D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[Minigiant]

The sorcerer struggles to do anything because no one agrees what it is. Splitting it into more classes won't help, because then they would still fundamentally struggle with that problem, just now its even MORE diluted and themeless.

Split up the sorcerer.
You define what the different splits parts are.
The Community then chooses what the mechanics of the splits are.

As long as the sorcerer means 3 things, one part will never win definition of the class and the mechanics are never developed.

Sorta how the bard became more base on the magic of art.

 

[Mephista]

Split up the sorcerer.
You define what the different splits parts are.
The Community then chooses what the mechanics of the splits are.

As long as the sorcerer means 3 things, one part will never win definition of the class and the mechanics are never developed.

The sorcerer isn't three things. Its three shards and half-ideas all jammed together. There's no point to a "caster but not wizard" just sitting there and taking up word count with nothing else added to it. These are not tropes in their own right. There's no class fantasy, no vibes or story behind them. At best, its its the power point system in the DMG, and the class gets wiped out from existance. And even that's reaching.

Metamagic is not a class either. Its traditionally a feats every caster has access to. The sorcerer is literally stealing the concept from everyone else and making them worse, just to give themselves something special to do. IF you take it away from sorcerer, its not going to be a class. Its going back to being a feat.

A gishy dragon class would ... end up not having anything new ever made after the dragon part is done. And, hells. Druid and barbarian might even do a dragon class better than the sorcerer does. Meanwhile.... we have at least three dwarfy themed subclasses across all classes, multiple elf / fey themed ones, the Warlock's got the fiends locked down, Fighter's got the giants... sorcerer isn't bloodline. Bloodline is spread across all classes.

Splitting up the sorcerer leaves you with nothing to build a class on.

 

[Chaosmancer]

1) yes, as in not-magical in nature or ability, not making of magic.

So, yes a fighter is mundane as in they are not magical in nature or ability and not creating magic.

2) yes, as in not-magical in nature (they're still a human like the fighter for purposes of this question), but no in the sense of the magical abilities they are learning to harness in a so-far limited way.

Okay, yes a wizard is mundane because they are human but no a wizard is not mundane because they can use magic. So... yes and no? Curious.

3) yes as in magical in nature (it's a moving statue, for Gygax's sake!) Most golems also have some sort of magical trick they can do, and the degree of resilience all golem possess is part of their magical nature, but golem punches are mundane punches (from a magically-animated stone fist, but mundane nonetheless).

Yes a Golem is mundane because it is magical in nature? Or Yes golems are mundane because their punches are mundane?

I have a larger point I'm building to, but I want to clarify why you think all three of these things are mundane. Because it sounds like you don't think Golems are actually mundane, just that their punches are non-magical.

 

[Yaarel]

Ancient dragons are obviously magical creatures. They can't exist at all without denying the laws of physics. Humans of course can do so.

I'm all for mundane developing abilities that go beyond what reality allows, but they are simply no longer mundane when that happens. I don't want high-level fighters to be dispel-able, I want them to be labeled as supernatural, because that's what they are.

I know "supernatural" is a technical term in 3e.

But for 5e, I think I prefer the term "preternatural" for an impossible effort. Its etymology literally means, "beyond nature".

By technical definition, "preternatural" effects would mean, magical but without depending on the Weave.

Hence, Martial powers and Dragon breathweapons are preternatural.


Here are some quick definitions of preternatural from various dictionaries. I feel the flavor of this term is spot on. It normally means natural yet extraordinary or inexplicable, but sometimes can still refer to magic.

preternatural

(American Heritage Dictionary)
• Surpassing what is normal or usual; extraordinary.
• Transcending the natural or material order; supernatural.

• Beyond or different from what is natural, or according to the regular course of things, but not clearly supernatural or miraculous;
• strange; inexplicable; extraordinary; uncommon; irregular; abnormal.

(Wiktionary com)
• Beyond or not conforming to what is natural or according to the regular course of things; strange.
• Synonyms: inexplicable, exceptional, extraordinary, abnormal, uncanny
• (dated) Having an existence outside of the natural world.
• Synonyms: paranormal, supernatural, unnatural

(Colins English Dictionary)
• beyond what is ordinarily found in nature; abnormal
• another word for supernatural

 

[Yaarel]

Psionic powers are weird because the power source itself is strictly nonmagical − ones own conscious soul − but some of the magical effects that it can innately manifest are spells, which antimagic can suppress. This is because magic itself is psychosensitive and correlates with the intention of a conscious soul.

This might not be official, but psionic fandom generally understands that the mind (soul) of a psionic person manifests a "personal weave" as an aura around oneself. In this sense, antimagic could suppress this personal aura − at least with regard to psionic effects that are explicitly spells.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Martial classes say "Hello".

And that is something I consider a problem with martials. Why would I want to design a mage class with the exact same thing I find frustrating about martial design?

It's pretty much Mage Hand Press' Warmage class. It's warlock level at-will damage, but with more options than EB, with some utility invocations and SR recharge damage boosters.

It's essentially a fighter with a caster skin. It's quite fun (I played one for about a year), if you like your characters straightforward, but definitely on the "less-strong" side. It's weaker than a Warlock, for sure. But so are Fighters and Rogues and Monks, and people still play them.

I don't care about it being strong or weak. I care about it suffering from the same design that makes a fighter's "super cool" ability be to swing their sword again. Maybe the Warmage you mention is better about that, but from what I was seeing of Minigiant's proposal, it was going to end up in exactly that same place.

 

[Minigiant]

The sorcerer isn't three things. Its three shards and half-ideas all jammed together. There's no point to a "caster but not wizard" just sitting there and taking up word count with nothing else added to it. These are not tropes in their own right. There's no class fantasy, no vibes or story behind them. At best, its its the power point system in the DMG, and the class gets wiped out from existance. And even that's reaching.

Metamagic is not a class either. Its traditionally a feats every caster has access to. The sorcerer is literally stealing the concept from everyone else and making them worse, just to give themselves something special to do. IF you take it away from sorcerer, its not going to be a class. Its going back to being a feat.

A gishy dragon class would ... end up not having anything new ever made after the dragon part is done. And, hells. Druid and barbarian might even do a dragon class better than the sorcerer does. Meanwhile.... we have at least three dwarfy themed subclasses across all classes, multiple elf / fey themed ones, the Warlock's got the fiends locked down, Fighter's got the giants... sorcerer isn't bloodline. Bloodline is spread across all classes.

Splitting up the sorcerer leaves you with nothing to build a class on.

There are class tropes and class fantasies for the lore written about sorcerer.

Those tropes were not explored because fans feared loss off the 3e playstyle and grognards who didn't end up playing 5e didn't want it explored.

 

[Mephista]

I know "supernatural" is a technical term in 3e.

But for 5e, I think I prefer the term "preternatural" for an impossible effort. Its etymology literally means, "beyond nature".

You do realize that "supernatural" literally means "beyond nature" too, right? Not even its etymology. Its literally the two words that make the larger word up : super (above, beyond) + nature.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Sword forms are supernatural if they teach you something that isn't mundane. Like certain Level Up combat maneuvers. Its not magic like a wizard, but it isn't mundane. There is a third category, and "supernatural" is my preferred term.

So why can't a high level swordsman have sword forms that are supernatural? You keep saying that these things "need an explanation" but... you just provided that explanation here, didn't you? They learned a technique that isn't mundane. Simple as that.

Golems and fairies are always supernatural.

Ah, I think this answers my confusion from before. I guess you just misread my third question. So, Fairies and Golems are always supernatural. They are also both player options. Fairies were released in Mordenkainen Presents, Autognomes are a type of golem from Astral Adventurers, and Warforged are a different type of golem from Eberron.

But, when I asked if Fighters or Wizards are supernatural, you said that they were mundane. And for the wizard you explicitly stated the problem. You assume that any time we are talking about a Player Character, we are talking about a human. Additionally, you assume that the humans of the worlds of DnD are NOT supernatural themselves. But... is that true?

Humans are equal to any other player character option.. and one way or another EVERY SINGLE player option is supernatural. We don't need a fighter class that specifies that this fighter is supernatural in some way, because the majority of fighters are already supernatural, they are elves, tieflings, genasi, aasimar, golems, fairies, undead ect ect ect. You keep saying that we need to justify why these characters are supernatural... but they are self-evidently supernatural and always supernatural. So, why not assume the humans of these worlds, who are their equals, are also supernatural from our perspective? After all, the game should not need to state that a Tiefling Fighter and the Human Fighter of equal level are equals, that is simply self-evidently true.

 

[Yaarel]

Put that principle in the game then, don't just assume it.

I think mundane character classes should explicitly transition to supernatural at a certain point.

Maybe it is the tier that can explicitly transition to "preternatural".

In other words, during levels 1 thru 4, and 5 thru 8, all the spells casters learn how to do are just "normal physics" − this is how the Material Plane works because the Weave is present.

However, from levels 9 thru 12, something different is happening. These individuals are starting to achieve things that "normal" people normally cant.

When at high tiers, both the casters and the martials are do things that are "impossible".