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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kinematics" data-source="post: 7989683" data-attributes="member: 6932123">Like many, for me the problem is that the flavor and the mechanics of the sorcerer don't match.  There are tons of characters that I could build off of the class's flavor. Very few of them work with the class's mechanics.So I'm stuck trying to force a round peg into a square hole, trying to find some way to work around the class mechanics to reach the character I envision.  The only other class I have somewhat similar problems with is the ranger, which is likewise at the bottom of the player preference list.  This makes me feel that this is part of the core problem with the class — not being able to create the character you want, even when it seems like you should be able to.I don't think there's a problem with power.  Not even the crappy Beastmaster is actually that bad on the power scale.  As such, I don't think tweaking sorcery points or metamagic by little bits will be enough to fix sorcerer.  Instead, you have to step back and look at "What does sorcerer claim itself to be?", and "How can you make it easy to shape a character into that general design goal?"I think the fundamental mistake for the sorcerer class was building it based on metamagic. (Note: I can only speculate on this, so it may not be factually correct.)  It feels like WotC saw metamagic as a major system component that needed to be carried over to the new edition, but the change in magic (Wizards no longer being strictly Vancian casters) made such mechanics superfluous.  They built an entire class around this mechanic without considering whether it was actually a good match for the class's flavor.If you look at the core sorcerer class, ignoring its flavor, it's "the spellcasting class with metamagic, that had to sacrifice spells in order to gain that extra mechanical power".  Metamagic dominates everything about the class, to the extent that the class flavor just feels tacked on.So the first thing I'd do to fix sorcerer is to rip out metamagic entirely.  You can relegate it to a subclass, similar to Battlemaster fighter, but don't make it the be-all, end-all of the class.That leaves the class with Flexible Magic, and the associated sorcery points that can fuel whatever you want, similar to the ki points for monk.  (NB: Per Mike Mearls, part of the problem people have with abilities that cost sorcery points [such as the dragon fear] is the competition between those abilities and the class's primary mechanic. Get rid of that primary mechanic, and those secondary uses open up as far more viable.)That creates a tremendous amount of additional design space for each subclass.  Thematic spells should be the norm.  And more importantly, you're free to make use of sorcery points to create crazy power options (such as the darkness and hound abilities in the Shadow Magic sorcerer) that really shape the subclasses to match their flavor.  Expand with spell-like abilities, rather than more spells (similar to how the warlock works).If you want that nova power that comes from fancy metamagic use, feel free to jump on the Battlemaster analog.  But a Storm Sorcerer doesn't really need that; the Storm Sorcerer needs lightning bolts and wind storms and floods and blizzards.  I want to blow your house down, and sink your ship; I hardly care about twinned haste.Or the Wild Magic sorcerer. It feels weird that the archetype that has so little control over its magic also gets the power to finely control how that magic works.  Why not give the Wild Magic sorcerer the ability to choose to roll on some random magic table (instead of being at the whim of the DM)?I could go on, but the basics is this: The sorcerer already has the fuel source for doing whatever you want to do with it, and it has Flexible Magic to allow it to manipulate that fuel source.  Anything beyond that should be about creating custom effects that match the flavor of the subclass.The main additional minor tweak that I would consider would be to make it so that you get sorcery points starting at level 1, instead of level 2, because that's what you should be working with from the very beginning. (And obviously provide something you can do with that starting sorcery point.)</blockquote>

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