Sorcerer vs Wizard

[The Shadow]

According to the D&DNext Panel: Monsters, Magic Items, and DM Mischief, the sorcerer uses the exact same spell list as the wizard. The Tome Show around 1:06:00

I can only guess that the list given for the sorcerer was made in a hurry or was the victim of limited space since it's bloodline was rather long winded.

...Huh. There are some wizard spells that I really don't think are appropriate to the sorcerer, but oh well.

Could the playtest list have been carved down specifically for dragon heritage, since it gets so much?

EDIT: Listening to the bit you mention, I don't think it quite says that. What he said is that the sorcerer uses spells from the wizard list, which is perfectly true.

 

[tlantl]

yes and this implies that the non attack spells could be used if you wanted since they did not specifically say that sorcerers use some of the spells from the list. He goes on to say if you want to you can use the sorcerer as written to replace the wizard and take backgrounds and specialties to further refine your sorcerer cum wizard.

I don't see that there's enough evidence to say one list would preclude another. I'd probably be more likely to add some utility spells to my small list of spells if i could reliably enter combat using brute force and wearing armor.

Maybe a less martial bloodline might need to focus on attack spells while gaining real utility from their bloodline powers or be more effective in social situations the way the fey pact invocations do.


If the developers were to create separate lists of spells for each spell casting class I'd hope that there was very little in the way of overlap similar to the way it was in AD&D where each spell casting class pretty much had their own proprietary spells with a few cross class spells for utility and healing

 

[Andor]

Oh god no. What an incredible waste. I hate having 5000 pages of spell lists which are almost but not quite the same. Wizards and Wu Jens are the same class with different pajammas, they don't need different lists.

There should be an arcane list, a divine list, and a psionic list. No class gets access to every spell on the list. But Clerics and Druids both draw from the divine list and where their spells overlap, they have the same spell. Likewise sorcerers/wizards/wu jen/eldritch whatever all cast fireball rather than fireball vs sphere of incineration.

Differences in casting styles or magical traditions can lie within class features, they don't call for entire extra books full of pages of slightly altered spells.

Arcane spells, Divine prayers, Psionic disciplines, Warlock Invocations. Or if another class comes along that's genuinely different like 3.5 Binders or Bo9s Martial Manuevers or Incarnum then they can get their own lists. But even then they should be master lists which each class draws from. Not a seperate one for each class. That way lies page bloat madness.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

According to the D&DNext Panel: Monsters, Magic Items, and DM Mischief, the sorcerer uses the exact same spell list as the wizard. The Tome Show around 1:06:00

I can only guess that the list given for the sorcerer was made in a hurry or was the victim of limited space since it's bloodline was rather long winded.

Listen again. Mike (I think it was Mike that said that) says "... uses spells from the wizard list." not uses the complete list.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

Oh god no. What an incredible waste. I hate having 5000 pages of spell lists which are almost but not quite the same. Wizards and Wu Jens are the same class with different pajammas, they don't need different lists.

There should be an arcane list, a divine list, and a psionic list. No class gets access to every spell on the list. But Clerics and Druids both draw from the divine list and where their spells overlap, they have the same spell. Likewise sorcerers/wizards/wu jen/eldritch whatever all cast fireball rather than fireball vs sphere of incineration.

Differences in casting styles or magical traditions can lie within class features, they don't call for entire extra books full of pages of slightly altered spells.

Arcane spells, Divine prayers, Psionic disciplines, Warlock Invocations. Or if another class comes along that's genuinely different like 3.5 Binders or Bo9s Martial Manuevers or Incarnum then they can get their own lists. But even then they should be master lists which each class draws from. Not a seperate one for each class. That way lies page bloat madness.

It doesn't have to be those 2 absolutes

I really wish we could go back to a sphere system like 2e clerics

One big huge list of spells, all classes pull from it, and all spells have keywords, many spells have multiple keywords.

Then Sorc say they have access to spells with keywords A, B and C

And wizard has B, C and D

And then 3 years down the line Wu Jen has access to A and C.

And if somewhere in that 3 years Dragon magazine added a spell to the A list, the moment Wu Jen is published we know it can cast it without some stupid list.

I had this same problem with Fighter Bonus feats in 3.x we kept getting feats that said Special: this feat can be used as a fighter bonus. Why didn't we just make a keyword system in the first place and never give the fighter a list.

They know they are going to write splats, yet they always write the PHB as if it's the only book they'll ever print.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I don´t know if it makes sense that there are lists A-X. You still need to add words to spells. It is not so difficult to expand the List of spells each time a book is published.

Maybe later there will be classes that need spell list F, but those spells are still appropriate for a wizard.

Also I don´t believe it is bad, that a sorcerer lacks one level of spells behind. Its the same in 3e. The wizard is the arcane powerouse. He should have his advantage.

Also I think, the spell disruption rules are ok. But I still would like to see the damage mechanic back that makes wizards have a harder time casting spells if they were damaged. Right now, a fighter can run close up to make wizards life harder, but in a 1 on 1, it does not help him all that much, especially now, that the ranged attack rules only apply disadvantage to ranged WEAPON attacks. So now every spell is just jeduced to a close/melee spell. I don´t see why adding keywords would make it easier here.

 

[ppaladin123]

the wizard has better to hit rolls with his spell, and correspondingly also has high DC's for the spells that he casts on people

The dragon sorcerer gets a bump to his melee attack bonus. I am guessing there are some other sorcerer bloodlines that will instead give a bump to magic attacks and save DCs.

 

[Mezzer]

Going back to the whole spell point thing; while I'm very much on board with a spell point sorcerer, but I find myself wondering just how long it's going to take them to realize that they need to price spells in a sensible manner.

Pricing spells 1 to 1 with spell level is a very silly idea and leads to people spamming the most cost effective choice, which is often low level. The way to fix this is to have the cost have a base price included and then scale per level of spell, but you also have to cap this pool at some point before it gets out of hand.

That also limits the sorc to never being able to match the sheer casting power of a high level wizard, which is more than fine since he gets other nice things in exchange.

 

[MoonSong]

Going back to the whole spell point thing; while I'm very much on board with a spell point sorcerer, but I find myself wondering just how long it's going to take them to realize that they need to price spells in a sensible manner.

Pricing spells 1 to 1 with spell level is a very silly idea and leads to people spamming the most cost effective choice, which is often low level. The way to fix this is to have the cost have a base price included and then scale per level of spell, but you also have to cap this pool at some point before it gets out of hand.

That also limits the sorc to never being able to match the sheer casting power of a high level wizard, which is more than fine since he gets other nice things in exchange.

Hll no!!. The "other nice things" are what the sorcerer gets to be capable to stay on par with the wizard as it is, right now the sorcerer finally gets a competitive chance when compared with the wizard. On papper right now it seems as if the sor is way more powerful, but that is far from the truth. When the sorcerer and the wizard have the same spell level, the sorcerer only knows one single spell of that level, perhaps he can spam it, but the situation not always will call for it, when the sorcerer reaches the point where he can learn another spell of that level (the "plenitude level"), the wizard already knows the next level of spells and he knows more than one spell of that level.

Remember Sorcerers only know two spells of each level!!, how can you break the game with only two spells of each level and being one level behind? if anything the spell points on the sorcerer are pretty low! BECAUSE EVEN WHEN THE WIZARD HAS RAN OUT OF SLOTS HE CAN STILL CAST SPELLS AS RITUALS DIRECTLY FROM HIS SPELLBOOK!! AND THERE ARE NO LIMITS TO HOW MANY HE CAN HAVE! I don't know if the sorcerer can also ritual cast, but that doesn't seem likely and even in the remote case it happens, he still knows too little spells to make it work.

And given that, do you want to further punish the sorcerer by taking away his tactical flexibility and turn the simplest caster into a complexity nightmare? the current Level=Cost is very simple to remember and use, take away that and you get something unplayable.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

I don´t know if it makes sense that there are lists A-X. You still need to add words to spells. It is not so difficult to expand the List of spells each time a book is published.

Maybe later there will be classes that need spell list F, but those spells are still appropriate for a wizard.

Sorry I didn't mean to imply the keywords would be A B C etc... I was just feeling unimaginative.

I'm speaking like Fireball [Fire] [Damage] [Area] [Ranged] [Evocation]

Or Knock [Manipulation] [Thievery] [Exploration]



Or some better idea than that... But you might give a class access to all [Area] spells or All [Thievery] spells, and not have to worry about making a list that is outdated by the time it's published.