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

[DEFCON 1]

It always amuses me that bunches of players for some reason keep wanting to condense the game rules down into like three or four small buckets. "Merge the classes!" they say. But it's like "That's why the Basic Rules were for!" for 5E14. If you only want four classes... you had them right there at hand. But apparently that's not good enough for them, they need the entire full game squished down for everybody. Why is that? Is it because they are just unwilling to stand up to their players and tell them the game will only use the Core Four classes, and instead want the book's design to make that declaration for them? Because they don't have the guts to declare it themselves?

Anyone who wants to "get rid of" the Wizard / Sorcerer / Warlock (or Ranger, Paladin etc. etc. etc.) can do it and has been able to do it this entire time for decades. And if you haven't done it, it means either you don't actually care that much about it (which is why no one has taken your decrees seriously) or you know that none of your current players will go along with it because it's just not a fun or interesting idea and you're unwilling to take the time to find the people who will play the game in the manner you want. You want the Wizard, Sorcerer, and Warlock merged? Do it yourself and then find like-minded players to play that game you've created. You've had over a decade to do that for 5E alone.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But personal supernatural power need not--for the same reason that money inherited need not work the same way as money earned through labor need not work the same way as money discovered need not work the same way as--etc.

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

My point was simply to note the themes. None of them are being differentiated by how their magic works because Harry Potter is an obfuscated "Magic A" Is "Magic A" setting.

D&D is different. Different kinds of magic actually do work differently. Being granted power by exchange is actually, observably different from having power because it's literally in your physiological makeup. Many folks like this difference being represented in mechanics, because it means the mechanics have an innate story.

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?

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.

 

[Aldarc]

It always amuses me that bunches of players for some reason keep wanting to condense the game rules down into like three or four small buckets. "Merge the classes!" they say. But it's like "That's why the Basic Rules were for!" for 5E14. If you only want four classes... you had them right there at hand. But apparently that's not good enough for them, they need the entire full game squished down for everybody. Why is that? Is it because they are just unwilling to stand up to their players and tell them the game will only use the Core Four classes, and instead want the book's design to make that declaration for them? Because they don't have the guts to declare it themselves?

Anyone who wants to "get rid of" the Wizard / Sorcerer / Warlock (or Ranger, Paladin etc. etc. etc.) can do it and has been able to do it this entire time for decades. And if you haven't done it, it means either you don't actually care that much about it (which is why no one has taken your decrees seriously) or you know that none of your current players will go along with it because it's just not a fun or interesting idea and you're unwilling to take the time to find the people who will play the game in the manner you want. You want the Wizard, Sorcerer, and Warlock merged? Do it yourself and then find like-minded players to play that game you've created. You've had over a decade to do that for 5E alone.

I'm not advocating for that in this thread. Who do you have in mind with this post? Or is it just aimed at nobody for an easy target to dunk on?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It always amuses me that bunches of players for some reason keep wanting to condense the game rules down into like three or four small buckets. "Merge the classes!" they say. But it's like "That's why the Basic Rules were for!" for 5E14. If you only want four classes... you had them right there at hand. But apparently that's not good enough for them, they need the entire full game squished down for everybody. Why is that? Is it because they are just unwilling to stand up to their players and tell them the game will only use the Core Four classes, and instead want the book's design to make that declaration for them? Because they don't have the guts to declare it themselves?

Anyone who wants to "get rid of" the Wizard / Sorcerer / Warlock (or Ranger, Paladin etc. etc. etc.) can do it and has been able to do it this entire time for decades. And if you haven't done it, it means either you don't actually care that much about it (which is why no one has taken your decrees seriously) or you know that none of your current players will go along with it because it's just not a fun or interesting idea and you're unwilling to take the time to find the people who will play the game in the manner you want. You want the Wizard, Sorcerer, and Warlock merged? Do it yourself and then find like-minded players to play that game you've created. You've had over a decade to do that for 5E alone.

I did combine warlock and sorcerer into one class in my game. But the issue with too many classes is that they also rob design time and space from other classes. You cannot just achieve "fewer classes" design by taking "many classes" game and banning some of the classes. Classes that are supposed to cover more broad concepts need to be designed differently than narrower ones.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'm not advocating for that in this thread. Who do you have in mind with this post? Or is it just aimed at nobody for an easy target to dunk on?

People here have suggested that the game doesn't need the three arcane casting classes. So the post was aimed at them, along with anyone who has ever said that the Ranger shouldn't be a class or the Paladin should be removed from the game or made into subclasses or whatnot. But I did not quote somebody with my post specifically because I was not going to call out a single individual... there are more than enough posters for whom my post applies. But if someone sees themself in my post then yeah, it might very well apply to them.

 

[SkidAce]

Sorcerer and Warlock subclass thematics are very similar. It is just whether the thing was a patron or an ancestor. I don't think we need to have different classes and subclasses for demonpact/demonblood, feypact/feyblood dragonpact/dragonblood etc. Thematically it is a caster with that flavour of magic. And the fluff distinction between sorcerer and warlock is basically non-existent. Sorcerer actually does no need to be born with magic like many people seem to thing, they can be bestowed with magic later in life by a powerful entity just like a warlock. 2014 PHB:

Emphasis mine...

Consider the "Firestarter" sorcerer. The fluff between their spontaneous manifestation of uncontrollable fire (at first) and the warlock is pretty wide, IMO.


Edit:typo

 

[DEFCON 1]

I did combine warlock and sorcerer into one class in my game. But the issue with too many classes is that they also rob design time and space from other classes. You cannot just achieve "fewer classes" design by taking "many classes" game and banning some of the classes. Classes that are supposed to cover more broad concepts need to be designed differently than narrower ones.

What exactly would be the point or necessity then of taking all the material one has from all the classes and just relocating them into other classes? You are not gaining or losing anything other than the names of the buckets the information shows up in. So rather than Wizard being its own top-level identifier, one just moves all of it under the top tier identifier of Sorcerer and makes the identifier of Wizard a second-tier but with everything for the Wizard built up just as much as it is right now? (Or Warlock under Sorcerer or Ranger under Fighter etc. etc.) I really don't see the gain or the point (other than a single individual gets to say "Ha! The book now looks the way I want it to look!")

 

[Aldarc]

People here have suggested that the game doesn't need the three arcane casting classes. So the post was aimed at them, along with anyone who has ever said that the Ranger shouldn't be a class or the Paladin should be removed from the game or made into subclasses or whatnot. But I did not quote somebody with my post specifically because I was not going to call out a single individual... there are more than enough posters for whom my post applies. But if someone sees themself in my post then yeah, it might very well apply to them.

"Need" does a lot of heavy lifting for everyone's argument. D&D doesn't "need" the three arcane casting classes. It doesn't even "need" one. However, I don't think that D&D benefits from this current array, which I understand isn't necessarily a view shared by others. But that's also not the same as arguing that there should only be one arcane spellcasting class. I just think that that the classes need to be reorganized and conceptualized better, and I proposed an alternative.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sorcerer and Warlock subclass thematics are very similar. It is just whether the thing was a patron or an ancestor. I don't think we need to have different classes and subclasses for demonpact/demonblood, feypact/feyblood dragonpact/dragonblood etc. Thematically it is a caster with that flavour of magic. And the fluff distinction between sorcerer and warlock is basically non-existent. Sorcerer actually does no need to be born with magic like many people seem to thing, they can be bestowed with magic later in life by a powerful entity just like a warlock. 2014 PHB:

"Some sorcerers can’t name the origin of their
power, while others trace it to strange events in their
own lives. The touch of a demon, the blessing of a
dryad at a baby’s birth, or a taste o f the water from
a mysterious spring might spark the gift of sorcery.
So too might the gift of a deity of magic, exposure
to the elemental forces o f the Inner Planes or the
maddening chaos of Limbo, or a glimpse into the
inner workings of reality."

"Most often, sorcerers with this origin trace their descent
back to a mighty sorcerer of ancient times who made a
bargain with a dragon or who might even have claimed
a dragon parent."

Sorcerer makes much more sense thematically if all those bolded points didn't work, and it was more explicitly ancestral.

 

[DEFCON 1]

"Need" does a lot of heavy lifting for everyone's argument. D&D doesn't "need" the three arcane casting classes. It doesn't even "need" one. However, I don't think that D&D benefits from this current array, which I understand isn't necessarily a view shared by others. But that's also not the same as arguing that there should only be one arcane spellcasting class. I just think that that the classes need to be reorganized and conceptualized better, and I proposed an alternative.

Well, I hope you have successfully worked out your solution and have instituted it into your games. There's no better place for them!