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

[doctorbadwolf]

Okay, I get that now. I think I was too hung up on the term research being like academic research.

Totally understandable.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If what you want is a "generic spellcaster" who is maybe at least as generic as a 5e fighter, the sorcerer certainly won't do that for you. No class really will. The Wizard is probably the closest, and they've got "bookish academic" flavor.

But that's kind of a whitebox problem. In practice, each player plays one character at a time, in a given campaign, and all the other character options that they might've/could've/hypothetically had are completely irrelevant. Rather than generic, broad, flavorless classes, all that anyone is going to care about at one point in time is the particular archetype that they are particularly playing.

There's room for more sorcerer archetypes, sure. That's not the same thing as "the current sorcerer is disappointing," though. I don't think the cleric is disappointing because there's no official 4e-style Invoker option. I don't think the paladin is disappointing because there's no official Cavalier option. I don't think the Wizard is disappointing because there's no Shadow Mage option. That's just room to grow. The 5e sorcerer includes within it the story of the 3e sorcerer, well-realized. If that's not the story you want to tell with your sorcerer, sure, but that doesn't mean the 5e sorcerer isn't delivering what it set out to deliver.

Personally, I find generic stuff boring as friiiiiiiig. I don't need an elegantly smooth wall I can paint whatever I want onto, I need a thorny, stony, inspiration-machine, with weird kinks and struts designed to tell a unique story. One thing [MENTION=697]mearls[/MENTION] has said was that he wished the fighter archetypes were less generic - I'm with him. A more generic sorcerer wouldn't appeal to me at all. Pretty sure I wouldn't be playing and enjoying this wild mage if the sorcerer was more generic.

 

[Parmandur]

If what you want is a "generic spellcaster" who is maybe at least as generic as a 5e fighter, the sorcerer certainly won't do that for you. No class really will. The Wizard is probably the closest, and they've got "bookish academic" flavor.



But that's kind of a whitebox problem. In practice, each player plays one character at a time, in a given campaign, and all the other character options that they might've/could've/hypothetically had are completely irrelevant. Rather than generic, broad, flavorless classes, all that anyone is going to care about at one point in time is the particular archetype that they are particularly playing.



There's room for more sorcerer archetypes, sure. That's not the same thing as "the current sorcerer is disappointing," though. I don't think the cleric is disappointing because there's no official 4e-style Invoker option. I don't think the paladin is disappointing because there's no official Cavalier option. I don't think the Wizard is disappointing because there's no Shadow Mage option. That's just room to grow. The 5e sorcerer includes within it the story of the 3e sorcerer, well-realized. If that's not the story you want to tell with your sorcerer, sure, but that doesn't mean the 5e sorcerer isn't delivering what it set out to deliver.



Personally, I find generic stuff boring as friiiiiiiig. I don't need an elegantly smooth wall I can paint whatever I want onto, I need a thorny, stony, inspiration-machine, with weird kinks and struts designed to tell a unique story. One thing [MENTION=697]mearls[/MENTION] has said was that he wished the fighter archetypes were less generic - I'm with him. A more generic sorcerer wouldn't appeal to me at all. Pretty sure I wouldn't be playing and enjoying this wild mage if the sorcerer was more generic.

For a more "core concept" subclass, I would like something like the Aes Sedai from the Wheel of Time novels: have magic because of magical bloodlines, but instead of themed powers, it focuses on more pseudo metamagical effects (not straight up more metamagic, but stuff that feels metamagicy).

 

[Tony Vargas]

If what you want is a "generic spellcaster" who is maybe at least as generic as a 5e fighter, the sorcerer certainly won't do that for you. No class really will. The Wizard is probably the closest, and they've got "bookish academic" flavor.

Nod. There are a lot of caster options in 5e, it's easy to assume that there's something for everyone in amongst a few dozen spell-casting sub-classes.

But that's kind of a whitebox problem. In practice, each player plays one character at a time, in a given campaign, and all the other character options that they might've/could've/hypothetically had are completely irrelevant. Rather than generic, broad, flavorless classes, all that anyone is going to care about at one point in time is the particular archetype that they are particularly playing.

Or the particular archetype they're not able to play, because all the relevant options are too hard-coded to being something else.

The fighter, as you point out, is somewhat generic, so if you're not wanting to use magic, and not wanting to rage or sneak attack, you can come up with something using the relatively generic fighter and customize it a bit with Combat Style, Backgrounds, and feats (where available). It's just as well, as there are only a handful of other non-supernatural options, of course.

There's room for more sorcerer archetypes, sure. That's not the same thing as "the current sorcerer is disappointing," though.

It is if - unlike MoonSong, for instance - you are disappointing by a lack of archetypes.

I don't think the cleric is disappointing because there's no official 4e-style Invoker option.

Considering how blasty a Cleric can be, no, I wouldn't think that, at all. Other-way-round, really, the Invoker was for anyone disappointed that the PH Cleric was only a 'secondary' controller, since down-shifting tradtional D&D Vancian Casters into just one or two roles significantly curtailed the breadth of their powers (especially considering CoDzilla had just been a thing).

The 5e sorcerer includes within it the story of the 3e sorcerer, well-realized. If that's not the story you want to tell with your sorcerer, sure, but that doesn't mean the 5e sorcerer isn't delivering what it set out to deliver.

The story of the 3e sorcerer was an innate magic-user who maybe had blood of dragons explaining his talent, or maybe not. The 5e sorcerer has a full-on Dragon-heritage Sorcerer, and a Wild Mage. So, yeah, the Dragonblood option is much more fully realized. That you could prettymuch just take your 3e sorcerer in any direction (or even no direction at all) suggested by your spell choices is not realized, however.

(Neither is the Sorcerer who spent just a bit more time training with simple weapons, for some reason - I guess because in 5e casters have cantrips so don't 'need' weapons. Meanwhile, Wizards can be Bladesingers. So that distinction of the 3e Sorcerer - more time to train with weapons because magic came naturally - is pretty well defunct, too. Mind you, I haven't heard anyone but MoonSong missing the spear-wielding part of the Sorcerer.)

Pretty sure I wouldn't be playing and enjoying this wild mage if the sorcerer was more generic.

Maybe not. Or maybe the hypothetical 'more generic' sorcerer with a more expansive spell list would let you spam some sort of scaling Nahal's Reckless Dweomer....

 

[MoonSong]

If what you want is a "generic spellcaster" who is maybe at least as generic as a 5e fighter, the sorcerer certainly won't do that for you. No class really will. The Wizard is probably the closest, and they've got "bookish academic" flavor.

But that's kind of a whitebox problem. In practice, each player plays one character at a time, in a given campaign, and all the other character options that they might've/could've/hypothetically had are completely irrelevant. Rather than generic, broad, flavorless classes, all that anyone is going to care about at one point in time is the particular archetype that they are particularly playing.

There's room for more sorcerer archetypes, sure. That's not the same thing as "the current sorcerer is disappointing," though. I don't think the cleric is disappointing because there's no official 4e-style Invoker option. I don't think the paladin is disappointing because there's no official Cavalier option. I don't think the Wizard is disappointing because there's no Shadow Mage option. That's just room to grow. The 5e sorcerer includes within it the story of the 3e sorcerer, well-realized. If that's not the story you want to tell with your sorcerer, sure, but that doesn't mean the 5e sorcerer isn't delivering what it set out to deliver.

Personally, I find generic stuff boring as friiiiiiiig. I don't need an elegantly smooth wall I can paint whatever I want onto, I need a thorny, stony, inspiration-machine, with weird kinks and struts designed to tell a unique story. One thing @mearls has said was that he wished the fighter archetypes were less generic - I'm with him. A more generic sorcerer wouldn't appeal to me at all. Pretty sure I wouldn't be playing and enjoying this wild mage if the sorcerer was more generic.

I take objection to it. The original sorcerer core story was never "mommy was a dragon". Read carefully, most people just skimmed and stopped reading right after "dragons" showed up in the text. But read carefully, the key points to the sorcerer are there:

1.- Sorcerer magic is an inborn talent, magic is a personal expression. Raw power directed by their will.
2.- Reported claims, rumours and hearsay about dragon blood. But that is just a possibility not a certainty and goes all the way from empty boasting to outright slander.
3.- Adventuring comes from a personal quest for development, and to prove themselves
4.-Slow development and refinement through personal practice, as the power is hard to control at first, but easily used as mastered.
5. Tendency to chaos over law, and to not form groups as sorcerers gain little from sharing with each other.

So what was a possible explanation became the core of the story?

And I'm not asking for a full generic spellcaster, but a generic sorcerer, one whose origin is actually a mystery instead of a certainty by virtue of no outright in-your-face evidence. Just like that reference to dragon blood memetically overshadowed everything else in the class story, the small "fine transparent scales" references memetically mutates into "hey you are basically a dragonborn." And well I would love the chance to do any magical job without being impaired by subclass choice.

 

[Hussar]

And out of combat? (because 1) combat is the most boring part of the game to me , 2) 5e combat is even more boring and a chore than ever, 3) umm well yes except in 4e I don't play blasters at all, All I'mm interested is the rest of the game and in the rest of the game I don't see any advantage only pointless limitations.)

But, if your focus is out of combat, why would you choose a sorcerer? Isn't that like playing a fighter or a barbarian and then complaining about a lack of stuff to do out of combat? Aren't sorcerers pretty heavily focused on combat, just like fighters and barbarians? If you want lots of stuff to do out of combat, why wouldn't you play a wizard? Isn't that what a wizard is for?

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Edit to add after reading a few more responses:

At some point, complaining that your square peg won't go into that round hole has to be on you, rather than the peg. Sorcerers were never really generic. They just never got that many spells known to be a "generalist" class. The "blaster" sorcerer was more or less the baseline for the class that I think most people played. ((OTOH, I so rarely ever saw a sorcerer in play that I could be way off base here. In all the years I played 3e, I think I maybe saw one sorcerer, and that's maybe))

Again, I have to go back to the idea that you're working backwards here. You're insisting on playing a sorcerer and then trying to force that square peg into the round hole of "magical thief" or "I'm made of magic" concept that you want to play.

Since the concept is the important part, why wouldn't you simply pick a class that best fits the concept, rather than sitting back and complaining that your concept doesn't fit with a specific class? "I'm made of magic" fits rather well with a Cleric of Magic. With the bonus spells known and whatnot, you're certainly more of an arcane caster than a divine one. And, it's a pretty minor thing to quibble about spell components. Good grief, is it really that big of a deal to have "holy symbol" written on your character sheet? And it's not like it's completely out of line with the concept. Casting magic requires a focus of some sort. Heck, make the holy symbol some sort of birthmark and you're gold.

Now you have a character that is "made of magic" and has all sorts of out of combat goodies.

What's the problem here? Is it simply that it doesn't have "sorcerer" on the character sheet? Are we really that hung up on class names that every class must be able to fit every concept?

 

[Helldritch]

Kryx's sorcerer is quite appealing. Yet, the removal of metamagic is something I wish he would've kept. Metamagic in the hands of wizard is something of the past and I'm glad about it.

Your sorcerer origins are really, and I mean really good. I really like the undead origin. That one was refreshing and surprising.

 

[MoonSong]

But, if your focus is out of combat, why would you choose a sorcerer? Isn't that like playing a fighter or a barbarian and then complaining about a lack of stuff to do out of combat? Aren't sorcerers pretty heavily focused on combat, just like fighters and barbarians? If you want lots of stuff to do out of combat, why wouldn't you play a wizard? Isn't that what a wizard is for?

Sorry? tell me where does it say that sorcerers are contractually bound to be warmages? I just like the idea of being a magical specialist, and traditionally sorcerers are specialists by need if not by nature. (Besides I'm lethally allergic to wizard/mu/mage flavor)

 

[Prakriti]

I have never thought of sorcerers as disappointing. Maybe they have less versatility than wizards, but they're more versatile than the Champion fighter, which some people enjoy for its simplicity. And it's not like sorcerers don't have anything going for them. They do big damage and they're supported by a lot of rich lore (richer even than wizards, who benefit from centuries of literature to build upon).

 

[Hussar]

Sorry? tell me where does it say that sorcerers are contractually bound to be warmages? I just like the idea of being a magical specialist, and traditionally sorcerers are specialists by need if not by nature. (Besides I'm lethally allergic to wizard/mu/mage flavor)

I added a fair bit in an edit above, but, just in case it gets lost in the scrum.

Sorcerers almost always were warmages though. They might go the charm route, true, but, outside of a some corner cases, that's what sorcs were. Sorcerer as utility caster is a pretty corner case niche that was not terribly well supported in any edition. And wizards were always better at it than sorcs could hope to be.

Complaining that 5e sorcerers don't do what sorcerers have never really done is a bit of a stretch no?