D&D (2024) The sorcerer shouldn't exist

[Flights of Fancy]

Which is the way it works now and the way it works with my take. You seem to want to change the wizard class so anyone can pick up a wizard spell book and use it immediately?

No. A wizard must study and learn how to read, comprehend, cast, etc. from the spellbook by a teacher. That is option 2, the way it works now. This is why it makes not sense to be subclass of sorcerer. There is no gift for Wizard.

If you run your game where wizards must still have a gift before they can learn like Harry Potter, then option 1 wizard as subclass of sorcerer works fine. But with option 2, no gift, it makes no sense.

 

[CleverNickName]

Any in-universe reasons? Everything you cited was an appeal to popularity.

I guess that would all depend on the universe that your game table is using. In my game world, sorcerers have innate magical ability through a variety of reasons: intermingled bloodlines of dragons, fey, angels, and other magical beings; survivors of magical accidents or curses; gifts bestowed by divine beings...

Typically I leave that to the player to decide, and encourage them to add it to their character's origin story. I'll ask a few leading questions ("When did you first learn you had magical powers? Does it run in your family? What legends have you heard about people with similar powers?") and let the player get creative.

(Point of clarification tough: I'm acknowledging the popularity of the sorcerer class...not appealing to it.)

 

[tetrasodium]

True; I should have written "preparing" instead of "casting." And you're right about Intelligence in 5E...its the defacto "dump stat" for most of the characters at my game table. I've made a few adjustments to it that have helped a bit:

• Initiative is Intelligence-based. This makes it more about alertness, quick thinking, and the ability to size up a situation or an opponent.
• Ranged attack rolls are Intelligence-based. This makes it more about calculating trajectories, compensating for wind, motion, and cover, studying angles and doing trigonometry in one's head.
• And I'll mention this anyway even though it's not a house-rule: magical traps use Int (Arcana), not Dex (Sleight of Hand).

Dex is still used for stealth, acrobatics, armor class, picking locks and pockets, and almost half of all save throws in the game...so nobody is getting left out. (Even our rogue doesn't mind these changes.)

Anyway. That's a whole other topic.

I'm not sure that shifting from casting to preparing pulls the singular reason out of the "because it's a more powerful attribute casts the same spells at the same levels in the same quantity and has more class features" ditch though. The bard ranger warlock Eldritch knight and arcane trickster are all spells known casters.

 

[MoonSong]

Any in-universe reasons? Everything you cited was an appeal to popularity.

In-universe? It is not a choice nor something than can be truly controlled. There are bloodlines, but even that won't be a guarantee.

 

[tetrasodium]

what's mesmer? actually i don't care, it's not important.

You may not know him by name, but you are almost certainly familiar with his work & it's a story worth hearing Couple hundred years back a guy named Franz Mesmer went around studying & maybe learning various applications of tribal magic in africa & such. That led tohim grouping all of what he dubbed mesmerism & his theory of... I quote "Animal Magnitism" . A lot of the things he came across are real things, but he was so hilariously wrong in his conclusions that he has single handedly provided us with centuries of crackpot pseudoscience & chicanery until more scientifically grounded people like Milton Erickson along with various professional stage magicians & such took the time to understand the how & why some of the actually useful parts things work.

the discussion went like this: (granted with alot more back and forth but summarising)


'why should a human fighter/rogue be able to do extraordinary feats without a power source? earth humans cant do all that'

'they do have a power source, it's the ones that are part of quite literally everything: magic and ki, the world isn't earth'

'fighters/rogues don't use magic or ki, it's not in their class descriptions, the other classes have explicit power sources'

'the description of the world states that there is a level of magic in literally everything, and ki in all living things, they use that, they start with everything they ever need to be powerful, other classes use additional sources of magic and ki for powering their abilities but fighter/rogue just use the base enhancements that everybody starts with'

'fighter/rogue gain their power through feats+christmas tree'

'no. everything they need to be strong is in the power of the base class'

'so hypothetical base class barista can have enough power to match up against an optimised dragon cyborg feats+christmas tree without any assistance? what if the barista also gains optimised dragon cyborg feats+christmas tree traits?'

'this is before feats+christmas tree'


do you see what the original point was and how the misunderstanding occured now?

With the actual clarification moving beyond "you've misunderstood the point [guess what it was]" I can say that I was aware of following along & understood the point. That point just happens to be one with severe flaws stemming from the idea that a PC who gets everything they need from the base class to stand shoulder to shoulder with christmas trees won't strap on rocket boots & crack the game over its knee the second it can start donning magical christmas tree elements of its own. The mundane nonmagical martial PC who keeps up with magically blessed buffed & christmas tree'd up d&d PC is a concept that is just as flawed as mesmer's ideas because it will obviously gain magic beyond the base class in play

 

[Neonchameleon]

No. A wizard must study and learn how to read, comprehend, cast, etc. from the spellbook by a teacher. That is option 2, the way it works now. This is why it makes not sense to be subclass of sorcerer. There is no gift for Wizard.

If you run your game where wizards must still have a gift before they can learn like Harry Potter, then option 1 wizard as subclass of sorcerer works fine. But with option 2, no gift, it makes no sense.

But wizards aren't actually wizards until they've put in the work. At level 0 they aren't a wizard, at level 1 they are. Just because they got there by hard work changes nothing at any second during play.

 

[Yaarel]

In order to emphasize the Sorcerer class, I feel some are misrepresenting the Wizard class.

I strongly prefer innate magic. A Wizard has personal magical spark that is innate, that the scholarly approach develops, similar to how an athlete has innate physical prowess that training can develop.

Cantrips are a means to express the flavor of innate at-will magic.

 

[CreamCloud0]

With the actual clarification moving beyond "you've misunderstood the point [guess what it was]" I can say that I was aware of following along & understood the point. That point just happens to be one with severe flaws stemming from the idea that a PC who gets everything they need from the base class to stand shoulder to shoulder with christmas trees won't strap on rocket boots & crack the game over its knee the second it can start donning magical christmas tree elements of its own. The mundane nonmagical martial PC who keeps up with magically blessed buffed & christmas tree'd up d&d PC is a concept that is just as flawed as mesmer's ideas because it will obviously gain magic beyond the base class in play

the 'magical enhancements' of the other classes aren't items or anything, you realise that right? they're not competing with the christmas trees, it's literally just the other class's base class features, how the cleric gets divine magic from their god, the ranger from the primal forces of nature, the barbarian from the spirits,

the fighter 'who gets everything they need from the base class' isn't standing any higher or lower than a warlock or paladin who are also getting everything they need from their base class, but the everything the warlock or paladin needs is just flavoured as originating from a pact or an oath

 

[tetrasodium]

the 'magical enhancements' of the other classes aren't items or anything, you realise that right? they're not competing with the christmas trees, it's literally just the other class's base class features, how the cleric gets divine magic from their god, the ranger from the primal forces of nature, the barbarian from the spirits,

the fighter 'who gets everything they need from the base class' isn't standing any higher or lower than a warlock or paladin who are also getting everything they need from their base class, but the everything the warlock or paladin needs is just flavoured as originating from a pact or an oath

Are you claiming that monk is such a solid& problem free example of what happens when PCs get everything they need from their base class that more classes should be created to do the same?

 

[CreamCloud0]

Are you claiming that monk is such a solid& problem free example of what happens when PCs get everything they need from their base class that more classes should be created to do the same?

how are you getting these takes from my posts? i am and have always been talking entirely about the narrative justifications of where their power is originating from, ie: that the fighter and rogue have exceptional skill and training allowed to reach extraordinary levels by the natural magics that exist in all things to justify their capabilities, like the cleric and paladin can thank divine magic or the wizard, sorcerer, bard and warlock use arcane magic, nothing more than that point, nothing less