D&D 5E Sorcerers and Versatility

[Jester David]

My personal house rule is to let sorcerers suck charges out of magic items for sorcery points.

Wizards get scrolls and spell books.
Sorcerers suck charges out of magic wands, staves, and rods.

I've thought that could be a cool metamagic power. Very Dragonlance 5th Age.

 

[Delandel]

I was talking bout screw up per adventure day. The sorcerer is easy to screw up on character creation but impossible to to screw up while preparing to adventure. Because they cannot change and a sorcerer is best built for one job.

Let's look at a player created NPC from my setting

Goldie Dreadlocks, 6th level gold sorcerer
Cantrips:true strike, fire bolt, light, ray of frost, shocking grasp,
1st level: burning hands, charm person, chromatic orb
2nd level: enhance ability, scorching ray
3rd Level: fireball, counterspell
Metamagics: quicken spell, empower spell.

There's no messing up Goldie. He "burn fiya pon his enemies" and casts chromatic orb, ray of frost, and shocking grasp if they're immune. In interactions, he has high Charisma (20) and charm person and enhance ability. While exploring he has enhanced ability and light.

Now an equal level wizard has 1 less cantrip, 4 more spell prepared, and a spellbook full of rituals. Much better. He can copy Goldie's list (swapping mage armor in for enhance ability) and add 4 more spells. But with more options and the ability to swap spells on long rest, a chance of error creeps in. If the party doesn't gather the rumor that a half dragon leads the orcs, the wizard might not be prepared.

But Goldie never changes. Cast fire spells or shoot out the biggest chromatic orb you can. Sorcerers with a theme are always prepared as they have one job and the features to always have a hammer.

That's how it always has been. The Wizard's Tony Stark to the Sorcerer's Bruce Banner.

Alright. One last time. This is important, for me, that you and Jester understand this.

To imply that Wizards having more spells known/prepared is actually detrimental is dishonest. That is what we are saying.

Lets make a foil to your Goldilocks, a Wizard called Sir Bearington.

Sir Bearington, 6th level abjuration wizard
SPELLS PREPARED
Cantrips: true strike, fire bolt, ray of frost, shocking grasp (-1 no light)
1st level: burning hands, charm person, chromatic orb, mage armor
2nd level: enhance ability, scorching ray, levitate
3rd Level: fireball, counterspell, haste

Other spells known but not prepared: find familiar (always on), alarm, shield, detect magic, mirror image, leomund's tiny hut

Sir Bearington has THE EXACT SAME SPELLS prepared as Goldilocks, PLUS MORE. He swaps out the bolded spells for other spells depending on what he feels like -- but since he has THE EXACT SAME SPELLS as Goldilocks AT ALL TIMES, he is NEVER in any way, shape, or form, "stuck" with "worse" spells. The fact that he CAN swap out the majority of his spells prepared is a BOON, not a detriment.

To say otherwise is dishonest. It's like me saying that a gun is a better long range weapon than a spoon, but you saying "but you can shoot yourself in the foot with a gun!"

There is no downside here, so stop trying to portray it as such.

Having no components doesn't reduce his spells known. It just means he can't cast those spells until he gets a new arcane focus. Losing your spellbook is a permanent reduction in spells known unless you have a backup. Sorcerers can lose their component pouches, but never their spells known. Ergo, the wizard's minimum spells known is equal to his spells prepared, which he cannot lose. It's still more than the sorcerer but not twice as many.

Ah, I misunderstood then. Sorry for that, I understand what you mean now.

I will say, however, in my ten years of playing I've only seen a spellbook being stolen a single time. You have to be a really sadistic DM to rob a PC of its core features. It's akin to cutting off the arm of a martial character that was using a two-handed weapon -- you could, and they can still use a one-handed weapon, but that's a low blow. It's such an outlier that I don't consider it a valid concern at a normal table.

If we're talking specifically about pure sorcerers, then I agree they're not as much fun. Sorcerers IMHO, like rogues, rangers, and barbarians, multi-class better than they single-class.

Yes, that's the whole point of this thread. Thank you.

The latter part though: that implies that those classes are also poor single class. Barbarians and Rogues are definitely great single class, and while I'm sure you could MC them well, I can give you plenty of reasons (especially rogue) for staying single. Rangers perhaps, I'm not an expert on them, but I know that many consider beastmaster to be one of the worst options in the book so it's not a stretch to say that MC'ing them is better than pure.

Maybe. Maybe not.
I've played in a magic lite campaign where the party only encountered a single hostile wizard. Princes of the Apocalypse only has a single spellbook to be captured and most of the scrolls are for the spells in the appendix of that book. Despite Red Wizards being a focus of the campaign, there's no mention of spellbooks in either Hoard of the Dragon Queen or Tyranny of Dragons, and the former has maybe a half-dozen scrolls while the later has twice that but provides the same spell on a scroll multiple times.
This also assumes the NPC wizard has the "correct" number of spells (the one example, in Princes of the Apocalypse, only has her prepared spells, so less than half her expected spells) AND assumes the spells provided are ones the PC needs. There are go-to spells a spellcaster will prepare, both for a PC and an NPC combatant. There's a good chance of overlap unless the wizard is really playing support (in which case the added spells are ones undesired anyway).

I don't see adventuring providing a wealth of desired spells unless the DM is feeling generous, or setting out explicitly to provide new spells.

>0 is still more than 0. You're arguing for the sake of arguing.

However, the wizard also requires much more system master, making it a harder class to learn and play. Poor spell choices and memorization for the day can easily render a wizard inept and ineffective, making the sorcerer a more effective choice.

"You can shoot yourself in the foot with your gun, making throwing spoons a more effective long range weapon." Please.

Conversely, someone with the requisite system mastery can do a lot more with the wizard, reactively swapping out spells and being strategic with spell choices each level. So the wizard has the potential to become more powerful. It can be played as more powerful, with greater player skill. But player skill will always make a character more effective, so that's a neutral argument.

Ah, there it is. "This class requires more skill therefore it's justified in being more powerful." Such a false statement.

The wizard DOES NOT have to choose spells "more carefully" than the sorcerer. The sorcerer learns one spell per level, and can retrain up to one spell per level. The wizard learns TWO spells per level -- his one "retrain" is just keeping that spell forever.

A sorcerer needs a deep understanding of his Sorcerer Points to be anything more than a crap wizard. You need to have a firm grasp of your metamagics (Quicken/Twin, or you're SOL) and must choose spells accordingly to get value out of them. You need to manage a tight resource that controls both your metamagics and your spell recharge system, and you need to know when to inefficiently melt down spells for SP.

A wizard deals with none of that. The wizard needs only to manage what his bonus spells will be during the day.

I'm NOT saying the sorcerer is more difficult to play well than a wizard. I AM saying that wizards are not more difficult than a sorcerer. Yes, I've played both. You clearly haven't played a sorcerer.

 

[MoonSong]

A sorcerer can regain just as many spells through sorcerer points as a wizard can gain via Arcane Recovery. But the sorcerer can still use the points if a short rest is not imminent, either for more spells or other benefits.
A sorcerer with the same spells prepared as the wizard are pretty darn close to equivalent. The wizard has a small number of other spells prepared, which are likely to be situational utility spells, and can cast rituals. So, yes, the wizard is *slightly* better, but not game breakingly so. In the unlikely event of a game having both a wizard and a sorcerer, the difference is likely to only come up a couple times in a campaign, making it anomalous.

However, the wizard also requires much more system master, making it a harder class to learn and play. Poor spell choices and memorization for the day can easily render a wizard inept and ineffective, making the sorcerer a more effective choice. Conversely, someone with the requisite system mastery can do a lot more with the wizard, reactively swapping out spells and being strategic with spell choices each level. So the wizard has the potential to become more powerful. It can be played as more powerful, with greater player skill. But player skill will always make a character more effective, so that's a neutral argument.

The sorcerer could have likely used a titch more... something. Like an extra spell castable to balance against the wizard's spells known. But I imagine WotC really wanted spells/day to be hard capped to better balance martials with casters and spell resources per day. So I'm not sure what else they could have given them.

Well, access to niche-filling spells would be good. The only problem would be the bard stealing them which would wreak the balance and niche protection. Or you know, just access to pets and other long term effects.

 

[Minigiant]

Alright. One last time. This is important, for me, that you and Jester understand this.

To imply that Wizards having more spells known/prepared is actually detrimental is dishonest. That is what we are saying.

Lets make a foil to your Goldilocks, a Wizard called Sir Bearington.

Sir Bearington, 6th level abjuration wizard
SPELLS PREPARED
Cantrips: true strike, fire bolt, ray of frost, shocking grasp (-1 no light)
1st level: burning hands, charm person, chromatic orb, mage armor
2nd level: enhance ability, scorching ray, levitate
3rd Level: fireball, counterspell, haste

Other spells known but not prepared: find familiar (always on), alarm, shield, detect magic, mirror image, leomund's tiny hut

Sir Bearington has THE EXACT SAME SPELLS prepared as Goldilocks, PLUS MORE. He swaps out the bolded spells for other spells depending on what he feels like -- but since he has THE EXACT SAME SPELLS as Goldilocks AT ALL TIMES, he is NEVER in any way, shape, or form, "stuck" with "worse" spells. The fact that he CAN swap out the majority of his spells prepared is a BOON, not a detriment.

To say otherwise is dishonest. It's like me saying that a gun is a better long range weapon than a spoon, but you saying "but you can shoot yourself in the foot with a gun!"

There is no downside here, so stop trying to portray it as such.

When Sir Bearington and Goldie Dreadlocks meet Hugreg the half-red-dragon orog, who kills him faster? He's resistant to fire
Ooops Both Sir Bearington and Goldie Dreadlocks both lack non-fiire spells except chromatic orb?
Who deals more damage with a single spell? Sorcerers.

Bearington's: 5d8 acid damage
Goldilock's: 5d8 acid damage reroll the 1s, 2s, and 3s. (quickened 2d8 cold damage)

Most wizards would swap in a nonfire spell? You can't screw up a sorcerer on a daily basis, only during creation.

It's not a detriment. It's just not a pure positive.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

When Sir Bearington and Goldie Dreadlocks meet Hugreg the half-red-dragon orog, who kills him faster? He's resistant to fire
Ooops Both Sir Bearington and Goldie Dreadlocks both lack non-fiire spells except chromatic orb?
Who deals more damage with a single spell? Sorcerers.

What happens here is that the orog proceeds to cut your sorcerer to ribbons with its axe. Because it can drop prone every round and STILL keep itself up in your sorcerer's grill on account of your sorcerer idiotically having chosen multiple redundant attack spells instead of defense or battlefield control...which need to strike through the orog's plate at disadvantage. And maybe the sorcerer still lives, but afterward he's taken heavy damage and exhausted all his high-level slots and sorcerery points (to keep range or otherwise get around the disadvantage thing). Meanwhile the wizard laughs and runs circles around said orog with Haste...plinking away with long-range attacks while the orog tries to return fire with his five javelins at disadvantage due to range.

 

[Ashrym]

Lets make a foil to your Goldilocks, a Wizard called Sir Bearington.

Sir Bearington, 6th level abjuration wizard
SPELLS PREPARED
Cantrips: true strike, fire bolt, ray of frost, shocking grasp (-1 no light)
1st level: burning hands, charm person, chromatic orb, mage armor
2nd level: enhance ability, scorching ray, levitate
3rd Level: fireball, counterspell, haste

Other spells known but not prepared: find familiar (always on), alarm, shield, detect magic, mirror image, leomund's tiny hut

Sir Bearington has THE EXACT SAME SPELLS prepared as Goldilocks, PLUS MORE. He swaps out the bolded spells for other spells depending on what he feels like -- but since he has THE EXACT SAME SPELLS as Goldilocks AT ALL TIMES, he is NEVER in any way, shape, or form, "stuck" with "worse" spells. The fact that he CAN swap out the majority of his spells prepared is a BOON, not a detriment.

The cantrip could be much more useful than light, like minor illusion.

Mage armor doesn't matter if it's already built in to the sorcerer without needing to spend a spell slot. So 1 more 1st-level spell becomes available as well as the wizard carrying a superfluous spell prepared compared to the wizard.

The sorcerer's hit point maximum is 6 points higher than the wizard and the sorcerer and the sorcerer does already has a built in proficiency to avoid concentration loss.

The wizard cannot have enhance ability because it doesn't exist on the wizard spell list. I thought you might have realized not all sorcerer spells are on the wizard list in your vast experience but you'll find that's not the only example. It's not a big list but those non-wizard spells exist. ;-)

The sorcerer doesn't need charm person because his ability score focus is on CHA instead of INT but if they do share that spell then the advantage on checks makes the sorcerer better at it.

I see 4 fire spells and a fire cantrip. Draconic sorcerer deals more damage with each of them because the wizard was listed as an abjurer. He might give up one for another spell, because he doesn't need them all.

Since cantrips are still the most common spell action over the course of a standard day at that level the higher firebolt damage and minor illusion options give the sorcerer the better options on the most common actions instead of one-off chance opportunities.

A spell slot spent on levitate or haste when those might be useful is still a spell slot not spent on scorching ray or burning hands when those are useful again later because spell slots are a limiting factor. It's either / or instead of and.

The rituals can be replaced by a single feat if the player finds them important. The importance is highly disputable because they aren't high impact abilities. It's not like alarm isn't replaced by posting a watch or leomunds hut by finding a safe rest area.

Your argument is that the lower damage, lower hit point, lower default AC, worse concentration wizard is much better because he might cast haste or levitate instead of a different spell. This before considering metamagic / font of magic options (which are likely best spent equating arcane renewal at that level but are more flexible). Spending sorcery points on spell slots leaves the sorcerer with one more 1st-level spell for the day having not needed mage armor, which is guaranteed to be more useful than not having a slot, or 2 points possibly not spent on slots for a metamagic (or 2 cheap ones).

That sorcerer has several advantages over that wizard that the opportunity for haste or levitate to become important (which has to happen to even matter) does not leave the sorcerer lacking. Your argument so appears to be that more spells available is more powerful because it's more spells available (circular logic) instead of looking at other restrictions and benefits.

The only difference is either might be better at different things at different times, but that sorcerer is not at a disadvantage as a class.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

RE: losing spellbooks,

Ah, I misunderstood then. Sorry for that, I understand what you mean now.

I will say, however, in my ten years of playing I've only seen a spellbook being stolen a single time. You have to be a really sadistic DM to rob a PC of its core features. It's akin to cutting off the arm of a martial character that was using a two-handed weapon -- you could, and they can still use a one-handed weapon, but that's a low blow. It's such an outlier that I don't consider it a valid concern at a normal table.

The 5E wizard's core features (IMO) don't include particular spells known, except for Signature Spells at 20th level. His feature is the ability to use a spellbook. Allowing wizards to lose their spellbooks is less akin to cutting off an arm and more akin to a fighter throwing a favorite magic axe at an enemy who then runs away with the axe. It's not like 5E has made it difficult to create backup spellbooks--and unless the wizard is constantly carrying his spellbook on his actual person at all times, there's a definite risk that the pack animal carrying the book will fall off a cliff/into a lava pool/get snatched by a roc/etc., or that enemies will steal the spellbook. Protecting the spellbook is part of the price of a wizard's power.

And if you lose your spellbook, you're not permanently gimped like you would be with a lost arm. You still have all the spells you had memorized at the time and you can write them in a new spellbook; and you can still research/trade for your old spells to replace them. It's expensive and time-consuming and you'll kick yourself for not having a backup, but it's not debilitating like a lost arm is.

 

[Jester David]

>0 is still more than 0. You're arguing for the sake of arguing.

No, I'm saying that the assumption is that the wizard is not showered by spells, that they will not find new spells after every adventure. That new spells are very possibly a rare thing for wizards.

"You can shoot yourself in the foot with your gun, making throwing spoons a more effective long range weapon." Please.

Ah, there it is. "This class requires more skill therefore it's justified in being more powerful." Such a false statement.

The wizard DOES NOT have to choose spells "more carefully" than the sorcerer. The sorcerer learns one spell per level, and can retrain up to one spell per level. The wizard learns TWO spells per level -- his one "retrain" is just keeping that spell forever.

A sorcerer needs a deep understanding of his Sorcerer Points to be anything more than a crap wizard. You need to have a firm grasp of your metamagics (Quicken/Twin, or you're SOL) and must choose spells accordingly to get value out of them. You need to manage a tight resource that controls both your metamagics and your spell recharge system, and you need to know when to inefficiently melt down spells for SP.

A wizard deals with none of that. The wizard needs only to manage what his bonus spells will be during the day.

I'm NOT saying the sorcerer is more difficult to play well than a wizard. I AM saying that wizards are not more difficult than a sorcerer. Yes, I've played both. You clearly haven't played a sorcerer.

Perfect balance is impossible. Period.
The perfect non-digital zero sum game is Rock Paper Scissors, but it's possible to reliably win that a disproportionate number of times, as can be seen by winning streaks in tournaments. And D&D is far more complicated making it impossible to be a zero sum game, which might actually be undesirable.
Thus, the only way for the sorcerer not to be less powerful than the wizard is for it to be more powerful than the wizard. Which doesn't solve the problem, it just changes the discussion to critiquing how the wizard is now underpowered.

Because options are always inequal, more choices equals more power. Choice = power. Or rather, choices equal potential power. Thus, it's hard for the sorcerer to every conceivable match the wizard's *potential* power because the customization is unmatchable. Not just because of spells known but the fact they have twice as many subclasses.
However, this means the wizard has a range of power. It's possible to make an ineffectual wizard or a god wizard. The power variability is massive compared to almost any other class and makes it extremely hard to balance against. But they have to put the sorcerer on the chart somewhere. Wizards can be very, very effective if they prepare the perfect spells for a situation, and can be prepared for numbers various outcomes. However, you cannot balance the baseline sorcerer against that idealized situation: the most effectively played wizard operating under perfect circumstances. That would just make the sorcerer far more powerful 90% of the time. A rogue that scores a critical sneak multiple times in a day can devastate enemies, but that makes a poor benchmark to balance the fighter's DPR against.

Even playtesting makes finding this balance tricky, because you're highly unlikely to have a sorcerer and wizard who are good at the same thing in the party at the same time. You'll always be comparing what actually happened with one class to what might have happened with another. Even if running the same adventure multiple times there'll be too much variability to really judge. Given it's human nature to see the grass being greener on the other side of the fence, it's easy to imagine the class you're not playing being better than the one you had a bad session with.

 

[Jester David]

When Sir Bearington and Goldie Dreadlocks meet Hugreg the half-red-dragon orog, who kills him faster? He's resistant to fire
Ooops Both Sir Bearington and Goldie Dreadlocks both lack non-fiire spells except chromatic orb?
Who deals more damage with a single spell? Sorcerers.

Bearington's: 5d8 acid damage
Goldilock's: 5d8 acid damage reroll the 1s, 2s, and 3s. (quickened 2d8 cold damage)

Most wizards would swap in a nonfire spell? You can't screw up a sorcerer on a daily basis, only during creation.

It's not a detriment. It's just not a pure positive.

Plus Goldilock has 6 extra hitpoints all the time while Bearington's ward has 16 each day. Bearington needs to use mage armour to get an AC of 13 while Goldilock's dragon scales just provide it all the time. And since they're 6th level Goldilock's Cha is added to fire damage to all spells, and a single sorcerer point grants fire resistance for 1 hour.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The wizard cannot have enhance ability because it doesn't exist on the wizard spell list. I thought you might have realized not all sorcerer spells are on the wizard list in your vast experience but you'll find that's not the only example. It's not a big list but those non-wizard spells exist. ;-)

As a public service, here is the complete list of sorcerer spells from the PHB which are NOT also on the wizard list:

Daylight
Dominate Beast
Earthquake
Enhance Ability
Fire Storm
Insect Plague
Water Walk

Of these, Enhance Ability is the best for versatility. It's somewhat like proficiency in every skill.

Trivia: did you know the Ranger's is the only spell list which does not contain Dispel Magic?