D&D (2024) 4/26 Playtest: The Sorceror

[Incenjucar]

There are no free abilities except those that are explicitly useless, like finesse weapons being used by a strength character. Anything that designers think will be to your benefit nudges out something that actually would.

 

[mellored]

There are no free abilities except those that are explicitly useless, like finesse weapons being used by a strength character. Anything that designers think will be to your benefit nudges out something that actually would.

I don't think talking to dragons nudges anything else out. It's just free.

And the free spells haven't reduced the numbers of Cantrips you get. It's just emergency acid damage.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't think talking to dragons nudges anything else out. It's just free.

And the free spells haven't reduced the numbers of Cantrips you get. It's just emergency acid damage.

Talking to creatures of the Dragon type technically replaces Draconic language, but that's more of a format change.

 

[Incenjucar]

I don't think talking to dragons nudges anything else out. It's just free.

And the free spells haven't reduced the numbers of Cantrips you get. It's just emergency acid damage.

If that were the case, they could give you several more cantrips.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don't think talking to dragons nudges anything else out. It's just free.

And the free spells haven't reduced the numbers of Cantrips you get. It's just emergency acid damage.

Right, but we don't talk about Eldritch Blast and say "at least we get it for free"
We don't talk about Find Steed and say "at least we get it for free"
I don't think anyone is looking at Arcane Eruption and is saying "at least we get if for free"

So, why is that the standard we want for Sorcerous Burst? I don't want to think to myself "well, at least it's free" I want to think "Hell yeah, this is awesome!" And I think all it would take to do that is making it d8's. I wouldn't bother to remove the explosion limit, because frankly getting it that much is going to be rare enough that it isn't a big impact. But I probably will remove it for my tables, because sometimes you get crazy luck

 

[MoonSong]

Fair, but no one is forcing you to cast them. I am tempted to try a few Sorcerer builds where these default spells are the only blast spells I take. Now that Heighten got a lot stronger, a lot of Control spells seem more viable. Now that Twin Spell isn't an auto-include metamagic, a lot of other spells that I tend to ignore became more interesting.

Not a fan of ignoring stuff, particularly stuff that is going to divert power budget away from other stuff that I actually like. And this is going to divert away power budget in the subclasses, because now every subclass is going to have to modify these two spells leaving no budget for the shadow dog or the extra healing in shadow magic and divine soul.

Also If I could ignore stuff that way, I wouldn't need a sorcerer class. I'd be able to ignore the spellbook and still enjoy the game. But I'm not mentally able, so "just don't cast it ever is not a solution that works for me "

 

[Vael]

So, why is that the standard we want for Sorcerous Burst? I don't want to think to myself "well, at least it's free" I want to think "Hell yeah, this is awesome!" And I think all it would take to do that is making it d8's. I wouldn't bother to remove the explosion limit, because frankly getting it that much is going to be rare enough that it isn't a big impact. But I probably will remove it for my tables, because sometimes you get crazy luck

One, the gambling element is fun, I'm quite eager to cast the spell. Two ... admittedly, not too many monsters have elemental vulnerabilities, but this is one of very few spells that always find those opportunities and dodge elemental resistances.

Though if the spell does need buffing, why not just have it start at 2d6 and scale from there?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If that were the case, they could give you several more cantrips.

They could, but they probably weren’t going to.

 

[mellored]

So, why is that the standard we want for Sorcerous Burst? I don't want to think to myself "well, at least it's free" I want to think "Hell yeah, this is awesome!"

That's completely fair.

And there is something to be said for not cluttering up a sheet with things that will just be forgotten.

 

[Incenjucar]

Huh. They way that damage types is treated is a bit weird.

There's a lot of effort used to keep force out of abilities, and some others are rare. There's something of a special carve-out for the "elemental" types (acid, cold, fire, lightning, thunder) as a general practice. Because dice only come in even numbers, chaos bolt ends up breaking the pattern:

Arcane Eruption: Elemental types, poison, and Psychic.
Chaos Bolt: Elemental types, poison, psychic, AND force.
Sorcerous Burst: Elemental types, poison, and psychic.
Transmuted Spell: Elemental types, poison, and psychic.

Bonus comparison:
Modify Spell: Elemental types, poison, necrotic