D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[FrogReaver]

I've seen some freeform stuff done so I think its possible, just it needs to be carefully made as its incredibly easy to veer one way or the other.

But its going to be complex no matter how you do it, and probably not exactly "hey its D&D the easy RPG that everyone's heard of and you can play easily" material

I mean, we can’t even get single classes balanced with each other. We can’t get subclasses for a single class balanced with each other.

Not sure why you think we’d have better luck balancing a system with more moving parts.

 

[SkidAce]

The swordmage is done so many times it's not funny. If there is no conceptual space for the sorcerer or warlock, there CERTAINLY isn't for a dedicated gish class.

Gish should be multiclass.

Yes, you lose some power but thats what happens when you split your training/resources.

IMO.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why not remove Wizard and Bard as well and make one class - Magic User, with Sorcerer, Wizard and Bard being its three subclasses on top of other subclasses?

Because the original vision of the sorcerer back in 3e was "wizard, but with different casting mechanics and a slightly different narrative". Go back to that and make it one class. If you really like the narrative of the playtest sorcerer (and it was quite cool), make that a different class.

Maybe also we don't assume there are only two ways to address an issue. Spectrum is spectrum.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Gish should be multiclass.

Yes, you lose some power but thats what happens when you split your training/resources.

IMO.

Don't agree at all. A multiclass 'gish' just ends up being half a fighter one turn and half a caster the next. And unable to mix magic and combat in a satisfying manner.

You can make a 'paladin' by multiclassing cleric and fighter, but it would still fail to do what makes paladin fun.

You can make a 'ranger' by multiclassing rogue and druid, but it wouldn't have the things which make a ranger unique.

Just like how multiclassing wizard and fighter together fails to come even close to dedicated gish classes like the magus, swordmage, or duskblade.

 

[FrogReaver]

Because the original vision of the sorcerer back in 3e was "wizard, but with different casting mechanics and a slightly different narrative". Go back to that and make it one class. If you really like the narrative of the playtest sorcerer (and it was quite cool), make that a different class.

Maybe also we don't assume there are only two ways to address an issue. Spectrum is spectrum.

Issue there is all casters have a single casting stat and sorcerer/bard vs wizards shouldn’t be using int for that.

 

[FrogReaver]

Don't agree at all. A multiclass 'gish' just ends up being half a fighter one turn and half a caster the next. And unable to mix magic and combat in a satisfying manner.

You can make a 'paladin' by multiclassing cleric and fighter, but it would still fail to do what makes paladin fun.

You can make a 'ranger' by multiclassing rogue and druid, but it wouldn't have the things which make a ranger unique.

Just like how multiclassing wizard and fighter together fails to come even close to dedicated gish classes like the magus, swordmage, or duskblade.

Alot of that is more the spells than the multiclassing though. There just aren’t many good gish spells.

There are valid issues with multiclass gishes. The biggest being that mechanically the work best going hard into one class for 5 or so levels and then adding in the other - which hurts early character thematics.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You're correct with everything in this post. I'm not sure why people keep telling me all these things are valid. I'm talking about 5E. Stop trying to hoist me by my own petard over things that I didn't say.

I'm talking about 5th Edition, on a post about the 5th Edition sorcerer, and saying that instead of eliminating the Sorcerer that WotC should instead make the sorcerer better, ala One D&D, since the design goals are to keep the same 12 classes.

I'm always going to advocate homebrew or 3pp here. There are plenty of better versions of sorcerer (or qhatever) already. They're just not made by WotC.

And they don't need to be.

 

[TwoSix]

I mean, we can’t even get single classes balanced with each other. We can’t get subclasses for a single class balanced with each other.

Not sure why you think we’d have better luck balancing a system with more moving parts.

5e hasn't made balance a major priority since its inception, and has still managed to be quite popular and playable despite that.

I'd rather see the system get more experimental and a little wilder, even if the cost is injecting some more imbalance into an already imbalanced game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Issue there is all casters have a single casting stat and sorcerer/bard vs wizards shouldn’t be using int for that.

I specifically said that you make the casting stat selectable in my idea.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Alot of that is more the spells than the multiclassing though. There just aren’t many good gish spells.

There are valid issues with multiclass gishes. The biggest being that mechanically the work best going hard into one class for 5 or so levels and then adding in the other - which hurts early character thematics.

Trouble is you don't want to go giving all the good gish spells to the full casters. As seen in the playtest, this just results in the full casters being able to martial better than martials and half casters.