D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[Chaosmancer]

You dont need to have all the correct information. Diversify your spells memorized, and just roll with it. Now, I can still absolutely see your perspective, but its not the end of the world, never has been, to have to think ahead, and yeah maybe not all your spell slots are used in a day, or you picked some duds.

Sure, it isn't the end of the world. But... is it fun? Is it fun to think "Well, do I need to cast sleep once today or twice?" Because what ends up happening is people just default to the safest, blandest, most repetitive options. They won't pick a quirky spell, or a spell that may be useful in the right situation, they will pick the most guaranteed useful thing.

This already is happening in 5e. I've played a lot of clerics and unless I KNEW we were not going to be dealing with combat or that we would be dealing with an interrogation, I never prepared Zone of Truth. Which means that any time we are say, delving a dungeon and unexpectedly running into a situation where that spell would be useful... I never have it. Vancian casting is EVEN WORSE about this, because now I don't just need to decide to bring Zone of Truth, but I would need to guess how many times I'll find Guiding Bolt useful compared to Shield of Faith or Bless. If I do prepare Zone of Truth do I prepare one less casting of Pass without a Trace? Or do I drop a casting of Invisibility (Trickery Domain, btw)? What will I need? There is no way to know, so I might as well default to the most broadly useful spells the most times.

 

[Shardstone]

Dragon, Shadow, Celestial, and Chaos to start with. Add Storm, Clockwork, Nosferatu, and Giant over time.

Dragon: Becomes a "tanky bruiser" type as SP deplete, gaining armor, natural weapons/extra attacks, a breath attack, and defenses.

Shadow: Becomes a "lurker" type, a living shadow that attacks from unseen directions and fills opponents with fear...or with puncture wounds.

Celestial: Biblically accurate angel. Disturbing, even Lovecraftian, but in a supportive, bolstering kind of way. You're glad it's on your side.

Chaos: A roiling ball of Limbo/Elemental Chaos. Constantly shifting and changing and teleporting around, warping reality around you.

Storm: You literally become a living thunderhead. Ranged attacks galore, SPEEDBOI (ride the lightning), but fragile like...a cloud.

Clockwork: Not entirely sure yet, but the idea is too fun not to do.

Nosferatu: Blood magic, vampire. Drain enemy life to empower yourself. Weaken if you can't get blood. Stoke fear in man and obedience in beast.

Giant: Size, runes, temperament, endurance, ability to partly support others (giants often build things in myth.)

Man this would be a sick ass class. Would love to have seen it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Wow it’s almost like players would have to gather information, plan ahead, strategise and be cautious rather than charging in like a herd of nigh immortal magic slinging bulls with red bandanas covering their eyes.

Scouts, scrying and researching existed for a reason.

How accurate will the enemy be? Will it be more useful to cast Shield of Faith to keep the Fighter on their feet, or bless to make them more accurate? How badly wounded will they be? Should I have more healing words prepared so I can keep my action open for hitting the enemy or more cure wounds prepared for after combat healing? Should I have one or two guiding bolts prepared to hit an enemy hard to prevent a disaster?

Quite literally, a single guiding bolt was the difference between our campaign becoming much harder, because a random encounter on the road to a safe haven involved fey beings who swiped a key plot important amulet, and I was the only one with a powerful enough ranged attack and the initiative to hit that enemy and prevent the amulet from being stolen. What scrying spell would have told me that the enemy would be out of reach of our melee fighters AND that I would win the initiative to be capable of making that attack to solve the situation? Could we have scouted the entire forest while splitting the party to prepare for a random encounter that the DM rolled on a table? Maybe while running for our lives we could have stopped to research the forest we were in, surely the people hunting us would have respected our library cards.

This isn't about charging in with no information. This is about how the game is played. You will never have all the information. All the research and scrying and scouting in the world won't tell you who is going to fail their stealth check or win the initiative. I've had fights won by throwing down an entangle or a web that COULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED if the melee characters had acted first and charged into the fray. And if your DM allows you to safely scout an entire dungeon, map every single enemy, in every single room, and note all of their abilities.... then sure, congrats, you win DnD. But that doesn't happen. It would be boring as heck. And even then, you can't predict what the dice will do and how that will shape what spells will or will not be useful and effective in the fight.

 

[Remathilis]

Proposal: Restore and expand the playtest sorcerer.

Concepts:

• Do away with the separation between spell slots and sorcery points. Sorcerers get spell points, which they may use to cast whatever spells they know. This means Sorcerers may burn up all their points casting very high-level spells. Limits can be put in place if this is considered excessive, but I like the idea that the Sorcerer, who lives and breathes power, is the only one who can cast four 9th level spells per day or whatever.
• As the character spends SP, they begin to manifest the power within physically, their sorcerous soul literally taking over their body. They aren't actually at any risk of falling to that power (I mean, unless the player wants to, I guess?) Their exact abilities depend on subclass, similar to Monk.
• Metamagic is soft-reworked, adding bloodline-themed options. Reduce the total number of metamagics, and let every sorcerer have access to all of them from day 1 (except the bloodline-exclusive ones, of course.)
• Have bloodlines do useful and impactful things like adding proficiencies (especially armor/weapon profs) or giving natural weapons or the like.
• Add some new, Sorcerer-only spells, and make some existing spells Sorcerer-only (favor taking from the Wizard-only list, when possible.)
• Give each bloodline a choice of bonus spell lists. E.g. Draconic has element-themed spells, Shadow has one focused on illusions, one on enchantments/fear, and one on shadow conjurations, Celestial has a healing-focused list and a smiting-focused list; etc.

That seems like a pretty decent start.

So here is my problem with that.

Several of my favorite types of sorcerer don't "transform" into anything. They just have magic that's themed to a certain type of spellcasting. shadow magic doesn't turn you into an undead creature, but it does allow you to tap into magic of the night and gloom. Lunar sorcery is about the moon powering your spells, not turning you into anything. I don't want to lose the option to have sorcerers who are just "storm magic" or "wild magic" without turning into an elemental or a slaad. And I don't want to get saddled with a spell book by being a wizard.

The D&D Next dragon sorcerer was a neat idea for a dragon disciple gish monster class, but it would have been limited to "this subclass turns you into a different monster" and always stuck in the "start a caster, end a melee monster" model. The sorcerer chassis could be used for so many cool ideas for thematic magic (non-aberrant psionics, time magic, elementalists, FF summoners with pets, etc) but everyone, WotC included, gets stuck in the "this turns you into a clockwork monster!" style of thinking.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

It was hyperbole, that's why I used a statistically small number.

And I don't know any of them either, but not a single one I am aware of uses it. So, instead of just assuming some of them must use Vancian casting, why don't you link to your evidence?

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

Which is why most groups either bring nothing or bring everything. One or the other, because you can't predict what you will need.

I'm a player who will track every single thing they pick up and have, because at any point something I didn't think of could be useful in a situation.

 

[FrogReaver]

So here is my problem with that.

Several of my favorite types of sorcerer don't "transform" into anything. They just have magic that's themed to a certain type of spellcasting. shadow magic doesn't turn you into an undead creature, but it does allow you to tap into magic of the night and gloom. Lunar sorcery is about the moon powering your spells, not turning you into anything. I don't want to lose the option to have sorcerers who are just "storm magic" or "wild magic" without turning into an elemental or a slaad. And I don't want to get saddled with a spell book by being a wizard.

The D&D Next dragon sorcerer was a neat idea for a dragon disciple gish monster class, but it would have been limited to "this subclass turns you into a different monster" and always stuck in the "start a caster, end a melee monster" model. The sorcerer chassis could be used for so many cool ideas for thematic magic (non-aberrant psionics, time magic, elementalists, FF summoners with pets, etc) but everyone, WotC included, gets stuck in the "this turns you into a clockwork monster!" style of thinking.

yep. I'm not even opposed to a class that does turn into cool things, but it's not really a sorcerer, or at lest not the only sorcerer.

 

[Shardstone]

So here is my problem with that.

Several of my favorite types of sorcerer don't "transform" into anything. They just have magic that's themed to a certain type of spellcasting. shadow magic doesn't turn you into an undead creature, but it does allow you to tap into magic of the night and gloom. Lunar sorcery is about the moon powering your spells, not turning you into anything. I don't want to lose the option to have sorcerers who are just "storm magic" or "wild magic" without turning into an elemental or a slaad. And I don't want to get saddled with a spell book by being a wizard.

The D&D Next dragon sorcerer was a neat idea for a dragon disciple gish monster class, but it would have been limited to "this subclass turns you into a different monster" and always stuck in the "start a caster, end a melee monster" model. The sorcerer chassis could be used for so many cool ideas for thematic magic (non-aberrant psionics, time magic, elementalists, FF summoners with pets, etc) but everyone, WotC included, gets stuck in the "this turns you into a clockwork monster!" style of thinking.

Post some ideas!!!!

 

[Chaosmancer]

I think there's design space to keep it within Warlock without needing to create a new class. The power-dynamic aspect of Warlock's source of power, when viewed through the right lens, can be seen as pure lore/fluff. The old Shaman 2e class is a really bad example of the concept. You could go the animism/College of Spirits Bard route, but I'd like to see abstracted further than straight-up animism, and without the jack-of-all-trades aspect that comes with a Bard.

I'm working on a Pact of the Host subclass, but holding off until we see how the Summoning spells turn out for 5.5, which may affect my design significantly.

Hmm, I think you could do it with Pact of the Chain, maybe tome. Reflavor the Fiend of the GOO and you could make it work. I've got a warlock in a one player story situation who has a patron, but also is a master of those beneath them, kind of a middle manager.

I think the reflavoring would need to be a bit comprehensive, but the power structure is there.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There is an easy way to play a holy themed full caster that can heal and has access to cleric spells from level one. Play a cleric!

See, I think this kind of misses the point though. A Divine Soul sorcerer ISN'T just "a holy themed fullcaster with access to cleric spells" Nor is that what the Celestial Warlock is.

Most Celestial warlocks I've seen follow the route of "I was a piece of crap person, then I made a deal with a celestial, and as part of that deal I am FORCED to repent/rehabilitate". Because the warlock is about the pact. And sure, sure, you could play a fighter with the exact same backstory so what does it matter? It matters because the themes of the class are part of the class. A cleric worships a deity, they are part of the official hierarchy of that deity. A Divine Soul Sorcerer... isn't. They can be used to tell other stories.

I mean, why is it that the Dragon Patron is one of the most requested warlock patrons? We have Drakeguard Rangers, Ascendant Dragon Monks, Dragon Sorcerers, we have dragon themed subclasses everywhere, why do we need a warlock patron? Because that warlock patron slots into different stories. It isn't just "dragon themed subclass" it is "dragon themed WARLOCK" with all that that can offer.

 

[Shardstone]

I'd like a Sorcerer that could do metamagic for just about every spell, and that could spend Sorcery Points on other magical feats, like Magical Successes for skill checks or reinforcing their bodies against magic or magical damage. I'll admit, this idea is really just inspired by Jujutsu Kaisen, but I love that manga's variant of the sorcerer concept; someone with a limited number of spells that can change their target, AoE's, range, damage, saving throw (within reason), and maybe even how often it saves + requiring no spell components but being able to cast spells at a higher level by using V, S, and M components for each spell.

Subclasses get new spells and special ways to spend their Sorcery Points on top of other features, such as Frightening Presence etc.

Of course, Sorcery Points get fused with Spell Points.

This would make it so the Wizard has the most spells/prepackaged abilities, Warlocks have the most character options with their pacts and invocations, and Sorcerer's have the most flexibility when it comes to manipulating their spells in novel ways. Each one becomes a different expression of D&D's idea of Arcane magic.