D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[James Gasik]

This gives me an idea... what if Sorcerers became the creature type of their bloodline, or at least added it to the humanoid creature type?

You're a Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer? You gain the dragon creature type.

It's a cool idea and flavorful, but how much that matters is up in the air. You can't be hit by "Person" spells, and you can be affected by Dragonslayer items, take more Smite damage from Paladins (if Evil), and a few other spells might apply differently (Magic Circle). Unlike 3e, you don't gain any major special advantages from type.

 

[ezo]

It's a cool idea and flavorful, but how much that matters is up in the air. You can't be hit by "Person" spells, and you can be affected by Dragonslayer items, take more Smite damage from Paladins (if Evil), and a few other spells might apply differently (Magic Circle). Unlike 3e, you don't gain any major special advantages from type.

True, but you are getting the "origin" features already from the bloodline, this idea was more meant to create a stronger tie.

This brings to mind I think one of the design decisions in 5E concerning classes/subclasses that always bugged me: subclasses give some features to "create the feel", but IMO often miss logical additions that, while adding more power, would certainly also make a lot more sense.

For instance, in the first 5E game, one player made a Dragonborn Sorcerer (Draconic bloodline), really going for the "theme". I don't recall which color choices he made for Dragon Ancestry (race trait) and Dragon Ancestor (subclass feature), but I know they were different. I want to say Bronze and Gold, respectively. Now, the bronze gave him lightning resistance, of course, but we played for over a year also thinking the gold gave him fire resistance as well! We were dumbfounded to realize the error---Draconic bloodline does not give you damage resistance according to your color. I know it is a strong addition, but man it makes so much sense and to not have it seems like leaving the subclass lying flat on its face. FWIW, we added it.

 

[Mecheon]

That indeed is one interpretation that clearly differentiates them. (And would also answer to the question can the patron turn off the powers of the warlock.) But the issue with that is that it makes a warlock a type of a cleric.

Nah, its the mirror of the cleric

One gets powers through faith and belief in another being, the other gets powers through a deal struck. Two sides of the same coin, but doing it in vastly different ways

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Nah, its the mirror of the cleric

One gets powers through faith and belief in another being, the other gets powers through a deal struck. Two sides of the same coin, but doing it in vastly different ways

I really don't think that the personal attitude of the hierophant is enough to build whole different class upon. Especially as belief and faith are rather modern concepts and very Christian flavoured whilst the ancient pantheism was often much more pragmatic and transactional.

 

[Remathilis]

I'd like to see a citation of that. Of course invocations are a big part of their power, but ability to cast high level spells is far more than any half-caster gets. Very hard to see them as equivalent..

Jeremy: @6:00.

Right now in terms of the spell casting progression, people are going to see that the Warlock has been built similarly to a paladin and a ranger in having a spell casting progression that goes up to fifth level now under the hood that's basically what was already going on in the Warlock, so we rather than the Warlock having sort of this tricky different spell casting system we've now brought the Warlock in with everybody else while maintaining the warlock's distinctiveness, and here's how we did that warlocks still have their Eldritch invocations and in fact you now will cap out at nine instead of eight and one of those new invocations is Mystic Arcanum so the Mystic Arcana feature that warlock got before which was how they got to access spells higher than fifth level is now an Eldritch invocation that you can start taking sooner than you could before and it also allows you to get lower level spells than it allowed you to get before.


I can't find the other reference, but there was another UA video where Jeremy pointed out they tried an internal full caster version of the UA warlock, but they would have to reduce the # of invocations since the warlock was built with half-caster power in mind.

Now this is all in reference to changing pact magic to spellcasting, an idea foolishly abandoned by the community because it couldn't be used to break the multiclass system, but it highlights that the designers always viewed pact magic as equivalent to a half-caster, not a full caster.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Jeremy: @6:00.

Right now in terms of the spell casting progression uh people are going to see that the Warlock has been built similarly to a paladin and a ranger in having a spell casting progression that goes up to fifth level now under the hood that's basically what was already going on in the Warlock so we rather than the Warlock having sort of this tricky different spell casting system we've now brought the Warlock in with everybody else while maintaining the warlock's distinctiveness and here's how we did that warlocks still have their Eldritch invocations and in fact you now will cap out at nine instead of eight and one of those new invocations is Mystic Arcanum so the Mystic Arcana feature that warlock Scott before which was how they got to access spells higher than fifth level is now an Eldritch invocation that you can start taking sooner than you could before and it also allows you to get lower level spells than it allowed you to get before.


I can't find the other reference, but there was another UA video where Jeremy pointed out they tried an internal full caster version of the UA warlock, but they would have to reduce the # of invocations since the warlock was built with half-caster power in mind.

This would be before they reverted the Warlock, however. The playtest 7 version (which I am currently playing in a game kindly run by Hussar) still has one bonus invocation over the 5.0 Warlock--but pacts have become invocations as well. This change means that the Warlock has gained a net of exactly 1 total invocation, and that occurs (roughly) before 10th level IIRC. The 5.5e Warlock, as of playtest 7, still has Mystic Arcana, and even allows you to change what spells you picked, something you couldn't do before.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

BTW, turning pacts into invocations was one of the things I did in my warlock (that includes sorcerer) houserules, so I was very glad to see that WotC had adopted my excellent idea!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

BTW, turning pacts into invocations was one of the things I did in my warlock (that includes sorcerer) houserules, so I was very glad to see that WotC had adopted my excellent idea!

Apart from the sorcerer element,* I completely agree. Being able to have both the Tome and Blade pact is awesome, and lets my character feel both diverse and capable. Further, with the playtest Celestial patron, I'm actually a really really good support to the rest of the team--we lack a proper Cleric, but between piecemeal 4d6/long rest healing, plus automatically upcast cure wounds, I can mix it up at the front and patch people (or myself) up afterward.

*Which....I still don't understand how you cash out elective, select-able things as arising unforced, from the blood...which is what Invocations are and why you can select them yourself...

 

[Crimson Longinus]

*Which....I still don't understand how you cash out elective, select-able things as arising unforced, from the blood...which is what Invocations are and why you can select them yourself...

What? The player is selecting them! Doesn't necessarily mean the character selects them, to the character they might be just random mutations. As players we select all sort of things about the character's build that the person in the setting obviously didn't select themselves.

 

[Remathilis]

This would be before they reverted the Warlock, however. The playtest 7 version (which I am currently playing in a game kindly run by Hussar) still has one bonus invocation over the 5.0 Warlock--but pacts have become invocations as well. This change means that the Warlock has gained a net of exactly 1 total invocation, and that occurs (roughly) before 10th level IIRC. The 5.5e Warlock, as of playtest 7, still has Mystic Arcana, and even allows you to change what spells you picked, something you couldn't do before.

Point is, Wizards believes 5.0 pact magic is akin to half-spellcasting, so giving warlock invocations at the same rate as 5.0 to a full caster like a sorcerer is akin to giving paladin full cleric spellcasting. A subclass that gives warlock invocations at the same rate as the warlock class to a full caster is over powered because pact magic isn't as potent as full casting.