D&D 5E What should a Sorcerer do?

[I'm A Banana]

I agree with Quickleaf, about the components and focus. Why should the sorcerer waste his precious metamagic options on getting something that should be innate anyway, according to the class fluff?

Fluff is always whatever you want it to be. Sorcerers maybe have to use material components because material components are required to evoke magic out of your body and into the world - the bat guano or wand or whatever resonates with your inner magic, and just waving your hands around wouldn't do that. Maybe something else.

No more or less controlled than any other AoE spell.

The grease itself is a stable substance, not a momentary wave of power.

This always bothered me. If I'm a wizard, and I find this spell, I'm saying to myself "Tasha? Who in the nine hells is Tasha? Well, this is a neat spell, it's going into my spellbook, but I'm certainly not giving this Tasha hack credit for it.". I also fail to see how incapacitating someone with laughter is inherently more wizardly as opposed to sorcerous.

It's fluff - Tasha is a famous wizard, and she made this spell and those who know this spell have her invention to thank, or they'd be ignorant of the great legacy of magic-users of ages past. Sorcerers, of course, don't invent new magical patterns.

I'm AFB, but wizards do get this spell, do they not?

Yeah, maybe they do. Another way to consider it: PfG&E is spell requiring affinity with planar energies, and sorcerers just don't muck about with that - the rift between worlds is something only those who pull reality apart at the seams can understand and use, and the sorcerer just doesn't have that intellectual focus. Instead they just DO it.

I mean, I'm not trying to say that there's one way it has to be, just that it's fine to be fine with the sorcerers as they are, too. Certainly having to use material components and not being able to cast PfG&E or Tasha's or Grease doesn't make my gnome wild mage seem any less sorcerous.

 

[Mephista]

This always bothered me. If I'm a wizard, and I find this spell, I'm saying to myself "Tasha? Who in the nine hells is Tasha? Well, this is a neat spell, it's going into my spellbook, but I'm certainly not giving this Tasha hack credit for it.". I also fail to see how incapacitating someone with laughter is inherently more wizardly as opposed to sorcerous.

Because if Iggwilv finds out you stole her spell, there will be the Abyss to pay? I suggest against copyright infringing powerful spellcasters who date demonlords. Just a thought.

It is kind of odd, because most named spells actually are named after Greyhawk characters - those of us who play in Forgotten Realms, Nentir Vale, Eberron, or other settings wouldn't be familiar with Natasha, Leomund, or Mordenkeinen. Its really more of a tradition now than anything, I imagine.

Either way, its immaterial, because the Sorcerer gets several named spells on its list already as of Elemental Evil Player's Companion.

 

[famousringo]

- you don't get tasha's because named spells are specifically a wizard thing - invented by other wizards and shared by other wizards. It's not a general magical principle, it's a specific magical expression.

They seem to have thrown out this idea with Elemental Evil. No fewer than four named spells on the sorcerer list now.

Would be nice if they'd revisit the list in the PHB with this in mind. Tasha's seems like a proper sorcerer spell, as does Melf's arrow, perhaps Otiluke's Spheres, Otto's Dance, and Bigby's Hand. I've always loved the hand spells.

 

[Mephista]

The grease itself is a stable substance, not a momentary wave of power.

Charm person is a long lasting spell. How about polymorph? Comprehend language? Fog Cloud? Water Breathing?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Charm person is a long lasting spell. How about polymorph? Comprehend language? Fog Cloud? Water Breathing?

They don't simply create substances. In the case of fog cloud and polymorph and charm person, concentration requirements indicate the sorcerer is constantly using magic on the spell, and CL and WB don't make things out of thin air.

But again, it doesn't really matter - I'm just saying lacking these things doesn't make me feel any less of a sorcerer. I don't care if I can't cast grease, I've got more than enough weird action denial spells at my disposal to feel like I can stop folks from doin' stuff.

 

[Mephista]

Fluff is always whatever you want it to be. Sorcerers maybe have to use material components because material components are required to evoke magic out of your body and into the world - the bat guano or wand or whatever resonates with your inner magic, and just waving your hands around wouldn't do that. Maybe something else.

...

I mean, I'm not trying to say that there's one way it has to be, just that it's fine to be fine with the sorcerers as they are, too. Certainly having to use material components and not being able to cast PfG&E or Tasha's or Grease doesn't make my gnome wild mage seem any less sorcerous.

Here's the thing. How did they develop that spell, how do they know what words to say, when its all internal? You're not a scholar. You're not a researcher, you're not an experimenter. You do what feels natural. You get good at magic through practice and exercise, not learning.

Its one thing to say that a magical focus helps you focus your magic, its another thing to say that you're required to have 100gp of diamond dust. There's a bit of strangeness on that, really, for something you learn instinctively.

Personally, I kind of gloss over it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Here's the thing. How did they develop that spell, how do they know what words to say, when its all internal? You're not a scholar. You're not a researcher, you're not an experimenter. You do what feels natural. You get good at magic through practice and exercise, not learning.

Practice is learning. You picked up a visiting wizard's staff and could do things. You were always weirdly attracted to that bit of magnet. You can feel the guano get hotter as it gets closer to your body. You learn.

Its one thing to say that a magical focus helps you focus your magic, its another thing to say that you're required to have 100gp of diamond dust. There's a bit of strangeness on that, really, for something you learn instinctively.

"I don't know why I need this diamond dust, I just feel like, you know, it's enough somehow."

 

[Mephista]

Practice is learning.

Completely different kinds of learning taken out of context. Learning through book study and understanding magical theory (wizard) is vastly different than learning through putting yourself through rote practice of your magic (sorcerer).

You picked up a visiting wizard's staff and could do things. You were always weirdly attracted to that bit of magnet. You can feel the guano get hotter as it gets closer to your body. You learn.

"I don't know why I need this diamond dust, I just feel like, you know, it's enough somehow."

One, picking up a wizard staff to use your magic is frankly lame. That is a rather firm nod to making them same instead of unqiue.

And what if a person never encounters bat guano? Never going to learn fireball? That's a lot of odd justifications for doing things a wizardly way. The question never was, "can you kinda stretch things so it works out?" No, the question is, "should you have to do these things in the first place?"

The whole material component stuff is in primarily because Tradition. That's how things were done; people wanted to see the wizard use a material component pouch, see the cleric brandish their holy symbol. Adds flavor to those classes.

Is it necessarily a flavor that we feel its appropriate for the Sorcerer class, or do we just put up with it and move on?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Completely different kinds of learning taken out of context. Learning through book study and understanding magical theory (wizard) is vastly different than learning through putting yourself through rote practice of your magic (sorcerer).

Wizards can't learn without DOING, and sorcerers can't do without KNOWING. Both get better at their respective spellcasting as they practice it in the world, and don't get any better at it locking themselves away in a tower with a bunch of dusty tomes.

One, picking up a wizard staff to use your magic is frankly lame. That is a rather firm nod to making them same instead of unqiue.

And what if a person never encounters bat guano? Never going to learn fireball? That's a lot of odd justifications for doing things a wizardly way. The question never was, "can you kinda stretch things so it works out?" No, the question is, "should you have to do these things in the first place?"

You're stridently missing the point.

My point is: it's perfectly fine to not have a problem with having to use material components.

If you want to argue that everyone HAS TO have a problem with it, you're going to have to do more than poke holes in the suggested narratives, because those are quite enough for plenty of people (and for me and my current character, for one).

The whole material component stuff is in primarily because Tradition. That's how things were done; people wanted to see the wizard use a material component pouch, see the cleric brandish their holy symbol. Adds flavor to those classes.

That's conjecture.

It doesn't take away anything from the sorcerer to use material components. It isn't required that I eschew material components to feel like I'm a spontaneous magic user. It's not a problem for everyone.

Is it necessarily a flavor that we feel its appropriate for the Sorcerer class, or do we just put up with it and move on?

It's appropriate, just not for everyone.

 

[Coredump]

The more I think about it, the more I think Metamagic is the key

Wizard: I have all of these spells to choose from, and I can even switch them every day. Look at all the different things I can do.

Sorc: I only know a few spells...but man I *really* know how to cast them. I can make them last twice as long, or twice as far, or be subtle, or....etc....


To make this really happen, I think the Sorc needs to be able to choose more metamagic options. Something like 3 at 3rd level, and another at 7, 10, 13, 17. (or maybe all of them at 17.)

Maybe at 14th level you can apply 2 metamagic changes to a spell....