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Greywander
2019-03-20, 08:23 PM
Now, normally I'm a wizard person, but for some reason I was thinking about the sorcerer. I was actually looking at revising the draconic and wild subclasses, but they actually looked mostly fine? I gave them a bit of a buff to help them stack up to the Xanathar's subclasses, but otherwise didn't tweak much.

Most of the changes revolve around the main sorcerer class. And yes, I know the sorcerer is already mostly balanced, I just want to make it more sorcerer-y. In my mind, the wizard is versatile because they can cast 100 spells one way, while the sorcerer is flexible because they can cast one spell 100 ways. Here's a quick summary of the changes:

Switched over from spell slots to spell points for greater flexibility in casting.
Merged spell points into sorcery points.
You now end up with 6 metamagics instead of 4.
There are more metamagic options to choose from, some existing ones have new applications.
Sorcerous Restoration has been folded into Font of Magic.
Each subclass has a unique way to regain sorcery points as part of Font of Magic.
Signature Sorceries give your favorite spells a reduced sorcery point cost.
New 17th and 20th level features have been added that focus on metamagic.

Changes and additions are marked in blue to make it easier to see what's actually changed.

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DUbtHOfw4Y66HUd0bmylnfS-zKIF1_Khz6S3pXfAvis/edit?usp=sharing

I haven't had a chance to playtest this yet, so I'm more than open to any feedback. If you have more metamagic ideas, I'm also interested in hearing those. Maybe Seeking Spell and Precise Spell should be merged. Shaped Spell probably needs to be simplified a lot. Other metamagics could probably benefit from merging. I'm also not sure how the individual Font of Magic features for each subclass will compare in practice, and some might end up being a lot better than others. My hope was that each one would add some "flavor" to the class by encouraging certain types of behaviors for the minor mechanical benefits they give.

Edit: also forgot to mention that going from spell slots to spell points closes the coffeelock strategy. You can consider this a bug or a feature.

Bjarkmundur
2019-03-21, 05:21 AM
If I knew the first thing about sorcerers, I'd definitely offer my insight.

Getting an insight into your design goals and methods would also help. what exactly you want to accomplish with each change, and why you felt it was unavoidable.

... Since I don't í can only thank you for blue-ing the changes, it helps a lot :)

Vulsutyr
2019-03-21, 08:37 AM
That old unearthed arcana article of guidelines for modifying classes said to be careful giving the sorcerer more spells, which you have done, but also that the balance of the class is based on having separate spell points and sorcery points.

“Sorcery points and Flexible Casting were intentionally designed so that a sorcerer who does nothing but convert spell slots to sorcery points in order to cast higher-level spells does so at the cost of overall output. Be cautious when altering this balance.”

theVoidWatches
2019-03-21, 10:59 AM
I would strongly recommend limiting how many spells of 6th level and higher you're allowed to cast between long rests. This sorcerer can cast wish 10 times a day.

Vulsutyr
2019-03-21, 01:15 PM
I would strongly recommend limiting how many spells of 6th level and higher you're allowed to cast between long rests. This sorcerer can cast wish 10 times a day.

Not quite. The DMG rules for spell points say that you can only create one slot of 6th level or higher per day. Since he didn’t tell us I am assuming he used the vanilla variant.

Kane0
2019-03-22, 02:39 AM
As someone who also uses spell point sorcerers with merged pools, i approve. The other bits and pieces i will have to look further into.

Greywander
2019-03-22, 02:53 AM
Getting an insight into your design goals and methods would also help. what exactly you want to accomplish with each change, and why you felt it was unavoidable.
Well, the real reason was to get the idea onto paper and free up the mental real estate it was occupying. :smalltongue: My brain has a habit of getting stuck on an idea and thinking about it constantly, to the point that it can distract from other things I might need to be doing. The only way to get it to stop is to get it out of my head and onto the page. While this might make it sound like I've put a lot of thought into it, it really is just a first draft, and so will be understandably rough around the edges. But if I didn't post it somewhere, then I'd feel like I wasted my time.

But as to the specific changes I made and the reasons why, the goal was to make the sorcerer less like a wizard with limited spells and more like its own thing. I wanted to take it even further down it's own path to give it its own identity. The wizard and sorcerer are sort of an antithesis to one another; the wizard is all about preparation and planning, and sorcerer is about spontaneity and flexibility. A lot of people look at the sorcerer and see a wizard with less spells, and are understandably frustrated. I've read posts by those who have put more time into sorcerers and heard that sorcerers are fine, they're just different, so you have to change your perspective when you play as one. Thus, my goal was to increase that difference, to make the gap between sorcerer and wizard more apparent, so that the sorcerer would feel more unique.

This is why I switched to spell/sorcery points over spell slots. More flexibility. No longer do you have to worry about firing off a spell that you only have one slot for, knowing you won't be able to cast another spell of the same level (not without burning a higher level slot, anyway, if you even have one). You can just cast a spell when you need it without having to worry about saving spell slots of a particular level for later. This contrasts with other casters who do need to plan ahead. Planning is for wizards, not sorcerers.

This is also why many of the changes are focused around metamagic. This was the one thing that made the sorcerer unique, so I expanded on it. You get more of them, because having more gives you more flexibility. I made new ones, because having more options to choose from is never bad, and gives you new ways to manipulate your spells. And the new features at 17 and 20 make it easier to apply metamagic to spells, giving them an even greater importance in your effectiveness as a character.

The change from spell slots to spell points also meant that Font of Magic needed to be required entirely. To me, it seemed like it was simpler to merge spell points and sorcery points together rather than try to have them exist side by side. I'm not sure if this will encourage or discourage metamagic use, since your pool of points for spending on metamagic is now the same pool you use for casting spells, but combined with a few methods of recovering sorcery points my hope is that it will lead to more metamagic use.


That old unearthed arcana article of guidelines for modifying classes said to be careful giving the sorcerer more spells, which you have done,
(.__.)

( ._ .) - - - - - - - - - - - Divine Soul

In the case of Wild Spell (which I'm thinking about tweaking anyway, done, it's tweaked), it's a one-shot. Yeah, you can "prepare" an extra spell, but once you cast it, it's gone. I think what I had in mind was bringing in a bit of wizard, letting you prepare any sorcerer spell, but only one, and you can cast it only once. This doesn't jive with the design goals I laid out above, so I'm thinking of changing it so that you pick the spell when you cast it, instead of when you finish a long rest, but it costs a bunch of sorcery points to use it. It would still only be once-per-long-rest. The sorcery point cost puts an extra price tag to it, but being able to pick the spell when you need it instead of choosing it ahead of time is more in line with how a sorcerer is supposed to work. In any case, it's kind of like learning an extra spell, but not exactly. It's stronger in some ways, but weaker in others. Edit: it's changed, and it has a ramping cost instead of being once per long rest, as well as an element of randomness that perfectly accentuates wild mages.

As for Dragonforce, yeah, it's two spells, and they are learned, but it's not possible to switch them out. So they're really only "extra" spells if you were going to learn them anyway. In the case of Fireball, you probably were, but Wall of Fire is more iffy. On thing to notice here is that at the same level you learn a feature that adds damage to spells if it does the same damage type associated with your bloodline, so this is meant to key off of that. One of the issues is that because of Fireball, specifically, I expect red, brass, and gold bloodlines to be a bit more common than other bloodlines. This at least partially negates that (there are a lot of other good fire spells) by giving you a version of Fireball that works for your specific bloodline.

I can certainly respect that care needs to be taken here. But I'm not sure that any of these features are necessarily "stronger" than the bonus spell Divine Souls get. Maybe Dragonforce should lose Wall of Fire and just keep Fireball, but I liked the idea of tacking on a lesser used spell to open up more tactical options that players might have overlooked due to not having a spell like Wall of Fire.


but also that the balance of the class is based on having separate spell points and sorcery points.

“Sorcery points and Flexible Casting were intentionally designed so that a sorcerer who does nothing but convert spell slots to sorcery points in order to cast higher-level spells does so at the cost of overall output. Be cautious when altering this balance.”
Okay, so here's the thing: all I did was convert the sorcerer to use spell points, using the spell costs and spell points per level found in the DMG. These aren't made up by me, these are official rules, albeit variant ones. Not only that, but I didn't just add the existing sorcery points to the spell point total, I got rid of them. Strictly speaking, a sorcerer under this system can't cast as many spells as a vanilla sorcerer; they'd burn through all their spell points casting the same spells they could have with spell slots, and then they would have no sorcery points to convert into spell slots while the vanilla sorcerer would.

But perhaps it might be fair to reduce their maximum spell points to compensate the increased flexibility. By combining this with Font of Magic to restore expended sorcery points throughout the day, we can enable them to cast roughly the same number of spells per day while having less spells that can be cast at one time (i.e. a lower maximum, but that recharge, as opposed to a higher maximum without recharging). Maybe some sort of hybrid long-rest/short-rest class, who is technically a long-rest class but has fewer maximum resources, but gets more resources back from a short rest, but not as much as a short-rest class.


I would strongly recommend limiting how many spells of 6th level and higher you're allowed to cast between long rests. This sorcerer can cast wish 10 times a day.
This is true. And I can see how this might be abuses (especially in the case of Wish, specifically). But maybe this is more of a feature than a bug. The sorcerer is the only one that can do this, which is a huge point in their favor might be one of the reasons you would want to play one. At the same time, just because you can doesn't mean you should. There's a quote somewhere that I can't seem to find, nor can I remember it exactly, but it goes something along the lines of how a good wizard is known for their powerful spells while a great wizard is known for their cantrips. Most of the time, any problem you have can be solved by applying a lower level spell. High level spells are for dealing with big problems, and they're overkill for smaller problems. If you burn through all of your sorcery points casting high level spells, you won't have any left for low level spells.


Not quite. The DMG rules for spell points say that you can only create one slot of 6th level or higher per day. Since he didn’t tell us I am assuming he used the vanilla variant.
I didn't actually catch this, so good job on spotting it. Yeah, the way I've written it you aren't limited to just one spell for each level 6th and up. I can certainly understand the logic in not allowing such spells to be spammed, but am confused on why they don't just cost more spell points then. If there's one class that would be able to break this limit, it would be the sorcerer. Doesn't mean it's a good idea to let them, though. Hmm...

Thanks for the feedback, everyone, I've made the following changes so far:

Sorcery point gains have been rewritten and are now a flat +4 points per level. At all times (except 2nd level) this is less than the amount shown in the DMG.
To compensate, Font of Magic now restores sorcery points equal to your level during a short rest, which will always be 1/4 your total.
Turn of Fate now restores sorcery points equal to your proficiency bonus instead of just one when you roll a 1 or 20.
A new metamagic, Efficient Spell, has been added. This is perhaps the only metamagic that restores sorcery points instead of costing them. A nice alternative to rituals.
Rewrote Wild Spell to make it much, much more interesting, and more in line with what a player would be looking for in a wild mage.
Casting spells 6th level and higher now have ramping costs until you finish a long rest.

I'm still considering changes to Dragonforce, and possibly some sort of limitation on casting higher level spells. Maybe Signature Sorceries should be limited to 5th and lower. Perhaps casting 6th and higher level spells would have ramping costs until you long rest, done. Still not sure what else should be done, but maybe something else will come to me. As always, anyone is welcome to share their ideas and criticisms.

Composer99
2019-03-22, 07:14 AM
I really like the idea of converting the sorcerer entirely to spell/sorcery points, and indeed have a yet-to-be posted homebrew where I've done so myself.

I would day, however, that IMO *no* class should have the ability to cast spells of 6th level or higher beyond the limits imposed by spell slots.

Kane0
2019-03-23, 04:18 PM
Okay, having more time to go over it I can give some more specific feedback

Sorcery Points: I like the 4 per level with some recovery on a short rest, though this will obviously need to be playtested to see how it runs in practice. Point pools are annoying to get right.
Signature Sorcery: I personally wouldn't want to encourage sorcerers to spam an even more limited number of spells from their already small list. It's perfectly functional but I think speeds up that point when the experience becomes routine and thus boring

Alter Spell: Roll different damage type and different save into the same MM
Delay Spell: Roll into Extend spell
Efficient Spell: You can just give Sorcs actual Ritual casting if you wanted to, no need to fake it
Precise Spell: Roll into Seeking Spell
Shaped Spell: That is far too much detail for a single MM. Just simplify the options rather than making the player do math
Metacantrips: Comes along pretty late, swap it with a Signature Sorcery?
Metamagic Mastery: Appropriately epic capstone, though perhaps a bit too good with unlimited metamagic. Perhaps just a second that you usually wouldn't be able to.

Subclass Font of Magic: Each sorcerer now has two things that recharge SP, which is different for each PC. Be careful how complex you want to make this, and additionally how easy you make it for a sorcerer to never run out of gas. There is also some pretty big disparity between them, like Turn of Fate or Rain God vs Font of Divinity for example (which makes sense considering the full subclass package but still)
Doomslayer: Rule of thumb is to try not to tie class mechanics to monster CR where possible, it usually runs the risk of the Bag of Rats problem

Draconic Greed: Too much math! And also too circumstantial. Tying class mechanics to wealth is a path to madness
Dragonforce: Why not the Dragon Breath spell with a free upcast or MM?

Wild spell: Sounds like a metamagic option, but is rather complicated in its own right. Perhaps change it to something like when you cast choose a spell and on a 1-4 it's that spell, 5-6 DM chooses what spell happens. Each time you use this the chances shift so 1-3/4-6 then 1-2/3-6 and finally 1/2-6 until you finish a long rest.

Hope this helps!

Greywander
2019-03-24, 05:25 AM
I would day, however, that IMO *no* class should have the ability to cast spells of 6th level or higher beyond the limits imposed by spell slots.
You might be right, but I'm not as certain about this as you are. I'm sure they playtested this and found that the limits imposed by spell slots are the ideal ones, but that doesn't necessarily mean there shouldn't ever be exceptions. And if ever there was, I'd think sorcerer would be it. And again, if you blow all your sorcery points on high level spells, you won't have any juice left.


Okay, having more time to go over it I can give some more specific feedback

Sorcery Points: I like the 4 per level with some recovery on a short rest, though this will obviously need to be playtested to see how it runs in practice. Point pools are annoying to get right.
I tried a few different schemes, but compared to the values given in the DMG, they always lagged behind in the early to mid levels, before rapidly catching up in the late levels. For example, in the initial post, I had them start with 4 sorcery points, then get +2 at 2nd level, then +3 at 3rd and 4th, +4 at 5th and 6th, +5 at 7th and 8th, etc., increasing by 1 point per level on every odd level. This, surprisingly, ended up at 132 points total, just one shy of the total given in the DMG at 20th level, but it really lagged behind in the middle.

Giving a flat number of points every level seems to be much more balanced. The fact that you're more than 50 points shy of the DMG total at 20th level is balanced by better short rest recovery. IMO, WotC could have done a better job making all classes want both short and long rests, and this makes the sorcerer like both.


Signature Sorcery: I personally wouldn't want to encourage sorcerers to spam an even more limited number of spells from their already small list. It's perfectly functional but I think speeds up that point when the experience becomes routine and thus boring
Part of the point was to help them save sorcery points (particularly since they have less of them now) by making their most common spells slightly cheaper. If you have a go-to damage spell (Fireball would be a good one), then you can feel better about casting it, even when it isn't necessarily the best spell for the job (which is nice when it's the only spell you know for the job, helping with your limited selection).

In a way, I think what I was actually aiming for was a similar feeling to a character with an at-will spell, which can make for interesting character concepts but requires you to be very careful which spells you allow to be at-will. Misty Step can make for a teleporting swordmage or similar, while Shield is just plain cheese. Signature Sorcery makes a spell close to, but not quite, free. Yeah, you can make Shield a signature sorcery, but it's still not at-will, and honestly you might be better off a different spell, like a utility spell you will actually use more often.

I'll think about alternatives that could replace this feature, but it seems to me that the way to go would be a feature that has something to do with sorcery points. Maybe we can do something more interesting, though.


Alter Spell: Roll different damage type and different save into the same MM
Delay Spell: Roll into Extend spell
Precise Spell: Roll into Seeking Spell
Shaped Spell: That is far too much detail for a single MM. Just simplify the options rather than making the player do math

These all seem like decent ideas. I hadn't thought to combine delayed and extended spell, but it makes some sense. And honestly, delayed spell just doesn't seem that useful except in some niche cases, while extended spell is already pretty solid.

For shaped spell, I'm going to need to spend some time simplifying it. It seems I could break it down into three categories: remote spells (where the origin is at a point you choose, mostly sphere, cube, or cylinder), projected spells (where the origin is you, mostly cone or line, though see Thunderwave), and surround spells (origin is also you, but it radiates in a sphere). I think I can break this down fairly easily using the calculations I've already got; basically, round to the nearest sphere/cube/cylinder/etc. on the comparison table or multiple thereof, and for lines/cylinders you can trade 10 feet of radius for 5 feet of length/height. I just need to condense and streamline the instructions so that they're easy to read and understand.


Efficient Spell: You can just give Sorcs actual Ritual casting if you wanted to, no need to fake it

But why not fake it? Ritual Casting is an important feature for the classes that get it. Sorcerers are balanced around not having it. In fact, I'd say that it's antithetical to the sorcerer's philosophy (perfect for a wizard, though). Ritual Lite™ conforms better to a sorcerer's style, both in that it requires less prep time (1 minute vs. 10 minutes) and can be applied to any spell, not just ritual spells. It's just long enough that it's not usable in combat (hence, the alternative use for the metamagic, which only refunds sorcery points if you fail), but not so long that it would impede progress out of combat. Interestingly, when combined with a 1st level signature sorcery, it actually does become free to cast, which can make for some nice utility (without cheese like at-will Shield).


Metacantrips: Comes along pretty late, swap it with a Signature Sorcery?
I think you might be underestimating how good this is. Every unused bonus action becomes an empowered, quickened Fire Bolt, and when you're conserving sorcery points you can use your action for an empowered, twinned Fire Bolt. Or dip warlock for Agonizing Blast and Eldritch Spear, pick up Spell Sniper, and pick off enemies from 1200 feet away with distant, empowered Eldritch Blasts. Or turn yourself into a blender of death with a distant, empowered Sword Burst/Thunderclap that reaches out to 10 feet, multiplying the number of enemies you can catch in it. And you can do this all day since none of this costs any sorcery points.

Or maybe I'm the one who is overestimating this feature. Giving it earlier could help make a sorcerer feel good about their choice of cantrips and metamagics. When combined with Metamagic Mastery, though, it really does become ridiculous, since you can apply all your metamagics to all your cantrips, for free.


Metamagic Mastery: Appropriately epic capstone, though perhaps a bit too good with unlimited metamagic. Perhaps just a second that you usually wouldn't be able to.
This is your reward for (a) reaching 20th level, and (b) sticking to your class all the way through. 20th level is supposed to be unreasonably powerful, and playing with metamagic is the whole point of a sorcerer. Do remember that you still have to pay all the sorcery point costs for metamagics (except for cantrips), so you don't necessarily always want to pile them all onto a single spell. In most cases, you'll probably be using just two or three in combination.


Subclass Font of Magic: Each sorcerer now has two things that recharge SP, which is different for each PC. Be careful how complex you want to make this, and additionally how easy you make it for a sorcerer to never run out of gas. There is also some pretty big disparity between them, like Turn of Fate or Rain God vs Font of Divinity for example (which makes sense considering the full subclass package but still)
Doomslayer: Rule of thumb is to try not to tie class mechanics to monster CR where possible, it usually runs the risk of the Bag of Rats problem

Draconic Greed: Too much math! And also too circumstantial. Tying class mechanics to wealth is a path to madness
Maybe you're right. I actually came up with the one for the draconic sorcerer first, and liked the idea. Wild mage soon followed, then shadow mage. Divine Soul and Storm Sorcerer stumped me for a while, though. There's certainly a lot of tweaking that probably needs to be done.

I could be wrong, but I thought Doomslayer would avoid the bag of rats problem since it specifically required a creature of CR 1 or greater. I can't think off the top of my head of a CR 1 creature you could use for a bag of "rats". Anything that is based off of reducing a creature to 0 HP is going to have this problem, so how can I use that mechanic and avoid it? I could change it to key off of critical hits, but that requires spells with attack rolls. Alternatively, I could restrict it to once per hour or so, giving only your proficiency bonus in sorcery points, but that doesn't fully mitigate the bag of rats problem, it just means you're killing one "rat" every hour instead of all at once.


Dragonforce: Why not the Dragon Breath spell with a free upcast or MM?
Dragon's Breath is basically Burning Hands. It's not very strong. What really makes it useful is that you can give it to someone else, like a mount or familiar, or a commoner or hireling. I could see letting you, say, cast it on yourself at-will, but not necessarily give it to someone else. But even at-will, it's not very appealing (it's cantrip damage). Still, it would have a niche for clearing out groups of weak enemies.

What about combing it with a spell for each type of dragon? Silver or white might get Sleet Storm, Green might get Stinking Cloud, etc. I'd need to read more about each type of dragon to find a spell that fit each of them. But I think the important part of this feature is the inclusion of a damage spell that can get that bonus from Elemental Affinity by being the right energy type.

Something else I was considering was a once per long rest buff where you get Dragon's Breath (possibly upscaled, depending on your level) and Enlarged, basically turning you into a giant, angry, dragon-person. I might even throw Fly in there. Would last 1 minute.

Hmm... Or what about just getting Dragon's Breath as a learned spell for free (doesn't count against known spells), but you can cast it on yourself with the right energy type with a free upcast to 3rd level. This free upcast increases at 11th level to 4th level, and again at 17th level to 5th level. Damage is still pretty poor, so even then it's only useful against grouped up enemies. But it's not bad for just 3 sorcery points (the cost of a 2nd level spell).


Wild spell: Sounds like a metamagic option, but is rather complicated in its own right. Perhaps change it to something like when you cast choose a spell and on a 1-4 it's that spell, 5-6 DM chooses what spell happens. Each time you use this the chances shift so 1-3/4-6 then 1-2/3-6 and finally 1/2-6 until you finish a long rest.
I'm not sure how this would sound like a metamagic option. It doesn't modify a spell, it just lets you cast a spell you don't know.

Maybe I explained it poorly, but it doesn't actually seem that complicated to me. The DM picks three spells at the start of the session (and can carry them over from the previous session, if need be), and assigns each spell a number, 1, 3, or 5. When Wild Spell is used, the wild mage picks a spell they want to cast that they don't already know, picks a target, and rolls a d6. On a 1, 3, or 5, it casts the spell the DM chose. On an even number (50% chance), it casts the spell the wild mage chose. If the DM uses up one of their spells this way, they pick a new one to replace it. The other two can stay the same, since the wild mage still doesn't know what they are.

If there is more than one wild mage in the party, the DM can even use the same three spells for all of them, as long as they replace each spell immediately after it is used.

It's maybe a bit more involved, but not super complicated. I think it just needs to be explained clearly, so maybe I can improve on that. Escalating the risk of casting the wrong spell each time the feature is used is an interesting idea, though I'd have to rework the specific dice mechanic.


Hope this helps!
It does! I might not always agree with critique, and even when I can agree that there's a problem I don't always know how to fix it, but I do appreciate it. Bouncing ideas off of other people is definitely a great way to improve them, and sometimes it's nice to just discuss possibilities even when you can't settle on a concrete solution. I'll do some more brainstorming, but I've already implemented some of your suggestions (mostly the merging of different metamagics). There's a few other things that I know need to be tweaked, but it's late and don't have time to work through them right now. As always, I'm open to suggestions.

In particular, if anyone can think of alternatives for the subclass-specific Font of Magic features, I'd be interesting in hearing someone else's ideas.

Composer99
2019-03-24, 02:43 PM
You might be right, but I'm not as certain about this as you are. I'm sure they playtested this and found that the limits imposed by spell slots are the ideal ones, but that doesn't necessarily mean there shouldn't ever be exceptions. And if ever there was, I'd think sorcerer would be it. And again, if you blow all your sorcery points on high level spells, you won't have any juice left.


If you can cast 6th-plus-level spells more often, why would you care about running out of juice?

At 11th level, when you become able to cast 6th-level spells, you can cast four of them, or five with a single short rest. At 11th level. That's over-the-top unbalanced.