D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[Yaarel]

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.

A dogs sense of smell is "preternatural" without being supernatural.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Why?

Because if I asked any boxer from Earth to punch through a steel plate they'd laugh me out of the room.

Again, you seem to define mundane as their power source/origin. I define mundane based on the effect. Whether it is gene-modding, esper abilities, cybernetics, or magic once you can do something a normal earthling from this dimension can no longer do... you are achieving the supernatural.

 

[Mephista]

A dogs sense of smell is "preternatural" without being supernatural.

But you're using preternatural to refer to the beyond-what-Earth-science stuff. Dog sense of smell is entirely natural to them. Maybe its preternatural on a human, but I don't get the impression that's what you're using the term for.

 

[Yaarel]

But you're using preternatural to refer to the beyond-what-Earth-science stuff. Dog sense of smell is entirely natural to them. Maybe its preternatural on a human, but I don't get the impression that's what you're using the term for.

But that is the point.

Animal senses are called "preternatural" when astonishing, including the olfaction of a canine.

In the D&D multiverse: a Fighter is doing what is inherently natural. Despite this being overtly magical. The magic itself is natural.

Therefore, preternatural feels more accurate than supernatural.

Supernatural connotes interfering with nature or fully overriding nature.

Preternatural is still being nature − albeit "uncanny".

 

[Shadowedeyes]

A lot of this is veering into the tangential for the sorcerer I think. The big problem is defining what the sorcerer is supposed to be doing. 3e's sorcerer was to allow concepts that the wizard was ill equipped to portray, which honestly is a lot, with a fairly different casting system. 4e made it all about innate magic somehow imbued into the character (Dragon Bloodline, Wild Magic, Mystical Storm Energy, etc). 5e tries to do both, but not very well, with a dash of metamagic. If you want to keep the sorcerer as a separate class, it needs to figure out what it's doing. Whatever that is, it's definitely supernatural however.

 

[Maxperson]

That's...that's what I said though. To such folks, transcending the limits means you've ceased to be mundane. You are now supernatural. Period. Whatever you were before, you're supernatural now.

That's something I reject. I think someone can still be mundane--still only be using the tools and skills and such that a healthy, dedicated person could learn naturally--but have achieved a degree of skill with those things that surpasses what limits our feeble understanding projects onto them. "There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

So they should surpass what we understand are the limits of natural, but not be supernatural? Just sort of more than natural, but less than supernatural?

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

Actually, the wizard is the one with no tropes of their own, other than being scholarly. Sorcerers are the bread and butter of all fantasy mages across literature and media. They are the story of uncontrollable power, of inborn power, or cursed power.

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.

And traditionally the sorcerer's ability was their flexible, non-vancian casting. Something that was stolen by literally every other caster in the game, leaving them without their traditional abilities. So, they were given something to compensate them for that loss. So yes, if you take away all of the sorcerer mechanics, the sorcerer has no mechanics. Take away the wizard's spellbook, create an arcane spell list instead of a wizard spell list, and the wizard would no longer be a class, just a ritual caster feat.

Your point is true, just like saying that if you kill someone they are no longer alive. That is correct, but doesn't exactly prove anything.

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

This at least we agree on.

 

[Maxperson]

If I had a nickel for every time Crawford has supported my arguments, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice.

Right?!

 

[Maxperson]

Again, the game doesn't say magic facilitates anything a martial does. You can't just assume it so mundane characters can do non-mundane things without changing the verbage.

It says that the background magic is part of the in-fiction physics, which means that it's possible for a fighter to access that "magical" physics through mundane training. It justifies some sort of supernatural strikes and abilities that can't be countered, dispelled or anti-magicked.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

I don't. Gaining a supernatural class ability doesn't in my mind transition the entire class into the supernatural. A fighter can be a mundane class, but gain the supernatural ability to swing his sword in such a way that the friction ignites the blade in flame doing 2d6 extra fire damage for the round.