D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

CapnZapp said:

I don't mind the separation

• born/plagued with gifts => play a sorcerer
• mind for academics & studied long and hard =>play a wizard

One thing I do hate about the sorcerer is that they stole the metamagic concept that OBVIOUSLY should be available for wizards as well.

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Sorcerers didn't steal metamagic, it was salvaged to give sorcerers something unique to do. It was evident the designers were struggling to nail down the mechanics through megafeats, as they stealthly took them away and nobody noticed. (This around the time they gave neovancian to wizards) Even then, they did a poor job with the final result, because the sorcerer was rushed at the eleventh hour. The leaked PHB draft had it overpriced, and the initial phb had to fix it, and still had it overpriced and unbalanced. The new incomming version might finally fix it,but the jury is still out until we actually get to see it.

EzekielRaiden said:

It was not made "fairly quickly." The public playtesting process alone was over two years. They had at least six months prep time before that, and around the same amount (plus printing/shipping time) after.

The reason 5e has rushed elements is because the designers pissed away three quarters of their public playtesting period just fumbling about with basic, fundamental design, and then had to fill in the remainder with slapdash efforts when they realized they needed to be having actual physical books within the next six months or else they'd suffer financial disaster. They'd spend six months or more utterly committed to one design concept (e.g. remember "Specialties"?) only to totally abandon it and then have to come up with a replacement. Or, half the time, not even bother and thus leave more and more things in the lurch.

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They wasted so much time trying to get the fractured community to agree of the Fighter that every class outside the core 4 was rushed.

I think it was more than a year into the playtest before the sorcerer shows up again after the first attempt. It was always a second thought.

@Shardstone these are the subclasses I and @CreamCloud0 made
Mine:

MoonSong said:

Sorcerous Origin: Wizardry

Not all sorcerers are uneducated and illiterate. Many are born with just a humble spark that needs to be harnessed, controlled and nurtured through tireless study under the guide of a mentor. These sorcerers are known as wizards.

1st Level
Academy learning
You gain training in Arcana, History, Religion and Medicine. You also gain expertise in one of these skills.

Wizardry
Through you studies you have untapped the possibility of manipulating your own magic. However the details are long and hard to remember.
Pick a school of magic, you gain a spell book which contains a number of first level spells of that school equal to 1+ your intelligence modifier. You can choose one of the spells in your book and add it to your spells known until you finish a long rest. You also learn two first level rituals of your choice and write them in your spellbook. If you find a scroll or a spellbook with spells of your chosen school or rituals of a level you can cast, you can copy them to your book at the cost of 50gp per spell level.

6th level
Weave Manipulation
When you cast a spell from your chosen school that requires a saving throw, you can spend 2 sorcery points to add your intelligence modifier to the spell DC of that spell.

14th level
Improved Wizardry
Starting at 14th level, you can now prepare a number of spells from your spellbook equal to you intelligence modifier.

18th level
Arcane recovery
When the target of a spell you cast from your chosen school fails its saving throw, you recover sorcery points equal to that spell's level. You need to complete a long rest before you use this ability again.

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Creamcloud0's:

Sorcerer subclass: Wizard
1st:
spellbook: you gain a spellbook that helps you memorise and comprehend additional magics, it can be used as an arcane focus, you know additional spells equal to your INT mod and you may also swap out INT mod number of spells after a short or long rest, you can replace PB+INT number of your spells known for others on any base spell list of an arcane caster, if your spellbook is lost or destroyed you loose access to these features until you perform a 1-hour ritual to replace it.
ritual caster: you can cast any spell you know that has the ritual tag without a spell slot by casting it as a 10 minute ritual, also by expending [spell scribing value] you can copy any ritual spell you know into your spellbook so that you may perform it as a ritual even if you don't currently know it, if you have to replace your spellbook you need to re-scribe any rituals in it to use them while not known.

6th:
expanded knowledge: you become proficient in the arcana skill, if you are already proficient gain expertise in it instead, you also gain proficiency in two other INT skills, you have advantage when rolling checks for these three skills.

14th:
empowered upcasting: when casting a spell you can increase the level of the spell slot being used to cast the spell by expending 2 sorcery points per slot level. (so say, you can cast a 7th level spell with a 5th level slot and 4 sorcery points), you can't upcast a spell above your max spell level known.

18th:
greater memorisation: you can replace all spells known over the course of a long rest

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Crimson Longinus said:

Spell versatility was terrible idea as it made already samey caster classes even more samey, not because it buffed sorcerers. Sorcerers are terrible and if we cannot get rid of them they need a buff, but it must be something that makes them more unique, not less.

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Spell versatility was a great idea that finally gave the Sorcerer a unique effect beyond metamagic and made them genuinely different from other arcane casters; they were mutable in a way Bards and Wizards weren't, limited in any single day to a small list, but able to spend a long period of time (as in, a week or more at higher levels) adjusting from one specialization to another. It was 100% shot down by the, as others noted, united Wizard fanbase who won't tolerate challenges to their hegemony. Sorcerers are great and since we cannot preserve what makes them great by flaying them to their bones and then shoving that skeleton into the hilariously thin closet of Wizard subclasses, yes, they do in fact need some buffs. But, just like with D&D Next, we have absolutely no clue whether they will get that love or not, because all it takes to tank any alterations to any part of the game is to reach 30 percent of feedback.

Minigiant said:

They wasted so much time trying to get the fractured community to agree of the Fighter that every class outside the core 4 was rushed.

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Yep. And the hilarious thing is, the designers themselves were still disappointed with the Fighter they produced, as it fell well short of the thematics and flavor they wanted to achieve.

Proof that design-by-democracy has its significant flaws. It isn't bad to get player feedback, indeed that's a very very good thing. But player feedback works best in an environment where you have a clear vision and provide concrete, described alternatives, and don't let a 30% minority hold the design hostage.

Minigiant said:

I think it was more than a year into the playtest before the sorcerer shows up again after the first attempt. It was always a second thought.

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It did not return at all. All subsequent Sorcerer work came during the final months of closed playtesting. We had to wait for the finished product to see what they'd done with it.

EzekielRaiden said:

It did not return at all. All subsequent Sorcerer work came during the final months of closed playtesting. We had to wait for the finished product to see what they'd done with it.

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After their first time in the playtest, the next we learned of them was in a Legends and Lore post after the Mage was shot down by the community. And the next time we saw the actual sorcerer was when the draft PHB leaked, but at that point there was nothing left to do or say that could alter the outcome.

EzekielRaiden said:

It was not made "fairly quickly." The public playtesting process alone was over two years. They had at least six months prep time before that, and around the same amount (plus printing/shipping time) after.

The reason 5e has rushed elements is because the designers pissed away three quarters of their public playtesting period just fumbling about with basic, fundamental design, and then had to fill in the remainder with slapdash efforts when they realized they needed to be having actual physical books within the next six months or else they'd suffer financial disaster. They'd spend six months or more utterly committed to one design concept (e.g. remember "Specialties"?) only to totally abandon it and then have to come up with a replacement. Or, half the time, not even bother and thus leave more and more things in the lurch.

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oh gods they have bioware time management that would explain so much.

Minigiant said:

They wasted so much time trying to get the fractured community to agree of the Fighter that every class outside the core 4 was rushed.

I think it was more than a year into the playtest before the sorcerer shows up again after the first attempt. It was always a second thought.

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clearly, they lack some vision as if you can reach consense you need something else to supply the idea, they need a fighter/martial lover on the team.
hell might have been better to cut down to few class to get things safely out the door

I don't think it is helpful to project hypotheticals like "wizard fans" and "sorcerer haters" to other people, and use this to blame why the design you'd like to see won't come to pass. It starts to sound almost like a conspiracy theory, and it also is a tad uncomfortable when it seems to be projected at you.

I am not "a wizard fan." I do not "hate sorcerers" as a concept. I want good classes with solid niches. I like the fiction of the sorcerer, I just think the current rules do not do it justice. And I also see that warlock chassis would be better starting point for building an evocative sorcerer than the current sorcerer chassis.

EzekielRaiden said:

Yep. And the hilarious thing is, the designers themselves were still disappointed with the Fighter they produced, as it fell well short of the thematics and flavor they wanted to achieve.

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Yeah, the "Simple Fighter/DM adjudicates Everything" faction of the Fighter Fandom demanded a Simpler Fighter than even the "Beginner Fighter" they wanted.

The Design team wanted all fighters to have manuevers. The Simple/Beginner Fighter was supposed to spam the basic damage one until they graduated to another class or to the Complex Fighter that chose attacks every turn. But they couldn't get that fatcion to not downvote in under 70%

EzekielRaiden said:

Proof that design-by-democracy has its significant flaws. It isn't bad to get player feedback, indeed that's a very very good thing. But player feedback works best in an environment where you have a clear vision and provide concrete, described alternatives, and don't let a 30% minority hold the design hostage.

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I'd ague WOTC still doesn't have a clear vision of the sorcerer.

Hence the "make them all wild mages" attempt in playtesting.

Crimson Longinus said:

I am not "a wizard fan." I do not "hate sorcerers" as a concept. I want good classes with solid niches. I like the fiction of the sorcerer, I just think the current rules do not do it justice. And I also see that warlock chassis would be better starting point for building an evocative sorcerer than the current sorcerer chassis.

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Well, if what you think is that sorcerer needs better mecanics, maybe that is what you should argue for instead of calling for its removal or merger into other class (which is a removal, each class has its own fiction, lose the class, lose the fiction)

Crimson Longinus said:

I don't think it is helpful to project hypotheticals like "wizard fans" and "sorcerer haters" to other people, and use this to blame why the design you'd like to see won't come to pass. It starts to sound almost like a conspiracy theory, and it also is a tad uncomfortable when it seems to be projected at you.

I am not "a wizard fan." I do not "hate sorcerers" as a concept. I want good classes with solid niches. I like the fiction of the sorcerer, I just think the current rules do not do it justice. And I also see that warlock chassis would be better starting point for building an evocative sorcerer than the current sorcerer chassis.

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I never said people hate Sorcerer.

I said WOTC wastes an overly inappropriate amount of time supporting Wizard fans and will change things about the game to support Wizard at the detriment of other classes.

The main class that catches accidental strays is Sorcerer.

It's not malice but poor time management and skewed priorities.