D&D 5E Is the major thing that's disappointing about Sorcerers is the lack of sorcery point options?

[Jago]

But it's not what defines the class.

But it does help. As an example, if we took all the features of the Cleric, and gave them the Wizard Spell List, then they're not really a Cleric. Without access to things like Bless and Divine Favor and Healing, we now have a different class feel, so their spell choice is important.

The same as if we took a Cleric and their own Spell List ... but prepared nothing but combat spells (as they technically "know" every spell on their list). That alone, with the same spell list, is a different type of Cleric than one who takes all healing and support spells. These two characters, even without their Class Features, are predefining their themes and roles. They feel different. The fact that they have this choice is a defining element of the Cleric (Do you want to be a Healer, or a Crusader?)

Spell choice and selection is a huge way to define "I who does what", just as much as Class Features were. If we took the Sorcerer's Font of Magic and Metamagic and all that and gave them the Druid Spell List, that, to me, is not a Sorcerer, It's some type of ... like, Dryad-creature or a living spirit of Nature. Rather than one who communes with and becomes a Force of Nature through forming a deep connection, this strikes me as someone literally touched by the very soul of the land to be its chosen in some way, or someone who is like the reincarnation of an ancient forest spirit, something like that.

Very cool flavor for a Sorcerer ... but not a Sorcerer. Spell Selection and Spells Known do define the way you play a class, by their very nature they have to because it changes your options and abilities.

I feel it's much the same way that a Fighter is going to be defined by whether she grabs the Bow or the Greatsword, or the Rogue is going to be seen differently if they take Acrobatics, Intimidate, and Knowledge History as opposed to Stealth, Deception, and Sleight of Hand. Though the same class, these are different approaches. The Sorcerer should have the same leeway to grab different spells and define whether they are a Greatsword Sorcerer or a Bow Sorcerer (obviously not using the weapons, just using the metaphor).

As it stands, again compounding the limited spells known and limited spell list, a Sorcerer just does not feel like it has the freedom to make meaningful choices to set it apart from other Sorcerers.

Spells Known does define a Class: Druid who uses the Wizard Spell List is not a Druid, and a Sorcerer who does not have access to some of the more impressive Arcane displays that a Wizard has feels gimped in some way.

 

[Yunru]

You don't play the class, you play the individual character.

The class doesn't define the character, it defines what the character can do.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The class doesn't define the character, it defines what the character can do.

And what a character can do - for instance, what spells it can use, especially so the less flexibility it has in changing that list - is character-defining.

Which is right back to what Moonsong said in the first place. ;P

 

[MoonSong]

Part of it could be a specialist vs generalist issue. The Sorcerer picks spells known and doesn't much change them, so what it can do is much more defined and less flexible than a prepped caster. That greater flexibility is supposedly 'paid for' by the generalist, somehow. That a wizard designed as a 'magical thief' could pick up an enemy's spellbook full of fire spells, and be burninate'n with the best of 'em the next day mitigates against it being a better 'magical thief' than the locked-in-spells-known Sorcerer (or Bard, who, like the AT, would also probably make a better 'magical thief' than either a Sorcerer or Wizard, so I'm really left wondering why that particular example...).

The point is, they didn't pay for that greater flexibility. The generalist just overshadows the specialist on every way by doing way more and then some, it doesn't matter if as a sorcerer I can spend all of my resources into hasting two people when the wizard can just cast Evard's tentacles and shut down the encounter.

Is 5e really different enough from 2e to make that worthwhile? I can get running back to 3.5 for the Sorcerer (even though it was Tier 2 - you might find a game without any Wizards or CoDzillas to overshadow you), or 4e for the Warlord.

But 2e? 5e has everything 2e has - except THAC0.

Specialty priests, tons of content you don't need to adapt... If 2e had sorcerers and warlords I wouldn't play anything else.

Part of it is no 'named' spells, right?

Melfs Minute Meteors...

People who liked to complain about 3e just to complain made much of the sorcerer and wizard sharing essentially the same list (but for a couple of spells that affected preparation, which the sorcerer didn't do). They're distinct magic systems made them different enough, though.

I bet these were wizard players that didn't want a lowly sorcerer to be equal to them.

That's not the case in 5e, so I guess they felt the need to use lists to differentiate them. Thing is, the Sorcerer list has no unique spells, at all...

Yes, and neither has the best spells or even something as simple as a familiar.

 

[Yunru]

And what a character can do - for instance, what spells it can use, especially so the less flexibility it has in changing that list - is character-defining.

Which is right back to what Moonsong said in the first place. ;P

Really? My character's a head-strong lass with a taste for adventure and a berserk button if you mention her height. She enjoys rubbing it in her opponents faces just how much they misjudged her if and when they do, yet is not above using her size to manipulaye others.

None of that's dependent on spell choice or even class.

 

[Imaro]

I'm curious... wasn't the 4e sorcerer a blaster (striker) type? What was it's class utility breadth like? Did it have a wide variety of spells? Were you able to make a thief-sorcerer type?

I honestly don't know much about the details of the 4e sorcerer but is that where the 5e version of the sorcerer is perhaps pulling from for inspiration/feel as opposed to the 3e version?

 

[Jago]

Really? My character's a head-strong lass with a taste for adventure and a berserk button if you mention her height. She enjoys rubbing it in her opponents faces just how much they misjudged her if and when they do, yet is not above using her size to manipulaye others.

None of that's dependent on spell choice or even class.

But that's all Character Personality. It doesn't define how she expresses her berserk button, or how she rubs her superiority in the face of those who underestimated her.

Does she do so with Barbarian Rage? Magical Acumen? Subtlety and trickery? Holy Wrath?

All 4 of those flavor a lot of those character's definition if her "berserk button" is more "I set people's clothes on fire with my mind" than "I grab the nearest sharp implement and threaten to imbed it in every skull I see."

Those definitions come from Class, and for spellcasters it goes further into Spell Choice: if she's a caster with all evocation spells, that anger can be expressed very differently than if she had all Illusion spells.

 

[Yunru]

I'm curious... wasn't the 4e sorcerer a blaster (striker) type? What was it's class utility breadth like? Did it have a wide variety of spells? Were you able to make a thief-sorcerer type?

I honestly don't know much about the details of the 4e sorcerer but is that where the 5e version of the sorcerer is perhaps pulling from for inspiration/feel as opposed to the 3e version?

Most definitely. But even then the Sorcerer had more options than now. I loved my rebreather. So much maths.

 

[Yunru]

But that's all Character Personality. It doesn't define how she expresses her berserk button, or how she rubs her superiority in the face of those who underestimated her.

Does she do so with Barbarian Rage? Magical Acumen? Subtlety and trickery? Holy Wrath?

All 4 of those flavor a lot of those character's definition if her "berserk button" is more "I set people's clothes on fire with my mind" than "I grab the nearest sharp implement and threaten to imbed it in every skull I see."

Those definitions come from Class, and for spellcasters it goes further into Spell Choice: if she's a caster with all evocation spells, that anger can be expressed very differently than if she had all Illusion spells.

And yet those merely define, as you point out, how she actualises her character.

As a Barbarian she would smash their faces into the dirt.
As a Spellcaster she'd... who am I kidding, she'd cast Hold Person and then do the same thing. She's very smashy.

But she could be smashy, stabby, tricky, or fiery. In the end they'd all be her, the same character just with a different toolset.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm curious... wasn't the 4e sorcerer a blaster (striker) type?

Yes. A little more small-AE than most other strikers.

What was it's class utility breadth like?

No.

Did it have a wide variety of spells?

250

Were you able to make a thief-sorcerer type?

You could've come up with a Sorcerer build that had some traditionally thiefy ability, sure, but not in the sense of extensively using spells to do so. Magic didn't as readily/wholly supplant skills in 4e.

I honestly don't know much about the details of the 4e sorcerer

It did not bear much resemblance to the 3e Sorcerer, apart from the 'bloodline' fluff, because, as in 5e, the Vancian/Spontaneous distinction was just gone (the Wizard was still a bit Vancian, but there was nothing like Spontaneous casting, at all). The 3e Sorcerer and Fighter were remarkable in that they weren't locked in to a concept, function or set of abilities the way D&D classes tended to be, they were simple, even elegant designs, that were highly customizeable at chargen & level-up - the Fighter by feat choice, the Sorcerer by spells known - but not as flexible in play, so that customization was more character-defining. In 4e, that distinction was lost, because all classes faced such defining choices at chargen/level-up (though not the same dizzying range of choices at each point).

but is that where the 5e version of the sorcerer is perhaps pulling from for inspiration/feel as opposed to the 3e version?

4e & 5e both drew what they could from the original Sorcerer - the draconic bit, and bloodlines, the fluff of 'innate' magic - while losing what made it most distinctive: Spontaneous Casting and more spells/day than a prepped caster of the same level.

Hitching 'Wild Magic' to the Sorcerer rather than the Wizard (it was, perhaps ironically, a school in 2e, IIRC) may have been a 4e thing, I don't recall it from 3e, but I could be wrong.

Most definitely. But even then the Sorcerer had more options than now.

In the PH2, it started with a Dragon and Wild build, so that's a similarity.

Really?

Yes.

My character's a head-strong lass with a taste for adventure and a berserk button if you mention her height. She enjoys rubbing it in her opponents faces just how much they misjudged her if and when they do, yet is not above using her size to manipulaye others.

None of that's dependent on spell choice or even class.

That mechanically-supported abilities are character-defining does not require that they be the only things that can be character defining. (And good luck with any defining RP concept if no mechanics bear it out.)

The point is, they didn't pay for that greater flexibility.

I did not miss that.

Specialty priests, tons of content you don't need to adapt...

With Druids, Clerics, Domains and Backgrounds, you have quite a range of priest concepts covered. I have't found adapting pre-3.0 material to 5e in the least difficult.

If 2e had sorcerers and warlords I wouldn't play anything else.

I have an AD&D version of the Warlord around somewhere...

Edit: here it is: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ior-editions&p=6729990&viewfull=1#post6729990

...and porting the Sorcerer's spontaneous casting into 2e wouldn't be hard....

I bet these were wizard players that didn't want a lowly sorcerer to be equal to them.

IDK, exactly, every edition attracts its naysayers.