D&D 5E D&D Next Q&A: 02/28/2014

[Minigiant]

And will sorcerers be able to heal?

Maybe later as a favored soul bloodline/lineage.
One can hope.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Best part of the Q&A was the proper use of "gish" as jargon.

Clearly you're just trolling with this remark.

Anyway: I'm wondering what an example of a "sorcerer only" spell would be. I'm against things like, as mentioned, "burning hands is sorc only" for no good reason. There are wizard spells that clearly shouldn't be sorcerer - Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer, for example. Perhaps Contingency. What would a hypothetical spell that has a clear sorc-only function?

A direct-damage attack that maximizes the metamagic function?
A spell that triggers a spell in a spellbook?
Bloodline-specific effects?

 

[fuindordm]

I think unique, bloodline-related spells are the most likely and thematically acceptable source.

Ben

 

[Dausuul]

Anyway: I'm wondering what an example of a "sorcerer only" spell would be. I'm against things like, as mentioned, "burning hands is sorc only" for no good reason. There are wizard spells that clearly shouldn't be sorcerer - Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer, for example. Perhaps Contingency. What would a hypothetical spell that has a clear sorc-only function?

I was wondering that too. The problem is that wizard has traditionally been the catch-all, "do everything" class. Got a magical ability that isn't healing? Give it to the wizard! Any effort to cordon off some area of magic as sorceror turf is going to meet a lot of resistance from traditionalists.

Thinking about it, though, I can see some possibilities. One is that sorcerors get spells which grant combat bonuses to the caster (e.g., Tenser's transformation). Another is that sorcerors get spells which can adapt on the fly. For instance, wizards might get a polymorph-type spell where you choose an animal and turn into it, and that's the animal you are. Sorcerors would have a version along the lines of shapechange, where you can pick a new form every round if you want. And of course anything that interacts with sorcery points is going to be sorc-only by definition.

I have to say, I like the approach of making metamagic into a sorceror thing. Sorcs always benefited more from metamagic than wizards did, anyway.

 

[TerraDave]

Gah. It's a horrible misuse of the term, which actually refers strictly to githyanki spellcaster/warriors. I hate seeing it applied to anyone else.

HATE HATE HATE.

HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE!

Yes. Back in my day they were called elves. And they were awesome.

 

[Ichneumon]

Gah. It's a horrible misuse of the term, which actually refers strictly to githyanki spellcaster/warriors. I hate seeing it applied to anyone else.

HATE HATE HATE.

HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE!

OTOH I'm glad it gave you some pleasure.

Sometimes, a term just wants to be free...

 

[I'm A Banana]

What would be kind of cool is if the gish in the core book was actually someone trained in the manner of fighting of the githyanki warrior/spellcasters of the Astral Sea/plane. D&D has a chance to harmonize that term and use its history to an advantage!

Bladesingers are also acceptable, for the traditionalists.

 

[Wrathamon]

Yes. Back in my day they were called elves. And they were awesome.

+1

Love the Elf and Dwarf classes


also metamagic was a 3e invention (?), so if Sorcery is metamagic domain doesnt bother me. Wizards were fine without it before.

 

[jrowland]

I am also ok with Metamagic for sorcerers only.

For wizards, a "Maximized Fireball" is a whole new spell. Do the research, add it to the spellbook, done. I think thats what we'll see. If not, I think "advanced" rules would be house-ruled fairly quickly, such as:

Whatever the bump would be in 5E (lets say +4 spell level for maximized), then Maximized Fireball is a new spell of 7th level, does 36 damage (maximized 6d6) and can be cast as 8th level (42 dmg), and 9th level (48 dmg). Compared with say Fireball in 7th level slot (10-60 dmg avg=35), 8th (11-66 dmg avg=38.5), 9th (12-72 dmg avg=42).

etc. for all the other metamagic tropes.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Some interesting things would happen if Sorcerers had only self-healing spells, but not spells that heal others. The idea might be more appropriate to Warlocks however.

If Warlocks were to have self-healing spells it should involve harming someone else, like Vampiric Touch and the like.