Yes! This is one the issues I have with 5E. Every class has magic, or magic-like abilities. Like you said it dilutes the "traditional" magic using classes.
To paraphrase a line from " The Incredibles" : When everyone has magic, no one has magic.
Yeah its a bit disconcerting, if you actually sit down and decide you want to create a non-spell casting character, of the 40 (rough estimate) class/sub-class combinations to choose from there are only like 8 possible non-caster class/sub-classes available. And even among those you eventually gain spell casting abilities at later levels, for example Barbarian Totem at 10th level you gain spirit walker. I just wonder what the designers were thinking, is it really that hard to come up with a classes that serve a purpose without magic?
The barbarian's Path of the Berserker; the fighter's Champion, Battle Master, Purple Dragon Knight, Cavalier, and Samurai; the rogue's Thief, Assassin, Swashbuckler, Mastermind, Scout, and Inquisitive; and, depending on whether you consider the base monk magical, the Ways of the Drunken Master and the Kensai. That's 12-14.
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
"All great choices but if you add classes outside of the players handbook you increased the amount of sub-classes from 40 to 72, which actually makes the ratio worse. Your almost at a 1 to 7 ratio."
Add to that the tendency to multi-class, which if you read these forums (and others) is almost a necessity in order to get an 'good, fully optimised build ' interesting character, then it gets even harder to find an actual non-spellcasting character. Yes, there are plenty of options (12-14 according to a recent survey), but that doesn't mean people are choosing those options, and sticking to a non-magical progression. To make matters even more unbalanced, it seems to be the main reason to avoid multi-classing is that it slows down your spell progression!
D&D 5th edition was playtested, and released into the wild, and I believe that WoTC's findings are that 'most' people want their characters to have magical abilities to some degree. On this the game delivers.
Most people are happy, right?
The trouble is, that as previously stated, if every body has magic, then nobody has magic. We all want magic, but we don't want everybody else having it. I think that is a fair - if slightly selfish - desire.
So the answer to "Is there anything you would change about the sorcerer?" seems to be "Everybody else!"
Show the world you are a free thinking, non- conformist individual - get a tattoo!
Pink, because apparently that helps signify to certain nationalities that I do not want that comment to be taken at face value - I never made up the rule, just learned it from my american friends on iRacing Forums.
One answer is house-rules and DMs building worlds where magic use is truly rare, but that takes away player choice. Another is for WoTC to publish some real options for classes that don't use innate magic (as opposed to being bejazzled with rings, neck chains, swords, and bracers of archery), and 'punish'/ban multi-classing with those options. Any one remember the Barbarian that refused to even touch magic items? (First UA, I think). He could kick-ass with the best of them.
Until there is a clear (ish) reason to play a character without magic abilities, people will continue as they are. Pure fighters are boring and under-powered.
I run 2 campaigns and NOBODY plays a fighter. Not one! The battlemaster with it's combat superiority mechanic looks awesome. I have pointed it out to a couple of the players. One even agreed with me, then went on to create a I would definitely play a battlemaster as my first PC....then I might complain that I want all the maneuvers for my level, not just 3, then 5,7,9 at later levels. So maybe that limitation should be the first to go!
" Its clear the reason everyone wants magical powers in every class is because, the alternatives are terrible." - I think that's going a bit far, maybe change the word terrible for "just not as much fun."
I think the reason everyone wants magical powers is that they are great to have. They don't necessarily want ALL classes to have them, but people definitely want THEIR class to have them.
" I could dream up maneuvers for unique classes all day long and fill the equivalent of a spell book with them. " - go on then! Note the lack of pink? That means I would be interested in seeing them, even if everyone else here is happy with the choice between chocolate and turd on a stick. (I don't think we are the only ones......) I'll go one further - you put 50 in a book on DMs Guild, and I'll pay a reasonable fee and do a review....
Ultimately, I think we are always going to see multiple magic users around every table unless the DM steps in with a big stick...or a campaign setting comes along with strict rules on magic use.
WoTC are doing their job (pandering to the masses.) More than that, D20 is OGL, so they are encouraging others to do a better job (while being confident that others won't. Or at least, not enough to put WoTC out of business.)
Now please stop making me argue with you as I basically agree. :)
I'm going to be the odd one out and say I'm glad other classes have magically geared subclasses in them. If it fills a niche in gameplay that people want to play, I see no reason to try and not depict it. I've never encountered the problem where no one wants to not play a non-magical class because its boring, because in my groups it frankly never happens.
Personally, I think it needs to be looked at on a class to class and that those classes are supposed to be all about. Out of the eight subclasses in the Fighter classes, only two are what I would consider to be magically inclined, which I think is perfectly reasonable. Compare and contrast to the Barbarians where almost all of them barring the Battlerager and the Berserker have supernatural abilities, which does make it awkward if you take the "I don't like magic" route for some reason.
I will never understand the complaint about magic v. non-magic classes. Magic is fantasy's equivalent to technology, and there's only so much you can do with a sword or bow against a napalm-breathing flying tank. Shoot/swing faster, harder, more accurate? Battle tricks and trips? Angry, out of control? Be sneaky and backstabby? Wrestler? Tavern brawling? All these already exist in 5e. Maybe not an ideal option, but they do exist. In fact, I'll point out that a large chunk of feats revolve around different weapon option for that very variety. Look at the feats that have been in UA the past couple tests - we have had racial feats, and weapon feats, and some non-magic utility feats.
Magic, meanwhile, gets the majority of variety from spell lists. Each spell list is pretty unique to each class. Well, the sorcerer has a lot of overlap with the wizard (grrr....), but in general they're fairly different. You can't swap out healing magic for explosion magic or plant magic on the wizard. That's the equivalent of swapping out weapons on a warrior type. And feats? No new magic UA feats being tested, and five feats total - elemental, close range caster, far range caster, steal another class's rituals, get another class's 'low level magic. That's right, 40% of magic feats involve "get another class's spells." That's how much spell lists matter, compared to warriors. Heck. Even the magic wands and staves for casters are generally just "get these spells that you can cast now without prepping them or without your spell slots." Not nearly the variety that magic weapons get.
I can't help but think this argument is nothing more than a variation of "I want my cake and eat it too." Get the best of some things, and parity with all other things.
The fundamental problem I see with the sorcerer is that, during the playtest, we had some unique ideas put forwards for the sorcerer. And lots of people didn't like them and voted to go back to the 3e style sorcerer (ie pale reflection of the wizard, casting the same spells, but "spontaneously.") So, in the end, we had a sorcerer that has spell lists that's a pale reflection of the wizard's, and its identity is wrapped up in being a shadow of the wizard as a result. It need to break out, but it can't quite anymore. I'd love to see more sub-classes, but we really can't add a lot of variety without improving the spell list. Sub-classes can add more spells, like Divine Soul did, but that's very likely going to be the exception, rather than the rule. Storm Soul, with access to more spells, was consdered "too strong" and had those extra spells dropped. That tells me that going the same way Divine Soul did is the exception, not the rule.
So... I'm not sure what's left to do, unless we start experimenting with more cross-class spell lists.
EDIT - actually, no. I lied. There is one other area that sorcerers can grow in that hasn't been touched at all. Meta magic. Why there hasn't been more metamagic options created, I'll never figure out. We could create new styles of sorcerer just by being creative with metamagics.
One thing I love is that no one ever brings Monks into this kind of discussion, probably because they have an assortment of crazy physical abilities to use.
I don't really have a problem with the Sorcerers spelllist per se, but rather wish that each subclass, if nothing else, got spells that didn't count against the total number of spells known. It at least then would have spells that's thematic with the class and still have room to play with on the players side of things in what spells to choose from. That Storm Sorcerers don't get Call Lightning as a spell to choose from will always be beyond me. That or have spells Sorcerers only get to have, because aside from Chaos Bolt, they're the only class that doesn't get neat toys to play with all by themselves. Even Warlocks have a few things that unique to themselves.
If not a flat out change to the total number of spells known, or sorcery points, the ability to increase them with feats, or as options at 4th, 8th, 12th, etc would go a long way in improving the sorcerer IMO.
I'm going to be the odd one out and say I'm glad other classes have magically geared subclasses in them. If it fills a niche in gameplay that people want to play, I see no reason to try and not depict it. I've never encountered the problem where no one wants to not play a non-magical class because its boring, because in my groups it frankly never happens.
Personally, I think it needs to be looked at on a class to class and that those classes are supposed to be all about. Out of the eight subclasses in the Fighter classes, only two are what I would consider to be magically inclined, which I think is perfectly reasonable. Compare and contrast to the Barbarians where almost all of them barring the Battlerager and the Berserker have supernatural abilities, which does make it awkward if you take the "I don't like magic" route for some reason.
I forgot the Path of the Battlerager! That brings it up to 13-15.
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
One thing I love is that no one ever brings Monks into this kind of discussion, probably because they have an assortment of crazy physical abilities to use.
No one really brings up the rogue either. Its mostly barbarian and fighter. I think its because people are thinking about being the big dumb brute type when talking about the anti-magic crowd.
I forgot the Path of the Battlerager! That brings it up to 13-15.
To be fair, so do most people. :P
No one really brings up the rogue either. Its mostly barbarian and fighter. I think its because people are thinking about being the big dumb brute type when talking about the anti-magic crowd.
I think the issue tends to be is that classes with spell slots are pretty dominate in the game. I would argue that actually playing those classes is still a very different affair from the actual spell casters, but on paper I get where that comes from.
The only class I sympathize with are people who want to go for a non-magical ranger, as it is sometimes a class that you wouldn't always associate with magical abilities.
The only class I sympathize with are people who want to go for a non-magical ranger, as it is sometimes a class that you wouldn't always associate with magical abilities.
And yet, a predominantly non-magical ranger is pretty much the "Poster Boy" for the Forgotten realms. (Apart from his 712 magical items and artifacts.)
"For some reason we can come up with endless ways to define what a spell attack is but we can't conceive fighters being able to execute anything else but "a generic attack"."
I blame the popularity of Eastern Martial Arts. In the media, the vast majority of images of students training is 30 white-suited students endlessly repeating the same punch. Kendo matches are predominantly two old guys touching canes for ten minutes before one launches a diagonal cut to his opponent's head, which is blocked and immediately followed up with the aggressor taking a whack to his own bonce. "Kick boxing" is 90% about grabbing the other fighter around the back of the neck and applying repeated introductions of padded knee to increasingly mangled face.
Not that the Europeans are any better - Take fencing - ignoring sabre, there are two attacks available; Straight arm thrust (Does exactly what it says on the tin) and the Lunge, which is basically a straight arm thrust, but a bit longer. And the Fleche, which is basically where you attempt a lunge, trip over your own foot and try to recover some dignity by pretending you meant to do it. Sabre spices it up slightly by having a move where you expose your armpit and leading side to a straight arm thrust by raising the blade prior to a cutting attack that is so telegraphed that Stevie Wonder would see it coming!
From King Arthur to the Mountain that Rides, fighting in plate is even worse! Wind up for a big swing. Swing. Wait for opponent to do the same back to you. Repeat until one of you falls over from the exertion.
Let's face it, there are only so many ways to hit someone with a fist, a knee, or a sword. Any techniques used prior to that point are just preparations.
Complete twaddle of course, but that is the general perception of us "Dim-witted fighters."
Magic users need a wider variety of spells and powers as they haven't got the imagination to use a restricted tool box in creative ways!
I'd like to see a few more known spells is about it.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
It would have been great if at the very least, for the few martial classes we have that the 3 sub-classes offered in the players handbook weren't dedicated to converting them into caster classes. I mean why is the Eldritch Knight, a fighter sub-class and not a Wizard Sub-Class? I mean we have no less than 3 fully dedicated casting classes, (Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard) which all have "pure caster" sub-classes, yet the Fighter which already got the lame "Champion" class which no one takes and does basically nothing, we also have use one of its classes to create yet another mage?
I mean I can swallow the whole "there are only so many ways to make a fighter" argument, but for crap sakes after 40+ years of D&D and half a dozen editions of the game, you would think we could at least come up with 3 bloody sub-classes for a fighter without making one them "another kind of magic user".
To me its just lazy design.
I personally do not see the Eldritch Knight as lazy conceptual design (although it could have been quite better mechanically), if anything the Champion is the epitome of lazy conceptual and mechanical design.
I see it more as WotC following the trail of people wanting a heavily armored fighter with magic without the strict need for multiclassing. It's a common desire, as far as I could see in the years, and one that they tried to appease with the Eldritch Knight. Now, as much as the idea itself is not necessarily lazy design, imho, the execution could indeed have been a lot better (as much as I always liked the idea myself, I find the subclass very underwhelming), but it still answers to a very specific desire by the players to have that option from the get-go.
Had they included the Hex Blade in the PHB, I'd agree there was no reason in heaven to have the Eldritch Knight, as the Hex Blade Warlock is basically what everyone really wants when thinking of a moderately/heavily armored fighter with magic, and could have been introduced later, like in Xanathar's, and could have probably profited from a longer gestation and development.
The initial choice could have been better? yes, indeed Did they go in "blind"? I'd say no, as before the official release there was quite some time (two years, I believe) of open playtesting of the 5ed (when it was still known as D&D Next), and I believe they used that data as well to decide what to include at launch and what to scrap/save for later, albeit their choices might seem counterproductive/hardly understandable
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Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
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@BigKahuna1975
"All great choices but if you add classes outside of the players handbook you increased the amount of sub-classes from 40 to 72, which actually makes the ratio worse. Your almost at a 1 to 7 ratio."
Add to that the tendency to multi-class, which if you read these forums (and others) is almost a necessity in order to get an
'good, fully optimised build 'interesting character, then it gets even harder to find an actual non-spellcasting character. Yes, there are plenty of options (12-14 according to a recent survey), but that doesn't mean people are choosing those options, and sticking to a non-magical progression.To make matters even more unbalanced, it seems to be the main reason to avoid multi-classing is that it slows down your spell progression!
D&D 5th edition was playtested, and released into the wild, and I believe that WoTC's findings are that 'most' people want their characters to have magical abilities to some degree. On this the game delivers.
Most people are happy, right?
The trouble is, that as previously stated, if every body has magic, then nobody has magic.
We all want magic, but we don't want everybody else having it. I think that is a fair - if slightly selfish - desire.
So the answer to "Is there anything you would change about the sorcerer?" seems to be "Everybody else!"
Show the world you are a free thinking, non- conformist individual - get a tattoo!
Pink, because apparently that helps signify to certain nationalities that I do not want that comment to be taken at face value - I never made up the rule, just learned it from my american friends on iRacing Forums.
One answer is house-rules and DMs building worlds where magic use is truly rare, but that takes away player choice.
Another is for WoTC to publish some real options for classes that don't use innate magic (as opposed to being bejazzled with rings, neck chains, swords, and bracers of archery), and 'punish'/ban multi-classing with those options.
Any one remember the Barbarian that refused to even touch magic items? (First UA, I think). He could kick-ass with the best of them.
Until there is a clear (ish) reason to play a character without magic abilities, people will continue as they are.
Pure fighters are boring and under-powered.
Oh, happy Monday morning. :)
Roleplaying since Runequest.
@BigKahuna1975
I run 2 campaigns and NOBODY plays a fighter. Not one!
The battlemaster with it's combat superiority mechanic looks awesome. I have pointed it out to a couple of the players. One even agreed with me, then went on to create a
I would definitely play a battlemaster as my first PC....then I might complain that I want all the maneuvers for my level, not just 3, then 5,7,9 at later levels. So maybe that limitation should be the first to go!
" Its clear the reason everyone wants magical powers in every class is because, the alternatives are terrible." - I think that's going a bit far, maybe change the word terrible for "just not as much fun."
I think the reason everyone wants magical powers is that they are great to have. They don't necessarily want ALL classes to have them, but people definitely want THEIR class to have them.
" I could dream up maneuvers for unique classes all day long and fill the equivalent of a spell book with them. " - go on then!
Note the lack of pink? That means I would be interested in seeing them, even if everyone else here is happy with the choice between chocolate and turd on a stick. (I don't think we are the only ones......)
I'll go one further - you put 50 in a book on DMs Guild, and I'll pay a reasonable fee and do a review....
Ultimately, I think we are always going to see multiple magic users around every table unless the DM steps in with a big stick...or a campaign setting comes along with strict rules on magic use.
WoTC are doing their job (pandering to the masses.)
More than that, D20 is OGL, so they are encouraging others to do a better job (while being confident that others won't. Or at least, not enough to put WoTC out of business.)
Now please stop making me argue with you as I basically agree. :)
Better Fighters, less spell casters!
Edit: Err, was this thread about sorcerers? ;D
Roleplaying since Runequest.
I'm going to be the odd one out and say I'm glad other classes have magically geared subclasses in them. If it fills a niche in gameplay that people want to play, I see no reason to try and not depict it. I've never encountered the problem where no one wants to not play a non-magical class because its boring, because in my groups it frankly never happens.
Personally, I think it needs to be looked at on a class to class and that those classes are supposed to be all about. Out of the eight subclasses in the Fighter classes, only two are what I would consider to be magically inclined, which I think is perfectly reasonable. Compare and contrast to the Barbarians where almost all of them barring the Battlerager and the Berserker have supernatural abilities, which does make it awkward if you take the "I don't like magic" route for some reason.
I will never understand the complaint about magic v. non-magic classes. Magic is fantasy's equivalent to technology, and there's only so much you can do with a sword or bow against a napalm-breathing flying tank. Shoot/swing faster, harder, more accurate? Battle tricks and trips? Angry, out of control? Be sneaky and backstabby? Wrestler? Tavern brawling? All these already exist in 5e. Maybe not an ideal option, but they do exist. In fact, I'll point out that a large chunk of feats revolve around different weapon option for that very variety. Look at the feats that have been in UA the past couple tests - we have had racial feats, and weapon feats, and some non-magic utility feats.
Magic, meanwhile, gets the majority of variety from spell lists. Each spell list is pretty unique to each class. Well, the sorcerer has a lot of overlap with the wizard (grrr....), but in general they're fairly different. You can't swap out healing magic for explosion magic or plant magic on the wizard. That's the equivalent of swapping out weapons on a warrior type. And feats? No new magic UA feats being tested, and five feats total - elemental, close range caster, far range caster, steal another class's rituals, get another class's 'low level magic. That's right, 40% of magic feats involve "get another class's spells." That's how much spell lists matter, compared to warriors. Heck. Even the magic wands and staves for casters are generally just "get these spells that you can cast now without prepping them or without your spell slots." Not nearly the variety that magic weapons get.
I can't help but think this argument is nothing more than a variation of "I want my cake and eat it too." Get the best of some things, and parity with all other things.
The fundamental problem I see with the sorcerer is that, during the playtest, we had some unique ideas put forwards for the sorcerer. And lots of people didn't like them and voted to go back to the 3e style sorcerer (ie pale reflection of the wizard, casting the same spells, but "spontaneously.") So, in the end, we had a sorcerer that has spell lists that's a pale reflection of the wizard's, and its identity is wrapped up in being a shadow of the wizard as a result. It need to break out, but it can't quite anymore. I'd love to see more sub-classes, but we really can't add a lot of variety without improving the spell list. Sub-classes can add more spells, like Divine Soul did, but that's very likely going to be the exception, rather than the rule. Storm Soul, with access to more spells, was consdered "too strong" and had those extra spells dropped. That tells me that going the same way Divine Soul did is the exception, not the rule.
So... I'm not sure what's left to do, unless we start experimenting with more cross-class spell lists.
EDIT - actually, no. I lied. There is one other area that sorcerers can grow in that hasn't been touched at all. Meta magic. Why there hasn't been more metamagic options created, I'll never figure out. We could create new styles of sorcerer just by being creative with metamagics.
One thing I love is that no one ever brings Monks into this kind of discussion, probably because they have an assortment of crazy physical abilities to use.
I don't really have a problem with the Sorcerers spelllist per se, but rather wish that each subclass, if nothing else, got spells that didn't count against the total number of spells known. It at least then would have spells that's thematic with the class and still have room to play with on the players side of things in what spells to choose from. That Storm Sorcerers don't get Call Lightning as a spell to choose from will always be beyond me. That or have spells Sorcerers only get to have, because aside from Chaos Bolt, they're the only class that doesn't get neat toys to play with all by themselves. Even Warlocks have a few things that unique to themselves.
If not a flat out change to the total number of spells known, or sorcery points, the ability to increase them with feats, or as options at 4th, 8th, 12th, etc would go a long way in improving the sorcerer IMO.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
Roleplaying since Runequest.
Like I said, its the only class I sympathize with since there aren't any options in lieu of that.
@BigKahuna
"For some reason we can come up with endless ways to define what a spell attack is but we can't conceive fighters being able to execute anything else but "a generic attack"."
I blame the popularity of Eastern Martial Arts.
In the media, the vast majority of images of students training is 30 white-suited students endlessly repeating the same punch.
Kendo matches are predominantly two old guys touching canes for ten minutes before one launches a diagonal cut to his opponent's head, which is blocked and immediately followed up with the aggressor taking a whack to his own bonce.
"Kick boxing" is 90% about grabbing the other fighter around the back of the neck and applying repeated introductions of padded knee to increasingly mangled face.
Not that the Europeans are any better - Take fencing - ignoring sabre, there are two attacks available; Straight arm thrust (Does exactly what it says on the tin) and the Lunge, which is basically a straight arm thrust, but a bit longer. And the Fleche, which is basically where you attempt a lunge, trip over your own foot and try to recover some dignity by pretending you meant to do it.
Sabre spices it up slightly by having a move where you expose your armpit and leading side to a straight arm thrust by raising the blade prior to a cutting attack that is so telegraphed that Stevie Wonder would see it coming!
From King Arthur to the Mountain that Rides, fighting in plate is even worse! Wind up for a big swing. Swing. Wait for opponent to do the same back to you. Repeat until one of you falls over from the exertion.
Let's face it, there are only so many ways to hit someone with a fist, a knee, or a sword. Any techniques used prior to that point are just preparations.
Complete twaddle of course, but that is the general perception of us "Dim-witted fighters."
Magic users need a wider variety of spells and powers as they haven't got the imagination to use a restricted tool box in creative ways!
Roleplaying since Runequest.
I'd like to see a few more known spells is about it.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Did they go in "blind"? I'd say no, as before the official release there was quite some time (two years, I believe) of open playtesting of the 5ed (when it was still known as D&D Next), and I believe they used that data as well to decide what to include at launch and what to scrap/save for later, albeit their choices might seem counterproductive/hardly understandable
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games