D&D 5E (2024) The sorcerer shouldn't exist

[Gorck]

With this line of thinking, as much as I love to play them, why should Barbarians exist? The Barbarian is just a Fighter that wears less armor and has anger management issues.

Or why should Paladins exist? A Paladin is just a War Domain Cleric prone to Proselytizing.

 

[Incenjucar]

The sorcerer has been around through multiple editions. 5E has homogenized magic compared to 3E.

 

[Composer99]

"Magic-user minus spellbook" has never exactly been a compelling archetype.

The only time it's ever felt justified has been when it was called "psionicist."

This conception more or less only makes sense in the context of Dungeons & Dragons and games that ape its style.

Most conceptions of magic in fantasy-themed media, especially so far in the 21st century, go the other way 'round. If anything, it's sorcerers and warlocks that best fit the archetypes of magic-users, and wizards that are the bland and increasingly unjustified archetype.

Of course, to my mind the game is big enough to fit all three conceptions of an arcane or arcane-adjacent spellcaster.

 

[Incenjucar]

Various cartoons have done the wizard vs. sorceror thing, including Disney's Aladdin and some He-Man stuff. Sorcerors as the fonts of magic, with wizards using technique to try and match that power, is fairly established and works well.

 

[DEFCON 1]

But since the sorc has gotten elevated to base class status, its likely not to go away. And so the goal is to ensure the sorc's mechanics properly reflect the flavor and give a distinctive niche all of its own. In this regard, I think the 5e sorc has been mostly a failure. I really don't get any sense of innate magic from them, metamagics feels like an add-on more than a core feature. And worse, I think the warlock just does the motiff better, the warlock with its at-will invocations feels a lot more "innate magic" to me than the sorc does.

Well, I can't speak for anyone else... but for me the reason is simple-- NO D&D mechanics adequately represent flavor. So the Sorcerer is no different than any other class and why I don't really care.

I mean, what is "Rage"? A +2 to damage, resistance to regular weapons, and advantage on STR checks and saves. Now to me, I see those three features and they do not in any way, shape or form denote ANY sort of "anger-based" ability in my opinion. Sure, if you squint real hard and also remember that this is what Rage has kinda always been... we all accept that yeah, this is what "Rage" for a barbarian is... but they're not, really. +2 to damage, damage resistance, and you can do STR things better? That could easily mean you are done up in a set of magical armor like a D&D Iron Man. You could be a polymorphed or wildshaped big animal. You could be a martial artist. There's any number of characterizations or identities that those three numeric functions could represent. We just happen to have decided "Oh yeah, those three abilities in conjunction mean that this character has gotten really, really, REALLY mad."

And what do we have that is supposed to represent the nobility and honor of a Samurai? At 3rd level you get one of four skill proficiencies that any other character can pick up, you get Advantage on your attacks for one turn and you get 5 Temporary Hit Points. And THAT'S supposed to represent the flavor of what a Samurai is. Really? I see those three abilities-- 5 Temp HP, Advantage for one round, and proficiency in either History, Insight, Performance, or Persuasion-- and I can tell you that a Samurai is NOT the first thing that comes to mind. Again, there is barely any connection between those mechanics and the flavor they are representing.

And we could go down the list of every single game mechanic that is supposedly meant to represent something in the fiction. Almost none of them do. They are all just completely generic game mechanics that the book assigns a story to almost at random. So why anyone actually gets worked up about any of it is beyond me. The game mechanics are there and exist to allow players to play the "game". That's it, in my opinion. A whole bunch of math that is used against a whole bunch of other math to determine who wins in the math. And on top of those mechanics there is a light brushing on of story and flavor to make it seem like the mechanics have some sort of meaning in the story, even though they really don't.

Which is why any flavor or story that comes out of the game has to come from the imaginations of the players. The stories the players all collectively create together narratively alongside the Dungeon Master. If your Samurai is noble and honorable, it's because you PLAY your character as noble and honorable, not because there are a couple of game mechanics that are supposed to represent it. The way you differentiate your elf from a dwarf is how you roleplay your elf to not act like a dwarf-- not that you merely have proficiency in Perception and can make Dexterity (Stealth) checks when only behind light underbrush rather than heavy.

But you know... it is what it is.

 

[Remathilis]

With this line of thinking, as much as I love to play them, why should Barbarians exist? The Barbarian is just a Fighter that wears less armor and has anger management issues.

Or why should Paladins exist? A Paladin is just a War Domain Cleric prone to Proselytizing.

Not to pick on you, but this is what I mean.

You can reduce any class to either "X with y feature" or "X is intentionally reduced to allow Y to exist." I once saw a debate on how the Rogue should not exist because "they take all the cool things fighters should be doing out of combat." [emoji849]

I gotta wonder if Pathfinder constantly has to justify the 27 classes it has in the CRB and APG. They make specialty classes like gunslinger and witch. D&D players try to cram them into generic "hit things" class and "cast stuff" classes respectively.

 

[Clint_L]

They play like a wizard sub-class (or wizards play like a sorcerer sub-class; take your pick). But they aren't going anywhere. So we will continue to have have these two classes very much sitting in the same design space. Like fighters and barbarians. That's D&D for ya - I don't think anyone has ever claimed it is the most elegantly designed game. There's too much baggage.

 

[Dausuul]

You know, looking at the Order of the Stick prequels, it occurs to me that there's a decent model there for the sorcerer/wizard divide:

Planning doesn't matter. Strategy doesn't matter. Only two things matter: Force in as great a concentration as you can manage, and style. And in a pinch, style can slide. Energy Drain!

In any battle, there's always a level of force against which no tactics can succeed. For example, all I need to do is keep smacking you with Energy Drains, and soon you won't be able to cast any of your fancy spells at all. Energy Drain!

Because yes, I am a sorcerer -- and this magic is in my bones, not cribbed off of "Magic for Dummies". And I can keep casting the same friggin' spell at you until you roll over and die. You can have your finely-crafted watch -- give me the sledgehammer to the face any day. ENERGY DRAIN!

That should be how it feels to play a sorcerer, IMO.

Then the question is how to accomplish it. In 3E, wizards had plenty of spell slots; their ability to "cast the same friggin' spell at you until you roll over and die" was limited by what they had prepared. In 5E, neo-Vancian gives them more flexible casting, but they are tightly constrained by spell slots at the higher levels. So sorcerers' signature power ought to be generating more spell slots at X level than the wizard... which leads us to either beefing up Font of Magic and making it the primary focus of the class, or a full-fledged spell point model. I know they got negative feedback on spell points in the runup to 5E, but that was ten years ago; it might be worth revisiting.

 

[mamba]

"Magic-user minus spellbook" has never exactly been a compelling archetype.

The only time it's ever felt justified has been when it was called "psionicist."

didn’t feel it then either

 

[CreamCloud0]

You know, looking at the Order of the Stick prequels, it occurs to me that there's a decent model there for the sorcerer/wizard divide:

Planning doesn't matter. Strategy doesn't matter. Only two things matter: Force in as great a concentration as you can manage, and style. And in a pinch, style can slide. Energy Drain!

In any battle, there's always a level of force against which no tactics can succeed. For example, all I need to do is keep smacking you with Energy Drains, and soon you won't be able to cast any of your fancy spells at all. Energy Drain!

Because yes, I am a sorcerer -- and this magic is in my bones, not cribbed off of "Magic for Dummies". And I can keep casting the same friggin' spell at you until you roll over and die. You can have your finely-crafted watch -- give me the sledgehammer to the face any day. ENERGY DRAIN!

That should be how it feels to play a sorcerer, IMO.

Then the question is how to accomplish it. In 3E, wizards had plenty of spell slots; their ability to "cast the same friggin' spell at you until you roll over and die" was limited by what they had prepared. In 5E, neo-Vancian gives them more flexible casting, but they are tightly constrained by spell slots at the higher levels. So sorcerers' signature power ought to be generating more spell slots at X level than the wizard... which leads us to either beefing up Font of Magic and making it the primary focus of the class, or a full-fledged spell point model. I know they got negative feedback on spell points in the runup to 5E, but that was ten years ago; it might be worth revisiting.

Xykon is incredible in that entire scene.

i don't know why they don't just convert sorcerers to spell points wholesale, it'd be so much easier, just have their points to slots conversion rate work on a smooth [X slot] created from [X+1 points] basis, if we're getting rid of short rests give sorcerers an X times per day ability to restore Y number of spell points and cap the total number of spell points they can have at any given time.