D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[Mecheon]

That would be really cool, but also a total balancing nightmare, so I certainly understand why this is not a thing.

There's been a few attempts at it around in 3rd party stuff and it seems okay on balancing

Just, incredibly overwhelming and not new player friendly in the slightest

 

[Minigiant]

I always felt the Sorcerer should be more like playing someone from the X-Men. A Mutant.

You are born with some powers you can't control and cause problems. You find your own Prof X or Magneto in monsters or elder sorcerers who teaches you how to use your power without killing yourself or others. Then you get.

1. 1 generic sorcerer power that of a small list. This power can be boosted by pumping points or slots into it
   1. Beast Claws
   2. Elemental Control
   3. Energy Blast
   4. Regeneration
   5. Super Speed
   6. Super Strength
2. 1 or 2 themed sorcerer power based off your origin. This power can be boosted by pumping points or slots into it
   1. Draconic:: Dragon Breath and Dragon Wings
   2. Wild: Wild Blast
   3. Divine: Divine Healing
   4. Shadow: Life Drain
   5. Storm: Thunderflight and Lightning Blast
3. Access to the Weave and thus arcane spells. Every Sorcerer is Scarlet Witch by the nature of their mutation being magical

The beginning adventure I've always ran has a NPC noble family of shadow sorcerers, House Knoire. They are descended from a black dragon who absorbed too much necrotic energy in a fight. They grow wings on their 19th birthday and this is how they discover the bastards and abandoned children. Because every Knoire is a goth beauty and has secret kids.

The early quest is to find a missing girl and bring her back to Castle Knoire to be trained before she causes disaster. The party has to fight a horde of skeletons as the girl can't control her acid spells and necromancy. If they lollygag, a warlock manipulates her into going into the cave the party cleared of goblins and the have the fight acid-infused goblin zombies backed up with an evil fiendlock.

 

[FrogReaver]

One thing I hate about the sorcerer is that they stole the inborn magical talent from the wizard.

IMO. If you have to carry around a spell book then you don’t have inborn magical talent to cast spells. Or at least not the same kind of inborn magical talent that someone that casts spells by their force of will has.

 

[Corinnguard]

I always felt the Sorcerer should be more like playing someone from the X-Men. A Mutant.

You are born with some powers you can't control and cause problems. You find your own Prof X or Magneto in monsters or elder sorcerers who teaches you how to use your power without killing yourself or others. Then you get.

1. 1 generic sorcerer power that of a small list. This power can be boosted by pumping points or slots into it
   1. Beast Claws
   2. Elemental Control
   3. Energy Blast
   4. Regeneration
   5. Super Speed
   6. Super Strength
2. 1 or 2 themed sorcerer power based off your origin. This power can be boosted by pumping points or slots into it
   1. Draconic:: Dragon Breath and Dragon Wings
   2. Wild: Wild Blast
   3. Divine: Divine Healing
   4. Shadow: Life Drain
   5. Storm: Thunderflight and Lightning Blast
3. Access to the Weave and thus arcane spells. Every Sorcerer is Scarlet Witch by the nature of their mutation being magical

The beginning adventure I've always ran has a NPC noble family of shadow sorcerers, House Knoire. They are descended from a black dragon who absorbed too much necrotic energy in a fight. They grow wings on their 19th birthday and this is how they discover the bastards and abandoned children. Because every Knoire is a goth beauty and has secret kids.

The early quest is to find a missing girl and bring her back to Castle Knoire to be trained before she causes disaster. The party has to fight a horde of skeletons as the girl can't control her acid spells and necromancy. If they lollygag, a warlock manipulates her into going into the cave the party cleared of goblins and the have the fight acid-infused goblin zombies backed up with an evil fiendlock.

This is kind of what the Sorcerer Bloodlines are like in PF1, only they are spread across several levels.

Draconic Bloodline – d20PFSRD

www.d20pfsrd.com

 

[Minigiant]

This is kind of what the Sorcerer Bloodlines are like in PF1, only they are spread across several levels.

Draconic Bloodline – d20PFSRD

www.d20pfsrd.com

Yeah I don't like the spread of powers.

To me, the story of the sorcerer is that your powers are within your blood or soul. You are pulling up energy from within you and either tossing it out raw or shaping it into a spell you have personal or ancestral affinity to.

So you don't develop new powers after Tier 1 when you learn your powers. Your powers only grow. You get more spells as you level as you experience the Weave/Aether/Fade as you level.

But that generic power feels important as the ability to vomit out magic feels uniquely sorcerer

The "kid freaking out and unleashing power to go all Carrie on a building" and some elder comes to calm them down feels like a uniquely sorcerer thing.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I personally don't care either way so it's not like I have a need to defend the Wizard class... I just see what I see.

That's a lot of insistence on being unbiased in this huge biased soliloquy.

 

[Corinnguard]

Yeah I don't like the spread of powers.

To me, the story of the sorcerer is that your powers are within your blood or soul. You are pulling up energy from within you and either tossing it out raw or shaping it into a spell you have personal or ancestral affinity to.

So you don't develop new powers after Tier 1 when you learn your powers. Your powers only grow. You get more spells as you level as you experience the Weave/Aether/Fade as you level.

But that generic power feels important as the ability to vomit out magic feels uniquely sorcerer

The "kid freaking out and unleashing power to go all Carrie on a building" and some elder comes to calm them down feels like a uniquely sorcerer.

Are we talking about a more thematic selection of spells then? For instance, if you wanted to make a sorcerer like Iceman, you would be selecting spells that involve ice as they leveled up, right?

 

[MoonSong]

Well, for example, here's an excerpt from the Complete Wizard's Handbook. Reading this description, Witches seem less like Wizards and more like what we now would call a Warlock.
View attachment 354704

That kit just changes "I went to magical college" with "I learned at home with spooky youtube and magic suggar daddy still sends care packages from time to time" The witch kit still lugs a spellbook and needs it. And all witches are still geniuses( going for the higher int requirement).

 

[Minigiant]

Are we talking about a more thematic selection of spells then? For instance, if you wanted to make a sorcerer like Iceman, you would be selecting spells that involve ice as they leveled up, right?

No.

A sorcerer descended from a white dragon might know some ice spells and some dragon spells. But they'd have spells from all over based on their origin, personality, and experiences. Because the sorcery is being linked to the Weave.

The sorcerer might love music and develop a sonic spell. They might have almost died and plucked a necromancy spell out the Weave when unconscious.

But the white dragon sorcerer would literally shoot ice out their hands. Not as a spell. Their raw magic is just ice. They can just pour raw magic out their fingers and ice comes out.

 

[DEFCON 1]

That's a lot of insistence on being unbiased in this huge biased soliloquy.

If I don't say I don't care, then you'd say I obviously prefer the Wizard over Sorcerer and I'm biased. If I say I don't care, then I "doth protest too much" and thus you believe I prefer the Wizard over the Sorcerer. There's no way of convincing you otherwise. So go ahead and believe whatever you want.

If you want to believe "Wizard fanboys" are the most vocal group here on the boards, over the "Martials are getting short shrift" or "Sorcerers are being boned" groups.. that's fine. I just think anyone who thinks that is fooling themselves. But we can all believe what we want.