D&D 5E The Sorcerer Fix

[Flamestrike]

They could probably do with a few more unique sorcerer spells.

My personal changes grant them eschew materials at first level, letting them add their charisma modifier to their sorcery point total at fifth level, and at 18th level giving them the spell mastery class feature.

In addition every sorcerer archetype gets an AC 13+ dexterity modifier class feature at first level. This frees up a spell slot at first level.

The end result is sorcerers can cast more spells than a wizard but have less spells known and less versatility.

My next step is probably to create a unique cantrip and a few other unique sorcerer only spells.

 

[Blue]

If you said "make a table of effects and sorcerers can choose from them on the fly to create spells without having a spell list", I'd be fully onboard.

I've designed things like that in the past, but now if the implementation wasn't correct, I'd ban it from my table.

1. It's too unwieldy in combat. Players take a long time trying to find the right thing, having a table where they could craft it would take longer. Sure, some players would be okay with it, but I'm not going to have a base class that I need to ban players from taking because they would slow down the table for everyone.

2. Being able to craft just the right effect is very powerful out of combat, and would probably steal the spotlight from other character's focus, be it interaction, exploration, what-have-you.

So, in order to be reasonable, it would need to be that 90% of the players out there can have an effect ready in 20 seconds or less (because we still need to resolve it), and that the costs of doing a spell (resource expendature or whatever the balance point is) will make any utility spell a worht stopping to think about - unlike high level casters where they don't think much about a 1st level slot, if 1st level slots can be anything of that power level, those can still rain over other PCs out of combat if they have a high amount of flexibility instead of being constrained by known/prepared so it needs to have a much higher opportunity cost to cast.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

This part doesn't contribute to the discussion and since I value your opinion, I have a hate-on for when you do it.

Yeah...sorry. It's just one of those things that has been building and building for a few months/years and I finally snapped. Bad form on my part (Bad DM! Bad!). In my defense, I have a rather "significant" thing happening in me and my daughters life right now that has me a bit...ill-tempered and sour of countenance...of late.

Sorry again for my outburst to any/all who also were put-off my my rant there. Apologies.

Ahem...onward!

This part is interesting and worth exploring.

I let sorcerers choose an entire school of magic (regardless of class) and choose spells from there as well. The one caveat is you cannot choose Warlock-only spells.

I thought a bit about some of the specifics on what I wrote. I'd like to use the "spell slots" to some degree, to help differentiate a low-level Sorcerer vs a higher level on more so than just a couple point bonus on his "Sorcery Skill Roll". Maybe have the Sorcery Spell Slot table indicate the number of spells of that level that the Sorcerer could cast with Advantage? This would let a mid-level Sorcerer Player a bit more control over his chances of success. Everyone has crap dice rolls, and with Wizards and Warlocks basically having their chance be 100% all the time, and the poor Sorcerer could, theoretically, fail every spell cast he tries that day...it might be a nice balance for those 'important' spells.

*shrug* Just a thought.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[cbwjm]

The 4e elemental sorcerer could provide an interesting idea for a sorcerer. Make a sorcerer the master of cantrips spending sorcery points (using the same limit as a mystic?), to expand on the capabilities of the each of their known cantrips.

I can currently only easily visualise this for combat cantrips. Using Firebolt as an example.

A fifth level sorcerer's firebolt deals 2d10 fire damage as normal.
The sorcerer can spend up to 5 sorcery points to alter the spell. 1 spell point causes the firebolt to explode in a burst (adding a Dexterity save to secondary targets for half damage). If he needs more range, he can add 30 feet per spell point, and he can increase the damage dice by 1 per SP. So for 5 SP he might throw a fire bolt 180 feet, dealing 4d10 fire damage in a 10 ft. burst (2 SP +60 feet; 2 SP +2d10 damage; 1 SP +10 foot burst)