D&D 5E We need more spells known

[FormerlyHemlock]

Nah, that'd be like 900 spell-point ('mana') systems per player, there weren't more than 10 per...

But NPCs played AD&D too, back in the day. Or at least I'm pretty sure Elminster and Mordenkainen did at least, in the pages of Dragon Magazine. If every DM has at least one game world with a billion NPCs, and if even 1% of those NPCs plays AD&D, and each of those NPCs has at least one spell point system variant in their AD&D game, then even just 101 DMs can have a billion and ten million spell point systems between them.

 

[cbwjm]

As others have mentioned, I'm also open to increasing the spell lists of sorcerers. That could just mean merging the sorcerer spell list with wizard and having them all available to both classes or providing a thematic expanded spell list which is what I went with for my lithomancer sorcerer subclass which I just allowed them to learn any spell dealing with earth or stone. I was actually going to scrap the subclass after the sorcerer UA came out but the stone sorcerer is really a metal sorcerer and I feel my version was unique enough to keep.

 

[Immoralkickass]

I think Sorcerers know too many spells.

No really, I'm serious. I'd rather see metamagic expanded considerably to make it more useful. Make it good enough and the sorcerer should barely need more than one spell per spell level.

Fixing sorcerers by giving them more known spells just turns them back into alt-wizards. Meh.

You can't be serious. Do you know how many spells a 1st level Sorcerer know? Two. Freaking Two, and they only get 1 spell every time they level up. You can't call yourself a sorcerer if you reduce it further. Because you'd be a pony. A one-trick pony.

 

[MoonSong]

I think Sorcerers know too many spells.

No really, I'm serious. I'd rather see metamagic expanded considerably to make it more useful. Make it good enough and the sorcerer should barely need more than one spell per spell level.

Fixing sorcerers by giving them more known spells just turns them back into alt-wizards. Meh.

I'd rather be an alt-wizard than a crappy third rate wizard that is superfluous to the party. (Because the wizard can do basically everything I can do, many times better than I can do it, and can do it more often than I can do it on top of also being able to do even more stuff than I can, change it everyday and that is without entering into things I cannot do at all. Oh and now the designers are working on a subclass that not only steps on the sorcerer's toes, it has already broken her legs.

 

[Eubani]

Does the op really hate martial classes so much that he thinks that caster classes need to over shadow them even more?

 

[Lanefan]

(2) The PHB is very generous with wizard spells. You automatically learn two spells each time you go up a level, so in practice 5E wizards don't have to behave like Mazirian and covet/swap/trade/steal spells from other wizards, since they already have their most-coveted spells of each level automatically.

Very very simple house-rule fix for this: make the spells thus learned be randomly rolled from that level's list. This way, unless the wizard is really lucky she still has to go out and find/buy/trade-for the spells she really wants.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

You can't be serious. Do you know how many spells a 1st level Sorcerer know? Two. Freaking Two, and they only get 1 spell every time they level up. You can't call yourself a sorcerer if you reduce it further. Because you'd be a pony. A one-trick pony.

Well, truth be told, at one spell per level you'd eventually be a nine-trick pony...

Lan-"can't teach an old pony new tricks"-efan

 

[CapnZapp]

Sorcerers are fine if and only if they choose the best spells of every level and category.

So you can't simply give them more spells; this would only give the Fire Blaster more toys than she needs.

Instead, what the Sorcerer class desperately needs is a much more involved framework for themes and elements, and part of that is to allow Sorcerers to switch out best-in-class spells such as Fireball for more than one other spell.

PS. And if we're not talking first-party publishing, official WotC stuff, I'm not interested. So I'm not holding my breath on ever wanting to play a Sorcerer... DS.

 

[CapnZapp]

I think Sorcerers know too many spells.

No really, I'm serious. I'd rather see metamagic expanded considerably to make it more useful. Make it good enough and the sorcerer should barely need more than one spell per spell level.

Fixing sorcerers by giving them more known spells just turns them back into alt-wizards. Meh.

I'd rather be an alt-wizard than a crappy third rate wizard that is superfluous to the party. (Because the wizard can do basically everything I can do, many times better than I can do it, and can do it more often than I can do it on top of also being able to do even more stuff than I can, change it everyday and that is without entering into things I cannot do at all. Oh and now the designers are working on a subclass that not only steps on the sorcerer's toes, it has already broken her legs.

I think the best scenario is if WotC tosses away the current Sorcerer and starts from scratch.

Give metamagic to every spellcasting class, Wizards in particular. (And no, I'm not talking about yet another archetype, the "metamagic school". I'm talking about using metamagic as it was meant: as an overlay on top of all existing casters, at least all "full" casters)

Then create a Sorcerer class with specific and extensive support for the themes we want to play: a Winter Witch should get a lot of cold spells and the incentives to use them all the time. So the first step is to choose your theme: winter, blood, rage, monsters (such as black dragon). Don't be afraid to make the framework slightly freeform, where the DM is empowered to make final calls as to which spell belongs to which theme (the secret is that this doesn't wreck balance nearly as much as you'd think).

Perhaps sorcerers get some of their spells from random lists. Sorcerers should all have a way to fuel spells with hit points (a Blood Mage might even use others').

The Wild Mage needs basic support in the form of a couple of new spells that are highly random for everybody except the Wild Mage who can control them.

 

[Alexemplar]

You can't be serious. Do you know how many spells a 1st level Sorcerer know? Two. Freaking Two, and they only get 1 spell every time they level up. You can't call yourself a sorcerer if you reduce it further. Because you'd be a pony. A one-trick pony.

This pretty much puts the Sorcerer on par with most noncaster classes.

Which I think says more about the ridiculous amount of versatility and options casters get.