How do we fix the Sorcerer?

[Leatherhead]

Have the Sorcerer eat the Warlock and gain it's powers.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I think the Sorcerer's problem is trying to force it's square peg (I'm different than a wizard!) into the round hole (casting spells is my shtick).

A couple of angles/ways they could have gone to make the Sorcerer truly distinctive...though I admit the subclassing break up by "Origins" was a good idea, they were a bit too narrow and ultimately uninteresting.

So, the Sorcerer's mechanical "thing" that other people don't get, they are the "Points" caster, well "wizard/mage" guy. Like the Monk is the "points" fighter (or possibly cleric). The Bard is, arguably, the "points" rogue. In PF parlance, a "points" cleric/divine caster would be the "Oracle."

Sorcerer's are the "Points" arcane caster. Fine. Metamagic should have been made a bit more prominent as a "secondary" shtick, "magic tricks" other arcane casters don't get. Which they are...but the dial could have been set at, say 6 or 7 instead of 2 or 3.

So re-write of the Sorcerer, regardless of fluff should have Meta-magic as a more prominent piece of their identity.

One thing, that I am not sure I would have endorsed, but would have helped, would have been modeling the Sorcerer after the Paladin and Ranger to be the "Arcane Half-Caster" class. I, personally, think the Bard would have been better as this, but a Sorcerer could have worked -leaving the [default] Bards to its more Roguey flavor. A little armor, probably no shields, few more than just Simple weapons. That sort of stuff.

The other thing would have been to make the "Origins" not really so defining...or not defining in the way they did. Saying Draconic and Wild (and then Storm, Shadow, etc. etc...) basically tries to "point" at a direction without really granting the goods. It doesn't matter if your grandfather was a sivler dragon or if you mother gave brith during a big storm or you fell into a magic pit of Shadow energy as a child...Your backstory is yours to make. The bottom line, at the root of the 'Origins" is that they are "Ancestral": someone in your ancestry was magic or had magic or found magic, none of that matters. It matters that it's somewhere in your lineage; OR "Circumstantial" or perhaps "Situational" would be a better phrase. You were in the right place at the right time (born during a magical storm; bit by a magically radioactive spider)...or wrong place at the wrong time (bathed in a fountain of Abyssal water, bit by a magically radioactive spider) and the result of that circumstance/situation is "I GOTS MAGIC POWERS?!" which you then practice/work/figure out and develop/expand.

The theme of your magic is what matters. What is your "source"? What type of magics do you access/relate to (fire, ice, storm, shadow, mind, plants, etc... etc...) is what really defines and flavors your backstory and current character. THAT is where the PHB sorcerer with a single Sorcerer spell list kind of falls apart.

The designers began leaning in the thematic direction, first with the UA sorcerer subclasses that began piling on "Origin Bonus Spells" (a la a cleri or paladin domain/oath extra spells). That really wasn't a bad patch/fix for what they had already done.

The latter subclasses, (storm, shadow, et al) as I said, seem to point further in the "theme" direction but also then -due to the PHB framework/chassis- amount to a few minor powers on top of the blah sorcerer spell list and limited metamagics.

SO, rework the base class with more meta's. Make the subclass options a Thematic option that allows for a thematic spell list/selection. Backstory is up to the player. Are you a Shadow sorcerer because you took a bath during a shadow-plane hurricane encursion into the material world or because great-great-gran'pappy Necrosus did the nasty with a Shadow Demon and the family-in-exile has been trying to pull itself out from under his reputation of a mad evil shadow-wizard that almost destroyed the kingdom ever since?

Does it matter to what your character can/should be able to do? No. What matters as a sorcerer is you accumulate Sorcery Points, gain more Metamagics, and have spells and abilities that are "Shadow plane" related...That probably means some illusions, some conjurations (of shadow monsters), maybe "misty-stepping" only in-out of/through shadows, making shadow-stuff weapons/shields/armor/items, transforming yourself into a Shadow or planeshifting into the Shadow plane at high levels...I'd probably throw in some resistance -developing to immunity at higher levels- from necrotic and/or cold damage...possibly with a built in sensitivity/susceptibility to radiant damage.

So, yeah...what was this thread about?...Oh yeah...a rewrite of the Sorcerer needs to be more "Theme" based than "Origin" based.

I feel like it was what they were shooting for and just missed the mark there.

Your post made me realize how to explain the problem I had with the sorcerer's theme in a simple example:
Its like if Peter Parker got bit by a radioactive spider, but when every kid reading the comic expected to see him develop spider-like powers, he would instead grow wings, shoot lasers from his eyes and be able to control storm, which are all cool powers, but none of them is related to being bit by a damn spider.

 

[Krachek]

Your post made me realize how to explain the problem I had with the sorcerer's theme in a simple example:
Its like if Peter Parker got bit by a radioactive spider, but when every kid reading the comic expected to see him develop spider-like powers, he would instead grow wings, shoot lasers from his eyes and be able to control storm, which are all cool powers, but none of them is related to being bit by a damn spider.

You got right. The Sorcerer have more a problem of identity than efficiency.
Making specific spell list for each Sorcerer theme would probably take too much printing space and or time to play test. But it could help to feel the theme.
So the sorcerer major identity is the Meta Magic, which is more a technical identity than a role play identity.

We got the same problem with the Warlord.
If we define the Warlord by 'Make others attack' it is an identity based on technical gaming aspect, rather than a true role play identity.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

You got right. The Sorcerer have more a problem of identity than efficiency.
Making specific spell list for each Sorcerer theme would probably take too much printing space and or time to play test. But it could help to feel the theme.
So the sorcerer major identity is the Meta Magic, which is more a technical identity than a role play identity.

We got the same problem with the Warlord.
If we define the Warlord by 'Make others attack' it is an identity based on technical gaming aspect, rather than a true role play identity.

One thing I made for one campaign and the player who use it found very amusing is a simple homebrew which requires only a few switches: take the origins from the sorcerer, put it on the UA mystic chassis. In such ways, you receive:
- The feeling of innate magic: no focus, no material
- Thematic build-your-own super powers: Dragon origin? (take an element, the one that make you grow scales, claws and wings, a the one to enlarge yourself) Storm Origin (Wind mastery, Lignthing mastery, Water mastery) etc
- Power over magic: you can focus some passive magic effects, at level 11 you even decide what magic effect you create by mix-matching power.

The character did not go too far in the adventure, but she was a lot of fun.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You know, for such a popular game, there sure are a lot of "broken" parts to fix.

"Popular?" Not exactly. D&D isn't a popular game, it's the most popular RPG, RPGs being a tremendously unpopular class of games to begin with.

And, yeah, D&D is prettymuch a collection of broken parts, that you fix up and re-assemble to suit your taste.

We got the same problem with the Warlord.
If we define the Warlord by 'Make others attack' it is an identity based on technical gaming aspect, rather than a true role play identity.

It's also like defining the fighter as "uses a Bohemian Ear-Spoon" or a wizard as "Casts Haste."

Why is it that 4e fans didn't keep on playing 4e, like us 3rd edition fans kept on playing 3rd edition?

Couple of reasons:

4e fans were the ones who actually gave the new edition a chance, and just went ahead and did the same thing with 5e.

4e can't be legally cloned the way 3.5 was, so there's no ongoing support for it, unlike 3.5 fans who could play PF, have an active 3.5/PF community to spark off of, or just carry on using PF adventures for 3.5, if they didn't like the small "3.75" changes it made.

But, on topic, it's also worth nothing that the perceived deficiencies of the 5e Sorcerer aren't relative to the 4e Sorcerer, which was also initially locked into Dragon & Wild flavors, and cast spells like everyone else, just like the 5e Sorcerer, but relative to the original 3.x Sorcerer, that got significantly more slots/day, and for whom spontaneous casting was a relatively unique feature.

 

[Ganymede81]

The Sorcerer just doesn't get enough sorcery points to play with, and they don't regenerate anywhere near quickly enough - the freaking wizard has better stamina then that, courtesy of its Arcane Recovery feature.

This simply isn't true.

Sorcery Points, even if used in the most inefficient manner possible, recover the exact same number of spell slots as Arcane Recovery. Sorcery Points are even better than Arcane Recovery when making higher level slots; a level 20 sorcerer can create two 5s and a 4 with her points while a level 20 wizard can only make two 5s with her Arcane Recovery.

And all of that ignores the fact that a sorcerer does not even need a rest to get these benefits.

 

[Thurmas]

This simply isn't true.

Sorcery Points, even if used in the most inefficient manner possible, recover the exact same number of spell slots as Arcane Recovery. Sorcery Points are even better than Arcane Recovery when making higher level slots; a level 20 sorcerer can create two 5s and a 4 with her points while a level 20 wizard can only make two 5s with her Arcane Recovery.

And all of that ignores the fact that a sorcerer does not even need a rest to get these benefits.

While true, the problem is that in order to do that, the sorcerer sacrifices all their spell points to do it, meaning they lose the ability to use metamagic, the thing that makes them different and powerful. Without metamagic, they are just a crappier wizard.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

While true, the problem is that in order to do that, the sorcerer sacrifices all their spell points to do it, meaning they lose the ability to use metamagic, the thing that makes them different and powerful. Without metamagic, they are just a crappier wizard.

I think the problem here is more with the Wizard having a short-rest spell recovery which makes little sense in-game. ''You have learned to regain some of your magical energy by studying your spellbook.'' what does that mean? What does it look like when used in game?

To avoid toes-stepping, I'd suggest to party who PERCEIVES a power-level imbalance between a sorcerer and a wizard in the same party to modify this wizard feature, making the ''magic recovery'' of the sorcerer more unique. Maybe with something like;
Choose your arcane school at level 1. Gain the X Savant at level 1 instead of 2, add: ''you gain +1/2 Prof. on Spell DC from your chosen school. Voilà! Your Wizard now feels like a real specialist from his school, slots recovery and mutation is now the real niche of the Sorcerer.

 

[Kinematics]

So yes, Sorcerer has problems, and there have been many attempts to fix it. I've written up numerous ways to handle it, and gotten involved in the discussion on spell chains and the like, but reviewing the UA Mystic, I have to admit that that is basically everything the sorcerer should be (aside from psionic).

It confines your powers to "disciplines", which provides a generalized focus that you can independently opt into, and a series of related powers of varying complexity. That's basically spell chains without having to be hobbled by the spell lists. They're innate powers, not spells. You gain more disciplines as you level.

The different orders provide many of the variations that I considered relevant to different ways of focusing the Sorcerer's theme. Combine that with the mix and match of disciplines, and it's very easy to get the type of character you want.

It's a ing d8 hit die class with light armor proficiency, despite purely mental powers. Making Sorcerer a d6 with no armor while limiting its spell selection so much still chaps me, because there's no thematic justification for it, and it creates a huge amount of pressure to require certain sets of spells no matter what, out of your very tiny spell list.

The only thing it doesn't have is metamagic. On the one hand, that's one of only two things that define the Sorcerer (and the Mystic basically mimics the other). On the other hand, having a class being defined purely in a mechanical way is always going to make it problematic as a class.

I'm going to go build a few Mystic characters to see how they feel, to compare with ideas I've had for Sorcerers.

 

[Krachek]

My dream Sorcerer would be:

"You do magic in another way. For you magic has no limits and it is act of art".

Spell points based on the DMG.
Meta magic that use the pool of spell points.
Access to all spells but a limited number of spell know.
You cant MC with a class or take a subclass that give standard spell slot.
No subclass for the sorcerer, if you want more flavor you MC into rogue, fighter, barbarian, monk.