D&D (2024) I'm getting increasingly worried about the fate of sorcerer

[Baron Opal II]

I think that at the absolute worst, it will become a subclass of wizard where you have sorcery points instead of a spellbook, and pick bloodline abilities instead of guild abilities.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I think that at the absolute worst, it will become a subclass of wizard where you have sorcery points instead of a spellbook, and pick bloodline abilities instead of guild abilities.

Yeowch. Copying Pathfinder's stuff would be a huge downgrade in almost all ways. Especially thematically.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Never understood the logic of folding sorcerer into wizard. Though I'm 100% convinced they should be their own class, if I had to merge it with one, it would be the warlock.

Anything which can be a patron can be a bloodline and vice versa. The two have a lot in common with 'weird' spellcasting and identical subclass themes.

Someone on reddit today already suggested that they could share subclasses in 5.5e.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Never understood the logic of folding sorcerer into wizard. Though I'm 100% convinced they should be their own class, if I had to merge it with one, it would be the warlock.

Anything which can be a patron can be a bloodline and vice versa. The two have a lot in common with 'weird' spellcasting and identical subclass themes.

Someone on reddit today already suggested that they could share subclasses in 5.5e.

If I had to fold two of the arcane casters into each other I'd fold wizard into sorcerer. Where a wizard was a specialist sorcerer whose two special things were (a) using Int and (b) preparing from books rather than being a spells known class.

And as it's getting me cranky. Other than the draconic bloodline D&D sorcerers are not and have never been bloodline based*. You're thinking of Pathfinder Sorcerers.

D&D sorcerers can be bloodline based. But a Shadow Sorcerer might also be a shadow sorcerer because they were born at the moment of the Grand Eclipse with all three moons lining up between the sun and the planet. Or they might be shadow sorcerers because they blundered into the Shadowfell and survived there for years and had it seep into their bones. Or any of a dozen other reasons.

The wizard studied for their spells. The warlock bargained for them. The bard probably practiced for them. The sorcerer? Got lucky - or none of the above.

* Although draconic bloodline was the only suggestion offered in 3.0/3.5. There are reasons I find its fluff highly unimpressive.

 

[MoonSong]

If subclasses are now all on the same track, they could make the Sorcerer a series of class-less subclasses. You discover your bloodline and add it to whatever else you were doing already.

Thank you for making my fears worse.

 

[MoonSong]

Never understood the logic of folding sorcerer into wizard. Though I'm 100% convinced they should be their own class, if I had to merge it with one, it would be the warlock.

Anything which can be a patron can be a bloodline and vice versa. The two have a lot in common with 'weird' spellcasting and identical subclass themes.

Someone on reddit today already suggested that they could share subclasses in 5.5e.

I've expressed my thoughts on the matter. D&D 5E - On whether sorcerers and wizards should be merged or not, (they shouldn't)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Subclass levels seem to be standardized across the board (good), but so far, they don't start at first level.

I wouldn't worry too much about that.

People are reading a ton into it, but all three classes were classes that started their subclasses at 3 anyway.

And WotC have said they prefer subclasses to start at 1 - literally in the video for the previous playtest IIRC.

So the only reason to start at 3 is compatibility. And the reason to stick with 1 for Sorcerers is the same - compatibility.

And the most worrying, from reading the spellcasting description, it seems that all classes will prepare spells?

Personally that doesn't worry me.

Being able to prepare spells will just give them more flexibility. The main reason Sorcerers exist is to, as you seem to note, make it so you can have a caster who is either a natural, or "not a book wizard" or the like. If they can just pull spells from the ether, that's fine. I mean, that's already what they do - it's not like they can access spells not on their spell list.

I imagine they'll probably get to be the most powerful Arcane caster, because of metamagic allowing them to boost spells, and Wizards will get to be the most flexible, because of their spellbook allowing them to access a ridiculous number of spells effectively prepared.

Re: schools, I will be shocked if Sorcerers can't access all schools of Arcane.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Thank you for making my fears worse.

I mean, it's genuinely not reasonable to assume that all classes ARE on the same track, that's the thing. There's no good evidence to support it, and WotC were saying they preferred level 1 literally last month. Compatibility seems like the best explanation for stuff being L3 here.

 

[Undrave]

Thank you for making my fears worse.

Sorry, that wasn’t my intention.

 

[Li Shenron]

And the most worrying, from reading the spellcasting description, it seems that all classes will prepare spells?

On the bright side, the only 5e shortcoming of being a Sorcerer used to be having the smallest number of known spells of every full caster, and now they will know A LOT. Except that, if they go with the currently rumored "four schools of magic only", the Wizard will of course know twice as many.

I don't know what to say, I've always wished that even Clerics and Druids had a fixed list of spells known, instead of access to the entire class spells list, and now 6e seems to give everyone full access to entire (or half) lists.

So what will really sort the Sorcerers from the Wizards will be the specific class features. Maybe they'll come up with some additions to the Sorcerer class. I wouldn't hold my breath though, usually WotC always falls for the "but Wizards should be able to do this (read: everything)" mantra, and will make sure Wizards eventually will steal the Sorcerer's schtik again, like with metamagic.