D&D 5E making the Sorcerer an "Elementalist" - custom spell lists

[Savage Wombat]

The storm sorcerer in my next game, when she hits 5th level, will get:

1st: Faerie Fire, Mage Armor, Thunderwave Bonus: Fog Cloud

2nd: Levitate, Shatter Bonus: Gust of Wind

3rd: Lightning Bolt Bonus: Call Lightning

The intent being to give her a little more versatility without going overboard - i.e. she can cast a 3rd level lightning spell two ways, but not lightning AND dispel magic without gaining another level.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=22103]GlassJaw[/MENTION] Pretty much any spell list you come up with for sorcerers is going to be better than the list they provide in the PHB. For instance, it's easy to imagine sorcerers as elementalists because they get lots of "fire", "water", "thunder", "lightning", and so on themed spells. But if you look deeper, there are many of nonsensical exceptions.

Why can a sorcerer invoke a wall of fire but not a fire shield?

Why can a sorcerer cast storm sphere or vitrolic sphere or even a watery sphere, but not a flaming sphere, and certainly not Otiluke's freezing sphere?

Why is it that a sorcerer can shape water and create a wall of water, but casting control water is beyond them?

Personally, I think the UA Mystic serves as a better "sorcerer concept" than the PHB Sorcerer class; there's little raison d'etre for a sorcerer in 5e (as prepped spells are no longer bound to spell slots like in 3e and earlier). Moreover, the mechanics don't fulfill the promise of the fluff. There's a mismatch there. From the PHB: One can’t study sorcery as one learns a language, any more than one can learn to live a legendary life. No one chooses sorcery; the power chooses the sorcerer... Magic is a part of every sorcerer, suffusing body, mind, and spirit with a latent power that waits to be tapped.

I'd much rather see the sorcerer re-designed than the ranger. A simpler caster class forgoing spells for special effects OR building its own "spells" from limited effects, and having some kind of built-in non-silly wild magic or potential for magical backlash if they push too hard? That would feel like a sorcerer!

If you want to go the route of using restricted spell lists to enforce theme, you first need to establish what a sorcerer is. The PHB sorcerer spell list is at least a useful starting place of "spells that aren't rituals", but as I've illustrated above there's lots of nonsensical omissions. Be prepared to do a bit of digging.

 

[SkidAce]

[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION] , see I find it enough to say "You want Fire Shield added to your spell list and you are playing Aganazzar the Furious Flame? Sure, go for it."

The mechanics (barring wild magic) work well enough for me.






P.S. Keep Mystic psionic!

 

[GlassJaw]

Glad this thread has gotten back on track a bit. Thanks for the replies. This is the discussion I was hoping for.

[MENTION=22103]GlassJaw[/MENTION] Pretty much any spell list you come up with for sorcerers is going to be better than the list they provide in the PHB. For instance, it's easy to imagine sorcerers as elementalists because they get lots of "fire", "water", "thunder", "lightning", and so on themed spells. But if you look deeper, there are many of nonsensical exceptions.

Why can a sorcerer invoke a wall of fire but not a fire shield?

Yeah I've noticed this as well, and it's been struggle to rebuild the spell lists because of it. As others have suggested, for my home game, I would probably allow a sorc player to essentially create their own "spell list" as long as it makes sense for the character.

Personally, I think the UA Mystic serves as a better "sorcerer concept" than the PHB Sorcerer class; there's little raison d'etre for a sorcerer in 5e (as prepped spells are no longer bound to spell slots like in 3e and earlier). Moreover, the mechanics don't fulfill the promise of the fluff. There's a mismatch there. From the PHB: One can’t study sorcery as one learns a language, any more than one can learn to live a legendary life. No one chooses sorcery; the power chooses the sorcerer... Magic is a part of every sorcerer, suffusing body, mind, and spirit with a latent power that waits to be tapped.

I totally agree about the sorcerer fluff not matching with the mechanics. Unfortunately I don't really like psionics all that much and in addition, I don't like the direction they went with the Mystic.

I'd much rather see the sorcerer re-designed than the ranger. A simpler caster class forgoing spells for special effects OR building its own "spells" from limited effects, and having some kind of built-in non-silly wild magic or potential for magical backlash if they push too hard? That would feel like a sorcerer!

Yeah this sounds awesome. I consider sorcerers to be the "mutants" (a la X-Men) of the typical fantasy D&D world, and your concept fits perfectly with that. Most mutants evolve and their powers change but at the core, their powers aren't taught. In a homebrew world I was working on, sorcerers are "infused" with energy from the Elemental Planes due to a long-ago cataclysm.

 

[Severite]

I love this idea, and I would lean towards customized lists, but I would not try to do them all at once (except first), I would probably do one at a time, as a character is being made that would use the list. I would also absolutely add those options that "every sorcerer needs" but theme it to be respective to their element. Maybe mage armor for a fire elementalist, is 11 or 12 + dex, but has a weak, and probably scaling with higher spell slots damage field. That kind of thing. A bit more work, certainly, but it knocks the ball out of the park for differentiating between a wizard, and an sorcerer for your game, and, at least in my opinion, is WAY more interesting, in general.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION] , see I find it enough to say "You want Fire Shield added to your spell list and you are playing Aganazzar the Furious Flame? Sure, go for it."

The mechanics (barring wild magic) work well enough for me.






P.S. Keep Mystic psionic!

Glad this thread has gotten back on track a bit. Thanks for the replies. This is the discussion I was hoping for.



Yeah I've noticed this as well, and it's been struggle to rebuild the spell lists because of it. As others have suggested, for my home game, I would probably allow a sorc player to essentially create their own "spell list" as long as it makes sense for the character.



I totally agree about the sorcerer fluff not matching with the mechanics. Unfortunately I don't really like psionics all that much and in addition, I don't like the direction they went with the Mystic.



Yeah this sounds awesome. I consider sorcerers to be the "mutants" (a la X-Men) of the typical fantasy D&D world, and your concept fits perfectly with that. Most mutants evolve and their powers change but at the core, their powers aren't taught. In a homebrew world I was working on, sorcerers are "infused" with energy from the Elemental Planes due to a long-ago cataclysm.

Yeah, mutants is a fair analogy.

I see a spectrum of approaches:

D&D "rote" spells <-----> Elements of Magic / Ars Magica style spell creation <-----> Powers likes the Mystic

Obviously, with the PHB sorcerer they choose to go very close to traditional D&D rote spells, using metamagic to allows slight changes. IMHO that was a mistake because metamagic doesn't sufficiently identify a sorcerer either (a) in D&D's tradition, or (b) conceptually.

It's an understandable design move because it requires less design work & uses spells which D&D players are familiar with. Also, the Mystic takes up something like 30 pages! And Elements of Magic / Ars Magic even more! It's not that I don't think it's possible to do a simple-yet-versatile sorcerer that is closer to the middle or right of that spectrum, it's just easier not to.

 

[cbwjm]

Yeah, mutants is a fair analogy.

I see a spectrum of approaches:

D&D "rote" spells <-----> Elements of Magic / Ars Magica style spell creation <-----> Powers likes the Mystic

Obviously, with the PHB sorcerer they choose to go very close to traditional D&D rote spells, using metamagic to allows slight changes. IMHO that was a mistake because metamagic doesn't sufficiently identify a sorcerer either (a) in D&D's tradition, or (b) conceptually.

It's an understandable design move because it requires less design work & uses spells which D&D players are familiar with. Also, the Mystic takes up something like 30 pages! And Elements of Magic / Ars Magic even more! It's not that I don't think it's possible to do a simple-yet-versatile sorcerer that is closer to the middle or right of that spectrum, it's just easier not to.

I've mentioned it before but the mystic, especially the wujen subclass, would pretty accurately fit the dragonlance saga style sorcerer with their access to realms of sorcery which they can use to create various effects. To me it fits far better for them than the sorcerer class.

The signature of champions.

 

[GlassJaw]

It's an understandable design move because it requires less design work & uses spells which D&D players are familiar with. Also, the Mystic takes up something like 30 pages! And Elements of Magic / Ars Magic even more! It's not that I don't think it's possible to do a simple-yet-versatile sorcerer that is closer to the middle or right of that spectrum, it's just easier not to.

The more I think about this, I wonder if the Warlock is just flat-out a better "template" for the sorcerer.

If you file off the serial numbers of the Warlock, you could easily swap in origins, metamagic, etc instead of pact, patron, and invocations. The customization allowed from the Warlock class would really fit well for the sorcerer.

I still like the concept of spell points though, primarily as a differentiation between the "arcane" casters (wizard, warlock, sorcerer). I do think mechanical differences are needed to reinforce the "fluff" of each class.

 

[Stalker0]

The more I think about this, I wonder if the Warlock is just flat-out a better "template" for the sorcerer.

If you file off the serial numbers of the Warlock, you could easily swap in origins, metamagic, etc instead of pact, patron, and invocations. The customization allowed from the Warlock class would really fit well for the sorcerer.

I still like the concept of spell points though, primarily as a differentiation between the "arcane" casters (wizard, warlock, sorcerer). I do think mechanical differences are needed to reinforce the "fluff" of each class.

I agree. I think part of the struggle is finding design space for 3 core arcane classes have made it difficult to nail each one

 

[ScuroNotte]

We play with the Sorcerer knowing the Wizard spell list and increasing the number of spells known (22). It has worked great and made a more enjoyable character.

Initially tried bonus spells but it didn't allow us enough creativity. Then we increased the number and then offered bonus spells as done for the Warlock. You can choose them or leave them.

But when we just added most of the wizards spells to the Sorcerer and increased the number known, it made it easier and less stressful to create characters that we envisioned. We also increased the number of metamagics known and offered it similar as the Warlock gains invocations.