D&D 5E Designer apathy and sunk costs, The reason the sorcerer is doomed to uncanny valley one-trick-ponieness.

[MoonSong]

The part you and many are missing this that 1 metamagicked spell is often better than 2 normal spells.

A twinned chromatic orb deals 6d8 (2 orbs of 3d8) in one turn compared to 2 normal chromatic orbs in half the time (1 round vs 2 rounds) for half the slots of a 1st level spell.

Think about it. A level 5 sorcerer has 5 points and 4 1st level slots. A 5th level wizard has 4 1st level slots and gets 3 more form Arcane recovery. The sorcerer can twin 3 of his 1st level spells (effectively 6 1st level spells) and still have 2 points left over. They just get the 3 extra spells and take twice the time. You get similar results with heighten and quicken spells. Distant spell saves you HP with range. Extend is good for buffs. Subtle is for low combat campaigns. And none of that 5th level or level restriction restriction of Arcane Recovery.

Metamagic is way better than Bonus Spells per day as it is often cheaper and faster. That's why you can't give sorcerers many bonus spells as they get even more stronger than normal caster with every metamagickable spell they get.

If Sorcerers had Widen Spell, people would be calling them broken. Widen Spell was 3 slots higher in 3E. Imagine if a sorcerer could double the area of any area spell for 3 sorcery points. Widened 9th level spells?

Most people don't realize how close to absolutely broken the sorcerer is. How bad it would be if you gave it the certain spells or gave it too many extra metamagics or sorcery points.

How many fifth level sorcerers have four metamagics? And your analysis is centered on blasting. If you say that because of blasting sorcerers lack any breadth and are close to broken, then in effect you are saying that they are only good for blasting, and broken. I would prefer a mediocre blaster that could actually be used for variety. (And don't tell me the Favored Soul is broken, cause it isn't)

And how are you using extend? you are twinning everyhting! How do you have subtle spell? you have both twin and extend!

Edit: Oh, and please stop calling "broken overpowered sorcerer" as if it was some kind of boogieman we all should fear. I would really love to see one truly overpowered sorcerer, if only to make years of suckitude worth something.

 

[JohnLynch]

Here's a quick homebrew.

Write the word "sorcerer" on your character sheet but actually play a wizard. Replace the word spellbook with "Arcane Secrets". Instead of studying your spellbook each day you meditate on the arcane secrets of the world. Otherwise prepare spells as normal. Use Charisma as your Spellcasting ability score. Lose the ability to learn spells you find but gain the ability to disregard inexpensive material components.

Does this capture everything you want in a sorcerer?

This post seems to have been missed. In all seriousness, is this what you want from the sorcerer?

 

[Minigiant]

How many fifth level sorcerers have four metamagics? And your analysis is centered on blasting. If you say that because of blasting sorcerers lack any breadth and are close to broken, then in effect you are saying that they are only good for blasting, and broken. I would prefer a mediocre blaster that could actually be used for variety. (And don't tell me the Favored Soul is broken, cause it isn't)

And how are you using extend? you are twinning everyhting! How do you have subtle spell? you have both twin and extend!

Edit: Oh, and please stop calling "broken overpowered sorcerer" as if it was some kind of boogieman we all should fear. I would really love to see one truly overpowered sorcerer, if only to make years of suckitude worth something.

I only centered on blasting as it's easiest to explain and useful in most D&D campaigns compared to something like divination.
But you can twin defensive and utility buffs too. Twinned gaseous form. Twinned haste or slow. Only a sorcerer can do that. And it only cost 3 sorcery points.

I was not talking about having 4 metmagics at once. Just explaining them.

And that's the thing. A metamagic spell is almost a whole new spell. Twinned Haste is like Improved Haste. It's whole new spell due to the power. You just let both the GWM fighter and the Sharpshooter ranger chase after the fleeing dragon with bonus attacks. You killed him. That poor green dragon's a goner.

If you have twin spell, quicken spell, burning hands, chromatic orb, charm person, enhance ability fly, and fireball, you practically have 10 bonus spells known.

Know imagine if the sorcerer got powerhouses like shapechange, true polymorph, create undead, rope trick, bestow curse, etc. Sorcerers can easily double the targets of spells, make the target have disadvantage, double the duration or range, add range. You forgot how utterly broken metamagic in 3e is if you let the characters get the feats and items to reduce the costs. Well, metamagic is just a drop in the bucket in 5th edition for sorcerers.

The main reason why wizards are allowed to have so many spells in their list is because they can't adjust them like sorcerers nor spam them like warlocks. Every spell given to the warlock and sorcerer was done to prevent abuse and too easily disabling foes.

Edi: haste not fly.

 

[kbrakke]

It seems like people keep making really weird straw mans in this thread. No one ever said that list of spells was a complete level 20 sorcerer, these were clearly presented as the options that a non-blaster sorcerer could take if you wanted to play that. At no point did Minigiant say that at level 5 you would have 4 metamagics, he said that based on what type of game you are playing you can get great utility by choosing the right metamagics.

But honestly, a present for you (MoonSong(Kaiilurker)), free of charge. A 100% AL legal sneaky sorcerer

I want to make one thing perfectly clear, his thin sheen of shimmering scales doesn't cover is face, or his hands, in fact the soles of his feet manifest the scales. This allows him to forego shoes when he needs to climb stealthily in to a place. I assume dragonscale shimmer is as grippy as rock climbing shoes.
If you want the owl familiar more, let me know and we can do variant human at level 1. Which I might add, also gets you unseen servant, and then lets you copy spells from those wretched wizards.
Also to get thieves' tools you have to do some starting equipment fanegling. It works, but you are priced in to a staff as your arcane focus. If you have any DM xp+money to start it's way easier.

And I am being 100% serious right now, what concept do you have for your sorcerer? I will make it free of charge, it will be effective and AL legal. It won't be the most effective in all pillars mind you. I know this struggle with my Wizard/Arcane Trickster in AL. But if you want to excel at one thing, we can do it. If you want to be acceptable at many things we can do that. If you want to be able to change your strengths when you level up (Not each day, we're not a wizard) we can do that. Part of the joy for me in the sorcerer is that I get to really dig in to making to most of each and every spell known. And then in play I get to make sure I use every last sorcery point. If I didn't use them all in an adventuring day I made a mistake. Playing a sorcerer is actually a lot like playing Constructed Magic. You spend hours agonizing over every last small decision because you know that you are necessarily giving up % points in some areas to gain them in others. Then on top of that when you actually have to sit down and play your goal is to use all your resources optimally to give your self the best chance at succeeding.

If you in your sorcerer play find yourself not worrying about spell slots or sorcery points or how to apply your square spells to round problems (and you want to worry about those things) then I would ask your dm to give you some solid adventuring days. Not every day, again that would be insane (How do you do 6-8 encounters on a random road trip). In my party our most memorable encounters (Interestingly both prisoner rescues) involved both me and the other sorcerer spending everything. And not just spending it all, but our wild magic sorcerer spent everything, got a wild surge to get him back his sorcery points which then allowed him to save the day by making his actual last possible spell slot.

What's the TL;DR? Give me your sorcerer concepts, I'll try and give you something fun and playable

P.S. Minigiant, both invisibility and fly get more targets when cast in a higher level slot, not really breaking new ground with the twin spell (Unless slot is your major concern, which is not unreasonable(Also important to remember that the twinned spell can only have one target and it can't be self, so fireball burning hands etc. don't work.)). To boost your point though I can say from having seen it in action that twin haste is still broken, and twin immolation is hilarious against small numbers of high CR monsters. I'm excited for twin greater invisibility soon on our Rogue and Paladin.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The part you and many are missing this that 1 metamagicked spell is often better than 2 normal spells.

A twinned chromatic orb deals 6d8 (2 orbs of 3d8) in one turn compared to 2 normal chromatic orbs in half the time (1 round vs 2 rounds) for half the slots of a 1st level spell.

Think about it. A level 5 sorcerer has 5 points and 4 1st level slots. A 5th level wizard has 4 1st level slots and gets 3 more form Arcane recovery. The sorcerer can twin 3 of his 1st level spells (effectively 6 1st level spells) and still have 2 points left over. They just get the 3 extra spells and take twice the time. You get similar results with heighten and quicken spells. Distant spell saves you HP with range. Extend is good for buffs. Subtle is for low combat campaigns. And none of that 5th level or level restriction restriction of Arcane Recovery.

Metamagic is way better than Bonus Spells per day as it is often cheaper and faster. That's why you can't give sorcerers many bonus spells as they get even more stronger than normal caster with every metamagickable spell they get.

If Sorcerers had Widen Spell, people would be calling them broken. Widen Spell was 3 slots higher in 3E. Imagine if a sorcerer could double the area of any area spell for 3 sorcery points. Widened 9th level spells?

Most people don't realize how close to absolutely broken the sorcerer is. How bad it would be if you gave it the certain spells or gave it too many extra metamagics or sorcery points.

I completely agree that twin spell is very powerful, but that only hides the problem to an extent.

Let's say you take chromatic orb and twin spell. You get 2 more 1st level spells and 1 more metamagic. What do you take?

Let's look at metamagic for a second. Keep in mind this second choice is locked in and you will not get another metamagic until 10th level.

Quickened Spell is awesome, not a bad choice. Being able to bonus action a spell is incredibly powerful, allowing you to follow with a cantrip or do some other important action that turn.

Careful spell? The ability to deal half damage to allies if you throw an AOE on them, or avoid the effects of... actually at low-levels to sorcerers even have AOE spells that require a save to avoid effects? I can't find any since sleep and color spray have no save. Might have missed something, but that is a very specific build at that point, useful but may not be viable at low levels.

Distant spell? Great for turning touch spells into range, but not really useful otherwise. Average spell distance I've seen is 60 to 90 ft, and that is more than enough with an average movement of 30 ft on top of that. Could maybe be useful, can get ridiculous if stacked with spell sniper, but not generally useful in your average game.

Empowered spell is decent, odds of maybe increasing your damage, but it works best when you roll a lot of dice, which you won't at low levels. Also, specific to damage, so not useful in non-combat situations.

Extend spell? Double duration could be interesting, make mage armor last a whole day with a single casting or extend some illusions, but fairly situational. Making sleep last 2 minutes instead of 1 is fairly pointless, as after 1 minute generally you've mopped things up. Fog cloud for 2 hours instead of 1, potentially useful but only in very specific situations.

Heightened spell? Powerful, but incredibly expensive until you hit level 9 or so, otherwise you devote almost all you points to whatever one spell you want to succeed. With a decent charisma your save will be fairly high, and unless you are going against an enemies good saves your likely to get the spell off anyways. Still, if your build is built around debuffs this is a good way to increase your likelihood of success. Increase, because disadvantage is not an auto-fail, but you've used all your points either way.

Finally subtle spell, which I love flavorfully but can't see it being used much. I guess if you are enchanting and don't want them to know you spelled them, which they will anyways once the spells wears off, but it could be useful for casting in the middle of a fancy party where you don't want to draw attention. Or if you are tied up, but not blindfolded. Honestly, it is the most situational metamagic I can think of. Decent in the right circumstances sure, but those same obstacles could be overcome in manner different ways without using such a precious resource as a slot for metamagic unless you were certain of a concept or campaign where it would shine.

So, out of all those options... Quicken is clearly the best to me. So a sorcerer picks quicken and twin as their metamagic. Heightened and Empowered might be my high level picks, if the game or character get that far, but none of the others really measure up.

And yes, anyone can come up with a specific situation where extend for example is wonderful. But that is one encounter in 7 levels of gameplay. A sorcerer needs to rely on their metamagic options from 3rd to 10th which can be entire campaigns. More than likely you will be fighting during that time, and quicken and twin are also beautiful options for buffing sorcerers. But that means that realistically you do not end up with any of the 8 options, you end up with those 2 options, almost no matter what.

Then look at spells. At 3rd you will have 3 1st levels and 1 2nd level. What do you pick? If you went with chromatic orb, and we'll say dragon sorcerer so you don't feel tempted to take mage armor to increase your pitiful AC, what do you get? Shield is a good reaction to save you from a bad blow. Fog Cloud is good for infiltrating or running away. Expeditious retreat is better for per running speed. If you want damage other than chromatic you might take magic missile or ray of sickness. Comprehend Languages since you are likely the face? Detect Magic? Charm person or Silent image are essential if you have a theme other than damage. I could go on and on. You get to pick now, and while you could grab more or different 1st level spells later, you can only change spells once per level up.

At this time Divine and Primal casters get all their spells, just need to prepare what you need for the day. At this point wizards know 10 spells, two of which can be 2nd level. 10 spells known vs 4. Even larger gap if the wizard ever gets to stop by a library to scribe some spells into their book.

At level 20, if a wizard has never scribed a single spell into their spellbook other than at level ups during their entire career, it is 44 spells know to 15, and the wizard can likely choose 25 of those to have ready for the day.

If we agree that options equal power, then can you honestly say the ability to cast twice as fast can equal up to knowing at the very least 3 times as may tricks? And being able to cast them without spending spell slots if they happen to be a ritual?

Sorcerers dominate on the battlefield, where their speed casting excels at ending the fights sooner either through spreading debuffs or buffs more quickly or novaing damage like no ones business, but outside of that speed a wizard has them beat in every other category that a general, long term campaign will have. I see a sorcerer's power, I do, but it just feels like you have to play a sorcerer one way, as a great combat caster with only these specific abilities, and that can be very frustrating when you want to step outside of those bounds. Then to see the other classic casters getting so many nice things. Bards healing and inspiration is phenomnal in or out of combat. Clerics have no issues in or out of combat. Druids are insane, especially wild shaping druids. Even Warlocks get a lot of potential utility and crazy combos, like being able to naturally detect magic, which people who are born magical cannot do without spending spell slots.

 

[Minigiant]

P.S. Minigiant, both invisibility and fly get more targets when cast in a higher level slot, not really breaking new ground with the twin spell (Unless slot is your major concern, which is not unreasonable(Also important to remember that the twinned spell can only have one target and it can't be self, so fireball burning hands etc. don't work.)). To boost your point though I can say from having seen it in action that twin haste is still broken, and twin immolation is hilarious against small numbers of high CR monsters. I'm excited for twin greater invisibility soon on our Rogue and Paladin.

Yeah. It was haste, I was remembering not fly. Our fighter and ranger had flying items. It was the NPC sorcerer's twinned haste that let us murder it.

An evil sorcerer twinned FoD our back line round one on the next adventure in his fight. Not funny at all.

Sorcerers dominate on the battlefield, where their speed casting excels at ending the fights sooner either through spreading debuffs or buffs more quickly or novaing damage like no ones business, but outside of that speed a wizard has them beat in every other category that a general, long term campaign will have. I see a sorcerer's power, I do, but it just feels like you have to play a sorcerer one way, as a great combat caster with only these specific abilities, and that can be very frustrating when you want to step outside of those bounds. Then to see the other classic casters getting so many nice things. Bards healing and inspiration is phenomnal in or out of combat. Clerics have no issues in or out of combat. Druids are insane, especially wild shaping druids. Even Warlocks get a lot of potential utility and crazy combos, like being able to naturally detect magic, which people who are born magical cannot do without spending spell slots.

Yes the bounds are tight.

My point is that they aren't too tight that the sorcerer isn't playable in many way and that the limitations are there because the metamagic can break adventures in half if allowed on certiain spells. This is the drawback of giving every caster spontaneous casting. They had to give the sorcerer something and metamagic was it. Like I said, they couldn't even convert many metamagics as things like widen spell, chain spell, and maximize spell on any spell would be crazy.

The key is that you can't play a sorcerer like a wizard now. You have to live with the limitations. You can't balance it to a non-offensive utility caster as someone would take your "double sorcery points", "pick an wizard spell", or "sorcery points on short rest rule" and make every monster in the cave system die in glorious fires or be their ensorcelled puppet. You can't slap metamagic on the wizard.

You have to use the sorcerer as is. It's not that bad. It's just not a variant wizard anymore.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yes the bounds are tight.

My point is that they aren't too tight that the sorcerer isn't playable in many way and that the limitations are there because the metamagic can break adventures in half if allowed on certiain spells. This is the drawback of giving every caster spontaneous casting. They had to give the sorcerer something and metamagic was it. Like I said, they couldn't even convert many metamagics as things like widen spell, chain spell, and maximize spell on any spell would be crazy.

The key is that you can't play a sorcerer like a wizard now. You have to live with the limitations. You can't balance it to a non-offensive utility caster as someone would take your "double sorcery points", "pick an wizard spell", or "sorcery points on short rest rule" and make every monster in the cave system die in glorious fires or be their ensorcelled puppet. You can't slap metamagic on the wizard.

You have to use the sorcerer as is. It's not that bad. It's just not a variant wizard anymore.

I agree with you that sorcerers are very playable, I'm enjoying my current sorcerer (though I recognize my DM has broken the game in a lot of ways and I'm using the old UA version of the Storm Sorcerer with the bonus spell list) and that they should not be the exact same as the wizard. My question I guess is how comparable how they. Wizards and Sorcerers are supposed to be similarly powerful, as shown by having the same HD, the same proficiencies, ect. Between levels 1 and 10 (which is half the game and the close to standard length of many campaigns) I think wizards are much more powerful, having more spells and more spell slots in practice, while a sorcerer spends most of their points very quickly in combat and has a highly limited spell selection.

I guess that is the other thing, a lot of people on this thread said things like Arcane recovery and sorcerery points being balanced for spell recovery, while seeming to ignore that the points are consumed by casting, while at the same time saying the limited spell selection is not an issue because of the many metamagic options, while seeming to ignore you do not get very many metamagic choices or the points to fuel them consistently. I also do not see the... ideal, that sorcerers metamagic allows them to change their spells to fit the situation. An attack spell is an attack spell and a sorcerer can only make it hit harder (potentially), more accurately (maybe), or faster. It is still an attack spell that can only be used in situations where that attack spell is useful.

I just want some acknowledgement that there are legitimate issues with the sorcerer.

 

[Minigiant]

I agree with you that sorcerers are very playable, I'm enjoying my current sorcerer (though I recognize my DM has broken the game in a lot of ways and I'm using the old UA version of the Storm Sorcerer with the bonus spell list) and that they should not be the exact same as the wizard. My question I guess is how comparable how they. Wizards and Sorcerers are supposed to be similarly powerful, as shown by having the same HD, the same proficiencies, ect. Between levels 1 and 10 (which is half the game and the close to standard length of many campaigns) I think wizards are much more powerful, having more spells and more spell slots in practice, while a sorcerer spends most of their points very quickly in combat and has a highly limited spell selection.

I guess that is the other thing, a lot of people on this thread said things like Arcane recovery and sorcerery points being balanced for spell recovery, while seeming to ignore that the points are consumed by casting, while at the same time saying the limited spell selection is not an issue because of the many metamagic options, while seeming to ignore you do not get very many metamagic choices or the points to fuel them consistently. I also do not see the... ideal, that sorcerers metamagic allows them to change their spells to fit the situation. An attack spell is an attack spell and a sorcerer can only make it hit harder (potentially), more accurately (maybe), or faster. It is still an attack spell that can only be used in situations where that attack spell is useful.

I just want some acknowledgement that there are legitimate issues with the sorcerer.

An attack spell is an attack spell and can be only use when you use an attack spell. However a sorcerer can do more with it. And Sorcery points are more efficient that Spell slots.

For the same 3 points needed to make a 2nd level slot for scorching ray, you can twin or empower 3 1st level spells or or cantrips.

A sorcerer can thus reduce the number of attack spells they learn as they can cannibalize slots for points.

These leaves more spells known available for enchantments, illustions, Save or Suck spells, and buffs.

This become even more powerful as low level attack spells lose effectiveness at high levels. At level 7, you can forget magic missile or burning hands to use all your 1st level slots for points and learn a higher level spell. Who needs 1st level attack spells when your cantrip deal comparable damage at no cost.

Your 20th level sorcerer might only know 15 spells but only 3 might even be under the 4th level. That levels 12 spells known of the 4th level or higher. Cannibalize those slots. That's a lot of twinned empowered cantrip.

Whereas your wizards wastes a spell preperared on burning hands as he might waste the slot if there is no target for charm person and he never plummets for a feather fall and those slots go unused.

Sorcerer slots don't go unused.

 

[MoonSong]

This post seems to have been missed. In all seriousness, is this what you want from the sorcerer?

No, sorry too much like a wizard. Very different from what I want.

I only centered on blasting as it's easiest to explain and useful in most D&D campaigns compared to something like divination.
But you can twin defensive and utility buffs too. Twinned gaseous form. Twinned haste or slow. Only a sorcerer can do that. And it only cost 3 sorcery points.

I was not talking about having 4 metmagics at once. Just explaining them.

And that's the thing. A metamagic spell is almost a whole new spell. Twinned Haste is like Improved Haste. It's whole new spell due to the power. You just let both the GWM fighter and the Sharpshooter ranger chase after the fleeing dragon with bonus attacks. You killed him. That poor green dragon's a goner.

If you have twin spell, quicken spell, burning hands, chromatic orb, charm person, enhance ability fly, and fireball, you practically have 10 bonus spells known.

Know imagine if the sorcerer got powerhouses like shapechange, true polymorph, create undead, rope trick, bestow curse, etc. Sorcerers can easily double the targets of spells, make the target have disadvantage, double the duration or range, add range. You forgot how utterly broken metamagic in 3e is if you let the characters get the feats and items to reduce the costs. Well, metamagic is just a drop in the bucket in 5th edition for sorcerers.

The main reason why wizards are allowed to have so many spells in their list is because they can't adjust them like sorcerers nor spam them like warlocks. Every spell given to the warlock and sorcerer was done to prevent abuse and too easily disabling foes.

Edi: haste not fly.

How can you break rope trick with metamagic? Two hours instead of one hour is that powerful? Casting it with your hands tied is somehow broken? would far spell apply to it?

Bestow curse is not something to take lightly, but if I can't really do anything else, is it so bad that I could curse two people at once? Or maybe this is so broken, but how about anything else? you know, is there anything a sorcerer could create that was permanent and not just random destruction? At least there for more than a day? A few hours? Even for a single hour?

It seems like people keep making really weird straw mans in this thread. No one ever said that list of spells was a complete level 20 sorcerer, these were clearly presented as the options that a non-blaster sorcerer could take if you wanted to play that. At no point did Minigiant say that at level 5 you would have 4 metamagics, he said that based on what type of game you are playing you can get great utility by choosing the right metamagics.

But honestly, a present for you (MoonSong(Kaiilurker)), free of charge. A 100% AL legal sneaky sorcerer

I want to make one thing perfectly clear, his thin sheen of shimmering scales doesn't cover is face, or his hands, in fact the soles of his feet manifest the scales. This allows him to forego shoes when he needs to climb stealthily in to a place. I assume dragonscale shimmer is as grippy as rock climbing shoes.
If you want the owl familiar more, let me know and we can do variant human at level 1. Which I might add, also gets you unseen servant, and then lets you copy spells from those wretched wizards.
Also to get thieves' tools you have to do some starting equipment fanegling. It works, but you are priced in to a staff as your arcane focus. If you have any DM xp+money to start it's way easier.

And I am being 100% serious right now, what concept do you have for your sorcerer? I will make it free of charge, it will be effective and AL legal. It won't be the most effective in all pillars mind you. I know this struggle with my Wizard/Arcane Trickster in AL. But if you want to excel at one thing, we can do it. If you want to be acceptable at many things we can do that. If you want to be able to change your strengths when you level up (Not each day, we're not a wizard) we can do that. Part of the joy for me in the sorcerer is that I get to really dig in to making to most of each and every spell known. And then in play I get to make sure I use every last sorcery point. If I didn't use them all in an adventuring day I made a mistake. Playing a sorcerer is actually a lot like playing Constructed Magic. You spend hours agonizing over every last small decision because you know that you are necessarily giving up % points in some areas to gain them in others. Then on top of that when you actually have to sit down and play your goal is to use all your resources optimally to give your self the best chance at succeeding.

If you in your sorcerer play find yourself not worrying about spell slots or sorcery points or how to apply your square spells to round problems (and you want to worry about those things) then I would ask your dm to give you some solid adventuring days. Not every day, again that would be insane (How do you do 6-8 encounters on a random road trip). In my party our most memorable encounters (Interestingly both prisoner rescues) involved both me and the other sorcerer spending everything. And not just spending it all, but our wild magic sorcerer spent everything, got a wild surge to get him back his sorcery points which then allowed him to save the day by making his actual last possible spell slot.

What's the TL;DR? Give me your sorcerer concepts, I'll try and give you something fun and playable

P.S. Minigiant, both invisibility and fly get more targets when cast in a higher level slot, not really breaking new ground with the twin spell (Unless slot is your major concern, which is not unreasonable(Also important to remember that the twinned spell can only have one target and it can't be self, so fireball burning hands etc. don't work.)). To boost your point though I can say from having seen it in action that twin haste is still broken, and twin immolation is hilarious against small numbers of high CR monsters. I'm excited for twin greater invisibility soon on our Rogue and Paladin.

Not really sure about it, I appreciate the effort, but what I'm looking for is a magical thief, a very good magical thief -not a thief that does magic-, and one that a wizard can't easily replace. Zero combat magic please, and zero to do with books.

You have to use the sorcerer as is. It's not that bad. It's just not a variant wizard anymore.

It never has been. At most it was another way to think of the AD&D Mage/MU, but it is just that different at its core. Even in 3e where there is so little differences, a sorcerer plays on a way no wizard can. Not even those sorcerers that "play like wizards" really do it.

An attack spell is an attack spell and can be only use when you use an attack spell. However a sorcerer can do more with it. And Sorcery points are more efficient that Spell slots.

For the same 3 points needed to make a 2nd level slot for scorching ray, you can twin or empower 3 1st level spells or or cantrips.

A sorcerer can thus reduce the number of attack spells they learn as they can cannibalize slots for points.

These leaves more spells known available for enchantments, illustions, Save or Suck spells, and buffs.

This become even more powerful as low level attack spells lose effectiveness at high levels. At level 7, you can forget magic missile or burning hands to use all your 1st level slots for points and learn a higher level spell. Who needs 1st level attack spells when your cantrip deal comparable damage at no cost.

Your 20th level sorcerer might only know 15 spells but only 3 might even be under the 4th level. That levels 12 spells known of the 4th level or higher. Cannibalize those slots. That's a lot of twinned empowered cantrip.

Whereas your wizards wastes a spell preperared on burning hands as he might waste the slot if there is no target for charm person and he never plummets for a feather fall and those slots go unused.

Sorcerer slots don't go unused.

You know, you keep talking the damage language, and I don't understand it. All I know is that I no longer can pick the spells I like because they are off limits now, and that wizards are so flexible that they can easily replace you without giving up too much of their focus or power -A 3e wizard needs a fortune in scrolls to outdo a sorcerer at her own focus-. Maybe your experience with high levels is that good, but all I know is low levels are though and unrewarding -except with the favored soul of life I play, though I'm really squishy and my party isn't that good protecting squishies-.

 

[Minigiant]

Not really sure about it, I appreciate the effort, but what I'm looking for is a magical thief, a very good magical thief -not a thief that does magic-, and one that a wizard can't easily replace. Zero combat magic please, and zero to do with books.



It never has been. At most it was another way to think of the AD&D Mage/MU, but it is just that different at its core. Even in 3e where there is so little differences, a sorcerer plays on a way no wizard can. Not even those sorcerers that "play like wizards" really do it.



You know, you keep talking the damage language, and I don't understand it. All I know is that I no longer can pick the spells I like because they are off limits now, and that wizards are so flexible that they can easily replace you without giving up too much of their focus or power -A 3e wizard needs a fortune in scrolls to outdo a sorcerer at her own focus-. Maybe your experience with high levels is that good, but all I know is low levels are though and unrewarding -except with the favored soul of life I play, though I'm really squishy and my party isn't that good protecting squishies-.

The sorcerer was straight up outclassed by the wizard in 3rd except in spitting out the damage, Save or Suck/Die, defence, and general buff spells. Once crafting starts rolling in, the sorcerer was left behind by the editions powergaming focuses.

The issue is 5e is different fundamentally.

1) Save or Suck and Save or Die spells are were turn into damage spells or weakened.
2) Utility spells were weakened
3) Illusions, transmutations, and enchantments were nerfed.
4) Damage spells don't scale with level, they scale with slot level... and poorly so.

Therefore making a

...a magical thief, a very good magical thief -not a thief that does magic..

is practically impossible in this edition even with a wizard if your campaign isn't low combat or Don't have a the rest of the party as very combat focused.

5th edition was designed to not let you use noncombat, nonoffensive, utility spells until you get to the mid levels. Casters have to charm, curse, fog, slow, restrain, weaken, and blast foes and buff allies with all their spells until level 7 or so unless your party is good at killing. It's basically rituals or bust to do utility until high levels.

Your issue is more with the edition's focus on combat magic and nerfing of noncombat magic than the sorcerer. The sorcerer just feels it worse.