D&D 5E (2014) What about warlocks and sorcerers?

[gyor]

That's not nitpicking, its flat out wrong. That's a wizard not an invoker, who is a divine magic caster, not arcane. The closest pre 4e class to invoker would be arcivist and even that is stretching it.

 

[the Jester]

I spoke with one of the designers at Gen Con, and he implied that the gonzo stuff will probably come out later. The PHB will have the same old classes it had for 3 editions.

No two editions' Players Handbooks have had the same classes.

That's not nitpicking, its flat out wrong. That's a wizard not an invoker, who is a divine magic caster, not arcane. The closest pre 4e class to invoker would be arcivist and even that is stretching it.

No, it's not wrong; there was an invoker in 2e in the PH. Just because it's a vastly different beast than the one in 4e doesn't mean it wasn't there. The class existed, albeit as a specialty mage type, but it existed. There nothing that inherently makes an invoker a divine characters outside of the version in 4e.

Just as you can't say the bard in 1e (who was actually a fighter/thief/druid) wasn't a bard because you didn't like it, and you can't say it wasn't in the 1e PH, it's factually wrong to claim that the invoker was not in the 2e PH.

(Edited to add the "Nothing inherently divine" line.)

 

[MoonSong]

That's partially true, but 3e had optional retraining rules for everyone, 3.5 let sorcerers retrain some spells at level up (IIRC) and they're fully part of the core system in 4e, so only partially. Yeah, they can't change them "at the drop of a hat", but they can when they put on a new outfit, if you will.

Still not a triviality (3.5 and PF sorcerers can only retrain spells at a rate of 1 each 4 levels, the 3e retraining rules are more drastic than that and aren't limited to spell selection they can even be a full rewrite of the character, 4e retraining is still limited to 1 power/feat/skill/feature by level) it takes considerable time and an oportunity cost to do changes to spells known, one at a time, far removed from being able to rewrite the whole reportorie after a good night's rest.(Compare a 4e wizard that still rewrites all dailies and utilities every day or the mage that rewrites encoutners too, even then a wizard retraining expanded spellbook/remmebered wizardry could easily retrain 4 or 5 spells at a time)

Where's this come from? I think rituals are awesome and I hope they stay in the game.

I meant "Given that Rituals are most likely out [for sorcerers]". rituals by themselves don't go with the sorcerer flavor and this is backed by history (PHB2 sorcerer dind't have it, elementalist sorcerer didn't have it, the draconic sorcerer they showed early in the playtest didn't have it) . Rituals serve a function, to allow primary casters to have less spell slots, but they don't work with sorcerer flavor, without rituals sorcerers will need something else to keep up.

Again- where do you get this? I haven't heard this one either, and I've tried to follow the designer discussions pretty closely. Is this speculation or do you have something to back it up?

It is more common sense than anything else, there's been an unsettling silence in the matter since they removed sorcerers and warlocks from the playtest. But it boils down to this: If sorcerer is going to be a Mage subclass with sorcerry subclasses, and the slots per day table is at class level, then all subclasses will use the same numbers regardless of their casting mechanics, otherwise they'd be full classes in all but name, and nothing is gained from this arrangement, no difference in page count, in fact the opossite, we just get three classes that cannot freely multiclass between them -even special subsubclasses are limited and constrained- with two of them losing on flavor and identity in benefit of the other one while also suffering from artificial complexity they wouldn't have if they received a clean and straight class write up, not the cross referencing madness that comes from having to selectively ignore portions on the main table to replace them with tables on the appendix/other book, a process prone to confussion, oimisions and mistakes.

That's flavor. If sorcerers in your campaign don't, that's fine, but if in my campaign sorcerers do draw their magic from the universe, please don't tell me I'm doing it wrong.

Sorry, didn't meant it to be that way, my argument was @pemerton gave a satisfactory explanation for how spell mastery might fit with the sorcerer, but it only works when sorcerers are tied to the cosmos -cosmic sorcerers- but they are way more diverse than that.

I spoke with one of the designers at Gen Con, and he implied that the gonzo stuff will probably come out later. The PHB will have the same old classes it had for 3 editions.

Care to be more speciffic on this regard?

 

[RangerWickett]

He didn't say specifically what would end up in the PHB, but when I suggested we needed green knights, warlocks, and people with super-powers, he replied that playtest feedback said that most folks don't like that sort of stuff, and that I'd probably have to wait for a later book to get the weird stuff I'm interested in.

I assume we'll have the same classes we had in 3e/3.5/PF. Then either a splatbook or PHB 2 will actually introduce things I like.

 

[MoonSong]

I also found this while surfing the net:

http://www.geekosystem.com/dnd-wizard-vs-sorcerer/

 

[pemerton]

A warlock's power isn't even measured by the day, they are already tireless -or should be- be it all of their powers are at-will already, or a considerable bunch of them are anyway while the others can be used constantly, an ability designed to give daily slot casters two at wills is of little use to them.

I think it depends a bit on what their other at-will spells are, what their encounter abilities are, etc.

Looking at the playtest spell list, for instance, Colour Spray at will looks like it could be useful, and also Invisibility at will.

 

[variant]

He didn't say specifically what would end up in the PHB, but when I suggested we needed green knights, warlocks, and people with super-powers, he replied that playtest feedback said that most folks don't like that sort of stuff, and that I'd probably have to wait for a later book to get the weird stuff I'm interested in.

I assume we'll have the same classes we had in 3e/3.5/PF. Then either a splatbook or PHB 2 will actually introduce things I like.

Mearls just said recently that the Warlock will be previewed, though it won't make it in the next packet.

 

[Warbringer]

I think it depends a bit on what their other at-will spells are, what their encounter abilities are, etc.

Looking at the playtest spell list, for instance, Colour Spray at will looks like it could be useful, and also Invisibility at will.

Well it's easy to shoehorn any caster into the vancian style, but I think it loses style; that goes for "spells" as well as preparing them.

Now that said, a refresh rate based on an action the warlock performs would be excellent, such as

"You regain this spell after a short rest if you offer a tribute to your patron"
"You regain this spell if it does at least 15 damage to a target you hexed" (A warlock hexs a target in the same way a fighter can mark them)
"You regain this spell by sacrificing a healing die (hit die) to your patron"

 

[pemerton]

Well it's easy to shoehorn any caster into the vancian style, but I think it loses style

I'm not an especially big fan of the Vancian mage. I was just trying to make the more narrow point that getting a 1st and a 2nd level spell at-will is useful for non-Vancian casters too.

 

[Warbringer]

Mearls just said recently that the Warlock will be previewed, though it won't make it in the next packet.

best case a sorcerer sub class
worst case a mage sub class