D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[Crimson Longinus]

I hate the sorcerer for trying to eat the psion and not even doing it well.
why should inborn magic be a thing?

I am not the biggest psion fan, but I would support replacing sorcerer with a psion. The arcane caster line-up is just too crowded, there is not enough room for thematical or mechanical distinction.

 

[TwoSix]

The trouble is, you need to complain all the way back in 3E, and complaining about this in 5E, is complaining after the horse not only bolted, but lived a long life in California, had kids, and died quietly in its sleep surrounded by family.

As soon as 3E let you just take a level in Wizard if you felt like it, any notion of "inborn talent" was gone. Period. I'm sure some people did complain but they would have needed to have kicked up a real stink. Either way - "inborn talent" is just not compatible with the 3E/5E approach to multiclassing.

Arguably, you could say dual-classing in 1E/2E already eliminated the idea of "inborn talent" for Arcane magic. Because in 1E, if you'd rolled well stats-wise, and you were bored of being a Cleric or w/e, you could say "I'm a Magic User now!".

Yea, but you can multiclass into Sorcerer too, so...

There's never been any mechanical weight to "inborn talent", it's purely a narrative gloss put onto some classes that derives from the setting cosmology. The idea of "inborn talent" was simply strong enough in fantasy fiction that the idea was commonly applied to wizards in D&D-adjacent material and sometimes official D&D material. (I would have to go back, but I think the 2E Complete Wizard's Handbook mentioned this topic.)

It's really just part of the design of your setting's cosmology, so it falls primarily in the DM's purview. I doubt there's been any official material that says one way or the other that's been published in the last 25 years. Maybe the 3E FR book or Magic of Faerun?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I am not the biggest psion fan, but I would support replacing sorcerer with a psion. The arcane caster line-up is just too crowded, there is not enough room for thematical or mechanical distinction.

Sure there is.

Just not in the kind of game 5e is. Hobbled and designed by committee, actually exciting vision for what the Sorcerer could be got strangled in the cradle by people who wanted 3e in new clothes, not anything remotely new or different.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yea, but you can multiclass into Sorcerer too, so...

Touche and yes that further debunks the whole "inborn talent" thing. Honestly, Sorcerers should never have been a class - they should just have been an alternate spellcasting regime for Wizards, but again, I said that back in 3E days, and nobody agreed with me so...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I am not the biggest psion fan, but I would support replacing sorcerer with a psion. The arcane caster line-up is just too crowded, there is not enough room for thematical or mechanical distinction.

Here here. Honestly WotC has me so broken down on Psions that I'd even accept a Psion which was just a stupid spellcaster like the rest in D&D, but that would have been the right thing to do, had 5E not fundamentally lurched into "extreme caution" mode almost at the last minute, design-wise.

 

[TwoSix]

Touche and yes that further debunks the whole "inborn talent" thing. Honestly, Sorcerers should never have been a class - they should just have been an alternate spellcasting regime for Wizards, but again, I said that back in 3E days, and nobody agreed with me so...

I don't know if MCing breaks the idea of "inborn talent"; fantasy fiction is filled with orphan boys with swords who discover their latent magical power when they're in danger or someone they care about is threatened. And MCing into sorcerer would be a decent way (not the best way, but workable) to represent that in the 3e/5e ruleset.

But if we assume that Wizards and Sorcerers both have a "gift", then those classes are just two sides of the same coin, and could probably be merged. It's a very similar paradigm to the psion/wilder divide, which IMO shouldn't have been separate classes either.

 

[billd91]

Yea, but you can multiclass into Sorcerer too, so...

Still not really an issue. Just because you didn't embrace or develop an inborn talent from the start of your career didn't mean you didn't have one.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's a very similar paradigm to the psion/wilder divide, which IMO shouldn't have been separate classes either.

Damn, I can't even remember what a Wilder was - was it one of the awful 3.XE psionic classes?

 

[billd91]

I don't think a wizard's ability to cast spells as an inborn talent has ever really been a strongly defining "thing" in D&D. I'm not really seeing it in my earlier edition rule books. And that's because it's not a rule, per se, it's a bit of unnecessary and variable lore tacked on.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

God I wish we'd actually gotten the playtest sorcerer.

Can you imagine? Becoming a living shadow as your Shadow Soul engulfs and dissolves your physical form. Or a Storm Soul literally turning you into a thunderstorm confined, shaped like a person but no more merciful for it.

But nope. It was not to be. Long as you aren't outnumbered more than three to one, anyone can take down any possible cool thing.