D&D 5E What is the Sorcerer?

[Flights of Fancy]

Been thinking a bunch about the sorcerer threads. Seems to me the biggest thing sorcerers need is a concrete identity?

Can it only be "innate spellcasting"? It is enough?

At what cost? Where is the balance? Who would play a caster that relies on magic from "outside" if a caster that relies on magic from "within" is available?

Are origin differences enough? Can there be a single class given so many origin options?

Don't know, don't have the answers, just some ideas jumping around.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The Wizard without the mechanic that makes them insufferable.

 

[Mephista]

Been thinking a bunch about the sorcerer threads. Seems to me the biggest thing sorcerers need is a concrete identity?

Can it only be "innate spellcasting"? It is enough?

No, not really. Nor is it really the sorcerer's identity. Despite what some people will claim, 5e classes are NOT defined by their mechanics.

Every class has an a class fantasy. A trope that they represent. A story that they do better than anyone else. For the sorcerer, that trope is the "Inherent Gift." Every sorcerer has something they can do, some ability they've been born with, or gained from exposure to magical radiation, or just randomly develop for no reason. You might be psychic, an elementalist, etc. Sorcerers are people that take that gift and hone it until they do amazing things with that one trick.

The sorcerer mechanics are all meant to support that main trick. In theory, all the spells that the sorcerer learns and all their metamagics are just different applications of that one thing. If you're a dragon sorcerer, then all the spells you get are variations of a dragon's abilities, and you're really flexible at doing different things with that dragon magic.

There's a lot of debate back and forth about how good the mechanics fit, or if we should have better theme, or if using spellcasting rules are a bad fit, or lots of different things to try and get the sorcerer to be something its not.

But ultimately we have what the sorcerer's identity is supposed to be. Its all the details around it that aren't adding up.

At what cost? Where is the balance? Who would play a caster that relies on magic from "outside" if a caster that relies on magic from "within" is available?

As a character? Different people have different desires and different professions they're happy with. And that's besides the fact that wizard school likely costs money (spellbooks don't pay for themselves), not everyone is born with The Gift, have access to an extraplanar creature to make a pact with, can have access to the necessary tools to be an artificer, etc.

As a player? We all have different things we want to play at different times. Warlock gives me Blue Mage vibes, and hunting around for creatures to bargain for magic sounds like fun to me. Other times, being a shaman dealing with land spirits could be intresting. We have different itches.

Are origin differences enough? Can there be a single class given so many origin options?

Origin differences... honestly just determine your affinity. Its like the difference between a fire elemental mage and an ice elemental. They're clearly different... but they share enough in common that its easy to see how they're related.

 

[Flights of Fancy]

No, not really. Nor is it really the sorcerer's identity. Despite what some people will claim, 5e classes are NOT defined by their mechanics.

Every class has an a class fantasy. A trope that they represent. A story that they do better than anyone else. For the sorcerer, that trope is the "Inherent Gift." Every sorcerer has something they can do, some ability they've been born with, or gained from exposure to magical radiation, or just randomly develop for no reason. You might be psychic, an elementalist, etc. Sorcerers are people that take that gift and hone it until they do amazing things with that one trick.

The inherent gift is demonstrated in game play through spells. Spell that come from within. Innate spellcasting, right?

Your description is really good. Makes me think this idea is more like a superhero than any other class. Born with special powers, exposure to magical "radiation", etc. I wonder if that is why it gets so much pushback from some players?

The sorcerer mechanics are all meant to support that main trick. In theory, all the spells that the sorcerer learns and all their metamagics are just different applications of that one thing. If you're a dragon sorcerer, then all the spells you get are variations of a dragon's abilities, and you're really flexible at doing different things with that dragon magic.

There's a lot of debate back and forth about how good the mechanics fit, or if we should have better theme, or if using spellcasting rules are a bad fit, or lots of different things to try and get the sorcerer to be something its not.

But ultimately we have what the sorcerer's identity is supposed to be. Its all the details around it that aren't adding up.

Seems like the subclasses should be more themed in restricting spells, focusing on the gift the sorcerer has.

Maybe just go full on superhero. Not spellcaster at all. They wouldn't "cast spells", just use there spell like powers. Something like invocations might be more appropriate.

As a player? We all have different things we want to play at different times. Warlock gives me Blue Mage vibes, and hunting around for creatures to bargain for magic sounds like fun to me. Other times, being a shaman dealing with land spirits could be intresting. We have different itches.

It would be fun to do that. Make it part of the game. If Warlocks bargained for magic from different sources instead just having one patron.

Origin differences... honestly just determine your affinity. Its like the difference between a fire elemental mage and an ice elemental. They're clearly different... but they share enough in common that its easy to see how they're related.

An elemental sorcerer then could cover fire, cold, as fire, ice.

Good discussion.

 

[Horwath]

IMHO, Sorcerer has the best chassis(mostly) to be only spellcaster in the game.
With spell point variant OFC.
Access to all spells, but limited in spells known for balance.

Subclasses to highlight certain type of spells or play style.

No ritual casting. If it's really needed some spells can be made cantrips with 1min cast time. Detect magic and/or Identify. Any ritual spell of 2nd level or higher should cost a spell slot normally. rework the spell to be worth it accordingly.

 

[Yaarel]

Add the Psion class.

Make Sorcerer a subclass for the Psion class.

The Sorcerer adds the Elemental spells to the Psion spell list.

 

[Maxperson]

At what cost? Where is the balance? Who would play a caster that relies on magic from "outside" if a caster that relies on magic from "within" is available?

Wizards have increased versatility, but that comes at the expense of having to rely on outside learning, making him vulnerable should something happen to his spellbook(s).

 

[Mephista]

The inherent gift is demonstrated in game play through spells. Spell that come from within. Innate spellcasting, right?

First let me say that I misread innate spellcasting to mean "flexible casting vs traditional Vancian" at first. I'm a bit too used to people pointing out the sorcerer's 3e origin as an experimental mechanics class, and I think we've grown past that. Much like the modern warlock is a mix of the older classes of binder, warlock, hexblade and maybe a few others, I'm going to argue that the modern sorcerer is a mix of psion, sorcerer, and a few other odds and ends.

So I appologize for being confusing there at first.

Then I'm going to follow up by saying that the "spellcasting" part isn't necessarily core to the sorcerer's identity. We're using spells to approximate the trope, but its not necessarily the only way to to do it. It is simply the easiest and least stressful way that 5e represents the sorcerer.

So, to TLDR this: Yes, but Kinda No.

Your description is really good. Makes me think this idea is more like a superhero than any other class. Born with special powers, exposure to magical "radiation", etc. I wonder if that is why it gets so much pushback from some players?

Several reasons. I blame the lacking mechanics and the lack of love from WotC, to be honest. There are a lot of unfavorable comparisons to the warlock and wizard that left the sorcerer feeling like a bad copy, the mechanics were a poor match to the class' theme, WotC effectively having a bias against the Sorcerer, even when it comes to just... letting them use thematically appropriate spells like Illusory Dragon.

It also didn't help that, when the sorcerer came out, there weren't enough elemental spells to do anything other than a fire-based Dragon Sorcerer, and there were practically no chaotic-magic options to feel like a Wild Mage without beggiing the DM. Even now, doing an acid- or poison- based dragon is a stretch.

Sorcerer also claimed metamagics, preventing all other casters from having access like they have in previous editions, which did generate bad feelings as well.

Seems like the subclasses should be more themed in restricting spells, focusing on the gift the sorcerer has.

Maybe just go full on superhero. Not spellcaster at all. They wouldn't "cast spells", just use there spell like powers. Something like invocations might be more appropriate.

Maybe. There are many people that would love to do that. But there are problems with this approach too. While there are many people who would appreciate this approach, there are just as many people who very much do like the sorcerer as a caster. I did say that spellcasting wasn't central to the sorcerer's identity, but there are people out there that would disagree with me.

Secondly, and to me more importantly, it would effectively require a third style of gameplay introduced into D&D. Doing largely magical effects through non-spellcasting means that we would end up ignoring the few checks and balances casters have while basically giving them roughly the same power level. We've seen this happen before with psionic classes in other editions, and balance is important enough to enough people that its a non-starter for many.

It could be pulled off with infinite time and infinite budget and good developers, but that's just unrealistic to expect.

It would be fun to do that. Make it part of the game. If Warlocks bargained for magic from different sources instead just having one patron.

Technically the option is there. Just doesn't get a lot of attention and, to be honest, its often much easier on DMs to have singular Patrons as a dedicated NPC, and dedicated NPCs often come with their own interesting stories. Its also the most iconic

If you don't mind me delving a bit into the warlock... There's two ways to look at the warlocks. One way is to see them as a kind of... edgelord cleric type. They draw power from a patron, then do quests for the patron, just like divine casters do. The other way? 4th edition warlocks didn't do favors - instead, they went on go on adventures to discover forbidden lore and ancient secrets, just like wizards do. Its just that these secrets and lore referred to beings to contanct, and using ancient, already existing contracts / bargains to claim power.

I do prefer the second way, which reminds me heavily of Final Fantasy's blue mage class. To me, warlock is the monster-magic class.

An elemental sorcerer then could cover fire, cold, as fire, ice.

Good discussion.

Glad you enjoyed it.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Wizards have increased versatility, but that comes at the expense of having to rely on outside learning, making him vulnerable should something happen to his spellbook(s).

So... no cost at all because the spellbook is the actual character.

 

[Maxperson]

So... no cost at all because the spellbook is the actual character.

Wizards are more than a spellbook. The spellbook is just a limitation(and feature) of the class, not the class itself.