I do actually agree with a lot of your points in this post, but with respect, FIRE specced Dragon sorcerers and Devine Soul sorcerers dominate combat, with an arguable debate to be had for Lightning Dragon/Storm sorcerers. All other builds are lackluster, mainly because...
...of this. Not all spells are created equal. Notice how not all the elements even get a spell for every level, even after the Elemental Evil/Xanathar spells got added, and even then not all the spells of every element are actually mechanically good. And even when new spells come out in new books, there is often more spells that make the wizard list but not the sorcerer.
Honestly, I think the only chromatic sorcerer that suffers when it matters is a Acid Sorcerer. The reason being that by level 6, you have 5th level spells coming up on 7th. Ice storm is a fine spell, it has more volume than a fireball so more creatures are possible to fit in the area. When you cast Ray of Frost and get 2d8+4 but also slows an enemy by 10ft, it can be a quite good tactic. Especially if you're trying to run away from something dashing in melee.
Poison sorcerers have a hard time not being resisted but they have a very easy time resisting incoming damage. More so than fire sorcerers, since even mundane beasts can do alot of poison.
Acid is a bit similar but I don't think it's common enough.
I like wild sorcerer. Comparing to draconic, it's features seem underwhelming. The Wild Magic is DM-dependent and Tides is less so, but it's fun being very random. They don't get the health or the AC but the AC can be almost matched with leather armor or actually matched for 8 hours at the expense of a 1st level spell.
Bend Luck is quite a good ability, I can see why it's 2 sorcery points. It's cheaper than heightened and can be more effective at the cost of a reaction and uncertainty, but it's like a passive guidance/resistance/bless/bane without concentration at a whim. If you've made it to 14th level as a wild magic sorcerer, I suspect controlled chaos would be of much use to you. Spell bombardment's not the best, really, but it's passive and gets better when used with a very large AoE spell.
One way you can ensure your Wild Sorcerer gets to use his feature is by explaining in session 0 that when he casts a spell, they'll ask the DM if they can roll if they want to. The DM can then explain they like the idea or they don't but most DM's will agree. You can also ask if he can allow you to pick when can roll the metamagic, which does bring wild magic waay up. I would probably allow this, if not for the first option, would you?
The difference being that KI regenerates back on a short rest while sorcery points do not, resulting in a monk being able to not care if they spend all their ki points in a single fight (or just half if they wish to be conservative) because they can just take a nap or lunch break and gain them back. I see fighters often treat their abilities the same way. The number of times a fighter has said in our games "well, I might as well second wind because we're taking a short rest anyway!" is quite high.
Meanwhile, the sorcerer who spends his spell points this way severely under performs after the first encounter (which granted they do at least shine in) and may end up being completely unable to use his class features if they have a spell point cost and they were not relevant for that fight. And the sorcerer can't have the simple fix of just giving his sorcery points back on short rest to fix this issue because he can then exploit font of magic to regain spell slots to absurd degrees.
I just don't see how giving more freedom with their spell slots and sorcery points are a bad thing. Sure, they can blow them all away, but saying that a feature is bad because a player can't properly pace himself doesn't seem right. A dirty solution would be to limit the sorcery points and spells they can use in a combat, but they should have the opportunity to expend it all if they want.
If they want to be selfish or greedy, then I don't think that allowing them to be at their own detriment is a good argument for why a feature is bad or underperforms. It also feels like there's enough margin of error to make a mistake and over apply and still have enough gas to keep running. I don't think there's any situation where you can go full power for 1 round and lose
all your metamagic abilities. There's still a way after round 1, and a sorcerer player can pace themselves accordingly.
And apparently campaigns run 2-3 deadly encounters a day anyways, so this should push the sorcerer's resource expenditure even lower.
I'm also believe that if you do end up using all your spell slots and sorcery points, it's for the better. Used sorcery points means they changed the way a battle was fought and may have made it easier. Unused sorcery points did nothing when you finish a short rest.
And then whenever we start a thread trying to figure out a houserule fix that we find optimal for this problem, people come swarming out of the woodwork every time claiming "sorcerers are fine because I played one specific fire build that spams fireball! or the divine soul support build (that conveniently again doesn't use spell points in any of their abilities except for a reactive healing ability). get over it!" until the original thread conversation gets lost in hateful ad hominems and emotional outbursts caused by text being an absolutely terrible method for conveying meaning
I understand that you want to fix what seems broken to you, but I don't want people to get the wrong idea about sorcerer class. I've never actually played a divine soul sorcerer and I've played both draconic and wild magic. That's just what I do, I playtest these classes in long-ish campaigns to see how I'd actually like them, and I think that sorcerers are strong overall.
Sorcerers are spellcasters with the most base cantrips, proficiency in CON saves, Leather armor proficiency, the abilities to enhance spells, the ability to convert spellslots. They have alot going for them from their base chassis. Reducing them to only metamagic feels roughly the same as reducing a bard to "horny bard" or reducing wizards to "only fireball."
And with a wizard's fireball, it's good but if someone said wizards suck because they're
reliant on fireballs, people would come out of the woodworks explaining why that's wrong too. Because a wizard doesn't have to be and there's plenty of good uses for a 3rd level spell than just fireball.
, especially if one side is using a mobile app that causes the text box to reset in the d*** window EVERY time one has to erase a letter due to autocorrect + touchscreen keyboards being incompatible with any human hands other than those of a child!
...but I am digress in a meaningless tangent that will no doubt be just a random idiosyncrasy of mine with a hatred of all things android or apple. Give me a real keyboard or give me death!
...again, rant aside.
The problem is that it just doesn't feel fun to use what is [presumably] supposed to be your primary class feature at best once per fight (assuming the adventuring day guidelines), and even then that is contingent on either selecting a lower cost metamagic or are converting spell slots sorcery points to do it. Nor does it feel good to pick two metamagics and then be stuck with them for possibly the rest of the campaign (if it doesn't go higher than 9th level), especially if you end up picking ones that don't suit the campaign...
But who are you telling it isn't fun. Are you telling me I didn't have fun playing sorcerer? This is what I'm talking about. If I was a bright-eyed D&D player excited to play a class that can do high-level spells alot more than any other class and manipulate the weave's influence on those spells, I'll look up sorcerer online. Despite it being the perfect match for me, I'll see how people say it's "unfun" or "problematic" and it'll influence my fun and might cause me to not even play the sorcerer that I wanted to play.
It doesn't feel good to have no armor proficiency and no con saves but it's balance for a wizard. Wizards are weak against martials and other spellcasters, especially at lower levels but that doesn't make them bad.
I haven't regretted my metamagic selection, nor have I felt limited by it. They always felt like an extra thing rather then a requirement every turn. Maybe I have alot of system mastery and can work with different classes much easier than others.
Forgive me if this was not your intention with this reply, but as his original post here referred to metamagics being more or less powerful in different types of campaigns, I do think that opportunity cost should not apply in the case of campaigns. Any DM who does not either cater his campaign to the builds his players have presented him, or warn his players that some of their choices might not be as useful in the game he is intending to run is frankly doing his players a disservice. I shalt go so far as to claim that he is going against the "one true fun" but I would be absolutely pissed if I was a player in his game if I wanted to play a specific character build and he gave me no warning that it would effectively be useless in his game. That goes beyond just sorcerer. If I rolled a kickass undead slayer and the DM is like "oh, too bad, there are no zombies in my world!" or a wizard who wanted to research rare magic and the DM is like "yeah...spellbooks/scrolls? They don't exist!" or a magical sweet-talking warlock/bard who finds out too late that the game is now heavily themed around creatures immune to charm.
Nearly every class has caveats like that. The first question every ranger should ask is "what sort of enemies will we be fighting and in what sort of terrain will be doing it?" (or alternatively: "do you allow the Revised Ranger and if not, what can we change about it to let me play it at your table?"). Every rogue player should ask "how to you interpret stealth rules?" The wizard should ask "can I find spells in the world to add to my book?" The sorcerer should ask "Do you houserule that one can counterspell a metamagic subtle spell?" For me an answer of 'yes' to that last question means I shall NEVER play a sorcerer with them as a DM. It's about setting clear expectations between the player and DM.
Even setting the social contract issue aside, there is another reason why campaign specific abilities are poor design (and are also brought up often in threads about the ranger and Favored Enemy/Terrain): a player shouldn't have to beg the DM for 'hints' about what the campaign will be like in order for their character to get to use their abilities. I'm not going to argue that sorcerers are the only class that suffers from this sort of problem or that they are even the worst (cough ranger cough), but choosing the wrong metamagic is hardly a forgiving choice.
I don't know, it feels like the game is "cooperative" and "DM & Player storytelling" until people talk about classes, where suddenly we must protect ourselves against the bad DM. As a DM, I really
want players to ask questions about their specific abilities.
I remember how my skills with exploration grew tremendously because a player wanted to play a Ranger. They asked about my setting's geography, it's lore, it's creatures in a way that I didn't think would need to be fleshed out. Now, my world has multiple terrain types even in predominant areas, where every location has something worthwhile and story related to explore. The grassland ranger can get lost in the 2-mile radius forest between the grasslands and coast and can spend an hour or two in there, but they took the detour because of the rumored elvish bow (flavored +2 bow) which can show both as a powerful weapon and a token of trust for the high elf court. They might get lost or ambushed, but they place value in that bow, so they'll risk it. (The other party members place value in the bow as well.)
This stuff makes me excited as a DM and makes my player's ability never worthless or excessive and they love it. Some kobolds know thieves' cant. Among the huge shelf of books is a spellbook with a couple of useful spells for the wizard. A disease has festered on your patron. I put these things into my campaign before I even see their characters because I like to see the solutions some players have. They can keep pushing forward in the story, too.
I have alot of respect for the designers. Many people look at them like they're incompetent or that they didn't read the PHB themselves. I've looked in-depth in this system and there's alot of brilliant decisions in this system. From the lower than average CR hp, but defensive features that boost effective HP so that combats don't drag too far out. To long rests allowing casting spells for less than 1 hour while spells slots returning at the very end, so that leftover spell slots can be used right before the end of the long rest for long duration spells like mage armor or Aid.
Ignore metamagic completely for a second, pretend it doesn't exist. In fact, no sorcery points, only font of magic conversions. The sorcerer's unique ability to manipulate spell slots is now what sets it apart from other spellcasters and it's brilliant. You can turn 3 1st-level spells into invisibility rather than use another 2nd-level slot.
That's interesting and unique. If you don't consider it "competing" with another resource, it already is a unique ability. What's brilliant is that you probably wouldn't use this for something to upcast damage because it takes a while to convert while you could've just casted the spell 3 times, but unique second-level options or when upcasting does something more than damage like fog cloud (not recommended).
And then, a sorcerer can convert a 4th level spell into 2 1st level spells. In case you don't need a 4th level shield, you need 2 first level shields.
Now, give sorcerers a feature that facilitates the movement from lower spellslot <-> higher spellslots using points, give them extra. Sounds pretty good? Remember, they're also the same caster with CON saves and either higher HP/AC or can gain advantage against saves of their choosing.
Now, give them even more abilities. The ability to cast enhanced spells, but not just one enhancement, they get 2. And they can choose out of a list of 8 preferred ones. One of which is so powerful, giving disadvantage on saves (some of which can end an encounter) that it should be 3 points while another can allow someone to concentrate on 2 targets at once with haste.
This is what I mean when I say I don't consider metamagic as the defining trait of sorcerers. They're a nice bonus but the spell slot manipulation is so unique and powerful for a spellcaster.
