D&D 5E (2024) What’s the difference between sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards?

[EzekielRaiden]

It literally does though, so that's hella weird comparison.

It literally doesn't. Money you inherit almost always has strings attached. Money you earn yourself is yours to do whatever the hell you want with. Money you find generally has a bunch of legal red tape before you can get to it.

And then in D&D: Does your Warlock sugar daddy let you use metamagic?

How it is different? Like if we examine the metaphysical composition of a sorcerer with demonic blood and warlock who was infused with demonic power as result of a pact, what is different about them?

One can warp the rules of magic.

The other casts fewer spells with greater inherent potency.

Also, I totally get wanting mechanics to evoke the themes, I just really do not think that in this instance they do. How does having always-on magical powers and rapidly recharging spells relate to the narrative of having made a pact with an external entity? Like I can see how those would evoke the sorcerer fluff of being an innately magical being, but they have nothing to do with pacts.

Because the spells are always as potent as the pact-ee can handle. That's why they're so juiced--and also why they're more limited. You're literally pumping more magic mojo through your body than you can properly handle.

Would it be cool if they had done more? Hell yes! I was VERY much in favor of the playtest Warlock, where you actually had to give up various roleplay elements of your character as part of picking up powers. It was the first and only time I've ever seen "roleplay costs for power benefits" done right, because it was a baseline class, and thus balanced, the roleplay costs were just there to guide your roleplay, to add interest and spice, not to balance the power.

But nooooo, 5e had to be the apology edition, so they scrapped both the awesome playtest Sorcerer and the generally cool playtest Warlock, never let us see another one for the entire public playtest, and farted out barely-tested crap for both classes in the published game, which is part of why we got 5.5e in the first place.

If your challenge is "well okay but this is pretty weaksauce," YES, I AGREE. I've been agreeing with you since bloody 2013!

 

[DEFCON 1]

Wanna go to the moon? Do it yourself. It's as simple as that. Same sort of unhelpful energy but certainly easy for you to smugly say to someone, and then when they say that they can't do it (for whatever their reasons) or that it's just what they want to see for the game, you can come along and just blame them for their failures or unwillingness to try. As if the only way you can advocate for something new or an alternative approach is to create it yourself, which is utter BS. As I said, I find these sort of replies to be unhelpful and lacking real insight. Simple as that.

You've had two entire 5E playtests to try and get WotC to make you wanted and they didn't do it, and then you have had over 10 years to do it yourself if you really wanted it that badly or go find someone else who HAS done it that you could then use. None of that has happened. I'm sorry that you don't like it when people mention the truth of the situation.

 

[Aldarc]

You've had two entire 5E playtests to try and get WotC to make you wanted and they didn't do it, and then you have had over 10 years to do it yourself if you really wanted it that badly or go find someone else who HAS done it that you could then use. None of that has happened. I'm sorry that you don't like it when people mention the truth of the situation.

You may have missed this part:

I'm not asking for any help. I was making a proposal for an alternative approach to the classes in question because I was asked by someone in this thread what I would do.

Your response is a complete non-sequitur, Defcon. Why are you doubling down on it? Or is it just something that you always have rehearsed and prepped to use no matter if it's actually applicable to the conversation being had?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It literally doesn't.

Money. You said money. Money literally works the same regardless of the source.

One can warp the rules of magic.

Surely this is the one who got cheat codes via a pact?

The other casts fewer spells with greater inherent potency.

Certainty this rapidly recharging magic and always-on magical features signify an innately magical being?

Because the spells are always as potent as the pact-ee can handle. That's why they're so juiced--and also why they're more limited. You're literally pumping more magic mojo through your body than you can properly handle.

But clerics channel power of literal gods, so certainly this would be true for them as well, and even more so?

Would it be cool if they had done more? Hell yes! I was VERY much in favor of the playtest Warlock, where you actually had to give up various roleplay elements of your character as part of picking up powers. It was the first and only time I've ever seen "roleplay costs for power benefits" done right, because it was a baseline class, and thus balanced, the roleplay costs were just there to guide your roleplay, to add interest and spice, not to balance the power.

But nooooo, 5e had to be the apology edition, so they scrapped both the awesome playtest Sorcerer and the generally cool playtest Warlock, never let us see another one for the entire public playtest, and farted out barely-tested crap for both classes in the published game, which is part of why we got 5.5e in the first place.

If your challenge is "well okay but this is pretty weaksauce," YES, I AGREE. I've been agreeing with you since bloody 2013!

OK. It is weaksauce. Sorcerer in particular. It is just a terrible design. It is basically a wizard with metamagic. And converting sorcery points to spell slots and back is awkward as hell. Either metamagic should work via upcasting, or the class as whole should operate on spell points. And the thematics are super confuses. Like if it was strictly about magical blood, then there might be cleared distinctiveness, but it is not. It is just "can do magic for some reason," and many of those reasons sound a lot like Warlock.

I think it is mistake to put a class in the game just because class with that name existed in previous editions. If you don't have good mechanics or fluff for it, just don't do it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Money. You said money. Money literally works the same regardless of the source.

You have--very clearly--never inherited stuff.

Because I have, and I've helped friends navigate that goddamn minefield. It's awful.

So no. Money you inherit IS NOT the same as money you just have because you put it in a bank account yourself.

It has all sorts of hoops and problems and BS and lawyers and their BS and...oh my God it can be the f@#king WORST.

A friend of mine's family literally almost lost a house...that his grandmother legally owned, no mortgage, no nothing, 100% owned...because the lawyers were doing questionable BS and dragging their feet. All they wanted to do was transfer the deed to his cousin and their spouse, so they would have a place to live. That's all they wanted to do.

It took them four months to get it worked out.

Inheritance is not the same as money you already have because you earned it. It isn't. Not until you actually get to the moment you spend it.

And guess what? That is the difference between a Sorcerer and a Wizard. The spells are the same, but how you get and use them is different.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Surely this is the one who got cheat codes via a pact?

Not in D&D. Your framing, incidentally, biases things inherently. Why would pacts be "cheat codes"? Why wouldn't they be, say, carte blanche, or stuff too hot to handle (which is the analogy I used)? You're inherently twisting it so the only story you permit is the one that makes you right and everyone else wrong. There are other stories we can tell. WotC chose a different one. You don't like the one they chose. That's not the same as saying that it's bad that they chose it!

Certainty this rapidly recharging magic and always-on magical features signify an innately magical being?

No? Why would it?

Do dragons work that way? Do angels work that way? Do demons work that way?

Now you're just literally inventing things without basis.

But clerics channel power of literal gods, so certainly this would be true for them as well, and even more so?

Uh....no?

How...do you think divine magic works...?

Because, as a religious person myself, no. That's nothing like how reverence and transcendental experience work. Like, at all. Not even a little bit.

OK. It is weaksauce. Sorcerer in particular. It is just a terrible design. It is basically a wizard with metamagic. And converting sorcery points to spell slots and back is awkward as hell. Either metamagic should work via upcasting, or the class as whole should operate on spell points. And the thematics are super confuses. Like if it was strictly about magical blood, then there might be cleared distinctiveness, but it is not. It is just "can do magic for some reason," and many of those reasons sound a lot like Warlock.

I think it is mistake to put a class in the game just because class with that name existed in previous editions. If you don't have good mechanics or fluff for it, just don't do it.

I mean, I have very literally argued--I'm pretty sure to you personally--that the Sorcerer we got sucked, and that the playtest Sorcerer was awesome. It had this whole thematics of being dual-souled, of having a constant tug-of-war battle between their mortal soul and their arcane one, with the distant but theoretical threat of the latter consuming the former, leaving them a twisted monster forever. Unleashing their magic power (which, in this context, was specifically spell points, so they did in fact access their power differently compared to Wizards) literally was taking off the leash, allowing their arcane soul to physically manifest in the world.

It was cool as naughty word, GENUINELY completely different from Wizards, nothing to do with metamagic, everything to do with an evolving playstyle across the course of each day. The possibilities of what other sorcerous souls could produce--what would a storm soul do? A shadow soul? A celestial soul?--were incredibly tantalizing.

But nope. Welcome to 5th edition, the place where creative game design went to die. Everything had to be """traditional"""--and by "traditional" I of course mean "like 3.5e as much as possible while paying lip service to the fact that it's known to have problems."

If you want to be mad, don't be mad at me for saying Sorcerers and Warlocks are cool. Be mad at WotC for caving to peer pressure at a moment's notice when they should have given even one single attempt to address the concerns and create something people could get behind.

But they didn't. They surrendered instantly, because 5e was all about surrendering to haters, and now we're stuck with dull, boring, flavorless crap.

Congratulations on winning the edition war. I'm sure your winnings must be ever so sweet.

 

[Hriston]

Warlock is 8th-level.
Sorcerer is 9th-level.
And Wizard is 11th-level.

Serious answer: wizards are Dying Earth wizards.
Warlocks are Elric of Melniboné.
I'm not that familiar with Sword and Sorcery and can't think of a character that fits the Sorcerer archetype, but Merlin comes to mind.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't find answers like this to be particularly helpful.

What kind of help are you looking for then?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Warlock is 8th-level.
Sorcerer is 9th-level.
And Wizard is 11th-level.

Serious answer: wizards are Dying Earth wizards.
Warlocks are Elric of Melniboné.
I'm not that familiar with Sword and Sorcery and can't think of a character that fits the Sorcerer archetype, but Merlin comes to mind.

True proper Myrddin was a druid, but the Arthurian romances, particularly those that re-cast Merlin as an incubus' child baptised on the day of his birth so he was free of Satan's influence, definitely put him closer to "sorcerer" than "wizard" in many cases. Not all--sometimes he is entirely bookish--but in many cases his magic is weird and kind of creepy but just naturally belonging to him, not something "learned" so much as manifested. Which is close enough to Sorcerer.

The Sorcerer archetype is more common in modern fantasy fiction, where the idea that your dad or grandmother (or whatever) was magical, and thus so are you, took off due to the Young Adult fiction genre.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It literally doesn't. Money you inherit almost always has strings attached. Money you earn yourself is yours to do whatever the hell you want with. Money you find generally has a bunch of legal red tape before you can get to it.

And then in D&D: Does your Warlock sugar daddy let you use metamagic?


One can warp the rules of magic.

The other casts fewer spells with greater inherent potency.


Because the spells are always as potent as the pact-ee can handle. That's why they're so juiced--and also why they're more limited. You're literally pumping more magic mojo through your body than you can properly handle.

Would it be cool if they had done more? Hell yes! I was VERY much in favor of the playtest Warlock, where you actually had to give up various roleplay elements of your character as part of picking up powers. It was the first and only time I've ever seen "roleplay costs for power benefits" done right, because it was a baseline class, and thus balanced, the roleplay costs were just there to guide your roleplay, to add interest and spice, not to balance the power.

But nooooo, 5e had to be the apology edition, so they scrapped both the awesome playtest Sorcerer and the generally cool playtest Warlock, never let us see another one for the entire public playtest, and farted out barely-tested crap for both classes in the published game, which is part of why we got 5.5e in the first place.

If your challenge is "well okay but this is pretty weaksauce," YES, I AGREE. I've been agreeing with you since bloody 2013!

I've long advocated that any creature beholden to a more powerful being (warlocks, clerics, maybe paladins and druids too) should have strings attached to that power. But that doesn't jive with the "showing off our cool powerz" playstyle of modern D&D.