D&D 5E Sorcerer Rebalance, Through Flexible Casting And Wizard Spells

[Infammo]

Debatable, but I think it makes sense for Sorcerers not to have access to spells with long casting times. It could be justified by saying that those spells are too intricate to spontaneously arise from in-born magical powers.

This has a bit of merit. I just looked up the available cast times for sorcerer in the handbook and elemental evil. Sorcerers have access to the following spells with long cast time.

Mending: 1 minute
Clairvoyance: 3rd, 10 minutes.
Creation: 5th, 1 minute
Teleportation circle 5th, 1 minute.

However, that does give note that a sorcerer is at capable of casting at least a few complicated ritualistic-ish spells, like the teleport circle. But for flavour, a sorcerers teleport circle could be unorthodox, outside what a wizard would consider 'proper.'.

 

[Li Shenron]

This has a bit of merit. I just looked up the available cast times for sorcerer in the handbook and elemental evil. Sorcerers have access to the following spells with long cast time.

Mending: 1 minute
Clairvoyance: 3rd, 10 minutes.
Creation: 5th, 1 minute
Teleportation circle 5th, 1 minute.

However, that does give note that a sorcerer is at capable of casting at least a few complicated ritualistic-ish spells, like the teleport circle. But for flavour, a sorcerers teleport circle could be unorthodox, outside what a wizard would consider 'proper.'.

Notice also that Sorcerers do not have ritual casting by default... which is somewhat compatible with my interpretation.

 

[Infammo]

Notice also that Sorcerers do not have ritual casting by default... which is somewhat compatible with my interpretation.

Well, yes. They basically have no need for this, as for the few spells they know, they can just cast it through force of personality and inbound power at any point, if they have the energy to spare. The ritual caster feat comes with a spellbook specifically for rituals, which is written in the feat description.

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Still, to consider options within the rebalanced flexible casting. The one reason that I wrote in the 'as many sorcery points spent as current level'. Is just because I wrote the level 1 and 2 spell economy so cheaply, that if it was not there, one could basically just load up on second level spells all day. And gain a profit through conversion. Which would be silly.

As such, do you guys think altering that so converting to 3rd, 4th and 5th level spells should be unlimited? And the limit only imposed to the obviously overly cheap 1st and 2nd slots? That way, the cheap conversion is superb for lower level sorcs. That need more spells when the wizard goes to arcane recovery. And at higher level, the slightly better economy means you can get those 3-5 levels when you need to convert. Letting you go nuts.

 

[Li Shenron]

Well, yes. They basically have no need for this, as for the few spells they know, they can just cast it through force of personality and inbound power at any point, if they have the energy to spare.

Well they don't strictly need rituals, but considering that a ritual is basically a "free daily spell" (because it doesn't cost a slot to cast it) at the cost of additional casting time, the fact that Wizards can cast some spells as rituals and Sorcerers cannot, is yet another thing that makes Wizards effectively cast more spells per day compared to Sorcerers. And yet a lot of gamers still say that Sorcerers cast more spells than Wizards

 

[Infammo]

Well they don't strictly need rituals, but considering that a ritual is basically a "free daily spell" (because it doesn't cost a slot to cast it) at the cost of additional casting time, the fact that Wizards can cast some spells as rituals and Sorcerers cannot, is yet another thing that makes Wizards effectively cast more spells per day compared to Sorcerers. And yet a lot of gamers still say that Sorcerers cast more spells than Wizards

Indeed, this was basically the entire reason for making a flexible casting economy where you actually CAN cast more spells. And get a decent amount of metamagic for sacrificing one of your medium level spells. The challenge is not breaking anything. However, in this case I have the benefit that sorcerers were quite behind in the first place. And as metamagic and sorcery points are their particular unique flavour. It made sense to enhance that.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

At this points, they should have realized that this means there is ZERO tactical superiority in the Sorcerer's not having to prepare spells, so the tactical superiority should be provided by another class feature...

Enter the spell points. This is a good idea, because they mean either metamagic (boost spell power) or extra daily slots ("more spells per day" is back).

But then something else happened... at some point during the 5e playtest a few key Wizard playtesters (some of which are known people in the industry) demanded to add what became the Arcane Recovery feature.

This would explain *a lot*. (If it represents the actual design sequence).

If you take away wizard's Arcane Recovery (and the land druid's equivalent) then sorcerers don't feel as imbalanced. They don't suddenly feel better than a wizard, but I think they are much closer to balanced that way.

 

[Li Shenron]

This would explain *a lot*. (If it represents the actual design sequence).

Well the whole design sequence is of course my own educated guess

But at least how the Arcane Recovery came to be should be true, because I remember some of those playtesters actually telling us on ENWorld.

 

[Immoralkickass]

Sorcerers should simply start with full access to all the Metamagic options.

 

[Infammo]

Well the whole design sequence is of course my own educated guess

But at least how the Arcane Recovery came to be should be true, because I remember some of those playtesters actually telling us on ENWorld.

That is really the only reason as to why there is currently a level limit in this rebalance for how many spell slots in value you can generate per day. So it will balance out against arcane recovery, and make dumping a slot or two give that extra sorcery point. Which might seem minor. But over the course of a long day adventuring. That extra slot or sorcery point you gained thanks to the economy shift, feels soooo good. - Especially when there are other spell-casters in the group.


Over all, the spell point system indeed, is a nice system for a sorcerer. But that is because the spell point system is so ridiculously superior to normal spell slots, that if you allow one caster in the group to use it, they want to use it too. Because they know it is a DMG variant rule. If it was sorcerer exclusive, it could indeed have been the game changer they deserved, especially with the terribly narrow list to pick for their 15 known spells. But as it is, letting another caster use the variant pretty much invalidates the point. Because suddenly you have a wizard with spell points overshadowing the sorcerer. Because once again, arcane recovery shifts it so the Sorcerer suddenly has less total spell potential.

It is a complicated issue, alas. Steeped in how sorcerers in 5e really needs more time in development to make them that extra bit distinct.

 

[CapnZapp]

There is something fundamentally off with 5E Sorcerers.

Most groups have only a single arcane spellcaster. Sorcerers are too inflexible to fill that role.

Also, if you don't choose the blaster role, you aren't compensated in any way (that is, if you abstain from Fireball, do you get any bonus? Such as two known spells instead of just the one? No)

This makes every Sorcerer that doesn't choose the best-in-class spells severely underpowered, and it makes every Sorcerer something that really only works in agroup that already has one more spellcaster (so the Sorcerer can focus on blasting things, and leaving all the special cases to the other guy).

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Compounding this is WotC's choice to make it not only difficult but outright impossible to cast spells not on your list. You can't even use a scroll.

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Finally, metamagic should have been something available to all (full) spellcasters. Now sorcerer is mainly the wonky underserved class that stole that fun toy.

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Sorcerers COULD have been much more atmospheric and evocative. WotC should have accepted the class wasn't ready for prime time and cut it from the PHB, and only released it once there was massively more support for the elemental themes: draconic sorcerers, blood mages, winter witches, storm lords etc...

And for the love of god, WotC, not getting the free choice of a Wizard does not a theme make!