some backup melee options) or something like that. you have a few resources, spending them isn't too punishing, and you generally don't need to spend too much time worrying about how they all fit together. maybe mix in a few rogue levels later on if you feel like you're ready for more options, and pretty much no matter what you do you've always got a simple baseline option that is going to work well the great majority of the time.

that sounds like a *way* more forgiving environment for learning how to make decisions to me.

[Millstone85]

Fluff-wise, I would have merged the sorcerer and warlock classes.

The PHB mentions things like a "bargain with a dragon" or being "blessed by a powerful fey" as possible explanations for your sorcery. Conversely, I am sure plenty of warlock backstories involve tiefling or elven blood instead of a patron.

Most of the flavor comes from having a bit of another creature and/or plane in you, not so much how you got the power.

[Sigreid]

this does not make sense to me. the sorcerer has to track plenty of information. fewer spells, sure, but you have to be aware of how those spells interact with each metamagic and you have to keep track of when each metamagic is valuable for you to use as well because you're paying a hefty extra cost when you use them. and of course, you *really* have to consider all of that, in advance, by theorycrafting, each time you level up, if you want to be effective as a sorcerer.

i would not recommend sorcerer for someone who feels intimidated by options. you still have lots of information to keep track of, but now every decision you have to make based on that information is more important to make well. a wizard who picks a crappy spell just changes it tomorrow. a sorcerer who picks a crappy spell is stuck until the next level. and metamagics can never be changed, so if you make a poor decision on that, you're gonna be stuck with for as long as the character exists. when you burn a resource, you're not just throwing away one resource, but often two, and good use of that second resource is what makes or breaks the character.

if you're looking for a caster-like experience with few things to keep track of, i would recommend battlemaster archer (with some backup melee options) or something like that. you have a few resources, spending them isn't too punishing, and you generally don't need to spend too much time worrying about how they all fit together. maybe mix in a few rogue levels later on if you feel like you're ready for more options, and pretty much no matter what you do you've always got a simple baseline option that is going to work well the great majority of the time.

that sounds like a *way* more forgiving environment for learning how to make decisions to me.

I'm just telling you that her mindset is she only has to remember what a handful of spells do, and that because she only has that handful of spells she has less to consider when she's deciding what to do on her turn. She picks a spell or cantrip. She decides if it's worth the investment to alter it with her meta magic. And perhaps more importantly, with a narrower spell selection that doesn't change she knows what role she's going to be doing in the fight. Where as she's seen my wizard character with a broader selection of spells have a broader choice of rolls in the party that can change based on a decision to change the spells prepared.

[Hrugner]

Sorcs are great for anyone who wants to do 1 or 2 things really well, but don't care about doinf anything else. Wanna blast and debuff really well, play a sorc. Wanna area denile without effecting your team, sorc with Careful Spell, etc. Sorcs are great at being one trick ponies.

That's probably one of the big draws for giving them two levels of paladin or warlock. You can be your one trick pony, but still have something worthwhile to do if your trick isn't available.

[InspectorG]

Nah, a Wizard gets powerful class features.

Abjurers can tank.

Diviners can give dice the finger.

Stone Sorcerers can tank.

Wild Magic Sorcerers can give the dice the finger not only more than 3 times, but in ways that circumvent the action economy. People are too scared of the low-percentage TPK fireball to fully look at the class.

[Rebonack]

Metamagic was more of a Wizard thing back in 3e. They could make better use of it and they got bonus feats to get more of 'em. Still not sure how Sorcerer got saddled with it. Sorcerer was an experiment in spontaneous casting that now has no real reason to exist since everyone is a spontaneous caster now.

I still think Warlock and Sorcerer should have been combined into a single spell-point using, short rest recharging class typified by having a spark of magic they wield however they like through sheer force of will. You could say you made a pact with an eldritch horror or maybe you were just born under said eldritch horror's star. It honestly doesn't matter since that's just fluff. Either way, the spark of magic is yours to blow things up with as you wish.

What's more, Warlock/Sorcerer and Sorcerer/Warlock are both better than either single-class in terms of power and flexibility by miles, why not just embrace it?

Metamagic works better as a short-rest tied feature, anyway. I don't think novaing through long-rest resources as quickly as possible is really something that ought to be encouraged. Toss it in as a 3rd level archetype option along with scholarly, summoner, and gish.

[ghost_warlock]

I mean, why do we have the ranger when the barbarian already does what the ranger does?

Why have the warlock when, really, a pact with a demon isn't really different than what a cleric does.

Why have a rogue? Just play a fighter with the criminal background.

At that point, why bother differentiating the cleric and the wizard. All spellcasters are basically the same, anyway. Also, the barbarian is just an Outlander fighter.

So, we should just have two classes - caster and mundane.

Would definitely make the game better. Options just slow the game down, anyway.

[SharkForce]

Wild Magic Sorcerers can give the dice the finger not only more than 3 times, but in ways that circumvent the action economy. People are too scared of the low-percentage TPK fireball to fully look at the class.

wild magic lets you tweak things at a significant resource cost, and without guarantee of success. also, if you mean bend luck as opposed to their ability to potentially gain charges of advantage on a number of rolls, there is an action cost as well, so you're not circumventing the action economy at all, bend luck means you can't use shield, or counterspell, or feather fall, etc for a round. sometimes that isn't important, but you're still paying an action cost.

additionally, far more people dislike the flavour, or the randomness, or the fact that it is completely up to the DM as to whether you actually get to have some of your class features so far as i can tell... the chance of the fireball is a deterrent for some, but for more people it seems to be the chance that the DM doesn't want to deal with wild surges so you just never get them.

wild magic

[Rebonack]

I mean, why do we have the ranger when the barbarian already does what the ranger does?

Because they're vastly different archetypes. A frothing berserker versus a huntsmen.


Why have the warlock when, really, a pact with a demon isn't really different than what a cleric does.

Because they're vastly different archetypes. The Priest and the Witch are rarely similar, regardless of which one you happen to like romanticizing.


Why have a rogue? Just play a fighter with the criminal background.

Because they're vastly different archetypes. The stealthy dagger in the dark vs flashing steel drawn at dawn.


At that point, why bother differentiating the cleric and the wizard. All spellcasters are basically the same, anyway. Also, the barbarian is just an Outlander fighter.

Because 'scholarly magical scientist' and 'dude calling on divine power via spiritual awareness' are pretty different archetypes. 'Guy who cut a deal with a faerie' and 'guy who also cut a deal with a faerie, but with more strings attached' really aren't that different.


So, we should just have two classes - caster and mundane.

Would definitely make the game better. Options just slow the game down, anyway.

Arguments by hyperbole are silly.

[InspectorG]

So, after playing the game for a while, I'm thinking the sorcerer has no strong role and that the game might be better without it.

- Mechanically, I dislike the whole idea of "flexible magic". Well, scratch that, I LOVE the idea, but hate the implementation. You have points, and slots, and can trade one for the other... why not just say any spellcaster can double the ranged of a spell by spending a higher slot, or some other trick?
- I don't see the strong archetype tied to the class. In a world while other spellcasters learn magic though book and patrons, you have wild funny magic, or maybe you were born with magic because your ancestors were dragons. Who is that? Rincewind? Daenerys?
- Wild magic was played for laughs all the times we've tried it. It also slowed the game down. BTW, is it 100% decided by the DM RAW? "The DM can...". No guidelines I can remember...
- Draconic resilience just makes the sorcerer a d8 class (i.e., warlock) with natural armor. So, if you're lizardfolk, you wouldn't want draconic bloodline. Go figure.
- The game has enough spellcasters without the sorcerer.
- The game DEFINITELY has enough Charisma spellcasters without the sorcerer.
- It seems that the class is there for mechanical reasons akin to what we had in 4e, which I dislike - "we need a primal defender based on dexterity" or something.

I see it might have something to do with the spell list, but I don't see the need for a whole class based on that. Metamagic also is not enough of a reason IMO.

What am I missing?

EDIT: the worst part is that with so many spellcasters, it feels like every splat will ado more spellcaster options to make everyone happy... While it should be the contrary IMO. BTW, I really wish we had a warlord.

EDIT 2: I get that the sorcerer is artillery but... still not enough reason IMO.

Flexible Magic
If you remove the Vancian casting, you end up with mechanics similar to Final Fantasy. May be fine for your table, i prefer my D&D Vancian.

Archetype?
Sorcerers are a blank slate, which in my eyes, are the STRONGEST archetype. Its the CONTRAST to the other Casters: Sorcerers are born with the Magic and, can range from being a slave to it to trying to master it. But, IMO, for the Sorcerer Archetypes to have a fuller meaning, the DM needs to have a good grasp on how they with to relate magic to their world's cosmology.

The Wizard needs to study and discover his magic.
The Cleric needs fiat from a deity.
The Warlock needs to fulfill a bargain(which im guessing most DMs dont enforce)
The Bard needs the College and adventuring.

Wild Magic
Yes, i dont like the Dm fiat, but RAI, heavily implies it should be used frequently due to the skewed odds against the unfavorable outcomes. IMO, player should have more control, especially to 'recharge' Tides ability.

Draconic Resilience
Saves a spell slot and gives HP. I wouldnt compare it to a Warlock who seems more like a Half-Caster with Spell like abilities(invocations).

Game has enough casters without the Sorcerer?
Sorcerer fulfills magic as Chaos.
Wizard fulfills Magic as Law
Cleric/Warlock fulfills Magic as Neutral - either Law or Chaos depending on deity/patron.

Mechanically, Sorcerers are the Nova cannons. They can output more Damage or Control than any other caster per ENCOUNTER. Most people view per Day. Wrong time scale.
PLUS via Meta Magic
Subtle - cant be countered, stealth options, Social options
Twin - twice the output on certain Buffs/Controls
Quicken - alter the Action Economy
Heighten - impose Disadvantage on a save, or negate advantage
Empower - save a bad roll
Careful - spare allies effects of Controls
Distance - too weak IMO
Extend - too weak IMO

Enough CHA casters?
Well, that is easily said about other classes, specially relating to DEX.
Dont we have enough STR fighting classes?
Dont we have enough DEX fighting classes?
Dont we have enough classes that are too dependent on CON???

It seems the class is there for mechanical reasons?
Cant that be said for any class?

[djreynolds]

I think the class is made for advanced players that know the spells well.

There are some combinations of things that only a sorcerer can do. And it may be expensive in terms of spell points.

You could do heightened twinned disintegrate, very costly, but could really change the battle

I find some players get bored with the wizards and like the challenge of playing a sorcerer.

Also, this might work, I allow players to use all of the meta magic, they just switch them out on a rest.

Its nice for players to get to use subtle in this setting, and empowered for this. They just get two to use, and then change them on a rest.

[SharkForce]

You could do heightened twinned disintegrate, very costly, but could really change the battle

you can do heightened disintegrate. and you can do twinned disintegrate. but you cannot do heightened twinned disintegrate. one metamagic per spell, unless otherwise specified, and only empower otherwise specifies.

[djreynolds]

you can do heightened disintegrate. and you can do twinned disintegrate. but you cannot do heightened twinned disintegrate. one metamagic per spell, unless otherwise specified, and only empower otherwise specifies.

You get my meaning, you can do some cool stuff.

So you could heightened empowered disintegrate or twinned empowered disintegrate

You just have to really know the rules, for example look ay my mistake^^^ thank you SharkForce

But if you know the rules and spells really well, it can be a fun class. Some of my players really like it

I prefer playing a wizard, its easier. Because I personally shy away from classes that have odd mechanics. And this is exactly the reason I allow sorcerer access to all the meta magic, so they can play with them

[Spacehamster]

Can't rally see if this is a troll post or not. Anyways the sorcerer is not a newbie(not meaning you are a newb just meant in general) friendly class so that might be your problem, the low amount of spells known makes every pick vital so it's easy to mess up, it feels like a specialist caster in many ways where you pick one role and get to be God himself at it.

should have shipped with 3-4 subclasses tho and agree the wild sorcerer is silly and does not really fit in 5e, draconic is great for a bit more durable caster with good unarmored AC. :)

[Anonymouswizard]

I mean, why do we have the ranger when the barbarian already does what the ranger does?

Why have the warlock when, really, a pact with a demon isn't really different than what a cleric does.

Why have a rogue? Just play a fighter with the criminal background.

At that point, why bother differentiating the cleric and the wizard. All spellcasters are basically the same, anyway. Also, the barbarian is just an Outlander fighter.

So, we should just have two classes - caster and mundane.

Would definitely make the game better. Options just slow the game down, anyway.

You jest, but until the last sentence I actually agree with you. I think classes should be thrown out along with the rest of the sacred cows, and the game would be better for it.

Yes, classless systems are harder to balance, but that's also because characters can be a lot more varied. I can have a character with no combat skills (not that I'm likely to, I'll throw a few points into hand to hand or small weapons), I can have a warrior who knows a lot about history and religion, I can have a wizard who fights with sword and buff.

Although I'm in reality fine with 5e using classes, especially as I've managed to find a Charisma-based caster that I like (the Witch by MFoV).

[Citan]

First, thank you all for answering. Lots of food for thought!

Trying to answer all that I can here:

- Reworking the sorcerer: I'm not really into getting a new class or changing a class I dislike, but a "meta-magic feat" might work for my tastes. In nay case this is just a discussion, not really looking for a solution, just more understanding of 5e. I would still allow sorcerers in my table...

- Sorcerer gets powers from ancestry, Merlin: I like that aspect. What I dislike is making a whole class because of that. Is a warrior good at fighting because he trained a lot or because he is talented and muscled? Did the paladin chose the deity or was it the other way around? I don't think the distinction is enough to create a new class.
Merlin is a very good example, indeed. In D&D (and The Winter King TBH) terms I see him as a scholar, but I concede he is a strong archetypal precedent.


The italic part, I can totally relate to. It also seemed very strange at first to me.
I mean, why would for example a Wizard not having been motivated to study magic because he felt that kind of strange power within him? Why wouldn't Bardic spells that influence minds and body be just another shape of the same "bodily" origin?

On another hand, you can also easily find justifications to making a class of its own: after all, it's one thing to "blindly" follow detailed instructions (Wizard), it's a great another to try and tame a powerful energy that you could expect to "burn you out" from the inside otherwise, or just leash out in unpredictable ways (that's exactly what the Wild Magic Sorcerer is in fact ;)).
So it's easy to admit that there may be specific teachings to this, or maybe even none at all, anyways a definitive difference in how the magic is wielded justifying a whole class around.

As for the feat parts, well, the difficulty is balancing power control with fun.
I'd probably so a feat like: "Choose one metamagic. Once per short rest, you can use this metamagic with when casting a spell no higher than 3rd level. You must respect all rules for this specific metamagic. You cannot use this feature again until you finish a short rest".
Up to 3rd level still makes it fairly relevant over the whole career while keeping it relatively under control.

But really, the best way to make a proper Metamagic as feats would probably be a feat-chain like in previous editions, so "stacking" allows you to use metamagic with higher level spells or use different metamagic with the same spell level...

In fact, that may be another reason why they made it something integrated in class/archetype features, instead of feats.
I mean, consider the Battlemaster: how fair is it that only the Fighter gets the ability to do what is basically advanced martial moves? Sure, Fighter has the "martial, rigorous training" fluff backed into it so it's easy to understand why Fighter can get it. It's much less easy to understand why no other martial could get it: what about Rogue, the master of precise strikes (which is basically Sneak Attack, aiming for weak points), he should be certainly dexterous enough to aim a specific bodily part (Disarm/Trip) or ensure he hits (Precision)? How about Ranger, the sharpshooters by excellence, not having Precision? And what about Barbarians, the big gritty meatbags with dangerous blades, could you not imagine them inspiring fear as they strike (Menacing)?
Atlhough if you notice, they have been reusing that concept of short-rest moves in a fair amount of UA archetypes (Scout/College of Swords / Hunter / etc), which further illustrates my point of it not being that strongly associated with the specific Fighter fluff.

So like some people say Metamagic should be dissociated from Sorcerer, others could argue that Manoeuvers should be dissociated from Fighter. :) Which means feats as the only way to make it happen since we don't want to use the (multi)class system.

Let's face it, Martial Adept does not cut it: 2 manoeuvers and 1 dice, is really too little by itself to satisfy our hunger as gamers.
On the other hand, modifying it to give 4 dice and 3 manoeuvers at once as a single feat would certainly be too strong, even "worse" than GWM/Sharpshooter which are already in their own league.

A chain of feats would thus have been perfect, but WoTC seems strongly against going back to their old love, probably to keep true to their 5e motto "keep it simple" (just all class features and spells give plenty of richness and complexity already ;)).
See the conundrum they have? :)

[Glorthindel]

I think the problem is that the sorcerer was originally a solution to a problem that arguably doesn't exist any more.

Back in older editions, Wizards had to pre-memorise their spells. A lot of people hated this, because it meant you either took all-damage spells, and missed out on the utility part of the class, or took the utility spells and risked getting towards the end of the day with those spells unused, and really wishing you had another magic missile. Clerics had the same problem (with being pushed to take every spell as a healing one), but that was fixed in 3rd ed with spontaneous casting (that allowed them to hot-swap any spell for its same level healing one). The solution with Wizards was the Sorcerer. You now had the choice between taking a Wizard and having to plans your spells ahead, or take a Sorcerer, who had less spells to play with, but who wasn't forced to pick them in advance.

However, in this edition, with the decoupling of memorised spells from slots, wizards have been given the flexibility they were missing, and arguably sorcerers are now less flexible than the Wizard (since they can have less spells). Metamagic and Sorcery Points have tried to address this, but arguably there isn't really a need for the Sorcerer any more. In all honesty, I think the sorcerer has had its day, and everything it could do is done better elsewhere (Wizards have flexibility, Warlocks provide a non-educated path to Wizardry, Dragonborn provide the Draconic blood angle, and Wild Magic and Metamagic used to be Wizard-things that just got shifted to the sorcerer to still give it a purpose). I think rather than bending over backwards to still make Sorcerers relevant, they would be better off cutting it, and weathering the breif backlash.

[Anonymouswizard]

I think the problem is that the sorcerer was originally a solution to a problem that arguably doesn't exist any more.

Back in older editions, Wizards had to pre-memorise their spells. A lot of people hated this, because it meant you either took all-damage spells, and missed out on the utility part of the class, or took the utility spells and risked getting towards the end of the day with those spells unused, and really wishing you had another magic missile. Clerics had the same problem (with being pushed to take every spell as a healing one), but that was fixed in 3rd ed with spontaneous casting (that allowed them to hot-swap any spell for its same level healing one). The solution with Wizards was the Sorcerer. You now had the choice between taking a Wizard and having to plans your spells ahead, or take a Sorcerer, who had less spells to play with, but who wasn't forced to pick them in advance.

However, in this edition, with the decoupling of memorised spells from slots, wizards have been given the flexibility they were missing, and arguably sorcerers are now less flexible than the Wizard (since they can have less spells). Metamagic and Sorcery Points have tried to address this, but arguably there isn't really a need for the Sorcerer any more. In all honesty, I think the sorcerer has had its day, and everything it could do is done better elsewhere (Wizards have flexibility, Warlocks provide a non-educated path to Wizardry, Dragonborn provide the Draconic blood angle, and Wild Magic and Metamagic used to be Wizard-things that just got shifted to the sorcerer to still give it a purpose). I think rather than bending over backwards to still make Sorcerers relevant, they would be better off cutting it, and weathering the breif backlash.

I think the Sorcerer could still have a place, but to do so we need to decouple the idea that being more flexible overall means being more flexible day to day.

Looking at the numbers, at 1st level bards have spells known equal to the wizard's spells prepared. The Sorcerer has half that. Then the wizard gains slightly over one spell prepared per level, while the bard gains slightly under one spell known per level (Lore Bards average out at just over one spell known per level). The Sorcerer gains about two thirds of a spell with each level gained.

If the Sorcerer instead gained one spell a level (or Sorcerous Origin spells) they'd be at least as flexible as a wizard in a single day, but less flexible overall.

I love the idea of the Sorcerer as the power of blood made manifest, and Metamagic is a cool thing, but I just can't bring myself to play one. I also like slightly more indirect spellcasters, which is why the one I plan to play next is a witch (who actually get a decent number of spells, thank you to the designers/homebrewers who made it).

[ghost_warlock]

Arguments by hyperbole are silly.

This whole thread is silly. It's a dressed up argument from ignorance. "I don't understand this, so it shouldn't exist."

Imagine that, the game designers have a character archetype that doesn't fit everyone's style. *clutches pearls* :smalltongue:

[Rebonack]

This whole thread is silly. It's a dressed up argument from ignorance. "I don't understand this, so it shouldn't exist."

Imagine that, the game designers have a character archetype that doesn't fit everyone's style. *clutches pearls* :smalltongue:

Well, let's take a step back.

We used to just have 'Magic User' as a class. Then that got split up into our Wizards and Divine casters. Then in 3e we got Sorcerer (as an experiment in spontaneous casting) and Warlock (as an experiment in at-will casting). What was learned from these classes got incorporated into all casters. Everyone casts spontaneously now. Everyone gets at-will spells now. Neat. But that doesn't really leave a place for Warlock and Sorcerer anymore. Their reason for existing is gone.

I think that problem was addressed nicely with Warlock. They became the short-rest caster. That's their thing, dealing well with attrition rather than going nova. That's unique design space for them to cover.

The Sorcerer, however, was given a traditionally wizardy thing (Metamagic) to try giving them a reason for existing. But I question whether giving a class tools to nova through long-rest resources as quickly as possible is even a good idea to begin with. It encourages five minute adventuring day syndrome and unless the adventuring day is enforced (6 medium/hard or 3 deadly encounters per long rest) it can lead to the short/long rest class imbalance that constantly gets complained about.

From the fluff perspective-


a mighty sorcerer of ancient times who made a bargain with a dragon

You might have endured exposure to some form of raw magic, perhaps through a planar portal leading to Limbo, the Elemental Planes, or the mysterious Far Realm. Perhaps you were blessed by a powerful fey creature or marked by a demon.

-the sorcerer really isn't that different from the warlock. They both have an internal spark of magic that they get to use as they see fit through sheer force of will. The only supposed difference is whether or not that spark was given to them by an outside source, but that distinction is blurred considerably when we read the subtype descriptions. It shouldn't matter a great deal whether a character has been infused with the power of the faewild because a pixie visited their crib or because they made friends with one out in the enchanted forest.

So we've got problems here both mechanically and in terms of fluff.

We could easily combine Sorcerer and Warlock into a single 'Sorcerer' class. Short rest recharging, use spellpoints rather than slots since that system is FAR less painful for the concept and gives it further distinction from the slot-based classes. Use the Warlock chassis and add Dragon and Wild in as origins. Refluff the Boons as Paths (Path of the Sage, Path of the Binder, Path of the Spellsword) and introduce Metamagic as either a fourth Path option or support it wholly through Invocations.

Or, y'know, not. This is all a hypothetical exercise in game design. Do you think going nova through long-rest resources is a good thing for the game?

[ghost_warlock]

Well, let's take a step back.

We used to just have 'Magic User' as a class. Then that got split up into our Wizards and Divine casters. Then in 3e we got Sorcerer (as an experiment in spontaneous casting) and Warlock (as an experiment in at-will casting). What was learned from these classes got incorporated into all casters. Everyone casts spontaneously now. Everyone gets at-will spells now. Neat. But that doesn't really leave a place for Warlock and Sorcerer anymore. Their reason for existing is gone.

I think that problem was addressed nicely with Warlock. They became the short-rest caster. That's their thing, dealing well with attrition rather than going nova. That's unique design space for them to cover.

The Sorcerer, however, was given a traditionally wizardy thing (Metamagic) to try giving them a reason for existing. But I question whether giving a class tools to nova through long-rest resources as quickly as possible is even a good idea to begin with. It encourages five minute adventuring day syndrome and unless the adventuring day is enforced (6 medium/hard or 3 deadly encounters per long rest) it can lead to the short/long rest class imbalance that constantly gets complained about.

From the fluff perspective-




-the sorcerer really isn't that different from the warlock. They both have an internal spark of magic that they get to use as they see fit through sheer force of will. The only supposed difference is whether or not that spark was given to them by an outside source, but that distinction is blurred considerably when we read the subtype descriptions. It shouldn't matter a great deal whether a character has been infused with the power of the faewild because a pixie visited their crib or because they made friends with one out in the enchanted forest.

So we've got problems here both mechanically and in terms of fluff.

We could easily combine Sorcerer and Warlock into a single 'Sorcerer' class. Short rest recharging, use spellpoints rather than slots since that system is FAR less painful for the concept and gives it further distinction from the slot-based classes. Use the Warlock chassis and add Dragon and Wild in as origins. Refluff the Boons as Paths (Path of the Sage, Path of the Binder, Path of the Spellsword) and introduce Metamagic as either a fourth Path option or support it wholly through Invocations.

Or, y'know, not. This is all a hypothetical exercise in game design. Do you think going nova through long-rest resources is a good thing for the game?

So far as nova rounds, if a player wants to burn all their spell slots on one fight and then spam cantrips the rest of the day, that's between the player and the DM. If there's a problem, they should work that out for themselves - it's not up to the armchair philosophers to decide for them what kind of game they want to play.

While we're on the subject of going nova, do you get all in a tizzy about the paladin who burns all her spell slots on smites? Or is it just the sorcerer that you don't want to do that?

So far as this "just combine the classes" bunk, yeah, let's not. Every edition people are like "why do we need so many classes?" Because it's fun to have options. It's a game, we really don't need to have any other excuse to give a variety of ways to have fun playing.

If you don't want those classes in your games, that's your prerogative, but please try to empathize a little bit with people who enjoy having a little variety around the table.

[InspectorG]

Well, let's take a step back.

We used to just have 'Magic User' as a class. Then that got split up into our Wizards and Divine casters. Then in 3e we got Sorcerer (as an experiment in spontaneous casting) and Warlock (as an experiment in at-will casting). What was learned from these classes got incorporated into all casters. Everyone casts spontaneously now. Everyone gets at-will spells now. Neat. But that doesn't really leave a place for Warlock and Sorcerer anymore. Their reason for existing is gone.

I think that problem was addressed nicely with Warlock. They became the short-rest caster. That's their thing, dealing well with attrition rather than going nova. That's unique design space for them to cover.

The Sorcerer, however, was given a traditionally wizardy thing (Metamagic) to try giving them a reason for existing. But I question whether giving a class tools to nova through long-rest resources as quickly as possible is even a good idea to begin with. It encourages five minute adventuring day syndrome and unless the adventuring day is enforced (6 medium/hard or 3 deadly encounters per long rest) it can lead to the short/long rest class imbalance that constantly gets complained about.

From the fluff perspective-




-the sorcerer really isn't that different from the warlock. They both have an internal spark of magic that they get to use as they see fit through sheer force of will. The only supposed difference is whether or not that spark was given to them by an outside source, but that distinction is blurred considerably when we read the subtype descriptions. It shouldn't matter a great deal whether a character has been infused with the power of the faewild because a pixie visited their crib or because they made friends with one out in the enchanted forest.

So we've got problems here both mechanically and in terms of fluff.

We could easily combine Sorcerer and Warlock into a single 'Sorcerer' class. Short rest recharging, use spellpoints rather than slots since that system is FAR less painful for the concept and gives it further distinction from the slot-based classes. Use the Warlock chassis and add Dragon and Wild in as origins. Refluff the Boons as Paths (Path of the Sage, Path of the Binder, Path of the Spellsword) and introduce Metamagic as either a fourth Path option or support it wholly through Invocations.

Or, y'know, not. This is all a hypothetical exercise in game design. Do you think going nova through long-rest resources is a good thing for the game?

Thematically:
The Sorcerer is the Noble. Born with their magic birthright.
The Warlock is the Merchant. Had to barter for magic. Its not 'internal', its leased.

Mechanically the Warlock and Sorcerer are very different.
Warlock is 2nd gear.
Sorcerer is 6th gear.

If your campaign has no need of a race car, Sorcerer may not be a good fit.
But if your campaign need OVERDRIVE, you use a Sorcerer.

When playing a Sorcerer, you need to know your DM and the pace they prefer. That lets you know when to drop the hammer.

You fixate on the downside of blowing the magical wad only to have Cantrips the rest of the day. Thats a very pedestrian view of the Sorcerer class.

I dont think you see being able to punch above your weight for one encounter. Clutch moments and dramatic tension that can result often get overlooked.

[Tanarii]

AFAIK, the Sorcerer Archetype is uniquely created to fill a mechanical role in 3e, which was spontaneous spell casting instead of prepared spellcasting. I'd have to go back to find a 3e/3.5e PDF to see if they referenced any fictional characters or concepts as the basis.

Wild Magic (as a concept) originated in the Realms, as a result of the Time of Troubles IIRC. Initially Wild Mages in 2e were a Specialist Mage concept.

Wild Sorcerers and Draconic Sorcerers were 4e concepts that have carried forward.

[thereaper]

Because they're vastly different archetypes. A frothing berserker versus a huntsmen.



Because they're vastly different archetypes. The Priest and the Witch are rarely similar, regardless of which one you happen to like romanticizing.



Because they're vastly different archetypes. The stealthy dagger in the dark vs flashing steel drawn at dawn.



Because 'scholarly magical scientist' and 'dude calling on divine power via spiritual awareness' are pretty different archetypes. 'Guy who cut a deal with a faerie' and 'guy who also cut a deal with a faerie, but with more strings attached' really aren't that different.



Arguments by hyperbole are silly.

The Sorceror is also a vastly different archetype than the Wizard or Warlock. To conflate the two is no different from conflating the Barbarian and the Ranger. That's the point they were trying to make.

[Sigreid]

AFAIK, the Sorcerer Archetype is uniquely created to fill a mechanical role in 3e, which was spontaneous spell casting instead of prepared spellcasting. I'd have to go back to find a 3e/3.5e PDF to see if they referenced any fictional characters or concepts as the basis.

Wild Magic (as a concept) originated in the Realms, as a result of the Time of Troubles IIRC. Initially Wild Mages in 2e were a Specialist Mage concept.

Wild Sorcerers and Draconic Sorcerers were 4e concepts that have carried forward.

If I remember correctly, sorcerer was introduced in late 2e.

[Tanarii]

If I remember correctly, sorcerer was introduced in late 2e.
If so wikipedia hasn't picked up on it. Which would be very unusual. Usually entries are pretty on the ball with "first published" for D&D stuff. Because nerds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorcerer_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons)

Edit: It's entirely possible that Wild and Dragonic 'sorcerers' were from a 3e era splat-book PrC or something. I remember one player having their Barbarian take a level of Sorc and then grow wings with a PrC. I think it was Dragon-themed. So that might be the ultimate source for Draconic Bloodline.

Edit2: Found it. Dragon Disciple Prestige Class. That'd probably be the ur-source for Dragonic Bloodline Sorcerers.

[Deleted]

So, after playing the game for a while, I'm thinking the sorcerer has no strong role and that the game might be better without it.

- Mechanically, I dislike the whole idea of "flexible magic". Well, scratch that, I LOVE the idea, but hate the implementation. You have points, and slots, and can trade one for the other... why not just say any spellcaster can double the ranged of a spell by spending a higher slot, or some other trick?
- I don't see the strong archetype tied to the class. In a world while other spellcasters learn magic though book and patrons, you have wild funny magic, or maybe you were born with magic because your ancestors were dragons. Who is that? Rincewind? Daenerys?
- Wild magic was played for laughs all the times we've tried it. It also slowed the game down. BTW, is it 100% decided by the DM RAW? "The DM can...". No guidelines I can remember...
- Draconic resilience just makes the sorcerer a d8 class (i.e., warlock) with natural armor. So, if you're lizardfolk, you wouldn't want draconic bloodline. Go figure.
- The game has enough spellcasters without the sorcerer.
- The game DEFINITELY has enough Charisma spellcasters without the sorcerer.
- It seems that the class is there for mechanical reasons akin to what we had in 4e, which I dislike - "we need a primal defender based on dexterity" or something.

I see it might have something to do with the spell list, but I don't see the need for a whole class based on that. Metamagic also is not enough of a reason IMO.

What am I missing?

EDIT: the worst part is that with so many spellcasters, it feels like every splat will ado more spellcaster options to make everyone happy... While it should be the contrary IMO. BTW, I really wish we had a warlord.

EDIT 2: I get that the sorcerer is artillery but... still not enough reason IMO.

Sorcerers aren't the best magic damage users. They can be good, even great, but they really shine as controllers or leaders. They lose so much by going direct artillery.

The Wizard (specifically Evoker) and Warlock (at-will) have the Sorcerer beat when it comes to an artillery type character. But if you want to be in front of a king and cast a spell without being suspected of foul play... The Sorcerer is pretty much the only option you're gonna get (baring any UA or other things I don't recall right now).

This doesn't really come up in damage calculations but if your group does ANY sort of roleplaying (this is a roleplaying game) this can save your bacon and win an encounter before it starts, at the very least set your group up for an easy win.

Now, the subclasses leave a lot to be desired and the whole class feels messy... But what we have isn't bad by any stretch. It just isn't what a lot of people feel a sorcerer should be. A wizard should be the controller and the sorcerer should be the blaster, 5e kinda has that backwards.

Subtle spell also leads to some interesting roleplaying options. Writing out where you keep specific material components on your body in order to use them with spells... My sorcerer kept a small piece of iron sewed inside his glove so he could use Hold Person with Subtle spell. Also kept guano and sulfur in his pipe in order to cast Fireball :D

[Nifft]

If I remember correctly, sorcerer was introduced in late 2e.

Only if the Baldur's Gate game series is your reference for what 2e means.

(To be fair, it kinda is.)

[djreynolds]

So, after playing the game for a while, I'm thinking the sorcerer has no strong role and that the game might be better without it.

- Mechanically, I dislike the whole idea of "flexible magic". Well, scratch that, I LOVE the idea, but hate the implementation. You have points, and slots, and can trade one for the other... why not just say any spellcaster can double the ranged of a spell by spending a higher slot, or some other trick?
- I don't see the strong archetype tied to the class. In a world while other spellcasters learn magic though book and patrons, you have wild funny magic, or maybe you were born with magic because your ancestors were dragons. Who is that? Rincewind? Daenerys?
- Wild magic was played for laughs all the times we've tried it. It also slowed the game down. BTW, is it 100% decided by the DM RAW? "The DM can...". No guidelines I can remember...
- Draconic resilience just makes the sorcerer a d8 class (i.e., warlock) with natural armor. So, if you're lizardfolk, you wouldn't want draconic bloodline. Go figure.
- The game has enough spellcasters without the sorcerer.
- The game DEFINITELY has enough Charisma spellcasters without the sorcerer.
- It seems that the class is there for mechanical reasons akin to what we had in 4e, which I dislike - "we need a primal defender based on dexterity" or something.

I see it might have something to do with the spell list, but I don't see the need for a whole class based on that. Metamagic also is not enough of a reason IMO.

What am I missing?

EDIT: the worst part is that with so many spellcasters, it feels like every splat will ado more spellcaster options to make everyone happy... While it should be the contrary IMO. BTW, I really wish we had a warlord.

EDIT 2: I get that the sorcerer is artillery but... still not enough reason IMO.

You know, I have read lots of guides on the sorcerer. I though I defend the sorcerer a niche class, I see your issues.

And this by Evil Anagram is good http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?457552-How-to-Rend-Fiends-and-Immolate-People-A-Guide-to-Sorcery

And I'm sure you read it as well, great guide... especially the spell portion and what to grab

It is definitely a flavor class, where a kid at your table open the book and says "Ooooh" this cool, same as the PHB beastmaster.

I don't think the issue is alone with the sorcerer, could it be that the wizard is too powerful?

What if the wizard, when they took there schools had limited access to other schools? Would this make the sorcerer and wizard equal?

From the designers view point, they're selling the game in regards to all 3 pillars. Perhaps just from a social portion of the game the sorcerer comes off "cool"

[InspectorG]

Sorcerers aren't the best magic damage users. They can be good, even great, but they really shine as controllers or leaders. They lose so much by going direct artillery.


...

Now, the subclasses leave a lot to be desired and the whole class feels messy... But what we have isn't bad by any stretch. It just isn't what a lot of people feel a sorcerer should be. A wizard should be the controller and the sorcerer should be the blaster, 5e kinda has that backwards.

Subtle spell also leads to some interesting roleplaying options. Writing out where you keep specific material components on your body in order to use them with spells... My sorcerer kept a small piece of iron sewed inside his glove so he could use Hold Person with Subtle spell. Also kept guano and sulfur in his pipe in order to cast Fireball :D

As Sorcerers being 2nd tier blaster, im not sure. May be level dependent. Evokers get nice abilities but they come later.

Lvl 5 Sorcerer, via SP, can cast 4 Fireball/Counterspell or 8 Scorching Rays. IN ONE ENCOUNTER, floor it, slam it in 6th gear, and peel out.

Sorcerer Sub-Classes, yeah, pretty hit/miss. IMO, Sea and Stone are decent(im surprised people arent into Stone-Gish)

Shadow may be the best Thematically and mechanically.

Favored Soul...mixed feelings but decent.

Phoenix is just bad.

If the Sorc sub-classes are to be more Eastern/Elemental themed, it stands that the remaining subs would be Wind/Air and Wood/Life. If Favored is Celestial and Shadow is its opposite, there may be room for a Death sub-class.

Subtle is more powerful than players realize.

IMO, im not sure Wizards/Warlocks/Sorcerers should be divided into categories like Blaster/Controller.

I think breaking them down according to Pace and Consistency offers a better description for their roles.

Warlock is very consistent with damage output with an optimized E. Blast. But has few spell slots and the invocations are not the same as spells.

Wizard gets all the Versatility, as should be. Wizard can keep a consistent pace but cant Blast like a E. Blast optimized Warlock until later Evoker abilities kick in.

I think some of the confusion comes in on how a Wizard(which traditionally is themed Controller) and choose Evoker.

Warlocks can go Tome or Chain and do Control.

Sorcerers traditionally scream Blaster, but and Sorcerer can pick 3 good blast spells(Scorch Ray, Fireball/Lighting Bolt, Disintegrate???) and use the rest for Control/Utility.

Maybe Pace(magical output per encounter) is a better way to describe the classes, mechanically???

[Deleted]

I don't think the issue is alone with the sorcerer, could it be that the wizard is too powerful?

What if the wizard, when they took there schools had limited access to other schools? Would this make the sorcerer and wizard equal?



Short answer? The wizard isn't too powerful. It is just that other classes didn't get the love and care that the Wizard did.

The Wizard is pretty much where I would expect the base level of competency to be for magic classes.

Variety in spells, great sub classes, and multiple play styles...

I believe the Wizard should have been a "make your own spell" class and have it not actually have a spell list while the Sorcerer has a spell list but you can be flexible on the fly.

Wizard: prepared flexibility
Sorcerer: on the fly flexibility

Now, the Sorcerer isn't horrible as is, just that there is a lot to be left desired.

[Sigreid]

Only if the Baldur's Gate game series is your reference for what 2e means.

(To be fair, it kinda is.)

It's been a long time since I saw the first incarnation of a sorcerer, basically just created as a way around wizard spell memorization of Vatican magic. I could easily be graying the line between late 2e and early 3e.

[Deleted]

It's been a long time since I saw the first incarnation of a sorcerer, basically just created as a way around wizard spell memorization of Vatican magic. I could easily be graying the line between late 2e and early 3e.

When 3e first came out a lot of people called 3e "too videogamey" and just "Diablo pen and paper". I really think that Bulder's Gate helped calm down the vocal minority in a way that could have been used later when 3e fans called out the same thing against 4e (which I find just immensely entertaining that history repeated itself haha).

[UrielAwakened]

I don't get the Sorcerer

Neither did the designers.

[Deleted]

Neither did the designers.

Only kinda.
They turned it into wizard-lite again which is what it was in 3e, but then again that's part of the point of 5e to begin with. So really players have only themselves to blame on this one. The issue comes that a lot of features that a Sorcerer gets really increases their controlling/leader abilities rather than their blasting abilities.

Honestly, you could combine the Warlock and the Sorcerer and you might have that perfect Sorcerer (have sorcerous orgins be innate or given by a demon/devil/whatever).

[Sigreid]

When 3e first came out a lot of people called 3e "too videogamey" and just "Diablo pen and paper". I really think that Bulder's Gate helped calm down the vocal minority in a way that could have been used later when 3e fans called out the same thing against 4e (which I find just immensely entertaining that history repeated itself haha).

History always repeats itself. The idea that we as a species learn from it is incorrect.

[Rhedyn]

IMHO sorcerers are either too strong with the right build or a bad wizard with a less optimal build.

Here is what I would change.

1. No meta magic.

2. Use the spell point variant.

3. Sorcerers old meta pool can be used as spell points and refreshes on short rest

4. Sorcerer spells known boosted to lvl+cha mod.

Reason: Meta magic breaks spells. Your lack of spells known and rituals is balanced by explosive in combat meta magic boost to power. It's better for this to go away. Spell points adds flexibility to the sorcerer and increased spells known also increases flexibility. The short rest spell point increase adds power back to the class that was removed with meta magic. I think this preserves the classes point but makes it more noob and table friendly.

[Deleted]

IMHO sorcerers are either too strong with the right build or a bad wizard with a less optimal build.

Here is what I would change.

1. No meta magic.

2. Use the spell point variant.

3. Sorcerers old meta pool can be used as spell points and refreshes on short rest

4. Sorcerer spells known boosted to lvl+cha mod.

Reason: Meta magic breaks spells. Your lack of spells known and rituals is balanced by explosive in combat meta magic boost to power. It's better for this to go away. Spell points adds flexibility to the sorcerer and increased spells known also increases flexibility. The short rest spell point increase adds power back to the class that was removed with meta magic. I think this preserves the classes point but makes it more noob and table friendly.

Metamagic doesn't break spells. It's the only thing that even keeps the Sorcerer in the game when it comes to damage and options outside of spells themselves. Metamagic aren't broken, if anything they shouldn't be so limited.

All of your decisions take things away from the Sorcerer that doesnt need to be taken away... And gives the sorcerer nothing in return.

Spell themselves are not enough to keep up with what other classes get, flexible casting or not.

Your Sorcerer would get a class feature for spell casting/flexible casting and then subclass... And then a ton of dead levels...

Spell points are nice but turns the Sorcerer into a number cruncher and new players may shy away from it. Sorcerers should be simpler than the wizard but still have class features and options for them.

[Rhedyn]

There is no precedent for sorcerers to be simpler than wizards. It's always been an advance class.

My suggested sorcerer has no dead levels since she gains a spell known each level.

Twin polymorph giant apes, heighten higher level slot banishment, ect. These are game breakers. Two giant apes in the party is so dangerous that the sorcerer should just hide and let the apes take care of things.

The bonus spells per day that I give the sorcerer more than makes up for meta magic in terms of power, but is more fair, more interesting to play, and breaks things less.

[Eric Diaz]

Just to reiterate, for me, personally, the things I am trying to grok is:

1 - What kind or archetypal character would you like to use the sorcerer for? Forget "innate spellcasting" (I can refluff my wizard to be an innate spellcaster and I have used a sorcerer as a re-fluffed Iron Man kobold with wild magic = system malfunction), I want to see character concepts that make sense with the idea of "I have fewer spells but increased versatility with them". First thing that comes to mind is the Green Lantern for some reason.

2 - Do you need a class for greater spell versatility? Why not make the entire system a bit more versatile or use feats?

3 - The warlock is very similar in many aspects to the dragon sorcerer. Why do we need both?

4 - Why are "draconic" races such as the dragonborn and lizard people so bad at being dragon sorcerers?

5 - Should Wild Magic be a character option? Feels like a campaign option to me. Maybe that is why is so based on DM fiat RAW.

6 - How can you use Wild Magic without bogging down playing or constantly saying "no" to your PC? And why would I do it if not for laughs?

I am not particularly interested in discussing if the sorcerer is too nerfed or OP, although I do follow the discussion.

IMMV of course.

Also, I'll avoid discussing things like "this is a troll thread", "the thread is dumb", "you want people to have no options", etc, because I don't see the point.

[Citan]

There is no precedent for sorcerers to be simpler than wizards. It's always been an advance class.

My suggested sorcerer has no dead levels since she gains a spell known each level.

Twin polymorph giant apes, heighten higher level slot banishment, ect. These are game breakers. Two giant apes in the party is so dangerous that the sorcerer should just hide and let the apes take care of things.

The bonus spells per day that I give the sorcerer more than makes up for meta magic in terms of power, but is more fair, more interesting to play, and breaks things less.
I'm sorry, but your idea is just plain bad.
It makes Sorcerer thrice as painful to bookkeep than any others, gives them the ability to break balance far more easily than with Metamagic since it allows natural optimization of resources (I think nobody here would discuss the potency of even 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th level spells at higher levels): at max level, you could unleash 23 plain Fireball or 19 5th level Fireball or other 5th level spell, directly and hardly stomping on Warlock feet. You could afford to blow a Shield basically on every round, effectively becoming even sturdier than any proper martial.
All hell would break loose with even one level dip in either Bard/Cleric for healing, or Druid/Wizard for 1-hour buffs or martials for heavy armor, with a theorical maximum output of 133/2 1st level spells (not counting Sorcery points).

You seem to really underestimate how balance-breaking a spellpoint character in the hands of a smart player may be. And how annoying it would be to track for other kinds. The only way it can work without any hard feelings towards other people around is by having it as the only character with any magical capability, and DM being ready to pull the gloves off as required.

You also seem to overestimate Giant Ape: sure, it's a great big tank with very good resistance against STR-based restrain effects. But that's it.

Confer the thread about Druid and the Conjured Pixie Polymorph thingie: if really a party started to use the same trick every fight (at least, every fight in which turning someone into a Huge creature does not immediately restrain him due to lack of insufficient space, unless you want to block a passage)...

They would certainly exploit it well for a more or less important time, but the world would ultimately adapt sooner or later. So it just means that the party in the end manages to make random encounters against unaware enemies (like random travel thugs or wild beasts) quick and bland (or maybe they become so famous that normal bandits and other "random" threats just avoid them altogether because they know in advance who would win the fight).
But some of the fights to come against their archenemy would prove deadly if they rely too much on this tactic alone and forget about all their other features.

Against a Giant Ape, the few spells targeting INT and CHA are more than likely to succeed, even one of the numerous WIS targeting effects should have a great chance of success, as well as DEX based ones.
Or enemies could work around by making areas too narrow for Giant Apes to go through, or use difficult terrain and cover to reduce their effective threat.
Also, with Polymorph being concentration and 60 feet range, it means the Twinner Sorcerer would often find himself exposed to at least enemy archers/casters (no invisibility, not very far from the frontline). Even Constitution proficiency wouldn't help that much against a volley of arrows triggering a handful of saves in a single round (granted, you could manage to take cover behind one of the Giant Apes though, at least that's what I'd do ;)).

In addition to that, contrarily to a Wild Shape, it does not allow the polymorphed creature to use its class features: no GWM, no Cunning Action, no Sneak Attack, no Dodge as bonus action, no Stunning Strike, no spells, no nothing besides punch and rock throw. So while it may be a great way to turn someone close to death or a caster out of fuel into something that can still make meaningful contributions to a single encounter, I really don't see how this could be a panacea for automatic win.

[Rhedyn]

That's a lot of DM work to invalidate one meta magic combo. Got anything for higher slot heighten banishment dividing encounters? Twinned Haste?

Twinned polymorph is just one problem.

I'm glad you realized how spell points are a buff and would better justify the existence of sorcerers in the game's mechanical space. That strength is why meta is gone and that mechanic only increases spell points on my suggestion.

It would fill the space between warlocks and wizards for long v short rest dependence.

[Citan]

That's a lot of DM work to invalidate one meta magic combo. Got anything for higher slot heighten banishment dividing encounters? Twinned Haste?

Twinned polymorph is just one problem.

I'm glad you realized how spell points are a buff and would better justify the existence of sorcerers in the game's mechanical space. That strength is why meta is gone and that mechanic only increases spell points on my suggestion.

It would fill the space between warlocks and wizards for long v short rest dependence.
I don't "have anything" special against the combos you give, but I don't feel ever needing it.
I really don't see how having a caster play its strengths would or should be a problem for a DM. Maybe it is for you (in which case maybe change players or drop the DM part?), it wouldn't for me. Even with Heightened, a spell can still fail.

If really the spell had that high a chance to land, it means Sorcerer chose the right spell against the right creature: except in case of blatant metagaming, I'd rather congratulate the player on winning a decisive tactical gamble rather than frowning on it. If they breeze through the encounter as a result, well, good for them. If I expected it to be hard/deadly, then obviously I just didn't think enough about it. You as a DM know all about players. It's up to you to find the right and delicate balance between world coherence and tactical metagaming. Yeah, it's difficult, but that's also part of the fun.

Also, I really didn't need you to realize how spell points are, not only "a buff", but PLAIN OVERPOWERED. The point I made was without sorcery points.
Even without metamagics, using spell points would still make Sorcerer leagues above any other caster at least right up until Wizard gets free 1st and 2nd level spells, and possibly even then.

Either every caster is based on spell points, or Sorcerer is the only one in whole party having any magic beyond rituals and cantrips, or nobody is based on spell points. These are the only three cases in which you can be sure a party would be balanced, no hard feelings.

If you don't believe me, just test for yourself, take a party of four 8th level casters, Cleric (PHB), Warlock (PHB), Sorcerer (more spells, no metamagic, spellpoint fuel) and Wizard (PHB), in the hands of competent players, and bring them over a short module. Then do the same while allowing characters to be altered with up to 3 levels of multiclass anywhere players want. Or even better, "give" those parties to another DM so you can tranquilly observe without any personal bias, because you would probably be tempted to influence encounter design/events to prove me wrong.

I will bet that other players will complain before soon how it is totally unfair that Sorcerer is the only one with spellpoints, allowing him to spam just the right amount of spell level, while others lag behind trying to juggle with what ultimately amount to a dozen spells over the whole day, sometimes upcasting "forcefully" when normal cast should have been enough because, hey, that's what the only slot left, or otherwise feeling frustrated that they could only cast 2 Banishment/Greater Invisibility/Wall of Fire while Sorcerer could cast 7 of them, meaning, among other things, he can cast one of those in the first encounter of the day without much doubt, whereas others will strongly wonder if it would not be better to just keep them in case there is a bigger encounter later...

[Rhedyn]

I'm speaking from the player perspective. Playing an overpowered character that derails campaigns and over stresses the DM is not amusing. Not every DM is combative with his players so when they break things within the rules, things just stay broken. Sure encounters can get harder, but the DM is clearly at the end of his rope when you kill a pitfiend at level 8.

Your complaints with spell points is about how useful being able to spam low level spells is. That's a lot better than exploiting high level spells. In your example, I would take the wizard and break things a lot harder than I would with either my suggested sorcerer or the base sorcerer since that list is much more packed with game breaking material. The sorcerer list is thankfully pretty nerfed compared to the wizard list. Sorcerers become much more dangerous with a competent party. Wizards have much better solo tactics.

Our group is steadily building a longer and longer house rules list for when people want to dare 5e again.

[Rebonack]

Aside from the idea of combining Sorcerer and Warlock into a single class, I think I could have gotten behind Sorcerer being the short-rest focused magic class with Warlock being the at-will class more akin to how they functioned back in 3e. That also would have given both of them pretty unique gameplay space to fill.

Also:


The Sorceror is also a vastly different archetype than the Wizard or Warlock. To conflate the two is no different from conflating the Barbarian and the Ranger. That's the point they were trying to make.

The fluff for Sorcerer specifically calls out the Warlock patrons giving them their magical spark as well as a sorcerer being created via some guy making a bargain with an ancient dragon as potential backstories. All the various Warlock Patrons work perfectly fine as sorcerer origins. While there IS a subtle thematic difference between 'made a deal with the devil' and 'is the son of the devil' it typically isn't much of one.

Example?

Lavinia Whateley and Wilbur Whateley from HP Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror. The former would be a Warlock in D&D terms. She made a pact with Yog-Sothoth. The latter would be a Sorcerer in D&D terms. He had power through a blood connection to Yog-Sothoth. But in the story no real distinction was drawn at all. They were both considered witches/warlocks.

To reiterate, both a Sorcerer and a Warlock can have the exact same power source gained in the exact same way according to the fluff. They both wield this power source through sheer force of will rather than spiritual awareness (Cleric and Druid) through playing the music of the cosmos (Bard) through rigorous study of comic principles (Wizard) or through their conviction of an ideal (Paladin).

The closest analog here would be Nature Cleric and Druid, but at least they have the fuzzy distinction that one follows gods of nature while the latter draws power from 'the divine essence of nature' which is apparently different?

[Millstone85]

The closest analog here would be Nature Cleric and Druid, but at least they have the fuzzy distinction that one follows gods of nature while the latter draws power from 'the divine essence of nature' which is apparently different?That one, I actually find interesting. I am all for the 4e concept of a myriad "primal spirits" inhabiting the land, which a druid communes with and herds toward magical effects. In that context, a god of nature is either one big primal spirit or a superdruid, and the only contact of a nature cleric.

[Eric Diaz]

I am inclined to agree with all barbarian/ranger, druid/cleric observations. The fighter, paladin, ranger, monk and barbarian would all be warriors for all I care. I use only four classes in my BX games (fighter/MU/thief/cleric).

The problem is that the druid, paladin, ranger etc. have a long and well-defined* history is D&D. The sorcerer has none.

Also: is Aragorn a ranger or barbarian? The answer should be obvious for most people. I think we could find such distinctions for most classes. I cannot think of a druid or cleric in fiction, but players that want to be druids or clerics bring very different expectations to the table - even if they never played 5e. Can we say the same about sorcerers? How?

*well, maybe not so well-defined for the ranger.

EDIT: of couse, there are areas of overlap between paladin and war cleric, pact of the blade and Eldritch Knight, etc. But those are mostly sub-classes.

[KorvinStarmast]

Back in older editions, Wizards had to pre-memorise their spells. . No, they did not, they had to prepare their spells. (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/12311/22566) (OK, technically, they had to memorize and prepare their spells). For a simple analogy, they had to charge the capacitor by reading their books and the magical stuff in the spell book charged it up ... and the magical energy was released when the spell was cast. Jack Vance's books can also be seen using other analogies, but that's what underlay the original idea for the arcane spell caster: the Magic User.


From the PHB of 1e, page 25, discussing Magic User spells:

He or she must memorize and prepare for the use of each spell, and its casting makes it necessary to reabsorb the incantation by consulting the proper book of spells before it can again be cast. ... As with all other types of spells, those of magic-users must be spoken or read aloud.

SPELL CASTING (From the 1e DMG)

All magic and cleric spells are similar In that the word sounds, when combined into wherever patterns are applicable, re-charged with energy from the Positive or Negative Material Plane. When uttered, these sounds cause the release of this energy, which in turn triggers a set reaction. The release of the energy contained in these words is what causes the spell to be forgotten or the writing to disappear from the surface upon which it is written.
Granted, EGG to a certain extent aided and abetted this misunderstanding by not realizing what a bunch of geeks and rules lawyers he was writing to in his audience (we players! :smallbiggrin: ) For what I suspect was editorial convenience, he used "memorized" in a lot of later DMG discussion on spells, but the PHB was what the players had as a source. The "memorize and prepare" dual factor is so frequently ignored and forgotten, but I to a certain extent blame GG's editorial choices in that regard.

From Strategic Review, number 2, page 4, in the "frequently asked question" section of that issue ...


Spells: A magic-user can use a given spell but once during any given day, even if he is carrying his books with him. This is not to say that he cannot equip himself with a multiplicity of the same spell so as to have its use more than a single time. Therefore, a magic-user could, for example, equip himself with three sleep spells, each of which would be usable but once. He could also have a scroll of let us say two spells, both of which are also sleep spells. As the spelIs were read from the scrolls they would disappear, so in total that magic-user would have a maximum of five sleep spells to use that day. If he had no books with him there would be no renewal of spells on the next day, as the game assumes that the magic-use gains spells by preparations such as memorizing incantations, and once the spell is spoken that particular memory pattern is gone completely. ln a similar manner spells are inscribed on a scroll, and as the words are uttered they vanish from the scroll. This issue was published in the summer of 1975. He admitted in 1976 that they had not done a great job of explaning the magic system, the "D&D Magic System" article in Strategic Review number 7. Page 3.

Each and every spell (not found on a scroll or otherwise contained in, or on, some magical device) would be absolutely mnemonic, magic-users would have to memorize the spells they wished to have available, and when a particular spell was recalled and its other parts enacted, then the memory would be gone and the spell no longer available until it was re-memorized (thus the magic-users’ spell books!).
Most spells were also envisioned as containing a slight somatic and/or material component, whether in the preparation of a small packet of magical or ordinary compounds to be used when the spell was spoken or as various gestures to be made when the enchantment was uttered. Magic-use was thereby to be powerful enough to enable its followers to compete with any other type of player-character, and yet the use of magic would not be so great as to make those using it overshadow all others.
Even within the same article, he tends to use memorize as short hand for "memorize and prepare" which the above passage does.

Primarily at fault is the game itself which does not carefully explain the reasoning behind the magic system. Also, the various magic items for employment by magic users tend to make them too powerful in relation to other classes (although the GREYHAWK supplement took steps to correct this somewhat). The problem is further compounded by the original misconceptions of how magic worked in D & D — misconceptions held by many players. The principal error here is that the one 1st level spell allowable to a 1st level magic-user could be used endlessly (or perhaps at frequent intervals) without the magic-user having to spend time and effort re-memorizing and preparing again after the single usage. {Notice once again, the linked nature of memorize and prepare) Many players also originally thought scrolls containing spells could be reused as often as desired. Finally, many dungeon masters geared their campaigns to the level of TV giveaway shows, with gold pouring into players’ purses like water and magical rewards strapped to the backs of lowly rats. This latter allowed their players to progress far too rapidly and go far beyond the bounds of D & D’s competition scope — magic users, fighters, clerics and all. Oh well, so much for clarity in prose.

[Citan]

I'm speaking from the player perspective. Playing an overpowered character that derails campaigns and over stresses the DM is not amusing. Not every DM is combative with his players so when they break things within the rules, things just stay broken. Sure encounters can get harder, but the DM is clearly at the end of his rope when you kill a pitfiend at level 8.

Your complaints with spell points is about how useful being able to spam low level spells is. That's a lot better than exploiting high level spells. In your example, I would take the wizard and break things a lot harder than I would with either my suggested sorcerer or the base sorcerer since that list is much more packed with game breaking material. The sorcerer list is thankfully pretty nerfed compared to the wizard list. Sorcerers become much more dangerous with a competent party. Wizards have much better solo tactics.

Our group is steadily building a longer and longer house rules list for when people want to dare 5e again.
That assumption just proves that you clearly understand nothing of the game balance (especially since I did not pick a level 20 party but a level 8 party)... It's useless to try and make a blind man see, so go ahead. Don't say you weren't warned though.

[sithlordnergal]

So Rhedyn...your suggestion with spell points and spell slots. That would essentially give the Sorcerer far more spell slots in the end then a normal caster, correct? Because the Sorcerer would have both spell points and spell slots to draw from. Am I getting that right?

Because if so, then that would seriously be a dangerous and game breaking change. The Sorcerer on it's own would be bad enough, but toss in two levels of Paladin and suddenly you have a class that can spam Smites and Shield all day long with no repurcussions. And even though Smite won't do any extra damage, you can certainly smite with a 6th level spell slot.

Sorcerer/Paladins is already a strong multiclass, this kind of change would make it the best multiclass. Bar. None. And I mean it too. Your nova damage would be insane, you would have all the flexibility of a normal caster, and you wouldn't have to worry about spell slots. And currently, spell slots are the only thing that holds a Soradin back

[Tanarii]

*well, maybe not so well-defined for the ranger.
It's well defined. The Ranger has been remarkably true to core features from 1e thru 3.5e, and in 5e. The balance of features has changed, the specific way they work has changed, but the core of "what general features make a ranger" has been consistent.

Special focus on particular enemies
Special combat techniques (especially TWF & Archery)
Special wilderness skills (including stealth & ambush)
Druid-like Spellcasting
Animal companions
Fighter-like toughness

------------------

Sorcerer hasn't had as long to establish what makes it special ... and what WAS its initial awesome-specialness, spontaneous casting, went away after 3e. That isn't a relevant concept in 4e or 5e.

I'm kind of glad they tucked claimed meta magic as a replacement specialness, as it at least gives the impression of additional on-the-fly flexibility of casting, as opposed to wizards thought-out-ahead-of-time Prepared Spells from their spellbook. (Edit: I mean, in very broad strokes, the point of a sorcerer is in fact well defined: flexible on the fly casting. There may be a problem in 5e implementation, but the idea was clearly there.)

The Dragon Ancetry thing seems to have been inherited from a specific 3e PrC, the Dragon Disciple. I looked it up, and it was a Sorcerer Specific PrC, in that it required the ability to cast spells without preparation. Inititially, the only way to do that was at least one level of Sorcerer.

I can't recall (or find online) what the Wild Mage was like in 3e, so they may have inherited it as part of 4e. But IMO it's definitely appropriate.

[Rhedyn]

So Rhedyn...your suggestion with spell points and spell slots. That would essentially give the Sorcerer far more spell slots in the end then a normal caster, correct? Because the Sorcerer would have both spell points and spell slots to draw from. Am I getting that right?

Because if so, then that would seriously be a dangerous and game breaking change. The Sorcerer on it's own would be bad enough, but toss in two levels of Paladin and suddenly you have a class that can spam Smites and Shield all day long with no repurcussions. And even though Smite won't do any extra damage, you can certainly smite with a 6th level spell slot.

Sorcerer/Paladins is already a strong multiclass, this kind of change would make it the best multiclass. Bar. None. And I mean it too. Your nova damage would be insane, you would have all the flexibility of a normal caster, and you wouldn't have to worry about spell slots. And currently, spell slots are the only thing that holds a Soradin back

I would switch them to the spell point variant and then their sorceress points act like spell points and refresh on short rest.

So (normal spell points) + lvl*short rest per day = total spell points

2 paladin would just delay your points and your spell level for a semi decent single melee attack. I find paladin 5/Warlock 2/paladin X to be a far better multi-class (though multi classing is still pretty inferior to just getting better features sooner).

So you get 133 spell points by level 20. Given 2 short rest you would have 173 points total per day, a 30% increase. At 10 you have 64 normal with 2 short rest that would be 84 or a 31% increase. At 5 you have 27 base and 37 with two short rest or a 37% increase.

Though compared to a wizard, you are only gaining an edge after the second short rest (and all the extra low level spells you have since you effectively do not get more than one slot per spell level 6th or higher)

[Citan]

I would switch them to the spell point variant and then their sorceress points act like spell points and refresh on short rest.

So (normal spell points) + lvl*short rest per day = total spell points

2 paladin would just delay your points and your spell level for a semi decent single melee attack. I find paladin 5/Warlock 2/paladin X to be a far better multi-class (though multi classing is still pretty inferior to just getting better features sooner).

So you get 133 spell points by level 20. Given 2 short rest you would have 173 points total per day, a 30% increase. At 10 you have 64 normal with 2 short rest that would be 84 or a 31% increase. At 5 you have 27 base and 37 with two short rest or a 37% increase.

Though compared to a wizard, you are only gaining an edge after the second short rest (and all the extra low level spells you have since you effectively do not get more than one slot per spell level 6th or higher)
"semi decent single melee attack"?
There is definitely no blinder man than the one that does not want to see.
Thanks for this brilliant illustration of your utter lack of knowledge/comprehension over mechanics.

Sorcerer has access to weapon cantrips, which have been longly pointed out as making any caster as good as half the martials, without any further investment.
Add to that the ability to smite exactly as strong as just required and you are golden.
The fact that you have only one melee attack is not that important, barring the chance to hit (which can be boosted through many ways).
The important thing is how much damage you can deal over a round.


Lets take a level 5 character, S&B: Paladin has Extra Attack as well as 4*1st level and 2*2nd level. If he doesn't care about what comes next, he could dish out 2*(1d8+3+3d8) in first turn, then 2*2*(1d8+3+2d8) on the two next turns, for a total average of 6*(1d8+3)+2*3d8+4*2d8 = 20d8+18=108 damage.
He's now a plain Extra Attack martial for the whole remaining of the day.

Let's take a Pal 2 / Sorc 3 (normal): this one has one attack (S&B), but has cantrips, and a caster level giving him 4*1st level slots and 3*2nd level slots, + 3 SP. Because this is a smiting-geared build, we grab Quicken.
Over the same three rounds, he can cast 2 cantrips on first, then just a cantrip and bonus action convert 1st level slot, then 2 cantrips. Highest smite applied on each weapon attack.
We'll take Booming Blade as a cantrip for simplicity (Green Flame Blade supposes another target), and consider target doesn't trigger extra damage to be as nice as possible (although obviously in practice, any creature taking that much damage and surviving would try to move away from that threat but anyways).
Round 1: 2*(1d8+3+1d8+3d8), Round 2: (1d8+3+1d8+3d8), Round 3: 2*(1d8+3+1d8+2d8).
Total average over three rounds: 3*(5d8+3) + 2*(4d8+3) = 23d8 + 15 = 118,5.
Sorcerer has no sorcery points left and has only one 1st level slot left along with his cantrips.
Basically, he's now a cantrip user with Booming Blade being slightly subpar or equal to Extra Attack depending on secondary damage triggers.

Let's take a Pal 2 / Sorc 3 (spellpoints)
Since you use spellpoints, as a caster level 4, you have 17+4 points, so you can use 21/3=7*2nd level spells.
Because you bar metamagics, this one loses much in terms of nova damage.
3*(1d8+3+1d8+3d8) = average 15d8+9 = 86,5.
However, after those three nova rounds, Sorcerer still has 21-9=12, meaning either 4*2nd level slots, or 6*1st level slots, or whatever combination he has left.
He is still a caster that can be relied upon for whatever good 1st or 2nd level spell he has for at least another encounter.

And things go from bad to worse as you progress.
Take a level 11 character build.
Paladin dishes out 2*(1d8+4+1d8) on Extra Attack thanks to Improved Divine Smite. He is considered 5th level caster, so he has 4*1, 3*2, 3*3 slots.
So he can stack a total of 4*2+3*3+3*4=29 dices of Divine Smite, with the strongest smite only available 3 times per day, and he cannot escape that.

Pal 2 / Sorc 9 has 10th level caster spell, and deal 1d8+4+2d8 with Booming Blade on its turn (twice with Quicken). 10th level caster means 4*1st, 3*2nd, 3*3rd, 3*4th, 2*5th.
Because he does not want to waste slots, either he won't consume 5th level ones (so total 8+9+12+15=44 dices) or he will convert them into SP to fuel Quicken, or he will convert them (with loss) into one more 4th level, remaining as 2 Quicken.
Anyways, his maxed smite is available only 3 or 4 times per day, unless he just does not care about anything other than smiting and converts every other slot to get 4th ones (so he can dish out 4+6+9+10 sorcery points and add them to his dedicated pool to convert 38 points back into 5 more 4th level slots since 5*6=36, so he has 8 4th slots for the day and nothing else).

Now let's take Pal 2 / Sorc 9 with your changes.
He has 64+9=73 spell points. With no metamagic to use them on he blows everything on spellcasting.
He has at his disposal, for the day, up to 12 4th level slots for maximum smiting (or Polymorph, or Banishment, or whatever)... If he wants to be conservative, he could instead limit himself to 3rd level smite (14 slots), 2nd level ones (24) or even 1st level ones (36).
Per what is commonly used as an average number of rounds for an encounter here (althouth my experience vastly differs), which is 5, and taking short rests into account (so extra 18 sp, meaning 9*1st level or 6*2nd level slots), this one could basically use a basic smite on every attack of the day, or dish out extra 5d8 damage per turn for three whole encounters.

And yet, that is arguably the worst way to use a Sorcerer, considering the spells he has.
Unleashing one or two Fireballs while keeping concentration on a Slow/Banishment/Polymorph/Haste/Wall of Fire/Stinking Cloud, every encounter of of the day, feels like a much better deal than just smiting, but the maths hereabove were just for the sake of demonstrating how Pal 2 can be a great boon even with only one weapon attack.
(Replace Pal 2 by Fighter 2, and now you can open 3 encounters per day with two 5th Fireball without sweating, how stupid is that? XD)

As good 4th or 5th level spells a Wizard (or any normal caster) may have, he can use any of them a half-handful number of times per day with no way around it. Once it's gone it's gone for the day (well, at 11th level, you can recover 2 5th level slots though for a total of 4 for the day, which is good indeed, but less than 12 -which is what a pure lvl 11 Sorcerer with your changes would get).

So you better hope that you chose the right moment to use these big spells, and that they will work, because still having lower level slots won't make any difference once they are gone.
Spellpoint caster does not have any problem of the kind, which is why it creates such a strong imbalance.

[Rhedyn]

0_0

I don't see anything there that remotely approaches twinned polymorph, heighten higher slot banishment, or even twinned haste.

Also you are taking about a sorceress that spams 5th level slots. Given a 6 encounter day, even a sorcerer acting like that gets 2 5th levels per combat and then is just a cantrip gal. Or half as many slots as a warlock, but the sorcerers cantrip sucks compared to the warlock. You also only can concentrate once so that extra 5th level spell is either mere damage or waiting for her to lose concentration on the first one.

So far you are only making compelling cases for my sorceress suggestion (aside from the class being less appealing to those that I've polled since they feel that metamagic defines the class).

[Kryx]

I still think Warlock and Sorcerer should have been combined into a single spell-point using, short rest recharging class typified by having a spark of magic they wield however they like through sheer force of will. You could say you made a pact with an eldritch horror or maybe you were just born under said eldritch horror's star. It honestly doesn't matter since that's just fluff. Either way, the spark of magic is yours to blow things up with as you wish.
I'm really intrigued by this. While my Sorcerer is a decent approach I've always felt that it doesn't quite hit the mark. Sorcerer and Warlock share so much of the same flavor and several similar subclasses that I believe you have a strong argument here.

That said there is a rather many differences between the classes:

Name
A Warlock has sought the knowledge while a Sorcerer may have simply been born into it. This is a flavor difference that could be accounted for, but in the warlock's fluff it describes them as a "Delvers into Secrets" which isn't quite the same as a Sorcerer.
d6 vs d8 hit dice.
leather armor vs no armor
4 vs 6 cantrips
Hex is a core function of the Warlock class imo, while it isn't for the Sorcerer.
Spellcasting chasis

Pact boon works for both as the Sorcerer was known for having a familiar in 3.X. Eldritch Blast can work for both.

I'm curious to explore this idea and I think I'd make the following decisions:

Name - do we allow both? How do we refer to things like "sorcerer level" if we allow both?
Flavor - undecided how to handle the difference. Emphasize the bloodline/patron and then leave the rest up to the player I guess - they can decide if they chose it or were born into it, etc.
d8 hit dice
no armor (pact of the blade gets armor as a subclass feature and several subclasses would get armor of some kind - perhaps that can be reworked a bit on the way)
6 cantrips
Hex - undecided how to handle this. Perhaps Sorcerer has its own unique feature and each character would choose between the two?
Use my Warlock's spellcasting chasis.

[UrielAwakened]

I honestly really hate the idea of subsuming the Sorcerer into the Warlock.

Sorcerers have a different feel thematically. Warlocks crave power, but Sorcerers? They are born power. They can't help it. No matter how they try to live their lives they are destined to serve as magical conduits with the past.

It's so unique and to just throw it away because people have a hard time re-imagining them as anything other than "Kind of a Wizard but not" is troubling.

Seriously. Anyone looking to carve a better flavor niche for the Sorcerer needs to go back to 4e and see how they handled it. The 4e Sorcerer was the brute force alternative to the controllery Wizard. It learned tons of useful at-will abilities like flight earlier than any other class.

Take the idea of the Sorcerer being "born magic" and just give it spells innately depending on what path they choose. Give it added damage to any damage spells of a certain type, with the ability to bend the magical laws and reshape any damaging spell to that type. Give it natural flight, natural magic armor, natural stoneskin, or natural charm person abilities depending on what path it gets to make up for the fact that it has less spell-slots. Dragon Sorcerers were a good approach in that respect, as they basically got free Magic Armor. Their flight is just way too late to be a good path feature, and the damage bonus should just be a thing Sorcerers have.

If the Sorcerer wasn't just a Wizard with less spell-slots, but rather, a Wizard who didn't need as many spell slots because it actually gained really-useful spell-like abilities, it would feel wild and untamed and raw.

I personally would go even further and just make the Sorcerer use spell points by default instead of spell levels but that change is a bit too radical for some people.

[Kryx]

Sorcerers have a different feel thematically. Warlocks crave power, but Sorcerers? They are born power. They can't help it. No matter how they try to live their lives they are destined to serve as magical conduits with the past.
The difference between born with significant power vs crave significant power can easily be left to how the character is played.

The concepts aren't so different - the Draconic Sorcerer for example specifically mentions pact and I've seen a significant number of homebrew options that blur the lines between the Sorcerous Origins/Pacts. Dragon, Fiend, Fey, etc are quite popular for both.

[UrielAwakened]

They're wildly different. One is a conscious decision you make (Warlock) and the other is a gift or a curse from your ancestors.

Warlocks have agency. They make a pact BECAUSE they want power. Sorcerers have no such agency. They are born magical. Cursed to either a life of adventure or constant knowledge that whatever normal mediocrity they've thrust themselves into instead is a waste of their potential. Sorcerers HAVE to adventure because they are born with magical talent, and talent is a merciless thing that constantly screams, "USE ME!" in the back of your head when you shirk it.

People are trying to make them the same to rationalize a bad idea as a good one.

[Willie the Duck]

Arguments by hyperbole are silly.

I what world is highlighting the absurd consequences of a statement or concept, if taken to their logical conclusions, not a valid and useful form of rhetoric?


The Sorceror is also a vastly different archetype than the Wizard or Warlock. To conflate the two is no different from conflating the Barbarian and the Ranger. That's the point they were trying to make.


This whole thread is silly. It's a dressed up argument from ignorance. "I don't understand this, so it shouldn't exist."

Agreed, but I will say this --the specific class distinctions that any version of D&D makes are relatively arbitrary. Why archer-fighter and big bruiser fighter both fit in the fighter silo while archer ranger and twf ranger fit together, but not with fighters is an arbitrary boundary. But some boundaries are needed for the class based system. The designers could have made the sorcerer (mechanics and/or fluff) a sub-genre of wizard, or they could have split the existing sub-genres of wizards out into their own subclasses. They took the druid out from under cleric back in 3e, and it hasn't been a problem. but...


You jest, but until the last sentence I actually agree with you. I think classes should be thrown out along with the rest of the sacred cows, and the game would be better for it.

Yes, classless systems are harder to balance, but that's also because characters can be a lot more varied. I can have a character with no combat skills (not that I'm likely to, I'll throw a few points into hand to hand or small weapons), I can have a warrior who knows a lot about history and religion, I can have a wizard who fights with sword and buff.

Here's where I say no (as in I disagree). D&D is the 'first' rpg*, and like most first anythings, it is a bit of a mongrel, jerry-rigged thing that breaks any form of 'theory of good design.' I think to force D&D into a pure state like a classless system would take away any kind of intrinsic D&D-ness to it. There are plenty of perfectly good classless systems out there (including GURPS and HERO system, both of which could be called nearly 'pure' systems) that do fantasy gaming pretty well. Why make D&D be a poor sibling to them, instead of what it is?
*let's not get into the whole proto-RPGs like Braunsteins and En Garde, etc.



Well, let's take a step back.

We used to just have 'Magic User' as a class. Then that got split up into our Wizards and Divine casters.

Well we didn't, unless you mean in the proto-D&D that EGG and DA hammered into oD&D. Cleric has been in all published D&Ds. But the point remains, people have been coming up with new roles for magic in the game since the beginning, and the tried and true method of dealing with discovering a new role has been to make up a new class. The distinctions between which are somewhere between 'arbitrary' and 'historic artifact.'


In conclusion to my thoughts, I think the specific decision to make a sorcerer class was clearly historically to allow a non-at-beginning-of-the-day-chosen (I do not understand why the distinction between 'memorized' and 'memorized and prepared' is important, Kevin, can you elaborate?) version of wizard. The specific fluff (dragon blood in their veins) was a justification that has now congealed and become important to many sorcerer aficionados. The two do not have to be linked, and they certainly don't have to be silo-ed away from other classes. Those are arbitrary decisions, but so are most of the games' distinctions. Is there a character theme that they cover? Yes. Is there a mechanical role to play? Yes. Does it overlap others? Of course.

Frankly, the worst part of sorcerers that I've seen in the game is that the synergy that they have with paladins makes it really tempting to MC the two together, which means that the designers have to be extra careful about any new archetypes they make for either of them, which is unfortunate.

[Kryx]

Some Wizards want to gain power to control/destroy others while other wizards want to learn power to help people while others want to learn power simply to learn power.

These are character motivations.

[UrielAwakened]

Look, we're not gonna agree about this. I hate every change you've made regarding Sorcerers so far so I don't really expect you to listen to me now. You do you. But I live and breath sorcerers. I've played almost nothing but for three edition of D&D now. I understand what the Sorcerer is and what differentiates it better than just about anyone.

It's pretty clear at this point to me that you just don't get the Sorcerer. You do the math and you tinker with it and on a spreadsheet it looks great to you. But you don't get what lies under the numbers and you don't get why it's impossible to make a Warlock or a Wizard with the same motivations that a Sorcerer uniquely has.

[Willie the Duck]

Wow.

That is possibly the most 'one-true-way'-est thing I've ever seen someone ever cop to, with hints of 'you should listen to me, I'm a <subject matter> genius.

Are you sure you wouldn't like a do-over on that? Perhaps with a bit more diplomacy?
I'm genuinely trying to be nice. That was pretty over-the-top of you. Don't you think you should rethink?

[UrielAwakened]

I don't care.

I said a lot of really true things already and they've been glossed over by someone who has already made a decision.

You can't make someone see who is so tunnel-visioned. Sorcerers are different from Warlocks and Wizards and I clearly explained how. To just blatantly state that all character motivation can be divorced from mechanics and flavor is just a fundamental misunderstanding of not just this class but all classes.

A person who chooses a situation versus a person who has a situation thrust upon them will have different motivations. You can't handwave that away without just ignoring how people work and if you do that you are no longer designing classes to cater to players, you're designing classes that cater to a system.

[Willie the Duck]

Fair enough.

[Kryx]

Fair enough.
Not really. His reply is loaded with insults. This forum has no room for that kind of discussion imo.

@Rebonack and others who may be interested: I've ventured down this Sorcerer/Warlock split and it's working quite well so far. I'll work on it and then polish it a bit and post it for some feedback on the idea (I'm not fully convinced yet, but it still has some work to do so we'll see how it goes).

[UrielAwakened]

What did I get wrong in my analysis?

[Citan]

0_0

I don't see anything there that remotely approaches twinned polymorph, heighten higher slot banishment, or even twinned haste.

Also you are taking about a sorceress that spams 5th level slots. Given a 6 encounter day, even a sorcerer acting like that gets 2 5th levels per combat and then is just a cantrip gal. Or half as many slots as a warlock, but the sorcerers cantrip sucks compared to the warlock. You also only can concentrate once so that extra 5th level spell is either mere damage or waiting for her to lose concentration on the first one.

So far you are only making compelling cases for my sorceress suggestion (aside from the class being less appealing to those that I've polled since they feel that metamagic defines the class).
It's impressive how you refuse to face facts.
It's you yourself that boasted about how Wizard would break more because of high-level spells. I'm just trying to explain to you how, per your own logic, being able to use one or two high-level spells every encounter makes it much better than any other class, Wizard included.
Besides, I gave you numerical examples to help you understand (which was apparently an utter failure), but obviously a caster would not necessarily use a 5th level spell just because he has the ability to do so.
Although, by that standard, you say "then it's just a cantrip gal" (why a gal by the way?), forgetting how these two 5th level spells may very well have had such an impact on the encounter that it does not really matters what happens next.
Finally, a Sorcerer casting...
- a Twin Haste is putting both of his allies at a great risk for when spell ends, so he'd better ensure his own safety. Plus it's still not that hard to break Hasted people, they have double speed and all but don't get any better STR/DEX checks. And with martials usually having low WIS/INT save, worst case you could have them turned against the party.
- a Twin Polymorph? Well, it's basically Giant Apes or T-Rex, both are good but both can be managed with in very different manners. Plus again it makes you a priority target.
- a heightened slot Banishment is using one of his higher level slots and 3 SP to have a better chance at succeeding. How is that a problem? That Sorcerer is just spending a chunk of total resources to increase his succeeding chance. If that is a problem for you, better bar the Diviner Wizard as well: only two-three times per day, and how you use them depends on the rolls you have, but Portent rolls do not eat at your spellcasting and can affect any spell level without further expense. When you get adequate rolls, these can guarantee the success of your spell, which is undoubtly better than just increasing the chances.

By the way, didn't you ever ask yourself why the Warlock class first had slot-level progression (1st level > 5th level) before having slot-expand progression (2 > 3 > 4), instead of, for example, alternative progression or big-step progression?

I bet you never did, because otherwise you would have realized by yourself this choice was made to limit the number of spells that could be cast over a day, precisely to keep some balance between all classes, especially at lower levels when those mid-level spells have all the potential to shape an encounter.

Note that I do like the spell points system, and in core I agree it would give the "wild but controlled" feeling that goes with Sorcerer fluff. But removing metamagic won't help making it balanced, because the absence of cost of opportunity for choosing a spell level is the big problem here. Only way to make it work would be to make your own scale of spell points progression to limit slightly the total "power" per day, or put a hard limit on the total number of spell cast (obviously scaling with level, and obviously different from the current), or put a hard limit on the current highest level spells.

Anyways, you just don't like "being wrong" up to the point of not even trying to actually think about others say, so I'll let you at that. You are obviously in a mindset that makes you push even harder in one direction when people try to tell you it's a wrong one (it probably didn't help that I didn't take any gloves, but for me defense I acted as I did with any reasonable adult around me). Good for you. If it works for your players in the end, then happy end and all that.

Just two things...
- 12 5th level spells is not "half as many slots as a Warlock": it's twice before Warlock reaches lvl 11 (2 slots per short rest), and roughtly 1.5 times once he gets level 11 (3 slots per short rest). No wonder some things escape you if you cannot even properly calculate such a simple division or multiplication.
- Sorcerer cantrips don't "suck" at all, it's rather that only Invocations makes Eldricht Blast really that good. It's there to compensate the fact that Warlock has so little combat casting for such a long time.

[Willie the Duck]

Not really. His reply is loaded with insults. This forum has no room for that kind of discussion imo.

I mean If he doesn't want to revisit his remarks, that is fair enough. He (and our respect of him) can stand with those words.

[UrielAwakened]

"Respect."

You're kidding right.

What respect has anyone shown in this discussion that didn't amount to smug self-assuredness?

Seriously what does merging the Warlock and Sorcerer solve mechanically or flavor-wise? Mechanically they're different, flavor-wise they're VERY different. I explained why and none of my points were refuted beyond some vague non-comparison with Wizards also being able to want power (which fundamentally misunderstands everything I wrote about Sorcerers).

Combining them is just tacitly admitting a complete lack of understanding for what draws different people to each. And it's frankly an incredibly lazy solution.

[Tanarii]

I what world is highlighting the absurd consequences of a statement or concept, if taken to their logical conclusions, not a valid and useful form of rhetoric?Yeah ... that there is most often a form of straw-manning. Even when it's not, hyperbole, extreme, and/or ridiculous examples are only every "logical" in the common internet-use of the term: 'way of thinking & opinion I personally prefer.' :smallyuk:


You can't make someone see who is so tunnel-visioned.The irony is strong with this one.


Sorcerers are different from Warlocks and Wizards and I clearly explained how. To just blatantly state that all character motivation can be divorced from mechanics and flavor is just a fundamental misunderstanding of not just this class but all classes.Yup. You clearly explained something that has absolutely no bearing on mechanics. Congratulations on making Kryx's point crystal clear regarding why Sorcs and Warlocks could, in theory, be combined mechanically, and still retain their thematic differences.

Now if you had stuck with Sorcerers are all about flexibility on demand, and Warlocks all about a small number of tricks up their sleeve they can do repeatedly, then you might have been able to make a mechanics-must-be-separate argument. Possibly.

[Rhedyn]

It's impressive how you refuse to face facts.
It's you yourself that boasted about how Wizard would break more because of high-level spells. I'm just trying to explain to you how, per your own logic, being able to use one or two high-level spells every encounter makes it much better than any other class, Wizard included.
Besides, I gave you numerical examples to help you understand (which was apparently an utter failure), but obviously a caster would not necessarily use a 5th level spell just because he has the ability to do so.
Although, by that standard, you say "then it's just a cantrip gal" (why a gal by the way?), forgetting how these two 5th level spells may very well have had such an impact on the encounter that it does not really matters what happens next.
Finally, a Sorcerer casting...
- a Twin Haste is putting both of his allies at a great risk for when spell ends, so he'd better ensure his own safety. Plus it's still not that hard to break Hasted people, they have double speed and all but don't get any better STR/DEX checks. And with martials usually having low WIS/INT save, worst case you could have them turned against the party.
- a Twin Polymorph? Well, it's basically Giant Apes or T-Rex, both are good but both can be managed with in very different manners. Plus again it makes you a priority target.
- a heightened slot Banishment is using one of his higher level slots and 3 SP to have a better chance at succeeding. How is that a problem? That Sorcerer is just spending a chunk of total resources to increase his succeeding chance. If that is a problem for you, better bar the Diviner Wizard as well: only two-three times per day, and how you use them depends on the rolls you have, but Portent rolls do not eat at your spellcasting and can affect any spell level without further expense. When you get adequate rolls, these can guarantee the success of your spell, which is undoubtly better than just increasing the chances.

By the way, didn't you ever ask yourself why the Warlock class first had slot-level progression (1st level > 5th level) before having slot-expand progression (2 > 3 > 4), instead of, for example, alternative progression or big-step progression?

I bet you never did, because otherwise you would have realized by yourself this choice was made to limit the number of spells that could be cast over a day, precisely to keep some balance between all classes, especially at lower levels when those mid-level spells have all the potential to shape an encounter.

Note that I do like the spell points system, and in core I agree it would give the "wild but controlled" feeling that goes with Sorcerer fluff. But removing metamagic won't help making it balanced, because the absence of cost of opportunity for choosing a spell level is the big problem here. Only way to make it work would be to make your own scale of spell points progression to limit slightly the total "power" per day, or put a hard limit on the total number of spell cast (obviously scaling with level, and obviously different from the current), or put a hard limit on the current highest level spells.

Anyways, you just don't like "being wrong" up to the point of not even trying to actually think about others say, so I'll let you at that. You are obviously in a mindset that makes you push even harder in one direction when people try to tell you it's a wrong one (it probably didn't help that I didn't take any gloves, but for me defense I acted as I did with any reasonable adult around me). Good for you. If it works for your players in the end, then happy end and all that.

Just two things...
- 12 5th level spells is not "half as many slots as a Warlock": it's twice before Warlock reaches lvl 11 (2 slots per short rest), and roughtly 1.5 times once he gets level 11 (3 slots per short rest). No wonder some things escape you if you cannot even properly calculate such a simple division or multiplication.
- Sorcerer cantrips don't "suck" at all, it's rather that only Invocations makes Eldricht Blast really that good. It's there to compensate the fact that Warlock has so little combat casting for such a long time.
You do realize that in the spell point variant you can only cast ONE 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th per day much like the warlock?

You actually get less high level spells per day than a wizard at higher levels because they actually get more slots.

[Rhedyn]

Yeah ... that there is most often a form of straw-manning. Even when it's not, hyperbole, extreme, and/or ridiculous examples are only every "logical" in the common internet-use of the term: 'way of thinking & opinion I personally prefer.' :smallyuk:

The irony is strong with this one.

Yup. You clearly explained something that has absolutely no bearing on mechanics. Congratulations on making Kryx's point crystal clear regarding why Sorcs and Warlocks could, in theory, be combined mechanically, and still retain their thematic differences.

Now if you had stuck with Sorcerers are all about flexibility on demand, and Warlocks all about a small number of tricks up their sleeve they can do repeatedly, then you might have been able to make a mechanics-must-be-separate argument. Possibly.
I think it's fair to say that warlock invocations, pact of X, and eldritch blast don't match to the innate spell casting of the sorcerer in the flavor baked into the mechanics.

I've always found sorcerers to be the cha wizard, so them being like wizards is a feature not a flaw.

[UrielAwakened]

Yeah ... that there is most often a form of straw-manning. Even when it's not, hyperbole, extreme, and/or ridiculous examples are only every "logical" in the common internet-use of the term: 'way of thinking & opinion I personally prefer.' :smallyuk:

The irony is strong with this one.

Yup. You clearly explained something that has absolutely no bearing on mechanics. Congratulations on making Kryx's point crystal clear regarding why Sorcs and Warlocks could, in theory, be combined mechanically, and still retain their thematic differences.

Now if you had stuck with Sorcerers are all about flexibility on demand, and Warlocks all about a small number of tricks up their sleeve they can do repeatedly, then you might have been able to make a mechanics-must-be-separate argument. Possibly.

Flavor has to inform mechanics or else you're designing without considering the people you're designing for.

Look to Magic the Gathering for a great example of how to design games in this fashion. The flavor is what resonates with people first. The mechanics must fit that mold, not vice-versa.

"Flexibility on demand" is not a class concept any more than "guy who is really good at swinging swords" is. However, "Person who would do anything for power, even make deals with the most powerful, dangerous beings in the universe" is a class concept. It doesn't even have to be magical. You could come up with a class that conceptually is martial but gets tons of fantastic passive abilities, not thanks to years of honing their sword-work, but because they've been gifted supernatural speed and endurance by an outside force.

And that class is not just a fighter because both swing a sword.

[Deleted]

I think the fluff that the Sorcerer has had for quite a while now "I'm just good at it" is holding it back and is causing issues with other classes. Wizards being smart are just "I'm just good at it" too so this fluff doesn't really give the class anything special (which is why we have a class to begin with). I think the Sorcerer needs some fundamental changes so that it can step outside the Wizard's shadow.

First off, the fluff that you're related to something that gave you supernatural powers... That should be a race thing. Anything that has to do with bloodlines or whatever is a race issue and not a class issue. The Sorcerer has been a race option for too long and I think it's time to change that. I'm trying to think of another class that has more to do with race than "job" and nope, I can't think of any besides Psionic characters (which can be fluffed as being mindful/meditative and learning that way instead of just "being" a psionic person).

We already have three major arcane casters in D&D. We have the iconic Wizard that studies a specific way to cast spells and while I think the Wizard should be a "build your own spell" class, what we have in the Spell Book is good enough for now. We also have the Bard that uses music to influence the weave and flow of reality, neat, love that fluff even if I don't love the Bard itself in 5e. The Warlock is a Arcane Cleric or another type of Wizard who happened to study the occult, however there is enough of a specific fluff to justify the Warlock existence.

So we need something to justify the Sorcerer and we do have it. Whereas Wizards are engineers, Bards are musicians, and warlocks are historians... The Sorcerer can be the artist of the arcane world. Their paint is the magical energies around them and their canvas is reality. You can learn to be a better painter but with natural talent you get a leg up on others (just like with having a higher Int and being a Wizard).

Like the Bard, the Sorcerer is less ridged with their spellcasting. Wizards and Warlocks have a set path that they can hardly deviate from as they must abide by more rules due to either their learning structure or the pact they made. However, since Bards appeal to the emotion of arcane magic, they can do things that Wizards and Warlocks normally can't (like cast healing spells). Because the sorcerers see and use magic in a very different way, they can be quite flexible with their spontaneous casting. They can use meta-magic effects that would leave a Wizard or Warlock scratching their head. Using MM is like tying a bunch of birthday party balloons to a house and having the house lift off without breaking apart... It just shouldn't work but it does.

Now, you don't have to rely heavily on the "artist" ideology, you can just bring in some concepts and go from there. Perhaps when a Sorcerer uses magic, they don't use the normal somatic components. Sorcerers move their hands in such a way that it looks like they are drawing/painting (I'm thinking large over exaggerated movements). This would be a fluff issue mostly, but it would go a long way to distinguish them as different from Wizards/Warlocks. I would say to rework the sorcerer's spell list. Take spells from the current list and add spells from the druid. Having a Sorcerer "paint" a spike growth would distinguish them from a Wizard or Warlock who can't learn to do that. Bards already have healing as their Arcane niche, so I think the Sorcerer should have its own spell list niche (since the Wizard and Warlock do too).

I need to work on my Sorcerer some more so I'll just leave this here for now.

[Willie the Duck]

"Respect."

You're kidding right.

What respect has anyone shown in this discussion that didn't amount to smug self-assuredness?

Seriously what does merging the Warlock and Sorcerer solve mechanically or flavor-wise? Mechanically they're different, flavor-wise they're VERY different. I explained why and none of my points were refuted beyond some vague non-comparison with Wizards also being able to want power (which fundamentally misunderstands everything I wrote about Sorcerers).

Combining them is just tacitly admitting a complete lack of understanding for what draws different people to each. And it's frankly an incredibly lazy solution.

I honestly don't care one whit about the subject we are actually discussing. Random-person-on-the-internet's opinion about 2 classes in a specific edition of elf-Game, and whether they agree with me is of so little concern to me as to not rise above getting a popcorn kernel stuck in one's teeth, in terms of annoyances.

Behavior, OTOH, speaks volumes. And when someone makes a statement along the lines of
I live and breath X, I've played almost nothing but for <extended period>, therefore my opinion on the subject trumps yours. You do not get X. You do your white-room analysis (unlike those of us who truly play the game), but you don't get what truly makes X. Your opinion isn't as valid as mine. I am going to call that out as the 'Leave Brittany alone'-type argument that it is.

I admit, I have not paid attention to the personalities here on Giantitp like I do on other boards. So maybe you and Kryx have a history. Maybe Kryx has a well-worn history of completely absurd statements and unacceptable behavior. Maybe I'm just viewing the tail-end of a long standing issue. But from where I am standing, I see him taking an valid, if definitely arguable, position, and being unswayed by your counterpoints(which, to be clear, are just as much valid-but-arguable opinions). Your very personal attacks seem very much unprovoked by what has actually been stated in this thread.

Is it possible that you are too close to this material to notice how different you are acting to when someone has held a differing opinion on a subject you don't feel such personal ownership?



Yeah ... that there is most often a form of straw-manning. Even when it's not, hyperbole, extreme, and/or ridiculous examples are only every "logical" in the common internet-use of the term: 'way of thinking & opinion I personally prefer.' :smallyuk:

I'm not sure which direction you are arguing. Reductio ad absurdum is straight out of Aristotle's Prior Analytics. It is absolutely a valid technique, when used right (OTOH, so are strawmen, yet we've all seen far too many people mis-apply them). To me, this seems like an appropriate use. Highlighting the absurdity of considering a sorcerer as unnecessary when most of the class distinctions are unnecessary seems valid.

[UrielAwakened]

So we need something to justify the Sorcerer and we do have it. Whereas Wizards are engineers, Bards are musicians, and warlocks are historians... The Sorcerer can be the artist of the arcane world. Their paint is the magical energies around them and their canvas is reality. You can learn to be a better painter but with natural talent you get a leg up on others (just like with having a higher Int and being a Wizard).

Like the Bard, the Sorcerer is less ridged with their spellcasting. Wizards and Warlocks have a set path that they can hardly deviate from as they must abide by more rules due to either their learning structure or the pact they made. However, since Bards appeal to the emotion of arcane magic, they can do things that Wizards and Warlocks normally can't (like cast healing spells). Because the sorcerers see and use magic in a very different way, they can be quite flexible with their spontaneous casting. They can use meta-magic effects that would leave a Wizard or Warlock scratching their head. Using MM is like tying a bunch of birthday party balloons to a house and having the house lift off without breaking apart... It just shouldn't work but it does.

Now, you don't have to rely heavily on the "artist" ideology, you can just bring in some concepts and go from there. Perhaps when a Sorcerer uses magic, they don't use the normal somatic components. Sorcerers move their hands in such a way that it looks like they are drawing/painting (I'm thinking large over exaggerated movements). This would be a fluff issue mostly, but it would go a long way to distinguish them as different from Wizards/Warlocks. I would say to rework the sorcerer's spell list. Take spells from the current list and add spells from the druid. Having a Sorcerer "paint" a spike growth would distinguish them from a Wizard or Warlock who can't learn to do that. Bards already have healing as their Arcane niche, so I think the Sorcerer should have its own spell list niche (since the Wizard and Warlock do too).

I need to work on my Sorcerer some more so I'll just leave this here for now.

This is a really good analysis as well. Metamagic, adjusting spells on-the-fly, changing things like damage types and reshaping area of effects, and just the ability to paint with magic is all fantastic imagery and really sells to me what it is to be a sorcerer.


Behavior, OTOH, speaks volumes. And when someone makes a statement along the lines of
I live and breath X, I've played almost nothing but for <extended period>, therefore my opinion on the subject trumps yours. You do not get X. You do your white-room analysis (unlike those of us who truly play the game), but you don't get what truly makes X. Your opinion isn't as valid as mine. I am going to call that out as the 'Leave Brittany alone'-type argument that it is.

I admit, I have not paid attention to the personalities here on Giantitp like I do on other boards. So maybe you and Kryx have a history. Maybe Kryx has a well-worn history of completely absurd statements and unacceptable behavior. Maybe I'm just viewing the tail-end of a long standing issue. But from where I am standing, I see him taking an valid, if definitely arguable, position, and being unswayed by your counterpoints(which, to be clear, are just as much valid-but-arguable opinions). Your very personal attacks seem very much unprovoked by what has actually been stated in this thread.

Is it possible that you are too close to this material to notice how different you are acting to when someone has held a differing opinion on a subject you don't feel such personal ownership?


I have no history with Kryx. Others do but I personally don't care what he does and does not do, beyond the fact that he does manage the most-used custom 5e character sheet on roll20, and since he does provide house-rule support in said sheet, his changes can and do impact the player-base to a greater extent than most people.

As a result his design philosophies shape more than just the contours of his own table. They shape future tables.

Now don't get me wrong: His work ethic is almost unparalleled and he has an eye for numbers. But he's also a slave to those numbers. He often eschews a more elegant solution in favor of a more mathematically-balanced one, and I find that a cardinal sin of game design. He designs in a straight line from goal to end product and it's very hard to sway him if he didn't already arrive at an outcome organically.

It makes talking about his homebrew with him kind of pointless.

I'm kind of the exact-opposite in a lot of ways. I get inspired easily and then lose interest and I care a lot more about the player experience than the math behind whatever is going on. But I am just as hard-headed. It's probably why we're at an impasse.

[KorvinStarmast]

Combining them is just tacitly admitting a complete lack of understanding for what draws different people to each. And it's frankly an incredibly lazy solution. Without being quite so adamant, I tend to agree with UrielAwakened regarding the class concept mattering: magic born into the blood versus "must find all secrets / magic and such" of the Warlock. My major problem isn't to do with a sorcerer, but with the chance to make the Warlock an Int based caster, on top of knowledge, investigation, and such, that was missed by a crap decision at WoTC to listen to the fans who weren't in on how they were rebuilding the various classes, or just tweaking them, for 5e.

I do not care for disassociating class skills and class concept on a spreadsheet. I realize that some people enjoy that, however. As we discussed in the other thread, I'd like to see the sorcerer's class get more meta-magics (up to all of them?) included in the sorcerer unique class ability progression from 1-20, and would surely like to see a few more of the sub classes come to fruition. (The storm sorcerer from EE seems OK to me, but I am not sure how popular it is overall). Dragon and Wild as choices when we compare to Cleric or wizard, in terms of path/subclass choices makes the sorcerer seem to have been shortchanged to me. A bit of evening of effort to improve on that would be nice.

[UrielAwakened]

My major problem isn't to do with a sorcerer, but with the chance to make the Warlock an Int based caster, on top of knowledge, investigation, and such, that was missed by a crap decision at WoTC to listen to the fans who weren't in on how they were rebuilding the various classes, or just tweaking them, for 5e.

It's kind of weird isn't it? You kind of have to infer that a Warlock's power more comes from how well he's able to bargain with said outside force than how much forbidden knowledge he's able to acquire.

It's not necessarily bad. But it's weird.

[Tanarii]

I'm not sure which direction you are arguing. Reductio ad absurdum is straight out of Aristotle's Prior Analytics. It is absolutely a valid technique, when used right (OTOH, so are strawmen, yet we've all seen far too many people mis-apply them). To me, this seems like an appropriate use. Highlighting the absurdity of considering a sorcerer as unnecessary when most of the class distinctions are unnecessary seems valid.I am claiming that Reductio ad absurdum, straight out of Aristotle's Prior Analytics or whatever, is usually/generally/often a fallacious argument. Of course fallacious arguments can be 'valid techniques'. That's part of the art of rhetoric or debate.

In fact, calling fallacy without showing where it fails specifically and providing a counter-point is a fallacious technique. So ...

I absolutely agree that in a class game with archetypes, 'mechanical' distinctions & 'flavor' distinctions can line up to create separate concepts. That's the entire point of strong archetypes. But the lines where 'flavor' concepts are drawn are somewhat arbitrary, unless they absolutely require separate mechanical concepts to support. So eliminating the division between warlock & sorcerer mechanically, provided it still supports shared thematic concepts and does not ignore where the concepts separate, is entirely possible.

For example, this is not a thematic class concept that requires specific and separate mechanics. It can be thematically part of any mechanical construct.

"Person who would do anything for power, even make deals with the most powerful, dangerous beings in the universe"

[KorvinStarmast]

It's kind of weird isn't it? You kind of have to infer that a Warlock's power more comes from how well he's able to bargain with said outside force than how much forbidden knowledge he's able to acquire.

It's not necessarily bad. But it's weird. Yes, it can be made to work well, I suppose, if the DM really gets into playing the patron. There is so much room for neat plot hooks and character growth/progression in that relationship. In a small party, that's less of a burden in spotlight sharing than with a large party of players ...

[Rebonack]

Not really. His reply is loaded with insults. This forum has no room for that kind of discussion imo.

@Rebonack and others who may be interested: I've ventured down this Sorcerer/Warlock split and it's working quite well so far. I'll work on it and then polish it a bit and post it for some feedback on the idea (I'm not fully convinced yet, but it still has some work to do so we'll see how it goes).

It's an idea I've been kicking around for a while now. The other one is making Sorcerer the short-rest recharge class while Warlock is MUCH more heavily focused on at-will casting. That would give them both unique game-play space to strongly resolve them from other arcane casters.

Also: if Warlock and Sorcerer get combined into one class I would probably favor the 'Sorcerer' name for the class. I feel like it's a bit more iconic to the genre (Sword and Sorcery) and lacks the sexual distinction Warlock has (Witch vs Warlock).

The other question that needs to be addressed is metamagic. I'm of two minds on that. I can see it being a fourth 'Sorcerer's Path' along with Tome, Blade, and Chain. That would be nice since it would do a good job of covering the various routes Sorcerers are often seen as taking. Tome would represent the more scholarly side of the class, the scholar of the esoteric who delves into forbidden secrets that more polite company (Wizards) are going to avoid. Blade is your classic spellsword guy, the martial expression of magical power. Chain is the binder of exotic beings, the wheeler and dealer with strange extra-planar beings. Finally, we've got the Path of the Wand (metamagic). This is the sorcerer who dives deep into the raw power and nature of the magical spark at their command and learns to shape it in ways that other sorcerers couldn't dream of.

The other option would be to simply make Metamagic a set of Invocation options. Personally, I think I like the above solution more because it's at once more flavorful and represents a higher opportunity cost.

[Citan]

You do realize that in the spell point variant you can only cast ONE 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th per day much like the warlock?

You actually get less high level spells per day than a wizard at higher levels because they actually get more slots.
Yeah, I'm aware, that normal casters get a grand total of 1 additional 6th level and one more 7th level slot respectively.

Well, if someone came to me and asked me if I'm ready to trade those two additional slots for using spell points from the get go, I'd make this any day. What you get is far more interesting than what you lose.

Because the crux of the fact is: those additional slots, you get at 19th and 20th level respectively. And chances/occasions to reach that level are so slim in the first place that in 99% of the games I have played or may play in the future it won't make any difference as far as those extra slots are concerned, unless of course someone is nice enough to propose me a top-level one shot. ^^
While it will make a big difference from level 1 to level 18, in letting me use as high or low a spell as exactly required at a time, because my total pool is immediately optimizable to whatever spell I need.

Consider for example a Cleric: all those threads about on the forum speak, 90% of the time, of the four following spells: Healing Words, Bless, Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians.
A level 6 Cleric that wants to use the dreaded SW+SG in the same encounter can do it 3 times. But a level 6 Cleric that just cares about SG still cannot use it more than 3 times a day.
A Cleric that wants to get someone up from ground with Healing Words will obviously do so by first using the 1st level slots, since extra healing from upcast usually don't make a difference if an enemy strikes again soon after. After those 4 slots are used (which can happen fairly quickly), whenever he must help an ally again, he will have to upcast it although he knows this is a waste of a higher slot for the aforementioned reason.
Let's say he went through 2 encounters, in which he had one Spirit Guardians active, one Spiritual Weapon active, and had to use Healing Words 6 times.
He consumed 1*3, 1*2, 4*1 and 2*2 slots. So he has only one 2nd level and two 3rd level slots left.
If they have another encounter in the day, he will have a very tough choice to make between using an offensive spell and bet on nobody dying, or keeping at least one of those slots (probably 2nd) for a last-resort Healing Words. Anyways he has three spell casts left.

Same Cleric with spell points has 32 available: he can either choose to have Spirit Guardians active every encounter of the day. Or he can be conservative and decide in his head to aim on keeping 14 points dedicated to Healing Words...
Anyways, let's say he is the alter ego of the previous one, so same party, same encounters, did the same things: 1 Spirit Guardians, 1 Spiritual Weapon, 6 Healing Words. Because he has no overcast loss, he used exactly 6*1st level slots, 1*2nd and 1*3rd level ones, for a total of 6*2+3+5=20.
He still has 12 points left: contrarily to his alter ego, for the next encounter he has much more tactical flexibility: he could keep everything for Healing Words, and as such as 6 of them available, or use one SG and keep the rest in case of Healing Words needed (4 spells), or decide to use only one Spiritual Weapon and Healing Words (4 spells)...

Now pick a lvl 6 Bladesinger Wizard, who often uses Shield, Mirror Image and Haste when going melee. I'll put aside Arcane Recovery to simplify.
A normal Wizard could maintain the full combon Haste three encounters a day, or just Haste. Anyways he can never cast Haste more than 3 times a day. Furthermore, he could certainly upcast Shield in emergency but that would truely be a loss since benefit is not even scalable. Same with Mirror Image.
Take the spellpoint Wizard: if he so wishes, he can have Haste every encounter.
If he does not care about Haste nor Mirror Image but still likes to behave as a melee character, just using spells for defense, he can get extreme protection with Shield up to 16 times a day (more realistically, he would use some fuel to actually cast offensive spells, but he could still decide to keep at least fuel for 8 Shield).

To make illustration another way, let's say both Wizards like to play on the safe side and activate Mirror Image systematically when encounter starts.
On the normal Wizard, that amounts to 4*2 + 2*3 slots. Equivalent in spell points: 27.
On the spellpoint Wizard: 6*2nd: cost 18 points. Do you see the BIG difference?

I know that Mirror Image on Bladesinger example is really not a great one, especially since Arcane Recovery would allow you to actually recover exactly the right number of 2nd level slots. So with Arcane Recovery in that case you have no loss.
So let's take the same idea on Eldricht Knight: this poor lad has extremely few slots, and many people play it with dumped INT to just use Shield and (much later) Blur and the like.
A level 6 EK has 3 Shield for the day. Spell points has 6 points, so 3 Shield. So far, so good.
But, as soon as you get 2nd level spells on the next EK level up, there is a big discrepancy: EK now has 4*1st and 2*2nd level slots (equivalent of level 3 caster). Most EK I have read about won't have good use of these slots, except for Mirror Image on DEX builds that can be learned at level 8.
For spellpoint EK, the pool is now of 14 spell points, enough for 7 Shield. And the difference will grow bigger with every level.

Etc etc...

[Kryx]

So maybe you and Kryx have a history.
As far as I know we do not. I come to these forums less and less due to people like him that communicate in such aggressive manners.


The other question that needs to be addressed is metamagic.
Metamagic was not a core part of the Sorcerer in 3.X, 4e, or the 5e playtest of the Sorcerer (which was generally well received I believe). Only upon launch of 5e metamagic was married to the Sorcerer. Personal opinion: that choice was a mistake. Historically metamagic is much more associated with the Wizard than other classes. I believe metamagic options function better as feats available to all casters as by RAW casters have so few feat options.

Even if that were not the case the other pacts would have to be significantly stronger to compete with metamagic. With my pact changes it could probably work though.

[Rhedyn]

It being stronger than normal casting is kind of the whole point though. You kept talking about spamming high level slots, that I needed clarification that you knew that spell points can't actually do that for the higher slots.

I think it puts the sorcerer in a good place, especially at tables like yours where spell points are clearly not allowed.

[Rebonack]

As far as I know we do not. I come to these forums less and less due to people like him that communicate in such aggressive manners.


Metamagic was not a core part of the Sorcerer in 3.X, 4e, or the 5e playtest of the Sorcerer (which was generally well received I believe). Only upon launch of 5e metamagic was married to the Sorcerer. Personal opinion: that choice was a mistake. Historically metamagic is much more associated with the Wizard than other classes. I believe metamagic options function better as feats available to all casters as by RAW casters have so few feat options.

Even if that were not the case the other pacts would have to be significantly stronger to compete with metamagic. With my pact changes it could probably work though.

Significantly stronger Boons or Metamagic without any Invocation investment would have to be weaker.

Pact of the Wand: You gain one metamagic effect from the metamagic list.

The Boon by itself. You get metamagic, but no additional spellpoints to utilize it with.

Metamagic Specialist: Or whatever you want to name it. You gain an additional metamagic effect and may use a metamagic effect once per short rest without expending any additional spellpoints.

I suspect that would put it (approximately) in the same ballpark as the other basic Boon/Invocation pairs. Once per short rest you get to enhance one of your spells, but if you want more than that you're going to start sacrificing spell casting power.

[Deleted]

As far as I know we do not. I come to these forums less and less due to people like him that communicate in such aggressive manners.


Metamagic was not a core part of the Sorcerer in 3.X, 4e, or the 5e playtest of the Sorcerer (which was generally well received I believe). Only upon launch of 5e metamagic was married to the Sorcerer. Personal opinion: that choice was a mistake. Historically metamagic is much more associated with the Wizard than other classes. I believe metamagic options function better as feats available to all casters as by RAW casters have so few feat options.

Even if that were not the case the other pacts would have to be significantly stronger to compete with metamagic. With my pact changes it could probably work though.

From what I recall, the playtest sorcerer was hated. At least if you are speaking of the one that essentially was a Eldritch Knight.

I think metamagics work better to show one caster is more flexible, but the implementation was meh, mostly because it isn't all that flexible in a poetic/ironic sort of way.

The wotc Sorcerer haven't ever really had a niche outside spontaneous casting but that wasn't a limitation of the wizard with how many awesome spells they got.

So giving the Sorcerer a niche is needed, they just didn't do a spectacular job at it... Serviceable but not great.

[Citan]

It being stronger than normal casting is kind of the whole point though. You kept talking about spamming high level slots, that I needed clarification that you knew that spell points can't actually do that for the higher slots.

I think it puts the sorcerer in a good place, especially at tables like yours where spell points are clearly not allowed.
I'm sorry to say, you are a bit annoying to read at times.
I never said that spell points are not allowed at my table.
I say that if I allow them, it's for either all people or no people, unless there is only one (gish/third/half/full)caster in the whole party and everyone else is pure martial or cantrips/rituals only.
Because otherwise that creates too strong an advantage to one over others.

Confer my last examples in previous post.
If this cannot make you understand how unfair an advantage it gives to have spellpoints over just slots, then I'm afraid nothing else can.

[SharkForce]

hmmm... i do think you could probably tear apart both warlock and sorcerer and make a new class that can flexibly represent the concept of each quite well.

i don't think i would recommend starting from either chassis exactly as-is though. taking ideas from each could certainly work, but i don't think "sorcerer - metamagic + warlock pacts + warlock spell list + warlock invocations" is quite the way to do it.

i do think you could put something with all of those elements together to make a sufficiently flexible class that it could represent either sorcerers or warlocks quite well. especially if you expanded invocations out to have more options that feel like a bloodline thing. but i think you'd need to do something more than just cram the features of one class into the other.

[Mith]

I'm sorry to say, you are a bit annoying to read at times.
I never said that spell points are not allowed at my table.
I say that if I allow them, it's for either all people or no people, unless there is only one (gish/third/half/full)caster in the whole party and everyone else is pure martial or cantrips/rituals only.
Because otherwise that creates too strong an advantage to one over others.

Confer my last examples in previous post.
If this cannot make you understand how unfair an advantage it gives to have spellpoints over just slots, then I'm afraid nothing else can.

A quick question: Do you feel that giving the Spell Point Variant to the Warlock as a test run for a group that is new to 5e is a bad idea? Part of this is that I want to see how such a system works in play, and the warlock has the benefit of a smaller pool that refreshes quickly to get a feel for how it functions.

[Kryx]

I use Warlock with spell points. It has been significantly more enjoyable in my experience as a GM.

[Rebonack]

A quick question: Do you feel that giving the Spell Point Variant to the Warlock as a test run for a group that is new to 5e is a bad idea? Part of this is that I want to see how such a system works in play, and the warlock has the benefit of a smaller pool that refreshes quickly to get a feel for how it functions.

Quite a few folks on here have played with a spellpoint variant Warlock. I've played both with spell slots and spell points and I can assure you that the spellpoint variant is FAR less painful. It is a bit more powerful due to the added flexibility, but it doesn't break them by any means. For a new player it IS slightly more complicated, but not by much. I think everyone is familiar with the idea of spending mana on spells. And it makes players feel less punished when they pick spells that don't scale with spell level (which is, as it happens, most of the Warlock's already limited list.)

[Garfunion]

My 2 cents.
Has anyone thought about designing the sorcerer to be more cantrip focused. Using meta-magic to reshape and strengthen their sorcerer cantrips. Kind of making them more like arcane monks. For example.
Quicken cantrip
When you use your action to cast a sorcerer spell, you may spend one sorcerer point to cast one sorcerer cantrip you know as a bonus action.

[Deleted]

hmmm... i do think you could probably tear apart both warlock and sorcerer and make a new class that can flexibly represent the concept of each quite well.

i don't think i would recommend starting from either chassis exactly as-is though. taking ideas from each could certainly work, but i don't think "sorcerer - metamagic + warlock pacts + warlock spell list + warlock invocations" is quite the way to do it.

i do think you could put something with all of those elements together to make a sufficiently flexible class that it could represent either sorcerers or warlocks quite well. especially if you expanded invocations out to have more options that feel like a bloodline thing. but i think you'd need to do something more than just cram the features of one class into the other.

I would actually remove invocations and make them feats that anyone can take. This way other classes can dabble with the eldritch powers.

Have the warlock subclass still give neat features and stuff based around hex/eldritch blast but share the eldritch love... I mean, you would think that outsiders would make minor deals with people in order to tempt them to the darkside you know and feats would be a great way to do that.

Most invocations leave a lot to be desired so you could easily turn them into temptation feats.

I would say... Sorcerer + Warlock Casting + Actual Flexible Casting = Awesome Opossum

[Mith]

I use Warlock with spell points. It has been significantly more enjoyable in my experience as a GM.

Good to know. I have a crap ton of stones to use as enemy markers. I can use that for spell point representation.

As for the current discussion, my reasoning behind why the Warlock and the Sorcerer can be combined is that Invocations can be used to give a Sorcerer an "innate magic" feel, as they have always on abilities.

My thoughts on doing a merger would be to make a singular system with Spell point system, with the divide being INT/CHA for the Warlock/Sorcerer. Make the Sorcerous Origins and Patrons comparable in specialization. I would make a Pact of the blade being a pact made with a warrior spirit like Achillies, Cu Cullian, with the sorcerer being the being upon which spawn such legends.

The warlock hooks themselves to another being's coat tails until they rise to the point they try and take the coat for themselves. The Sorcerer is born in rags and spins it into their own coat.

[Rebonack]

My 2 cents.
Has anyone thought about designing the sorcerer to be more cantrip focused. Using meta-magic to reshape and strengthen their sorcerer cantrips. Kind of making them more like arcane monks. For example.
Quicken cantrip
When you use your action to cast a sorcerer spell, you may spend one sorcerer point to cast one sorcerer cantrip you know as a bonus action.

That's pretty much exactly what the Sorlock build is for.

Three levels in Sorcerer, then two to three levels in Warlock, then the rest of your levels in Sorcerer. It gives you a short-rest refreshing pool of spellpoints to burn (which you normally get at Sor/20). Quickened Eldritch Blast with Agonizing Blast is one of the most damaging options in the game and it requires the resources of a first level spell to cast. The closest equivalent is an Action Surging Fighter.

[Garfunion]

That's pretty much exactly what the Sorlock build is for.

Three levels in Sorcerer, then two to three levels in Warlock, then the rest of your levels in Sorcerer. It gives you a short-rest refreshing pool of spellpoints to burn (which you normally get at Sor/20). Quickened Eldritch Blast with Agonizing Blast is one of the most damaging options in the game and it requires the resources of a first level spell to cast. The closest equivalent is an Action Surging Fighter.

You can go that route but, I was trying to decouple spell slots completely from the sorcerer. And the way I worded quicken cantrip, prevents the double use of eldritch blast.

I'm not really a fan of multiclassing anyway. I would rather there be feats that mimic a class feature or two.

[SharkForce]

I would actually remove invocations and make them feats that anyone can take. This way other classes can dabble with the eldritch powers.

Have the warlock subclass still give neat features and stuff based around hex/eldritch blast but share the eldritch love... I mean, you would think that outsiders would make minor deals with people in order to tempt them to the darkside you know and feats would be a great way to do that.

Most invocations leave a lot to be desired so you could easily turn them into temptation feats.

I would say... Sorcerer + Warlock Casting + Actual Flexible Casting = Awesome Opossum

i would keep invocations as a class feature. it works very well conceptually for both the sorcerer and warlock class (provided there are appropriately themed invocations to choose).

as far as making them available to everyone, that's what multiclassing is for. or, alternately, they could be offered as quest rewards.

[Millstone85]

It's kind of weird isn't it? You kind of have to infer that a Warlock's power more comes from how well he's able to bargain with said outside force than how much forbidden knowledge he's able to acquire.

It's not necessarily bad. But it's weird.It is half of how 4e explained Charisma-based warlock powers, the other half being sheer force of will. And then there was the option of just enduring the power with your Constitution.
Your powers are also known as spells. Each power is associated with one of the three eldritch pacts, but you aren’t limited to choosing powers associated with your pact. In fact, most warlocks choose at least a few powers from outside their pact to give themselves a wider range of options.
Spells of the infernal pact use your Constitution score. The dark energy you wield is inherently harmful to the mortal body, and only through sheer physical resolve and discipline can you wield it safely. Fey pact spells rely on Charisma. Your force of will and your ability to bargain with the fey is key to spells of this type. Star pact spells require you to be physically inured to the rigors of otherworldly energy (Constitution), and also ambitious and driven enough to impose your willpower on the strands of fate (Charisma).

What's weird to me is that the 5e PHB gives no explanation for the warlock's spellcasting ability, when it does for other classes. It is possible WotC tried to go for the "forbidden knowledge" angle before they were met with fans who wanted to keep the "I bought this thing I don't understand" version, and then WotC never truly commited themselves to one.

I could have been one of those fans. In my opinion, wizards deal in plenty of forbidden knowledge already, to the point where "forbidden" to them simply means "for experienced wizards". Meanwhile, warlocks take shortcuts that no proper wizard would have any use for.

I also like this famous forum quote.
A wizard being called a sorcerer is sort of like having a PhD and someone telling you that you only managed to graduate because you have natural talent.

A wizard being called a warlock is like having a PhD and being told you only managed to graduate because you gave the dean a quickie in the alley behind the movie theater.

Now, yeah, if warlocks were actually as smart as wizards, then I wouldn't have suggested merging their class with the sorcerer.

[Tanarii]

What's weird to me is that the 5e PHB gives no explanation for the warlock's spellcasting ability, when it does for other classes. It is possible WotC tried to go for the "forbidden knowledge" angle before they were met with fans who wanted to keep the "I bought this thing I don't understand" version, and then WotC never truly commited themselves to one.Very IMO:

The overall theme of the warlock seems to actually put together two kinds of warlocks:
1) Scholars - Those who have delved into forbidden lore & secrets, used that to put together a framework for casting, and used it to contact eldritch beings to learn more magic. This is learned magics.
2) Cult Leaders - Those who have approached or been approached by an eldritch horror, and use granted and imbued powers (not necessarily that can be later withheld or denied) to promote said horrors agenda.
3) Those that don't believe in false dichotomies. Uh, sorry. Those that are some combination of learned, acquired, granted, imbued, stolen, bestowed, etc.

The concept of 'inherent' or 'awakened' isn't really approached in the Warlock entry, I believe. But now I'm gonna go back and reread it, because I'm totally going from memory.

edit: Interesting. From the Sorcerer text (not the warlock) on PHB page 99: "Sorcerers have no use for the spellbooks and ancient tomes of magic lore that wizards rely on, nor do they rely on a patron to grant their spells as warlocks do." I've always looked to the Warlock entry in the past, which has all sorts of stuff (as I remembered) about delving into secrets, and enhancing their own power ... but nothing that explicitly says their spells are "granted" by their patron.

[Millstone85]

Those that are some combination of learned, acquired, granted, imbued, stolen, bestowed, etc.You may have just convinced me that the two classes need to stay separate.

I suppose that even when a sorcerer can trace their magic back to a bargain with a dragon or the blessing of a fey, that power is now indisputably a part of them.

Whereas a warlock being kind of a mess, somewhat like a cleric, somewhat like a wizard, somewhat like someone with a sorcerous implant that didn't fully take, could be part of the class' flavor.


Interesting. From the Sorcerer text (not the warlock) on PHB page 99: "Sorcerers have no use for the spellbooks and ancient tomes of magic lore that wizards rely on, nor do they rely on a patron to grant their spells as warlocks do." I've always looked to the Warlock entry in the past, which has all sorts of stuff (as I remembered) about delving into secrets, and enhancing their own power ... but nothing that explicitly says their spells are "granted" by their patron.I would say that...
Your arcane research and the magic bestowed on you by your patron have given you facility with spells. counts as such.

Edit: There is also this.
The magic bestowed on a warlock ranges from minor but lasting alterations to the warlock's being (such as the ability to see in darkness or to read any language) to access to powerful spells.

[Deleted]

i would keep invocations as a class feature. it works very well conceptually for both the sorcerer and warlock class (provided there are appropriately themed invocations to choose).

as far as making them available to everyone, that's what multiclassing is for. or, alternately, they could be offered as quest rewards.

Well, multiclassing is a bad system to begin with and is very unbalanced. Also, if your character is a Fighter that wants to make a deal with the devil, why would he need to take 2 levels worth of warlock and become something he isn't? Depending on level that might take quite a bit of time to work out that deal.

Invocations as feats could be used to allow a player to do this sort of thing at character creation, when they have a feat to choose, or as a reward. Actually if the party is working for a powerful outsider this could be a good way to give the players temporary powers, just tell them to pick up the feat and pick what ability they want from it.

I think the Sorcerer should be casting casting casting and casting some more. Yeah, you can make a physical sorcerer if you want but the base class should be about casting spells. Even more so than the wizard.

Give the Sorcerer special cantrips tied to their first level spells and then have their spells accumulate/evolve. If you chose burning hands as your first level spell, you get a cantrip that lets you burn things with your hands and then later this spell can work as Flaming Sphere, Fireball, and Wall of Fire. You can always cast that cantrip version of your spell so no worries about running out of spells. Especially if you give the Sorcerer metamagics that work off 0 - 4 SP, you wouldn't need invocations.

Invocations could be their own little reward/character background system that can tie into many different things and tying them to a class puts too much strain on the player to add a lot of stuff that they may not want.. just to have a deal with the devil. We have magic initiate for dabbling and we could set up invocations in much the same way.

Edit: You can have invocations with the Sorcerer (Warlock), but I would definitely go the feat route too.

[Tanarii]

Whereas a warlock being kind of a mess, somewhat like a cleric, somewhat like a wizard, somewhat like someone with a sorcerous implant that didn't fully take, could be part of the class' flavor.

I would say that... counts as such.
Bestowed and granted imply two different concepts to me. Pact Magic might be bestowed, at which point it is part of the character. Or it might be granted, like the cleric's power, each and every time it's requested. (Edit: I should be clear, a large chunk of how I view Cleric spells, especially those past 1st or 2nd level may be old edition thinking. Now I need to go back and reread the Cleric entry. :smallwink: )

And yet the class itself also says:
PHB pg 105: "Drawing on the ancient knowledge of beings such as fey nobles, demons, devils, hags, and alien entities of the Far Realm, warlocks piece together arcane secrets to bolster their own power."

In other words, nothing says that the Warlock's power must, in it's entirety, be something the patron gives to the character. Especially not granted like a Cleric's spells.

[Millstone85]

Bestowed and granted imply two different concepts to me. Pact Magic might be bestowed, at which point it is part of the character. Or it might be granted, like the cleric's power, each and every time it's requested.I do see clerics as relying on an ongoing connection whereas pact magic is a one-time or once-per-level deal. But I wouldn't deduce this from the use of the word "bestowed" instead of "granted". Rather, I found it implied by the PHB's explanation of arcane magic versus divine magic, on page 205. According to it, an arcane spellcaster "plucks directly at the strands of the Weave to create the desired effect" instead of being in a situation where their "access to the Weave is mediated by divine power". And warlocks are listed as arcane spellcasters.

Not what I was referring to with a sorcerer's power truly being a part of them. It was more about how you can play a warlock as having this magic that will never fully meld with their soul, except maybe by consuming it.


In other words, nothing says that the Warlock's power must, in it's entirety, be something the patron gives to the character.Yeah, I think the best quote remains this one.
Your arcane research and the magic bestowed on you by your patron have given you facility with spells. Some of it is bestowed, however you interpret that, and some of it is learned.

[Citan]

A quick question: Do you feel that giving the Spell Point Variant to the Warlock as a test run for a group that is new to 5e is a bad idea? Part of this is that I want to see how such a system works in play, and the warlock has the benefit of a smaller pool that refreshes quickly to get a feel for how it functions.
As long as your players don't mind the bookkeeping or have at least some general experience of playing casters, I think there won't be any problem.

It's obviously even better on Warlock than other classes because normal Warlock are so painful to manage as far as slots go ("should I blow a slot now? Or keep it in case of? But we really need it now... But will we get a short rest soon?").

As I said, as long as everybody is on the same page it should be very fine...
But now that you make me think about it, having the Warlock use spell points while having "normal" casters besides may work too, as long as you still follow Warlock progression (so, giving only a converted number of points corresponding to the slots it should have).
This has little chance to make Warlocks "overshine" others (after all, casting high-level spells is their schtick from the get-go), but will bring them a much appreciated flexibility, which in turn will give them more freedom in spell selection (they won't be that eager to swap spells every level to remove those that cannot scale).

To say otherwise, this class is one of the hardest to play (even more than Sorcerers and Monks ;)) because each spell is a gamble: if you have some players that like Warlock fluffs and spells but strongly dislike the idea of bearing this "all or nothing" gamble until they get 11th level, it's worth testing spell points.

Because their "maximum pool" will still be fairly limited anyways, they will still be strongly dependent of short rest so it's not like they can afford to blow everything without further thinking... Probably. But at least it will remove the "make two big actions (maybe for nothing) then fall back as magic archer until the next rest" which is frustrating for so many players.

Especially when, for any reason, they cannot get predictable and regular short rest in adventuring days... Like, when one is the only "short-rest" class in a group, from feedbacks read on this forum, the whole party tends to not care about taking short rest unless really pressed for healing, with that lone player often hesitating to bring the topic because he doesn't want to be viewed as "an egocentric who bothers everyone with his own character" -even if it's completely false-. Or for in-game reasons, because party is in the heart of an enemy lair so taking even just a short rest proves impossible.

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I stray towards "give Warlock spellpoints equivalent, should be fine and fun". Have no time to think hard about it, but it should end as just a slightly buff in power than normal Warlock, unless obviously you let them take more short rests than recommended. ;)


Well, multiclassing is a bad system to begin with and is very unbalanced.
I'd understand the fluff problems that some combinations may cause, but what makes you say that it's a bad system and unbalanced?

"Bad system" referring to a personal opinion I can understand, presumably because when you want to create a few niche concepts it does require clunky mixes...

But unbalanced? I'd ask you to open a thread and detail your view on this, because from what I have seen, as long as you avoid any UA crap (crap as evidently not balanced because it's not the point) I never saw any "cheese" or "superpower combos" that would come from a multiclass combination. At most, powerful one-pony tricks...

[bloodshed343]

The Sorcerer, as implemented, is a really, really bad fit with the rest of the game.

If you think about the way magic is presented in the context of every other spell using class, and the way that spells are differentiated from magical abilities in the monster manual, Sorcerers should not be capable of casting spells without multi-classing into a spellcasting class.

So hear me out: spells, as presented in every other context, are things that you perform; whether it be a priestly rite, a song, an incantation to a dark fiend, or some formulaic ritual, spells are actions that are learned which when replicated cause some specific magical thing to happen.

Things like a dragon's breath or a displacer beast's teleportation, on the other hand, are clearly magical, but are not spells. These are the types of innate magical abilities that would be passed on by bloodline.

[Deleted]

As long as your players don't mind the bookkeeping or have at least some general experience of playing casters, I think there won't be any problem.

It's obviously even better on Warlock than other classes because normal Warlock are so painful to manage as far as slots go ("should I blow a slot now? Or keep it in case of? But we really need it now... But will we get a short rest soon?").

As I said, as long as everybody is on the same page it should be very fine...
But now that you make me think about it, having the Warlock use spell points while having "normal" casters besides may work too, as long as you still follow Warlock progression (so, giving only a converted number of points corresponding to the slots it should have).
This has little chance to make Warlocks "overshine" others (after all, casting high-level spells is their schtick from the get-go), but will bring them a much appreciated flexibility, which in turn will give them more freedom in spell selection (they won't be that eager to swap spells every level to remove those that cannot scale).

To say otherwise, this class is one of the hardest to play (even more than Sorcerers and Monks ;)) because each spell is a gamble: if you have some players that like Warlock fluffs and spells but strongly dislike the idea of bearing this "all or nothing" gamble until they get 11th level, it's worth testing spell points.

Because their "maximum pool" will still be fairly limited anyways, they will still be strongly dependent of short rest so it's not like they can afford to blow everything without further thinking... Probably. But at least it will remove the "make two big actions (maybe for nothing) then fall back as magic archer until the next rest" which is frustrating for so many players.

Especially when, for any reason, they cannot get predictable and regular short rest in adventuring days... Like, when one is the only "short-rest" class in a group, from feedbacks read on this forum, the whole party tends to not care about taking short rest unless really pressed for healing, with that lone player often hesitating to bring the topic because he doesn't want to be viewed as "an egocentric who bothers everyone with his own character" -even if it's completely false-. Or for in-game reasons, because party is in the heart of an enemy lair so taking even just a short rest proves impossible.

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I stray towards "give Warlock spellpoints equivalent, should be fine and fun". Have no time to think hard about it, but it should end as just a slightly buff in power than normal Warlock, unless obviously you let them take more short rests than recommended. ;)


I'd understand the fluff problems that some combinations may cause, but what makes you say that it's a bad system and unbalanced?

"Bad system" referring to a personal opinion I can understand, presumably because when you want to create a few niche concepts it does require clunky mixes...

But unbalanced? I'd ask you to open a thread and detail your view on this, because from what I have seen, as long as you avoid any UA crap (crap as evidently not balanced because it's not the point) I never saw any "cheese" or "superpower combos" that would come from a multiclass combination. At most, powerful one-pony tricks...


The issue with the multiclass system is not just fluff but mechanical. Some classes give you so dang much while other classes give you very little.

Look at what you gain from the cleric and what you gain from say... The Ranger. Look at what two levels of Rogue gives you. Now on their individual classes, it really isn't that bad, but when you just throw them together you get some unbalances compared to someone who wants to go straight class.

This type of system can work if the classes were actually balanced or at the very least worked off the same levels (everyone gaining a subclass at the same level) but it has problems in 3e and I see problems all the time in 5e.

I don't know how many times I've seen a dip multiclass (two levels) just totally overshadow other players, even ones that have been playing for a while.

5e isn't a balanced game to begin with, look at how much the sorcerer is overshadowed by the wizard and warlock, but multiclassing makes it even more apparent.

[Tanarii]

The Sorcerer, as implemented, is a really, really bad fit with the rest of the game.

If you think about the way magic is presented in the context of every other spell using class, and the way that spells are differentiated from magical abilities in the monster manual, Sorcerers should not be capable of casting spells without multi-classing into a spellcasting class.

So hear me out: spells, as presented in every other context, are things that you perform; whether it be a priestly rite, a song, an incantation to a dark fiend, or some formulaic ritual, spells are actions that are learned which when replicated cause some specific magical thing to happen.

Things like a dragon's breath or a displacer beast's teleportation, on the other hand, are clearly magical, but are not spells. These are the types of innate magical abilities that would be passed on by bloodline.

What you're saying is the Sorcerer should be the one to get at-will casting of spell(-like abilities) and other non-spell but magical class features? As opposed to the Warlock?

THB I'm not sure why that's a warlock thing, other than 'we needed a caster who can do magical abilities at will, lets call it a "Warlock"'. Basically the same reason the Sorcerer exists as a class. They wanted to create a new system for magic as an alternative to the Wizard.

[Kane0]

-Snip-

So how would you fix that?

[Citan]

5e isn't a balanced game to begin with, look at how much the sorcerer is overshadowed bying the wizard and warlock, but multiclassing makes it even more apparent.
Fixed that for you (confer Rhedyn's complaint about metamagic making them too strong). :smalltongue:
More importantly, I get your point that any "level-up" has not the same value from class to class, but I fail to see how it would end that much better than straight classes that it would really overshadow them.
At least, if you compare characters both handled by experienced and smart players.

Your personal experience may simply come from the fact that, in most occasions, players using multiclass builds made them up to be especially good at something (aka they are powergaming to some extent), whereas the majority of the other players just "play the game" without necessarily trying to optimize.
Otherwise said, I'd suspect the discrepancies you witness would be the same between two characters of the same kind, because it's the player behind that makes the most about how much he contributes...

Obviously it's some prejudgement on my part since I don't know you. ^^ But it also partly reflecting my own experience...

[SharkForce]

Well, multiclassing is a bad system to begin with and is very unbalanced. Also, if your character is a Fighter that wants to make a deal with the devil, why would he need to take 2 levels worth of warlock and become something he isn't? Depending on level that might take quite a bit of time to work out that deal.

Invocations as feats could be used to allow a player to do this sort of thing at character creation, when they have a feat to choose, or as a reward. Actually if the party is working for a powerful outsider this could be a good way to give the players temporary powers, just tell them to pick up the feat and pick what ability they want from it.

I think the Sorcerer should be casting casting casting and casting some more. Yeah, you can make a physical sorcerer if you want but the base class should be about casting spells. Even more so than the wizard.

Give the Sorcerer special cantrips tied to their first level spells and then have their spells accumulate/evolve. If you chose burning hands as your first level spell, you get a cantrip that lets you burn things with your hands and then later this spell can work as Flaming Sphere, Fireball, and Wall of Fire. You can always cast that cantrip version of your spell so no worries about running out of spells. Especially if you give the Sorcerer metamagics that work off 0 - 4 SP, you wouldn't need invocations.

Invocations could be their own little reward/character background system that can tie into many different things and tying them to a class puts too much strain on the player to add a lot of stuff that they may not want.. just to have a deal with the devil. We have magic initiate for dabbling and we could set up invocations in much the same way.

Edit: You can have invocations with the Sorcerer (Warlock), but I would definitely go the feat route too.

multiclassing is actually pretty good in this edition, and while it's not perfectly balanced, is generally pretty good. for the most part, multiclassing is something you can do to have certain things in your build, but not something you *must* do in order to be effective; if you want your fighter to have expertise, you can multiclass, but you don't *need* to have expertise to be good at something because bounded accuracy means that, unless your DM is ignoring the advice given, +7 or +8 is enough to be really good at something. if you want to pick up an invocation or two, you can pick up a couple levels of warlock, but you don't *need* two levels of warlock to be an effective character. you can build a good fighter or wizard or even sorcerer without any warlock levels (sorcerer is harder, but you *can* make an effective single-classed sorcerer, it's just easier to make mistakes that you'll regret later and harder to fix them).

people do take dips, but so what? they dip because they want some of the feel of a certain class, much of which comes in the first few levels, but not all of it. sometimes they even do it for purely mechanical reasons, like dipping fighter to get armour and con save proficiency, but even then, it generally has a cost. there are some problems, certainly; fighter doesn't have a ton going on after level 11, and a lot of people find little value in rogue after level 15 or so, but mostly it's pretty good. any time you dip for a bit of another class, you're losing some goodies that your own class gives. the system isn't perfect, but it *is* pretty good.

as to why the fighter needs to dip warlock to get access to invocations, well... the same reason the warlock needs to dip fighter to get a fighting style, or armour proficiency, or proficiency in all weapons rather than only a pact weapon. making a deal with a devil is a class. being an trained expert in martial matters is a class. if either one wants to gain aspects of the other, they simply take levels in the appropriate class that reflects the thing they're trying to become.

but let's turn this around for a moment: why would the fighter need to give up an ASI or another feat to make a deal? i mean, what, is the devil demanding that the fighter allow it to extract his advanced knowledge of mounted combat (ie the mounted combatant feat) before it grants the ability to create illusions at will or something?

if you want role-playing based rewards, use boons. feats don't make any more sense than multiclassing for that.

[Rhedyn]

Fixed that for you (confer Rhedyn's complaint about metamagic making them too strong). :smalltongue:
More importantly, I get your point that any "level-up" has not the same value from class to class, but I fail to see how it would end that much better than straight classes that it would really overshadow them.
At least, if you compare characters both handled by experienced and smart players.

Your personal experience may simply come from the fact that, in most occasions, players using multiclass builds made them up to be especially good at something (aka they are powergaming to some extent), whereas the majority of the other players just "play the game" without necessarily trying to optimize.
Otherwise said, I'd suspect the discrepancies you witness would be the same between two characters of the same kind, because it's the player behind that makes the most about how much he contributes...

Obviously it's some prejudgement on my part since I don't know you. ^^ But it also partly reflecting my own experience...
Hey you either break everything with metamagic or you are just a bad wizard.

Breaking the game isn't fun, ergo sorcerers are just bad wizards.

[Squiddish]

Hey you either break everything with metamagic or you are just a bad wizard.

Breaking the game isn't fun, ergo sorcerers are just bad wizards.

First of all, metamagic doesn't break everything. Twinned is probably the only one that comes close. The other ones can be potent but don't really break anything.

Second, I think the sorcerer has a few niches almost totally unique and a few it does better than anyone else. Subtle casting is something unachievable elsewhere, short of being invisible all of the time, twinned can make them a potent buffer in addition to just the standard blasting.

And even if sorcerer is less powerful than the wizard...

Powerful does not equal fun!

Sorcerer can still be fun if it's weaker than wizard! Champion can still be fun if it's weaker than battlemaster! Unoptimized characters can still be fun to play! If you're gaming with friends, and have a niche like sorcerers usually do, you still have a role to play even if you are technically weaker, and your friends won't think less of you for being weaker. If you're gaming with enemies, why are you doing that? If you're playing with AL I can kind of see why you would be worried about optimization, but the game is more fun when you don't obsess over the nitty gritty and just go with what seems interesting. If sorcerers don't interest you, that's fine, but don't say they shouldn't be a part of the game (This part wasn't directed at you, Rhedyn, it's for the other people including the OP). I feel like the sorcerer is fine, but people are free to disagree.

[Asmotherion]

Subtle, Twinned, Careful and Empower Spell are real game changers. They help the sorcerer outperform other casters trying to accomplish the same thing.

You forget Quickened, which is the real Diamond of all Sorcerers.

I love Subtle for RP reasons; It can help you accomplish things under the nose of unsuspecting foes.

Twined can also be great.

Empowered is basically disadvantage on demand. If you're in a Party with a Divination Wizard and perhaps that Lucky Halfing, you basically cheat RNG on a regular basis.

Finally, I believe Careful is not that good compared to the Evocation Wizard, who can out right put creatures out of the effective range of the AoE, instead of force a Successful save, that still grands half Damage.

Now, about the sorcerer himself:

Being one of my favorite classes (second favorite after Warlock), I find that it is just not for everyone. It has great lore, and great RP oportunities, and it would be a shame to be removed as it is suggested by the OP. It is just that it lacks the mechanics by itself to be optimised without any multiclassing (though, with multiclassing, it becomes a real titan, either as a Sorcerer-Warlock or a Sorcerer-Paladin).

What exactly is a Sorcerer? Well, think of Merlin, in the Tv show. He has greater magical affinity, and was born with magic... could cast spells without study... that sort of thing. That's a great thing, and I feel D&D would suffer greatly without it. I just feel that the Wizards of the Coast play favorites to the... well, Wizard, and fear to overshadow him with the other Arcane Caster by making him too awesome, so they limit his power a bit too much in my humble oppinion.

In our table we've made a variant rule, were the sorcerer gets all Sorcerer Spells from 1 school of magic of his choice as known + his choices, as we figured his choices were too limited. We fluffed it as "spontaneusly getting the knowlage". It works pretty well actually.

I'm currently working on a hombrew sorcerer that gets a Sorcerer Power based on his choice School (for example, Evocation getting some minor telekinesis that works by substituting his Charisma with Str Score, a 30 foot range and increases in power by using spell slots...). It's going to be a revised core class, and not an archetype however.

[Saeviomage]

Long story short:
The sorceror is how it is because of historical reasons.
First, 3.0 introduced a new mechanic - casters who did not need to memorize spells. To accomodate this, it created a new caster class, the sorcerer. The sorcerer was simply "a wizard that doesn't have to memorize spells", and for good measure used charisma to cast with, because force of personality sounded good for it, and because there was a dearth of character classes that used charisma for class features.

Then they re-did monsters. In particular, they decided that dragons have magic, and to make things easy on a DM (ie - restrict the available spells and let them choose a spell on the fly), dragons are sorcerers.

Then they introduced prestige classes. Amongst these was the dragon disciple, a class that gradually turned you into a dragon at the cost of your spell casting. Because dragons were sorcerers, dragon disciples required you to be sorcerer-like. In general though, this class was cheesed into by non-casters dipping a level of sorcerer because they wanted to get physical boosts or they felt that looking like a dragon was awesome. It sucked for actual spellcasters.

Finally they had a line of feats for any casters that allowed access to metamagic.

Then in 5e, someone looked down the list of character classes from prior editions. Instead of having the guts to say "hey, since casters no longer prepare spells the sorcerer doesn't make sense", they went "hey, we still want to have the name sorcerer on the class list, so let's try to think of what they should do. They could be dragon disciples! Umm... How about we just pack in every magic thing that we couldn't fit anywhere else? Metamagic! Wild magic! Done!"

[Deleted]

First of all, metamagic doesn't break everything. Twinned is probably the only one that comes close. The other ones can be potent but don't really break anything.

Second, I think the sorcerer has a few niches almost totally unique and a few it does better than anyone else. Subtle casting is something unachievable elsewhere, short of being invisible all of the time, twinned can make them a potent buffer in addition to just the standard blasting.

And even if sorcerer is less powerful than the wizard...

Powerful does not equal fun!

Sorcerer can still be fun if it's weaker than wizard! Champion can still be fun if it's weaker than battlemaster! Unoptimized characters can still be fun to play! If you're gaming with friends, and have a niche like sorcerers usually do, you still have a role to play even if you are technically weaker, and your friends won't think less of you for being weaker. If you're gaming with enemies, why are you doing that? If you're playing with AL I can kind of see why you would be worried about optimization, but the game is more fun when you don't obsess over the nitty gritty and just go with what seems interesting. If sorcerers don't interest you, that's fine, but don't say they shouldn't be a part of the game (This part wasn't directed at you, Rhedyn, it's for the other people including the OP). I feel like the sorcerer is fine, but people are free to disagree.

I agree that power does equal fun, but power can take the fun away from others. If the Wizard is overshadowing the Sorcerer at every turn, it won't be much fun for that Sorcerer.

I've seen this happen in 3e and 5e where a player would (figuratively) burn their sheet so that they can play something else due to being overshadowed.

Also I wouldn't even say Twinned breaks anything, by the time it actually is usable like people want it to be so many other classes are dishing out tons of damage or interesting buffs/debuffs and twinning something doesn't really matter as much.

[Rebonack]

The more I think about it, the more making Sorcerer the short-rest class and Warlock an at-will class feels more appealing.

The Sorcerer could pretty easily use the Warlock's casting paradigm with the spellpoint variant with an extra pool of spellpoints that refreshes on long rests as per the PHB Sorcerer. That would allow them to do their 'flexible spellcaster' thing MUCH better than the PHB version.

The Warlock, on the other hand, would function off At-Will and Recharge-5/6 effects with a few short rest abilities thrown in. They could still gain spells as they level up, but I feel like the spell progression would need to be slowed down since they would be able to more reliably use their tools. Something like 1st at level 2, 2nd at level 6, 3rd at level 10, 4th at level 14, and finally 5th at level 18. Since they get pact casting at level 2, they would probably need to get their Invocations at level 1 instead. For added fun, key the number of spells a Warlock can have 'on cooldown' to their Intelligence modifier while their save DCs and ToHit are keyed off Charisma. That would nicely capture the both the eldritch scholar and mad cult leader aspects of the Warlock.

[InspectorG]

Im surprised people arent looking at the different paces of magical output between the classes(Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock)

Lets use Lvl 5 as a benchmark: Pretty accessible to most players, unlike lvl20.

Warlock gets 2 spell slots and 3 Invocations. 3 Cantrips. (one of which the best damage cantrip - 2 beams at 1d10 each at lvl5)

Wizard gets lvl1 x4, lv2 x3, lvl3 x2. 4 Cantrips

Sorcerer gets lvl1 x4, lv2 x3, lvl3 x2. 5 Cantrips. 5 SP.

Warlock is more the distance runner: consistent lower level of output. You get all your slots back on a short rest, consistent damage via E. Blast, and depending on Invocations, some At Will or 1/day spell-like abilities(description for brevity)

Wizard is more the middle-pace. Gets 3 slots back on short rest.

Sorcerer is the Drag Racer:
5Sp into an extra lvl3 for lvl3 x3 spells.

Or, juke your Slots/Sp into lvl3 x4. (Not one. Not two. Not three, but FOUR FIREBALLS)

Or, lvl2 x8, lvl3 x1. Gee, that Spam tastes a lot like Scorching Ray...

And i guess a gish could spam Shield.

Down side to Drag Racer Sorcerer is no Short Rest recovery(though i would opt for Sp recovery, perhaps similar to Wizard Arcane Recovery).

Im not seeing how people can mechanically compare Warlocks and Sorcerers. Very different when measuring output. Particularly on the sale of Encounter instead of Day.

[UrielAwakened]

The Sorcerer, as implemented, is a really, really bad fit with the rest of the game.

If you think about the way magic is presented in the context of every other spell using class, and the way that spells are differentiated from magical abilities in the monster manual, Sorcerers should not be capable of casting spells without multi-classing into a spellcasting class.

So hear me out: spells, as presented in every other context, are things that you perform; whether it be a priestly rite, a song, an incantation to a dark fiend, or some formulaic ritual, spells are actions that are learned which when replicated cause some specific magical thing to happen.

Things like a dragon's breath or a displacer beast's teleportation, on the other hand, are clearly magical, but are not spells. These are the types of innate magical abilities that would be passed on by bloodline.

Well that's not true. The game has both spellcasting and innate spellcasting. They're basically the same but clearly one is learned and one is not.

[Deleted]

Well that's not true. The game has both spellcasting and innate spellcasting. They're basically the same but clearly one is learned and one is not.

Well, spellcasting is both learned and not learned. But your premise isn't exactly wrong.

Clerics gain spellcasting but they don't actually learn the spells, they are given to them (which is why Pact Magic works better for them).

Sorcerers have innate spellcasting but have to learn and work to gain better spells.

Wizards must have innate ability to be the best spellcasters they can be (high Int).

They are the same thing and it was just a fluff issue that they tried to push, badly, and the Sorcerer needs a better niche than "I'm just good at this".

[Tanarii]

Im surprised people arent looking at the different paces of magical output between the classes(Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock)The magical output is approximately the same across a long rest.

Using 5th level, looking at it from max spell slots available:

Warlock = 6x 3rd level + 3 invocations
Wizard = 3x 3rd, 3x 2nd, 4x 1st
Sorcerer = 3x 3rd, 3x 2nd, 4x 1st

The difference is the Warlock can't nova, but in return gets full power on all six slots and gets to use their "1st level" slots (aka invocations) at-will, unless they chose Thief of Five Fates.

The wizard gets to Ritual cast from their spellbook.

The sorcerer can dump spell slots to power up other spell slots via metamagic. In other words, they can super-nova at the cost of spell slots.

They're all more or less even. They all get subclass features on top of these basic spellcasting abilities.

(I'm probably saying the same thing as you, but your spell slot math didn't seem to make it clear: the Warlock is on par for spell slot power. Even a little ahead due to invocations generally being at will.)

Edit summary:
Warlock is about paced full power.
Wizard is about utility.
Sorcerer is about burst.

[InspectorG]

The magical output is approximately the same across a long rest.

...

Edit summary:
Warlock is about paced full power.
Wizard is about utility.
Sorcerer is about burst.

But i put the emphasis across one Encounter.

At lvl5, only the Sorcerer can have 4 lvl3 spell slots in ONE encounter.

It would let the party 'punch above their weight' for an encounter.

Or, salvage a bad (combat)encounter.

Its gonna be situational, but if your party gets surprised or if your DM gets that dumb grin when they roll something crazy on a random encounter table, you may be able to brute-force through it via Nova.

IN the long run, yes they even out. But in the very short term, Sorcerer is Iron Mike Tyson(or Julian Jackson).

[Citan]

But i put the emphasis across one Encounter.

At lvl5, only the Sorcerer can have 4 lvl3 spell slots in ONE encounter.

It would let the party 'punch above their weight' for an encounter.

Or, salvage a bad (combat)encounter.

Its gonna be situational, but if your party gets surprised or if your DM gets that dumb grin when they roll something crazy on a random encounter table, you may be able to brute-force through it via Nova.

IN the long run, yes they even out. But in the very short term, Sorcerer is Iron Mike Tyson(or Julian Jackson).
You know... That's exactly what Tanarii said. He also stressed that you were both basically saying the same thing, but he felt necessary to convey the idea in his own words because he found your illustration a bit lacking/confusing...

Which is something I have to agree with...

Warlock is about paced full power.
Wizard is about utility.
Sorcerer is about burst.
Those three lines from Tanarii summarize things in a much better way imo (the word "burst" is imo sufficient to express the "quick&high power" idea you spoke of). :)

[Rebonack]

Im not seeing how people can mechanically compare Warlocks and Sorcerers. Very different when measuring output. Particularly on the sale of Encounter instead of Day.

Dunno about anyone else, but I haven't been comparing them mechanically. I've been comparing their fluff. I would argue that 'born under a dire star' versus 'wished on a dire star' isn't a very strong distinction.

Obviously they're quite different mechanically. Sorcerer has the option to nova through their long-rest resources faster than any other class in the game. My argument is that a full-caster who's whole thing is blowing their resources as quickly as possible isn't necessarily a good thing. It encourages the 5 minute adventuring day and judging by how often 'Sorcadin OP' topics and 'Short Rest Class UP' topics pop up, many DMs are either unwilling or unable to enforce the 6-hard/3-deadly adventuring day.

I'll admit, having thought about it more, that I'm more inclined to make Sorcerer the short rest caster and Warlock the at-will caster rather than combining the two. There's still a distinction between their fluff, regardless of how tenuous it might be. And plenty of folks are attached to Sorcerer and Warlock being separate things. However, I don't think spell points are a good mechanic to have on a long-rest full caster. They're better fit to short-rest because that forces the player to pace themselves at least a little bit.

So I do recognize that Sorcerer has a niche (super-nova) I just don't think that it is a GOOD niche.

[Tanarii]

It's fine if the party faces 3x Deadly Fights, with a short rest between each one. Warlock is fine in that case too. Only Wizard is likely to run into an issue, with spell slots left over, and even then it's not going to happen until mid-levels (7+).

Where Sorc starts hurting a bit is in 6+ encounter days, if they blow their wad early. But those are likely mostly Medium encounters, unless the party is pushing their luck, so cantrips can work to cover the gap. And sorts get lots of options thee.

[Kryx]

I'll admit, having thought about it more, that I'm more inclined to make Sorcerer the short rest caster and Warlock the at-will caster rather than combining the two. There's still a distinction between their fluff, regardless of how tenuous it might be.
Consider the following subclasses:

Dragon - Sorcerer subclass and popular Warlock homebrew subclass: 1 (https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/4e46zb),
2 (https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/6b6fnp), 3 (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Dragon_Patron_(5e_Archetype)), 4 (https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/5gns6b), 5 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/185907/Dragon-Warlock-Patron-Revisited), 6 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/185841/The-Dragon--Warlock-Patron), 7 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/172964/5e-Content-Pack--Dragon-Magic)
Fey - Warlock subclass and popular Sorcerer homebrew subclass: 1 (https://daemonsanddeathrays.wordpress.com/2016/02/23/sylvan-bloodline-faerie-blood-sorcerers-for-dd-5th-edition),
2 (https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/3hef5j/), 3 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/176659/Heroes-of-the-Mists),
4 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/217092/Sorcerous-Origin-Fey-Bloodline), 5 (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Fey_Bloodline_(5e_Archetype))
Fiend - Warlock subclass and popular Sorcerer homebrew subclass: 1 (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/2016/10/infernal-heritage.html), 2 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/173133/MTC--Sorcerous-Origin-Fiendish-Bloodline), 3 (https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/3g82xd/5e_sorcerer_archetype_fiend/), 4 (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Infernal_Bloodline_(5e_Archetype)), 5 (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Fiend_Bloodline_(5e_Archetype))

I'm sure I could find similar results for other subclasses of these classes as well.

There is an incredible amount of crossover in the themes of the classes. Should we just have 2 of the same subclass - one for each class? It could be a workable option, but both classes are lacking by RAW imo. The Sorcerer is especially lacking an identity and worthwhileness in comparison to other classes which simple fixes nor even complex fixes like mine really solve perfectly. Warlock struggles less, but is significantly more enjoyable with spell points and slightly altered pacts so that Blade is viable. Since the classes already need some touch ups, my thought is why not go for it?

Perhaps I'm missing it, but I'm not seeing the need for an at-will class when the RAW warlock exists. It does pretty great at-will damage with Eldritch Blast spam and has plenty of utility to back it up (especially if using the spell point variant).

I'm about 80% done with my combination of Sorcerer/Warlock - most of the mechanics are done, but I need to refine and especially work on the fluff. The invocation system is perfect for allowing the player to choose precisely the type of caster they want to build - whether they want to focus more on the occult, more on the arcane, more on the elements, etc. From a mechanical perspective I believe this is a mcuh better option for players. I'll need to work more on the fluff.

[Deleted]

Dunno about anyone else, but I haven't been comparing them mechanically. I've been comparing their fluff. I would argue that 'born under a dire star' versus 'wished on a dire star' isn't a very strong distinction.

Obviously they're quite different mechanically. Sorcerer has the option to nova through their long-rest resources faster than any other class in the game. My argument is that a full-caster who's whole thing is blowing their resources as quickly as possible isn't necessarily a good thing. It encourages the 5 minute adventuring day and judging by how often 'Sorcadin OP' topics and 'Short Rest Class UP' topics pop up, many DMs are either unwilling or unable to enforce the 6-hard/3-deadly adventuring day.

I'll admit, having thought about it more, that I'm more inclined to make Sorcerer the short rest caster and Warlock the at-will caster rather than combining the two. There's still a distinction between their fluff, regardless of how tenuous it might be. And plenty of folks are attached to Sorcerer and Warlock being separate things. However, I don't think spell points are a good mechanic to have on a long-rest full caster. They're better fit to short-rest because that forces the player to pace themselves at least a little bit.

So I do recognize that Sorcerer has a niche (super-nova) I just don't think that it is a GOOD niche.

In 5e the Sorcerer's niche isn't actually super nova. Yeah they can do that but almost anyone can go NOVA and going SUPER NOVA isn't anything that makes it special. Killing something by 1 HP over their max HP isn't any different than killing it with 100 hp over the max HP, both targets are dead.

Just about anyone can be built to tear through enemy HP.

The Sorcerer's niche is actually control. No one does control quite as well as the sorcerer. This can be controlling the party or the enemies. This can also be controlling via roleplaying. No one can make chaos happen as easily as the Sorcerer. The Sorcerer can be standing in the middle of the room being watched by everyone while he assassinates a target and no one would be the wiser... Starting at level 3. Where the Sorcerer lacks in raw numbers, the Sorcerer makes up for in their ability to control situations.

Now, they need some tweaks, sure, but no one can do what they do.

The issue is that everyone wants/expects the sorcerer to be this top tier blaster (because 3e/4e) when that just isn't what the Sorcerer currently is anymore.

[Rebonack]

Consider the following subclasses:

Dragon - Sorcerer subclass and popular Warlock homebrew subclass: 1 (https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/4e46zb),
2 (https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/6b6fnp), 3 (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Dragon_Patron_(5e_Archetype)), 4 (https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/5gns6b), 5 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/185907/Dragon-Warlock-Patron-Revisited), 6 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/185841/The-Dragon--Warlock-Patron), 7 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/172964/5e-Content-Pack--Dragon-Magic)
Fey - Warlock subclass and popular Sorcerer homebrew subclass: 1 (https://daemonsanddeathrays.wordpress.com/2016/02/23/sylvan-bloodline-faerie-blood-sorcerers-for-dd-5th-edition),
2 (https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/3hef5j/), 3 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/176659/Heroes-of-the-Mists),
4 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/217092/Sorcerous-Origin-Fey-Bloodline), 5 (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Fey_Bloodline_(5e_Archetype))
Fiend - Warlock subclass and popular Sorcerer homebrew subclass: 1 (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/2016/10/infernal-heritage.html), 2 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/173133/MTC--Sorcerous-Origin-Fiendish-Bloodline), 3 (https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/3g82xd/5e_sorcerer_archetype_fiend/), 4 (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Infernal_Bloodline_(5e_Archetype)), 5 (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Fiend_Bloodline_(5e_Archetype))

I'm sure I could find similar results for other subclasses of these classes as well.

There is an incredible amount of crossover in the themes of the classes. Should we just have 2 of the same subclass - one for each class? It could be a workable option, but both classes are lacking by RAW imo. The Sorcerer is especially lacking an identity and worthwhileness in comparison to other classes which simple fixes nor even complex fixes like mine really solve perfectly. Warlock struggles less, but is significantly more enjoyable with spell points and slightly altered pacts so that Blade is viable. Since the classes already need some touch ups, my thought is why not go for it?

Perhaps I'm missing it, but I'm not seeing the need for an at-will class when the RAW warlock exists. It does pretty great at-will damage with Eldritch Blast spam and has plenty of utility to back it up (especially if using the spell point variant).

I'm about 80% done with my combination of Sorcerer/Warlock - most of the mechanics are done, but I need to refine and especially work on the fluff. The invocation system is perfect for allowing the player to choose precisely the type of caster they want to build - whether they want to focus more on the occult, more on the arcane, more on the elements, etc. From a mechanical perspective I believe this is a mcuh better option for players. I'll need to work more on the fluff.

Oh I don't deny it at all. I still think combining them is a pretty viable option since their fluff is so similar. Mostly I was thinking in terms of the old 3e Warlock and their ability to use their tools pretty much whenever they want. I posted a rundown of the basic ideas behind it over in the 'Not the UA you're Looking For' thread, but I haven't set up the level tables and such forth for it yet.

Mostly I'm just spitballing ideas. I find it entertaining.

[Kryx]

Mostly I'm just spitballing ideas.
Indeed, and to clarify: it wasn't my intent to shut down your ideas or say that my current thought process is the correct one. It's good to bounce ideas off of others and I would be curious to see your approach.

EDIT: Read your approach. It's basically just adjustments to hex and 3-5 slots with a 33% chance to replenish a slot every turn. That's.. way too strong. And it makes Warlock a half-caster. :(

[Garfunion]

Consider the following subclasses:

Dragon - Sorcerer subclass and popular Warlock homebrew subclass: 1 (https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/4e46zb),
2 (https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/6b6fnp), 3 (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Dragon_Patron_(5e_Archetype)), 4 (https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/5gns6b), 5 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/185907/Dragon-Warlock-Patron-Revisited), 6 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/185841/The-Dragon--Warlock-Patron), 7 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/172964/5e-Content-Pack--Dragon-Magic)
Fey - Warlock subclass and popular Sorcerer homebrew subclass: 1 (https://daemonsanddeathrays.wordpress.com/2016/02/23/sylvan-bloodline-faerie-blood-sorcerers-for-dd-5th-edition),
2 (https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/3hef5j/), 3 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/176659/Heroes-of-the-Mists),
4 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/217092/Sorcerous-Origin-Fey-Bloodline), 5 (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Fey_Bloodline_(5e_Archetype))
Fiend - Warlock subclass and popular Sorcerer homebrew subclass: 1 (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/2016/10/infernal-heritage.html), 2 (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/173133/MTC--Sorcerous-Origin-Fiendish-Bloodline), 3 (https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/3g82xd/5e_sorcerer_archetype_fiend/), 4 (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Infernal_Bloodline_(5e_Archetype)), 5 (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Fiend_Bloodline_(5e_Archetype))

I'm sure I could find similar results for other subclasses of these classes as well.

There is an incredible amount of crossover in the themes of the classes. Should we just have 2 of the same subclass - one for each class? It could be a workable option, but both classes are lacking by RAW imo. The Sorcerer is especially lacking an identity and worthwhileness in comparison to other classes which simple fixes nor even complex fixes like mine really solve perfectly. Warlock struggles less, but is significantly more enjoyable with spell points and slightly altered pacts so that Blade is viable. Since the classes already need some touch ups, my thought is why not go for it?

Perhaps I'm missing it, but I'm not seeing the need for an at-will class when the RAW warlock exists. It does pretty great at-will damage with Eldritch Blast spam and has plenty of utility to back it up (especially if using the spell point variant).

I'm about 80% done with my combination of Sorcerer/Warlock - most of the mechanics are done, but I need to refine and especially work on the fluff. The invocation system is perfect for allowing the player to choose precisely the type of caster they want to build - whether they want to focus more on the occult, more on the arcane, more on the elements, etc. From a mechanical perspective I believe this is a mcuh better option for players. I'll need to work more on the fluff.

Any chance we can get a sneak peek of what you've already accomplished with your sorcerer warlock merger?

[Tanarii]

In 5e the Sorcerer's niche isn't actually super nova. Yeah they can do that but almost anyone can go NOVA and going SUPER NOVA isn't anything that makes it special. Killing something by 1 HP over their max HP isn't any different than killing it with 100 hp over the max HP, both targets are dead. You seem to be confusing the idea of going Nova and doing high damage.

Sorcerers regularly go Nova, because they dump a higher proportion of their daily resource (spell slots) faster than anyone else. Sorcerery Points are fractional spell slots. So they go nova any time they use a sorcerery point on any metamagic.

[Deleted]

Any chance we can get a sneak peek of what you've already accomplished with your sorcerer warlock merger?

I'm also looking forward to seeing this!

[Kryx]

Any chance we can get a sneak peek of what you've already accomplished with your sorcerer warlock merger?


I'm also looking forward to seeing this!

I have posted a rough draft of the idea for further feedback: Kryx's Sorcerer/Warlock Combination (Draft) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?539031-Kryx-s-Sorcerer-Warlock-Combination-(Draft))

[InspectorG]

In 5e the Sorcerer's niche isn't actually super nova. Yeah they can do that but almost anyone can go NOVA and going SUPER NOVA isn't anything that makes it special. Killing something by 1 HP over their max HP isn't any different than killing it with 100 hp over the max HP, both targets are dead.

Just about anyone can be built to tear through enemy HP.

The Sorcerer's niche is actually control. No one does control quite as well as the sorcerer. This can be controlling the party or the enemies. This can also be controlling via roleplaying. No one can make chaos happen as easily as the Sorcerer. The Sorcerer can be standing in the middle of the room being watched by everyone while he assassinates a target and no one would be the wiser... Starting at level 3. Where the Sorcerer lacks in raw numbers, the Sorcerer makes up for in their ability to control situations.

Now, they need some tweaks, sure, but no one can do what they do.

The issue is that everyone wants/expects the sorcerer to be this top tier blaster (because 3e/4e) when that just isn't what the Sorcerer currently is anymore.

Thats why i framed my idea as 'output'. Big Damages are flashy and grab attention but i didnt even get into the Metas.

IMO, the only Control the Sorcerer lacks is Conjuring minions.

Subtle, Heighten, Twin, and even Distance allow manipulation that others cant do.

Flexible magic lets you load up on the Spell Slots that have the Controls you prefer, up to lvl5.

Wild Magic Sorcerer gets to manipulate Dice in a fundamental and unique manner that only other classes can attempt to proxy.

And even with an emphasis on Control, 2-4 of the right blast spells lets you blast pretty hard.

[Psikerlord]

So, after playing the game for a while, I'm thinking the sorcerer has no strong role and that the game might be better without it.

- Mechanically, I dislike the whole idea of "flexible magic". Well, scratch that, I LOVE the idea, but hate the implementation. You have points, and slots, and can trade one for the other... why not just say any spellcaster can double the ranged of a spell by spending a higher slot, or some other trick?
- I don't see the strong archetype tied to the class. In a world while other spellcasters learn magic though book and patrons, you have wild funny magic, or maybe you were born with magic because your ancestors were dragons. Who is that? Rincewind? Daenerys?
- Wild magic was played for laughs all the times we've tried it. It also slowed the game down. BTW, is it 100% decided by the DM RAW? "The DM can...". No guidelines I can remember...
- Draconic resilience just makes the sorcerer a d8 class (i.e., warlock) with natural armor. So, if you're lizardfolk, you wouldn't want draconic bloodline. Go figure.
- The game has enough spellcasters without the sorcerer.
- The game DEFINITELY has enough Charisma spellcasters without the sorcerer.
- It seems that the class is there for mechanical reasons akin to what we had in 4e, which I dislike - "we need a primal defender based on dexterity" or something.

I see it might have something to do with the spell list, but I don't see the need for a whole class based on that. Metamagic also is not enough of a reason IMO.

What am I missing?

EDIT: the worst part is that with so many spellcasters, it feels like every splat will ado more spellcaster options to make everyone happy... While it should be the contrary IMO. BTW, I really wish we had a warlord.

EDIT 2: I get that the sorcerer is artillery but... still not enough reason IMO.
I agree. I think flexible magic, dragon blood and wild magic should simply be feats any caster could take. Delete sorcerer.

[Deleted]

I agree. I think flexible magic, dragon blood and wild magic should simply be feats any caster could take. Delete sorcerer.

Totally been working on trying to make the Sorcerer "Deleted" :p

*rim shot*

[Garfunion]

I'm sure this has been stated before but here it is again. Simply make a wizard tradition that focuses on meta-magic and spell points. For example.

Sorcery Tradition

Spell Point Pool
Upon taking this tradition, you have a number of spell points equal to your wizard level. You spend these spell points on metamagic. You regain all spent spell points at the end of a long rest.
Additionally when you use arcane recovery you regain a number of spell points equal to your intelligence modifier, this amount cannot exceed your spell point pool.

Metamagic
At 2nd level, you gain the ability to twist your spells to suit your needs. You gain two of the following Metamagic options of your choice. You gain two more at 6th, 10th, and 14th level.
You can use only one Metamagic option on a spell when you cast it, unless otherwise noted.
-------------

Is this tradition too much or too little for the wizard? It kind of reminds me of the fighter's archetype "battle master".

[SharkForce]

pretty much no other spellcaster class has room to fit metamagic in anywhere. the rest of them all have cool stuff. you would need another class that doesn't have much power in it to fit metamagic into, and at that point, we'd just be creating the sorcerer all over again.

[Deleted]

I'm sure this has been stated before but here it is again. Simply make a wizard tradition that focuses on meta-magic and spell points. For example.

Sorcery Tradition

Spell Point Pool
Upon taking this tradition, you have a number of spell points equal to your wizard level. You spend these spell points on metamagic. You regain all spent spell points at the end of a long rest.
Additionally when you use arcane recovery you regain a number of spell points equal to your intelligence modifier, this amount cannot exceed your spell point pool.

Metamagic
At 2nd level, you gain the ability to twist your spells to suit your needs. You gain two of the following Metamagic options of your choice. You gain two more at 6th, 10th, and 14th level.
You can use only one Metamagic option on a spell when you cast it, unless otherwise noted.
-------------

Is this tradition too much or too little for the wizard? It kind of reminds me of the fighter's archetype "battle master".

The issue is that this then steps on the toes of the Sorcerer. Although they have put something like this out there (it sucked, way too OP) WotC has stated before that they don't want to step on the toes of core classes.

If this school is to replace the Sorcerer then definately no. The fact the wizard uses a spell book is an instant "nope" for a lot of people (and yup for a lot of others of course).

The issue here is that if you are giving the Wizard the "sorcerer's thing" why not just make a generic caster class that can pick Int, Wis, or Cha at first level and then "spellbook", "innate", or "gift" at first level and go from there?

I'm a big fan of generic and class type systems but I don't really like redundancies.

[Garfunion]

The issue is that this then steps on the toes of the Sorcerer. Although they have put something like this out there (it sucked, way too OP) WotC has stated before that they don't want to step on the toes of core classes.

If this school is to replace the Sorcerer then definately no. The fact the wizard uses a spell book is an instant "nope" for a lot of people (and yup for a lot of others of course).

The issue here is that if you are giving the Wizard the "sorcerer's thing" why not just make a generic caster class that can pick Int, Wis, or Cha at first level and then "spellbook", "innate", or "gift" at first level and go from there?

I'm a big fan of generic and class type systems but I don't really like redundancies.

The tradition was meant to replace the sorcerer class. If people are worried about the wizard being to versatile during an adventuring day I have an alternative when acquiring spell points.

Spell Point Pool
After finishing a long rest you may sacrifice a number of your daily prepared spells, transforming them into spell points. Each prepared spell you sacrifice gives you two spell points. The amount to spell points you can have is equal to your wizard level. You spend these spell points on metamagic.
All spell points are lost during a long rest.
Additionally when you use arcane recovery you regain a number of spell points equal to your intelligence modifier, this amount cannot exceed your spell point pool.

So a level 20 wizard can have a maximum of 20 spell points during the day but can only prepare 15 spells.

[Eric Diaz]

To be honest "metamagic" could be a bunch of spells ("Twin Spell", "Ranged spell", etc.) to make things even easier, with the same effect (i.e., you could make a wizard with less spells but more flexible ones).

And Wild Magic a campaign option.

[Laurefindel]

To be honest "metamagic" could be a bunch of spells ("Twin Spell", "Ranged spell", etc.) to make things even easier, with the same effect (i.e., you could make a wizard with less spells but more flexible ones).

And Wild Magic a campaign option.

IIRC, that's how metamagic was originally introduced back in 2e AD&D. First you cast the metamagic spell; then the spells you wanted to affect (or was it the other way around?)

[SharkForce]

IIRC, that's how metamagic was originally introduced back in 2e AD&D. First you cast the metamagic spell; then the spells you wanted to affect (or was it the other way around?)

you have it right. of course, a lot of them weren't really worth using most of the time... 2 actions and two spell slots for one somewhat improved spell was not generally more effective than 2 actions for 2 spells, particularly when some of the spells were higher level than the one they were supposed to be improving...

[Eric Diaz]

you have it right. of course, a lot of them weren't really worth using most of the time... 2 actions and two spell slots for one somewhat improved spell was not generally more effective than 2 actions for 2 spells, particularly when some of the spells were higher level than the one they were supposed to be improving...

Sure; specially in 5e, the spells would have to be combined in a single action (or maybe male it a bonus action, but that might cause other problems).

It wouldn't be that hard to do TBH; most metamagic spells would just be "one level higher" than the original. Now you don't need spell points anymore.

[Deleted]

I honestly don't want the Wizard gaining metamagic. They get too much good stuff as it is.

If you want a wizard that can create their own spells, then make a system where the wizard (player) actually builds spells based on some building block rules.

Then you could take away V and S components but have to give up something else.

Make the wizard class represent the wizard fluff.