Sorcerer Domains

[Rossbert]

In an offshoot of a discussion of the mystic, I decided to build a new class to replace the flavor role of the sorcerer in my homebrew world.

The core mechanics are that they spell points but instead of picking spells at certain levels they gain access to something like a domain or discipline that gives 10 or so abilities and one always-on feature (may limit those a touch).

The question is, to help flesh out as many inborn spellcaster roles as necessary, what are the essential domains?

One for each elemental plane seems obvious, light, darkness, healing, charm/mind, magic, maybe dragon, combat (split into weapon and defensive?), animal, plant, healing, divination. What can we come up with?

I think some sources, like celestial or fiend may not need their own but can be expressed by picking up a proper combination eventually, such as a fiend sorcerer grabbing fire and darkness at some point, or alternately light, healing and fire for a divine soul sorcerer.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

The big selling point for a fiend (and to a lesser extent fey and celestial) sorcerer would be summoning (or maybe changing your form into a) fiend (fey or celestial). That kind of thing would be hard to do with darkness and fire domains.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Have you determined yet what and how exactly is producing these innate spellcasters? Why do they get magic but other people don't? Are they mutants? Are the descendants from magical beings that produced humanoid offspring? Did their parents live next to fonts of extreme magic (like portals or seams to the various other planes) and thus the baby was inundated with the magic upon conception through birth?

Until we know what exactly causes the creation of these innate casters, its hard to determine what you "need" as far as domains are concerned. For clerics we know what domains we need... we need one for every god in the setting that has a specific portfolio. We know what wizards need... they need a school of magic for every school that exists in the world. Warlocks nedd a patron for every extradimensional being that can grant a sliver of their power to someone they make a pact with.

Once you figure out how/why innate spellcasters come into existance in your world, that'll give you a better idea of the domains that would produce such characters.

 

[Rossbert]

The short answer to source is 'yes'

I can narrow it down more to make less work but for the purpose of thought experiment is the fewest essential domains for the widest source set.

Nonhuman blood, magical exposure, touched by the feywild, undead exposure any and all sources are on the table. Currently I am working on reengineering most the existing bloodlines to new thematic mechanics but once it is pinned down expansion shouldn't be too hard.