D&D 5E Loss of genericity

[Giltonio_Santos]

The wizard killed the generic sorcerer and took his stuff. If you want a 3E-style sorcerer in 5E, all you need to do is remove the spell book and add spells known to the class. As someone else said, the 3E sorcerer was more an alternate magic system disguised as a class than a real class. It became obsolete once every class got the ability to cast spontaneously.

 

[Li Shenron]

Evoker is pretty much the generalist now.

...

I thought like you, but the lack of opposition schools makes generalist a pointless redundancy.

No, I don't think Wizard needs a generalist, and that's exactly because without barred schools many of those subclasses can still be used to create a very versatile wizard.

110% disagree. Before 2000 AD, THIEF was the name of the class and very much its niche. You could play a Thief like Indiana Jones, but he was never the iconic rogue. That said, in reverse, a treasure-hunter archetype (complete with whip proficiency) would be a nice addition, but THIEF IS THE GENERIC as it has for 30+ years.

...

"Generic" isn't the right term here: Iconic is. Berserker is the ICONIC barbarian because it does what you think the 3e/4e barbarian should without bells, whistles, or spells. Iconics aren't always generic either. The Open-hand monk is clearly the iconic monk, but its not a generic subclass suitable for any type of martial artist.

You are right that berserker is more iconic than generic, and now that I checked the Thief from Basic once again, I can say it's generic enough. As a matter of fact, it's more generic now than even, the only iconic thing it has is the Thief name but ALL the features do not imply any burglary or theft at all, only the name (which is why I said it was not generic, but now that I check it's really only by name...).

While we're at it: Open Hand in iconic monk, Devotion is iconic paladin, Circle of the Land/Forest is iconic druid, Hunter is iconic ranger, Fiend-Pact is iconic warlock, and College of Lore is iconic bard. Each lines up with how they've traditionally been played or their classic lore, not now many types of archetypes it can catch.

But what are we discussing now? Iconic is not the same as generic. The thread is about genericity. They are all iconic, but they would be more generic if not every Druid automatically had wildshape, not every Barbarian automatically had rage, not every Ranger or Paladin automatically had spells, not every Rogue automatically had Sneak Attack, and not every Cleric automatically had Turn Undead. All of these are iconic things which not an irrelevant amount of people in the past have wished they were not forced on those classes, and during the playtest it was often suggested to tuck them into an iconic subclass exactly to keep the base class more generic.

The problem is low complexity =/= generic.

Yes, they are different things, the two could have also designed together, or not. The lack a low-complexity options (or equivalently you can say the minimum class complexity) for everyone except the Fighter is a separate problem. I just pointed out that they talked about this during the playtest, but didn't follow through after the Warrior/Champion.

 

[seebs]

But they're not options. Like with the sorcerer, you have to choose one. You can't just have a sorcerer without a draconic or wild origin. Same with the bard schools, druid circles, etc. It's all built into the class.

PF did a similar thing with sorcerers... But they had a much larger number of bloodlines, so there were more options and it was more obvious that you were welcome to just make up your own.

 

[Parmandur]

Lack of Sorcerer Bloodlines is one of the most glaring holes. Off the top of my head:

- Fey Bloodline
- Elemental Bloodline
- Celestial Bloodline
- Fiendish Bloodline
- Aberration Bloodline
- Giantish/Primordial Bloodline
- Shadow/Undead Bloodline
- Who Knows I'm Just Magic Bloodline

And that's certainly not exhaustive. Each of these could be a crunchy, solid subclass in addition to cool flavor to fit in most generic campaign worlds.

 

[MoonSong]

So re-write the flavor. My example of the Rune sorcerer above took 5-7 minutes total. It's not like we're talking about a lot of powers to be re-skinning. Heck writing your own sub-class wouldn't be too hard. It's a solid skeleton you're building on here - very adaptable.

dragon magic lends itself to be reskinned as a celestial origin, but still has too much built-in flavor. Now the problem is I don't necessarily need that origin to be that explicit, sometimes I just need something that works, passive flavor is ok, active flavor not so much.

And the problem with homebrew is who should homebrew it? The DM who might spend time on something players will never touch? the player who will have problems overcoming the prejudices planted by the edition on mechanical approaches? (for example I have yet to find a DM who will let me start as bard -the closest patch I have found to this problem- because many DMs have become too opinionated on this kind of stuff)

The wizard killed the generic sorcerer and took his stuff. If you want a 3E-style sorcerer in 5E, all you need to do is remove the spell book and add spells known to the class. As someone else said, the 3E sorcerer was more an alternate magic system disguised as a class than a real class. It became obsolete once every class got the ability to cast spontaneously.

How many spells know? What about ritual casting? how does metamagic factor into it? What about the academic focussed features? and let alone the INT/Cha thing that is a deeper difference than most want to cnceede? And it still is stuck with toy weapons.

I didn't like the wizard class back when it was suppossed to be this generic spellcaster -which it has never been- and there weren't other options for the niche, now that those options have been ripped appart I still don't find it a reason to like it. Just go back to that description of the 3e sorcerers I've played and tell me if the wizard can truly fill those shoes, you cannot assume a race nor feats, and the character should be able to safely dump Int and being an uncultured idiot. As much as this wizards are the new sorcerers is parroted around, the class just can't tell the kind of stories the old sorcerer could and sadly neither the new sorcerer.

 

[Parmandur]

Again, look more to the Warlock for that build, file off the flavor and replace as necessary.

 

[MoonSong]

Again, look more to the Warlock for that build, file off the flavor and replace as necessary.

warlock still plays very differently, with all the focus on cantrips and the on short rest spells. And I'm not sure the spell list stays up to what I'm used to. And I would still have to ignore the armor.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

How many spells know?

You can use either the Warlock or the Sorcerer progression. Both classes end up with 15 spells known. The Sorcerer knows more cantrips, but the Warlock has invocations, so I think the sorcerer progression would be the right one in this case.

What about ritual casting?

You get to cast any spell you know with a casting time of 10 minutes without spending a spell slot if it has the ritual tag. What's the problem? 3E sorcerers were using bat guano to cast fireballs and nobody complained...

how does metamagic factor into it?

It was never a class feature of the sorcerer, it was a series of feats available to all spellcasting classes, and they don't exist in 5E. You can miss them, but they were never a specific sorcerer thing.

What about the academic focused features?

I'm not seeing them.

And let alone the INT/Cha thing that is a deeper difference than most want to concede?

Ask your DM to let you change your spellcasting ability. Players asked me lots of things through the years, and this would be the kind of demand I would have a hard time finding a reason to deny.

And it still is stuck with toy weapons.

You sound like the 3E sorcerer was brandishing a greatsword in combat. A quarterstaff and a shortspear deal the same amount of damage, the quarterstaff just happens to be better against skeletons. And you have cantrips now. Why would you want a better weapon?

As much as this wizards are the new sorcerers is parroted around, the class just can't tell the kind of stories the old sorcerer could and sadly neither the new sorcerer.

But this is not 3E. You can tinker with the rules. Actually, you're encouraged to. There are lots of suggestions here and in various other threads. One could even argue that if you're not making 5E your own game, you're playing it wrong. Go for it. Play a homebrew generic sorcerer origin, play a variant wizard, but don't tell us that you can't play the character you want because rules don't allow it. Unless you're talking about organized play, that's no excuse.

Cheers!

 

[MoonSong]

You get to cast any spell you know with a casting time of 10 minutes without spending a spell slot if it has the ritual tag. What's the problem? 3E sorcerers were using bat guano to cast fireballs and nobody complained...

It was never a class feature of the sorcerer, it was a series of feats available to all spellcasting classes, and they don't exist in 5E. You can miss them, but they were never a specific sorcerer thing.

You sound like the 3E sorcerer was brandishing a greatsword in combat. A quarterstaff and a shortspear deal the same amount of damage, the quarterstaff just happens to be better against skeletons. And you have cantrips now. Why would you want a better weapon?

Not being the best isn't excuse not to try and not to take pride on the accomplishments. As a sorcerer player I came to enjoy the weapon selection -on par with a cleric's- the wish to solve everything with magic is wizard mentality, a sorcerer wasn't always using magic nor always having the tool for every situation, you'd have a few things you could use your magic on and do it extremely well, for everything else doing the things the peasant way was enough, being able to dedicate 0 magic to combat was important. And besides some sorcerers did use greatswords...

Ask your DM to let you change your spellcasting ability. Players asked me lots of things through the years, and this would be the kind of demand I would have a hard time finding a reason to deny.
But this is not 3E. You can tinker with the rules. Actually, you're encouraged to. There are lots of suggestions here and in various other threads. One could even argue that if you're not making 5E your own game, you're playing it wrong. Go for it. Play a homebrew generic sorcerer origin, play a variant wizard, but don't tell us that you can't play the character you want because rules don't allow it. Unless you're talking about organized play, that's no excuse.

Assume for a moment that if something isn't AL legal I won't have access to it -sometimes even less-, I don't have that privilege most of the time, and by implying I'm playing wrong you are assuming that I'm some kind of defective player, but no, if I say I need an official generic sorcerer is because I need one. Being able to solve someone with homebrews/houserules doesn't mean it isn't a problem and that the capability to tell the same kinds of stories wasn't hurt, just by having to ask for permission -which is denied most of the time- in order to get something similar to what I was used to play my ability to play the character I'm used to play has been hampered.

 

[steeldragons]

Perhaps this could be looked at as an opportunity? To...say...branch out in what one might be "capable" of playing...playing well...and having fun doing so.

I mean, I understand how limiting 15 races, 12 classes and 46 subclasses can be...especially when only 21 of those subclass options are arcane casters...but, ya know...never hurts to try.

To borrow from School House Rock:
"Don' knock it til ya try it.
Just a little on yer plate.
Don't make a face before you taste it.
Some kids think it's great!"