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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6800696" data-attributes="member: 996">In a sense.  4e dailed back versatility/power of all casters across the board, to the point that they were very nearly balanced with 4e's martial classes which it had greatly increased in versatility.   The Sorcerer ended up in the same boat as most classes, that way.  The Wizard was an exception, in that it remained 'Vancian' for purposes of it's daily powers.  It didn't get any more of them per day than other classes, but it got two or three alternatives to choose from to fill each slot every morning. The gripe's I've heard is that it's too much like a wizard, but inferior or not enough like a (3.5) Sorcerer (which, though lacking day-to-day flexibility, was round-to-round versatile and powerful in it's own right). Heh.  They're really very similar, in that sense.  In both 3.5 & 5e, the Sorcerer has no spells of it's own, sharing it's entire list with the Wizard, who has more spells, besides.  The 3.5 Sorcerer got /both/ Spontaneous Casting, /and/ more slots per day than the Wizard, to make up for the wizard's greater versatility from traditional Vancian.  In 5e, the Wizard gets to prepare different spells each day, and cast them Spontaneously, so the 3.5 Sorcerer's main distinction, and primary advantage, is just completely gone.  The Sorcerer also gets /fewer/ slots than the Wizard, so it's secondary advantage has been reversed, as well.   Relative to 3.5, the Sorcerer seems to have been utterly hosed, while the Wizard has gone further beyond the pale (it was already Tier 1) than ever.  But, there was a tertiary difference between the two classes in 3.5 - the Wizard was a little faster at using meta-magic and got free metamagic feats, while the Sorcerer was slower and couldn't use as many different forms of it, but could apply it spontaneously, which mitigated against it's fewer spells known.  In 5e, it's reversed: metamagic is all but gone from the game for all other classes, and the Sorcerer gets Sorcerer Points that can apply meta-magic spontaneously.  That's it's whole schtick, now.  All casters have it's traditional thing, Spontaneous Casting, while traditionally Vancian ones have kept their greeter day-to-day flexibilty, which the Sorcerer still lacks, but the Sorcerer also comes out behind on daily slots as well as spells known, and only Sorcerery Points are left to make up the whole of those differences - plus, if balance had been a priority, make up for the Sorcerer having been Tier 2 to the Wizard's Tier 1, as if that were ever in the offing.  5e classes, though, are not designed to be neatly (or even messily) balanced on their mechanics, alone, but to be distinct from eachother on the basis of those mechanics.  Sorcerery Points on the plus side, and lack of spells known, inability to prepare different spells each day, and fewer spell slots on the negative side, do accomplish that, in spite of the Sorcerer lacking any unique spells in it's list.  So we can't really expect WotC to 'fix' the Sorcerer, since the design accomplishes all it needs to.  It's up to player skill and DM intervention to give each Sorcerer the chance to 'shine' relative to any other casters in the party.</blockquote>

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