D&D 5E Sorcerer/Warlord - Is 5E SRD The Solution or AL The Problem?

[MoonSong]

I feel I've missed something. I am familiar with the whining about warlords, but I haven't seen much complaining about sorcerers. And WotC has already provided some extra sorcerer options - storm, favored soul, etc. What specifically is the "problem" with the sorcerer?

The little spells known, the limited spell variety, and this is more me... that all sorcerers are monstruous on some way, the strong flavor supersedes personal flavor and five flavors is too little when they are so extreme. Favored soul is fine, the biggest problem is it isn't AL legal, but evven that is a little limited. (Read the threads, they are there)

 

[DEFCON 1]

The little spells known, the limited spell variety, and this is more me... that all sorcerers are monstruous on some way, the strong flavor supersedes personal flavor and five flavors is too little when they are so extreme. Favored soul is fine, the biggest problem is it isn't AL legal, but even that is a little limited. (Read the threads, they are there)

What MoonSong said. The convos are out there if you happen upon them.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

I'd like it to be established that it is not necessarily the number of posts complaining that the sorcerer is broken that matters. Rather it should be the number of people posting such a sentiment that should be considered.

 

[Miladoon]

All classes are broken. I am sure there is a thread out there.

/facepalm

I like my sorcerer. Get off my lawn.

 

[Ath'kethin]

The little spells known, the limited spell variety, and this is more me... that all sorcerers are monstruous on some way, the strong flavor supersedes personal flavor and five flavors is too little when they are so extreme. Favored soul is fine, the biggest problem is it isn't AL legal, but evven that is a little limited. (Read the threads, they are there)

Was there a point where limitation on spells known and spell options wasn't an issue with the sorcerer? I didn't play 4e; did that edition remove that restriction?

Honestly, I don't understand the issue. The sorcerer is what it is: a primal magic user, less refined than the wizard but with its own strengths. The only change I've ever seen as making sense for the class is proficiency with simple weapons instead of just the five weapons they get RAW. They don't have much in the way of archetype options in the PHB, but then, neither did most classes, and the fact that WotC has added three more origin options since then gives them plenty more variety.

It really seems to me that the central complaint is that the sorcerer isn't a wizard, which seems like a silly gripe. 5th edition's sorcerer actually feels distinct from the wizard, rather than just being a slightly different version of one like the 3.x sorcerer did.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Was there a point where limitation on spells known and spell options wasn't an issue with the sorcerer? I didn't play 4e; did that edition remove that restriction?

In a sense. 4e dailed back versatility/power of all casters across the board, to the point that they were very nearly balanced with 4e's martial classes which it had greatly increased in versatility. The Sorcerer ended up in the same boat as most classes, that way. The Wizard was an exception, in that it remained 'Vancian' for purposes of it's daily powers. It didn't get any more of them per day than other classes, but it got two or three alternatives to choose from to fill each slot every morning.

Honestly, I don't understand the issue. The sorcerer is what it is: a primal magic user, less refined than the wizard but with its own strengths.

It really seems to me that the central complaint is that the sorcerer isn't a wizard, which seems like a silly gripe.

The gripe's I've heard is that it's too much like a wizard, but inferior or not enough like a (3.5) Sorcerer (which, though lacking day-to-day flexibility, was round-to-round versatile and powerful in it's own right).

5th edition's sorcerer actually feels distinct from the wizard, rather than just being a slightly different version of one like the 3.x sorcerer did.

Heh. They're really very similar, in that sense. In both 3.5 & 5e, the Sorcerer has no spells of it's own, sharing it's entire list with the Wizard, who has more spells, besides. The 3.5 Sorcerer got /both/ Spontaneous Casting, /and/ more slots per day than the Wizard, to make up for the wizard's greater versatility from traditional Vancian. In 5e, the Wizard gets to prepare different spells each day, and cast them Spontaneously, so the 3.5 Sorcerer's main distinction, and primary advantage, is just completely gone. The Sorcerer also gets /fewer/ slots than the Wizard, so it's secondary advantage has been reversed, as well. Relative to 3.5, the Sorcerer seems to have been utterly hosed, while the Wizard has gone further beyond the pale (it was already Tier 1) than ever.

But, there was a tertiary difference between the two classes in 3.5 - the Wizard was a little faster at using meta-magic and got free metamagic feats, while the Sorcerer was slower and couldn't use as many different forms of it, but could apply it spontaneously, which mitigated against it's fewer spells known. In 5e, it's reversed: metamagic is all but gone from the game for all other classes, and the Sorcerer gets Sorcerer Points that can apply meta-magic spontaneously. That's it's whole schtick, now. All casters have it's traditional thing, Spontaneous Casting, while traditionally Vancian ones have kept their greeter day-to-day flexibilty, which the Sorcerer still lacks, but the Sorcerer also comes out behind on daily slots as well as spells known, and only Sorcerery Points are left to make up the whole of those differences - plus, if balance had been a priority, make up for the Sorcerer having been Tier 2 to the Wizard's Tier 1, as if that were ever in the offing.

5e classes, though, are not designed to be neatly (or even messily) balanced on their mechanics, alone, but to be distinct from eachother on the basis of those mechanics. Sorcerery Points on the plus side, and lack of spells known, inability to prepare different spells each day, and fewer spell slots on the negative side, do accomplish that, in spite of the Sorcerer lacking any unique spells in it's list. So we can't really expect WotC to 'fix' the Sorcerer, since the design accomplishes all it needs to. It's up to player skill and DM intervention to give each Sorcerer the chance to 'shine' relative to any other casters in the party.

 

[MoonSong]

I'd like it to be established that it is not necessarily the number of posts complaining that the sorcerer is broken that matters. Rather it should be the number of people posting such a sentiment that should be considered.

Sorcerer was low on satisfaction on he periodic polls from Wizards. Only a little better than Ranger. I was probably the first to point it out, but not the only one. I haven't started a single sorcerer thread since I posted one on October, but we have them. They are there.

Was there a point where limitation on spells known and spell options wasn't an issue with the sorcerer? I didn't play 4e; did that edition remove that restriction?

Honestly, I don't understand the issue. The sorcerer is what it is: a primal magic user, less refined than the wizard but with its own strengths. The only change I've ever seen as making sense for the class is proficiency with simple weapons instead of just the five weapons they get RAW. They don't have much in the way of archetype options in the PHB, but then, neither did most classes, and the fact that WotC has added three more origin options since then gives them plenty more variety.

It really seems to me that the central complaint is that the sorcerer isn't a wizard, which seems like a silly gripe. 5th edition's sorcerer actually feels distinct from the wizard, rather than just being a slightly different version of one like the 3.x sorcerer did.

An 8th level sorcerer form 3.x knows more spells than a 20th level 5e sorcerer. (Twice what a 5e sorcerer of the same level knows) That is not including cantrips. Oh and a 20th level 3e sorcerer knows 34 leveled spells, more than twice its 2e counterpart. It was like going from slightly underweight to outright starving. Of course casters had to be dialed back in the transition to 5e, but why nerf the sorcerer and buff the wizard whne the wizard was the more powerful? Why make a known issue bigger and call it a day?

And the variety of effects. Sorcerers used to have some room for utility, and the spells with that utility in their class list. Now they don't have the room to spare and neither the effects. The designers basically took the skinny kid in the playground and told them "You need to lose weight right now you pig!" while giving all of their candy to the rich fat kid that didn't need it. And when the starving kid asks for some nourishment, everybody calls back "be reasonable, you are lucky we let you be alive, so shut up."

And of course I don't want a wizard; I want the sorcerer to play more like a sorcerer. In 3.x the wizard was a toolbox and the sorcerer a customizable tool, now a days the wzard is a better toolbox and the sorcerer is a hammer. I don't want a hammer, I want the full kit so I can build something different each time.

 

[Tony Vargas]

An 8th level sorcerer form 3.x knows more spells than a 20th level 5e sorcerer. (Twice what a 5e sorcerer of the same level knows) That is not including cantrips. Oh and a 20th level 3e sorcerer knows 34 leveled spells, more than twice its 2e counterpart. Why nerf the sorcerer and buff the wizard whne the wizard was the more powerful? Why make a known issue bigger and call it a day?

As I've pointed out before, there are Sorcery Points. While Spontaneous Casting was given to everybody, Meta-magic is now the Sorcerer's toy. And, the Sorcerer being good at meta-magic does make some sense, and mitigates some of the disadvantages of having so very few known spells.

Of course casters had to be dialed back in the transition to 5e,

Ya hear this a lot. Without a "from 3.5" qualifier, it's wildly inaccurate. Even with it, I'm not so sure it's all that clear, significant, or across-the-board a 'dialing back.'

It was like going from slightly underweight to outright starving. The designers basically took the skinny kid in the playground and told them "You need to lose weight right now you pig!" while giving all of their candy to the rich fat kid that didn't need it. And when the starving kid asks for some nourishment, everybody calls back "be reasonable, you are lucky we let you be alive, so shut up."

What a colorful and politically incorrect simile. Accurate, though.

And of course I don't want a wizard; I want the sorcerer to play more like a sorcerer. In 3.x the wizard was a toolbox and the sorcerer a customizable tool, now a days the wzard is a better toolbox and the sorcerer is a hammer. I don't want a hammer, I want the full kit so I can build something different each time.

The key to the almost-balance between the 3.5 Sorcerer & Wizard was that they were each very flexible, but along different time scales. A Sorcerer could choose the spells he could cast at chargen & level up, while the Wizard could change his selection daily. But, the Sorcerer could determine which of those spells he'd use his limited slots/day to cast on the fly, while the wizard had to determine how many times he'd be able to use each spell in advance - and, for every spell he wanted to cast a second time, he had to reduce the number of different spells he could cast by one. The Sorcerer /also/ got more spells/day. Yet, even so, the conventional wisdom was that the Sorcerer didn't measure up.

5e took the encounter-devestating round-to-round flexibility of the 3.5 Sorcerer and /combined/ it with the campaign-devestating day-to-day flexibility of the 3.5 Wizard, and, for good measure, the at-will attacks both enjoyed in 4e, to create the neo-Vancian casting system that more than half the sub-classes in the game use. To add insult to injury, throwing a rock in melee is more heavily limited in 5e than casting a spell.

And of course I don't want a wizard; I want the sorcerer to play more like a sorcerer. In 3.x the wizard was a toolbox and the sorcerer a customizable tool, now a days the wzard is a better toolbox and the sorcerer is a hammer. I don't want a hammer, I want the full kit so I can build something different each time.

In a way, the same thing that made the Sorcerer theoretically Tier-2 inferior to the Tier-1 Wizard in 3.5 was the same thing that made it a much better class design, better for build-to-concepts, more robustly-balanced, and not as many light-years away from magic-wielding characters in genre. Those limited number of known spells that you could add to infrequently and change little. It meant each Sorcerer could be distinct from the next, because they knew different spells, and define a theme/concept/identity by that combination of spells. Some build-to-concept optimizers created the X-men as Sorcerers, for a humorous instance.

Badly as you think the Sorcerer may have been mistreated this edition (and, hey, you might not be wrong), it does retain that strength-in-its-greatest-weakness. The 5e Sorcerer could make for some very cool characters in a very memorable campaign.

 

[jodyjohnson]

In 18 months of running AL at a local store I've never had anyone wanting to make a character they wanted to take to a Con. If they wanted to grind a character that's Con legal they can do that at home or online and be "official".

No one bothers with log sheets, they just want to play.

That said, I think if a company with 'licensee' grade cred released a book of class options that I'd be very likely to except that at our 'unofficial' table. Kobold Press, Green Ronin, Sasquatch, Monte Cook Games, and even Paizo could do a class book with enough cred to be allowed at a lot of tables IMO. But it would probably need to be something in print (probably Kickstarted for the print run).

I strongly doubt anything less then a WotC version with legal AL status will satisfy the vocal minority. And I'd bet that WotC will 'get it wrong' for a big chunk of the target group because of expectations.

 

[MoonSong]

In 18 months of running AL at a local store I've never had anyone wanting to make a character they wanted to take to a Con. If they wanted to grind a character that's Con legal they can do that at home or online and be "official".

No one bothers with log sheets, they just want to play.

That said, I think if a company with 'licensee' grade cred released a book of class options that I'd be very likely to except that at our 'unofficial' table. Kobold Press, Green Ronin, Sasquatch, Monte Cook Games, and even Paizo could do a class book with enough cred to be allowed at a lot of tables IMO. But it would probably need to be something in print (probably Kickstarted for the print run).

I strongly doubt anything less then a WotC version with legal AL status will satisfy the vocal minority. And I'd bet that WotC will 'get it wrong' for a big chunk of the target group because of expectations.

Well, an official perpetual AL-legal fix would be a dream come true, and of course at this point I don't even hope it could happen. A widespread and accepted variant that fixed the sorcerer for me would be ideal, though I'm not holding my breath. Widespread awareness of the sorcerer needing to be fixed would satisfy me, at least that way DMs would be more open to bend the rules here and there.

All I want is some sympathy, some recognition this is an actual issue and not just an excuse to munchkinise, some actual support instead of patronizing simulations. That is all I need, not endless "what you want is a wizard" responses, not "you are playing it wrong", not "sorcerers never did that", not "you are being conflictive for the sake of being conflictive", not "if you don't like it homebrew/houserule it".