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

[Scribe]

I mean sure, but the point was that this was more or less the first time it hit. This was early. We're talking pretty much the exact middle of the public playtest. The playtest Warlock and Sorcerer were the first and only time I was actually upbeat about 5e's prospects: it wouldn't be what I liked best, but if it had been that, I could have been happy with it. Instead, they instantaneously caved and literally never touched those classes again in public, and as a consequence produced two classes that were very clearly half-baked. (Even many with much more positive views of 5.0 thought so eventually; it was one of the few actual criticisms anyone was even remotely willing to consider for a while.)

Sure but that was over a decade ago.

 

[CM]

Sorcerer, for if you won the birthright lottery.
Warlock, if you want the easy path to power, future self be damned.
Wizard, if you weren't lucky enough for the former and refuse to bend the knee to the latter.

 

[cbwjm]

I make no distinction between wizard and sorcerer, both need inborn power in the fiction. Warlocks borrow power.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I make no distinction between wizard and sorcerer, both need inborn power in the fiction. Warlocks borrow power.

Where does it say that wizards need inborn power in the fiction?

 

[cbwjm]

Where does it say that wizards need inborn power in the fiction?

It might not say it in current DnD, but it's fairly common in fiction that people need the spark of magic before unlocking the ability to make use of it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It might not say it in current DnD, but it's fairly common in fiction that people need the spark of magic before unlocking the ability to make use of it.

It is, but I thought we were talking about gaming. Otherwise the class discussion is meaningless.

 

[cbwjm]

It is, but I thought we were talking about gaming. Otherwise the class discussion is meaningless.

That's not quite how I read the OP, but I might be wrong.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Sure but that was over a decade ago.

Sometimes, it is useful to highlight where a trend started, particularly when that point is also relevant to the conversation for what it is individually, in addition to the historical value.

 

[Minigiant]

I always thought

Wizardry
Sorcery
Warlocky

Should be different types of magic.

I personally think cantrips should be a sorcery thing that Wizards, warlocks, and priests give themselves with spells.

 

[CreamCloud0]

i will admit, even within the sole confines of 5e's spell slots and levels i think there's surprising room for making different spellcasters feel mechanically different if they just had the guts to make anything that breaks the mould, look at warlock, fundamentally it doesn't really do anything different besides adjusting the level, number and frequency of it's spell slots, but that results in a totally different feeling caster,

you could have a purecaster that never got anything more than 1/3rd casting but in exchange gets a ton of those low level slots. or if the sorcerer had been made to run solely on spell points.

i think one of the unnecessary limitations that 5e puts upon itself is that sometimes things are a little too standardized.