D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[Minigiant]

Sure. And perhaps that being case it might have been better to just not do these classes, if no one had passion or vision for them.

You want AD&D with Feats, Because that's how you get AD&D with Feats.

The designers only had passion for human, dwarf, elf, halfling, fighter, cleric, rogue, wizard.

You keep skipping over the obvious solution.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You want AD&D with Feats, Because that's how you get AD&D with Feats.

The designers only had passion for human, dwarf, elf, halfling, fighter, cleric, rogue, wizard.

You keep skipping over the obvious solution.

Like I said, I'd rather have fewer options that are done well and with vision, than a lot of half-assed options no one really had true interest in writing.

 

[Minigiant]

Like I said, I'd rather have fewer options that are done well and with vision, than a lot of half-assed options no one really had true interest in writing.

I'd rather have.. wait for it...

WOTC to hire designers who have passion in fantasy elements that match the edition's commnity and not just old respected designers who clearly only want updated AD&D.

That's the problem. Fewer better designs is not what the 5e community wants. It took years for Crawford to realize that people didn't ant to play walking stereotypes from 1992.

This is what Kyle Brink said before about getting new people and the community freaked out by taking it out of context. Some of the heads in fantasy RPGs are frankly too old or too old school to run the major RPGs.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'd rather have.. wait for it...

WOTC to hire designers who have passion in fantasy elements that match the edition's commnity and not just old respected designers who clearly only want updated AD&D.

That's the problem. Fewer better designs is not what the 5e community wants. It took years for Crawford to realize that people didn't ant to play walking stereotypes from 1992.

This is what Kyle Brink said before about getting new people and the community freaked out by taking it out of context. Some of the heads in fantasy RPGs are frankly too old or too old school to run the major RPGs.

Perhaps. And I am not particularly enamoured with AD&D tropes, I merely meant that If that's what the designers were inspired by, then they'd probably do their best work by focusing on those.

Now I don't presume to know what current community truly wants. Perhaps they would have been fine with that, perhaps not.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

BTW, if I really try to conceive sorcerer and warlock as separate classes, I can, they just wouldn't look much like their current iterations.

It would be more like if their mechanics would be flipped. Sorcerer, as an innately magical being would have powerful blasty cantrips, rapidly recharging magic, and as they gained more power got mutated to their magic to gain permanent magical features. Whereas warlock, the occultists that bargained for magical cheat codes would be more of a traditional caster, somewhat resembling the wizard, but perhaps with ability to twist and form their magic in ways no normal mortal casters can due their otherworldly knowledge.

 

[Gorck]

I'd rather increase the spell points by the Sorcery points. Losing HP to use your abilities is a MASSIVE penalty,

Wouldn't it be easier to just kill them in character creation?

Everyone wants to come up with a cast from HP system, but no one is willing to accept that it's pretty much always just a pretty death spiral.

I don't think it's that much of a death sentence to spend HP for Metamagic options. In the 2014 PHB, all the Metamagic options are 1-3 SP. In the last playtest featuring the Sorcerer (UA7), the Metamagic options were either 1 or 2 SP.

Taking into consideration my suggestions,
A) Being a CON-based caster means Sorcerers should have a higher Constitution modifier, and therefore more HP
B) If that's not enough, raising the hit die to a d8 should give them even more HP
C) If that's still not enough, maybe capping the amount of HP used to 1/level/day or so would help.

Spending 1, 2, or 3 HP to perform a Metamagic act isn't horrible. Doing some back-of-the-napkin math, a level 5 Sorcerer with a 16 CON (+3 modifier), taking the average HP at each level (and taking a feat at 4th just to keep the math simple) would have 37 HP with a d6 HD (or 43 HP with a d8 HD). Burning up to 5 HP/day for Metamagic isn't Metatragic*. Do people even carry Healing Potions with them anymore? It seems like many people are going the BG3 route by making it a Bonus Action to chug a potion, and an Action only when administering a potion to someone else.

*please disregard my use of the term Metatragic. I didn't get enough sleep last night and am not firing on all cylinders.

 

[Minigiant]

Perhaps. And I am not particularly enamoured with AD&D tropes, I merely meant that If that's what the designers were inspired by, then they'd probably do their best work by focusing on those.

Now I don't presume to know what current community truly wants. Perhaps they would have been fine with that, perhaps not.

Its more what the community wants is different from what the designers wanted.

Or more accurately, the designers are from the portion of the D&D community that is the minority of the 5e community. And a lot of it comes with age and the changes in fantasy.

D&D and Fantasy RPGs are still asking 50 and 60 year olds to designer for 40, 30, and 20 year olds. They are still using Vecna instead of designing a new BBEG that matches the current game.

BTW, if I really try to conceive sorcerer and warlock as separate classes, I can, they just wouldn't look much like their current iterations.

It would be more like if their mechanics would be flipped. Sorcerer, as an innately magical being would have powerful blasty cantrips, rapidly recharging magic, and as they gained more power got mutated to their magic to gain permanent magical features. Whereas warlock, the occultists that bargained for magical cheat codes would be more of a traditional caster, somewhat resembling the wizard, but perhaps with ability to twist and form their magic in ways no normal mortal casters can due their otherworldly knowledge.

That's essentially my point.

The 5e Sorcerer is a rehashed 3e sorcerer. For someone who started D&D in 1980-1995.
They crafted new lore but used mechanics from 2000 and earlier.
It's the old "every magic user is the same. just reflavor it and add a +1 to something" from AD&D 1e and 2e.

 

[James Gasik]

Wouldn't it be easier to just kill them in character creation?

Everyone wants to come up with a cast from HP system, but no one is willing to accept that it's pretty much always just a pretty death spiral.

And worse, you have to bend over backwards to not make just healing the caster busted. Take Pathfinder 1e and their Kineticist, who can boost their powers by taking nonlethal damage that you somehow cannot heal without the equivalent of a long rest.

 

[James Gasik]

The problem is that WOTC doesn't have any Warlock or Sorcerer fans in leadership. They originally were not going to include either as classes.

The community FORCED them to make the classes and like every class they didn't care about, the mechanics and lore were weak.

Not every class...RIP Warlord.

 

[ezo]

i think that personally, the difference between a sorcerer and a warlock, (or what it should be), is regardless of the finer details of how they or their bloodline aquired their magic initially, is that a sorcerer is fundamentally innately changed by their magic whereas a warlock merely possesses magic as a tool they can separate from themselves, a divine soul sorcerer possesses the blood of angels and is their own source of divine magic , the celestial warlock merely channels divine magic from another source.

This gives me an idea... what if Sorcerers became the creature type of their bloodline, or at least added it to the humanoid creature type?

You're a Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer? You gain the dragon creature type.