D&D 5E Is the major thing that's disappointing about Sorcerers is the lack of sorcery point options?

[I'm A Banana]

Or the particular archetype they're not able to play, because all the relevant options are too hard-coded to being something else.
...
It is if - unlike MoonSong, for instance - you are disappointing by a lack of archetypes.
...
The story of the 3e sorcerer was an innate magic-user who maybe had blood of dragons explaining his talent, or maybe not. The 5e sorcerer has a full-on Dragon-heritage Sorcerer, and a Wild Mage. So, yeah, the Dragonblood option is much more fully realized. That you could prettymuch just take your 3e sorcerer in any direction (or even no direction at all) suggested by your spell choices is not realized, however.

It isn't, and I think this version of the sorcerer is better for that. It has a narrative place and it states it loudly and this makes it stand out in a crowded field of character options, in a way that makes it appealingly different from anything else. It's not Generic. It shouldn't be. It's interesting, instead. Even the fighter probably shouldn't be generic, and being generic is an apparent design goal for the 5e fighter. I don't want a meaningless set of mechanics that you could use to build whatever character you dreamed of, I want a role to play. Yeah, we could use a half-dozen more origins, the same thing could be said about most classes, that's not a big deal, it's not a ding against what exists now. What exists now, IMO, is better than what we had in 3e, and one of the reasons it's better is because it's not just a copypaste of the wizard with a different spellcasting mechanic. It is very much its own thing.

(Neither is the Sorcerer who spent just a bit more time training with simple weapons, for some reason - I guess because in 5e casters have cantrips so don't 'need' weapons. Meanwhile, Wizards can be Bladesingers. So that distinction of the 3e Sorcerer - more time to train with weapons because magic came naturally - is pretty well defunct, too. Mind you, I haven't heard anyone but MoonSong missing the spear-wielding part of the Sorcerer.)

That's probably at least in part because there is nothing about using a spear that says magic is in my soul and is in my essence. Using a broader selection of weapons doesn't support the narrative archetype.

Maybe not. Or maybe the hypothetical 'more generic' sorcerer with a more expansive spell list would let you spam some sort of scaling Nahal's Reckless Dweomer....

Nah, that'd be one of those annoying choices between being effective and being flavorful. While I'd like to wild surge more often, the fact that it doesn't consume anything from me to do it is a big plus.

The original sorcerer core story was never "mommy was a dragon". Read carefully, most people just skimmed and stopped reading right after "dragons" showed up in the text. But read carefully, the key points to the sorcerer are there:

1.- Sorcerer magic is an inborn talent, magic is a personal expression. Raw power directed by their will.
2.- Reported claims, rumours and hearsay about dragon blood. But that is just a possibility not a certainty and goes all the way from empty boasting to outright slander.
3.- Adventuring comes from a personal quest for development, and to prove themselves
4.-Slow development and refinement through personal practice, as the power is hard to control at first, but easily used as mastered.
5. Tendency to chaos over law, and to not form groups as sorcerers gain little from sharing with each other.

So what was a possible explanation became the core of the story?

All of these are elements of the 5e sorcerer.

1 is there: "Magic is part of every sorcerer, suffusing body, mind, and spirit with a latent power that waits to be tapped."

2 is there: "...the exact source of your power is up to you to decide. Is it a family curse, passed down to you from distant ancestors? Or did some extraordinary event leave you blessed with inherent magic but perhaps scarred as well?" Including two subclasses further reinforces that dragon blood is just a possibility.

3 is there: "Some seek a greater understanding of the magical force that infuses them, or the answer to the mystery of its origin."

4 is there: "People with magical power seething in their veins soon discover that the power doesn't like to stay quiet."

5 is there: "Sorcerers have no use for the spellbooks and ancient tomes of magic lore that wizards rely on, nor do they rely on a patron to grant their spells as warlocks do."

And I'm not asking for a full generic spellcaster, but a generic sorcerer, one whose origin is actually a mystery instead of a certainty by virtue of no outright in-your-face evidence.

"Some sorcerers can't name the origin of their power, while others trace it to strange events in their own lives."

And well I would love the chance to do any magical job without being impaired by subclass choice.

It sounds like you want a spellcaster generic enough to do whatever you want and adopt whatever flavor you want for it (and for it to be called "sorcerer").

I think what we got was better than that, specifically because it isn't that, because that generic spellcaster is all sorts of bland.

 

[Jago]

Heck, where's my wizard conjurer? I want my wizard to summon minions to do his bidding. But, I can't because "summon minions" is now a druid thing.

There is literally a School of Conjuration Wizard. Unseen Servant and Find Familiar are 1st Level Conjuration spells. I will give you that you have to hit 7th level before you can take the 4th Level Spells Conjure Minor Elementals and Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound, and then 5th Level grants you Conjure Elementals, and then there are others beyond that.

Druids get Conjure Animals as a 3rd Level Spell, and then they get Minor Elementals and Woodland Beings as 4th Level Spells, Elementals as a 5th, like the Wizard, Conjure Fey as a 6th Level Spell ..

I mean, yeah, the Druid gets more of these spells, but a Wizard can do it at about the same levels that a Druid can start becoming good at it. And the Wizard has an Archetype that makes this even better, the Druid doesn't.

I suppose this is where the suggestion gets made of "Then play a Druid to fit your concept", but I'm kind of in agreement here. But, I think this actually has a lot to do with the same reason the Beastmaster was so lackluster out the door: 5E had a design philosophy of not wanting critters or animal companions or summoned creatures to start outshadowing Players or basically being on par with their power, so having "extra toons" as it were seems to be diminished overall. There are only 6 Spells that are "Conjure X" that actually summon a creature: the other 2 are Conjure Barrage and Conjure Volley, which ... are not creatures.

But, the Wizard can do this. As this thread is about the Sorcerer, I feel obligated to add that the Sorcerer cannot at all. They get none of these spells, so the idea of a Sorcerer summoning planar beings and stuff is right out. They don't get the spells at all.

And the spells like Conjure Fey that a Druid gets? There's nothing saying a Wizard cannot find a scroll of this that they can transcribe into their spellbook and then boom, they have the spell too.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

A sorcerer that channels magical energy through a weapon, or who fights with a mix of a weapon and magic, is yet another thing that sorcery should be able to do well, because it fits their narrative theme, but warlocks do much better.

 

[MoonSong]

It isn't, and I think this version of the sorcerer is better for that. It has a narrative place and it states it loudly and this makes it stand out in a crowded field of character options, in a way that makes it appealingly different from anything else. It's not Generic. It shouldn't be. It's interesting, instead. Even the fighter probably shouldn't be generic, and being generic is an apparent design goal for the 5e fighter. I don't want a meaningless set of mechanics that you could use to build whatever character you dreamed of, I want a role to play. Yeah, we could use a half-dozen more origins, the same thing could be said about most classes, that's not a big deal, it's not a ding against what exists now. What exists now, IMO, is better than what we had in 3e, and one of the reasons it's better is because it's not just a copypaste of the wizard with a different spellcasting mechanic. It is very much its own thing.

To each their own, your "interesting" is straightjacketing to me.

All of these are elements of the 5e sorcerer.

Let's see if

2 is there: "...the exact source of your power is up to you to decide. Is it a family curse, passed down to you from distant ancestors? Or did some extraordinary event leave you blessed with inherent magic but perhaps scarred as well?" Including two subclasses further reinforces that dragon blood is just a possibility.
[...]
"Some sorcerers can't name the origin of their power, while others trace it to strange events in their own lives."

This contradicts the part when you said "The 5e sorcerer includes within it the story of the 3e sorcerer, well-realized." Where is the bloodline origin for which this is a mystery? Because all five WotC's bloodlines are pretty much "in your face"

You want a spellcaster generic enough to do whatever you want and adopt whatever flavor you want for it.

I think what we got was better than that, specifically because it isn't that, because that is mechanically bland.

It doesn't have to be. Why not reinforce how easy magic is? stuff like maybe Detect Magic at will? Easy casting? No external objects? The ribbon ability to see ghosts? Manifest complex items out of raw mana?
Absorb magic energy to heal? Cast from hit points? Dim continuous effects without losing the casting?

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I must have missed the part of the sorcerer's description in the PHB where they mentioned that the Bene Gesserit are wandering around the worlds of D&D telling everyone the origins of every sorcerer. Is there any conceivable bloodline more open to the "I don't know where I got my power" then the chaos sorcerer? Nope. Of course, for certain people the flavorless sorcerer that just coincidentally would be grossly overpowered in a Pathfinder game (much less a 5e game) surely has "more mystery." I wish someone would tell me how using 2 kinds of metamagic at the same time or concentrating on 5 different spells at the same time is "more mysterious." It reminds me of the so-called generalist wizards who are "just accidentally" better at evocation then evoker wizards, necromancy then necromancer wizards, etc. all at the same time.

 

[I'm A Banana]

To each their own, your "interesting" is straightjacketing to me.

Not only is it interesting, I think it's generally better design. For one, broad, generic classes don't give anyone a good reason to play them over any of the other dozen classes that D&D has.

This contradicts the part when you said "The 5e sorcerer includes within it the story of the 3e sorcerer, well-realized." Where is the bloodline origin for which this is a mystery? Because all five WotC's bloodlines are pretty much "in your face"

First, I think it's important to note that the 5e sorcerer isn't about bloodlines, it's about magical origins. That's a big target. Bloodline is one kind of magical origin, but it, explicitly, is not the only kind. Parentage might matter less than a fluke of fate.

Second, "...your magic could be a fluke of your birth, with no apparent cause or reason." That's from the Wild Magic description, so if you're looking for Official Support, that's the option.

But I think any of the origins could be mysterious. The most mysterious would probably be Wild Magic, since there's no rhyme or reason to the vagaries of wild magic. You're just born with weird powers over magic and sometimes your skin turns blue when you use a spell, you don't know how or why and maybe you don't even really care, since, hey, now you can open doors from 30 feet away. But the dragonblood could be mysterious - though obviously draconic, the reason you're expressing dragon magic may not be well understood. Are you descended from dragons? Did an ancestor form a pact with one? Are you really a dragon in human skin with amnesia? Why does that help you turn invisible? Storm could be msyterious - though obviously stormy, the reason you're expressing storm sorcery may not be well understood. Did you get hit with lightning when you were a kid? Did a druid put a curse on you?

It doesn't have to be. Why not reinforce how easy magic is? stuff like maybe Detect Magic at will? Easy casting? No external objects? The ribbon ability to see ghosts? Manifest complex items out of raw mana?
Absorb magic energy to heal? Cast from hit points? Dim continuous effects without losing the casting?

I think many of those abilities are kind of bad ideas out of the gate, but I could see a few of those as Metamagic abilities or subclass abilities, sure. There's plenty of room for an "Arcane Gift" origin that is themed around magic about magic.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It doesn't have to be. Why not reinforce how easy magic is? stuff like maybe Detect Magic at will? Easy casting? No external objects? The ribbon ability to see ghosts? Manifest complex items out of raw mana?
Absorb magic energy to heal? Cast from hit points? Dim continuous effects without losing the casting?

I really like this. Put it on a more warlock style chassis, or a SP/kid casting chassis, so metamagic can be part of the balance of the casting system, and I think you've got a class.

 

[Yunru]

Sorry? tell me where does it say that sorcerers are contractually bound to be warmages? I just like the idea of being a magical specialist, and traditionally sorcerers are specialists by need if not by nature. (Besides I'm lethally allergic to wizard/mu/mage flavor)

Oh that's easy. It's called design niche.

 

[Azurewraith]

I think the issue is lack of spells/slots. I find my self saying damn wish I was a wizard right now. More metamagic would greatly help with this. Things such as energy substitution, making a spell invisible, adding status effects etc would be great.

I think the biggest blow to the sorcerer is neo-vancian now every one is a spontaneous caster and some of them can even change spells to boot!

 

[Kryx]

Kryx's sorcerer is quite appealing. Yet, the removal of metamagic is something I wish he would've kept. Metamagic in the hands of wizard is something of the past and I'm glad about it.

Your sorcerer origins are really, and I mean really good. I really like the undead origin. That one was refreshing and surprising.

Thanks! I'm glad you appreciate what I've created! To be fair most of undead is just repackaged from other WotC archetypes, but I think it turned out well.

With regards to metamagic I think [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] said it better than I can:

Metamagic was a lousy fit for Sorcerers. Everything about metamagics scream "analytical mind", which is exactly what sorcerers aren't. If there was one class to give metamagics to, it is Wizards. (Or, perhaps even better, Psions)

But generally I wish metamagic was kept as a standalone subsystem, not tied to any one class.

That said each person has their own views and I'm not here to say that mine is the only correct view. If you wish to retain metamagic as a core feature of the Sorcerer then you could alter my rework to remove the 6th level feature, move 3rd to 6th. Also remove the 20th level feature. It should be pretty ok then.