D&D 5E (2024) Wizard vs Sorcerer In-Depth Analysis (2024)

[Merlecory]

Why?

You seem to be ignoring or otherwise not counting the ritual spells the wizard took. I think they should be counted, they are likely to bring value. Given their fewer spells known, a Sorcerer is unlikely to have those spells, or the value they provided.

 

[ECMO3]

And when you factor in some of those being rituals, it's very possible the wizard has even fewer non-ritual spells known than the sorcerer.

I am not tracking the logic for this. Wizards have more spells, why would they have less non-ritual spells?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

DM can still say no or there's n vendors nearby

The DM can say sorcerers can only recover sorcery points by sacrificing babies. But that’s not in the rules. Per rules scrolls are available to buy. The wizard is designed around being able to have every spell they want in their book. If you nerf that it’s not surprising you find them underpowered.

There is no reason the vendors need to be “nearby”. Between adventures your wizard can travel to the city if necessary.

 

[Zardnaar]

The DM can say sorcerers can only recover sorcery points by sacrificing babies. But that’s not in the rules. Per rules scrolls are available to buy. The wizard is designed around being able to have every spell they want in their book. If you nerf that it’s not surprising you find them underpowered.

There is no reason the vendors need to be “nearby”. Between adventures your wizard can travel to the city.

DM still controls treasure.

Remember alot don't remember every peace of the rules. Vendors are also campaign dependant and DM dependent.

If youre in the wilderness alot.... Cant guarantee theres a rown nearby, the DM give you a lot of coin and/or everything's available.

Curse of Strahd is popular. From memory not much was available to buy.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

DM still controls treasure.

Remember alot don't remember every peace of the rules. Vendors are also campaign dependant and DM dependent.

If youre in the wilderness alot.... Cant guarantee theres a rown nearby, the DM give you a lot of coin and/or everything's available.

Curse of Strahd is popular. From memory not much was available to buy.

If you kill a wizard, they drop a spell book. If you befriend a wizard, they can teach you spells.

Wizards having all the spells they want in their book is included in their class balance equation. That’s why scribing spells more cheaply is a subclass feature. If you block the wizard from access to spells to copy you are removing a class and subclass feature. That’s clearly a nerf.

 

[Zardnaar]

If you kill a wizard, they drop a spell book. If you befriend a wizard, they can teach you spells.

Wizards having all the spells they want in their book is included in their class balance equation. That’s why scribing spells more cheaply is a subclass feature. If you block the wizard from access to spells to copy you are removing a class and subclass feature. That’s clearly a nerf.

I suspect a lot of DMs and pkayers dont psy much attention to it.

Probably mostly there for the rare occasions spellbooks or whatever turn up.

Theres very few actual wizards left in the MM. I think theres 3 being generous.

Treasures funny in 5E adventures. Some adventures flood you with it others youre broke. Sometimes theres nothing to spend it on as thry just what available from the vendors. If there is a vendor.

Ive ran 2 adventures. Lost Library gave out around 800-1000 gp iirc.

A Deep and Creeping Darkness not sure. Neither had a vendor. I added one to PC home base. Knowledge cleric is doing the ritual stuff as such.


Haven't gone through my 2024 starter set or all the loot in Adventures of Faerun book.

If youre not used to forum chat it may not be obvious that you could maybe want to buy that stuff.

Its a very big assumption you can buy whatever you want in the quantities you want, wherever you like and the DM has provided the funds.

If the money was split evenly the wizard would have 150-200gp lvl 3. Halfway to 4th maybe another 100. No vendors in the adventures (I've added a home base).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If the money was split evenly the wizard would have 150-200gp lvl 3. Halfway to 4th maybe another 100.

Indeed, and this is the equation you should be using to calculate the additional spells wizards know due to their scribe spells class ability. So 1 additional 2nd level spell and 1-2 additional 1st level spells at level 3 (generally, assume wizards will choose non-specialism spells at level up, since they can scribe specialism spells more cheaply).

 

[Zardnaar]

Indeed, and this is the equation you should be using to calculate the additional spells wizards know due to their scribe spells class ability. So 1 additional 2nd level spell and 1-2 additional 1st level spells at level 3 (generally, assume wizards will choose non-specialism spells at level up, since they can scribe specialism spells more cheaply).

Except the DM, campaign, loot etc varies to much. Its not a universal pksystyle. Hasn't been since 4E (which fee plsyed) snd 3E (longer tine sgo).

You can't assume your statement is universally true .

I'll sell scrolls to wizards but mostly lvl 1 and 2 and not in unlimited quantities.

5.5 DMG is something like 6 common, 4 uncommon total tier 1. I might exceed it but not by much. That's a new thing though not universal and im going to tweak it soon.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Its not a universal pksystyle

But it's assumed in class balance that wizards will be able to buy scrolls.

You can't assume your statement is universally true .

But, given that it's in the rules, when one is considering class balance, one should assume that people are playing in accordance with the rules.

You are complaining that wizards are weak compared to sorcerers, but you are not playing according to the rules if you are not allowing wizards to acquire spells to transcribe, and not playing a game that balances combat with exploration and social encounters. Ergo your opinion is only valid for your home game, it is meaningless when it comes to general discussions on class balance.

What some people may or may not allow in their home games is not relevant to an in depth analysis of the rules as written.

 

[Yaarel]

As with most things, there's elements of both present. There's a planning and an execution element. Charisma is definitely the social execution stat. Intelligence would be the planning aspects and also what I would use for execution of a forgery. The thing is we usually don't roll about the planning aspects, we usually just roll to determine the execution.

In a confidence scheme, the "con artist" would check Intelligence Deception for the all of the technical details for the setup. After this, if the artist needs to additionally play the part of a role to carry the scheme out, it would check Charisma Performance. In this sense, the double roll (technical skill and audience appeal) is like any other artwork.