D&D 5E Sorcerer Rebalance, Through Flexible Casting And Wizard Spells

[Infammo]

There is something fundamentally off with 5E Sorcerers.

Most groups have only a single arcane spellcaster. Sorcerers are too inflexible to fill that role.

Also, if you don't choose the blaster role, you aren't compensated in any way (that is, if you abstain from Fireball, do you get any bonus? Such as two known spells instead of just the one? No)

This makes every Sorcerer that doesn't choose the best-in-class spells severely underpowered, and it makes every Sorcerer something that really only works in agroup that already has one more spellcaster (so the Sorcerer can focus on blasting things, and leaving all the special cases to the other guy).

Due to the nature of the sorcerer spell, list. It goes even deeper. The sorcerer list lacks some of the best spells that are not merely damage. Or the wizard spells that avoid saving throws, or have multiple uses. It is rather barren in comparison. - As I quoted in the original post, the players handbook states a sorcerer should be every bit as useful as a wizard. As such, I have come to a decision for this particular rebalance attempt.

I am removing the limit on the amount of spell slots you can create that is based on level, because cannibalising their own energy for more weaker effects is a choice, not a requirement. Sometimes, you just need some lesser bang for your currency. So yes, you could now cannibalise a 3rd slot, and create two 2nd level spell slots.

The motivation for this is simple, the sorcerer knows so few spells total, that being able to cast more spells from 1-5, based on their choice makes sense. They are walking magical capacitors. And every such trade you makes still involves trading away a bit of metamagic goodness.

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By providing the wizard spell list, without the named spells like mordekainen, you get a sorcerer that can make choices aside from merely damage. And each sorcerer is likely to not just have the same spell list as every other sorcerer. And it embodies the quote in the PHB.

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There is really only one other thought I have been considering. Sorcerers are supposed to be good at blasting, but there is basically nothing in their features that ebodies this aside from empower spell. Even dragon bloodline only provides charisma to your heritage damage types. It seems like a missed opportunity that sorcers are so bad at improving their damage, despite their supposed status as more magical than thou.

 

[Cognomen's Cassowary]

As one does, I would deeply treasure your insight, thought and feedback upon this endeavor.

I don't have time to do any math right now, but does this ruin the balance between creating spell slots and using metamagic? Does it make the creation of spell slots virtually always the best use of sorcery points? Does it make a sorcerer dip hugely advantageous for any other casting class? Those would be my concerns.

 

[Erik Westmarch]

I just did an analysis of the Wizard vs Sorcerer for Levels 1-20 (using the SRD only).

It works out that-

Sorcerers have +1 HP/Level, +3 AC, and 1 extra Cantrip.

Wizards have more Spells Known (a lot), more Spells Prepared (quite a few), free Metamagic (from sub-class), about the same Spell Slots/day (Arcane Recovery sort of equals Sorcerery Points, depending in on how SP are spent), and Ritual Casting.

Basically the Wizard is either the same or better in every metric relevant to casters. 1 extra Cantrip doesn't cut it. And the Sorcerer has to choose between spell slot parity and metamagic parity, but it can't have both (due to how SP can only be spent one or the other).

Now you could make the Sorcerer closer to the Wizard by giving each Sorcerer Origin some free Metamagic and Domain Spells. And throw in a Tome of Shadows for good measure. Then they'd be about the same.

But then what's the point of the class? Flavor I guess. Sorcerer Origins can be very different than Arcane Traditions. But on the other hand, you could include both Origins and Traditions as sub-classes to a single generic arcane caster class and it would be the same situation. There's no reason to have the class.

If you really want to make Sorcerer its own thing I would

1. Take Spell Mastery from Wizard and give it to Sorcerer at lower levels. Like:
Spell__Class
Level__Level
_1_____4
_2_____8
_3_____12
_4_____16

2. Allow them to buy spell slots 1:1 for Sorcerery Points.
3. Add their CHR bonus to their SP pool.
4. A lot more Metamagic, some of it for free. Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed had some great Metamagic feats I'd steal.

 

[Cognomen's Cassowary]

Wizards have . . . free Metamagic (from sub-class). . . .

What source book are you reading from?

 

[Gadget]

What source book are you reading from?

I believe he/she is rather loosely referring to the various Wizard sub-class benefits as "Metamagic" or a close equivalent thereof. More applicable to some sub-class features than others, but they do bear a general resemblance to the Sorcerer's "Metamagic". At least that is my interpretation of the remark. I'm ready to be corrected.

 

[Erik Westmarch]

I believe he/she is rather loosely referring to the various Wizard sub-class benefits as "Metamagic" or a close equivalent thereof. More applicable to some sub-class features than others, but they do bear a general resemblance to the Sorcerer's "Metamagic". At least that is my interpretation of the remark. I'm ready to be corrected.

Correct. What the Evocation Tradition calls "Sculpt Spells" is basically "Careful Spell" on the Metamagic list. Empowered Evocation would easily be a Metamagic ability. Etc.

Sorcerers get a total of four Metamagic abilities, and Wizards get four equivalent abilities from their sub-class at about the same levels. In my view they seem to be about equally useful, except for the Wizard they are free to use at will and for the Sorcerer they cost SP.

The Sorcerer gets benefits from Draconic Origin that have no equivalent to the Wizard class, but they're not very powerful to be honest. The best one is Resilience (+1 HP/level). Elemental Affinity is directly equivalent to Empowered Evocation, except its limited to one damage type. Flight and Fear can be replicated by spells.

I compensated for the 13 AC, Flight, and Fear abilities by counting them as a "spell slot tax" against the Wizard. They Wizard has to cast a few spells (i.e., Mage Armor) to get the same benefit. And yet the Wizard still ends up with more spells prepared and the same effective number of spells per day.

 

[Cognomen's Cassowary]

So no, wizards don't get free metamagic.

Back to discussion of Infammo's house-rule idea.

 

[Infammo]

I don't have time to do any math right now, but does this ruin the balance between creating spell slots and using metamagic? Does it make the creation of spell slots virtually always the best use of sorcery points? Does it make a sorcerer dip hugely advantageous for any other casting class? Those would be my concerns.

Now you are asking the real questions, and a damn good one too. In this case, you have to remember that the spell slot and metamagic was so heavily balanced away from spell slot creation that anything that was not metamagic, felt like a waste. Ergo, to begin with, there was no real balance. Rather a scale with a big fat note of 'Metamagic' holding it down.

In the current economy listed, it makes 1st and 2nd slot creation feel like a metamagic option. Because they have that approximate cost. While anything of 3rd and above, is one point cheaper, aside from 5th level spells, which has the same cost as originally. As such, due to the fact that most level one slots are utility slots, and second level spells are not the go-to slot for high damage or battlefield domination, this is not so bad indeed. Also, a sorcerer has so few known spells that their 1st and 2nd level spells are limited in selection if you want a versatile list later.

In the re-balanced economy, it sort of averages out. Because: "Hmm, sure, I could get a third level slot, but I would really like to augment x spell. Perhaps I should just sacrifice a 3rd level spells for points, if I suddenly need a third level slot, I can convert them back mid combat as a bonus action." Because as you might notice, the conversion for 3rd and 4th level spells, is in fact 1:1 Giving you a lot of flexibility.

For a sorcerer, this is not really breaking anything whatsoever, as the very limited spell choices you have means that you do not have an incredible library of spells for each level to choose from. Each spell slot has a limited amount of utility without metamagic.


Multi-classing dips are indeed, a worry. In fact, if you were to use this to let your sorcerer have a fun time. I would just plain say no to any player that wants to steal flexible casting, because it is suddenly attractive. Or, you could let them. But that would likely cause the sorcerer to feel rather grumpy.

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Lets do some math on that to find out. A bard that decides to dip two levels of sorcerer for metamagic now gains flexible casting, two metamagic options and two sorcery points.

To actually use his metamagic, he really HAS to sacrifice slots. Could get cheap first or second level spells, sure. But to gain anything big, he has to sacrifice a lot of high level slots. And those are still expensive to create in this rebalance. to get a 5th level slot extra, they would have to sacrifice a 3rd, 2nd and a 1st. And they would have a measly 2 points still to use for metamagic. So that is three slots gone for the highest they can create. A big boom, but with a sacrifice.

It doesn't sound that bad, to be honest. Might actually work without destabilizing things. After all, the bard just sacrificed their 19 and 20th class level and delayed bard progression, just for the ability to cannibilise slots for 1st and 2nd level spells. Or for points to use their two metamagic options.

 

[jayoungr]

Further complicating the matter is how Warlocks seem to have been designed with ideas that probably should have been used in the Sorcerer, at perhaps just combine the two classes entirely and have the warlock be a specialization.

Which ideas/features are you thinking of? And do you have any thoughts on how combining the classes might work, mechanically?

 

[Infammo]

Correct. What the Evocation Tradition calls "Sculpt Spells" is basically "Careful Spell" on the Metamagic list. Empowered Evocation would easily be a Metamagic ability. Etc.

Sorcerers get a total of four Metamagic abilities, and Wizards get four equivalent abilities from their sub-class at about the same levels. In my view they seem to be about equally useful, except for the Wizard they are free to use at will and for the Sorcerer they cost SP.

The Sorcerer gets benefits from Draconic Origin that have no equivalent to the Wizard class, but they're not very powerful to be honest. The best one is Resilience (+1 HP/level). Elemental Affinity is directly equivalent to Empowered Evocation, except its limited to one damage type. Flight and Fear can be replicated by spells.

Actually, the sculpt spell = Careful spell is a bit of a fallacy.

Sculpt spells works only on evocation spells, and it's ability is to ignore 1+spell level amount of allies in the aoe to make the spell ignore them. Automatic success and no half damge.

Careful Spell works on ANY spell with a saving throw, and makes an amount of creatures of your choice equal to your charisma modifier succeed on the saving throw.

Sculpt spell is an evocation based: "let the fireball or lightning bolt ignore my friend".

Careful spell is a: "Cast hypnotic pattern into the melee and only affect all the enemies, leaving allies facing helpless enemies to pick and choose from."

Basically, careful spell is an ideal aoe crowd control ability, where your allies can work with you to keep the enemies bunched. The other one is boom with safe-spots in it.

Evocation has pretty has no crowd control effects of note, aside from stone (and other) walls and forcecage. Forecage is not applicable, because it automatically succeeds and has no saving throw. While the wall of stone example would be doming in an enemy next to your friend and letting your friend escape the saving throw automatically.

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Anyway, on to multiclass shenanigan analysis. One of the worries could have been a paladin going two levels of sorc, to transform spell slots to level 1 slots, to smite for days. This is not a problem however. The Smite feature requires -specifically- Paladin spell slots. And you would have to stretch the rules far indeed to call slots created through Sorcery points paladin slots. In fact, sacrificing slots to make more points would mean removing precious paladin slots to create non-paladin slots. No paladin flexible casting shenanigans there.

Also, of note. The spell point system variant in the DMG is a pretty broken system. Especially for paladins. A smite is 2 points. A 9th level paladin can use a level 1 smite 13 times with spell point. It would indeed have worked well as a unique thing if it was a feature -only- for sorcerers, but as it is. It is a variant rule. So if another caster demands it, a sorcerer falls behind again. Pity, really.