Personally, I feel the same way - I would go the "new spells" route. But I know that a lot of folks are much less picky about aligning mechanics with concept, and for them a simple reskin is the obvious fix.
D&D 5E Sorcerer class improvement house rule
Salthorae
Imperial Mountain Dew Taster
There is also the route of a Homebrew metamagic that costs sorcery points rather than just full re-skinning.
Here is a one version where you select a damage type when you take the Metamagic and then spend 1 point each time you use it, so it's limited and not just a full reskinning of everything.
Li Shenron
Legend
This is kind of a nuclear option, but it will definitely get rid of all complaints. The Sorcerer would still be VERY narrow in spell selection, but the added flexibility with more metamagic uses per day would certainly make up for it. Actually, it would increase the difference between Sorcerer and Wizard, rather than decrease it (as more known spells would), so it's definitely a good idea.
Obviously, WotC would never do it, because they are not going to publish a revised Sorcerer, unless they publish a whole 5.5 edition, in which you can be sure they would boost the Wizard more than the Sorcerer like they did in 3.5.
I don't like myself using House Rules that change the core classes, but introducing a homebrew feat which grants this boost to a Sorcerer would be a good compromise, so that a player can still choose between the core Sorcerer and the boosted version, at a fairly cheap price.
snickersnax
Explorer
I think one free use of each metamagic is unnecessarily cumbersome to bookkeep.
Adding charisma bonus to sorcery points would have a similar effect without as much bookkeeping.
Another fix that I use for the sorcerer to help the class feel like it actually has "raw magic" is give every sorcerer automatic access to heightened spell.
I've rewritten heightened spell:
When you cast a spell you can spend up to 3 sorcery points to cast the spell at higher level. You cast the spell at +1 spell level per sorcery point spent.
Adding charisma bonus to sorcery points would have a similar effect without as much bookkeeping.
Another fix that I use for the sorcerer to help the class feel like it actually has "raw magic" is give every sorcerer automatic access to heightened spell.
I've rewritten heightened spell:
When you cast a spell you can spend up to 3 sorcery points to cast the spell at higher level. You cast the spell at +1 spell level per sorcery point spent.
Salthorae
Imperial Mountain Dew Taster
I reall like the Cha mod to Sorcery points, more simple mechanic.
As for Heighten spell... interesting. So it's giving you free higher spell slots at a slightly cheaper "burn" than just converting points to spell slots.
In some ways that basically overlaps that half of the Font of Magic mechanic, though not entirely Also, do you cap it to 5th level slots like Font of Magic is capped at creating slots? or do you let people upcast 6th/7th/8th level spells with that as well?
I like the idea of more metamagic options. I do 2/2/2 for each time they'd gain them, though games rarely even get to the 10th level metamagic gain, so i'm not sure I'm doing too much for most players.
snickersnax
Explorer
I let them up-cast spells of all levels using this modified heightened magic, meaning they can cast spells beyond their normal range of spell slots. So a third level sorcerer could up-cast a second level spell to 5th level with three spell points, and a 17th level sorcerer could up-cast a 9th level spell to 12th level.... RAW POWER
Because 9th level spells don't really have any up-cast options this probably has no effect except for the purposes of dispel magic and counterspell....Sword of Spirit
Legend
That works just fine, but I wanted to preserve the element of a sorcerer having more effective spell slots per day than a wizard, and did that by mostly separating Metamagic from Sorcery Points, so that (if you wanted to) you could decide to never spend Sorcery Points on Metamagic and still benefit from both features.
I'm a big fan of having a list of bonus spells to choose from at odd levels (like the warlock does) based on sorcerous origin. They flirted with that idea in a couple UA playtests, but since it wasn't implemented for the PHB subclasses I don't think it would have been balanced to give it to only new subclasses. However, I don't want to do something that complicated on my own, and unless WotC decides to put out a "Class Variants" UA with lists for all of the sorcerous origins they've published, I prefer to come up with a way of granting more spells that requires minimum word count. Hence my non-ideal, but simplified fix that is "good enough" for me and accomplishes the same thing. As DM, I would discourage players from picking spells that don't somehow fit with their origin.
I see what you are saying, but I'm still not sure I see where you are coming from in your overall framework. I'll explain mine and we can go from there. Bear with me as I paint the whole background framework (my mind works better that way).
Sorcerer first (outside of some magazine articles or such) appeared in 3e. Thematically, they were spellcasters with inborn talent. Many of them claimed to have inherited it from dragon ancestors, but whether that was true (or true for all of them) was uncertain. (Some later feats came out that implied that they could receive their powers from a variety of lineages.)
Mechanically, they pioneered a new mechanic of knowing less spells than other casters, and not being able to change which ones they had access to each day, in exchange for not preparing spells in slots, and instead being able to cast whichever ones they wanted in whichever slots they wanted (this flexibility also applied to their usage of Metamagic feats that all casters had access to). In addition, they learned new spell levels one level later than other full casters, but they got a lot more spell slots per level.
Their spell list was almost identical to the wizard spell list. They had no spells that wizard didn't, but lost a single digit number of spells that wizards did have (1 or 2 in the PHB that sorcerer's wouldn't have been able to use even if they knew them). This point informed both thematic and mechanical identity, and was itself informed by the thematic connection with dragons. Dragons in D&D have often been connected with magical knowledge. One of those elder races that mastered spellcasting before humans were even around sort of things. The draconic language has sometimes been used as the preferred language for recording magical things. In 1e the spells that dragons could cast didn't (at least in the MM) specify what spell lists they came from. However it is mentioned that some gold dragons had spell books. In 2e, dragons clearly favored wizard spells, with some of them also casting a lesser number of priest spells. In 3e, dragons primarily cast spells from the sorcerer spell list, with the other spells they knew counting as arcane spells even if they were normally not from arcane spell lists. The connection between wizards and dragons is what created both the connection between sorcerers and dragons (or other magical creatuers--5e tended to have monsters also favor the sorcerer spell list) and the connection between wizards and sorcerers. In other words, there was a good reason the sorcerer list was essentially just the wizard list.
What you end up with for the 3e sorcerer is a inborn, nebulously origined caster that mostly works like a wizard who knows less spells but has an enormous energy battery for casting them from. They can pick from a wide variety of spells to meet any virtually any concept they want that doesn't require healing or divine elements.
I don't remember the exact details of the 4e sorcerer, since I never owned the PHB2, but if I recall correctly they were more strongly themed by origin, and were strikers rather than the (first go at) controllers that wizards were. Since they used the same AEDU structure as all the pre-Essentials classes, I expect they were no more mechanically related to wizards that any other Arcane power source class was, and I assume they had a completely unique list of spells to choose from.
So those are the two concepts that I'm familiar with. 5e, as a sequel to all of D&D taken together (rather than a sequel to the previous edition, the way other editions had been) draws from both of these sorcerer concepts, but mechanically leans much heavier on pre-4e D&D--like it does with every class (except perhaps warlock).
During the playtest, there was a completely different sort of sorcerer tested that was very strongly connected to its origin and began physically transforming as it used up its daily spells. I thought the idea of a stronger connection to the origin was interesting, but I didn't like the particular implementation, and it didn't pass the playtest. Most people wanted something more like 3e, so that's where it ended up.
Mechanically, 5e, like most editions, has certain categories of casters. Full-casters get new spell levels at the appropriate time and go all the way up to 9th level spells. Bards, clerics, druids, sorcerers, warlocks*, and wizards are your full casters in 5e.
(* Yes, warlocks. I'll address how they can function as such if built towards it on another thread if people want me to.)
With the exception of warlocks (which handle it a bit differently) a 5e innovation is that all full casters use the same table of daily spell slots. They all get exactly the same number at exactly the same time. The only changes to this come through class features. The biggest ones are that wizards and Circle of the Land druids get Arcane Recovery and Natural Recovery, respectively, which give them additional spell slots. Sorcerers get Sorcery Points, which has a related function.
In 5e, full casters (other than warlock) all cast spells like the bard and sorcerer from 3e. However they differ in whether they can prepare spells from a large list (for Neo-vancian clerics, druids, and wizards) or have a limited list of spells known (bards and sorcerers), exactly like 3e bards and sorcerers. It's important to bring up here that 5e prepared is in every way superior to 5e Known spellcasting. This is by contrast to 3e where the sorcerer's spellcasting mechanic included pros and cons that was supposed to make the spellcasting itself mostly equal. In 5e, prepared casters are just like spontaneous casters that can change which spells they have every day from a generally large list of options. I want to emphasize this point. Leaving all other considerations aside (number of spells available each day, etc), being a Known caster (with the exact same table of spell slots per day) is strictly inferior. A Known caster needs to be given features that make up for that fact by itself, when comparing their balance to other classes. You have to compare [Known caster + some extra balancing factor + the rest of their class features] to [Prepared caster + the rest of their class features].
Arcane casters in 5e (Bard, sorcerer, warlock, wizard), like in othe editions, generally get a wider variety of spells on their class spell lists than divine casters, and wizards have access to the largest class spell list in the game. Number of spells on your class list is one element of flexibility.
Clerics, and Land druids have the most spells prepared per day, because they get their level + ability mod + up to 10 more from a bonus list (total 35). Wizards are next with level + ability mod + 2 at 18th+ level (total 27). Other druids clock in at level + ability mod (total 25). Lore bards get 24, while other bards get 22. Warlock's get 19 (or more if you count at-will spellcasting invocations). Sorcerers get 15. And if you want to see the real dominance of both prepared casters, and extra "domain" spells here, the half-caster prepared spells plus domain paladins get up to 25 spells, while the half caster Known spells ranger gets 11! Paladins literally (can) have access to 66% more spells than sorcerers. This number of prepared spells per day is another element of flexibility, and it's probably even more important that the previous one (assuming you don't have a truly tiny class spell list).
In 5e, sorcerers and wizards share the majority of their spells. They share access to 181 spells. Sorcerers get precisely 8 spells that aren't on the wizard spell list, while wizards get 116 spells that aren't on the sorcerer list.
Due to the history and design of the classes, sorcerers have more in common with wizards than with any other class, so, within the broad perspective of all of the full-casters and their specifics as a framework (which I am, certainly much to the relief of anyone still reading this, not going to go into) you can take wizards as a baseline and compare sorcerer to it to see how they stack up.
I'm not going to do that in any great deal on this thread. I've done so in the past, though I would refine the details if I went over it again. What's sufficient to say for these purposes is that in order for sorcerers to retain the element of having more spell slots than anyone else (and in 5e it's barely more--and not even more at some levels), they cannot use Sorcery Points for Metamagic. As soon as they do that, all wizards and Land druids have more spell slots per day than them. That is not acceptable to me. The way some people feel about the need for sorcerers to have completely unique spell lists to be more than a wizard knock-off, I feel about sorcerers needing to have more spell slots than anyone else per day to be sorcerers at all. It's absolutely essential to their identity. Giving them Metamagic and saying "Well, you can either have barely more spell points, or you can use this Metamagic feature, but you can't have both" is not acceptable design. That's like telling a warlock, "You don't have to use invocations if you don't want to use them. Just write them down on your character sheet and forget about them." True, but useless--and it would be a horrible commentary on Invocations. (The need for some subclasses to draw on Sorcery Points is similarly loathesome, but at least it is more limited and they sometimes are mimicking (or actually casting) spells.)
So for me, a 5e sorcerer's identity is that they are innate caster themed by an origin, who shares most of their class spell list with a wizard, has less known spells than most other full casters*, but more spell slots than anyone else, and can utilize Metamagic on their spells.
* Note that my proposed house rules still actually leave them with the smallest number of known spells of all full casters.
For a specific example of the flexibility of class spell lists and known spells, and how that little rule I proposed can allow me to better represent a theme with a black draconic sorcerer (and it's hopefully clear now why it seems a little weird to me to say that a concept of a properly flexible arcanist with a black dragon theme isn't an appropriate sorcerer concept), see the next part of this post.
So can you clarify what your concept of a 5e sorcerer is, and where you are deriving it from?
Don't worry, it was a good read. Mine's going to get long too. Hopefully it will be a fun read, lol. (Ignore the snark--it is aimed at the class design, not you or any other posters.)
Basically, I mean that, due to their draconic heritage, they can create the same sorts of magical effects that black dragons could from 2e through 3.5e. That covers 19 or so years of their history, so I'd say it's a pretty strong representation of a black dragon's unique feature. These effects are: Creating Darkness, Corrupting Water, Plant Growth, Summoning Insect Plagues, and Charming Reptiles.
You may or may not be surprised that they still have these same traditional abilities in 5e (with the exception of Charming Reptiles), in the form of Lair and Regional Actions. They get two additional abilties also: controlling water and creating fog.
Also, since black dragons can breathe water naturally, getting a spell to do that seems like a good candidate.
(Being a dragonborn or a dragonlike creature isn't really part of what I'm going for.)
So these represent the sorts of things I'd like to be able to get from my heritage. In addition, I'd like to be able to get the sorts of basic abilities that the other arcane full casters can get (in 5e, this includes bard, warlock, and wizard). They shouldn't know as many spells as a wizard, but I don't think knowing as many spells as a bard is out of line (even though my suggestion actually gives them less). Enough spells to express their concept, plus enough to do the same things that every other arcanist can do.
As I go through this discussion, there is a list of Known Spells further down to follow along with.
Let's see what spells I need for the black dragon concept first.
For his acid damage, there are 3 spells that deal direct acid damage, a cantrip, a 1st level spell, and a 4th level spell. (Dragon's breath I don't really count, because it puts you in a situation you probably would rather not be in--within 15' of your targets. It's better for putting on a familiar perhaps (which you don't get)). We should be able to at least get Melf's acid arrow, but it isn't on the sorcerer spell list. (This appears to be because, despite being an appropriately elemental spell, it has a name in front of it and sorcerer's don't get named spells. They ditched that rule in XGtE, so maybe you could convince your DM to let you have it, but that would be a house rule.)
Now lets get his iconic black dragon spells. There isn't anything I can find that corrupts water, so we'll just ignore that one. Looks like we need darkness, plant growth, insect plague, and charm monster. We had to sacrifice corrupting water, But we can get fog cloud to represent a 5e ability. Control water isn't available to us, so I suppose we'll have to take the next best thing we can actually get, tidal wave. That gives us 5 out of 7. The loss of plant growth is a real annoyance, because that's highly black dragon-y.
We can go with either water breathing or alter self. I'd like to go with alter self, but it requires Concentration, so I'll go with water breathing instead. Maybe we can afford both (don't hold your breath on it!)
Now lets get some of what I call basic arcanist options: detect magic, identify, dispel magic. I also like prestidigitation and mage hand, and at least at this point it looks like we can easily afford them, so I'll do so. When we get to really high level, we (amazingly) actually have access to wish, like wizards and bards, so we'll obviously snag it.
At this point we've covered just the real rudiments and we've used up 12 of our 15 known spells.
Our damage spells are generally mediocre, we have to wait until 7th (class) level to get an area of effect, we have no Twin-able cantrip, and frankly chromatic orb doesn't really fit conceptually, but we can't take Melf's acid arrow. Sound like we're going to have to do something about that. We could say that since black dragons have a kind of death-y subtheme (skull-like head, dwell amidst rotting stuff) chill touch is a decent choice for a single target (hence Twin-able) cantrip. But that wouldn't benefit from Elemental Affinity. For effectiveness it looks like it's a bit of a toss up between getting Empower Spell and going with acid splash or using Twinned Spell with chill touch. Since acid splash is a closer fit for theme, I'm tentatively picking that. I was going to keep chill touch as an alternative damage source for things immune to acid, but then I realized infestation is more thematically appropriate (though shorter range), and has the same considerations. So infestation it is. I know it will be controversal, but I'm ditching chromatic orb, because it really doesn't feel right that I need a material component to access my acid magic. You can't talk me down from that. We don't need a million damage spells, but we need a good one at 1st level, and another at 2nd or 3rd. So I guess it's ye olde magic missile, and fireball or lightning bolt. I really don't want fire, so I'll pick lightning bolt.
That's 2 more spells for a total of 13. What I should I pick with my 2 whole choices left? Well, I'd like to be able to fill a couple more general arcanist sorts of things, I'd like be able to touch at least a couple of functional areas I don't have from the myriad of options (defense, divination, utility illusions/disguise, self-buffs, ally buffs, targeted debuffs, tactical movement, travel, higher level smackdown, etc), I'd kinda like to pick a couple spells just because they are fun, and I'd like to be able to have a spell at each spell level... Well, it looks like the last option is straight out, since I currently lack any spells at 3 spell levels. Sigh Let's make a short list of spells that are interesting for this character concept and/or effective that might fill out that stuff, and see how many of those things I can fit in 2 spells.
Spells I'd Like:
Minor Illusion (Utility Illusion cantrip)
Silent Image or Major Illusion (Utility Illusion)
Phantasmal Force (Twin-able attack plus Fun)
Blindness/Deafness (Targeted Debuff)
Levitate (Targeted Debuff and Utility)
Invisibility or Greater Invisibility (Utility or Defense plus less Utility)
Plane Shift or Etherealness (Travel, empty spell levels, FUN)
Misty Step or Dimension Door (Tactical Movement)
True Seeing (Divination, empty spell level)
Mirror Image (Defense, and non-Concentration)
Finger of Death or Disintegrate (empty spell level, Higher Level Smackdown)
Haste (Self or Ally Buff).
Let's take minor illusion, since I can afford another cantrip. I suppose I can count that as Utility Illusion, though I'd really like something higher level also. Now let's narrow these down to just one per category, and combining multiple categories where possible, to get a smaller list to choose from.
Smaller List of Spells I'd Like
Levitate (Targeted Debuff and Utility)
Misty Step (Tactical Movement)
True Seeing (Divination)
Mirror Image (Defense)
Plane Shift (empty spell level, FUN)
Haste (Self or Ally Buff)
I'm just going to give up on a higher level Utility Illusion. I'm also going to give up on the sorts of Higher Level Smackdown spell I might want, and wincingly count plane shift's built-in banishment option as kinda/sorta/partly doing that.
So...that brings me down to 6. I get 2. Let's look at the spells I already have included on the Known Spells list below, and see if there are any ghosts of redundancy between those and the spells on that list that we might be able to exorcise. ...Well, that was 5 minutes of futility I'm never going to get back... Nope, not a single one of the spells in my small list above is redundant with anything on the known list below.
Let's see if I can mutilate the Known Spells list itself to make a little more room. Darkness and fog cloud are redundant. Let's stick with the more black dragon traditional darkness. That controlling water ability is new to 5e. Let's be a ruthless grognard and remove tidal wave. Well, there's 2 more spells. I pretty much need everything else down there, unless I toss wish. But I have an Intelligence of higher than 3, so I'm going to not do that.
Now we've got room for 4 spells from that 6 spell list. So I need to lose 2 of them. I need some sort of real defense. So I lose misty step in favor of keeping mirror image. Let's look at Metamagic now and try to match my choices of Metamagic with the spells I already know, and see if that might tell me what I should take with those last 3 spells..
The only spells that I have that could be Twinned are infestation, dispel magic, and charm monster. Infestation is mostly a backup attack for when acid splash won't work, dispel magic probably won't be Twinned very often, and charm monster would be great Twinned, but I can just upcast it to affect more targets, so it's not necessary. It would work with haste or true seeing. Twinned haste is a really powerful combo, but I really don't even see this character using haste. I stuck it on the lists of spells I'd like just because it's powerful. For this character, I'd literally rather have any other spell on that first list than haste. True seeing is really situational. So I'm going to pass on Twinned Spell.
Without Twinned Spell, I really want Empower Spell to try to get acid splash worthwhile. It also works with all of my damage spells and is cheap, so Empower Spell it is.
Since mirror image is my only defensive spell, and it takes an action to cast, Quicken Spell is probably a given. I need to at least be blasting out at cantrip while I'm otherwise standing around turning on my defense in the first round.
I like Subtle Spell, because black dragons are stealthy. I can't pair it with counterspell, because I don't have it, because I can't afford both dispel magic and counterspell, and dispel magic is more versatile. So this is for concept. It will be useful outside of combat with charm monster, and perhaps occasionally dispel magic.
Extend Spell doesn't look very useful with this list. Careful Spell would only mitigate some damage on his area effect attacks. There are no touch spells on the list, so Distant Spell would primarily be useful for occasionally increasing the range of acid splash or another attack spell. That might be nice, but I don't think it's the best of the remaining options.
That means we'll round out the list with Heighten Spell. There are a reasonable amount of spells that can make use of it.
Let's pause to finish up cantrips. Since I ditched tidal wave, I'm going to pick up shape water, for theme. I'm just as likely to be human as anything else, and since I like to be somewhat self-sufficient when traveling, I want some sort of light source. I'd rather go with the creepier dancing lights, but I don't want to use Concentration on it if I need it in a fight. I guess I'll just color my light swamp green. I'll have to give up mage hand.
Giving up haste means that I be taking levitate for some utility, true seeing for some divination, and plane shift so I have less empty spell levels, and for some semblence of a difficult and dangerous to pull of high level smackdown, but mostly for fun.
There's nothing I'll be swapping out as I level, because there is nothing on the list that can be effectively superceded by another available spell.
So here is what he will have. (X_Xs for things that were initially on but had to be taken off, Red for spells he deserves to have, but can't get because sorcerers don't have access, +s for spells that were added on after figuring out the basic rudiments.)
Metamagic
Empower Spell
Quicken Spell
Subtle Spell
Heighten Spell
Spells
Cantrips
Acid Splash (Empowerable, Heightenable)
Infestation (Empowerable, Heightenable, XTwin-nable)
Light
XMage HandX
Minor Illusion
Prestidigitation
Shape Water
1st Level
XChromatic Orb (Empowerable, XTwin-nable)X
Detect Magic (Conc)
XFog Cloud (Conc)X
Identify
Magic Missile (Empowerable)
2nd Level
Darkness (Conc)
+Levitate (Conc, swapped out at level 14)
Melf's Acid Arrow (Twinnable)
+Mirror Image
3rd Level
Dispel Magic (XTwin-ableX)
Lightning Bolt (Empowerable, Heightenable)
Plant Growth
XTidal WaveX
Water Breathing
4th Level
Charm Monster (XTwin-nableX, but scalable, Heightenable)
Vitriolic Sphere (Empowerable, Heightenable)
5th Level
Insect Plague (Empowerable, Heightenable, Conc)
6th Level
+True Seeing (XTwin-ableX)
7th Level
Plane Shift (Heightenable)
8th Level
-
9th Level
Wish
So here's the quick level progression.
Level Progression
1 - Acid splash, infestation, prestidigitation, shape water, detect magic, magic missile
2 - Identify
3 - Empower Spell, Quicken Spell, Mirror image
4 - Light, levitate
5 - Lightning bolt
6 - Darkness
7 - Vitriolic sphere
8 - Water breathing
9 - Insect plague
10 - Heighten Spell, Minor illusion, dispel magic
11 - Charm monster
13 - Plane shift
15 - True seeing
17 - Subtle Spell, Wish
Some people are looking at this and saying. "Looks fine to me, other than some of your less than optimal, but perfectly reasonable thematic choices."
I'm looking at this and thinking, "Whaa? I mean, like, Waa?"
That's not enough. Even a little bit more (in my proposed house rules, 4 additional spells from bard, druid, sorcerer, or, wizard spell list) should make a big difference when you're cutting it that close. So let's see what those 4 extra spells can do for my black dragon sorcerer.
Revised Level Progression
1 - Acid splash, infestation, prestidigitation, shape water, detect magic, magic missile (temp), find familiar (SO)
2 - Identify
3 - Empower Spell, Quicken Spell, Mirror image
4 - Light, levitate
5 - Lightning bolt, (replace magic missile with darkness), Melf's acid arrow (SO)
6 - Water breathing
7 - Vitriolic sphere
8 - Dispel magic
9 - Insect plague, plant growth (SO)
10 - Heighten Spell, Minor illusion, charm monster
11 - True seeing
13 - Plane shift
15 - Finger of death, Illusory dragon (SO)
17 - Subtle Spell, Wish
I picked up a familiar at level 1 to get that arcane feeling. I learned 6 spells faster than I would have (including learning 2 of them at the correct levels now). I traded in magic missile for the Melf's acid arrow I wanted all along. I actually got plant growth (cue triumphant musical score). I picked up finger of death for some real high level smackdown with rotting goodness. And I had a left over 8th level spell slot to choose a spell from 4 spell lists. There are multiple things I could have done with this, including picking up control water (and having kept mage hand instead of shape water). But at this point, I decided to do something fun and interesting and take illusory dragon, because I could.
Now that's a spell list I can play with. It's very tight, because I had a strong and appropriate theme for the Black Draconic Bloodline origin. I didn't have a lot of room to play around with it, but I did have just enough room to cover the basic rudiments of being an arcanist, and still pick a few spells that weren't strongly connected to the theme. Still only 19 spells, less than every other full caster (equal to the warlock if you don't count their ability to pick up a good number of at-will spells with their Invocations), but enough that I feel like I actually have both a strong theme, choices, and party contribution beyond just blasting, healing, or hasting.
So that's how the Sorcerous Origin part of my proposed house rules works to give me the flexibility to play a perfectly reasonable concept.
TheCosmicKid
Hero
The weird thing is, in 5E, they don't. With Arcane Recovery a wizard usually keeps pace with a sorcerer, even if the sorcerer does spend all their points on slots.
And no, I'm not a huge fan of this.
Perun
Mushroom
FWIW, I've been playing a storm sorcerer for close to 10 levels now (i.e. the character is a single-classed half-elf storm sorcerer 9, going on 10).
We use the following modifications to the base class:
I find that just switching to spell points changes the sorcerer in a very significant way. You're no longer limited by spell slots, so you can get a much greater use of your limited spell selection. Then merging sorcery points with spell points expands this even further. The single additional SP I can spend on my chromatic orb to twin it is practically negligible, but I can now attack a second target, etc. With upcasting (casting at higher level), it quickly becomes really costly (casting twinned chromatic orb at 5th level costs 12 SP, a 9th-level spell costs 13 SP), but still provides much more versatility.
Recovering spell points on short rest is nothing big (it's the equivalent of a 1st-level spell slot now), but you get something, and that's always nice
I've received two extra spells known so far, one cantrip (gust), and a DM homebrew 5th-level spell.
Here's the character, for reference's sake.
We use the following modifications to the base class:
- Spell points. We also merge sorcery points and spell points into a single pool. This provides more versatility, but you're always tempted to go nova. I usually resist the temptation, but there were a couple of situations when I burned through the spell slots really fast.
- Spell points per Short Rest Recovery. This is 2 SP/short rest now (and has been since we introduces it). It's supposed to increase at a certain point in the future, but I don't know when.
- Spell Changes: Can cast storm sphere as a personal spell, i.e. the spell is mobile and centered on the character, but the range is reduced to 10 ft.
I find that just switching to spell points changes the sorcerer in a very significant way. You're no longer limited by spell slots, so you can get a much greater use of your limited spell selection. Then merging sorcery points with spell points expands this even further. The single additional SP I can spend on my chromatic orb to twin it is practically negligible, but I can now attack a second target, etc. With upcasting (casting at higher level), it quickly becomes really costly (casting twinned chromatic orb at 5th level costs 12 SP, a 9th-level spell costs 13 SP), but still provides much more versatility.
Recovering spell points on short rest is nothing big (it's the equivalent of a 1st-level spell slot now), but you get something, and that's always nice
I've received two extra spells known so far, one cantrip (gust), and a DM homebrew 5th-level spell.
Here's the character, for reference's sake.
* denotes a bonus feature
BARAN STORMWIND
Half-elf Storm Sorcerer 10
AC 14 (16 w/ mage armour)
Str 12, Dex 16, Con 16, Int 13, Wis 15, Cha 20
Saves: Constitution +7, Charisma +9
Resistances: Lightning, Thunder
Skills: Athletics +5, Deception +9, Insight +6, Investigation +5, Perception +6, Performance* +9, Persuasion +9, Cartographer's Tools
Feats: Spell Sniper* [Warlock] (eldritch blast); Improved Familiar (homebrew)
Languages: Primordial, Common, Elven, Orc, Goblin
Metamagic Known: Empowered Spell, Twinned Spell, Electrodynamics* (from magic item; spend one SP to change damage to lightning)
Spells Known:
BARAN STORMWIND
Half-elf Storm Sorcerer 10
AC 14 (16 w/ mage armour)
Str 12, Dex 16, Con 16, Int 13, Wis 15, Cha 20
Saves: Constitution +7, Charisma +9
Resistances: Lightning, Thunder
Skills: Athletics +5, Deception +9, Insight +6, Investigation +5, Perception +6, Performance* +9, Persuasion +9, Cartographer's Tools
Feats: Spell Sniper* [Warlock] (eldritch blast); Improved Familiar (homebrew)
Languages: Primordial, Common, Elven, Orc, Goblin
Metamagic Known: Empowered Spell, Twinned Spell, Electrodynamics* (from magic item; spend one SP to change damage to lightning)
Spells Known:
- Cantrips: eldritch blast, dancing lights, gust*, mending, minor illusion, prestidigitation, thunderclap;
- 1st-Level: chromatic orb, mage armour
- 2nd-Level: misty step, shatter
- 3rd-Level: fly, haste, lightning bolt
- 4th-Level: dimension door, storm sphere
- 5th-Level: far step, fulminous thunderstrike*
- wand of magic missiles: as per the DMG
- Twice-Struck Staff: each character has a "story item", a bespoke magical item that 'grows' with the character. These are the current abilities:
- Whenever your casting activates your Storm sorcerer Heart of the Storm ability, or when you cast the Haste spell, you can add charges to Twice-struck staff equal to your Cha modifier instead. Maximum number of charges is your Cha modifier × your sorcerer level. On your turn, as an action, you can spend all the charges currently contained within TS staff as a melee or ranged spell attack (30 ft reach [60 ft. w/ Spell Sniper feat]). On a hit you deal lightning damage equal to number of charges spent. The staff loses all charges after a long rest.
- When the staff contains at least 1 charge, it sheds dim light in a 20-ft. radius. When the staff contains maximum charges, it sheds bright light in a 20 ft. radius, and dim light in another 20 ft.
- Electrodynamics: additional metamagic option. Spend 1 SP to change a spell's damage type to lightning.
- Lightning-Quick Wit: Should the character give a witty lightning-related one-liner when casting a spell requiring an attack roll, he receives an advantage on the attack roll.
- magic robe: AC 11 + Dex modifier
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