D&D 5E 5e witches, your preferred implementation?

[Yaarel]

I agree the Paladin can rename as Knight. This might also open the class up to both magical and nonmagical knights, including was is currently D&D Warlord, Cavalier, Samurai, especially Eldritch Knight (!), as well as the White Knight (Devotion), Green Knight (Ancients), Black Knight, and Red Knight of the current Paladin, plus Psi Knight and so on.

Knight corresponds to heavy infantry and formal education, as Fighter might specifically be a skirmisher, corresponding to light infantry, and relying more on agility and sometimes stealth. (I could even see the "Athlete" gymnast brawler, and the Monk, as archetypes for a more skirmishy Fighter.)

I'd argue that the Sorcerer discovered its identity in 4e when it could no longer be the Nonvancian mage. I think that the mechanics could better push this by making its casting all via Sorcery Points (which stack relatively nicely with the variant rule: Spell points in the DM's Guide, fi you want to combine them with house rules. But narratively the Sorcerer fills a niche that other casters do not, that of a character that did not "earn" their powers but came into it and now has to figure out what they're going to do with it. The inheritors of magic. The results of a science experiment gone horribly right. "Everything special about you came out of a bottle." Who is Mewtwo and why does he exist?

I also think that Psions are essentially Sorcerers in this way, but we'd have to be more liberal with letting players swap out their primary ability scores to make a full on Int-focused Psion be represented by a spell-points variant Sorcerer with the subclass of Aberrant Mind.

Yeah, Sorcerer fills a mechanical space better if it is only about spell points.

Regarding flavor, the Sorcerer concept that the character does magic by instinctive nature rather than by learned nurture, contradicts the mechanic that a Sorcerer must use spell components, which inherently require learning and formulas. It is difficult for me to get past the dissonance.

For me the flavors of Psion and Sorcerer differ saliently. A Psion is the mind only. A mind is something that everyone (and everything) has. It might be that some minds are stronger than others, and training and disciplining ones mind matters. But a mind is something fundamental and normal, that everyone has.

By contrast, the flavor of a Sorcerer feels more like an exotic superhero origin.

Both the Psion and the Sorcerer should lack spell components, casting innately, but for different reasons. Also, where the Psion is about a powerful mind, the Sorcerer is about a magical body. This feels significantly different. Even the new Aberrant Mind Sorcerer is only psionic because the body itself is of Aberrant origin.

I forget that other D&D players associate the Psion class with the Intelligence key ability. We mostly use psionics for the Nordic region. Reallife Nordic magic (historically) is the opposite of memorizing formulas. In Nordic magic, the person strives to focus ones mind to become one with the target. Any techniques to focus the mind, silence, stillness, chanting, commanding, even sometimes rune-carving, are all improvisationally spontaneous. Thus songs and words, if any, are NEVER the same thing twice. For this reason, our Nordic Psions use the Charisma key ability. Likewise, Telepathic mind-manipulation involving enchantment and phantasm works better with Charisma. And Shapeshift in the sense of self-expression, works well too.

I think the tribulations are a big part of narrative. Enduring despite the odds or with love and grief co-mingled.

Of course, the historical ordeals are important. For me it is painful to dwell on reallife suffering. At the same, I appreciate the good that these unique cultures do. I feel that who they are is vastly more important than what other people have tried to do to them.

 

[Yaarel]

Power source is not a thing in 5e. You can say that your bard is powered by happy thoughts and mechanically absolutely nothing changes. It is not a rule, it is one fluffbox about how things are in Forgotten Realms.

I am noticing chatter from designers where they actually say the phrase "power source", and if I recall correctly, including with regard to Arcane, Divine, Psionic, Primal, and "other power sources".

Plus it is such a useful way to coordinate mechanics and flavor. This 4e-ism will inevitably resurface.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I am noticing chatter from designers where they actually say the phrase "power source", and if I recall correctly, including with regard to Arcane, Divine, Psionic, Primal, and "other power sources".

It's fluff. They're talking about themes.

Plus it is such a useful way to coordinate mechanics and flavor.

You mean an awkward straitjacket that tries clearly categorise fuzzy mythological themes.

This 4e-ism will inevitably resurface.

I hope not.

 

[Yaarel]

I hear the complaints. I am the DM but I am too busy to build a character for a player. Fair enough. If there are cases where one might need to, Enworld has many skilled people who are happy to help put it together quickly.

There are a ton of ways to insert more casters in the game without stepping on anyone's toes.

The discussion of a constitution-based caster mentioned earlier (which wouldn't be a standard witch, for the record) is a great example. It's an incredibly common trope in CRPGs and absent in D&D and could be created as a subclass or full class without much trouble.

The Constitution mage works excellently for the Sorcerer, whose body is magical. The bodys constitution is literally magic. Plus investing in Constitution makes the Sorcerer tougher in combat, which is great. And if there is a mechanic that has magic drain the body, it is because it is actually draining the body.

 

[Yaarel]

It's fluff. They're talking about themes.

Power sources are just themes: tags. They dont have mechanics in themselves, but other mechanics and other settings can refer to them.

In one setting, the "Shadow" power source might be Shadowfell, and in an other setting, something else.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I am noticing chatter from designers where they actually say the phrase "power source", and if I recall correctly, including with regard to Arcane, Divine, Psionic, Primal, and "other power sources".

Plus it is such a useful way to coordinate mechanics and flavor. This 4e-ism will inevitably resurface.

While it might have been a mistake to put the game design elements forward so prominently in 4E, I think, at least behind the scenes, 4E had a very robust chassis to build upon. I suspect the best 5E designs work with a (possibly reverse-engineered) similar chassis, while the ones that don't quite click aren't doing so, since their designers don't necessarily have a sense on how everything fits together the way it was easy to do so under 4E.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The Constitution mage works excellently for the Sorcerer, whose body is magical. The bodys constitution is literally magic. Plus investing in Constitution makes the Sorcerer tougher in combat, which is great. And if there is a mechanic that has magic drain the body, it is because it is actually draining the body.

I agree it's a good fit. I might even make blood magic a core class element of a Constitution-based sorcerer, rather than locking it away in a subclass. (A blood mage subclass could go into gorier further detail.) D&D no longer needs to have sorcerers be based on Charisma, as there are multiple classes that won't use it as a dump stat now.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Power sources are just themes: tags. They dont have mechanics in themselves, but other mechanics and other settings can refer to them.

In one setting, the "Shadow" power source might be Shadowfell, and in an other setting, something else.

They don't need to be. It wouldn't be hard to line up various damage types and categories of spell by theme. It's not necessary to do so, of course, but it makes things easier from a design standpoint to create a world that "feels" like it all fits together logically, even if it's magic realism logic.

 

[Yaarel]

They don't need to be. It wouldn't be hard to line up various damage types and categories of spell by theme. It's not necessary to do so, of course, but it makes things easier from a design standpoint to create a world that "feels" like it all fits together logically, even if it's magic realism logic.

There are different ways to do this, but I tend to associate the following:

Psionic: psychic

Various (Ether): force

Elemental
(Fire-Ether): radiant
(Fire-Earth): fire
(Fire-Air): lightning
(Water): cold
(Earth): slashing, bludgeoning, piercing

Primal (Plant-Beast): poison

Shadow: necrotic

 

[Yaarel]

I agree it's a good fit. I might even make blood magic a core class element of a Constitution-based sorcerer, rather than locking it away in a subclass. (A blood mage subclass could go into gorier further detail.) D&D no longer needs to have sorcerers be based on Charisma, as there are multiple classes that won't use it as a dump stat now.

Heh, I find this approach redeeming the 5e Sorcerer in my eyes. Making everything spell points would help too.