D&D 5E Sorcerer spell list - why so short?

[Nebulous]

This. Given the way spells work now, there's no need for sorcerers to be as flexible as wizards. A huge portion of earlier-edition sorcerers can be constructed as wizards now, with little changing.

Yeah, there's this, which is probably the best option. Also, Frog God is releasing the Book of Lost Spells, which will hugely update the spell lists, although i don't know how that will fit into the balance of 5e. Regardless, it will be hundreds of new (or just updated) 3.x spells.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Frog God is releasing the Book of Lost Spells, which will hugely update the spell lists, although i don't know how that will fit into the balance of 5e. Regardless, it will be hundreds of new (or just updated) 3.x spells.

That sounds like a car-crash waiting to happen! Unless they manage to do a really fantastic job, but there were a whole lot of awful spells produced for 3.x

 

[Minigiant]

There is also another thing..

3e has taught us that Full Arcane Spell list + Metamagic is BAAAAAAAAAAAAAADD!!!

Giving sorcerers a huge spell list and the ability to alter the spells they chose leaves the chance of some player tearing up the list and inventing Batman Sorcerers.

 

[Dausuul]

I recently worked up a high-level (13th) sorcerer with the idea of making a stealth and infiltration specialist, and at least on paper it looks pretty solid. Sorcs have quite a few advantages over wizards for this kind of thing:

• Charisma is your prime stat instead of Intelligence. Having to pump your Int score is a substantial burden on the wizard; as a stat, Int is woefully underpowered. Cha is far more useful.
• The Actor feat is ideal for a Charisma-centric class with access to disguise self. Advantage on Deception and Performance checks to back up your disguise? And the ability to mimic voices? And +1 Cha into the bargain? Yes please.
• Subtle Spell. No other class has anything like this. You can cast a spell in the middle of a crowd without anyone knowing it was you. You can cast a spell while talking to somebody, unnoticed. You can cast a spell while hog-tied and gagged. The shenanigans you could get up to...
• Quicken Spell. You can cast a spell and do something else with your action. It's Cunning Action for casters.
• Enhance ability. This is one spell wizards don't get and sorcerers do. Since you're going to be relying heavily on your Cha skills, and you probably have a solid Dex score too, enhance ability can be just the ticket when you need to be extra persuasive or stealthy. Hey, did I mention you can cast it without anybody knowing you're doing it?

I haven't had a chance to try it in play, but it looks like the sorcerer has a good niche as combination spellslinger and skill monkey. You can be an excellent party face and infiltrator, and you can also unleash fiery hell whenever you get tired of being sneaky.

That said, one thing does seriously annoy me about the sorcerer spell list: If you're playing a draconic sorcerer, fire is so much better than any other element it's ridiculous. If you don't go with fire, you have your choice of cold (which means you don't get an AoE blast in the 3rd-level slot; you have to wait until ice storm) or lightning (which means relying on shocking grasp as your attack cantrip). And those are the good alternatives. Acid and poison are just awful. Meanwhile, fire has the second-best attack cantrip* and top-tier damage spells at levels 1 (burning hands), 2 (scorching ray), 3 (fireball), and 4 (wall of fire). The icing on the cake is that you can spend a sorcery point for fire resistance, which is better than any other type.

At the very least, I think they should have made sure there was a 3rd-level AoE blast for every element. It doesn't have to be as good as fireball, but it should be on par with lightning bolt.

[SIZE=-2]*After acid splash, which is the single reason to consider acid as your element: Being able to hit multiple targets with an attack cantrip means doubling the benefit of Elemental Affinity. However, the requirement of being within 5 feet of each other is rather limiting. Plus fire bolt​ has twice the range.[/SIZE]

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

OK, I've had a check and while some of the spells missing from the sorcerer list have a casting time of more than one action (e.g. magic circle, planar binding, control weather), there are others with long casting time which are included (e.g. teleportation circle, 1 minute) so it isn't the whole story.

Well, a lot of single-target spells don't make the cut probably because they'd be overpowered with twin spell (haste is crazy enough).

 

[SilverfireSage]

Thanks for the input.

I think I'm inclined to agree with the 'Sorcerers didn't get any playtesting so they ended up as the blasters', which is a shame.

While I could do the characters as wizards, two essential parts of the character were there Charisma and the use of metamagic - neither of which apply to Wizards. (OK, you -could- do a Cha wizard, but it would be painful to miss out on Dex or Con to do so!).

Although I can see some of the list shrinking being thematic - good catch on them missing out 'named' spells - there is a bunch of other stuff which isn't and doesn't seem to be missing for a good reason (unless - thinking aloud - did they remove all spells which have a casting time of more than one action? If that was the case I could buy that as a reason for trimming them from the list)

It seems to me then that this is less of a thread of "are sorcerer's good or not" and more of a "how can I fit my preexisting character better into 5E?" Which is fine, but it doesn't seem like the commentary on the sorcerers not getting playtesting or something is very fair to the designers. They made sorcerers different from how they were in previous editions, hence the new edition, and likely didn't think about how to perfectly get other people's previous characters into this edition. I've had to convert characters from every edition out there to the another, and concessions were always made. The developers made the sorcerers how they wanted to make them, and they seem balanced, and that's really all there is to it in my mind.

 

[jayoungr]

Each metamagic-ed base spell is practically a new spell on its own. Think of the sorcerer list as "spell trees," each with ever-increasing numbers of variations, and it doesn't look so short.

ETA:

lightning (which means relying on shocking grasp as your attack cantrip).

I wouldn't knock shocking grasp! It makes your entire party immune to opportunity attacks from the target until its next turn.

 

[Plane Sailing]

It seems to me then that this is less of a thread of "are sorcerer's good or not" and more of a "how can I fit my preexisting character better into 5E?"

Neither actually.

I'm interested in discussion about "why the sorcerer spell list has been shortened".

My interest is sparked by the difficulty in converting across either of my 3.5e sorcerers, but that isn't the be-all and end-all of the conversation. Nor has it been at any point whether the class is a 'good' class or not.

There have been some interesting and helpful observations brought up, such as

* omits 'named' spells. makes sense, since they are clearly invented by specific wizards
* omits mostly spells which are more than one action to cast. Not entirely true, but this would make sense to avoid being troublesome with quickened metamagic
* maybe omits some other spells which would be problematic when metamagic is taken into consideration. Not sure exactly to what degree this is the case.

This still leaves some oddities, like higher level illusions and magical protections which are missing in action.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

It seems to me then that this is less of a thread of "are sorcerer's good or not" and more of a "how can I fit my preexisting character better into 5E?" Which is fine, but it doesn't seem like the commentary on the sorcerers not getting playtesting or something is very fair to the designers. They made sorcerers different from how they were in previous editions, hence the new edition, and likely didn't think about how to perfectly get other people's previous characters into this edition. I've had to convert characters from every edition out there to the another, and concessions were always made. The developers made the sorcerers how they wanted to make them, and they seem balanced, and that's really all there is to it in my mind.

This argument would hold more weight if they hadn't playtested a mechanically and flavor-wise much more interesting sorcerer and then completely ditched it because too many people were complaining that they couldn't duplicate their 3e or 4e sorcerer characters.

 

[fuindordm]

Neither actually.
* omits 'named' spells. makes sense, since they are clearly invented by specific wizards
* omits mostly spells which are more than one action to cast. Not entirely true, but this would make sense to avoid being troublesome with quickened metamagic
* maybe omits some other spells which would be problematic when metamagic is taken into consideration. Not sure exactly to what degree this is the case.

This still leaves some oddities, like higher level illusions and magical protections which are missing in action.

Frankly, I'm not convinced that they put that much thought into it. The spell lists look fairly random to me. To take another example, the bard list is pretty wide open, with lots of spells that feel at odds with the music/speech theme.