I think they need more meta-magic options. For the most part, I'm going twin and quicken. Period. If I think there's going to be a lot of RP, I am taking subtle. the rest are so edge case as to not be worth my consideration. That's a shame really.
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Sorcerer's should use the wizard spell list to open up their options, font of magic should be 1 for 1, give each metamagic option a 1/short rest ability kinda like how the runes for a runeknight work. This gives the sorcerer an edge in number of spells cast, more variety in casting concepts that can be played, and allow them to gain some benefit from a short rest.
One thing that would help with Core Sorcerer progression would be to have a feature at different levels that allows you to permanently apply a specific Metamagic feature to a specific spell. Probably not Twinned/Quickened (unless it's an x times per rest type of thing), but a couple of spells that are permanently cast with Subtle Spell? That's cool. Fireball that's always cast with Careful Spell? That's cool.
There's a ton of potential for Metamagic, besides just increased combat capability, that WoTC is totally ignoring.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
One thing that would help with Core Sorcerer progression would be to have a feature at different levels that allows you to permanently apply a specific Metamagic feature to a specific spell. Probably not Twinned/Quickened (unless it's an x times per rest type of thing), but a couple of spells that are permanently cast with Subtle Spell? That's cool. Fireball that's always cast with Careful Spell? That's cool.
There's a ton of potential for Metamagic, besides just increased combat capability, that WoTC is totally ignoring.
I like this idea, just to take a stab at it. Probably needs some wording cleanup.
Instinctive Alteration: At 4th choose a spell you know and a metamagic option you know that costs 1 sorcery point. The spell is always cast with the selected metamagic without you needing to spend sorcery points. Instinctively applied metamagic does not count towards your limit of 1 metamagic per spell. You can select an additional spell and metamagic combo at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th level. Any given spell known may only have one instinctive alteration. Whenever you gain a level you may change your instinctive alteration to a new spell and/or metamagic selection.
Potential complication: Twin spell can technically fall under the point cost if it's applied to a level 1 or lower spell. This either needs a note saying that if an instinctive option would end up costing more points it fails, so you can twin spell a first level spell as long as you don't upcast. Or, my personal favorite, you can only apply twin spell to cantrips.
This leaves a up to 5 spells that can be any of: careful, distant, empowered, extended, or subtle, with the additional option of twin spelling cantrips.
Potential issue 2: a lv 4 sorcerer that has only quickened and heightened spell known, they have no valid combos available. While I like that this makes some of the less popular metamagics more appealing (twin and quicken are by far the favorite choices from what I've seen, and twin can only go on cantrips) I don't like that it's possible to have no valid option. Given that not enough metamagic choices is a common complaint perhaps pair this with a 3rd option chosen at lv 3. With only 2 metamagic options that can't work with this feature picking 3 instead of 2 initially guarantees you will be able to do something.
What about the ability, starting at level one or two, to cast any unknown sorcerer spell, but at a penalty. So the spell DC or attack roll would have a penalty equal to something like 2 times the spell level being cast, with cantrips being a penalty of 2. And for spells that don't have an attack roll or DC require a casting roll with a target of 10+ 2 times the level of spell being cast. Critical failures of the casting or attack roll or critical successes of the saving throw would result in a backlash that would either cost an additional spell slot, or maybe stun the sorcerer for something like a number of rounds equal to the spell level being cast with cantrips being one round.
This gives the sorcerer a huge amount of flexibility, but at a cost. The penalty would probably need to be tweaked, as this is just an initial idea. Other options around this general idea would be for later levels, to allow this feature for spells from other class lists for multi-class characters at an increased penalty maybe 3 times the spell level, and at an even higher level to reduce the penalty multiplier.
I would also like to see the option for more known metamagic choices or at least a way to change them more regularly, and the option to recharge some number of sorcerer points after a short rest. Maybe tie the sorcerer points recovered after a short rest to hit dice so you could use a hit die to recover hit points, or to recover 1 sorcerer point.
Maybe tie the sorcerer points recovered after a short rest to hit dice so you could use a hit die to recover hit points, or to recover 1 sorcerer point.
I am a fan of sorcerers getting some sorcery points back on a short rest. This is an interesting idea - rarely use your hit dice for anything IMO (depending on the sorcerer being played). Gives you something to do with them and stops it being overpowered. Also signifies them "reaching deep into themselves" to recover. Interesting start to an idea.
Altering area of effects would be a cool addition to the sorcerer as well. Something like being able to apply 1 90 degree turn to line spell or maybe turning a radius effect with a save to a spell attack on 1 creature with a commesurate increased effect kinda like how the spellwarp sniper did in 3.5
Bloodline related origin spells would be a start, only being able to pick 15 spells is to restrictive need something added in.
More metamagic - Both granted at leveling up, like seriously whoever at wizards decided on just 4 metamagic options for a sorcerer when its literally the only thing they have over Wizards was daft.. but why is there so little metamagic out there? PHB had 8 metamagic but 33 invocations for warlocks? (I know not all warlocks can take all invocations but STILL thats 4 times the amount). Need at least 1 more metamagic granted at lvl 6 or 7 and more metamagic to pick from.
And a way to recover spell slots outside of sorcery points, Sorcery points should not be a double taxed class feature. Metamagic is the one 'thing' the sorcerer has but its fuel is also consumed if you want to recover some spell slots. There should be either a short rest spell slot recovery similar to Wizards or a better version of the capstone point recovery ability at like lvl 4.
Sorcerer as is just reeks of a last minute scramble class, they'd already given away the bulk of the sorcerers power, just had metamagic left over and decided they had to nerf the sorcerers spell casting to give it very limited metamagic options. Class seriously needs a rewrite IMO
Bloodline spells would be nice as well as Bloodline metamagic would also be rather flavorful to get at lvl2. Some bloodline features could improve, such as the draconic resistance not being a passive but costs a sorc point.
And that the sorcerer is the arcane focus themselves and as they progress they can forgo cheaper costs. I don't think they'd need a arcane recovery, feel too much akin to the wizard and with flexible casting already about.
The Sorcerer subclass term is Origin not Bloodline.
It's important to note because all but 1 Origin may have nothing to do with blood, lineage or ancestry at all.
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I would add back in eschew materials letting the sorcerer be there own focus instead of requiring them to have one. Also spell points instead of slots with the sorcery points added into the pool so there's none of that converting spells into points getting rid of broken coffeelock builds.
Honestly it's pretty controversial, but I'd completely change most of the class. At the moment it just feels like a differently themed wizard with a bad spell list and few known spells. I'd personally like the entire class rewritten from almost the ground up.
Changes I'd make are:
- Spell point variant as standard. Sorcery points merged with/added into this pool so the class would have around 100-110 points to spend on a combination of spells and metamagic by level 20.
- To compensate for that it would be a 2/3 caster. Topping out at 7th level spells.
- Bloodline spell lists for all bloodlines.
- No arcane focus needed. The power for casting would come from the sorcerers own body.
- Potentially a 'magic rage', 'avatar state' type ability, where you can get a ton of bloodline dependent buffs (think phoenix sorcerer) by entering this state. Each turn in the state would burn a whole load of spell points.
Those changes would make the class feel truly unique and not like another copied and pasted caster. It would lack the sheer power of full casters like wizards, but the spell points and metamagic combo makes it a lot more flexible. The magic rage represents unleashing all the power in the sorcerers body as fast as they can.
haven’t read the whole thread so sorry if I repeat what others have said (at work on a break and can’t spend the time to read it all). But wanted to throw in my two cents.
1. increase the spell list, they need more spells to choose from. 2. maybe give them something like the Land druids Natural Recovery to gain back spell slots equal to 1/2 their sorcerer level rounded down. 3. And additional 1 or 2 spells known tied to their subclass, again like the Land Druid that might have spells not necessarily from their spell list. And if knowing them is too powerful then just available to choose from (expanded spell list)
Honestly it's pretty controversial, but I'd completely change most of the class. At the moment it just feels like a differently themed wizard with a bad spell list and few known spells. I'd personally like the entire class rewritten from almost the ground up.
Changes I'd make are:
- Spell point variant as standard. Sorcery points merged with/added into this pool so the class would have around 100-110 points to spend on a combination of spells and metamagic by level 20.
- To compensate for that it would be a 2/3 caster. Topping out at 7th level spells.
- Bloodline spell lists for all bloodlines.
- No arcane focus needed. The power for casting would come from the sorcerers own body.
- Potentially a 'magic rage', 'avatar state' type ability, where you can get a ton of bloodline dependent buffs (think phoenix sorcerer) by entering this state. Each turn in the state would burn a whole load of spell points.
Those changes would make the class feel truly unique and not like another copied and pasted caster. It would lack the sheer power of full casters like wizards, but the spell points and metamagic combo makes it a lot more flexible. The magic rage represents unleashing all the power in the sorcerers body as fast as they can.
This has some promise. I'm not quite sure getting rid of the ability to cast 8th and 9th level spells would be fair, though. I guess it would depend a lot on how the "avatar state" thing worked and how massive of an impact it would have on high tier games. However, I'm not optimistic that the devs would want to make such a radical change since that would likely increase the pressure to replaced the PHB with a totally new version.
I don't see the Sorcerer as having too many problems in practice; you're only going to notice the differences compared to Wizards when you actually have a Wizard in your party. But there are a few things I'd like to see, which will probably overlap with previous suggestions (there are so many!):
Sorcerer should be their own Arcane Focus.
Sorcerers should have a scaling material component immunity, e.g- up to level 5 you can ignore material components worth up to 50g, at 5-10 it increases to 150g and so-on. Not sure how high to scale it as it'd be OP to allow free resurrection and such, so probably not behind two or three hundred. But basically the idea is that sorcerers don't need components to fuel all but the most powerful spells.
Higher level metamagic or class feature that allows burning sorcery points to ignore resistance on a spell and/or impose disadvantage on saves against it. If anyone should be able to brute force a spell through something's defences it should be a sorcerer. You can do the resistance part with Elemental Adept, but it doesn't really compete (once you have the feat it costs nothing to use it).
Sorcerous Restoration should come earlier and scale. For example, from 5th level you recover 1 sorcery point on short rest, 2 from 10th, 3 from 15th and 4 from 20th, with an additional capstone ability to round it out. Maybe the ability to use multiple metamagics on a single spell? Could make for some very powerful combos.
More unique spells; not sure what, as some of the elemental spell deficiencies are not unique to sorcerers so I wouldn't want more acid spells etc. to be unique to them. Some stacking spells could be interesting, e.g- concentration spell that boosts chance to hit/damage/spell save DC or such.
I think overall there's nothing wrong with Sorcerers, they just don't really carve out a niche for themselves. I really like the old test incarnation of the Sorcerer where they were more like a half-caster where using sorcery points to cast opened up alternate non-casting abilities, so you could become more bestial and such. I'm a bit disappointed this never surfaced as a separate class in 5e after the sorcerer become a pure caster.
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Personally I see the sorcerers as sort of a specialist versus the wizard being versatile. I would probably just want more metamagic options devoted to certain playstyles, more spells, and a way for Sorcerers to get Extra Attack outside of a subclass (much harder to flavor Sorcerer Origins compared to Wizard Schools, so I feel like people might not like being locked behind a certain origin to be a good melee sorcerer).
I can see stuff such as the Sorcerer being their own arcane focus being cool, but in practice it'll probably seem more like a ribbon then anything else. Granted Sorcerers could use more ribbons outside of their subclass to separate them from the other spellcasting classes.
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if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
I'm playing a copper draconic sorcerer right now and agree on the whole don't force fire sorc on people. I picked copper for roleplay flavor and reasons based on who the character was before we rolled stats. My DM is at least allowing UA (picked up acid stream at first level). But I know that throughout we're going to have to make or re-flavor spells as we go. Fun idea for someone who needs more practice making spells but it doesn't help the class as a whole.
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I think they need more meta-magic options. For the most part, I'm going twin and quicken. Period. If I think there's going to be a lot of RP, I am taking subtle. the rest are so edge case as to not be worth my consideration. That's a shame really.
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
Sorcerer's should use the wizard spell list to open up their options, font of magic should be 1 for 1, give each metamagic option a 1/short rest ability kinda like how the runes for a runeknight work. This gives the sorcerer an edge in number of spells cast, more variety in casting concepts that can be played, and allow them to gain some benefit from a short rest.
Maybe better spells?...
I know there all good but we need more good!😸
One thing that would help with Core Sorcerer progression would be to have a feature at different levels that allows you to permanently apply a specific Metamagic feature to a specific spell. Probably not Twinned/Quickened (unless it's an x times per rest type of thing), but a couple of spells that are permanently cast with Subtle Spell? That's cool. Fireball that's always cast with Careful Spell? That's cool.
There's a ton of potential for Metamagic, besides just increased combat capability, that WoTC is totally ignoring.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
I like this idea, just to take a stab at it. Probably needs some wording cleanup.
Instinctive Alteration: At 4th choose a spell you know and a metamagic option you know that costs 1 sorcery point. The spell is always cast with the selected metamagic without you needing to spend sorcery points. Instinctively applied metamagic does not count towards your limit of 1 metamagic per spell. You can select an additional spell and metamagic combo at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th level. Any given spell known may only have one instinctive alteration. Whenever you gain a level you may change your instinctive alteration to a new spell and/or metamagic selection.
Potential complication: Twin spell can technically fall under the point cost if it's applied to a level 1 or lower spell. This either needs a note saying that if an instinctive option would end up costing more points it fails, so you can twin spell a first level spell as long as you don't upcast. Or, my personal favorite, you can only apply twin spell to cantrips.
This leaves a up to 5 spells that can be any of: careful, distant, empowered, extended, or subtle, with the additional option of twin spelling cantrips.
Potential issue 2: a lv 4 sorcerer that has only quickened and heightened spell known, they have no valid combos available. While I like that this makes some of the less popular metamagics more appealing (twin and quicken are by far the favorite choices from what I've seen, and twin can only go on cantrips) I don't like that it's possible to have no valid option. Given that not enough metamagic choices is a common complaint perhaps pair this with a 3rd option chosen at lv 3. With only 2 metamagic options that can't work with this feature picking 3 instead of 2 initially guarantees you will be able to do something.
What about the ability, starting at level one or two, to cast any unknown sorcerer spell, but at a penalty. So the spell DC or attack roll would have a penalty equal to something like 2 times the spell level being cast, with cantrips being a penalty of 2. And for spells that don't have an attack roll or DC require a casting roll with a target of 10+ 2 times the level of spell being cast. Critical failures of the casting or attack roll or critical successes of the saving throw would result in a backlash that would either cost an additional spell slot, or maybe stun the sorcerer for something like a number of rounds equal to the spell level being cast with cantrips being one round.
This gives the sorcerer a huge amount of flexibility, but at a cost. The penalty would probably need to be tweaked, as this is just an initial idea. Other options around this general idea would be for later levels, to allow this feature for spells from other class lists for multi-class characters at an increased penalty maybe 3 times the spell level, and at an even higher level to reduce the penalty multiplier.
I would also like to see the option for more known metamagic choices or at least a way to change them more regularly, and the option to recharge some number of sorcerer points after a short rest. Maybe tie the sorcerer points recovered after a short rest to hit dice so you could use a hit die to recover hit points, or to recover 1 sorcerer point.
I am a fan of sorcerers getting some sorcery points back on a short rest. This is an interesting idea - rarely use your hit dice for anything IMO (depending on the sorcerer being played). Gives you something to do with them and stops it being overpowered. Also signifies them "reaching deep into themselves" to recover. Interesting start to an idea.
Altering area of effects would be a cool addition to the sorcerer as well. Something like being able to apply 1 90 degree turn to line spell or maybe turning a radius effect with a save to a spell attack on 1 creature with a commesurate increased effect kinda like how the spellwarp sniper did in 3.5
Bloodline related origin spells would be a start, only being able to pick 15 spells is to restrictive need something added in.
More metamagic - Both granted at leveling up, like seriously whoever at wizards decided on just 4 metamagic options for a sorcerer when its literally the only thing they have over Wizards was daft.. but why is there so little metamagic out there? PHB had 8 metamagic but 33 invocations for warlocks? (I know not all warlocks can take all invocations but STILL thats 4 times the amount). Need at least 1 more metamagic granted at lvl 6 or 7 and more metamagic to pick from.
And a way to recover spell slots outside of sorcery points, Sorcery points should not be a double taxed class feature. Metamagic is the one 'thing' the sorcerer has but its fuel is also consumed if you want to recover some spell slots. There should be either a short rest spell slot recovery similar to Wizards or a better version of the capstone point recovery ability at like lvl 4.
Sorcerer as is just reeks of a last minute scramble class, they'd already given away the bulk of the sorcerers power, just had metamagic left over and decided they had to nerf the sorcerers spell casting to give it very limited metamagic options. Class seriously needs a rewrite IMO
Bloodline spells would be nice as well as Bloodline metamagic would also be rather flavorful to get at lvl2. Some bloodline features could improve, such as the draconic resistance not being a passive but costs a sorc point.
And that the sorcerer is the arcane focus themselves and as they progress they can forgo cheaper costs.
I don't think they'd need a arcane recovery, feel too much akin to the wizard and with flexible casting already about.
The Sorcerer subclass term is Origin not Bloodline.
It's important to note because all but 1 Origin may have nothing to do with blood, lineage or ancestry at all.
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Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
I would add back in eschew materials letting the sorcerer be there own focus instead of requiring them to have one. Also spell points instead of slots with the sorcery points added into the pool so there's none of that converting spells into points getting rid of broken coffeelock builds.
Honestly it's pretty controversial, but I'd completely change most of the class. At the moment it just feels like a differently themed wizard with a bad spell list and few known spells. I'd personally like the entire class rewritten from almost the ground up.
Changes I'd make are:
- Spell point variant as standard. Sorcery points merged with/added into this pool so the class would have around 100-110 points to spend on a combination of spells and metamagic by level 20.
- To compensate for that it would be a 2/3 caster. Topping out at 7th level spells.
- Bloodline spell lists for all bloodlines.
- No arcane focus needed. The power for casting would come from the sorcerers own body.
- Potentially a 'magic rage', 'avatar state' type ability, where you can get a ton of bloodline dependent buffs (think phoenix sorcerer) by entering this state. Each turn in the state would burn a whole load of spell points.
Those changes would make the class feel truly unique and not like another copied and pasted caster. It would lack the sheer power of full casters like wizards, but the spell points and metamagic combo makes it a lot more flexible. The magic rage represents unleashing all the power in the sorcerers body as fast as they can.
haven’t read the whole thread so sorry if I repeat what others have said (at work on a break and can’t spend the time to read it all). But wanted to throw in my two cents.
1. increase the spell list, they need more spells to choose from.
2. maybe give them something like the Land druids Natural Recovery to gain back spell slots equal to 1/2 their sorcerer level rounded down.
3. And additional 1 or 2 spells known tied to their subclass, again like the Land Druid that might have spells not necessarily from their spell list. And if knowing them is too powerful then just available to choose from (expanded spell list)
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This has some promise. I'm not quite sure getting rid of the ability to cast 8th and 9th level spells would be fair, though. I guess it would depend a lot on how the "avatar state" thing worked and how massive of an impact it would have on high tier games. However, I'm not optimistic that the devs would want to make such a radical change since that would likely increase the pressure to replaced the PHB with a totally new version.
Use the Spell Point variant rules.
I kind of wish they had been given more class unique spell options.
I don't see the Sorcerer as having too many problems in practice; you're only going to notice the differences compared to Wizards when you actually have a Wizard in your party. But there are a few things I'd like to see, which will probably overlap with previous suggestions (there are so many!):
I think overall there's nothing wrong with Sorcerers, they just don't really carve out a niche for themselves. I really like the old test incarnation of the Sorcerer where they were more like a half-caster where using sorcery points to cast opened up alternate non-casting abilities, so you could become more bestial and such. I'm a bit disappointed this never surfaced as a separate class in 5e after the sorcerer become a pure caster.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Personally I see the sorcerers as sort of a specialist versus the wizard being versatile. I would probably just want more metamagic options devoted to certain playstyles, more spells, and a way for Sorcerers to get Extra Attack outside of a subclass (much harder to flavor Sorcerer Origins compared to Wizard Schools, so I feel like people might not like being locked behind a certain origin to be a good melee sorcerer).
I can see stuff such as the Sorcerer being their own arcane focus being cool, but in practice it'll probably seem more like a ribbon then anything else. Granted Sorcerers could use more ribbons outside of their subclass to separate them from the other spellcasting classes.
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
I'm playing a copper draconic sorcerer right now and agree on the whole don't force fire sorc on people. I picked copper for roleplay flavor and reasons based on who the character was before we rolled stats. My DM is at least allowing UA (picked up acid stream at first level). But I know that throughout we're going to have to make or re-flavor spells as we go. Fun idea for someone who needs more practice making spells but it doesn't help the class as a whole.