D&D 5E On whether sorcerers and wizards should be merged or not, (they shouldn't)

[Ogre Mage]

I get the flavor difference between the two. For wizards, magic is something which is studied and learned. A conscious decision to acquire magic was made. Sorcerers were born with magic whether they wanted it or not, a la an arcane version of the X-Men. This can be used to represent a very different character with different life experiences. But I don't feel the sorcerer's game mechanics do a very good job of operationalizing its uniqueness.

 

[MoonSong]

There was a brief time to do it. Back in AD%D 2e when kits were being spit out like mad. Wizards could have been given more theme to them than book holding scholars of difficult to use arcane knowledge. But that brief time where it could be introduced, it wasn't. So when nonscholarly magic became popular in the community, wizards were already too hardcoded as book-learned magic scientists.

Even then it was too late. If anything the kits clearly show the thematic limits of the wizards. There are variants of course, but none of them could really break from the "book holding scholar of difficult to use arcane knowledge" mold, they all are just another coat of paint that does nothing to change the core. The designers really trusted in the wizard genericness and blatantly avoided any evidence to the contrary. 30 years ago was still 20 years of inertia. I'd argue that we haven't really broken from the "wizards are generic" mindset yet.
(Though it might be surprising to learn Warlocks actually originated as a wizard kit).

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

I mean, I think the flavor comes across pretty well, with them basically being savants with the few spells that they actually know.

That works great for a bard or warlock. I don't think inborn magic users who throw fire at enemies while making them sleep before becoming invisible and flying away is a common fantasy trope. Innate fantasy mystics usually have the focus that the sorcerer lacks exactly because it's supposed to work 90% on the wizard's chassis.

 

[Minigiant]

Even then it was too late. If anything the kits clearly show the thematic limits of the wizards. There are variants of course, but none of them could really break from the "book holding scholar of difficult to use arcane knowledge" mold, they all are just another coat of paint that does nothing to change the core. The designers really trusted in the wizard genericness and blatantly avoided any evidence to the contrary. 30 years ago was still 20 years of inertia. I'd argue that we haven't really broken from the "wizards are generic" mindset yet.
(Though it might be surprising to learn Warlocks actually originated as a wizard kit).

Nah, I think iy still could have been done. But the culture of D&D and fantasy books and gaming wasn't there in AD&D's time. Wizard's "scholarlines" was played up. Even savage, tribal, and peasant wizards were "book nerds". Even warlocks were just generic book wizards who "cheated".

I mean it was a time with intuitive rules and hard restrictions. The time when the concept could have been addedwas a time were new ideas were still very constrained.

 

[oreofox]

Agree on switching sorcerers to constitution, but I like having them distinct from warlocks. Of course, I like to draw a brighter line between how warlock patronage and clerical faith work than how a lot of people seem to want to do.

I merged sorcerer and warlock because I don't like the warlock as a class and the lore behind it. Yes, it's an old cliche (sell your soul to a powerful being in exchange for power), but to me that's more of a villain thing. Just about every warlock I have seen played (unless they went celestial) goes for edgelord-dom (and amps it up more by going tiefling thanks to the cha bonus), edging out (get it?) the rogue (even a drow rogue). So I merged it with sorcerer, gave them warlock spells (because they have some good spells, and they help differentiate it more from the wizard spells). I'm about the only one that doesn't have the celestial patron that has levels of warlock in my one character (story purposes). If only more people would go for the more reluctant warlock, I might have left them separate in my game I DM.

 

[MoonSong]

I merged sorcerer and warlock because I don't like the warlock as a class and the lore behind it. Yes, it's an old cliche (sell your soul to a powerful being in exchange for power), but to me that's more of a villain thing. Just about every warlock I have seen played (unless they went celestial) goes for edgelord-dom (and amps it up more by going tiefling thanks to the cha bonus), edging out (get it?) the rogue (even a drow rogue). So I merged it with sorcerer, gave them warlock spells (because they have some good spells, and they help differentiate it more from the wizard spells). I'm about the only one that doesn't have the celestial patron that has levels of warlock in my one character (story purposes). If only more people would go for the more reluctant warlock, I might have left them separate in my game I DM.

It's unfortunate. Maybe the solution is to have more whimsical patrons. In my fiction I have characters that can be thought of as warlocks. Except the patrons are entities like the embodiment of fate, the embodiment of light, the embodiment of darkness -see the kittens in my avatar-, the embodiment of death -as in Death takes no side and thus you shouldn't either, everything you do must follow equivalent exchange you cannot do too much good nor too much evil-, the embodiment of fire, the embodiment of surprise....

I get the flavor difference between the two. For wizards, magic is something which is studied and learned. A conscious decision to acquire magic was made. Sorcerers were born with magic whether they wanted it or not, a la an arcane version of the X-Men. This can be used to represent a very different character with different life experiences. But I don't feel the sorcerer's game mechanics do a very good job of operationalizing its uniqueness.

Part of it is that designers haven't fully grasped that sorcerer isn't a wizard and haven't broken out of that mold yet. For example in our current edition, the sorcerer base is a copypaste of the wizard's. One would expect things like a rogue-like hit dice, some ability to always-on detect magic, no need for a spellcasting focus, full on simple weapons, a diverse spell list that focused more on diversity of effects that can be used to weave a variety of themes, etc. Instead we have wizard minus. Fry everything on sight, etc.

 

[Tallifer]

Part of it is that designers haven't fully grasped that sorcerer isn't a wizard and haven't broken out of that mold yet.

The designers fully grasped just a few years ago. I think it is just that Mearls wanted to erase all the 4E stuff from the Sorcerer (and Ranger) as a public relations ploy and now he does not want to admit he messed up.

 

[Aldarc]

The only reason I think not to merge wizard, sorcerer, and warlock into a single customisable class that lets you create the spellcasting class you want is complexity. There would be a lot of moving parts in the base class to customise your magic-user that it might be off putting to new players. As is, I have used the wizard to create a "sorcerer" an Oracle with innate divination abilities. I just ignored the spellbook part of a diviner wizard.

Indeed. If you were to merge the Wizard, Sorcerer and Warlock into one class, you might as well merge in the other primary caster classes too, to a single customizable Magic User class. If you're doing that, then the martials classes can also fit on a customizable framework class. Call it the Fighting Man or something.

I have mused about what it would look like if spellcasters in D&D were fundamentally divided into three to four classes based upon how they approach magic (e.g., patron, learned, innate, gish, etc.) and then have separate spell lists they could choose based on their power source (e.g., divine, arcane, primal, etc.).

 

[Minigiant]

I have mused about what it would look like if spellcasters in D&D were fundamentally divided into three to four classes based upon how they approach magic (e.g., patron, learned, innate, gish, etc.) and then have separate spell lists they could choose based on their power source (e.g., divine, arcane, primal, etc.).

I think many have mused about that.
Reducing the classes to their basic cores (Warrior, Mage, Cleric, Rogue, Whatever the Paladin/Ranger/EK is)
Having a class choose skills, fighting approach (manuevers, rage, ki, spirit), and/or magic approach (learned, innate, patron,)
Then having a subclass choose power source and the associate lists (arcane, divine, elemental, fey, infernal, martial, primal, etc)

So your divine soul sorcerer would be a Mage (Sorcerer) with the divine spell list but your traditional wizard would be a Mage (Wizard) with the Arcane spell list. And your hexblade would be a Mage(Hexblade) with the Arcane spell list and Shadow maneuver list.

But again, the time for D&D proper to do that has passed. It's also a bit too complex for an edition like 5th which is introducing so many for the first time to the game. Maybe 6th or 7th edition though.

 

[Aldarc]

I think many have mused about that.
Reducing the classes to their basic cores (Warrior, Mage, Cleric, Rogue, Whatever the Paladin/Ranger/EK is)
Having a class choose skills, fighting approach (manuevers, rage, ki, spirit), and/or magic approach (learned, innate, patron,)
Then having a subclass choose power source and the associate lists (arcane, divine, elemental, fey, infernal, martial, primal, etc)

So your divine soul sorcerer would be a Mage (Sorcerer) with the divine spell list but your traditional wizard would be a Mage (Wizard) with the Arcane spell list. And your hexblade would be a Mage(Hexblade) with the Arcane spell list and Shadow maneuver list.

"Reducing the classes to their basic cores (Warrior, Mage, Cleric, Rogue,...)," particularly the Fab Four, is not quite what I had in mind. It's a difference of em-phah-sis so to speak. The core of the spellcaster would be based on their casting style rather than whether they are a Mage or Cleric.