Venting on Sorcerer build

[I'm A Banana]

All but one of my sorcerers have had the opposite approach, why waste your magic for destructive purposes, which you can replicate just fine with weapons, when you could use it for truly fun and wonderous stuff?

Yeah, I don't really follow that logic. Cantrips almost literally can't get wasted. I could blast bolts of fire every six minutes every day, and I'm more accurate with that then I would be with a limited amount of arrows. Getting up in something's face seems reckless, and swords cost money and my blasts of fire do not. Magic is not a precious resource for a sorcerer (or for anyone else who casts cantrips, for that matter).

Changing size, enduring the elements, moving faster, creating illusions, summoning talking birds and shadowy ponies, there's just so much weird and fun stuff to do with magic to just limit yourself to one thousand ways to fry a kobold.

Meh, you really just need one cantrip that blows stuff up and that is almost always a much better choice than any piece of steel.

I've always taken the chance to make a sorcerer's spell list an extension of her personality, always taking advantage of the basic proficiencies to carry the slack in combat -and those basic proficiencies reinforced the peasant nature of the sorcerer versus the privileged detached nature of wizards. To me those profs were part of the sorcerer identity, and without them the class feels incomplete as if it lost something important.

The concept of my gnome was to make a character influenced by the nonsense of Lewis Carroll, using as many random mechanical elements as possible, and it does that quite well (someday, I will make a Wand of Wonder!). I don't feel like he's lacking anything by not being able to summon a shadow pony or use a spear. I've got PLENTY of spells to choose from, even with a second (dragon) sorcerer in the party, so we don't overlap at all really (he got Fear, I got Hypnotic Pattern, we're both in character without overlapping).

I think perhaps your view of a sorcerer's identity is too narrow, if it is not able to embrace different proficiencies without collapsing. Proficiencies don't define a character very strictly.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

The concept of my gnome was to make a character influenced by the nonsense of Lewis Carroll, using as many random mechanical elements as possible, and it does that quite well (someday, I will make a Wand of Wonder!).

Aside from wild surges, what random elements does your gnome have? I liked how the 4E chaos sorcerer had many bits of randomness to it but I haven't noticed that much random stuff in 5E. (Although I haven't scoured the books thoroughly, so I could easily have missed stuff.)

 

[MoonSong]

Yeah, I don't really follow that logic. Cantrips almost literally can't get wasted. I could blast bolts of fire every six minutes every day, and I'm more accurate with that then I would be with a limited amount of arrows. Getting up in something's face seems reckless, and swords cost money and my blasts of fire do not. Magic is not a precious resource for a sorcerer (or for anyone else who casts cantrips, for that matter).

Every spell known is a precious resource, I hate having to use them in combat. Arrows and spears do the job well enough, just because I want to feel magical doesn't mean I want to use magic for wanton destruction.

Meh, you really just need one cantrip that blows stuff up and that is almost always a much better choice than any piece of steel.

That's ten cantrips too much IMO.

The concept of my gnome was to make a character influenced by the nonsense of Lewis Carroll, using as many random mechanical elements as possible, and it does that quite well (someday, I will make a Wand of Wonder!). I don't feel like he's lacking anything by not being able to summon a shadow pony or use a spear. I've got PLENTY of spells to choose from, even with a second (dragon) sorcerer in the party, so we don't overlap at all really (he got Fear, I got Hypnotic Pattern, we're both in character without overlapping).

Well, I cut my teeth at shadow ponies and spears... I really miss them... u_u

I think perhaps your view of a sorcerer's identity is too narrow, if it is not able to embrace different proficiencies without collapsing. Proficiencies don't define a character very strictly.

I think maybe your view of the sorcerer is too narrow, if it isn't able to embrace a casting selection that is not focused at all in combat...

Aside from wild surges, what random elements does your gnome have? I liked how the 4E chaos sorcerer had many bits of randomness to it but I haven't noticed that much random stuff in 5E. (Although I haven't scoured the books thoroughly, so I could easily have missed stuff.)

Well, until the game I was in died, I had a simple system to embrace randomness. I would roll not only to see which spells would I learn or retrain, but also to randomly decide if a spell would be cast at any time I was taking an action, which spell would it be, and even when to use metamagics with it. It is fun and unpredictable.

 

[steeldragons]

This is a losing battle, gentlemen. Danger! Danger Will Robertson! Pull up! Pull up now!

 

[I'm A Banana]

Every spell known is a precious resource, I hate having to use them in combat. Arrows and spears do the job well enough, just because I want to feel magical doesn't mean I want to use magic for wanton destruction.

If I'm going to be living a dangerous life where I'm going to get into life-or-death struggles on a regular basis, I'm gonna need some way to handle that. An infinitely renewable resource that is more accurate and more damaging than any weapon is going to be a prime choice for that.

Fiction-wise, instead of learning to use a spear, I learned to blow things up with my unrestrained magical juju. It's not slacking off, it's choosing the better option.

That's ten cantrips too much IMO.

...ten? What?

Well, I cut my teeth at shadow ponies and spears... I really miss them... u_u

Fair enough, but that doesn't make my sorcerer any less awsome.

I think maybe your view of the sorcerer is too narrow, if it isn't able to embrace a casting selection that is not focused at all in combat...

Who said it wasn't? I just said my sorcerer is awesome, and now some people wanna tell me I'm wrong.

 

[famousringo]

Defining how much of a slacker the character was before s/he picked up class abilities is what character background is all about.

That being said, I agree that I would have liked to see more distance between wizard and sorcerer non-magic skill sets. But where do you go? If you give the sorcerer more social abilities, s/he's intruding on the Bard's turf. Add more martial abilities, you step on the warlock's toes.

That's one of the reasons I wish sorcerer supported a more sneaky, roguish skill set. It reinforces the independent spirit of the class, and it's the only skill path I can see where the sorcerer can differentiate from all the other full casters.

 

[neobolts]

I have not yet played a sorcerer, but am looking forward to trying it out. The wild mage stuff took me all the way back to 2e. Gonna try to tap that nostalgia. Sorcerers strike me as the "X-men" of the D&D world. One day you are just some random nobody, and bam, magic at your fingertips. A whole new world in front of you.

 

[MoonSong]

If I'm going to be living a dangerous life where I'm going to get into life-or-death struggles on a regular basis, I'm gonna need some way to handle that. An infinitely renewable resource that is more accurate and more damaging than any weapon is going to be a prime choice for that.

Fiction-wise, instead of learning to use a spear, I learned to blow things up with my unrestrained magical juju. It's not slacking off, it's choosing the better option.

But you are assuming a voluntary adventurer, not leaving room for a reluctant one more adept for everyday life or utility than for killing things. And your reasoning is metagaming to me, I prefer characters who aren't violent, and a sorcerer who is not violent is more likely to defend themself with what is at hand than train and specialize on ways to kill with magic.

...ten? What?

I just hate having to blast because they removed my weapons. Blasting feel non-magical to me, and If I'm forced to blast I'd rather play a videogame, and even that got old for me pretty fast.

Fair enough, but that doesn't make my sorcerer any less awsome.

Who said it wasn't? I just said my sorcerer is awesome, and now some people wanna tell me I'm wrong.[/QUOTE]

Ok, it is awesome, but it the implications of BWF for others are what felt wrong.

Defining how much of a slacker the character was before s/he picked up class abilities is what character background is all about.

That being said, I agree that I would have liked to see more distance between wizard and sorcerer non-magic skill sets. But where do you go? If you give the sorcerer more social abilities, s/he's intruding on the Bard's turf. Add more martial abilities, you step on the warlock's toes.

That's one of the reasons I wish sorcerer supported a more sneaky, roguish skill set. It reinforces the independent spirit of the class, and it's the only skill path I can see where the sorcerer can differentiate from all the other full casters.

Just all simple weapons would have been enough. Warlocks have armor and (as a choice) any weapon they wish on top of that -and they are more roguish-. Bards the same.

 

[Greg K]

Defining how much of a slacker the character was before s/he picked up class abilities is what character background is all about.

That being said, I agree that I would have liked to see more distance between wizard and sorcerer non-magic skill sets. But where do you go? If you give the sorcerer more social abilities, s/he's intruding on the Bard's turf. Add more martial abilities, you step on the warlock's toes.

I have no problem with them being more social even if it means intruding on the bard's turf. When I think of sorcerer type characters in media and myth, they tend to be likable and persuasive, intimidating, or both.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But you are assuming a voluntary adventurer, not leaving room for a reluctant one more adept for everyday life or utility than for killing things.

Yeah, it's not unusual to presume a voluntary adventurer in D&D. This is why Gardener and Bureaucrat aren't classes but why Fighter and Barbarian are.

And your reasoning is metagaming to me, I prefer characters who aren't violent, and a sorcerer who is not violent is more likely to defend themself with what is at hand than train and specialize on ways to kill with magic.

The world implied in D&D is a violent, dangerous world. Priests of healing don armor and wield maces and blast radiant beams of light. Academics learn how to fight with daggers and staves and master destructive universal forces. Monsters roam the darkness places between isolated towns. It's not metagaming to take that into account.

I just hate having to blast because they removed my weapons. Blasting feel non-magical to me, and If I'm forced to blast I'd rather play a videogame, and even that got old for me pretty fast.

Blasting is more effective than weapons, but there's nothing stopping you from not blasting if you don't want to and using weapons. Certainly wasn't incompatible with the feel of a Lewis Carroll-inspired wild sorcerer, but if it's incompatible with a particular idea, there's nothing that forces your hand, and bounded accuracy won't care too much about being "less effective."

Ok, it is awesome, but it the implications of BWF for others are what felt wrong.

I don't know BWF.