D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[Shardstone]

I think Sorcery Points vs Pact Magic is a worthwhile split to keep.

 

[ezo]

The original Warlock is actually kinda weak as a pure class. That's why so many people multiclass out of it.

I think that mostly depends on the short rest issue. If you get at least one, the Warlock isn't really weak IMO. Now, it tends to be sort of specialized, depending on what invocations you take.

The warlock spell list is bad.
Warlocks don't get many spells per short rest.
Warlock spells known is low.

The warlock spell list is subjective. Numberwise they are about the same as clerics (as of Xanathar's).

True, not many spells per short rest. But if you compare overall total spell levels given one short rest, warlocks aren't too far behind for most levels. Factor in at-will spells or even single casting spell invocations and they are only slightly behind wizards.

LOL, yeah, low spells known is a bad thing for both Warlock and Sorcerer. The easiest fix for Warlock is you make the Expanded Spell Lists for the subclasses as automatically known, not simply options. If you do this, a warlock will know 25 spells at 20th level, the same number a wizard can prepare.

Even if the cleric base class is 75% of its power, EB+AB, Pacts, and more invocations is what almost every class thinks about multi classes for.

EB+AB is not IME nearly as popular as it is for you, I guess. I've only seen two warlocks (out of about a dozen) in the last five years go that route.

Pacts are fairly lack-luster IMO and mostly fluff.

While invocations are cool, there are only about 5 or 6 that I see commonly taken outside of the EB-oriented ones.

Finally, multiclassing is a big issue for most power-combos, and for good reason. It is why over 90% of groups use feats, but only about half or a bit more allow multiclassing. Currently, one group I play in allows multiclassing, the other doesn't.

You are giving Cleric EB, Invocations, and Pacts.

Sure, but I am taking away whatever other subclass features they might gain, including requiring their use of channel divinity to empower their pact, which for some invocations is required, which then often denied them the use to Turn Undead.

You are giving Wizard FULL Sorcery Points and Metamagic. Not even trading out Arcane Recovery. They get to keep that.

Well, not FULL sorcery points, more early on (which we did for sorcerers when they were still a class), but actually less. RAW a Sorcerer maxes out at 20 SP, more with a short rest. By comparison, this subclass maxes out at 15, up to 20 with a short rest---assuming it isn't used for Arcane Recovery. To benefit for both, the PC would need two short rests since they can't both be used on the same short rest. Of course, with two short rests, the RAW Sorcerer could have 28 SPs, not just 20.

Yes, Arcane Recovery is a great feature for wizards, but that is good because frankly it is really all the core class gets. Now, it's version of Ritual Casting is better than other classes who have it, but TBH most rituals are good for utility, but little else, and certainly not anything you can use in combat!

Of course Metamagic is awesome, but it isn't something the subclass can use all the time, unless it sacks some spell slots. It could recover those on the short rest, or some of its SP, but not both.

The power is the ability to swap spell every long rest AND not having to prepare rituals

Well, with Tasha's I thought Sorcerers could already change out a known spell on a long rest? Granted, it is only one, but again the vast majority of the time spellcasters get certain spells and rarely change them out...

Having full sorcery points and multiple Metamagic options in top of that is too much.

Not really IME. All I can tell you is we used this homebrew for about 18 months, and it was never "too much."

I've DMed for sorcerer, wizard, warlock, and cleric. I know their weakness. I see how your subclasses allow for clerics and wizards to get better at their strength while covering their weaknesses.

Clerics get strong ranged attacks and more offense. Wizards get more power and can modify our their spells weaknesses.

LOL Clerics already have strong ranged attacks! Between sacred flame and toll the dead they have things fairly well covered IME. It is the range of an Eldritch Spear/Spell Sniper combo at 600 ft, but ranged combat in conjuction with general melee rarely need ranged attacks more than 60 feet, up to 120 is the most generally.

Wizards never really had that much "power" as a core class. Ritual Spellcasting via spellbook is useful, certainly, and Arcane Recovery allows them to cast more spells in general, but that often amounts to one or two extra spells in the range of levels most people play. What else do they have, really? Nothing. RAW we have:

Bard - Inspiration (and Magical Secrets!)
Cleric - Channel Divinity
Druid - Wild Shape
Sorcerer - Metamagic
Warlock - Invocations
Wizard - ???

Considering other classes have Ritual Casting, even if a weaker version, doesn't even leave the Wizard with that as a unique feature. Given their lack of armor, weapons, and low hit points, the couple extra spells they get from Arcane Recovery barely makes up, if it even does. It is one reason why when I hear people say "the Wizard is too powerful" and such, I just shake my head. The versatility they get isn't even that great IME. Useful, certainly, but hardly "powerful" compared to the features other classes can do!

Perhaps your players are more "power gamers" and could find abuses my groups wouldn't. We only have three players I would call power gamers if they wanted to (myself included!). But we are all very experienced D&D players and prefer the challenge of role-playing our PCs instead of min/maxing them.

 

[Minigiant]

Considering other classes have Ritual Casting, even if a weaker version, doesn't even leave the Wizard with that as a unique feature. Given their lack of armor, weapons, and low hit points, the couple extra spells they get from Arcane Recovery barely makes up, if it even does. It is one reason why when I hear people say "the Wizard is too powerful" and such, I just shake my head. The versatility they get isn't even that great IME. Useful, certainly, but hardly "powerful" compared to the features other classes can do!

The Wizard's power isn't in force but versatility. 5e's "balance" is tailor to new players. So you don't actually need to be powergamed that much to beat a normal challenge. That's why people say 5e is too easy. The default difficulty level is Beginner.

Perhaps your players are more "power gamers" and could find abuses my groups wouldn't. We only have three players I would call power gamers if they wanted to (myself included!). But we are all very experienced D&D players and prefer the challenge of role-playing our PCs instead of min/maxing them.

My players are 80% gamers. Once they understand the game, they create whatever silly RP concept they want then power game the hell out of it.

They role play hard and often idiotically. But their PCs are strong. That's why I ban or alter the S-Tier AKA braindead stuff. Picking a weak race doesn't make a Twilight Cleric not powerful.

I'd have to hard enforce 8 medium encounters per long rest for your Sorcerer-Wizard or Warlock-Cleric to meter out their power. Maybe more.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I can see the reasoning, but I think it ends up being too powerful the way you are talking about it.

The biggest thing that helps, honestly, would be to bend the rules around Casting stats. The warlock, Sorcerer and Paladin are not actually "broken" in terms of multi-classing as a concept I think, they just actually have synergy when most classes don't. Now, exception to the rule, Druid seems to be hard to mix with anything, even with sharing wisdom, but Barbarian/Fighters tend to do well, as do Rogue/Ranger/Fighter combinations.

There are a few other things, after all a Barbarian 5/Fighter 5 has fallen behind, because they aren't getting the bump needed to their attacks for levels 10/11 that most classes get. But I think that can be fixed by looking at Extra Attack and giving it something to do when your character already has it. There are a lot of annoying anti-synergies in DnD that I feel like need plugged (inspiring Leader and Celestial Warlock is an annoying one, or Cavalier and Sentinel)

it may possibly be unballanced in the current design of classes but if it was implemented i would expect class design to account for the fact that scalling did work that way.

 

[CreamCloud0]

So, I disagree with you here that this is a "minor tweak", because as is often said, the Devil is in the details.

The Wild Magic sorcerer gives a lot of explanations, as you mention, but it does call out two that we could tie directly to similar warlock stories: "Perhaps you were blessed by a Fey Being or marked by a Demon." However, compare this to the Warlock stories, and something jumps out: "Your Patron is a Lord of Lady of the Fey... this beings motivations are often inscrutable and sometimes whimsical, and might involve striving for greater magical power or the settling of age-old grudges. // You have made a pact with a fiend from the Lower Planes of existence... Such beings desire the corruption or destruction of all things, ultimately including you."

What jumps out, is that in both cases, the Warlock Patron's motivations matter. This is because the Warlock's story is intimately and deeply tied to this concept. You've made a deal, you've stepped into an arena where the planar politics matter, where the forces of the universe are involved, where you can play a part in the story between two great Houses or usurp a Prince of Hell.

If you were to take the Warlock and put it into the Sorcerer... you water that down. Sure, a sorcerer CAN be created in a similar manner, as a pawn in some great game, but many aren't. As you mentioned, Sorcerer thematics are far far broader, and usually the influence of another entity is an afterthought. But there is something else, made a bit more clear when you ask the other way.

What do you lose if you were to take the Sorcerer and put it into the Warlock, thematically? And that is unwillingness. Note what the Wild Sorcerer said, you were BLESSED by a fey or MARKED by a demon. It doesn't say anything about ASKING for those things. Look at the Aberrant mind, one of their origins is surviving an attack from an Aboleth, or being partially changed by Cereomorphisis. Dragon Sorcerer consistently talks about your ancestor making a choice or getting involved with dragons.

The VAST majority of Sorcerers are accidental, unasked for, not intended. It seems like a minor change, when you zoom out, but for a character the difference between someone who asked for or at the very least AGREED to work for a power, to get dragged into these cosmic games is very different from someone who never had that choice. If a sorcerer is made by an entity, the sorcerer had no choice in the matter. They were an accident, or a casualty of something else, or they did it to themselves by mistake. And trying to mix that with a class whose thematic bent is consistently "You made the conscious choice to get involved in this, and your patron has expectations of you" just inevitably makes both sides of the coin weaker, because they are diametrically opposed ideas.

The power source may be the same, but John Constantine making deals with the Devil for power and trading favors like baseball cards has an entirely different theme to him than Raven, whose Father is the Devil and was born under a cursed prophecy of destruction she cannot escape. Both may get their power from a "fiendish" source, but saying they are basically the same type of character is flat out wrong.

i know that sometimes people just want to play their class as the mechanics it is but i think it's a loss to gameplay the degree to which the class' narratives have been turned into just supplimental fluff, the warlock's patron doesn't come calling for favours, the monk doesn't have to abstain from their luxuries, the wizard isn't researching fragments of spells from lost scrolls.

 

[Mecheon]

I just don't think the relationship with the patron is a big deal. It would be, but it doesn't need to and often isn't. And same would be true for the combined class as well. If you wanted a story where the source of your power was more personally involved, you still could.

From a roleplaying perspective, it absolutely could be. But, well, decades of a certain class of DMs using paladin as a moral purity test and screwing over players through the stereotypical Paladin Trap have made it unlikely. You absolutely could just have some event where "Hey you start hearing voices from your patron you got magic from, they're letting you know of this thing off to the side". Its a free side-quest generator with the added morality of 'should we trust this voice only one person can hear but seems to know things'

But that's absolutely not something you'd expect on the sorcerer side

 

[Shadowedeyes]

So, I disagree with you here that this is a "minor tweak", because as is often said, the Devil is in the details.

The Wild Magic sorcerer gives a lot of explanations, as you mention, but it does call out two that we could tie directly to similar warlock stories: "Perhaps you were blessed by a Fey Being or marked by a Demon." However, compare this to the Warlock stories, and something jumps out: "Your Patron is a Lord of Lady of the Fey... this beings motivations are often inscrutable and sometimes whimsical, and might involve striving for greater magical power or the settling of age-old grudges. // You have made a pact with a fiend from the Lower Planes of existence... Such beings desire the corruption or destruction of all things, ultimately including you."

What jumps out, is that in both cases, the Warlock Patron's motivations matter. This is because the Warlock's story is intimately and deeply tied to this concept. You've made a deal, you've stepped into an arena where the planar politics matter, where the forces of the universe are involved, where you can play a part in the story between two great Houses or usurp a Prince of Hell.

If you were to take the Warlock and put it into the Sorcerer... you water that down. Sure, a sorcerer CAN be created in a similar manner, as a pawn in some great game, but many aren't. As you mentioned, Sorcerer thematics are far far broader, and usually the influence of another entity is an afterthought. But there is something else, made a bit more clear when you ask the other way.

What do you lose if you were to take the Sorcerer and put it into the Warlock, thematically? And that is unwillingness. Note what the Wild Sorcerer said, you were BLESSED by a fey or MARKED by a demon. It doesn't say anything about ASKING for those things. Look at the Aberrant mind, one of their origins is surviving an attack from an Aboleth, or being partially changed by Cereomorphisis. Dragon Sorcerer consistently talks about your ancestor making a choice or getting involved with dragons.

The VAST majority of Sorcerers are accidental, unasked for, not intended. It seems like a minor change, when you zoom out, but for a character the difference between someone who asked for or at the very least AGREED to work for a power, to get dragged into these cosmic games is very different from someone who never had that choice. If a sorcerer is made by an entity, the sorcerer had no choice in the matter. They were an accident, or a casualty of something else, or they did it to themselves by mistake. And trying to mix that with a class whose thematic bent is consistently "You made the conscious choice to get involved in this, and your patron has expectations of you" just inevitably makes both sides of the coin weaker, because they are diametrically opposed ideas.

The power source may be the same, but John Constantine making deals with the Devil for power and trading favors like baseball cards has an entirely different theme to him than Raven, whose Father is the Devil and was born under a cursed prophecy of destruction she cannot escape. Both may get their power from a "fiendish" source, but saying they are basically the same type of character is flat out wrong.

So, we actually agree that a character's theme, or narrative story is heavily impacted by those details. Where we disagree is that we need two classes for that I think. For a hypothetical example, let's say we have Jack, who made a deal with with a devil for magical powers, and Jill, who found out that she has the bloodline of a fiend in her family tree, and so she can naturally access magic through it.

Narratively speaking, Jack and Jill's stories should indeed play out differently. But a lot of that doesn't really connect to the mechanics of their class. Jack's patron might come a-knocking, and Jack will need to decide what to do about that. Jill doesn't have that story beat, but might have to wrestle with more inner demons, to make a bit of a pun. A lot of this though is going to be handled outside of the mechanics of the classes however, with the class just there to give the flavor of "I gained magical powers through x" some concrete rules.

So, do they need different mechanics for the powers they gained? Depends on your point of view I guess. Going to your example, Constantine and Raven may have a similar source, but they do have very different powersets. In a hypothetical game with them as characters, separate classes make sense. If Jack and Jill want fiendish themed abilities and spells, they probably are going to have more overlap than Constantine and Raven would however, and so it might make sense to simply have them use the same class. Or not, since the issue I think combining the two classes solves is giving the sorcerer a mechanical distinctiveness it currently lacks, but there are certainly other ways to do so.

 

[ezo]

The Wizard's power isn't in force but versatility.

Sure, but that hardly makes it as OP as many people like to believe. There are several ways in which its versatility can't be brought to bear, at which point it doesn't have anything else, like all the other spellcasters do.

5e's "balance" is tailor to new players. So you don't actually need to be powergamed that much to beat a normal challenge. That's why people say 5e is too easy. The default difficulty level is Beginner.

Completely agreed!

My players are 80% gamers. Once they understand the game, they create whatever silly RP concept they want then power game the hell out of it.

They role play hard and often idiotically. But their PCs are strong. That's why I ban or alter the S-Tier AKA braindead stuff. Picking a weak race doesn't make a Twilight Cleric not powerful.

Ok, and agreed.

I'd have to hard enforce 8 medium encounters per long rest for your Sorcerer-Wizard or Warlock-Cleric to meter out their power. Maybe more.

Not at all. Again, you're looking at these from a white-room stance. I'm speaking from the experience of months of actual game play. I'll never deny they are powerful subclasses when done this way, but they do work IME.

I honestly think you are over-estimating the amount of impact this has. Regardless, if you don't ever try them (like I once tried the Twilight Cleric (shivers!!!)) your estimating is the best you'll have.

We've moved on since this homebrew, so we don't even use them now. Anyway, I appreciate your thoughts.

 

[Mecheon]

Narratively speaking, Jack and Jill's stories should indeed play out differently. But a lot of that doesn't really connect to the mechanics of their class. Jack's patron might come a-knocking, and Jack will need to decide what to do about that. Jill doesn't have that story beat, but might have to wrestle with more inner demons, to make a bit of a pun. A lot of this though is going to be handled outside of the mechanics of the classes however, with the class just there to give the flavor of "I gained magical powers through x" some concrete rules.

I'm going to disagree with this one. "I made a deal with an X" and "I'm part X" shouldn't be the same spells. If you have powers from being part dragon, you should be sprouting wings or scaled armor

Basically playtest sorcerer was the best the sorcerer's ever been at actually living the "Your magical power is because of your ancestry" idea.

 

[CreamCloud0]

For anyone thinking the sorcerer lacks mechanical distinctions, do you thing the right thing to do to solve that issue (without merging them with another class) is lean harder into what they can do with metamagic or go for something else?

For the metamagic angel I made a suggestion a couple of pages ago now about a mechanic of memorising innate-metamagiced spells for a conundrum of locking in certain spell-metamagic combinations for long term sorcery point efficiency of repeated use versus having a larger pool available for in the moment flexibility.

For a new direction i think reducing sorcerers base spell list in return for subclasses leaning much harder into giving you much more themed spell access, like the divine soul thing of accessing other spell lists or something like the storm sorcerer can learn any spell that deals lightning or thunder damage