D&D (2024) The sorcerer shouldn't exist

[Neonchameleon]

i feel like it would be just as easy to dig up one of the many old threads that discuss that very topic and have over half the work already done for us.

but personally i think the major missing positions are
warlord
swordmage
psion
shapeshifter/monster class
summoner/pet class

Warlord I think could work under the fighter banner - starting with a couple of warlord-y fighting styles to make the warlord meaningfully worse at combat than a fighter as they spend the resources on support. And bringing warlord into fighter would help deal with higher level emptiness.

Swordmage I think could be briught in under the aegis of a bladelock. Mixing magic and melee - then you have some sort of mark-equivalent invocation or spell.

Psion is already there as Aberrant Mind Sorcerer. To get more you need psionic powers to be entirely different from spells, and dozens of pages of them (the 3.5 psion had 70 pages). And I don't think they are going to do that.

Shapeshifter, agreed. Probably a build-your-own martial class?

Summoner - again agreed.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Doesn't make any of those events magical either.

Which is the point.

So, given that you don't need extraordinary events for backstories for good characters, why does the wizard (and as far as I know only the wizard) need one?

 

[Remathilis]

Designers can and do change rules and lore all the time for different expressions of a concept, but ultimately concept/lore comes first the vast majority of the time. Nearly all the lore concepts of Pathfinder came before any rules expression of them, certainly before Pathfinder designers put their hand in.

I feel like we're talking past each other. What are you trying to say?

I'm saying that lore is the third and most fluid part of the game. Things like a class's power source or a race's culture is usually developed last and used to explain the mechanics, the mechanics aren't designed to fit around that lore. Which is why lore can be interchangeable as long as it explains the mechanics. It doesn't matter if a wizard can cast spells because of the Weave, the moons of Krynn, or defiling and preserving, as long as it explains why he can drop xd6 fireballs. The idea that rules should be subservient to lore is putting the cart before the horse.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm saying that lore is the third and most fluid part of the game. Things like a class's power source or a race's culture is usually developed last and used to explain the mechanics, the mechanics aren't designed to fit around that lore. Which is why lore can be interchangeable as long as it explains the mechanics. It doesn't matter if a wizard can cast spells because of the Weave, the moons of Krynn, or defiling and preserving, as long as it explains why he can drop xd6 fireballs. The idea that rules should be subservient to lore is putting the cart before the horse.

Eh. I think you should start with a strong and inspired concept, and then come up with mechanics that help to evoke it.
The process you describe is the exact reason why we have the sorcerer that is an uninspired sad wet sock.

 

[Minigiant]

Precisely. I have no--indeed, negative--interest in deleting the Wizard. I am glad that something like it exists in D&D.

I was merely using it as an example of why the arguments that the Sorcerer should become a Wizard subclass were not only wrong-headed, but actively self-defeating. If the argument is that flavor support is lacking and simplicity suggests we should turn something into a subclass, the Wizard is BY FAR the class that fits best for being axed.

Folks should not be surprised to know that I think 5e has far too few classes, not too many. I don't want to get rid of any we currently have; I want to add more on top.

4e would be rules second.

They took the ideas from narrative of the old lore and new inspirations, wrote rules that match it, THEN rewrote the lore to match the new rules.

It's like cartoon or movie adaption. You take the source, write a new plot, and retcon the makes you can't replicate or don't have rights for. Spider-Man producing his own web. No mutants in MCU. Major heroes and villains not existing. How many Robins there are. How old Batman is.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Warlord I think could work under the fighter banner - starting with a couple of warlord-y fighting styles to make the warlord meaningfully worse at combat than a fighter as they spend the resources on support. And bringing warlord into fighter would help deal with higher level emptiness.

Personally? 5e has conclusively proven my original stance. Nothing short of an actual class can do the job. 5e tried, arguably twice, once with Battle Master, the second time with Banneret. The second time was worse.

As the Wizard is to the Eldritch Knight, so the Warlord is to the "Warlord Fighter." The latter is merely a small taste of what the former offers, glued onto the Fighter chassis.

Swordmage I think could be briught in under the aegis of a bladelock. Mixing magic and melee - then you have some sort of mark-equivalent invocation or spell.

See above. None of the (at this point, what, six?) implementations in 5e have actually panned out as a Swordmage--neither individually nor collectively.

Remember, the principle of parsimony is that you should not needlessly duplicate entities. Not that you do not duplicate entities at all, ever, and should always aim for even fewer than you have. The repeated efforts to fill the void should be a pretty good hint that the void is still there.

Psion is already there as Aberrant Mind Sorcerer. To get more you need psionic powers to be entirely different from spells, and dozens of pages of them (the 3.5 psion had 70 pages). And I don't think they are going to do that.

It really isn't. The Aberrant Mind Sorcerer falls far short, especially for anyone who actually enjoys psionics as their own discipline. Certainly, there's no way you could integrate Dark Sun if 100% of psionics has to be represented through a single Sorcerer subclass.

You don't need "dozens of pages" if they're designed in ways that fundamentally differ from spells--and are kept simpler. The Warlock doesn't need dozens of pages of invocations.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Exactly. D&D wasn’t created to create a new way to explore Greyhawk, Greyhawk was created to be a framework to hold games of D&D.

And D&D was created to be a framework for elements of history, fiction, and folklore.

Fiction first.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm saying that lore is the third and most fluid part of the game. Things like a class's power source or a race's culture is usually developed last and used to explain the mechanics, the mechanics aren't designed to fit around that lore. Which is why lore can be interchangeable as long as it explains the mechanics. It doesn't matter if a wizard can cast spells because of the Weave, the moons of Krynn, or defiling and preserving, as long as it explains why he can drop xd6 fireballs. The idea that rules should be subservient to lore is putting the cart before the horse.

Hard disagree. To use your example, you think Weis and Hickman created the rules for moon magic before they designed the fiction for it? That makes no sense. Same thing with defiling and preserving. The idea comes first, then you create rules to make it work in a game. All the stuff you're talking about is making new rules for concepts that already existed and in many cases had several iterations of rules for them already.

 

[Micah Sweet]

4e would be rules second.

They took the ideas from narrative of the old lore and new inspirations, wrote rules that match it, THEN rewrote the lore to match the new rules.

It's like cartoon or movie adaption. You take the source, write a new plot, and retcon the makes you can't replicate or don't have rights for. Spider-Man producing his own web. No mutants in MCU. Major heroes and villains not existing. How many Robins there are. How old Batman is.

Fiction, then rules, then fiction again. And so on and so on.

 

[Remathilis]

Eh. I think you should start with a strong and inspired concept, and then come up with mechanics that help to evoke it.
The process you describe is the exact reason why we have the sorcerer that is an uninspired sad wet sock.

Concept: a caster who isn't shackled to a spellbook.
Mechanics: fixed spell, greater versatility in casting, focused on offense/active magic or themed lists, Charisma caster stat.
Lore: blood of dragons/supernatural origins, draws in inner reserves, often viewed as outsiders.

You can argue how well the sorcerer actually accomplished any of that, but you can't argue they started with "let's make a class who has the blood of dragons" and worked backwards to "huh, this is a caster without a book"..