D&D 5E Is the Evocation Wizard better at being a damage Sorcerer than a Sorcerer?

[Waterbizkit]

Crowd control with Careful Spell:
- Sleep (reduce the number of enemies effected to make it more effective against stronger opponents and more useful at higher levels)
- Web, Stinking Cloud, Reverse Gravity, Cloudkill to lock down some bad guys so you can beat on them... Though I should point out Evocation Wizards can do this too.

I'm away from my books, but just a quick correction here if my memory serves: the evocation wizards "sculpt spells" ability doesn't actually work on any of the spells you listed. The wizards ability is applicable only to evocation spells while the sorcerers "careful spell" is any area of effect spell, none of the spells you listed above are from the evocation school. I think.

If I'm wrong just ignore me, but I'm fairly certain that's how it all works and is something worth considering in the discussion.

 

[Gadget]

[MENTION=6802604]Waterbizkit[/MENTION] Yes, you are correct. But I think you missed the point he was making. He was trying to point out, as I understand it, effective ways to use the Sorcerer in a unique manner (mainly as opposed to the wizard).

 

[Waterbizkit]

[MENTION=6802604]Waterbizkit[/MENTION] Yes, you are correct. But I think you missed the point he was making. He was trying to point out, as I understand it, effective ways to use the Sorcerer in a unique manner (mainly as opposed to the wizard).

Probably did miss the point, I was skimming the forums on my phone when I made the post and really locked in on "Wizards can do this too" because, you know, they can't. As you aptly bring to light though, I missed the point.

 

[Matt Mazzatenta]

Sorcerer(X) Chainlock(3), quicken spell, agonizing and repelling blast. Replenishing sorcery points on a short rest(through flexible spellcasting), and an imp that has a huge amount of utility. I mean you basically get the best feature of a warlock for dipping in only 3 levels and the equivalent of an endgame sorcerer feature(gaining 4 sorcery points). Eldritch blast with hex, with 5 regular action blast and 5 bonus action blast is pretty damn powerful in practice. Especially when you can theoretically blow them 100 feet away if all of those beams hit. I mean that's like a massive beam blows the guy across the world. I mean you give up some crappy features from the dragon sorcerer but they mostly suck and aren't relevant as most games don't get there anyway. The power is in the cantrip and that cantrip gets much stronger at level 6 and up and isn't weak till then. *If your DM uses critical fails(as in you throw your weapon or your spell misfires and a beam hits you and your turn ends) you probably should avoid using a warlock/fighter unless he stops using such an unbalanced house rule.

 

[TwoSix]

I have to say, necroing a 16 month old thread to explain sorlocks takes a certain amount of panache.

 

[Matt Mazzatenta]

Yeah, I don't particularly care about the age of something in the slightest. If it is still relevant I'll constribute or share my opinion. I get called out for necroposting but the reality is, it still shows up highly in Google so I'm sure others will as well.

 

[JayceWarden]

I just wanted to clarify something. Over channel DOES NOT make the damage of your spell unaffected by resistance or immunity. The necrotic damage cannot be resisted or immune.

 

[Coroc]

....
On the other hand, Sorcerers can cast Cone of Cold up to 10 times in a single day by devouring spells slots 1-4 with Magic Font and creating 5th level spell slots.
....
So did I miss something big that makes Sorcerers more powerful DPR or are Sorcerers relegated to buffer/rpg roles using subtle spell etc? How do you use Sorcerers?
...

You did not miss the real big thing about sorcerers, you wrote it further up. This feature alone is worth more than every damage amplifier the wizard might get.

Additionally when you chose draconic sorcerer the corresponding elemental cantrips get a cha boost as well if I recall correctly, but the main thing is the first point

Edit: the first point is why I consider sorcerers overpowered in some campaigns.

2nd edit: ah I forgot, dragon sorcerers get wings at 14th additional plus for a ranged blaster

 

[Dausuul]

I don't pretend to understand the magical logic behind why Overchannel works that way--one of the downsides to 5E is that the writers often put "balance" in mechanical terms ahead of roleplaying considerations, to the point of often not thinking through the in-world logic at all. (Sometimes it seems as if all the 5E designers care about is not breaking their DPR curves.) A DM is free to alter Overchannel if he likes to make it more consistent. But by the rules as written, no, this still does not work.

The obvious explanation is that overchanneling a spell of such power would kill the caster before they could finish casting.

A lot of rules change when you go from 5th-level spells to 6th and above. There appears to be something qualitatively different about spell slots at that level. Whether you use the slot to cast a native 6th-level spell, or to upcast an "ordinary" spell, the power involved is too great for many of the manipulations that work on lesser spell slots.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The obvious explanation is that overchanneling a spell of such power would kill the caster before they could finish casting.

Overchanneling is one of the more evocative things I've seen in D&D magic. I mean, it's something you can actually sorta visualize a mage in cinema or even the broader genre doing - enduring pain/risking death or even just visibly struggling, to cast a more powerful spell.

Usually D&D spells are quick, easy, dependable, and, now in 5e, largely free of risk or even inconvenience.

A lot of rules change when you go from 5th-level spells to 6th and above. There appears to be something qualitatively different about spell slots at that level. Whether you use the slot to cast a native 6th-level spell, or to upcast an "ordinary" spell, the power involved is too great for many of the manipulations that work on lesser spell slots.

It always seemed to me there was a clear difference in feel, and a subtle difference in mechanics, between 5th-and-lower and 6th-and-higher level spells, going all the way back to 1e. In my own variants back in the day, I called them 'low order' and 'high order' and had a few special rules that differentiated between the two.

Heck, I suppose it harkens all the way back to the Dying Earth.