D&D 5E (2024) Could the DnDNext Sorcerer be revived as its own class?

There is one thing about how it worked I didn't really care for. It just seemed odd to me that the less of your power you have remaining, the more you look like your sorcery origin. Like the default condition is you are physically transformed and you need magical power reserves to hold that transformation back and look like your normal species.

I know there are other ways to interpret it, but I have a hard time not seeing the feel of it like that.

It would work better for me if you had the ability to use at-will origin things (claws, dragon breath, other features) based on how much magic power you had left. The more power, the more of your at-will stuff is available. So you start your day able to do a lot of interesting at-will stuff, and as you cast spells you start losing the ability to do those things. You trade weaker but at-will abilities for the concentrated power of spells.
 

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Yes absolutely 100% it could and IMO should be.

What's the thing folks complain about all the time with Sorcerer? It's a class with no features, and Metamagic simply doesn't fill the hole.

It's entirely because they got cold feet about the playtest Sorcerer.

I liked the design just not as a sorcerer.
Genuinely, why?

The definitional thing about Sorcerers is that they are an innate font of power from some kind of source. Each subclass would have transformed the character in different ways. A Shadow Sorcerer? Literally becoming a living shadow, skulking about, stabbing unseen and then slinking away. A Storm Sorcerer? Living storm cloud, surging around the battlefield. Clockwork? You literally become a mechanical man, with parts made in Japan Breland. Aberrant? Congratulations, the Cthulhu was inside you all along, and sometimes he likes to come out and play.

I genuinely think most people looked at the playtest Sorcerer and thought "wait, EVERY sorcerer has to play this way? HELL NO" when that's...literally not what was on offer. They were testing a "core" build--a baseline subclass--before branching out.
 

Yes absolutely 100% it could and IMO should be.

What's the thing folks complain about all the time with Sorcerer? It's a class with no features, and Metamagic simply doesn't fill the hole.

It's entirely because they got cold feet about the playtest Sorcerer.


Genuinely, why?

The definitional thing about Sorcerers is that they are an innate font of power from some kind of source. Each subclass would have transformed the character in different ways. A Shadow Sorcerer? Literally becoming a living shadow, skulking about, stabbing unseen and then slinking away. A Storm Sorcerer? Living storm cloud, surging around the battlefield. Clockwork? You literally become a mechanical man, with parts made in Japan Breland. Aberrant? Congratulations, the Cthulhu was inside you all along, and sometimes he likes to come out and play.

I genuinely think most people looked at the playtest Sorcerer and thought "wait, EVERY sorcerer has to play this way? HELL NO" when that's...literally not what was on offer. They were testing a "core" build--a baseline subclass--before branching out.

It's nit what I wanted from a sorcerer tbh.

Bloodline powers I suppose are the best sorcerers via Pathfinder iirc.
 

Yes absolutely 100% it could and IMO should be.

What's the thing folks complain about all the time with Sorcerer? It's a class with no features, and Metamagic simply doesn't fill the hole.
Spontaneous Metamagic fits D&D Sorcerers the most.

Changing spells on the fly via your innate connection in the 6 seconds of each round is very sorcerer.


While deep connection to a bloodline is also sorcerer, it could be its own class.

Having all dragon powers or undead powers or angel powers due to lineage or accident should be its own class. Especially if you are allowing for a warrior or healer option.
 

It sounds like a "henshin(transforming) (super)hero" from totkutatsu (Japanese speculative fiction).

Now my mind remember the "dragonfire adept" class from 3.5 Dragon Magic.

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Other concept that should be studied or reviewed is the dragonkith prestige class from 3.5 Draconomicon.

Are we talking about a spellcaster that can use magic to acquire for a limited time any monster trait like natural weapons or breath attack?
 

Yes absolutely 100% it could and IMO should be.

What's the thing folks complain about all the time with Sorcerer? It's a class with no features, and Metamagic simply doesn't fill the hole.

It's entirely because they got cold feet about the playtest Sorcerer.

Genuinely, why?

The definitional thing about Sorcerers is that they are an innate font of power from some kind of source. Each subclass would have transformed the character in different ways. A Shadow Sorcerer? Literally becoming a living shadow, skulking about, stabbing unseen and then slinking away. A Storm Sorcerer? Living storm cloud, surging around the battlefield. Clockwork? You literally become a mechanical man, with parts made in Japan Breland. Aberrant? Congratulations, the Cthulhu was inside you all along, and sometimes he likes to come out and play.

I genuinely think most people looked at the playtest Sorcerer and thought "wait, EVERY sorcerer has to play this way? HELL NO" when that's...literally not what was on offer. They were testing a "core" build--a baseline subclass--before branching out.

The issue (like with so many D&D classes) is that the sorcerer is three archetypes in a trench coat fighting to see which one is going to be the top. You have the Innate Caster, the wizard-without-a-spellbook character. You have the Spell Shaper, the character whose brimming with power and can manipulate it into different forms (controllably or not) and you have the Monster Scion, who lets you play a PC power level monster.

The current Sorcerer (circa 2024) tries to play to all three in diverse ways. You can play the Innate Caster by picking the more abstract sorceries (like storm or lunar). You have Innate Sorcery and Metamagic/Sorcery points and Wild Magic to foster Spell Shaper, and you can pick the more monstrous (draconic, aberrant, clockwork) to do the Monster Scion. All three are supported, though none exceptionally well.

The UAS was primarily the Monster Scion with a token nod to the Innate Caster. You started out looking like the wizard-without-a-spellbook, but you ended up a monster at the end of the day. You couldn't ignore either side well; you didn't start out with your claws and scales until you blew all your spells, and the more you used your magic, the more inhuman you became. So, if you wanted to stay primarily in inhuman form, you were incentivized to waste your spells early to get to your monster side. If you didn't want to interact with the monster, you were incentivized to not use your magic to stay in your human form. That creates only a single avenue of play where you have to be okay with measured use of magic (like any caster) and slowly drift towards inhuman.

If I want to play both a primary caster AND have draconic abilities, I don't want to weigh one against the other. I want my claws and scales on tap when I start the day, and I don't want to end up a monster because I cast magic missile too many times per day. I also don't want to start a mage and end up a sub-par fighter.

Note the concept of "Spell Shaper" was not even a factor in the UAS because the power budget for it was filled by having those sub-par fighter abilities tacked on when you are out of magic (and likely, your allies would be too, so they're looking for long rest, not waiting for you slap on plate and keep going).

While not perfect, I much prefer the current style sorcerer design which gives me the option to be a bookless wizard or a dragon-man depending on how I build. I would have hated to have my bookless wizard forced to become a dragon, shadow, or living storm by using my abilities. Likewise, I would have hated to try to play a dragon mage and have to blow most of spells before I gained access to my draconic abilities. I was the worst of both worlds.
 



I’ve long argued that sorcerer is a redundant class in 5e.
I honestly feel that the three arcane casters between them are a mess and need their narrative concepts looking at.

Wizard's entire identity is 'does magic', and as the result the wizard community gets angry whenever any casters can do something they can't.
Sorcerer is basically 'wizard, but they're hot and suck at magic' the class.
Warlock and Sorcerer share half their subclass themes completely. Almost anything which can be a bloodline can also be a patron, and vice versa.

I'd probably merge Wizard and Sorcerer into a 'mage' class, with various magic types as their subclasses (bladesinging, blood magic, necromancy, war magic, pyromancy, etc).
And then merge Sorcerer and Warlock into the overall Warlock class. With the power coming from a patron or bloodline (player choice).
 

I personally really dislike this aspect of the class. We see all these complaints about how XYZ class should just be a subclass.

But somehow 'wizard, but hot' gets a free pass to eat up a class spot in the PHB.
Whereas I think the wizard is basically SPELLBOOK: THE CLASS. If anything, the wizard should be a subclass of sorcerer who gets a spellbook that they can use to swap out their spells known from. But inertia will keep Spellbook as a base class (it's one of the Core Four). So thus I will keep fighting for the "I don't need a book" magic user to remain visible.
 

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