D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[ezo]

The PHB is still around though.

This subclass can't tell any of the stories and backgrounds of the sorcerer. No "grandma was a dragon", no "I'm just magic", no "please how can I stop this and be normal". And I don't see how you shifting the themes from the known subclasses onto other clases helps. You can't have the same characters if the elements can't be put together.

Well, those are just stories and backgrounds for the subclass, you can tell whatever you want about it and play those stories out. It is really just fluff.

As for the mechanical benefits of subclasses and the flavor that goes along with them, it still works as well. Later on I'll write up the changes in summary, so you can see. I just don't have the free time at the moment.

If your argument on favor of this being a sorcerer is that you can houserule it into being one, then it isn't one. And the spellbook is far from a pure ribbon. And even ribbons are fictional space that matters. I know we've interacted over this before, but you keep claiming the same thing and I remain completely unconvinced.

Ok, I'm saying you can houserule in the stuff you feel is missing to easily make it the sorcerer you seem to want (if I understand you correctly).

The spellbook is only part of the "wizard" and is still mostly fluff. I wish it was more integral! I wish it was more a factor in the wizard's indentity as a class.

In short, give me something that isn't fluff about the sorcerer that this lacks?

Mine and @CreamCloud0's subclasses get closer -way closer- to place the wizard under sorcerer than your subclass does. And I admit they fail to capture all of the wizard themes and characters. The subclass you show doesn't even try.

I'd have to review them, but the tone here is getting a bit uncivil. I'm perfectly happy to discuss this with you, even though we have such opposed views, but my subclass works very well as a sorcerer for the people I play with. When we used it no one said they felt it didn't have the feel of a sorcerer.

One thing I'll mention in case it was overlooked: wizards gain their subclass at 1st level, not 2nd. So, you are a "sorcerer" subclass right out of the gate.

Here's the question...

Does you version offer Eldritch Blast and Agonizing Blast?

If yes, it's broken.
If no, you failed to replicate the warlock playstyle.

The issue isn't full casting. It is that pact magic and the Warlock spell list was carefully tailored to not be extremely strong with a boosted eldritch blast.

So, you feel the original Warlock class is broken then? If so, then by default you'll find mine broken since those things are still available. And that's cool, I mean we nerfed Agonizing Blast almost immediately to apply to simple one beam from Eldritch Blast, not each beam.

It's not that the warlock isn't a full caster it's a nerfed full caster in which EB balanced the weaknesses out

How is it nerfed at all? And if EB is meant to balance out the "weaknesses" as you say, why would it be broken to have those features available???

That's why the whole combined in classes thing never work because you're taking half of the class's power and giving it to another class that has 90% of his power in its base class. So essentially you are having a class that has ~140% of its power in this two choices of class and subclass.

Well, we will disagree the cleric has 90% of its power in the base class, other than perhaps simply spellcasting--but warlocks already have that and it isn't like I am giving them more really.

Same thing with the Wizard. The Wizard subclasses suck because the Wizard main class is very very very powerful. It has the biggest spell list and allows you to cast rituals off their spellbook without preparing them. You are giving them sorcery points on top of that. And metamaagic.

Wizard subclasses are generally weak, but they don't suck any more or less than 80% of the subclasses in the game IMO. I know Divination, Evoker, and Transmutation are the most popular IME, with probably Abjuration next.

The "biggest spell list" is true, and an item I've contended with (along with my other players) for a LONG TIME. Of course, the vast majority of those spells are pretty much never used compared to how much use we see in other classes' spell lists.

That's broken my dude.
You made Twilight cleric and blade singer look like PHB beastmaster ranger.

Again, you can feel that way, but without actually playing them, I have to disagree. I've seen both in action and neither is "broken" by any means. Powerful, certainly, but hardly broken.

I'd never let a player use those subclasses unless the player is so new that I'm 100% sure they could never break it. Never.

Your choice.

 

[Remathilis]

Warlock is effectively a full caster, it can cast up to ninth level, has fewer slots but they're more powerful and charge faster. And spellcasting is all it does. It doesn't have expertise nor can it fight (apart hexblade.)

The warlock is absolutely not a full caster. It's an illusion of the chart. Warlocks without a rest are effectively 1/3 casters (like EK), with 1 short they have the power of a full caster and only if you get two short rests to they approach full caster strength. Mystic Arcanum is not a substitute for high level spells despite looking like it due to how inflexible they are (no up casting, one use of each per day). Instead, they gain a bunch of at will effects on par with a rogue's or monk's talents and a kickass ranged cantrip that dps's like sneak attack or flurry of blows. They only get good if your DM allows for frequent mandatory Union breaks.

I've always maintained that rogue, monk and warlock fill essentially the same role as skirmisher and weird tricks guy. One focuses on combat, one on magic, one on skills.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The warlock is absolutely not a full caster. It's an illusion of the chart. Warlocks without a rest are effectively 1/3 casters (like EK), with 1 short they have the power of a full caster and only if you get two short rests to they approach full caster strength. Mystic Arcanum is not a substitute for high level spells despite looking like it due to how inflexible they are (no up casting, one use of each per day). Instead, they gain a bunch of at will effects on par with a rogue's or monk's talents and a kickass ranged cantrip that dps's like sneak attack or flurry of blows. They only get good if your DM allows for frequent mandatory Union breaks.

Which they should! You're supposed to have at least two short rests for every long rest. Your argument basically is that you play the game wrong they don't have the power of full casters, which might be true but also irrelevant.

 

[Remathilis]

Which they should! You're supposed to have at least two short rests for every long rest. Your argument basically is that you play the game wrong they don't have the power of full casters, which might be true but also irrelevant.

WotC themselves said pact magic was equivalent to a half-caster and that a full caster warlock would have to cut down on the number of invocations. But I'm sure you are smarter than WotC's designers...

 

[Crimson Longinus]

WotC themselves said pact magic was equivalent to a half-caster and that a full caster warlock would have to cut down on the number of invocations.

I'd like to see a citation of that. Of course invocations are a big part of their power, but ability to cast high level spells is far more than any half-caster gets. Very hard to see them as equivalent.

But I'm sure you are smarter than WotC's designers...

I mean, I am offering suggestions for fixing their work, so I guess in a sense you could think it as being deluded in that way.

 

[Minigiant]

So, you feel the original Warlock class is broken then? If so, then by default you'll find mine broken since those things are still available. And that's cool, I mean we nerfed Agonizing Blast almost immediately to apply to simple one beam from Eldritch Blast, not each beam.

The original Warlock is actually kinda weak as a pure class. That's why so many people multiclass out of it.

How is it nerfed at all? And if EB is meant to balance out the "weaknesses" as you say, why would it be broken to have those features available???

The warlock spell list is bad.
Warlocks don't get many spells per short rest.
Warlock spells known is low.

Well, we will disagree the cleric has 90% of its power in the base class, other than perhaps simply spellcasting--but warlocks already have that and it isn't like I am giving them more really

Even if the cleric base class is 75% of its power, EB+AB, Pacts, and more invocations is what almost every class thinks about multi classes for.

You are giving Cleric EB, Invocations, and Pacts.

You are giving Wizard FULL Sorcery Points and Metamagic. Not even trading out Arcane Recovery. They get to keep that.

Wizard subclasses are generally weak, but they don't suck any more or less than 80% of the subclasses in the game IMO. I know Divination, Evoker, and Transmutation are the most popular IME, with probably Abjuration next.

The "biggest spell list" is true, and an item I've contended with (along with my other players) for a LONG TIME. Of course, the vast majority of those spells are pretty much never used compared to how much use we see in other classes' spell lists.

The power is the ability to swap spell every long rest AND not having to prepare rituals

Having full sorcery points and multiple Metamagic options in top of that is too much.

Again, you can feel that way, but without actually playing them, I have to disagree. I've seen both in action and neither is "broken" by any means. Powerful, certainly, but hardly broken.

I've DMed for sorcerer, wizard, warlock, and cleric. I know their weakness. I see how your subclasses allow for clerics and wizards to get better at their strength while covering their weaknesses.

Clerics get strong ranged attacks and more offense. Wizards get more power and can modify our their spells weaknesses.

 

[Chaosmancer]

while i'm not personally a fan of multiclassing and would rather implement thematic versatility through subclasses, feats and prestige classes(even if the latter isn't in 5e), i think it would be better for multiclassing if class features were designed on character level progression, like how cantrips work, so even if you only took a 1 level dip in ranger, your deft explorer and favoured foe features will continue to scale based on your character level, or if you dip one level in wizard for your 5th level, you'll have the 3 cantrips and 2 1st level spells known of a level 1 wizard but you'll have the 4 1st level slots of a 5th level wizard.

I can see the reasoning, but I think it ends up being too powerful the way you are talking about it.

The biggest thing that helps, honestly, would be to bend the rules around Casting stats. The warlock, Sorcerer and Paladin are not actually "broken" in terms of multi-classing as a concept I think, they just actually have synergy when most classes don't. Now, exception to the rule, Druid seems to be hard to mix with anything, even with sharing wisdom, but Barbarian/Fighters tend to do well, as do Rogue/Ranger/Fighter combinations.

There are a few other things, after all a Barbarian 5/Fighter 5 has fallen behind, because they aren't getting the bump needed to their attacks for levels 10/11 that most classes get. But I think that can be fixed by looking at Extra Attack and giving it something to do when your character already has it. There are a lot of annoying anti-synergies in DnD that I feel like need plugged (inspiring Leader and Celestial Warlock is an annoying one, or Cavalier and Sentinel)

 

[Chaosmancer]

This is the sort of cool thematic thing I'd like multiclassing to be used for, but unfortunately it is totally random for which concepts it works for, and most multiclassing is just about building some broken combo.

I don't like multi-classing to be fair, but I think it is because it is so easy to get anti-synergies in multi-classing. Sure, a Rogue Monk sounds really cool... but with the wording of sneak attack and the way monk's unarmed strikes work and the way Ki abilities and Cunning action cancel... it just cancels itself out and becomes weaker than single classing in either direction.

So the only things people bother to multi-class are the places where there is ACTUAL synergy that makes their character as strong or stronger. Hence, it tends to lead to "broken" combos.

 

[Chaosmancer]

First let's look at the flavor side of things. In current 5e the sorcerer is someone who has been altered, to a degree, giving them an innate sort of magic. In the core player's handbook the two examples that are used for it's subclasses are a draconic themed sorcerer, who may be descended from dragons or had their lineage infused with a dragon's power. Wild Magic is the other option, and the examples include exposure to otherworldly energies or a blessing from a fey creature. The Warlock, on the other hand, is actually kind of similar, in that they also gain magic, but the explanation differs slightly in that a specific entity is the source, the core subclass examples include a powerful fiend, fey or great old one. While the sorcerer does have a wider explanation, both dragon and wild magic subclasses mention an entity being the source of the sorcerer magic as an option. Both also flavor their subclass's mechanics by the source of the magic. So, I think they could fall under the same umbrella with only minor tweaks.

So, I disagree with you here that this is a "minor tweak", because as is often said, the Devil is in the details.

The Wild Magic sorcerer gives a lot of explanations, as you mention, but it does call out two that we could tie directly to similar warlock stories: "Perhaps you were blessed by a Fey Being or marked by a Demon." However, compare this to the Warlock stories, and something jumps out: "Your Patron is a Lord of Lady of the Fey... this beings motivations are often inscrutable and sometimes whimsical, and might involve striving for greater magical power or the settling of age-old grudges. // You have made a pact with a fiend from the Lower Planes of existence... Such beings desire the corruption or destruction of all things, ultimately including you."

What jumps out, is that in both cases, the Warlock Patron's motivations matter. This is because the Warlock's story is intimately and deeply tied to this concept. You've made a deal, you've stepped into an arena where the planar politics matter, where the forces of the universe are involved, where you can play a part in the story between two great Houses or usurp a Prince of Hell.

If you were to take the Warlock and put it into the Sorcerer... you water that down. Sure, a sorcerer CAN be created in a similar manner, as a pawn in some great game, but many aren't. As you mentioned, Sorcerer thematics are far far broader, and usually the influence of another entity is an afterthought. But there is something else, made a bit more clear when you ask the other way.

What do you lose if you were to take the Sorcerer and put it into the Warlock, thematically? And that is unwillingness. Note what the Wild Sorcerer said, you were BLESSED by a fey or MARKED by a demon. It doesn't say anything about ASKING for those things. Look at the Aberrant mind, one of their origins is surviving an attack from an Aboleth, or being partially changed by Cereomorphisis. Dragon Sorcerer consistently talks about your ancestor making a choice or getting involved with dragons.

The VAST majority of Sorcerers are accidental, unasked for, not intended. It seems like a minor change, when you zoom out, but for a character the difference between someone who asked for or at the very least AGREED to work for a power, to get dragged into these cosmic games is very different from someone who never had that choice. If a sorcerer is made by an entity, the sorcerer had no choice in the matter. They were an accident, or a casualty of something else, or they did it to themselves by mistake. And trying to mix that with a class whose thematic bent is consistently "You made the conscious choice to get involved in this, and your patron has expectations of you" just inevitably makes both sides of the coin weaker, because they are diametrically opposed ideas.

The power source may be the same, but John Constantine making deals with the Devil for power and trading favors like baseball cards has an entirely different theme to him than Raven, whose Father is the Devil and was born under a cursed prophecy of destruction she cannot escape. Both may get their power from a "fiendish" source, but saying they are basically the same type of character is flat out wrong.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I just don't think the relationship with the patron is a big deal. It would be, but it doesn't need to and often isn't. And same would be true for the combined class as well. If you wanted a story where the source of your power was more personally involved, you still could.

And I really don't think that as written the warlock expects the patron to be a big deal. Like it doesn't at all detail how this relationship would even work. Is the cooperation of the patron required for acquiring new powers or is it just one and done deal? No one knows, and most don't care. Can the patron revoke the powers? Again, completely unaddressed. Most of the time the patron is just one sentence in your backstory, and that's it.