D&D 5E Could a Sorcerer with a 1 Wizard dip fulfill everything unique about a wizard?

[Dausuul]

The ritual caster feat isn't any better for this. Or well, it depends by what you mean by a sorcerer with rituals. If you want a sorcerer that can cast some spells as rituals, then you are better serviced by a level of bard -just pick four rituals for your spells known-. Now if you mean a sorcerer who keeps a ritual book and can collect rituals... How is that different from a wizard with metamagic?

Because the sorcerer has good metamagic and good ritual casting, and the wizard has good ritual casting and trash metamagic.

I won't deny that there is a significant cost to the Ritual Caster feat--the stat minimum bites a sorcerer hard, and you have to go out and find new rituals instead of getting them automatically on level-up--but at least if you pay the cost, you get what you paid for. You can use all the same rituals a wizard of your level has access to.

Metamagic Adept is hot garbage for non-sorcerers. You can use a medium-quality metamagic option once per day, or a crappy option twice per day, and that's it. Your sorcery points don't increase with level, you can't recharge them with spell slots, and some of the best metamagic options (Heighten Spell, certain subclass features) are off the table entirely.

Also, sorcerers have class features besides metamagic. Some of them are quite good.

 

[auburn2]

But it is a marginal benefit. I mean, you can get Find familiar with the ritual feat or the initiate feat, but only one of these turns you into a mini-wizard, except worse. There is no point in doing that when you can have a wizard with the metamagic feat instead. Do you want a spellbook? there is no point to not being a wizard then. If you still insist on having sorcerer and rituals, then at least three levels of warlock gives you access to the equivalent of the sorcerer capstone, more spells known, a reliable way to contribute to combat and access to every ritual in the game. At least that way, there is more synergy. (Or you could be a warlock with the metamagic feat) Basically ritual caster is a bad way of getting ritual casting when there are other options that work better.

For find familiar with a sorcerer, the ritual caster feat is objectively better. For a Rogue or another class with no spells magic initiate with find familiar and a few cantrips may be a viable option, but not for a sorcerer IMO.

As for no point in being a wizard:

1. Your barbarian is surrounded by 8 enemies, cast fireball on top of the barbarian and damgae not a hair on the Barbarians head, while doing 8d6 to everyone else within 20ft. No one other than a wizard can do this.

2. Literally charm one enemy every single encounter. No spell slot needed. One guard on the gate, charm him and walk by. Another in the foyer, charm him and walk by, another near the Duke's bedroom charm him and walk by. Then charm the Duke himself and have the Barbarian get a free attack on him and you still have not used a single spell slot.

3. Find Familiar - enough said

5. AC19 with full caster slots plus shield spell for 24AC at 2nd level with point buy.

6. being able to cast mending (normally 1 minute cast time) and make an attack as a single action. Alternatively being able to cast ANY wizard cantrip or any cantrip at all if multiclassed and still attack. If you are multiclssed you can throw guidance on top of your athletics check to shove someone off the cliff! .... in one turn!

7. being able to decide what number your enemy rolls on his save twice a day.

8. Casting fireball and having it do slashing damage (or acid or cold ....) becuase you are fighting a bunch of devils that are immune to fire.

9. Being able to reduce ANY damage by 25 (10th level) or up up to 45 (18th+ level) by using spell slots as a reaction.

Only a wizard can do these things.

As someone who has played a lot of wizards I have found myself on the exact opposite of your argument. Would it be worth a couple wizard levels to get subtle spell or quickened spell? Other than that what does the sorcerer offer that a wizard can't do better?

IMO the only advantage a sorcerer has is charisma. That is a more useful stat than intelligence. So if you are looking at role play in a point buy situation sorcerer is attractive because you can dump intelligence and make him a more "all around" character. Dumping Charisma is rather denbilitating in terms of role play. To be honest, that is the only reason I can think that someone would take sorcerer over wizard.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

1. Your barbarian is surrounded by 8 enemies, cast fireball on top of the barbarian and damgae not a hair on the Barbarians head, while doing 8d6 to everyone else within 20ft. No one other than a wizard can do this.

Careful spell metamagic? Now available to everyone with Metamagic Adept.

7. being able to decide what number your enemy rolls on his save twice a day.

You can't do this and still have 1. Unless you are also a Metamagic Adept.

8. Casting fireball and having it do slashing damage (or acid or cold ....) becuase you are fighting a bunch of devils that are immune to fire.

Transmuted Spell metamagic. Also, still can't do this and still do those other things.

9. Being able to reduce ANY damage by 25 (10th level) or up up to 45 (18th+ level) by using spell slots as a reaction.

Clockwork Soul can do better without burning spell slots.

 

[Mort]

Careful spell metamagic? Now available to everyone with Metamagic Adept.

Careful spell only allows you to automatically save, so with a fireball the targets are still taking damage (excepting evasion etc.) Works well for spells like hypnotic pattern though.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Careful spell only allows you to automatically save, so with a fireball the targets are still taking damage (excepting evasion etc.) Works well for spells like hypnotic pattern though.

Don't barbarians get evasion these days?! Don't think I've played one since 3rd edition...

 

[Mort]

Don't barbarians get evasion these days?! Don't think I've played one since 3rd edition...

No, they get advantage in Dex saves with Danger Sense (2nd level).

Which, with the amount of HPs they're packing, is still pretty potent.

 

[MoonSong]

For find familiar with a sorcerer, the ritual caster feat is objectively better. For a Rogue or another class with no spells magic initiate with find familiar and a few cantrips may be a viable option, but not for a sorcerer IMO.

I said there is no point to NOT be a wizard. If what you want is basically a wizard, then be a wizard.

And ritual caster for find familiar is a bad choice for a sorcerer. It is more expensive than magic initiate -because of the score minimum-, and because sorcerers derive their utility from cantrips, -and more cantrips mean more chances to have utility-. These cantrips can synergize with the sorcerer features -as they can be affected by metamagic and other sorcerer features-, rituals on the other hand don't. They can't be augmented by sorcerer features, they are an add on that rests apart. And having a sorcerer with a spellbook kinda misses the point of a sorcerer(Look magic is in my veins, I'm so magical that I need to track and keep spells exactly the same way anybody else can learn to do!). Besides how often do you need to cast Find Familiar and how often do you get one hour to cast it? Having it be a ritual makes little difference to having it once per day.

There are other ways to make it:

Sorlock: Get the best ritual casting in the game, don't miss on stats, get a solid way to contribute to combat, plus many perks, including lots and lots of metamagic. Going more slowly with spell advancement can be painful, but having way more versatility makes up for it. If going sorlock for ritual casting is a bad choice, then every other choice is worse.
Take 1 level of Bard: Want to cast rituals? at least make these rituals spells known that you can cast and modify as normal.
Be a wizard, take metamagic initiate. Metamagic initiate has no score cost, I know it is weak, but if you want a wizard with tons of metamagic, 5e doesn't have it.

But ok, that is just me.

 

[auburn2]

1. Careful spell metamagic? Now available to everyone with Metamagic Adept.

2. You can't do this and still have 1. Unless you are also a Metamagic Adept.

3. Transmuted Spell metamagic. Also, still can't do this and still do those other things.

4. Clockwork Soul can do better without burning spell slots.

1. I said "harm not a hair on his head" with careful spell the Barbarian makes his save and takes half damage. A wizard in the school of evocation does no damage at all to him.

2. Diviner wizard using portent.

3. You can't get slashing damage for the fireball with meta magic, but the order of scribes wizard can (without metamagic) as long as he has a 3rd or higher level spell that does slashing damage in his book.

4. Clock work soul can't eliminate damage he takes at all as far I know. At 18th level he can resotore up to 100 damage as an action using 7 SPs once per LR. That is 100hp per long rest. An 18th level bladesinger's spell slots using song of defense account for 425hp of damage prevented per LR using only his reaction (multiple times). Now that is all of his slots and it is is in chucks, but it is a lot more and the key is that it is not healing, it is actually preventing damage, which means no saving throw for concentration (assuming you reduce it to 0 for a given attack).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

1. I said "harm not a hair on his head" with careful spell the Barbarian makes his save and takes half damage. A wizard in the school of evocation does no damage at all to him.

Yeah, well I was assuming that the reason you chose barbarian is because they have evasion. Which we have established they don't in 5e. The situation you describe is one I have only seen in real-time-with-pause computer games. It's generally easy enough to aim a fireball in PnP.

2. Diviner wizard using portent.

I know. And if you are a diviner wizard you can't be an evoker, or abjurer, or a scribe. One trick ponies have one trick.

3. You can't get slashing damage for the fireball with meta magic, but the order of scribes wizard can (without metamagic) as long as he has a 3rd or higher level spell that does slashing damage in his book./

That raises two questions: which third level spell are use using to supply the slashing damage, and why do you want to do want to do slashing damage anyway?

4. Clock work soul can't eliminate damage he takes at all as far I know.

Yeah, he can, using his level 6 Bastion of Law feature.

 

[cbwjm]

That raises two questions: which third level spell are use using to supply the slashing damage, and why do you want to do want to do slashing damage anyway?

Third level or higher, the damage swap allows you to match the damage type with a spell of the slot used to cast the spell. Kind of a moot point when it comes to slashing though since the wizard only has 2nd level spells that deal slashing. The only reason I can think of for them to want to deal slashing is to bypass fire resistance, but since you can do that with all the other damage types you don't really need to have slashing as an option.