D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[Shadowedeyes]

I will fully admit that I'm one of the five people a bit nostalgic for Vancian casting, at least for the wizard. I think it's not coming back, because it's more time consuming and frustrating for most people, but I think it made for interesting decision points compared to the current version.

 

[Minigiant]

In D&D, arcane magic comes from arcane formulas, bloodlines, pacts, the Music of Creation, the Weave (FR), the Moons/Gods (DL), the life of the planet (DS), the Mists (RL) and the Planes themselves. There is no underlying principle of magic because people WANT it to be all those things. They will scream murder if you say something like "all arcane magic comes from the Weave" because "muh Dragonlance" isn't being supported.

D&D has a lore problem. The Core rules need to be vague to support every official setting and most homebrew ones or players riot. Settings aren't detailed enough in the limited space given to get hyper specific. They can't support multiple lines of hyper-specific stuff without fracturing the franchise and cannibalizing their own sales. So 5e throws it's hands up and says "it is what you make it" and we debate endlessly if the sorcerer is unique enough to exist in a setting where magic doesn't get defined any more thoroughly than "casts fireball".

To me the biggest problem is the same one.

NOT ENOUGH CLASSES

If you have enough classes with defined core lore, you have enough options available if a setting or DM removes a bunch or if the core lore isn't to you'll liking.

Don't want a Patron, don't pick Warlock? Choose Occultist for invocations or Warmages for a cantrip spammer.
Don't have the Weave in your setting? Well Class 1, 2, or 3 can cast arcane spells without the Weave.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mod Note:

@ezo
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Since you decided to do it in response to moderation, in a thread you’re banned in you’ve managed to trigger further action.

Enjoy your time off from this site; please use the temporary ban improve your behavior IF you decide to return.

 

[MoonSong]

It also works in reverse. Wizard subclasses must remain boring, as more interesting concepts are already covered by other caster classes.

Nah, wizard subclasses are boring because wizard is an inherently boring concept.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's not a matter of if they were unbalanced as much as if it was done on purpose.

You'll never be able to sell giving the wizard more without compensation to those you took from and throw design to that original balance threshold.

I said that the sorcerer would need compensation for the loss of metamagic. Lots of possibilities there.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Nah, wizard subclasses are boring because wizard is an inherently boring concept.

I'm not quite sure of that. For example an occultist that studies forbidden lore and summons extraplanar horrors is a cool concept, and to me seems like a logical extension of the studious wizard, but we already have the warlock for doing that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure, maybe some 0.5% of DnD players remember Vancian and want to go back to it, but the very existence of the Sorcerer and the fact that Vancian wasn't even considered in the 2014 playtest tells me that their valid opinions are a tiny percentage.

Heck, do any of the OSR clones even use Vancian casting?

Anything based on a version that uses it, yeah, probably. I don't know them all.

And links on your 0.5% data please. I suggest not appealing to popularity, especially with numbers, unless you can back it up.

 

[Micah Sweet]

See, this is the fundamental problem. That isn't how it works. Plans are made with information, but you CANNOT have the correct information. Even in 3.5, the last edition to use Vancian, clerics were allowed to substitute prepared spells for cure wounds and casters could choose to NOT prepare all their spells, to leave room for "the unexpected" which was every single adventuring day. No DM is going to allow you to know everything the enemy can or will bring to bear. They will always conceal information, and so you will always just be guessing about what resources might be useful.

I have very few things I feel strongly about, but Vancian casting and the way it requires predicting the future to play your character effectively is just bad for the game. As I said, I haven't even heard of the OSR clone games that have come out in the last decade using Vancian casting.

Bringing the right equipment for the job also requires "predicting the future" by that magic.

 

[Micah Sweet]

To me the biggest problem is the same one.

NOT ENOUGH CLASSES

If you have enough classes with defined core lore, you have enough options available if a setting or DM removes a bunch or if the core lore isn't to you'll liking.

Don't want a Patron, don't pick Warlock? Choose Occultist for invocations or Warmages for a cantrip spammer.
Don't have the Weave in your setting? Well Class 1, 2, or 3 can cast arcane spells without the Weave.

Agreed. Big fan of more classes here.

 

[michaeljpastor]

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.

85 pages of discussion, and a random sampling of them reveals to me that nobody knows what the real issue is.

It's the fact that the Warlocks are only in the subservient position, dependent on a higher power for their magic.

What about the Warlock-as-master? I demand recognition of those who command the arcane spirits, not obey them! ;-)