D&D 5E What are your thoughts on the DnD Next playtest sorcerer compared to the final 5e sorcerer?

[Quickleaf]

I love the flavor text for the sorcerer in the PHB. Every time I've read it, I get such an evocative picture painted in my mind of what the class is all about.

But, for me, the mechanics look like just another wizard variant. I'd have to play a 5e sorcerer to be sure, but I have played a 5e wizard briefly, and seen a couple sorcerers in play by others.

The mechanics of that playtest sorcerer were interesting... "the more magic you use, the more your true self is revealed" ...but I do think they lean towards more monstrous interpretations of the sorcerer coming from a lineage of dragons or, like someone mentioned above, vampires or werewolves.

I think that's an interesting mechanic, but for me it does not align with that wonderful prose description in the PHB either.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I wish the foundation as bit more bare honestly. I would prefer that WotC just make the foundation and leave the tinkering to everyone else (which is pretty much what they have done). I mean there is so much great ideas around 5e that is amazing - they are just not coming from WotC. And I am absolutely fine with that. If they just made the core 3 and published adventures - I would be completely fine with that.

I'd absolutely hate that. Lots of us have groups which only use official material. So being stuck with the same few subclasses from the PHB for 8 years would be hell.

I hate it already with classes. But not having any new subclasses would make the game get stale very fast.

 

[Greg K]

I enjoyed the concept of the playtest sorcerer. Their HD, proficiencies, etc being different depending on their bloodline/origin was something interesting. But they were too stuck on innate magic = dragon ancestor they opened with a more martial-leaning sorcerer, which people apparently didn't want to play.

I wanted a martial sorcerer. Just not how they approached it.

 

[Yaarel]

Psionics in DnD already has a distinct flavor, one with new-age, pseudoscientific, and space fantasy tropes. It's never been race specific.

Ah.

The technobabble flavor is fine for a scifi setting.

A medievalesque setting works better with the premodern mind powers of animistic flavor, shamanistic outofbody flavor, and mystic transcendental flavor.

I am fond of the name "psion" and consider it an endearing D&Dism. But for everything else the medievalesque flavors fit in better.

What the word psionics means is, mind over matter: intention, thought, emotion, influencing reality. This is a premodern - indeed a prehistoric - concept.

 

[dave2008]

I'd absolutely hate that. Lots of us have groups which only use official material. So being stuck with the same few subclasses from the PHB for 8 years would be hell.

I hate it already with classes. But not having any new subclasses would make the game get stale very fast.

Yep, they can't please everyone. We have been playing the same characters for 6 years, so it always boggles my mind when people are clamoring for more, more, more!

I guess my stance (and the stance of my group) is not game has every given us exactly what we want "officially," so we are more than happy to modify as needed. Official is, and always ahs been, just a starting point for us.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Ah.

The technobabble flavor is fine for a scifi setting.

A medievalesque setting works better with the premodern mind powers of animistic flavor, shamanistic outofbody flavor, and mystic transcendental flavor.

I am fond of the name "psion" and consider it an endearing D&Dism. But for everything else the medievalesque flavors fit in better.

What the word psionics means is, mind over matter: intention, thought, emotion, influencing reality. This is a premodern - indeed a prehistoric - concept.

Eh, psionics is generally not used for medievalesque flavor, any more than artificers or gunslingers.

 

[MoonSong]

If WotC would have been more open to spontaneous innate spellcasting coming from something other than dragons at the time (just about every sorcerer origin pre-5e was from a dragon getting freaky with a humanoid sometime in the distant past), they might have thought of something other than a draconic sorcerer to put into the playtest. And then they go and make dragons in the MM elemental breathing bags of meat, with a pathetic side-bar saying "you can add spellcasting to them by doing this but they can never do anything magical above what a 7th level character can do!"

I enjoyed the concept of the playtest sorcerer. Their HD, proficiencies, etc being different depending on their bloodline/origin was something interesting. But they were too stuck on innate magic = dragon ancestor they opened with a more martial-leaning sorcerer, which people apparently didn't want to play.

That was one thing that drew me to Pathfinder (other than my dislike of 4e, despite a few attempts at it). Sorcerers had numerous origins for their innate magical powers, instead of just a dragon did it with great-great-great granddad. Also, it was a nice breath of fresh air when we got the wild magic sorcerer, though that air came from a sweaty unwashed bottom when I tried to play a wild magic sorcerer and no matter how much magic I cast, a surge never happened.

The sorcerer wasn't the problem. The wizard was the problem. Beyond some excepticism -that maybe it should be toned down-, the playtest sorcerer was well received. The problem was all the wizard players complaining that they wanted spell point too and how sick they were of pure vancian wizards. So the design team decided that wizard needed some urgent rework and until it was done right they wouldn't dedicate time to sorcerers. Then someone had the dumb idea that maybe it would be possible to have the wizard return to be the one caster to rule them all it was -or wanted to be- back in the times of the Mage/Magic user and you could just choose to have "sorcery" and "witchery" instead of "wizardry" but what they ended up with was too much of a wizard to give room for sorcerers to breathe. This didn't fly in the surveys, so they spun those separate traditions to built an independent sorcerer -and warlock- at the eleventh hour when the public playtest was over (I suspect this is why sorcerers ended up with toy weapons instead of all simple weapons)

In short the problem with sorcerer was and keeps being the wizard. Also, that nobody in the design team seems to really love the class, every step that would have helped the class was quickly backtracked, until eventually, finally reluctantly taken years later. Nothing new considering that the designer who created the class -or is mostly responsible for creating the class- was also its greatest detractor.

 

[Yaarel]

Eh, psionics is generally not used for medievalesque flavor, any more than artificers or gunslingers.

I understand, youre a psionics fan but in the camp that likes the technobabble flavor?

Im in the camp thhat wants "normal" psionics. The natural English terminology, like "innate spellcasting", and the medievalesque flavors like "mystic" are important.

Psionics is central to Viking Era animism. The Norse word is "hugar", literally "minds", meaning mindforces, always plural. Psionics is the source of all Norse magic. It is an important cultural concept for Nordic peoples. The term "hamr", meaning form, refers to the mental visualization that reshapes reality.

 

[Yaarel]

Likewise, psionics relates to medival Jewish mysticism, that seeks to unite the human soul-spirit-consciousness with the Divine "brains" of Knowledge, Understanding, and Sageness, whence the influx of miracles.

There is nothing "modern" about psionics.

 

[Yaarel]

The playtest sorcerer was well received.

Maybe. It seemed that the forums liked the transmogrifying sorcerer, but we did get to see the public survey results.

The problem was all the wizard players complaining that they wanted spell point too and how sick they were of pure vancian wizards.

Yes!

Then someone had the dumb idea that maybe it would be possible to have the wizard return to be the one caster to rule them all it was -or wanted to be- back in the times

The 5e Wizard is the best D&D Wizard ever, mechanically.

At the same time, I feel the Wizard can benefit from more thematic focus.

I would be happy if the Wizard only did elemental magic - earth, air, fire, water, plus ether, plus plant - including energy blasts and elemental transmutation and creation.

Give the other spells to form other classes.



By contrast, I view the D&D as more about a creature type or creature, such as Dragon, Aberration, Undead maybe as a vampire class, maybe chaos and genie are the same class, and so on. It is all about being partly or fully a magical body.