D&D 5E Building a better Sorcerer

[Quickleaf]

Of all the classes in the PHB, I am most confounded by the sorcerer. The flavor description is great and makes my imagination go to the many innately magically gifted characters in fantasy literature. And then the class design delivers on practically none of that, making it this weird mashup of the 3e sorcerer (there was a class with NO identity) with metamagic. Why metamagic for a sorcerer? I just don't see the thematic resonance.

Currently I've only done a hack of the sorcerer for my witcher campaign. And we are seeing it's a lot of fun so far. But the changes were strongly setting specific...maybe some of them can be extrapolated to more general principles. I'm on my phone (laptop is in shop) but I'll see if I can dig up a link to the PDF.

 

[mellored]

The mechanics don't match the fluff. The sorcerer uses the same formulas (spells) that the wizard does. They should be shaping magic to their will, with the literal ability to shape magic. Something closer to the 3.5 warlock, that could add shapes to their blasts. Some kind of build-a-spell thing.

And it's weak at low levels, and too strong at high levels. Just the way it scales.

 

[tglassy]

The Mystic is actually a better sorcerer than the sorcerer. Get rid of the psychic fluff, and the Discipline approach works really well for innate power. Instead of selecting a spell, you select a category of powers around a theme. These powers get stronger as you level up, unlocking new powers.

He'll, the Wu Jen could just be an elemental sorcerer.


Sent from my iPad using EN World

 

[Tony Vargas]

Let's talk Sorcerers. What works for them?

Metamagic. It always fit with the Sorcerer's inborn/instinctive self-taught flavor of magic, yet they were made essentially bad at (extra casting time, no bonus metamagic feats like the wizard did, new spell levels and thus 'room' to apply metamagic a level later than the wizard, too), while also benefiting from it because it helped stretch the usefulness of their limited spells-known.

In 3e, metamagic is sorcerer-exclusive, which is good.

What would you change and why? How can they be improved?

It's been a long, un-productive discussion over the last couple years, but, my current thought is putting the Sorcerer on Spell Points instead of slots, and converting sorcery points into slots to boost that total, so the cost in sorcery points is just extra spell points. Might go hand-in-hand with reverting the prepped casters to actual Vancian, prepping directly into slots instead of the more complicated two-step process of prepping spells & casting them spontaneously.

Another possibility is allowing 'theme' (something more specific/narrow and unique to each sorcerer than just what the bloodline implies) spells from any list. So the player would describe the 'theme' of his sorcerer's magic (Dragon Sorcerers'd prettymuch just pick an element), and the DM would approve some added spells known from outside the sorcerer list that fit it.

 

[Barolo]

Of all the classes in the PHB, I am most confounded by the sorcerer. The flavor description is great and makes my imagination go to the many innately magically gifted characters in fantasy literature. And then the class design delivers on practically none of that, making it this weird mashup of the 3e sorcerer (there was a class with NO identity) with metamagic. Why metamagic for a sorcerer? I just don't see the thematic resonance.

The mechanics don't match the fluff. The sorcerer uses the same formulas (spells) that the wizard does. They should be shaping magic to their will, with the literal ability to shape magic. Something closer to the 3.5 warlock, that could add shapes to their blasts. Some kind of build-a-spell thing.

And it's weak at low levels, and too strong at high levels. Just the way it scales.

Metamagic. It always fit with the Sorcerer's inborn/instinctive self-taught flavor of magic, yet they were made essentially bad at (extra casting time, no bonus metamagic feats like the wizard did, new spell levels and thus 'room' to apply metamagic a level later than the wizard, too), while also benefiting from it because it helped stretch the usefulness of their limited spells-known.

In 3e, metamagic is sorcerer-exclusive, which is good.

This is really interesting. Some folks think that metamagic fits well in the class and that 3e kinda missed the point by actually punishing sorcerers that would go for them, while others don't see a connection.

I apparently find myself in a sorta unique position, as I don't care much for this class fluff, but I really enjoy its mechanics. In 3e I could not care less about the class. In 5e I really look forward for opportunities to play sorcerers. I find them that fun.

It's been a long, un-productive discussion over the last couple years, but, my current thought is putting the Sorcerer on Spell Points instead of slots, and converting sorcery points into slots to boost that total, so the cost in sorcery points is just extra spell points. Might go hand-in-hand with reverting the prepped casters to actual Vancian, prepping directly into slots instead of the more complicated two-step process of prepping spells & casting them spontaneously.

Another possibility is allowing 'theme' (something more specific/narrow and unique to each sorcerer than just what the bloodline implies) spells from any list. So the player would describe the 'theme' of his sorcerer's magic (Dragon Sorcerers'd prettymuch just pick an element), and the DM would approve some added spells known from outside the sorcerer list that fit it.

Even though I think sorcerers are good as they are, and spell points are way better than spell slots (I know the DM expresses a different opinion on that but I strongly disagree), I really like this idea of giving sorcerers, and only sorcerers, spell points, going all in adding the sorcery points to that total. This would actually streamline the class resources into a single pool, and make their spellcasting quite distinctive from other full casters.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The mechanics don't match the fluff. The sorcerer uses the same formulas (spells) that the wizard does.

The 3.x Sorcerer's list was a sub-set of the Wizard's, while the 4e version, of course had it's own, unique list (but so did all the PH series classes). In 5e the sorcerer is back to no unique spells (it's unique in that! - points for irony), but at least it doesn't share all it's spells with the wizard.

They should be shaping magic to their will, with the literal ability to shape magic. Something closer to the 3.5 warlock, that could add shapes to their blasts. Some kind of build-a-spell thing..

There's a lot of potential, there. It'd be an entirely different class, but it could be done with a 'simple' blaster sub-class, and progressively more complex/interesting ones.

 

[Croesus]

It's been a long, un-productive discussion over the last couple years, but, my current thought is putting the Sorcerer on Spell Points instead of slots, and converting sorcery points into slots to boost that total, so the cost in sorcery points is just extra spell points. Might go hand-in-hand with reverting the prepped casters to actual Vancian, prepping directly into slots instead of the more complicated two-step process of prepping spells & casting them spontaneously.

How would you handle multiclassing, such as a bard/sorcerer? One of the things I really like about 5E multiclassing is the single spell slot table used regardless of which classes a character has. If the sorcerer uses spell points, I would think you'd have to keep the two classes slots/points separate.

 

[Tony Vargas]

How would you handle multiclassing, such as a bard/sorcerer? One of the things I really like about 5E multiclassing is the single spell slot table used regardless of which classes a character has. If the sorcerer uses spell points, I would think you'd have to keep the two classes slots/points separate.

Spellpoints work with MCing, so you could use that. I suppose it could go a few different ways. You could use could calculate spellpoints for the combined level, plus sorcerery points for the sorcerer level, and cast the other class's spells with spell points (but not with metamagic?). You could use the MC slot chart and sorcerer points per sorcerer level and convert slots into spellpoints to cast sorcerer spells. You could keep them separate, and use something like the existing slot-to-sorcery-point conversion to give it some flexibility...

...or, my personal favorite. Not use MCing.

 

[mellored]

This is really interesting. Some folks think that metamagic fits well in the class and that 3e kinda missed the point by actually punishing sorcerers that would go for them, while others don't see a connection.

Metamagic is a step in the right direction, allowing the sorcerer to take magic and reshape it. However, since it's built on top of a full-caster base class, and all the spells were designed for the wizard, there isn't much room left to really go full shape-y-ness.

Overall the Sorcerer feels like a wizard sub-class (see the lore mastery wizard), not its own thing.


That's probably the biggest issue of 5e overall. Too much in the base classes, not enough uniqueness of the sub-classes.

There's a lot of potentials, there. It'd be an entirely different class, but it could be done with a 'simple' blaster sub-class and progressively more complex/interesting ones.

Yea. A "spell shaper" sub-class is probably the best we can hope for.

Unless they want to make a new class called the "Sorceress" or something. Or make 5.5e

 

[MoonSong]

Basically, I would say that if I was to recreate the class from scratch I would do the class this way.

Start with basic competence, think of the sorcerer as a cleric/warlock analogue, but obviously no armor. So D8, basic weapons, no armor, one toolkit of choice.

Share the general slot progression.

Give them the most spells known at first level -5-. They are static on a day to day basis, but it is compensated by them never changing them. A sorcerer might never forget a known spell, you cannot rewrite yourself.

Give them a broad spell list, remove obvious must-have spells like fireball, add more utility and breadth of effects.

Give them "mini-metamagics". Minor effects that change their spells, stuff like not needing a focus, or not needing somatic components, or shifting elemental types. These minni-effects are passive and could apply to all spells or only one. You choose one of these every level or every other level.

Give them one or more extra slots that recharge on a short rest and are tied to levels in the class.

Make the "origins" more broad and customizable, a blaster-like origin could add back fireball to the spell list, some features like wings scales and stuff could still make it, but these are opt-in and more the exception than the norm.

Metamagic is a general thing for everybody

This way the sorcerer has a new advantage, it is the class that has more options at a given moment, but these cannot be changed, you have to specialize anyway in a niche, but you can cover it well by having options and endurance instead of brute force.