D&D 5E Designer apathy and sunk costs, The reason the sorcerer is doomed to uncanny valley one-trick-ponieness.

Ovinomancer said:

It's clearly a reference to the pony threat. Specifically to the undead queen of the ponies, The Nag, or, the Nagliege. Her reign, the Nagliegency, has seen the growth of the greatest power of the pony threat, what with the mainstreaming and acceptance of ponies. When the ponies make their move, though, plunging the world into fire and blood, the horrid neighing of the Nagliege will echo alongside the screams of the children.

Unless more people wake to the pony menace, our time is short and will end in horror.

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I knew there was a reason I felt the "Brony" craze was more than just a little weird. Suspicions confirmed!

Eric V said:

I guess that's how it's intended, but with sorcery points being such a limited resource, I tend to think they overestimated the impact of metamagic. Having 6 points over a day's worth of encounters hasn't made me feel too much different from a wizard with fewer spells known/prepared. :/

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Since Flexible Casting lets you cannibalize spell slots via a bonus action for more points beyond the standard 1 point/level, I can't imagine running out of points is often a problem.

Versatile spell preparation may be a wizard's boon, but in my experience, he frequently enters a long rest not having used a notable portion of his available spells and slots if not all of his tools were needed through the course of the day. A sorcerer has a more limited toolbox, but he generally can use what tools he does have with greater efficacy and less potential waste.

It's rare to want to switch spell slots to sorcery points. Considering the suggested encounters per day, you end up using metamagic less than once per fight. Nothing to make one feel special there...especially if you miss with that shot or the person immediately saves.

Eric V said:

It's rare to want to switch spell slots to sorcery points. Considering the suggested encounters per day, you end up using metamagic less than once per fight. Nothing to make one feel special there...especially if you miss with that shot or the person immediately saves.

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The idea is at high levels, you cannibalize low level slots for points and metamagic every 3rd major spell

When does that start? Because right now, at lower levels, the mechanics are very boring.

I'm still not getting this entire thread - first, the title makes no sense, but whatever. We'll let that pass.

Now, to pick your new post apart and see if I can get where you're coming from.

The original intention was. The designers refused to do anything that would invalidate the PHB archetypes,

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This is a good thing. Changing how classes work lead to the two biggest quagmires wotc has faced in their tenure with D&D - 3.5 and the 4e revised stuff. It is better to have a strong core for the class, and develop without changing the baseline.

No one wants to have a book come out in a few years - say, a PHB 2 - that makes the original classes completely different... or even slightly different. A few errata here and there are okay. A brand new rule that makes the sorcerer different than from the PHB? Not so much. Especially because most fans seem to think the sorcerer is okay - maybe not as exciting as the wizard, but okay none the less.

thus turning the chance of the storm sorcerer being a turning point for the class into yet another reason the class won't change.

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Were they trying to create a turning point for the class? Or just create a new subclass? Because I never got a vibe they were trying to make a "turning point". Compare how the storm sorcerer is presented to the new ranger (which does seem to be a "turning point" option for a future release), and you'll see what I mean.

It's just "hey, sorcerers are neat! Here's a new option! This guy was, like, hit by lightning!"

Any further attempt to improve it will have to worry about invalidating three subclasses instead of just two.

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Do new subclasses invalidate the others? How does that even work? I really don't get the logic here.

The sorcerer really has very little going for it at low levels,

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No class has anything going for it at low levels. That's why they're the low levels.

a first level sorcerer -that isn't a favored soul- has nothing to show it isn't just a poor wizard.

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Sure. And that's probably a thing. It's a hindrance that will last not much time at all. In my drop in games, characters stay at level one for one or two sessions - maybe four hours of play. So it's a gap that doesn't exist for very long, and the only time you'll see it is in the rare instance where there's both a wizard and a sorcerer in the same party... otherwise, you're competing against a hypothetical gap.

And at higher levels metamagic is too limited, just two options are too little.

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I dunno. They seem pretty potent to me - and require the player to make a choice. I like it. Means two sorcerers will have different specialties and focuses from one another. Which seems to be what you're arguing for?

Spell selection is also a problem, it is too limited,

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That's the whole point of the sorcerer! Has been since it first came out! You change that, and you're going to have a LOT of sorcerer fans throwing up their arms in rage. The limited spell selection (but the ability to cast more/stronger) is the sorcerer's whole "schtick".

Overall sorcerers make better multiclasses than single classers, and warlock/sorcerers are kind of infamous for being OP.

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Well, that's the warlock's fault there. Also, multiclassing is kind of bad anyways in 5e. Whole other argument.

I don't like the class as it is, I don't doubt it has a lot of power as a blaster, the problem is I would prefer to not being forced to blast.

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Then don't blast. I've seen non-blaster sorcerers work. In 3e, we had a wild mage sorcerer who was notorious for not being a blaster. He was pretty awesome with his utility spells. Lots of fun. And you can still do it in 5e.

Maybe it won't be uber powerful, but if you want to play the game at only the uber powerful level, and then complain when what you want to build within a class doesn't hit uber powerful levels, it's kind of skewed thinking. It'd be like me complaining that my eldritch knight, while a great fighter, just can't keep up with spellcasters.

It isn't a matter of just power, but just opting out of blasting doesn't let you do all of these wonderful things you could do with magic in previous editions (bye bye familiars,

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Take a feat for it. Familiars got moved to the warlock because it felt more thematically appropriate. If you really want a familiar... ask the GM.

rope tricks,

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Was that ever a sorcerer staple? Never in any game *I* played in.

summoned critters,

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Okay, this one was definitely a sorcerer staple in games I played. But then, summons got nerfed big time in 5e in a sense. And it's fine that they got moved over to the wizard class, who has an entire subschool built around summoning.

That is the big gap in the sorcerer, but the designers are so invested on not invalidating the books that we will never see meaningful change.

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First, it's not a big gap. It's a design choice. They WANT the class to be tight, focused, and probably violent. It works as is - maybe not the way you wish, but the class you seem to always be pining for is a wizard. Maybe you hate the term, but mechanically, that's what you're looking for. It does all the things you seem to want the sorcerer to do.

And this is frustrating because the sorcerer was completely left out of the open playtest, with no changes to help shape it like we helped with basically all other classes.

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I know nothing about the open playtest (I didn't bother), so I'll take your word for it. And I'll agree, that would be frustrating. But what would you argue for? For it to be more like the wizard?

How do you design a sorcerer that is similar to earlier verisons while still letting it have its own place... without mirroring a class already in play? I think the sorcerer in 5e is thematic, mechanically interesting, and fairly powerful. Personally, I'd prefer the wizard, but that's just me... I have a few players that are chomping at the bit to play a wild mage.

Minigiant said:

And it's weak. It's Charisma is too low to get into offensive spells ever.

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3e, ray spells use dex to hit...

Wik said:

I'm still not getting this entire thread - first, the title makes no sense, but whatever. We'll let that pass...........
How do you design a sorcerer that is similar to earlier verisons while still letting it have its own place... without mirroring a class already in play? I think the sorcerer in 5e is thematic, mechanically interesting, and fairly powerful. Personally, I'd prefer the wizard, but that's just me... I have a few players that are chomping at the bit to play a wild mage.

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[Rope Trick is a super versatile spell, not just for the obvious rest inside, it can help to hide, to climb down from high places, to spy... ] The sorcerer as it is looks too much like a wizard, but can't truly replace it. The original sorcerer could replace a wizard but looked less like it. And this is it, a good sorcerer can cover the same roles just in different ways, just not all at once, you choose a niche and fill it, the game as it is makes the generalists better than the specialists.

The current class looks too much like a wizard -without even allowing for some normality with all scales wings and mosntruous elements-, lacks some minor things -like spears- and can't access many utility spells, and this is why I can barely play a non-blaster, I can't learn the right spells anymore, they are out of reach now, and what is left is less versatile and less able to fill a niche. How many people happy with the sorcerer didn't play one before? how many fans of previous versions of the class aren't happy with it? Why only blaster players were satisfied? The class feels like designed for players who didn't like sorcerers, and since it was the only one left out of the open playtest I don't really feel satisfied with it, I feel completely left out. [Oh and the "can cast more" is a lie, arcane recovery recovers basically the same amount of slots, just all at once, and the wizard special abilites don't reduce this number. So a wizard basically can cast more than a sorcerer]

Ovinomancer said:

Ooh, I think you hit a nail on the head there, and it sparked a thought -- as a sorcerer, you get only a handful of choices, and you can only make them at level ups. Granted, that's the same (or worse) than a champion fighter, but then they're boring as well.

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That brings up an interesting point- I think (IIRC) sorcerers were basically designed with the same type of player in mind as they designed the champion for, the guy who didn't want to track all those spells and pick new ones each day but just wanted to play his character and blow stuff up. (As opposed to tracking superiority dice and picking maneuvers and stuff.) IOW, the sorcerer was originally a simplified, easy-to-use wizard for players who like spellcasting but wanted an option requiring less upkeep.

the Jester said:

That brings up an interesting point- I think (IIRC) sorcerers were basically designed with the same type of player in mind as they designed the champion for, the guy who didn't want to track all those spells and pick new ones each day but just wanted to play his character and blow stuff up. (As opposed to tracking superiority dice and picking maneuvers and stuff.) IOW, the sorcerer was originally a simplified, easy-to-use wizard for players who like spellcasting but wanted an option requiring less upkeep.

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Huh, I don't see that much at all. Sure, no memorizing a limited number of spells from a bigger list every day, but they swapped that for metamagic, wild magic surges, and still having to keep track of slots and spell effects. Not really that much simpler, really. If that was a design goal, and not doubting your recollection that it was, it missed the mark. The warlock's casting is much, much simpler in practice than the sorcerer's, even if the other fiddly bits aren't.

MoonSong(Kaiilurker) said:

This was an example with a magical thief, but it could have been almost anything.

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If you want to play a magical thief, there's an archetype for that- the arcane trickster. I get that it isn't a sorcerer archetype, which is what you're looking for, but there's a non-wizard option for you right there.

I get what you're saying. There was a pair of sorcerers in my 3e game who tried to avoid the typical blaster spells (really, any typical spells at all), but eventually they had to compromise in the name of being effective. Initially, though, one of them took mount and ventriloquism or something like that as his first level spells. So I get where you're coming from.

My solution is to be open to requests for new bloodlines. I won't necessarily accept your version of (for example) a sorcerer whose shtick is that he's a cyborg, but I may be willing to come up with one that I will accept using yours as a starting point.

That doesn't help with AL stuff, of course, but I'm not very sympathetic to your cause there. They can't just start letting people play homebrewed stuff if they want to maintain any kind of rules integrity at all. You are stuck with the official material, and that's fine IMHO. Home games are what the homebrew stuff is for.

As far as online games go, you can probably find one that suits you if you search hard enough.

Ovinomancer said:

Huh, I don't see that much at all. Sure, no memorizing a limited number of spells from a bigger list every day, but they swapped that for metamagic, wild magic surges, and still having to keep track of slots and spell effects. Not really that much simpler, really. If that was a design goal, and not doubting your recollection that it was, it missed the mark. The warlock's casting is much, much simpler in practice than the sorcerer's, even if the other fiddly bits aren't.

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Sorry, I was unclear here- I meant the original, 3e era sorcerer design.