It is not a sorcerer, it's a completely new class

[thewok]

* Melee weaons, and heavy armour? Here's where the line is crossed. Sorcerers just don't strike me as the gish class. Extra weapons sure, but not as many as they have. And while I'd buy leather, scale or plate is a bit much.

A dragon sorcerer in 4E can make an excellent melee class. Add in Sorcerous Blade Channeling and the fact that dragon sorcerers will have Strength scores on par with some Fighters, and the sorcerer can melee just fine. I could also have an AC high enough to make myself damn near unhittable by any same-level monster in the game--in cloth.

The dragon sorcerer as presented in the Next playtest seems very much like an evolution of the concept fleshed out in 4E, which, in turn, seemed like a fleshing out of the flavor text in the Sorcerer's 3E entry.

Personally, this sorcerer write-up is the most exciting thing I've seen come out of the playtest so far.

 

[thewok]

Why be the wizard?

All issues of different class flavour aside, here's a few mechanical incentives to choose the wizard instead of the sorcerer:

It's also worth noting that, right now, we don't know what effect Wizard Traditions will have on the class. Those traditions could make different wizards play somewhat differently from each other. There might even be an elven tradition that grants proficiency with the longsword, like the Wizard of the Spiral Tower paragon path in 4E. And, there will probably be a more 3E-style sorcerer heritage that isn't so ... noticable.

 

[Danzauker]

People get too hung up on names.

You realize that if every time they make a change that isn't perfectly consistent with someone's idea of that name, they also have to change the name, they'll rapidly run out of iconic names?

Plus, it doesn't seem at all like something new entirely. They're taking a bit of the fluff they started with, and making it actually *mean* something - a tactic shown to be extremely successful and interesting in Pathfinder.

In 3e, "sorcerer" is pretty much just "spontaneously casting wizard". That's *boring*, and insufficiently differentiated from the Wizard to merit inclusion on its own - you should not need an entirely new class just for purposes of having a slightly different spell resource mechanic! If they plan to work modularity such that "spontaneously casting wizard" will fit under "wizard", then the sorcerer name is freed up to be something different.

While I wholehartedly agree with you with the name paranoia, I don't agree with the *boring* part.

One of the greatest current dealbreakers seems to be (well it is at least for me) the possibility to play a non Vancian wizard. That was probably the only motivation of introducing the sorcerer in 3E.

While I agree that the most logical implementation in 5E would be through a wizard "tradition" or whatever they want to call it, if it would show too complicated to stick a spell point or mana system or whathever in the wizard class description, I surely would prefer a different class.

They can call it mage, arcanist, thaumaturge, magician, harrypotter, I don't care, as long as they give me a non Vancian wizard, please!

P.S. I really like 5E sorcerers and warlocks as they are. Crunch.wise and fluff-wise. I'm only alittle perplexed by the choice of presenting the sample sorcerer "build" so tank focused instead of a more "traditional" one. It would have caused less eyebrow raising.

 

[Fury of the Tempest]

Thanks for answering the question everyone...

I think they wanted to show just how flexible the new class was Danzauker. Thus the tank/dragon sorcerer...

Also, what does 'gish' mean exactly? I'm guessing it means both good at spells and meele combat.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Let me first say that, in most of my games, mage/wizard/sorcerer is basically the same. The normal public calls them either, not knowing or caring about the small differences. Sorcerers are bloodline based and get respective powers (even before PF introduced that big), mages get spontaneous insights into spells (as in suddenly KNOWING a spell) and wizards get better resource management, even without Vancian.

Why break tradition? The 3e Sorceror was a new class. The 4e Sorceror was a new class. And now the 5e Sorceror's a new class. Woot!

In fact the 3e Sorceror is IMO one of the least interesting classes ever - they are for all practical purposes a subclass of wizard doing almost exactly the same things in almost the same way. Changing them to actually be distinctive (as both 4e and Pathfinder do) vastly improves them over 3.X IMO.

 

[Danzauker]

I think they wanted to show just how flexible the new class was Danzauker. Thus the tank/dragon sorcerer...[/COLOR]

It could well be.

After all many people forget that the whole reason behind a playtest is to actually test things in play.

 

[Fury of the Tempest]

It could well be.

After all many people forget that the whole reason behind a playtest is to actually test things in play.

That is also a very valid point.

 

[Lwaxy]

Why break tradition? The 3e Sorceror was a new class. The 4e Sorceror was a new class. And now the 5e Sorceror's a new class. Woot!

In fact the 3e Sorceror is IMO one of the least interesting classes ever - they are for all practical purposes a subclass of wizard doing almost exactly the same things in almost the same way. Changing them to actually be distinctive (as both 4e and Pathfinder do) vastly improves them over 3.X IMO.

I never quite considered that tradition

PF does bloodlines in a way you mix and match,and they have little of this changeling aspect to them. As I said, with another name, it would probably work a lot better.