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Unearthed Arcana: Giant Soul Sorcerer
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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 7750336" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>Having now run games that have included sorcerers for a while now, I have to say I don't really like the idea of them anymore because the fluff is just so wishy-washy on the whole deal.</p><p></p><p>"You have magic in you!" just seems so lacking in any sort of interesting story, especially with anything and everything triggering it in people. Dragons, weather, celestials, the shadow realm, wild energy, and now giants? There's like no rhyme nor reason to getting magic. Which in my personal opinion reduces what makes the acquisition of magic special.</p><p></p><p>In my mind, somehow acquiring magical ability should be meaningful. You might be blessed by a god. You might have made a deal with a literal devil. You have become so attuned with the natural world that you can pull its essence out. Or you have hacked the formula to pull the energy out of the air.</p><p></p><p>Then when it comes to the sorcerer in the PHB, there were two stories-- either you literally had the blood of a massive magical font of a creature running through you... or you were some odd mutant that could pull magic out of the ether like the wizard could, but because you had no training in it everything went sideways when you did. So at least those two made a bit of flavorful sense.</p><p></p><p>But here's the problem... in all other cases where an odd creature is in a character's ancestry... it creates a new race, not a new class. If you have an angel in your family history, it produced an aasimar. For a devil, a tiefling. For genies, a genasi. An ork produced a halfork. An elf produced a half-elf. And even with a dragon, it traditional produced a half-dragon.</p><p></p><p>So even having a "bloodline" to create a new class seems kind of off. The story doesn't sit right with me when the story in all other cases is to produce new races, not new classes. I kind of sigh and say okay when it comes to dragons because the game *is* Dungeons & Dragons after all, so having you be a dragonblooded person who gets magic I can kind of accept. But all the other sorcerer subclasses? To me they all should be Warlock patrons.</p><p></p><p>The Warlock's story makes so much more sense and to me is so much more compelling than the sorcerer. Warlocks are the people who sit between the clerics and the wizards. Warlocks are people who have not been blessed by a god to be granted magical ability, and were not smart enough or capable enough to hack the magical system (or Weave) to pull it out themselves. So instead they go to an intermediary and make deals for it. And it is THAT class for which having 20 different types of entities granting magical power makes much more sense, and makes the stories much more compelling to my mind. A "giant soul"? It means you were in touch with a giant and were gifted a part of its power, which makes you a warlock. Not a "sorcerer". A "divine soul"? It means you were selected by a divine being who doesn't have the power and esteem of a god but still were able to grant some of your essence to a mortal, which makes the mortal a warlock, not a "sorcerer".</p><p></p><p>Looking at the stories in this way, it makes sorcerers superfluous. Which is good in many ways because it opens up Metamagic to get potentially used by other classes, plus it stops the complete doubling up of "power source" we are getting now between warlocks and sorcerers where pretty much the exact same essence is gifting power to both classes-- Shadow/Hexblade, Divine Soul/Celestial, Storm Sorcerer/Storm Giant. I mean I'm almost shocked we haven't gotten the "Fey origin" or "Demon origin" sorcerer or the "dragon patron" warlock yet. And when we do, we'll know that having both classes in the game is completely unnecessary because their stories have become now virtually identical.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 7750336, member: 7006"] Having now run games that have included sorcerers for a while now, I have to say I don't really like the idea of them anymore because the fluff is just so wishy-washy on the whole deal. "You have magic in you!" just seems so lacking in any sort of interesting story, especially with anything and everything triggering it in people. Dragons, weather, celestials, the shadow realm, wild energy, and now giants? There's like no rhyme nor reason to getting magic. Which in my personal opinion reduces what makes the acquisition of magic special. In my mind, somehow acquiring magical ability should be meaningful. You might be blessed by a god. You might have made a deal with a literal devil. You have become so attuned with the natural world that you can pull its essence out. Or you have hacked the formula to pull the energy out of the air. Then when it comes to the sorcerer in the PHB, there were two stories-- either you literally had the blood of a massive magical font of a creature running through you... or you were some odd mutant that could pull magic out of the ether like the wizard could, but because you had no training in it everything went sideways when you did. So at least those two made a bit of flavorful sense. But here's the problem... in all other cases where an odd creature is in a character's ancestry... it creates a new race, not a new class. If you have an angel in your family history, it produced an aasimar. For a devil, a tiefling. For genies, a genasi. An ork produced a halfork. An elf produced a half-elf. And even with a dragon, it traditional produced a half-dragon. So even having a "bloodline" to create a new class seems kind of off. The story doesn't sit right with me when the story in all other cases is to produce new races, not new classes. I kind of sigh and say okay when it comes to dragons because the game *is* Dungeons & Dragons after all, so having you be a dragonblooded person who gets magic I can kind of accept. But all the other sorcerer subclasses? To me they all should be Warlock patrons. The Warlock's story makes so much more sense and to me is so much more compelling than the sorcerer. Warlocks are the people who sit between the clerics and the wizards. Warlocks are people who have not been blessed by a god to be granted magical ability, and were not smart enough or capable enough to hack the magical system (or Weave) to pull it out themselves. So instead they go to an intermediary and make deals for it. And it is THAT class for which having 20 different types of entities granting magical power makes much more sense, and makes the stories much more compelling to my mind. A "giant soul"? It means you were in touch with a giant and were gifted a part of its power, which makes you a warlock. Not a "sorcerer". A "divine soul"? It means you were selected by a divine being who doesn't have the power and esteem of a god but still were able to grant some of your essence to a mortal, which makes the mortal a warlock, not a "sorcerer". Looking at the stories in this way, it makes sorcerers superfluous. Which is good in many ways because it opens up Metamagic to get potentially used by other classes, plus it stops the complete doubling up of "power source" we are getting now between warlocks and sorcerers where pretty much the exact same essence is gifting power to both classes-- Shadow/Hexblade, Divine Soul/Celestial, Storm Sorcerer/Storm Giant. I mean I'm almost shocked we haven't gotten the "Fey origin" or "Demon origin" sorcerer or the "dragon patron" warlock yet. And when we do, we'll know that having both classes in the game is completely unnecessary because their stories have become now virtually identical. [/QUOTE]
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