So, here's the issue: shouldn't sorcerers get spells slot like warlocks, recovering them on a short or long rest, when their bodies can "recharge"?
And if not, what is the reason why Warlocks get their slots on a short rest?
In the playtest version of the warlock, they had to perform a special ritual during a short or long rest to recover their equivalent of spell slots (more on that later).
If you think Warlocks get their slots on a short rest because they in touch with the patron, then why can't Clerics get slots during a short rest by praying to their god?
Tradition, mostly. Warlocks are newer, so they got more leeway in terms of being able to break from the traditional Vancian casting formula. I think if you made a new game from scratch to mechanically represent the concepts presented in modern D&D, I do think clerics and warlocks would use the same mechanical framework.
In quick reply to the responses, I think Warlocks would be more interesting with just Eldritch Invocations and no spells.
I think you would have liked the playtest warlock. In that iteration, the warlock did have spells, but no spell slots, and all the spells on their spell list were rituals, so unless they gained levels in another spellcasting class, rituals were the only way they could cast spells. What they had in place of spell slots was Minor Invocations, Lesser Invocations, and a resource called Patron’s Favors. The warlock could use Minor Invocations at-will (Eldritch Blast was a Minor Invocation) and they could spend a Patron’s Favor to use a Lesser Invocation. The Warlock got two Patron’s Favors, which they regained by performing a special ritual during a short or long rest to contact their patron. Presumably, they would have gotten Greater Invocations at some point, but since the warlock in the playtest only went to 5th level, we never got to see what that would have looked like.
It’s easy to see how this evolved into the warlock we have now. Internal playtesters probably found it confusing that the warlock had spells but no spell slots, and found the distinction between Invocations and spells arbitrary. So, Patron’s Favors became the warlock’s special spell slots that work differently than everyone else’s spell slots, Minor Invocations became cantrips, Lesser Invocations became spells, and what would have been Greater Invocations became Mystic Arcana, and/or the Invocations that let you spend a warlock spell slot to cast a specified spell once per day. The ritual casting focus got turned into the Book of Ancient Secrets invocation, and more Pact Boons got invented.
And move the short rest recovery with few slots to Sorcerers.
Again, I think the playtest sorcerer shows us a better path. Instead of normal spell slots and the ability to spend sorcery points to make more spell slots, the playtest sorcerer had no spell slots, and could only cast spells by spending sorcery points (though they were called Willpower at the time). And on top of that, they could spend points to modify their spells via Metamagic, and the draconic bloodline subclass became more dragon-like the lower their willpower pool was (I could imagine this translating to an increased chance of wild magic surges for the wild magic sorcerer with lower willpower as well, but we never got any other subclasses in the playtest).
Of all the iterations of the Sorcerer I’ve seen, this one best captured the feeling of someone born with magic, in my opinion. Instead of preparing spells from a book and casting them with spell slots like a wizard or performing rituals and praying to an otherworldly entity for favors like a Warlock (and in my opinion like a Cleric should also do), they just had spells and could exert their will to cast them, or to modify them, and their magic would start getting weird if they spent too much of it (though a clever Sorcerer could turn that to their advantage as well).
Under that framework, I would imagine Sorcerers recovering
some Willpower/Sorcery Points on a short rest, but not all, and recovering all, or at least more, on a long rest.
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