D&D 5E Sorcerer Changes

[Chaosmancer]

This is widely known under the terms "cherry picking" or "out of context" just in case you didn't intend to appear like that came across.

I am aware of what cherry picking is and I didn't do that, as I covered in my last post. There is no other context in your post that applies to the value of using the Divine Soul as an example. Half of your post is talking about Con as a casting stat. It has no bearing on the Divine Soul, there is no context lost.

If you feel I ignored an important detail to the Divine Soul discussion in your post, point it out and I'll address it, but I don't understand why you are getting so upset that I only am dealing with one of your original three points.

"Hey my friend wanted a low WIS low INT caster" just makes me scratch my head more about how your friend has value as an example.

Really? Not wanting to have two of the three casting stats confuses you about why he would have picked a class that utilizes the third casting stat?

Or are you confused why I brought him up as an example if he was making his build off of story considerations and not mechanical ones?

You said (to summarize quickly) "Well if he liked Cleric spells and didn't like the sorcerer mechanics, he should have played a cleric" in that context his desire for a specific story is a valid counter-point. He wanted a full caster as well, so Paladin was out. Sorcerer and Celestial warlock were his only two options that fit what he wanted, and he's played multiple warlocks in a row.

I think that demonstrates fairly well that you can't argue "He decided to play a sorcerer so he must like the sorcerer mechanics", that is false. He wanted the Sorcerer fluff more than he wanted the mechanics.

Dismissing the Sorcerer's ability to cheat both Action economy and some of the limitations on higher level spell slots isn't gonna work so well if you're trying to build an argument about the base Sorcerer being "not okay". Whatever that means. Mechanically weak? Far from it. You're less versatile and that can get boring pretty quick, but you can cast twice as many twinnable Spells than other Full casters of the same level at your higherst Spellslot. You're not going to last longer than the Wizard, but he doesn't have the option to blow a huge amount of resources whenever he wants to.

I am not dismissing it, it is a very powerful ability.

It is essentially their only powerful ability.

I've been in a lot of discussions about the sorcerer, and it always holds true that no one talks about builds using the subclass abilities (barring the Divine Soul as an exception). To my memory, there are only two things that get talked about as the viable strength of the sorcerer.

1) Twin spell buffs

2) Subtle spell to never be counterspelled (which is rare in my expeirence, I can probably count the number of times anyone has been counterspelled on one hand in our games)

I'm not saying this doesn't happen with other classes, but not nearly to the same extent. Generally people can take and combo four or five different things using different subclasses or class/race combos. Take the rogue, sure, everyone talks about sneak attack and how to optimize it, but you've also got the medic rogue by going theif and taking the Healer feat. Swashbuckler with the Magic Initiate for Booming Blade. Assassin with Alert to try and get those auto-crits. Half-Elf Inquisitive for support and skills (I believe it was the inquisitive, going off memory), the scout to get a ranger feel and be more slippery with ranged attacks.

Each viable builds with different roles and avenues, not even talking about the awesome power of Uncanny dodge to make off-tanks or Expertise and Reliable Talent to make skill monkeys.

To remind you of the comparison. Sorcerer: Twin spell 3rd level spells or higher. Subtle spell to avoid counterspell. Play a Divine Soul. That is a single build. That is a problem, there should not be a single build and that is it.


To the rest of that paragraph, sure, you can burn out and nova faster than the wizard. About once. The comparison is actually pretty stark. Going 6th level to make my math easier. Three rounds per combat, short rest after every two combats. Slots are 4/3/3.

Round 1: Sorcerer Twin's Polymorph (3 pts, 3rd level spell), Wizard uses Fireball
Round 2: Both caster's use Ice Knife (1st level spell)
Round 3: both casters use a cantrip

(Sorcerer 3pts, 3/3/2 Wizard 3/3/2)

Round 1: Sorcerer Twin's Polymorph (3pts, 3rd level spell), Wizard uses Haste
Round 2: Both Caster's use Ice Knife (1st level spell)
Round 3: both casters use a cantrip

Short rest, sorcerer gains nothing. Wizard gets back a 3rd level spell. Sorcerer converts a 2nd level spell and a 1st level spell into points

(Sorcerer 3pts, 1/2/1, Wizard 2/3/2)

Repeat second fight (saving space)

Sorcerer is down to only 2 second level spells. Wizard has a 1st, three second and a third left.

We are theoritically only half way through an adventuring day. And sure, the Sorcerer has done the equivalent of 6 third level polymorph spells, but the wizard is going to get four third level spells, and have a lot more left in the tank. Also, we didn't do any casting outside of combat, where the sorcerer would have had to spend spell slots and the wizard likely just used ritual casting and saved their slots. Additionally, the sorcerer has been using class abilities (metamagic) this entire time, but the wizard hasn't. They might still have portents or other subclass abilities to bring to bear on upcoming fights.

And finally, we can't judge this from just a simple resource tracking, but it is fair to ask if all those twin polymorphs were necessary. Did we twin at a time when using just a single spell would have been just as effective?

Again, twin spell is a great ability, but that and Quicken are about the only metamagics sorcerers take. Nothing else is as good, and even at their best, over the course of a full day of casting, the Wizard is likely to end with more to give, and the sorcerer is going to be running on fumes by the mid-way point.

All Sorcerers are mechanically powerful, but end up limited in comparison. It gets boring if you already played a Draconic Sorcerer now roll a Wild Magic one and end up using 90% of the same spells because there flat out isn't that much of a choice if you're trying to be somewhat efficient.

Yes, exactly. By limiting sorcerer spells known so much and only having a few valid options for metamagic, all sorcerers end up playing very similarly. The "born with powers unique to my blood" class has more carbon copies than the "studied magic in school" class.

DS expanding the spell options by an entire class worth of choices, while having better subclass features and also ignoring the Arcane caster limitation of "no healing" is a problem the same way Hexblade is. It's more options than the sum of it's parts, while even the parts alone are better than the other subclass features.

I still don't know what other features you see in the Divine Soul that are worth mentioning, I covered them all and actually, excepting the level 1 ability to expand their spells, they are very comparable to the dragon features. Both even get wings at level 14, so until you get to level 18, I'm curious what abilities you see that I'm not.

Most other classes have fairly nice options across multiple subclasses and a dud or two. Purple Dragon Knight, Beastmaster, Assassin (after you reread Surprise rules and figure out it doesn't mix well mechanically with party play), etc.

There aren't a lot of classes where one single subclass is flat out better than everything else 90% of the time, the only other offender really is, again, Hexblade. Other Warlock options are however far from boring and they don't play very similar to each other. Same for the dud subclasses, they might not be mechanically impressive, but at least they have variety in how they play in a campaign.

Sorcerers other than DS have about the worst internal subclass diversity, build diversity and incentive to try out several of them rather than moving on to something interesting like a Whisper's Bard or Bladesinger Wizard. Even the Divine Soul is fairly boring compared to the diversity other classes have internally.

So why are you trying to say that there isn't a problem with sorcerers? According to your own points they have the worst subclass diversity, the worst build diversity, and the least amount of incentive to play them more than once.

If your entire argument is "but twin spell once you get 3rd level spells is strong" then, frankly, whoopie. Most casters are altering the field of battle when they get 3rd level spells, and they have other stuff to do besides. One trick does not a class make, they need more.

Side Tangent: I actually wrote a fix of the Banneret (Purple Dragon Knight) that I am kind of proud of. It is such a cool idea that was executed so poorly in the original book. Also the assassin isn't that bad. A lot of DM's homebrew the surprise rules, and it has a lot of social abilities as well that can be incredible in the right camapaign.

 

[Kinematics]

At level 1 or 2, all classes have brought in a core mechanic that will be relevant to the class for its entire existance. This is from the base class, not the subclass.

Ranger... skip. We know ranger is poorly designed, though it does have what should be its iconic abilities show up at level 1.

Barbarian @1: Rage
Bard @1: Bardic Inspiration
Druid @2: Wildshape
Fighter @1: Fighting Style, @2: Action Surge
Monk @1: Martial Arts, @2: Movement speed, ki abilities
Paladin @1: Lay on Hands, @2: Divine Smite
Rogue @1: Sneak Attack, Expertise, @2: Cunning Action

Cleric @2: Channel Divinity. Subclass @1: Divine Domain
Warlock @2: Eldritch Invocations. Subclass @1: Patron
Wizard @1: Arcane Recovery. Subclass @2: Tradition

Sorcerer @2: Font of Magic, @3: Metamagic. Subclass @1: Origin

Sorcerer is the only class that has to reach level 3 to be able to use its supposed iconic power. Everyone else establishes themselves at level 1-2. And those abilities tend to be used throughout a character's career — Rage, Sneak Attack, Divine Smite, Action Surge, Wildshape, etc. The other casters (Cleric, Warlock, and Wizard) are a little less well defined in the main class, but are pretty solid when combined with the subclass.

With Sorcerer, Wild Magic is fairly notable, and Divine Soul is pretty significant (access to divine magic, a bonus spell, and a personal Bless). Dragon's is a mostly forgettable passive (higher base AC, and bonus HP). Storm gets a near-ribbon. Shadow gets darkvision, and a hopefully rarely-used passive.

The only active-use ability in the early levels is Font of Magic (level 2). And without metamagic, it's mostly useless. Because of the poor exchange rate, it's extremely situational, rather than something that you'll be using all the time, the way it works for every single other class.

Sorcerer needs an active ability at level 1-2 that helps define the class's use from the start, and that will be useful across all levels.

Personal opinion: Metamagic is a subclass-tier ability. Coming online at level 3 marks it as similar to something like a Battlemaster subclass.

Unfortunately, coming up with a good idea to fit in here is hard.

-----

Brainstorming...

Storm Sorcerer

• Keep the 10' flight when casting spells
• Move the Storm Guide ability to level 3. Cosmetic control of the weather should come online fast.
• Use the Darkness casting design from the Shadow origin. Instead of bonus spells, be able to cast certain spells for the sales cost of the slot, rather than the purchase cost. For example, casting Thunder Step at level 5 for 3 SP.

Actually, that could be interesting. Doing it that way, you're basically still limited to your standard number of spell slots, but you change the nature of how the spells are cast. That is, normal spell slots are fine to use when casting your "learned" spells (analogous to wizard spells), but your "innate" spells (those tightly bound to your origin) would be cast using spell points instead. You just take the energy from a spell slot to do so. It encourages use of the "innate" spells over the "learned" spells because of the Font of Magic exchange economy.

Then you can design something around the use of spells cast using spell points. You haven't changed the power of the class since you're still drawing from your spell slot pool, but it allows you access to other ways of using them, similar to how Paladins use them for Smites, or Druids for healing in their wild shape forms.

And this is something you can even uplift to the base class.

Innate spellcasting — Your origin gives you access to certain spells that are considered 'innate' to that origin. You may only cast those spells using sorcery points (spells cost a number of spell points equal to their spell level, and may not be upcast when using this ability). When you do, you may activate one Innate benefit:

• If you spent 1 SP on the spell, the spell doesn't require any verbal or somatic components.
• If you spent 2 SP on the spell, you may reroll up to two of the damage dice and take the higher value.
• If you spent 3 SP on the spell, and the spell targets a single creature, you may target one additional creature.

Just spitballing there, but using limited metamatic seems a bit workable. (The Battlemaster Sorcerer would of course have much more flexibility in using metamagic in all sorts of ways.)

And then you could go back and say the Storm Sorcerer adds effects like:

• Thunder Step: Doubles the distance you can teleport.
• Lightning Bolt: Doubles the width or length of the bolt effect (your choice).
• Call Lightning: Each creature that fails its save against a lightning bolt's damage is also blinded until the end of its next turn.
• Etc

Basically, make it easy to cast from your innate spell list, and provide bonus benefits for doing so. That leaves the normal learned spells as open for utility stuff, but they're less desirable to 'buy' if you run out of spell slots at that level. You also have to use normal spell slots if you want to upcast an innate spell.


You'd need to provide sorcery points at level 1, for your initial level 1 origin spell. At the moment I won't try to adjust the number of sorcery points gained, so I'll just keep it at sorcery points = Sorcerer level, so you get 1 at level 1.

---

Thoughts?

 

[Chaosmancer]

At level 1 or 2, all classes have brought in a core mechanic that will be relevant to the class for its entire existance. This is from the base class, not the subclass.

Ranger... skip. We know ranger is poorly designed, though it does have what should be its iconic abilities show up at level 1.

Barbarian @1: Rage
Bard @1: Bardic Inspiration
Druid @2: Wildshape
Fighter @1: Fighting Style, @2: Action Surge
Monk @1: Martial Arts, @2: Movement speed, ki abilities
Paladin @1: Lay on Hands, @2: Divine Smite
Rogue @1: Sneak Attack, Expertise, @2: Cunning Action

Cleric @2: Channel Divinity. Subclass @1: Divine Domain
Warlock @2: Eldritch Invocations. Subclass @1: Patron
Wizard @1: Arcane Recovery. Subclass @2: Tradition

Sorcerer @2: Font of Magic, @3: Metamagic. Subclass @1: Origin

Sorcerer is the only class that has to reach level 3 to be able to use its supposed iconic power. Everyone else establishes themselves at level 1-2. And those abilities tend to be used throughout a character's career — Rage, Sneak Attack, Divine Smite, Action Surge, Wildshape, etc. The other casters (Cleric, Warlock, and Wizard) are a little less well defined in the main class, but are pretty solid when combined with the subclass.

With Sorcerer, Wild Magic is fairly notable, and Divine Soul is pretty significant (access to divine magic, a bonus spell, and a personal Bless). Dragon's is a mostly forgettable passive (higher base AC, and bonus HP). Storm gets a near-ribbon. Shadow gets darkvision, and a hopefully rarely-used passive.

The only active-use ability in the early levels is Font of Magic (level 2). And without metamagic, it's mostly useless. Because of the poor exchange rate, it's extremely situational, rather than something that you'll be using all the time, the way it works for every single other class.

Sorcerer needs an active ability at level 1-2 that helps define the class's use from the start, and that will be useful across all levels.

Personal opinion: Metamagic is a subclass-tier ability. Coming online at level 3 marks it as similar to something like a Battlemaster subclass.

Unfortunately, coming up with a good idea to fit in here is hard.

-----

Brainstorming...

Storm Sorcerer

• Keep the 10' flight when casting spells
• Move the Storm Guide ability to level 3. Cosmetic control of the weather should come online fast.
• Use the Darkness casting design from the Shadow origin. Instead of bonus spells, be able to cast certain spells for the sales cost of the slot, rather than the purchase cost. For example, casting Thunder Step at level 5 for 3 SP.

Actually, that could be interesting. Doing it that way, you're basically still limited to your standard number of spell slots, but you change the nature of how the spells are cast. That is, normal spell slots are fine to use when casting your "learned" spells (analogous to wizard spells), but your "innate" spells (those tightly bound to your origin) would be cast using spell points instead. You just take the energy from a spell slot to do so. It encourages use of the "innate" spells over the "learned" spells because of the Font of Magic exchange economy.

Then you can design something around the use of spells cast using spell points. You haven't changed the power of the class since you're still drawing from your spell slot pool, but it allows you access to other ways of using them, similar to how Paladins use them for Smites, or Druids for healing in their wild shape forms.

And this is something you can even uplift to the base class.



Just spitballing there, but using limited metamatic seems a bit workable. (The Battlemaster Sorcerer would of course have much more flexibility in using metamagic in all sorts of ways.)

And then you could go back and say the Storm Sorcerer adds effects like:

• Thunder Step: Doubles the distance you can teleport.
• Lightning Bolt: Doubles the width or length of the bolt effect (your choice).
• Call Lightning: Each creature that fails its save against a lightning bolt's damage is also blinded until the end of its next turn.
• Etc

Basically, make it easy to cast from your innate spell list, and provide bonus benefits for doing so. That leaves the normal learned spells as open for utility stuff, but they're less desirable to 'buy' if you run out of spell slots at that level. You also have to use normal spell slots if you want to upcast an innate spell.


You'd need to provide sorcery points at level 1, for your initial level 1 origin spell. At the moment I won't try to adjust the number of sorcery points gained, so I'll just keep it at sorcery points = Sorcerer level, so you get 1 at level 1.

---

Thoughts?

I'm a little tired for a proper examination of it, but at a cursory glance it looks interesting

 

[Guest 6801328]

At level 1 or 2, all classes have brought in a core mechanic that will be relevant to the class for its entire existance. This is from the base class, not the subclass.

Ranger... skip. We know ranger is poorly designed, though it does have what should be its iconic abilities show up at level 1.

Barbarian @1: Rage
Bard @1: Bardic Inspiration
Druid @2: Wildshape
Fighter @1: Fighting Style, @2: Action Surge
Monk @1: Martial Arts, @2: Movement speed, ki abilities
Paladin @1: Lay on Hands, @2: Divine Smite
Rogue @1: Sneak Attack, Expertise, @2: Cunning Action

Cleric @2: Channel Divinity. Subclass @1: Divine Domain
Warlock @2: Eldritch Invocations. Subclass @1: Patron
Wizard @1: Arcane Recovery. Subclass @2: Tradition

Sorcerer @2: Font of Magic, @3: Metamagic. Subclass @1: Origin

Sorcerer is the only class that has to reach level 3 to be able to use its supposed iconic power. Everyone else establishes themselves at level 1-2. And those abilities tend to be used throughout a character's career — Rage, Sneak Attack, Divine Smite, Action Surge, Wildshape, etc. The other casters (Cleric, Warlock, and Wizard) are a little less well defined in the main class, but are pretty solid when combined with the subclass.

With Sorcerer, Wild Magic is fairly notable, and Divine Soul is pretty significant (access to divine magic, a bonus spell, and a personal Bless). Dragon's is a mostly forgettable passive (higher base AC, and bonus HP). Storm gets a near-ribbon. Shadow gets darkvision, and a hopefully rarely-used passive.

The only active-use ability in the early levels is Font of Magic (level 2). And without metamagic, it's mostly useless. Because of the poor exchange rate, it's extremely situational, rather than something that you'll be using all the time, the way it works for every single other class.

Sorcerer needs an active ability at level 1-2 that helps define the class's use from the start, and that will be useful across all levels.

Personal opinion: Metamagic is a subclass-tier ability. Coming online at level 3 marks it as similar to something like a Battlemaster subclass.

Unfortunately, coming up with a good idea to fit in here is hard.

-----

Brainstorming...

Storm Sorcerer

• Keep the 10' flight when casting spells
• Move the Storm Guide ability to level 3. Cosmetic control of the weather should come online fast.
• Use the Darkness casting design from the Shadow origin. Instead of bonus spells, be able to cast certain spells for the sales cost of the slot, rather than the purchase cost. For example, casting Thunder Step at level 5 for 3 SP.

Actually, that could be interesting. Doing it that way, you're basically still limited to your standard number of spell slots, but you change the nature of how the spells are cast. That is, normal spell slots are fine to use when casting your "learned" spells (analogous to wizard spells), but your "innate" spells (those tightly bound to your origin) would be cast using spell points instead. You just take the energy from a spell slot to do so. It encourages use of the "innate" spells over the "learned" spells because of the Font of Magic exchange economy.

Then you can design something around the use of spells cast using spell points. You haven't changed the power of the class since you're still drawing from your spell slot pool, but it allows you access to other ways of using them, similar to how Paladins use them for Smites, or Druids for healing in their wild shape forms.

And this is something you can even uplift to the base class.



Just spitballing there, but using limited metamatic seems a bit workable. (The Battlemaster Sorcerer would of course have much more flexibility in using metamagic in all sorts of ways.)

And then you could go back and say the Storm Sorcerer adds effects like:

• Thunder Step: Doubles the distance you can teleport.
• Lightning Bolt: Doubles the width or length of the bolt effect (your choice).
• Call Lightning: Each creature that fails its save against a lightning bolt's damage is also blinded until the end of its next turn.
• Etc

Basically, make it easy to cast from your innate spell list, and provide bonus benefits for doing so. That leaves the normal learned spells as open for utility stuff, but they're less desirable to 'buy' if you run out of spell slots at that level. You also have to use normal spell slots if you want to upcast an innate spell.


You'd need to provide sorcery points at level 1, for your initial level 1 origin spell. At the moment I won't try to adjust the number of sorcery points gained, so I'll just keep it at sorcery points = Sorcerer level, so you get 1 at level 1.

---

Thoughts?

If I'm reading it right, it rolls some of the ideas from this thread up into one package.

One apparent change is that instead of bonus spells that can be cast either with slots or with sorcery points equal to their level, they can only be cast with the sorcery points. Is that right?

 

[Kinematics]

If I'm reading it right, it rolls some of the ideas from this thread up into one package.

One apparent change is that instead of bonus spells that can be cast either with slots or with sorcery points equal to their level, they can only be cast with the sorcery points. Is that right?

Not entirely. You can cast using spell slots, but doing so only gives you the basic spell, without any Innate Spellcasting bonuses. That's because you'd be using 'standard' casting mechanics, similar to a wizard or whatever. The only time it would ever be worthwhile would be if you needed to upcast it (EG: Fly at 5th level so you can affect 3 people).

At least, for the current stage of brainstorming. I'm leaving it as an option since I only have a rough idea of the entire class build. It can be removed later if it's seen as pointless or confusing.

Currently trying to refine things a little. I'll post more on it later.

 

[Kinematics]

A bit more design work.


Sorcerer

• 1st Level
  • Spellcasting - Standard.
  • Innate Spellcasting - You may cast any innate spells granted through your Origin using a number of sorcery points equal to the level of the spell.
  • Innate Metamagic - If you cast a spell using Innate Spellcasting, you may gain special benefits from doing so. [Simple list at the main class level]
• 2nd level
  • Font of Magic - You may exchange spell slots for sorcery points, and vice versa.
• 10th level
  • Enhance Innate Spellcasting?
• 20th level
  • Capstone.

Sorcerous Origin

• 1st level
  • Bonus spells are added to the Innate Spellcasting list.
  • Each bonus spell is granted an extra feature when cast using Innate Spellcasting.
  • Minor feature specific to the Origin, that should help set the tone for the Origin.
• 3rd level
  • Useful bonus mechanic that helps set the Origin apart.
• 6th level
  • Significant Origin feature. Some resistances or defensive tools.
• 10th level
  • Enhance Innate Spellcasting?
• 14th level
  • Origin feature (often for movement, such as flight or shadow walk)
• 17th level
  • Extra feature?
• 18th level
  • Origin feature

*************************

Categories of Origins

Bloodline — You carry some of the magic of your ancestors in your blood. Examples: Dragon, Giant, Demon, Djinni, Yuki-Onna, etc.

Concept — Some magical idea is embedded within your soul (possibly you were born with it, or maybe it was put there forcefully), and that shapes the type of magic you use. Examples: Storm, Shadow, Divine, Wild, Swordmage, Shaper (full metamagic user), etc.


*************************

Make the class a 1d8 hit die class?

Some entry level features:

Demon

• Proficiency in Deception
• Curse (once per short rest, or CHA per long rest, 2d4 penalty on target creature's action)
• Burning Hands @1 (poisons for one round if target failed save)

Divine

• Access to the divine magic spell list for learning spells
• Favored by the Gods (once per short rest 2d4 bonus to a roll)
• Bonus affinity spell @1

Djinni

• Proficiency in Persuasion
• Disguise Self @1 (can apply to any object you're holding instead, which can leave your person and retain the illusion)
• Detect Magic

Dragon

• Proficiency in Intimidation
• False Life (reflavor) @1
• Hellish Rebuke uses the element of your dragon ancestor @1 (can attempt to Intimidate when used; save vs Fear for one round)

Giant

• Proficiency in simple weapons
• Spellcasting ability for innate spells is Strength instead of Charisma
• +1 HP per level
• Earth Tremor @1
• Enlarge/Reduce @3

Shadow

• 120' darkvision
• Proficiency in Stealth
• Strength of the Grave
• Darkness @3 (can see through own darkness)

Shaper

• Can change the element of any elementally damaging spell to any elemental type you wish @1
• Metamagic choices @3

Storm

• Tempestuous Magic (evolve to Levitation at higher levels)
• Gust cantrip (may be used as a bonus action)
• Thunderwave @1 (targets that failed their saves lose their reactions)
• Storm Guide @3

Swordmage

• Weapon and armor proficiencies
• Mage Armor @1
• Magic Weapon @3 (may choose a damage element type for the weapon)

Wild

• Wild Magic Surge
• Tides of Chaos
• Chaos Bolt @1 (if rolling on the magic surge table, may roll twice and choose)

Yuki-Onna

• Proficiency in Persuasion
• Charm Person @1 (may drain life from charmed target)
• Ice Knife @1 (may create Fog Cloud from explosion that dissipates in one round)

*************************

Needs more refinement, but seems to be coming along reasonably well.

I think I'm going to drop the idea of using normal spell slots to cast innate spells.

 

[KnightGwen]

I’ve thought of a thing for the main class that fits the idea that sorcerers are a “just because” kind of spell caster.

---

Sorcerous Affinity: After witnessing any spell being cast, you may attempt to replicate the spell yourself. The spell must be of a level for which you have spell slots in order to replicate. Make a Charisma saving throw (DC = 15 + Spell Level). Success is automatic if the spell is from the sorcerer spell list.

• Success: You may now cast this spell as if it were a sorcerer spell.
• Failure: You must witness a casting of this spell again before you may make another attempt.

Succeed or fail, you may only make one attempt per long rest. Metamagics may not be applied to spells gained with this feature. Spells gained in this way do not count against your number of spells known. You may have a number of these spells equal to half your Sorcerer level, rounded down.

---

I like this, as it scales well, fills in the gaps in the sorcerer's repertoire, gives them more spells known and totally fits with the lore. Also gives Sorcerers an incentive to track down spell scrolls, make friends with other spellcasters, provoke spell slinging bad-guys. You can totally work this with character backstories, subclasses and long-term goals as well. Maybe lower the DC for certain spells with certain subclasses, make it easier to fill out your wishlist.

 

[Guest 6801328]

It occurs to me that there's one possibly obvious change that I haven't seen (which may simply be because I haven't seen it): the sorcerer's magic is supposed to be "innate" so why not use...innate spellcasting?

That is, instead of having slots per level long rest, you have specific spells that you can cast x times per long rest. The basic trade-off is that you'd get more overall spells per long rest, but fewer spells. And since the "slots" aren't polymorphic, you can't spend unused slots on other spells. However, you could still convert slots to sorcery points and then spend them on spells.

At higher levels you could turn favorite spells into short rest refresh, and eventually (like the Wizard) At Will.

So maybe at 1st level instead of 4 slots, you get 3 uses of 1 spell, and 2 uses of another.

The most awkward thing about this is that I think it requires a big table, with a column for each spell you know. (Each time you level up you'd still be allowed to unlearn one and learn a new one, and (or?) be allowed to swap two spells of the same level between columns.)

 

[KnightGwen]

@Elfcrusher
I can see what you're getting at (ie. making sorcerer casting feel more innate), but I think doing it in this way would be VERY complicated. It also strikes me as hauntingly similar to old-school Vancian casting (boo), while also having aspects of Eldritch Invocations (yay). It's a good idea, it probably just doesn't mesh with the 5e framework.

 

[Guest 6801328]

@Elfcrusher
I can see what you're getting at (ie. making sorcerer casting feel more innate), but I think doing it in this way would be VERY complicated. It also strikes me as hauntingly similar to old-school Vancian casting (boo), while also having aspects of Eldritch Invocations (yay). It's a good idea, it probably just doesn't mesh with the 5e framework.

Probably.