Sorcerer bloodlines, what is needed?

[Prince Vine]

In a continuing project I am working on a sorcerer overhaul. The big question now is if you krep the innate magic touched by the supernatural fluff, if you starting from scratch now, what bloodlines or origins are most important to be represented?

There are many subclasses out there but some seem less essential to the concept than others. Does anyone have ideas for what NEEDS to stay, needs to go and what has been left out?

[Man_Over_Game]

Sorcerers have always been the "accidentally magical" kind of characters, so the most easily identified Sorcerers are the kinds that we can easily see as being natural, almost cliché.

With that, a few things come to mind:


Being forcefully influened by a magical anomaly, like a Super Hero (Wild Magic)
Being the target or the outcome of some kind of curse. (Hexblade-esc Curse/Concentration)
My parent was super magical, so now I am too, kinda (uses physical attributes to compliment magic)
I've been able to "feel" magic at birth, so I've trained myself into manipulating parts of it (can manipulate specific elements as a modular sort of elementalist)
I see dead people, don't you? (Charismatic ability to communicate with and convince the undead)

[Clistenes]

How do you people feel about having techniques to make people into sorcerers on purpose? Like, having some stone or plant harvested from highly magical locales that can infuse your body with magic or mutate it if routinely consumed? Or a high level potion brewed by an alchemist? Or willingly exposing yourself to the influence of the Inner or Outer planes?

Mechanically speaking, it changes nothing, but it can change the role of sorcerers in the world... they would change from being uncontrollable accidents to being an easy path to obtain powerful magic for charismatic but untalented (low INT) people... Rich people could even buy themselves magic this way, without having to study wizardry or the bardic arts or to serve a deity or other power...

[Ihazturtlez]

How do you people feel about having techniques to make people into sorcerers on purpose? Like, having some stone or plant harvested from highly magical locales that can infuse your body with magic or mutate it if routinely consumed? Or a high level potion brewed by an alchemist? Or willingly exposing yourself to the influence of the Inner or Outer planes?

Mechanically speaking, it changes nothing, but it can change the role of sorcerers in the world... they would change from being uncontrollable accidents to being an easy path to obtain powerful magic for charismatic but untalented (low INT) people... Rich people could even buy themselves magic this way, without having to study wizardry or the bardic arts or to serve a deity or other power...

You could have it be where a way was accidentally discovered, but now they need to rediscover what they did to infuse the person with magic.

Or, if you do have a way to make people magical, have it come at a huge price (not monetary) just so not just anyone can become magical. Unless of course, that's your plan.

[Clistenes]

You could have it be where a way was accidentally discovered, but now they need to rediscover what they did to infuse the person with magic.

Or, if you do have a way to make people magical, have it come at a huge price (not monetary) just so not just anyone can become magical. Unless of course, that's your plan.

I was just thinking that maybe introducing it would require to reshape the whole world, so it would be a bad idea... Like, why would a king not create his own corps of battle mages by turning a battalion of his most charismatic soldiers into sorcerers and sending them to the front lines so they get some experience? Why would a commoner not get Prestidigitation, Message or Mending at first level and make his life so much easier?

So many people would rather become a sorcerer and get magic without training rather than spending years learning to be a bard or wizard... if the technique to make sorcerers were affordable, you would have 100 sorcerers for every bard or wizard!

Of course, if you need high level magic just to do the ritual or technique or whatever (like, for example, you need to be able to Plane Shift in order to take the Sorcerer to the appropriate Plane, or to create a portal or summon an Outsider...) that would restrict it to well-connected or very rich people...

[Dr. Cliché]

How do you people feel about having techniques to make people into sorcerers on purpose? Like, having some stone or plant harvested from highly magical locales that can infuse your body with magic or mutate it if routinely consumed? Or a high level potion brewed by an alchemist? Or willingly exposing yourself to the influence of the Inner or Outer planes?

To me, this sounds like more of a plotline thing - with someone experimenting on people in an attempt to infuse them with magical abilities.

It's the sort of thing that I can imagine having a high failure rate and leaving even the few successful subjects scarred (physically and/or mentally) and deformed.

The failures (and even the successes, to a lesser extent) could bear some resemblance to the attempted source of their magic. e.g. one infused with dragon magic could have some dragon features, but in a random/uncomfortable way (one large, red dragon wing, but then a small, atrophied wing paired with it; an oversized claw in place of one arm; reptilian teeth on one side of their mouth etc.).

[Naanomi]

I’m a 1e/2e Lore junkie, and magic to me represents the ability to channel planar energies... a Sorcerer is therefore someone with a natural/inborn/innate connection to those planar energies...

Dragon: Prime
Divine Soul: Outer Planes
Shadow: Negative Energy/Shadowfel
??? (Healing/Light?): Positive Energy
??? (Psionic/Mental?): Astral
??? (Summoner?) Ethereal
Storm: Inner Planes/Air
???: Inner Planes/Earth
???: Inner Planes/Fire
???: Inner Planes/Water
Wild: Random ‘atypical’ planar energies (Far Realm, Feywyld)
??? (Chronomancer?): Temporal Energy Plane

Filling in those ‘cosmological gaps’ is where I’d start

[Crgaston]

I'd love a Fey themed Sorcerer, and/or a Druid-based version of Divine Soul.

[HappyDaze]

There should be a Village Idiot bloodline for those Sorcerers descended from a long line of Intelligence 8 ancestors.

[Cyclops08]

I like the bloodlines origin. dragons etc...
as for a fix, if magic really is innate, why have con penalties?

[Prince Vine]

I currently have an outline for Dragon and Outsider (fiend/celestial/fey) bloodlines, and in reality the dragon one just has minor changes since it is the main class getting the overhaul.

I am not opposed to 'wild magic' thematically, but I can't think of a good way mechanically that isn't way overpowered or super frustrating to play while being thematically appropriate.

[Drakkoniss]

Given the fact that a Sorcerer is a living wellspring of magic (or at the very least, is powered in relation to one, depending on how one looks at it), I would suggest that the most essential parts of the sorcerer would be Charisma ability leaning (they project their will into the world via harnessing of magic, which is part of the meaning of the term), Sorcerer Points (considering they have magic naturally ebbing and flowing within them, this is very good and flavorful, even if you dispute their current use/mechanics), and Source/Origin (which should not be called or related to the term "Bloodline", really, but which is certainly an important part of their nature).

The other aspects of the class as it is now are "negotiable," I think.

[HappyDaze]

if magic really is innate, why have con penalties?
Not every innate trait is 100% beneficial. An innate trait that unlocks arcane power might have the side effect of putting a lot of stress on the body.