D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[Shardstone]

Sorcerer should get more metamagics, and there should be about 15-20 metamagics to choose from. Sorcerer's should only use sorcery points, and they can spend more points on normal spells to manipulate them in certain ways.

Psionics in 5E now use psionic dice, as seen with the new subclasses. A completely different mechanic to spell points. Therefore, this makes the sorcerer unique.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So, at post #700, has anything been accomplished or decided on? At this point I have no idea of people want to change the sorcerer, make a new sorcerer, roll-over sorcerer into another class, move another class into sorcerer, or remove the sorcerer entirely? All of them? Something else? At this point, I want to start a poll with those options. ;-)

I provided my suggestion: kill the sorcerer, give metamagic to the wizard, make the spellcasting ability selectable between Charisma or Intelligence, provide a strong option for spell points as a casting method, consolidate subclasses as appropriate to provide themed options for learned and inborn magic.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

One thing I hate about the sorcerer is that they stole the inborn magical talent from the wizard. Now, everyone tends to treat arcane magic as:

1. Inborn, you're a sorcerer
2. Not inborn, don't worry, studdy hard and you can be a wizard.
3. I guess you can have granted power (be a warlock)

The way I see it is that, other than the warlock who is granted it, arcane magic is an inborn talent; sorcerer and wizard are just different ways of accessing that talent. This is why in a campaign setting you still have limited amounts of wizards, you don't have a large amount of people running around with an arcane magic initiate feat because they just don't have that spark for arcane magic.

The sorcerer might learn their magic somewhat randomly, focused around their bloodline. The wizard focuses their magic around their studies. They both have that inborn spark of arcane power, they just learn to harness it differently.

Nothing stops you from just saying this is a thing in your setting. Even the book itself says Dragon Sorcerer could gain powers from a Draconic Pact, not being born with it. I run in Mystara and decided that natural magical talent is something you're born with, and Sorcerer, Wizard and Bard are just different ways of learning magic.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

So.
Make.
Better.
Sorcerer.
Mechanics.

I mean I've been advocating for this for years, and I thought there was some hope after the Tasha's subclasses actually felt really thematic and unique to their bloodline.

Then we get the 1dnd playtest and it's back to square one again. Draconic bloodline especially is insanely barebones. While both metamagic and the new innate sorcery feel tacked on, rather than part of the class. Innate sorcery is an amazing idea, but it fails to interact with the subclasses existing at all, so compared to barbarian rage it's so lacking.

Lack of origin spells combined with subclass features which only appear once almost all campaigns are over mean that if you want to play towards your bloodline theme, it's a real struggle. And the sorcerer spell list is so limited that you can't even make up for it by picking thematic spells from it.

And yet for all that, I saw numerous threads online saying that the subclass spells should be removed from the remaining subclasses, rather than added to the missing ones.

The reason I have no hope for the sorcerer ever improving is that a huge portion of the playerbase don't want it to lean into its subclass themes or have truly unique mechanics. They want 'generic wizard, but hot' as a class, and any strong influence from the subclass themes given to sorcerer makes being 'generic wizard, but hot' more difficult for them.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

If it was easy we would have it already.

We had it already up to level 5. It's called the DnDNext Playtest.

The community rioted because it wasn't a wizard clone, so we got a wizard clone.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

So, at post #700, has anything been accomplished or decided on? At this point I have no idea of people want to change the sorcerer, make a new sorcerer, roll-over sorcerer into another class, move another class into sorcerer, or remove the sorcerer entirely? All of them? Something else? At this point, I want to start a poll with those options. ;-)

The problem with the class is that it has both heavy overlap thematically with warlock, while also having two different groups of players wanting 'their' interpretation of the sorcerer to be the one in game. And those interpretations are pretty mutually exclusive.

I personally liked the 'become the monster' aspect of the sorcerer from the original 5e playtest, as it was thematic af and would have allowed you to push heavily into mechanics representing various monster types like dragons, celestials, elementals, etc.

But just as many people (or even more) prefer the interpretation of a sorcerer being a naturally gifted person with innate arcane magic, which would be (and is) a much more standard spellcaster like we have now.

Position A and Position B are mutually exclusive. If you're a monstrous out of control force due to your subclass, that completely destroys trying to play as a refined and gifted magical student in full control over their arcane magic.

So naturally the class generates a huge amount of debate because people are so polarised on it.

 

[Minigiant]

The problem with the class is that it has both heavy overlap thematically with warlock, while also having two different groups of players wanting 'their' interpretation of the sorcerer to be the one in game. And those interpretations are pretty mutually exclusive.

I personally liked the 'become the monster' aspect of the sorcerer from the original 5e playtest, as it was thematic af and would have allowed you to push heavily into mechanics representing various monster types like dragons, celestials, elementals, etc.

But just as many people (or even more) prefer the interpretation of a sorcerer being a naturally gifted person with innate arcane magic, which would be (and is) a much more standard spellcaster like we have now.

Position A and Position B are mutually exclusive. If you're a monstrous out of control force due to your subclass, that completely destroys trying to play as a refined and gifted magical student in full control over their arcane magic.

So naturally the class generates a huge amount of debate because people are so polarised on it.

I LONG said Sorcerer needs a Noble Family origin of innate casters due to being from a family of Arcanists. "Wizards" of Harry Potter, Waverly Place, Warhammer. Witches of Sabrina or Charmed.

 

[Minigiant]

At this point sorcerer has too much baggage for major change in a hypothetical 6e.

1. Keep the Sorcerer as the CHA based Traditional spell slots and sorcery points class.
   • Sorcerers keep Metamagic
   • Subclasses have unique themed Metamagic
2. Keep the Warlock as the CHA based Pact Magic spell slots and Invocation class.
   • All Warlocks have Patrons
   • Patrons are CR 20 or higher
   • Force Pacts to be actually be things
   • Warlocks must be the consequences of defying Patron
3. Add a Magician class that is CON based and Short rest Points based Magic
   • This is the Pact-less Warlock
4. Add a new Mutant class that has powers and not spells.
   
   • Doesn't have spells
   • One subclass for each monster type

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I'm personally completely against a CON based caster. It lets people only care about a single stat and ignore all others.

I'd rather make all classes more MAD, rather than what WotC is currently doing by trying to make every class SAD.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So, at post #700, has anything been accomplished or decided on? At this point I have no idea of people want to change the sorcerer, make a new sorcerer, roll-over sorcerer into another class, move another class into sorcerer, or remove the sorcerer entirely? All of them? Something else? At this point, I want to start a poll with those options. ;-)

Yes, all of that. The main unifying factor seems to be that no one is really happy with the current sorcerer.