D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[EzekielRaiden]

and always stuck in the "start a caster, end a melee monster" model.

Then you have not understood what I was going for, because not all of these are melee monsters. In fact, at least one explicitly said "ranged attacks."

I get that this won't fit everyone's notion of what they want a Sorcerer to be. That is the guaranteed, unavoidable consequence of it not being 100% identical to the Sorcerer as it exists today. But it really isn't the end of the world, and you can easily tone down the flavor for your own character(s)/game(s). Especially for those that don't have any special reason to enter melee, like Storm, Shadow, Chaos, Celestial, or Nosferatu (I did mention beasts after all).

The sorcerer chassis could be used for so many cool ideas for thematic magic (non-aberrant psionics, time magic, elementalists, FF summoners with pets, etc) but everyone, WotC included, gets stuck in the "this turns you into a clockwork monster!" style of thinking.

And my core assertion is, and has always been, that shoving that many totally incompatible mechanical concepts into a single class, and expecting all of them to be well-made and engaging, is a fool's errand.

Non-aberrant psionics and FF summoners are distinct classes. Elementalist is a flavor, and Dragon would already cover a melee-leaning version of that flavor; the Evoker Wizard gives another path to that flavor, as does the Four Elements Monk, but I could see an Elemental Sorcerer (perhaps a complement to the Storm one?) that manifests more "cackling madboy/madgirl filling the world with <fire/ice/etc.>", possibly even presenting it as a sort of "build your own" option, with guidance for how to adapt its features to truly new "elements" like "sandstorm" or "lava."

"Time magic" is...a complicated beast and I'm not even sure D&D can properly do it justice. Even video games struggle with that one, and they're so much better-equipped to deal with timers, reversing time, accelerating it, etc. But even then, that sounds like Wizard stuff to me, not Sorcerer.

Telling me "do that and you can't shove six ideas into the Sorcerer!" is not going to produce the result you want, because I'm going to say, "Yes. That's the point. Give those ideas their own expression instead, if they're worth it, or find the class that fits them best if not." And Sorcerer is not always the best fit, even with what it already is.

As I have said before, IIRC in this thread, D&D actually contains somewhere between 18 and 24 distinct class fantasies. All but two of the ones you cited (elementalist, time mage) is, under this argument, a distinct class fantasy that merits its own class. The former is a flavor applicable to several classes/class-fantasies (Wizard, Druid, Cleric, Sorcerer, Monk, Barbarian, Ranger, at the very least). The latter is a tricky flavor that I'm not sure TTRPGs do well in the first place, but even if they do, Sorcerer is not the best (nor only) home for it, others being Wizard, Swordmage, Psion, possibly Assassin and/or Avenger, and maybe more.

 

[Minigiant]

As @CreamCloud0 said, the fighter is popular because it has to be a dozen different archetypes: knight, mercenary, soldier, archer, and everything else that fights with a weapon, doesn't cast spells, and isn't a barbarian or rogue. I'm sure if you took the wizard, sorcerer, bard, warlock and druid and crammed them into one class, it'd be popular too because it would be your only choice. If you replaced it with knight, warlord, slayer, and gladiator classes, each would be better supported and not rely on one class to do all the heavy lifting.

Learned Arcanist- Wizard
Innate Arcanist- Sorcerer
Borrowed Powered Arcanist- Warlock

Learned Warrior- Fighter
Innate Warrior- Fighter
Borrowed Powered Warrior- Fighter

 

[Remathilis]

I like different versions of the same concept. It gives you choices so you can pick the one that fits your table the best.

But its a one-time choice.

I'll ask an honest question since I don't know: how many subclasses are Level Up compatible with (for example) the sorcerer? Can LU sorcerer's use any and all WotC sorcerer subclasses or do they need their own special LU compatible versions? If the latter, how many are there compared to how many are compatible with the vanilla 5e sorcerer?

I ask because if WotC's sorcerer has hundreds of different subclasses between official, 3pp, and DMsGuild and the LU has less than a dozen (if even), that's a discrepancy worth noting. I'd rather have one sorcerer with 50 subclasses than 10 sorcerers with 5 subclasses each.

 

[Minigiant]

That's a shame, but it doesn't lead to the conclusion that we should only care about WotC.

That was never my point.

My point is that we are stuck with WOTC's paradigm because 3PPs only make content for theirs and WOTC's stuff.

 

[Remathilis]

Then you have not understood what I was going for, because not all of these are melee monsters. In fact, at least one explicitly said "ranged attacks."

I didn't necessarily mean "up front in combat" but more "the more you use your magic, the more of a warrior type you become. A sorcerer who starts his day like a caster and ends it like fighter isn't a playstyle I think would suit many of the current sorcery origins (or many of the ones I'd be interested in)

And my core assertion is, and has always been, that shoving that many totally incompatible mechanical concepts into a single class, and expecting all of them to be well-made and engaging, is a fool's errand.

Right, which is why it boggles the mind that people want to combine the classes MORE. The current classes are a good start; I could see a few more easily added. Why we want to take ALL the things a sorcerer (or insert X class here) and shove it into a generic "magic user" class is beyond me.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That was never my point.

My point is that we are stuck with WOTC's paradigm because 3PPs only make content for theirs and WOTC's stuff.

Interoperability is definitely a serious limiting factor, that's for sure.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But its a one-time choice.

I'll ask an honest question since I don't know: how many subclasses are Level Up compatible with (for example) the sorcerer? Can LU sorcerer's use any and all WotC sorcerer subclasses or do they need their own special LU compatible versions? If the latter, how many are there compared to how many are compatible with the vanilla 5e sorcerer?

I ask because if WotC's sorcerer has hundreds of different subclasses between official, 3pp, and DMsGuild and the LU has less than a dozen (if even), that's a discrepancy worth noting. I'd rather have one sorcerer with 50 subclasses than 10 sorcerers with 5 subclasses each.

Every sorcerer subclass produced to be compatible with WotC version of the class is also compatible with Level Up's version of the class. It is possible that there might be some minor adjustments required in a very few cases, but the vast majority of the time you can just use them. That principle holds for Level Up's other WotC-inspired classes. They were designed that way.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That was never my point.

My point is that we are stuck with WOTC's paradigm because 3PPs only make content for theirs and WOTC's stuff.

At this point, I would argue we could use any 3pp with a solid base as the paradigm. I use Level Up as the base, and fill in the occasional corner with WotC stuff if I feel like it.

 

[Minigiant]

At this point, I would argue we could use any 3pp with a solid base as the paradigm. I use Level Up as the base, and fill in the occasional corner with WotC stuff if I feel like it.

The LU paradigm is the WOTC paradigm.

What if you want another paradigm. Only that 3PPs sorcerer and their subclasses/feats/items work with it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I didn't necessarily mean "up front in combat" but more "the more you use your magic, the more of a warrior type you become. A sorcerer who starts his day like a caster and ends it like fighter isn't a playstyle I think would suit many of the current sorcery origins (or many of the ones I'd be interested in)

Right, which is why it boggles the mind that people want to combine the classes MORE. The current classes are a good start; I could see a few more easily added. Why we want to take ALL the things a sorcerer (or insert X class here) and shove it into a generic "magic user" class is beyond me.

Then, to lay my cards on the table (as I edited the post you replied to), here's the list of classes 5e has...

Artificer, Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard.

And here's the, or perhaps "my," list (in very loosely descending order of "necessity") of "missing" class-fantasies:

Warlord
Psion
Swordmage
Assassin
Shaman (this brings us to the 18 I mentioned)
Alchemist
Avenger
Summoner
"Machinist" (not married to the name, but it captures the concept well enough)
Warden
Invoker (which brings us to 24)

Several of these have minor, weak, or incomplete representation via one or more existing subclasses. Swordmage is the poster child here, but all of the first five have something like that (so-called "Warlord Fighters," Aberrant Mind Sorc, the weak sauce Assassin Rogue, Flame Druid, etc.) There's a reason for this: forcing these class-fantasies to be content with mere subclass representation, even in multiple forms, doesn't quite scratch the itch.

Once you hit that 24 point, it's...just really hard to come up with new ideas that actually merit full-throated classes rather than subclass representation. The archetypes covered really do hit just about all of it.