Wizard vs. Sorcerer

Dausuul · Jan 16, 2019

Yunru said:
Yes but that's not the point. The point is either the argument can be that Sorcery Points are on par with Arcane Recovery, or on par with the Wizard's larger spells known, but not with both.
Sorry if that was unclear.

You're missing my point. Sorcery points are strictly better than Arcane Recovery. They can do everything AR can do, and they can be spent instead on metamagic, which AR cannot. They are indisputably more versatile; and since sorcerers generally prefer spending SPs on metamagic instead of spell slots (even to the extent of burning slots to get more metamagic!), that suggests they are more powerful as well.

Now, is that versatility and power enough to match AR and the wizard's spell list and subclass features? Probably not. But it is certainly not a foregone conclusion.

Yunru · Jan 16, 2019

Dausuul said:
You're missing my point. Sorcery points are strictly better than Arcane Recovery. They can do everything AR can do, and they can be spent instead on metamagic, which AR cannot. They are indisputably more versatile; and since sorcerers generally prefer spending SPs on metamagic instead of spell slots (even to the extent of burning slots to get more metamagic!), that suggests they are more powerful as well.

But it's not strictly better at low level, it's almost strictly worse. The fact that it can do something else at the cost of being good at this just means both features are bad.

I'll take one good feature over a feature that barely competes if it uses all of a resource shared between features.

Metamagic is good, but then you've no answer to Arcane Recovery as a class.

Wiseblood · Jan 16, 2019

Do you want to be cool? Be a sorcerer.

I’ve seen wizards. They play almost exactly the same at higher level as they do at low. Sorcerers change more I think. At low levels sorcery points might be few, they add versatility but at high levels the almost unused 1st and 2nd level spell slots get to do something useful other than spamming shield.

Al'Kelhar · Jan 17, 2019

Before sorcerers and warlocks there were magic-users who their players said "had the blood of dragons coursing through their veins", or "had gained their powers from deals with devils", or "were born of the fey", or "had pierced the veil of reality to unlock their secrets" etc. etc. You wanted to throw spells about and still be "cool", you just played your magic-user "cool". You didn't have to play a "cool" class.

But magic-users' spellcasting could be a bit complicated for new players and dumb players. So D&D 3E went all "accessible", and we got the sorcerer as an independent class for new players and dumb players who just wanted to spam magic missiles and fireballs, and didn't really want to do any thinking about what spells might actually be useful today.

But the sorcerer class had to have some "hook" that made it different from wizards, so sorcerers became "innately" magical, and wizards now had to be academics.

But even them, sorcerers were a bit too hard for new players and dumb players, and lo, towards the end of D&D 3.5E, we got the warlock, the simplest and dumbest arcane spellcaster of all. And we had to give them a "hook" to separate them from sorcerers, so their magic came not from books, or from ancestry, but from doing "deals" with great powers (and, y'know, that was somehow different to clerical magic).

So which is better?

Wizards. Play anything else, and you're acknowledging that you're a newbie or dumb.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

Mort · Jan 17, 2019

Al'Kelhar said:
So which is better?

Wizards. Play anything else, and you're acknowledging that you're a newbie or dumb.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

I suspect this is tongue in cheek, but Poe's law and all, who can tell!

But responding anyway,

I think the problem with the sorcerer (and to an extent the warlock too) is the counterintuitive fact that because you have less options (for spell selection, both in number known and amount to choose from) the class requires significantly more system mastery to play effectively - especially across all 3 pillars.

A new player may be tempted by the apparent simplicity of the class and be unsatisfied in this regard.

guachi · Jan 17, 2019

When people discuss wizard "builds" I rarely see them suggest a feat. The benefit of this is that the wizard can have that 20 Int at level 8.

Sure, it's only a +1 to an attack roll or a save DC but it's not nothing.

GlassJaw · Jan 17, 2019

I so wish sorcerers used spell points per the DMG by default. That would have done so much to make them feel different than the other caster classes.

Yunru · Jan 17, 2019

GlassJaw said:
I so wish sorcerers used spell points per the DMG by default. That would have done so much to make them feel different than the other caster classes.

With a bit of adjustment to Font of Magic they can do just that, if it helps.

André Soares · Jan 17, 2019

Al'Kelhar said:
Before sorcerers and warlocks there were magic-users who their players said "had the blood of dragons coursing through their veins", or "had gained their powers from deals with devils", or "were born of the fey", or "had pierced the veil of reality to unlock their secrets" etc. etc. You wanted to throw spells about and still be "cool", you just played your magic-user "cool". You didn't have to play a "cool" class.

But magic-users' spellcasting could be a bit complicated for new players and dumb players. So D&D 3E went all "accessible", and we got the sorcerer as an independent class for new players and dumb players who just wanted to spam magic missiles and fireballs, and didn't really want to do any thinking about what spells might actually be useful today.

But the sorcerer class had to have some "hook" that made it different from wizards, so sorcerers became "innately" magical, and wizards now had to be academics.

But even them, sorcerers were a bit too hard for new players and dumb players, and lo, towards the end of D&D 3.5E, we got the warlock, the simplest and dumbest arcane spellcaster of all. And we had to give them a "hook" to separate them from sorcerers, so their magic came not from books, or from ancestry, but from doing "deals" with great powers (and, y'know, that was somehow different to clerical magic).

So which is better?

Wizards. Play anything else, and you're acknowledging that you're a newbie or dumb.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

As I was reading this I began to feel old.

hur dur play this or you are wrong hur dur

André Soares · Jan 17, 2019

GlassJaw said:
I so wish sorcerers used spell points per the DMG by default. That would have done so much to make them feel different than the other caster classes.

That would've been nice!

Wizard vs. Sorcerer

Dausuul

Legend

Yunru

Banned

Wiseblood

Adventurer

Al'Kelhar

Adventurer

Mort

Legend

guachi

Hero

GlassJaw

Hero

Yunru

Banned

André Soares

First Post

André Soares

First Post

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