D&D 5E Sorcerer vs. Wizard: Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better?

[Mercule]

Some things folks have said, here, make me wonder if the Warlock wouldn't make a better sorcerer than the Sorcerer does. The defining trait of sorcerer seems to be "an inch wide and a mile deep", which is more what the Warlock does. Add "dragon blood" and "wild magic" as patrons, and you're good to go.

 

[Mephista]

There's not really an answer for me in those polls.

The Dragon Sorcerer is very much like the Wizard. By design, by intent, and so on. And, to be honest, that's kind of the point. Feedback from the playtests indicated that people wanted the dragon sorcerer to be closer to its 3e incarnation than something new. And so, that's exactly what we got. A dragon sorcerer that functioned much like a wizard. Yes, it has the metamagic, and that plays differently than the spellbook. But there's a lot in common. Kind of the point.

The real shame with the Sorcerer, in the core book, is that we effectively have just one functional subclass for a large number of players. Wild Magic, for all the fun some have with it, doesn't appeal to a wide variety of people, and the spell support (more spells with random effects, please!) for it is low. So, we effectively have to deal with just the purposely-designed-like-the-wizard Dragon Sorcerer

Now, we are looking at the Favored Soul and the Storm Origins. Completely new spells known to vitalize a wizardly spell list. The former plays wildly, insanely different from a Wizard, even an Eldritch Knight. Haven't played the latter, but there's a lot new there as well, a highly mobile class, enough to firmly register the Dragon Origin for fire powers only in my mind. When I start considering how a Spirit Shaman (another sorcerer-like class) might work, I'm left with even more vast differences from the Wizard - that'll play like the Druid!

So, after all this, what does that make the Sorcerer? Absent the Wizard-like Dragon Origin, the core class feels like.... a power-point driven, internally powered Psion. I've personally come to the conclusion that the 5e sorcerer is actually a renamed Psion with all these other subclasses as variations to make them feel more wizardly, clerical, or druidic. All we need is an INT based Origin, some crystals, and appropriate spells which seem to be standard now.

Once we get the Shaman, official Favored Soul, official Storm, and Celestial (4e), I'm betting we'll see an Ice style sorcerer, as well as a psionic Telepath, psionic Telekinetic, etc*. All told, this overview will make the Sorcerer look vastly different from the Wizard, with far different considerations and spell selection. It only looks wizardly now because of Dragon being so prominant in the core. That's going to change pretty quick from here on out, I imagine. Everything that made a Psion different from a Wizard is the same difference for the Sorcerer, just with a different name.





* Yes, I know there's more than two for psionic disciplines. I think that we're likely to get some old ones merged, but definitely more than one focus. Assuming the psion doesn't get its own class.

 

[famousringo]

Some things folks have said, here, make me wonder if the Warlock wouldn't make a better sorcerer than the Sorcerer does. The defining trait of sorcerer seems to be "an inch wide and a mile deep", which is more what the Warlock does. Add "dragon blood" and "wild magic" as patrons, and you're good to go.

The warlock is actually a little more versatile than the sorcerer. Same number of spells known, but with generally better support for martial combat, availability of ritual magic, and all the exploration advantage of an invisible familiar (though not all at once). Invocations add a bunch more

But the real strength of warlock versus sorcerer and wizard is in sustained damage output. The warlock's novas are less powerful than the sorcerer and less flexible than the wizards, but no other caster can match the slot-free DPR.

But don't underestimate the nova power of sorcerer. Twinning or Heightening something like a Disintegrate or a Dominate spell is a big deal. At least until the sorcery points run out.

 

[TwoSix]

But the real strength of warlock versus sorcerer and wizard is in sustained damage output. The warlock's novas are less powerful than the sorcerer and less flexible than the wizards, but no other caster can match the slot-free DPR.

But don't underestimate the nova power of sorcerer. Twinning or Heightening something like a Disintegrate or a Dominate spell is a big deal. At least until the sorcery points run out.

Which is why Sorlock is considered such a strong build, it's the best of both.

 

[Minigiant]

The real distinction of the sorcerer and wizard is seen when the obstacles have different levels of importance to the others.

No one handles a big problem better than a sorcerer.
No one smooths out the small things or creates options like a wizard.

The line dulls when a wizard player plays like a sorcerer or a sorcerer player tries to fake being a wizard. That's where disappointment resides. Don't mix up Bruce Banner for Tony Stark and vice versa.

 

[Celtavian]

The sorcerer needed bonus spells for all the archetypes. Should have been included in the core book. Glad the new archetypes are including Bonus Spells. Sorcerer spells known is way too low.

The sorcerer nova is just ok, not great. With the rule you can't cast anything but a cantrip when casting a Bonus Action spell limiting the ability to nova with Quicken Spell, you have only Twinned Spell, which means two targets at most for a single target attack spell. They must be different targets. The spell nova is marginally better than what the wizard can do unless using the Sorlock option.

The only purpose I see for a sorcerer at the moment is an extremely focused blaster. That is too limited to fill the roll of the wizard. Sorcerer I feel competes with the damage dealers. To compete with the wizard, you would need to make a focused buffer. Then you're lacking elsewhere. It's a very limited class that doesn't provide enough advantages to make it comparable to the wizard.

The warlock has its own problems. The biggest one being a caster can eliminate all his spells at higher level without blowing many of his slots. Dispel Magic and Counterspell against a warlock can be devastating. A higher level caster can expend the resources to counter them without breaking a sweat.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I don't think sorcerors were ever unique - they were a class that centred around mechanics rather than around being anything interesting. The bloodline stuff always felt sort of tacked on to provide justification rather than being an integral part of them.

Now in 5e, we've randomly added metamagic to try to justify them. And that sort of sucks, because now metamagic is a sorceror schtick and no one else can have it. And once again it feels tacked on: yet another random element in the 'what is a sorceror' bundle.

I agree with whomever suggested that sorcerors should be warlock subclasses. A selection of dragon, chaos and divine themed invocations would let you be more or less of your bloodline all of the time and give some real diversity.

And hopefully we'd end up with some options other than warlocks that hex and shoot eldritch blasts.

 

[DaveDash]

I have a low level Sorcerer in my game, and I have play tested a high level Sorcerer.

One of the games I run also has a Wizard all the way up to level 16 now.

My conclusion is they are nothing alike. The Sorcerer starts off very slowly and is actually very limited in what they can do at low levels and at high levels, but they can dish out quite a bit of damage later on (still, it doesn't really compare to a Paladin or Fighter). Before the release of the Princes Players Companion, the Sorcerer also was basically limited to fire spells. Good luck against fire resistant/immune creatures.

The Wizard on the other hand is far more useful, especially at the lower levels, and can generally do more. There's been so many times in my game with the Sorcerer were I have thought "Gee, I wish we had a Wizard instead".
The Sorcerer however is more of a "I don't want to think too much, and just cast blasty spells around" kind of class.

I would be very hesitant in increasing the versatility of the Sorcerer, I'd rather that the Sorcerer got access to more metamagic feats by default, and got better damage boosts. Their higher level spells should be some of the most potent damage sources in the game, since they're so limited, but right now they are not (SorLock excluded).

 

[PnPgamer]

To me, sorcerer has been a disappointment. I played a wild one in lost mines of phandelver, and in hindsight a wizard could have done things better. Some, if not all, of the sorcerer metamagics are too niche, and while they may create/recover more spell slots the wizard outshines them by rituals and other class abilities.

 

[Minigiant]

People forget that the sorcerer also gets the Charm/Dominate X line of spells and the friends cantrip. With metamagic, that can get wacky. 2 hour charms? subtle dominates? I can deal with twinned charm persons for 1 point. I quickly realized why sorcerers only start with 2 of them.

I straight up banned wild mages from taking those spells while I DM. Just no. Power charmers are dangerous.