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

[Ruin Explorer]

I know there’s a bit of a mechanical difference between them in how the cast, slots, sorcery points, spell lists, etc.

I know there’s a membrane-thin fluff difference between them in one is born to power, one trades for power, and one studies for power. But that has effectively zero impact on the mechanics or actually playing one of the three.

But is that all? Even over a decade in to 5E and they just read like excuses to include different casting mechanics.

So fans of these three classes, besides the mechanics, what’s the draw?

The difference between Sorcerers and Wizards, in terms of actual theme is basically nothing. People can talk about like "inner power" and so but really they're basically interchangeable. 5E only made them closer after weirdly dumping an actually-differentiated Sorcerer who was in the playtests (without playtesting the bland 3E-esque one we got IIRC).

Wizard could very easily be a Sorcerer subclass who has access to a lot of extra spells via spellbook-related subclass abilities, for example.

Their mechanics are also fairly similar. Especially in 5E, where even though Wizards lose metamagic (accessed via Feats in 3E), their new memorization/casting regime is very Sorcerer-like.

Warlocks on the other hand are an actually distinct class both mechanically and conceptually. A lot of fantasy casters if you brought them into D&D, it'd be unclear if they were a Wizard or a Sorcerer (particularly as in most fantasy you need both internal power AND training to use magic, not one OR the other), but the few who would be Warlocks are very clear.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The difference between Sorcerers and Wizards, in terms of actual theme is basically nothing. People can talk about like "inner power" and so but really they're basically interchangeable. 5E only made them closer after weirdly dumping an actually-differentiated Sorcerer who was in the playtests (without playtesting the bland 3E-esque one we got IIRC).

Wizard could very easily be a Sorcerer subclass who has access to a lot of extra spells via spellbook-related subclass abilities, for example.

Their mechanics are also fairly similar. Especially in 5E, where even though Wizards lose metamagic (accessed via Feats in 3E), their new memorization/casting regime is very Sorcerer-like.

Warlocks on the other hand are an actually distinct class both mechanically and conceptually. A lot of fantasy casters if you brought them into D&D, it'd be unclear if they were a Wizard or a Sorcerer (particularly as in most fantasy you need both internal power AND training to use magic, not one OR the other), but the few who would be Warlocks are very clear.

This is why I'm happy that A5e put some real effort into differentiating wizards and sorcerers.

 

[Staffan]

My opinion?

Wizards are born with that magical spark. But unlike Sorcerers, it has to be trained and learned to be of any use. Students of Magic.
Sorcerers are born with a magical bonfire, that manifests spontaneously until they get the hang of it. Natural Athletes of Magic.
Warlocks make a deal and cheat the system to learn hacks and shortcuts, and gain certain bits of magic. Tool users of Magic.
Clerics align with deities and gods and powers, etc, letting the power of philosophy or the god flow through them. Channelers of Magic.

I had a vague idea for a setting back in early 3e (when Sorcerers were New and Shiny and had Belts), where Wizardry was the main advantage the "civilized" people had over other humanoids. Kobolds, goblins, orcs, and the like could occasionally be born with sorcerous power, and that magic could sometimes be really powerful. But elves and humans and the like had figured out how to teach someone to use magic – a more laborious process, to be certain, as shown by wizards having a higher starting age, but basically anyone with Intelligence 11+ could be taught to be a wizard if you just applied the resources for it. So the orc horde might have a handful of sorcerers around, but the human army would have dozens if not hundreds of wizards.

 

[jayoungr]

I know there’s a membrane-thin fluff difference between them in one is born to power, one trades for power, and one studies for power.

I actually find that this makes quite a large difference in character concept.

What does being born to power mean in a particular family? A particular society? Do you hide it or are you open about it?

What led you to make the trade for power? What sort of being did you trade with, and how did you encounter said being?

Where did you study magic? Who were your teachers? Were you a good student or a reluctant one?

 

[Voadam]

I had a vague idea for a setting back in early 3e (when Sorcerers were New and Shiny and had Belts), where Wizardry was the main advantage the "civilized" people had over other humanoids. Kobolds, goblins, orcs, and the like could occasionally be born with sorcerous power, and that magic could sometimes be really powerful. But elves and humans and the like had figured out how to teach someone to use magic – a more laborious process, to be certain, as shown by wizards having a higher starting age, but basically anyone with Intelligence 11+ could be taught to be a wizard if you just applied the resources for it. So the orc horde might have a handful of sorcerers around, but the human army would have dozens if not hundreds of wizards.

I've done the reverse.

I played a (pathfinder 1e) sorcerer with the stars (mythos) bloodline where his noble family generations earlier had engineered a mythos encounter/event thing in their ancestral hall to develop a sorcerous bloodline among them.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

They are separate classes because, even if we consider their core themes not that different for argument's sake, they all lend themselves to a large number of subclasses based on their core thematic concept, which is important in the 5e class structure. Wizards get themed around schools or traditions of magic, sorcerers around various ways they could have innately inherited power, and Warlocks around whomever they swore a pact with. If you tried to lump all the fairly obvious concepts for types of arcanists into one class it would need an incredible number of subclasses in several major groupings, and one would certainly struggle to dream up a comparable amount of stong subclass concepts for Barbarians or what not.

Now of course if the publisher did not care about one class clearly being more important with more subclasses than the others this wouldn't be a big issue, but they seem to dig symmetry.

 

[Aldarc]

To be clear, I don't think that "rethinking the need for these classes" necessarily should equate to "they should all be one class." I have said time and time again that I would prefer classes built around clearer themes, archetypes, and playstyles that are easier for new players to identify. You can have multiple mage archetypes, but give them something with more meat, fat, and flavor.

 

[CreamCloud0]

To be clear, I don't think that "rethinking the need for these classes" necessarily should equate to "they should all be one class." I have said time and time again that I would prefer classes built around clearer themes, archetypes, and playstyles that are easier for new players to identify. You can have multiple mage archetypes, but give them something with more meat, fat, and flavor.

I feel like wizards need to take a step back towards being mechanical specialists, so you know fire magic, or abjuration, or summoning, kinda like the state alchemists of full metal alchemist, you can’t be the toolbox wizard in FMA because you NEED to know the appropriate formulae for what you’re doing or else it fails or worse backfires, wizards need to focus on their thesis topic hard, but can learn anything that fits it, a fire mage can learn produce flame, control flame, fireball, wall of fire, faerie fire, imbue weapon-fire, flame arrows, dragonsbreath-fire, summon fire elemental, investiture of fire and even stuff like an alchemists fire spell or healing pheonix fire, but it’s all fire, maybe there’s some allowances for versatility in the very low level spells but by mid levels a wizard is bound to their specialty.

Sorcerers on the other hand ought to have a grab bag of conceptually associated spells, you’re a draconic sorcerer, you get dragony spells, you don’t have a niche so much as a theme, you’d get stuff like dragonsbreath, fly, summon draconic spirit, locate object, fear, and while you might have a more limited spell list you get to make up for it by juicing your spells with metamagic to be more potent, again maybe some versatile low level coverage in their spell list for like, ‘raw magic use’ stuff like magic missile, shield or mage armour.

That leaves warlocks, warlock’s niche would be that they don’t have one, (you get appropriate class features but those are separate from your magic) this powerful entity is giving you magic on the sly and you get to pick from a large pool of potential spells without worrying about learning things the slow way or being limited to your bloodline, you can learn nearly anything but you only get to learn a few spells and pact magic comes in short bursts before you run out and have to recharge.