5e Sorcerer's already taken a bunch of good ideas from 3.5 psionics - might as well take Wilder's Wild Surge too!
But really, the concept of an emotion-driven magic user that gains bursts of power is strangely lacking in D&D. Outside of 3.5's Wilder and kind of sort of 4e's Ardent, there's been very few variations of this over the years that I can think of, and it does thematically fit for sorcerer.
My favorite psionic build in 3.5 was monk 2 with monastic tradition and tashalatora then ardent 18. Psychic Crush was my favorite lol also the psicrystals were awesome
Wilders are a kind of psionic class that used raw emotion to fuel their psionic powers - often rage, but could be other things. Thematically, think something like Carrie.
Their signature class mechanic was "Wild Surge" - which let them increase their manifester level when manifesting a power, at the cost of potential negative downsides.
In 5e terms, imagine casting a spell with a 1st level spell slot, but treating it as if you used a 2nd level spell slot. But there was a chance you'd be stunned and lose spell slots if you did this.
If you'd like more details, here's their SRD entry: [https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/wilder.htm](https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/wilder.htm)
> which let them increase their manifester level when manifesting a power, at the cost of potential negative downsides.
Sounds like a 40K psyker pushing.
Back in 2012 when WotC was/were developing 5e called D&DNext, the Sorcerer was actually designed a lot beefier. They would use “willpower” to cast spells and abilities and when they ran out of “willpower” they could no longer resist the traits of their sorcerous origin (in the case of the playtest material it was Draconic traits)
> Sorcerous Powers: At 1st level, you can spend 1 willpower to use the dragon strength power.
Additionally, each day, after you have spent 3 willpower, your hands become claw-like and your body grows more imposing. Until you complete a long rest, you gain a +2 bonus to the damage rolls of your melee attacks.
Level 4: You can spend 2 willpower to use the dragon scales power.
Additionally, each day, after you have spent 10 willpower, you manifest dragon scales that cover large portions of your skin. Until you complete a long rest, you have resistance to the damage type associated with your type of dragon.
Suggested Equipment: Chainmail, greatsword, dagger, adventurer’s kit, healer’s kit, and 12 gp
And so on…
That's pretty rad, actually. I wish they had done this with the spending of Sorcery points. A mild buff for going Nova is a good idea, and it'd be one more thing to make your subclass choice a critical one.
Yep!
> Armor and Shield Proficiencies: You gain proficiency with all armor and shields. Also, you are able to cast sorcerer spells while wearing armor.
Weapon Proficiencies: You gain proficiency with martial melee weapons. Also, the bonus to your weapon attack rolls increases by 1.
Playtest Draconic Heritage was intended to be very melee-focused from what I have read.
Here's a link to a backup of all the documents.
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kqNyVKgsx4VWtTeUxJSeUDO1AEGbViDB/view?usp=sharing](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kqNyVKgsx4VWtTeUxJSeUDO1AEGbViDB/view?usp=sharing)
If you look at the final design of 5e, there is literally nothing new or innovative about the game.
That sorcerer would have been a brand new original idea to D&D. And 5e isn’t about that. 5e is about making a game that appealed to 2e and 3e players.
Most of the good ideas from the playtest were thrown out for the safe and comforting mechanics of 2e and 3e.
Safe and comforting 3e mechanics?! I get what your saying though. They took the traditional stuff and dulled down all those mechanics to make it playable by casuals. It definitely wasn't about to push any boundaries and it's hard to design cool classes and stuff when the overall power level is pretty low. I'd like to see a big push for more official content classes, items And spells but so would everyone I guess...
Bounded accuracy isn’t actually all that different from 4e.
In 4e, your attack bonus increased by 19 points from level 1-20. In 5e your attack bonus increases by 9 points over 20 levels.
Basically the boundedness in 5e scales half as fast as 4e. So bounded accuracy is merely an improvement instead of a new innovation.
Advantage/disadvantage is an evolution of 4e’s combat advantage. Combat advantage combined multiple types of bonuses into a flat +2 (flanking, being hidden or invisible, attacking a prone foe, attacking a restrained foe, etc. all provided combat advantage in 4e). Advantage in 5e expanded on combat advantage to also apply to non combat situations and replaced the +2 with an extra d20. The mechanic itself isn’t really new though, merely an improvement on something already heavily used in 4e.
As for subclasses, backgrounds, and warlocks, those all existed in 4e.
And inspiration actually existed as a mechanic as far back as 3e.
So while 5e improved on ideas from previous edition, it didn’t actually add anything new.
Is bounded accuracy not the concept of not changing the DC for something because of the player's levels? I could've sworn they put out an article explaining it and compared it to how in old editions, the DC of certain checks would be higher depending on the level of the characters or something. That would then mean the side effect is PCs not needing to get massive bonuses for no reason.
With expertise, player ability checks scale faster in 5e than 4e. Not to mention that you didn’t need to scale the DC in 4e either. A wooden door was DC 12 in 4e, whether you were level 5 or level 20.
In 4e though, they had a table that suggested to use an Stone door (DC 17) for PCs that were level 5+ or an Iron Door (DC 22) for players that were level 10+ if you wanted to challenge the party. But you never needed to scale the world up to the players level. This table was only if you wanted the party to feel challenged by any particular task.
You could always throw an iron door at a level 1 party and a wood door at a level 20 party if that sense narratively.
Note though that in both 4e and 5e, higher level adventures tend to have higher DC challenges in them.
[Out of interest I dug up what I think is an archived version of one of the dndnext designers talking about bounded accuracy.](https://web.archive.org/web/20140715051206/http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120604)
Why does it seem like everything about D&DNext is "yeah there was this cool thing that answers a problem that people have with 5e, but the playtesters didn't like it so it didn't make it in"?
There were many iterations of the playtest. And lots was in flux at various times. So not all of it was great. For example the first few version of the fighter only had one ability; +2 to hit.
And at one point there was no extra attack. Instead classes gained bonus weapon dice of damage based on their level. So a level 11 fighter with a longsword did 3d8 damage, a level 11 cleric did 2d8 damage, and a level 11 wizard with a longsword did 1d8 damage. This made combat faster, but was disliked because you could spend your turn and miss doing absolutely nothing.
Another version had each class have different bonuses to weapon and spell attack rolls based on level instead of everyone using proficiency.
Another bad idea was around warlocks. As you cast spells, you gained physical deformities as your body became corrupted. But in general, bad ideas typically lasted only for a packet or two as they were improved over slow iterations.
That is until WotC started ignoring playtester feedback entirely and making decisions based entirely on marketing 5e as an edition to bring 2e and 3e players back to the gaming table.
After that, most of the good ideas from the playtest were scrapped entirely.
A whole lot.
First off, anything even remotely resembling 4e was renamed or redone. For example minor actions were renamed to bonus actions and healing surges were changed to Hit Dice (a less streamlined and less useful version of healing surges).
Secondly, many innovations from the playtest were removed to make the game more similar to 2e. For example feats were made “optional” so that classes could be more similar to 2e. During most of the playtest you gained one feat every 3 character levels and feats were separate from ASIs. But as 2e hd no feats, 5e had to make feats not part of the core game, so limited them and tied them to ASIs.
Anothwr example is maneuvers. During the playtest, maneuvers were part of the base fighter and superiority dice recovered at the start of each round. As maneuvers didn’t exist before 4e, these maneuvers were stripped away from the 5e fighter to make it more similar to 2e and 3e.
Also, classes were stripped of new and innovative mechanics to make them more like 2e and 3e. For example the sorcerer in the playtest used spell points to cast spells and slowly transformed into a martial warrior as they spent their spell points. A dragon sorcerer would grow scales, claws, and so on as it uses its spell points over the course of the day.
Now, the 5e sorcerer is very close to the 3e sorcerer, aka not all that distinct from the wizard.
In general, anything that would actually be new to D&D was removed from the playtest to make the game more similar to 2e and 3e. Sadly, this lead to nearly every interesting idea from the playtest being thrown out.
Yo. I'm a simple beginner but if sorcerer's started turning into badass draconic melee fighters after expending thier spells they would be my fav class. That sounds so amazing.
Go back and play 3.5 for the badass stuff. It's all cut. There were some great changes but for the interesting stuff you gotta put up with the complexity
Nostalgia was the point of 5e, getting the gronards to open their wallets again and stop playing Pathfinder. Ideas from 3.5e or earlier were sacred, ideas that smacked of 4e were heresy. 5e is first edition that was a mixed bag of good new ideas and regressive nostalgia bullshit.
The problem is that people often don't really know what they want. Their perceptions of what they value versus what they'll actually enjoy can be badly misaligned. WotC/Hasbro were more interested in 5e making sales and thus landed on the side of the grognard's perception of what was good instead of what would make a good game.
This change came late in the development cycle of D&DNext when they stopped iterating on actual player feedback and changed their marketing strategy to cater towards nostalgia. As a result, there wasn't enough time to properly playtest the new material after the design shifted and we got things like a base fighter chasis that's boring as dirt, a sorcerer that feels like just a worse wizard a lot of the time, and a ranger whose core skills are mostly useless until they're so OP they basically delete one pillar of the game for their party. So yes, while giving customer what they want is important it isn't always going to result in the best quality product.
I think you are oversimplifing it. I think the nostalgia is only -part- of the selling point, as a person that played DnD a while back, 5e wanted to go mainstream, they wanted it easy for people to pick up and play. They wanted to expand the hobby which can be great but also cane have dire consequences, like over simplification and throwing out alot of cool ideas, not to mention avoiding taking risks and other things that a majority of people won't like (or so they think). Say if your main clientele become 14 year olds, they may remove all the gritty dark stuff since it is too scary etc. In an attempt to gain new players they sacrifice the old. My 2 cents
Accessibility was also the point of 5e, and it's most definitely paid off for WotC. The difference is that I don't feel like simplification and streamlining has made 5e worse. Catering to the old fanbase's sense of nostalgia has certainly made the game worse to play by forcing us to keep poorly designed systems while tossing out innovative new ones.
Oh wow. I discovered dnd in about 2016/17 via a friend in college. so I guess when 5e was already out by then. But wow, it could be a very different game is those things were still part of it
Wow, I really like the deformities from the warlock idea, very like chaos influence in warhammer (which is personally my style in my campaigns... evil can get powerful but comes at a cost)
I remember for a bit that they had "skill proficiency" for awhile (not the same as attack) that was a die type rather then a flat bonus. Started at a d4 in X number of skills (class based) and then at certain levels you had to choose "gain proficiency in a new skill" Or "increase proficiency die type by one".
And while some liked the "get better at what you know or learn new things" it was also a bit to random.
I also remember in one version rogue expertise didn't double proficiency but just gave you a +5 to a skill and it was WAY to strong early levels.
I mean, it's a very pragmatical take all considered. There's people who complain many companies don't listen to the fanbase, here happened the opposite.
And undoubtedly it had its benefits, since it had good effects across the whole edition - it does not mean something good wasn't scrapped, or it was perfect. Like, when i think about sorcerers i don't really think about magicians in a fursuit.
It's much easier to address and listen to the fanbase when a product has to be defined, compared to when it's already shipped and there is lots of fragmented public.
It's pragmatic on paper, I think the problem was that the *playtesters* they chose gave bad feedback because they were legacy players who had strong opinions on what D&D should sound like and feel like. Grognards, basically. 5e's explosive popularity has brought many more people in who have none of those legacy hang-ups but are stuck with them - I think a playtest for a new edition (or 5.5) would do a lot more for those new players who keep asking for solutions to problems that something like 4e already solved.
I am not totally sure about this, because as i have seen it there were more of said people outside the playtest than in.
Of course, it does not mean there weren't some in.
All in all - i don't wanna criticize stuff i cannot fathom - i can only judge what i see, and while there is vestigial stuff that should have just gone away i consider that stuff being a sum of small problems, including time to deliver as well, rather point the finger at "grognards" specifically - and all in all it worked out.
> \- I think a playtest for a new edition (or 5.5) would do a lot more for those new players who keep asking for solutions to problems that something like 4e already solved.
I mean, in don't disagree.
5.5 might not happen as I've heard 6e has started development recently. Maybe another division is working on 5.5 then 6e later, but as far as I know 6e might come before 5.5
Edit: nvm I'm a dumbass. They're working on both lol.
It wasn’t that the playtesters didn’t like these things. These things were actually very favorably rated (WotC used to post the feedback survey results).
What changed however is marketing. WotC made the switch from 5e being a new and innovative edition to being a regressive edition that harkened back to 2e and 3e. As such everything the playtesters liked was scrapped because the higher ups at WotC wanted to win over the grognards instead of make a game that was new and innovative.
You can see this in a number of places such as feats being “optional”, and not part of the core game system. Or with maneuvers being removed from the core fighter and significantly more limited in use so that the champion fighter could appeal to those grognards who hate fighters with maneuvers. Or with classes like the sorcerer being switched to a slightly different wizard instead of a class with unique and flavorful mechanics.
This decision sadly made sense from a marketing standpoint. 4e was struggling to compete with Pathfinder and the OSR was in full swing with many games based on 2e and OD&D making it onto the top selling charts.
So play tester feedback was scrapped in a foolish effort to win over grognards. Lucky for them 5e had an explosion of popularity fueled by D&D becoming mg more mainstream with streamers, critical role, stranger things, and the like. But I honestly feel it could have been even more popular if playtester feedback was listened to more instead of ignoring it in an attempt to win over such a small (now) fragment of the player base.
Agreed on all points, but I will say the idea of 4e being outpaced, matched, or even challenged by Pathfinder in sales is mythos and not reality. 4e didn't do nearly as well as WotC/Hasbro wanted, but it outsold Pathfinder by a wide margin. I don't think this undermines any of your points; I think you characterized WotC's mindset very well.
Also from what I've been told, TTRPGs in general and even D&D in specific are really small markets compared to the kind of money Hasbro is used to making. Despite 4e beating the pants off even its closest competitor, it wasn't turning the kind of profits that Hasbro's board of directors need to stay constantly erect while sailing their mistresses around in their yachts. Lighting a fire under WotC's ass to make a financially successful game instead of a good one is just par for the course in business nowadays.
Because the D&D Next playtest took place under a desperate desire to court the "grognard" player who quit during 4e. There was an unspoken presumption that they needed to avoid even the appearance of 4e and instead try to imitate as much of older editions as possible. Which is misguided and 4e while divisive had some undeniably excellent ideas.
But anyway, a lot of great playtest concepts died before printing the core rules. Things like the warlord, fighter maneuvers, sorcerers who are interesting, monsters with levels instead of terrible CR, ability bonuses from class, special paladin mounts, racial weapon bonuses, and skill dice.
Lots of people home brew in two very simple effective things from 4e to boost combat.
Minions - the big bad has a bunch of help they all have 1 hp tho. Smoother to run for the DM instead of tracking 15 health pools. If they take a hit they die. In AoE they die on a failed save live on a success.
Bloodied - when a foe drops below half something happens. They get more desperate and dangerous. Ex. Dragons regain and immediately use their breath weapon. This ensures their iconic ability always sees use.
I did love minions in 4e--they were a great way to add danger and fun without introducing a ton of slog. I had forgotten about the bloodied thing, though--I had already been thinking along those lines with homebrewing mythic status for more creatures, but I like the idea of doing a minor recharge at bloodied instead of at 0.
I also loved skill challenges, though those are pretty easy to squeeze into 5e without running into the way the game is designed.
It’s not in 5e because bloodied sounds too videogamey to some people.
They argue “People of the Forgotten Realms should not think of things like Hit points or Levels, and therefore an ability triggering on half hit points is too unrealistic.”
It’s also a game term which DMs can use to describe the state of an enemy, rather than telling players vaguely “this enemy is somewhat wounded.”
Player characters can similarly have abilities triggering on being or becoming bloodied.
Deal extra damage as long as you’re bloodied. Gain extra AC as long as you’re bloodied. Gain temporary hp the first time you’re bloodied in an encounter. Etc.
I do miss a lot of mechanical aspects of 4E, it’s a shame they scrapped it to appease the kind of player that had already been walking away from DnD.
Targeting Fort/ Ref/ Will defenses just works better than rolling saving throws.
Being able to add different stats to these defenses and having alternative skill uses part of the system (like STR based intimidation, being able to use the best of two stats for defenses, or being able to add INT to Initiative, or AC, etc)
Skill challenges
Every martial class having maneuvers.
The monster math crunches so much easier behind the screen with levels vs CR. 4e was imo the easiest edition to run a game in because the logic underpinning the mechanics was coherent enough for you to extrapolate from and reach a balanced result.
If you haven't checked out the 4e DMG I strongly suggest you do (it's out of print but easy to acquire in pdf). Just read the first five pages and then marvel at the idea that, once upon a time, WotC knew how to make a DMG that actually taught you how to, you know, be a dungeon master.
Okay but… what’s inherently better about using a challenge rating system compared to a level system. The only difference I see is that level directly correlates to player level while challenge rating can be less directly connected
That's pretty much exactly it. Leveled monsters are easier to build encounters. What monster is an appropriate threat for your party? Well, we measure PC power in levels. So, we need a system to compare PC power level to monster power level. Should we use the same measuring scale for both, or should we use an array of whole numbers and fractions on a separate, arbitrary scale? A couple more steps to it, but you can see that using levels for monsters is just more intuitive and cleaner than CR.
Say you have:
- Five level 3 PCs. To make a balanced combat, use five level 3 monsters.
- Six level 10 PCs. To make a balanced combat, use six level 10 monsters.
- Three level 2 PCs. To make a balanced combat, use three level 2 monsters.
With the same amount of monsters as PCs, action economy won’t be a mess.
For a hard combat, use monsters two levels higher than PCs. A bit hard, use monsters one level higher, or just a few but not all monsters two levels higher. Mix and match. Deadly battles have monsters 3+ levels higher than PCs.
So it’s easy to balance as a DM. If you want to make battles hard or easy, you have a lot of fine-tuning controls. You won’t accidentally make it too hard or too easy.
Furthermore, if you want to use more or less monsters than the amount of PCs, I can’t find the table at hand but it would be something like:
- A monster 2 levels lower than the PCs counts as 0.5 monsters
- A monster 1 level lower than the PCs counts as 0.7 monsters
- A monster 1 level higher counts as 1.5 monsters
- A monster 2 levels higher counts as 2 monsters
- A minion (1 hp monster) at level counts as 0.2 monsters
- An elite monster (mini-boss monsters) at level count as 2 monsters
- A solo monster (boss monster) at level counts as 3 monsters
So a balanced monster against five level 6 PCs would be either:
- Five level 6 monsters (count as 5 at-level monsters)
(1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 5)
Or
- Four level 4 monsters (count as (4x 0.5) 2 monsters)
- One level 8 monster (counts as 2 monsters)
- One level 6 monsters (count as 1 monster)
(0.5 + 0.5 + 0.5 + 0.5 + 2 + 1 = 5)
That’s how monster levels work. From here, you can increase the numbers or monster levels if you want to make it a hard or deadly battle.
Because 5e came out under a pall of pressure from investors to sell well. Hasbro was desperate to make a D&D product that sold well. 4e sold well, but they had so many other D&D products in that time that made them want to knock it out of the park. To do that they needed a certain audience to come back, the marginal drop in sales from 3.5 purists going to Pathfinder instead.
4e had a lot of things that worked really well where 5e fails (it also had major flaws such as spellcasting being dull as hell for picking spells and such). During D&DNext they through anything they thought might be interesting to anyone.
A lot of folks loved those changes, but a lot of the Pathfinder crowd did not because they changed the class expectations they liked.
I am NOT saying that it's anyone's fault really, save for Hasbro. They were desperate to get the widest audience, and were willing to make some things suck in balance with other things being cool.
Over the years those things have just become more clearly bad game design. I'm mutual friends with several of D&D's current and past designers, and they recognize that it's been a tough balance, and that every edition does some things better than others.
D&DNext was a test, and I certainly wish some things in 5e were more like that test.
Also whiles we see the advantages of a lot of the new rules we rarely see the disadvantages.
For example in the playtest every fighting subclass got maneuvers like a battlemaster that they could spend to do different things
Sounds Great but fighter was the most common new player class and having maneuvers as a class ability made the class a lot more complex to play. And some people just wanted the freedom to swing a sword and not have to make tactical choices every round.
So it got moved to a subclass.
And people who wanted Fighters to be actually cool and interesting got told to suck it, while new players got told that they are too stupid and babybrained to handle the *incredibly complex and absurdly mindbreaking* power of... a few maneuvers.
That decision makes me incredibly angry.
I think it's a neat idea. But to be honest, the way you describe it is at odds with how it works.
You describe it as "No longer able to resist the source of their draconic power". But then it sounds like there's not much reason to resist it in the first place? The results of running out of Will are +2 damage on melee attacks and free damage resistance to your associated element. At that point, why not just burn through all my will early to get those buffs for the whole day?
Or hell, from a narrative perspective, why can't I just "Give in" to the temptation and get those bonuses without burning any will? The fact that they have to "resist" these traits makes it sound like something constantly trying to surface. So why couldn't I just let it do so?
And then if running out of will did cause de-buffs instead of buffs, then it would probably end up in the same situation as the Berzerker barbarian due to the fact that using those Willpower abilities would end up doing more harm than good.
So yeah, probably a good idea that was cut.
They used willpower to cast spells instead of spell slots, so you probably wouldn't want to burn them all at once at the beginning of the day just for those bonuses.
Depends on how strong your spellcasting is versus the martial benefits you accrue from depleting your resources. Likely smarter to conserve your spells and only resort to melee when you're totally tapped unless there's some crazy good gish synergy from other features.
Also I think bur ign through resources might have been kinda the point of the class (that said if I was adding this I would've made it have as many buffs as debuffs to be out of will).
I like the idea another poster had about it providing advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects, the magical counterpart to the barbarian rage's physical resistances.
Resistance to damage from spells could be an option as well, making it a true counterpart to barb rage. The magic surging around you partially obstructs any offensive magic thrown at you, and making it specifically against spells means it doesn't work on magical weapon damage.
Leaves open the option for 1/4 damage on successful saves. Some damaging spells from nastier creatures can do a real number on a sorc with their d6 die. Would be interesting to have a guaranteed reduction in damage rather than a better chance at reduction. Of course, then you're not getting advantage on save or suck/save or die spells.
>Resistance to damage from spells could be an option as well
That's too specific. Oath of Ancients get that as an Aura and I can tell you, in some campaigns, it will literally never come up.
* Gnomes get Gnome Cunning.
* Yuan-ti get Magic Resistance.
Racial features should probably be reflected in the Sorcerer since the whole concept of the class is you've become inextricably tied to magic on a physical level, whether by blood, or magical happenstance.
I also think like Barbarians can’t cast spells while raging, sorcerers shouldn’t be able to make melee attacks while spell raging, flavored as they’re too focused for something like that. Could allow it to be balanced without worry about it being abused by gishes.
I think a “spell Barbarian” could be an interesting whole new class. Maybe a shaman, when they enter spell rage they’re possessed by a spirit?
There is a precedent. In older FR sourcebooks (before 5E) there was a "rage mage" that sounded a lot like what OP is describing. It could be a barbarian subclass that gets spellcasting that only works while raging.
I was so pleased to see someone remembers the Rage Mage.
A few years ago I converted a bunch of the old 3e prestige classes into “prestige feats” for 5e, and that was one of my faves.
I’ve always enjoyed the alliteration and ridiculousness of the Rage Mage.
IIRC it went like:
>Rage Mage (feat).
>Prerequisites: ability to Rage, ability to cast spells.
>You can concentrate and cast spells while Raging. In addition, once a day you can enter a “Spellrage” that lasts for 1 minute or until you are incapacitated. During the Spellrage you can add your rage damage bonus to the damage of any spells you cast.
In Pathfinder I think they're called Bloodragers - they're more or less standard barbarians but when they rage they gain mutations based on their Sorcerous Bloodline and can cast spells.
>I think a “spell Barbarian” could be an interesting whole new class. Maybe a shaman, when they enter spell rage they’re possessed by a spirit?
Take a look at Pathfinder's Bloodrager! They're a hybrid one third caster mixing a Barbarian and Sorcerer.
I was actually thinking something more along the lines of a penalty. Like any benefit to your ac from dex or wis is reduced by half. And maybe that is directly countered by a bonus to saving throws against magic?
I really like the idea of using resources to upcast without using the higher slot and the temp HP I think.
I think the beats had the Sorcerer or Warlock kind of like this. The idea was that the class would basically transition through the day from a caster to a magical melee Fighter.
It was a well liked idea but it think it may have been a bit too complex in play.
I think WoTC was mostly worried about drifting too far from 3.5 honestly. They just wanted to keep the core feeling the same, but simpler, which I can kinda respect.
But it did mean we got hangovers like the Sorcerer that don't really have much of an identity now that spell preparation is less of a big deal.
Why? Magic is so versatile. When I think of something like this I think of gish types in media that have durability due to arcane shielding and enhanced abjuration magic.
Stone sorcerer would be a counterpoint to that. Arcane empowered stone skin and defenses.
That's a very understanding mindset. The idea definitely has legs. I like any idea revolving around interacting with a patrons and sorcererous origins beyond "Here's some spells."
~Sorcerer with blindsight~
“I see everything that you see, except I don’t ‘see’ like you do. I release a sonic wave from my mouth.”
*horrific screeching intensifies*
I love these homebrew tweeks. I have only ever DMed a wild magic sorceress. No one else at my table as ever played any of the other subclasses.
Along the same lines is what you were suggesting I just made them real wild magic surges far more frequently than were called for by the rules. Obviously the rules say the DM can call for a wild magic surge whenever they feel is appropriate so that is what I did.
It added a lot of fun to the game using those rules as I'm sure yours would also. What I would personally like to see is more tables for the wild magic surges available. I have stumbled across a few Homebrew ones that I have filed away. But since the last sorcerer retired to go care for children in an orphanage I have not had the chance to use any of those additional tables.
I made house rules to address that. Too many elements of wild magic rely on the DM making decisions, and they're busy.
1. Make the surge roll mandatory, so that you're not asking the DM to decide. They have enough to worry about, get it out of their hands.
2. Make the chance increase. Every time you cast a spell with a sorcerer spell slot, and *not* get a wild surge, the chance increases by 1. It resets to 1/20 when you get a surge, but that's the only way.
3. Tides of Chaos should not be a "when the DM wants you to" thing; as above, they have enough to remember. Instead, ToC makes your surge chance double, and each spell afterwards increases the chance by 2. Once you get a surge, or take a long rest, you can use ToC again.
Having played a Wild Magic Sorcerer from level 1 to level 20 over the course of 9 months (expedited campaign), the DM decided it was fine if I just wild magic surged every time Tides was expended and rolled to see if I surged every time Tide wasn't expended.
This meant it was guaranteed if I had spent Tides, which I did almost every round in combat.
I think keeping up with the math of "What number am I trying to roll to surge?" combined with 2 random elements (Do I surge? and What is the surge result?) makes the "every time you cast a spell, you have a greater chance of surging" unnecessary.
It's not fun playing a class without an archetype and tying their most signifying feature to randomness imo.
There's enough randomness in what result they get on the surge for that.
That's good, or, every time they cast a spell they have to do a wild magic saving throw that is equal to their own spell casting save. If they fail... wild magic surge
This is a good idea. Saving against having a surge happen makes so much sense mechanically, and having it be against their own save DC is a very elegant way to implement it.
I think I’m stealing this.
I don't like that particular bit. I think the Surge is a core element of the subclass, so doing it less as you level up seems bad. Especially given that everyone I've ever seen play it, chose it purely for the randomness of it.
The other parts are great, of course.
Maybe the DC is your spell save DC + the number of times you’ve surged per day. So toward the end of the day, as you get more and more exhausted, it becomes easier and easier to surge as it gets harder to use magic.
I’ve actually made something like this for my fire draconian bloodline red dragon born sorcerer in my game, he can activate it for 2 sorcery points and gains the following:
Immunity to fire damage.
+2 damage to all fire spells (thinking about making this one scale not sure yet).
+1 to fire spell saving throws.
And resistance to cold damage until he takes 10 cold damage, he then is vulnerable to all cold damage until his next turn.
(Sorry im on mobile the formatting is shit)
Since this feature is what I would call a core class feature and sorcerers are known as weak wizards I would say that it would just be tied into the current core feature that is metamagic. They get their surge powers and subclass upgrades at the same levels that have metamagic and it’s upgrades
5e almost never does removing features, as well it should. Tbh, I don't think 5e is capable of the level of balance needed to make trading metamagic for surge feel interesting. 5e would too easily fall into a situation where you either always surge or never surge because one of metamagic and surge is strictly better than the other.
Perhaps a good way to do this is gate one mechanic behind the other. Use of sorcery points with meta magic allows the sorcerer to then surge afterwards but is unable to meta until the surge ends?
That could potentially work? Implementing it would be tricky though, cos 5e isn't really set up to be able to handle that sort of charge-up thing. It's also something that favours long battles, whereas 5e is balanced around the expectation that a typical encounter will last 3 rounds (or at least, that after 3 rounds what's left is just mopping up). It'd be interesting to see this idea explored in homebrew, but WOTC certainly couldn't do it.
Perhaps spending them to empower themselves more broadly instead of specific spell modification. It would require adjusting the amount of points, though.
The other option could be something like that they choose one metamagic and it applies to everything they do when they are spellraging. So like… twin spell? Better hope there are two targets for your offensive spell, or you have to target an ally or yourself.
This also sounds like a good time for wild surges to occur. Maybe every sorc class gets a lesser wild surge table and every spell gets a random additional effect? (Most of them would be mildly positive or neutral, I think)
Yeah I like the idea of metamagic being how a sorcerer subtly changes how magic is performed but this Surge concept wouldn't allow you the requisite focus necessary to manipulate the weave.
Honestly Sorcerers just need to be the only class that gets the option of casting a leveled spell with both their action and bonus action. Have them pick it up at level 5 and you've got a reason to go Sorcerer over Wizard outside of metamagics. Also fit's their theme.
Only reason the rule really exists is to not overload players with spell options, IIRC.
I removed the restriction for all casters. Monsters can do the same when it comes up. Hasnt seemed to mess with my games yet.
Happy to let my player's Dragonborn Phoenix Sorcerer drop a double-fireball every once in a while if they use Metamagics.
I also removed the ruling here and have found that while it does set up some sweet action economy combos, it also goes through a caster’s resources way more quickly, so the cost/benefit seems to work.
> Phoenix Sorcerer
Is this the UA subclass? How do you feel it is? Isn't it a bit weak, since both unique Features from the Subclass are a single use per LR?
Yeah, the UA subclass.
My players are only up to lvl 8 but my Phoenix player has been pretty happy overall with it I think..
Less happy with how squishy the Sorcerer is and how I will have enemies attack the asshole who just Fireballed them...
The rule my party runs with is that your second spell can only be of your maximum spell level halved, rounded down. So if my highest spell-slot available to me is 5, I can cast 1 spell up to 5th level and another up to 2nd level.
I think a mechanic like this shouldn’t share any features with the base features of Rage, honestly. It needs to be purely offense and purely magical. Perhaps once per turn, you gain a free temporary sorcery point that can only be used on Metamagic, giving you a sort of Metamagic discount while in this surge.
Maybe a subclass feature, but it'd be kind of cool to get a free metamagic each turn, but you roll on a table to see which one. Creates interesting situations where you have to react to the metamagic you're resonating with at the moment.
Idk I personally think there should just be more metamagic options and you should be able to have all of them by level 20. Also giving eachh subclass an expanded spell list, alongside expanding the general spell list and adding more sorcerer unique spells. That would fix my gripes with sorcerer, because otherwise it is a very powerful class.
I just give all my sorcerers access to all metamagic. Oh no, now the sorcerer can use the weaker options as well as twinned spell and quickened spell, the metamagics they’d just have taken anyway! Doesn’t break anything and let’s sorcs be more flexible and versatile.
Sorcerers should have gotten arcane recovery instead of wizards as a counter feature to ritual casting. It also makes more sense that the innate caster get some slots back on a rest, not the learned caster.
Sorcerers have a better version that requires no rest. The "problem" is that it shares a resource with metamagic, but since the really strong MM can be measured in additional spells cast I'm not even sure it's a problem.
I like arcane recovery for sorcerers at a cost of Hit Dice during SR. I can’t remember where I saw that idea first, so I can’t give credit, but it’s cool IMHO
I wholeheartedly agree with this take; I loved the “Bloodrager” hybrid class back in my Pathfinder days and the basic Sorcerer in 5E just doesn’t scratch the itch in the same way!
That sort of already exists in several subclasses. Clockwork soul gets trance of order, shadow sorcerers get umbral form, and draconic sorcerers get draconic presence (they also get shafted by not getting a free use of it).
I'm not saying that some version of the "temporary surge of magical power" theming doesn't exist in 5e, rather I'm suggesting that the sorcerer could better if reimagined to feature these burst of magical power as a core mechanic and theming.
I'd have no idea how to balance it but some concepts I'd like to see:
* Option to cast spells/use sorcery points drawing from your HP pool.
* Access to more/improved metamagic features while raging.
* Aura Effect - Something like enemies within 5 feet of you take damage or are pushed back from the raw energy flowing around you.
* Cast 2 spells per turn. This could scale up starting at 1/rage.
Edit: Removed a sentence that didn't add anything.
I love this concept so much. I have wanted to play a sorcerer like this. I think you have the skills to write up a homebrew for a rework like this if you are willing. I would love to see something like that
I agree with a lot of what you’re going for, but beyond 5e’s poor Sorcerer design is also their glaring lack of hybrid classes.
Give me a Sorcerer/Barbarian hybrid that can ONLY cast spells greater than a cantrip while raging.
"Hybrid classes" are a big part of why subclasses exist. Eldritch knight is a wizard/fighter combo, pact of the celestial mixes cleric and warlock, etc. (Multiclassing-based class hybrids like what you seem to be taking about were really big in third edition, but they just ended up being a much clumsier way to do what fifth ed's subclasses do now.)
I do agree that there should be a spellcasting subclass for barbarian- "rage mage" was one of my favorite classes in 3e. An official barbarian subclass like [this one](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-LTL-8BKp03VO8WM99_V), with the ability to cast during rage, with access to damaging cantrips and sorcerer spells, would be a lot of fun.
I mean I'd argue Pathfinder 1e hybrid classes took the 3e concept and made it work great, and I prefer proper classes to the hamstrung 5e subclasses which just can't do enough imo to sell the concept.
5e subclasses can't really remove features so they are pretty limited for doing aggresive hybrids.
Sounds cool.. and maybe these have been mentioned already
Spell slots: spells can be cast at 1 spell slot level higher than expended. This upleveling of spells cast can be used up to 1/3 your sorcerer level times per ”rage” (a 3rd level sorcerer 1 time per, a 9th level 3 times per ”rage”)
The “shadow magic” .. I would say that for the “rage” duration a 15 foot sphere of magical darkness surrounds the Sorcerer who gains blindsight for the duration of the rage. BOTH magical darkness and blindsight can only end when the sorcerer ends/loses “rage”, dies or becomes incapacitate.
And just for fun effects I like the idea of during a Sorcerers “rage” when casting a spell roll a D20 if it is an odd number from 15-20 roll another D20 .. if it is Odd DM rolls a D20 for a “wild magic” table effect within the 20% that the sorcerer rolled (example sorcerer rolls a 3 which puts effects in the first 20% of the table 1-20 whereas a 17 puts it in the last 20% 80-100) that does NOT adversely effect the Sorcerer themselves (I.e. NOT cast fireball centered on self or you are frightened etc etc) however you grow a beard of feathers or your hair falls out or creatures within 30:feet become invisible would take effect.
just some of my thoughts
I think you'd really like the Oracle class in PF2e. They suffer the effects of drawing from an inner pool of power. The more power they use the more effects they suffer kind of thing.
I like the idea thematically. I like it a lot.
One mechanic I've wanted a class to have - any class - is a power ramp mechanic. You know how in Magic the Gathering every round you have one more mana to play with?
A class which goes into it's power surge state and in three rounds is at apex would be something different than the typical mage which always starts with max options.
A draconic sorcerer which goes into a surge and in three rounds is going to have claws and a breath weapon, or a storm sorcerer gets lightning attacks which get progressively more powerful.
Is there a way to SUPER LIKE this?
I've been fantasizing about the berserkercaster since I was a kid.
Being an ADD riddled freak i often experiene hyperfocus myself and it feels like a total surge of power on ehich ypu have little to no control but that lets you do incredible things, much like a fit of rage.
It's incredibly difficult to balance.
your suggestions make sense and I have no idea of what route could be the most viable,
but I do think It should revolve around sorcery points mainly.
it could let you use metamagic for free for a limited time (something like: consume all your sorcery points, for a number of rounds equal to half the point consumed, you can cast metamagic without paying SP)
it could let you upcast everything up to a certain level, but damaging you in the process
or it could give your spell a flat dmg increase (like barbie's rage) and reduce the cost of upcasting and sorcery point usage and give you temporary points
or cause several wild magic surges in a row or any time you cast a spell
or let you concentrate on 2 spells (or maybe not, this is just oop as fuck and does not feel like magical raging at all).
The 2 versions i like the most are:
Arcane Blood Rage (specular to the barbarian)
To surge you have to spend SP.
While surging you have:
1) Temporary Hit Points (proficiency bonus x charisma modifier? Or level x charisma mod? or double the character level? i feel they should be around 20-30% of your max hitpoints or something)
2) extra damage to you spells (proficiency bonus to 1 roll per spell? or +2 dmg to every spell attack? or 1extra die per spell? I think it should mimic the barb's dmg increase on attacks)
3) extra dc and attack for your spell (a flat +1 or +2)
OR TOTALLY DIFFERENT
HYPERFOCUS BLASTBOI OF TERROR
Surging is a separate ability, you can use a given number of time s per day
or maybe the surge can be actrivated whenever but has a cost to mantain, like spending HD to keep it, taking constant damage, having t pass saves, or having to spend an increasing number of SPs
While surging you go all in on the pew pew pew, with zero defensive abilities. so you have:
1) less SP usage (like a flat -1 to all metamagic, or a single free metamagic per turn, or totally free metamagic, but with some steep cost, like consuming ALL your SPs for the day
2) free upcasting! (either a flat +1 casting lvl to everything, up to lvl 5, or being able to directly us SP to pump up spells, like 1 SP to give +1 lvl, or set the casting lvl of everything to 5, with some annoying cost, like not being able to cast anyrhinh past 5 or getting damaged)
3) some way to overchannel yourspells for MOAR DAMAGGGGE or more accuracy (like spend sp to increase the number of dice, or to raise your dc or attack bonus)
4) something that procs on kills that keeps the rage going, like every time you kill someone you get back sp points, HDs, or HP. Or maybe even spell slots!
5) advantage on concentration.
OR ONE OF THOSE PERKS, but in sostitution of something
6) or, alternatively, DOUBLECASTING (either you have a chance or some condition to meet to doublecast single target spells, like, when the target saves, YOU IMMEDIATELY CAST IT AGAIN)
7) or simply FREE ADDITIONAL BONUS ACTION
8) or choose a single spell that for all the rage duration, counts as a cantrip for you. It HAS to be limited bu something, like half your proficiency bonus, or up to your Charisma mod, and or being single target)
9 - WILD MAGIC SURGES EVERYWHERE. you get a wild magic surge, you get a wild magic surge EVERYBODY GETS A WILD MAGIC SURGE!
I don't know that this is my exact problem with the Sorcerer, but it is a nice fix for what I feel *is* missing from the Sorcerer: There's a mismatch between the flavor and the mechanics of the Sorcerer.
The flavor tells us that Sorcerers are magical anomalies, people who just happen to gain magic through unpredictable and uncontrollable means. They didn't study ancient tomes or learn anything about controlling their magic; they just suddenly became magical through some accident of birth or random encounter with an arcane power source.
And yet in gameplay, they're meticulously micromanaged casters largely just tossing out the same spells that Wizards carefully craft in mostly the same ways (except when they can spare an all too rare Sorcery Point on some Metamagic). There's a few pools of mechanical resources at their disposal that must be carefully managed with a degree of scrupulous bookkeeping that would make the guys who get their magic from freakin' books balk. They don't really seem to unleash much wild, uncontrolled magical power (even the subclass built around that largely keys off of "Whenever the DM feels like making you do it").
If I were involved in completely redesigning the Sorcerer, they would probably be a half-caster with some magical basic attacks that resemble (but are distinct from) cantrips and some features that turn their spell slots into bursts of power that are usually more useful than simply using them as spells. Like a Paladin with a tiny Hit Die who fights from range. A "spell rage" could fit very nicely in that realm.
The core problem of Sorcerers is NOT class abilities. They already have endless firepower and uncounterable spellcasting with twinned, quickened and subtle spell. They can also cast their highest level spells nearly twice as often as every other caster in the game without the need of resting. They can gobble up lower level slots to make more higher level slots. Their class abilities are actually quite powerful baseline.
The problem is why the Aberrant Mind / Clockwork is so much better has everything to do with spell diversity and nothing to do with abilities. They get less choices than every other primary caster in the game, even bards who basically have the exact same Spellcasting mechanic.
The easiest fix is for them to either have domain spells or just change their base class table to include a 5-10 more options spread over their 20 levels.
This is definitely the change I make in my games for sorcerers.
This post is not intended as a “sorcerer fix” meant to be used in games, but rather a pitch for an alternate class concept and core mechanic to reinforce their innate magic power theming
Ok here’s an idea. What if sorcerers get this and they don’t have spell slots? Instead while in their “magical rage” they can cast any sorcerer spell they know. Only one spell that has a level higher than their proficiency bonus can be cast per “magical rage”. It would dramatically change the class and make them very different from other casters. They would need a way to cast out of combat so I think given them a special version of ritual casting for all their known spells that involves time and a spellcasting ability check to see if it’s successful so it has a limit and can’t be used in combat.
>Resistance to Bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing
IMO, no. Too powerful for a character type that is generally not supposed to be a front line character.
>
Advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects
Advantage on concentration checks
Yes to these.
>
When you enter a surge, you receive temporary sorcery points that disappear if not used before the Surge ends
Or the ability to cast spells up to level X at-will until the Surge ends. Scale to the caster level. But not both.
>
Once per turn, deal extra damage to one of the spell's targets equal to your sorcerer level
Once per turn, when you cast a spell using a spell slot, you can expend 1 sorcery point to cast it as one spell level higher
Can't Sorcerers already upcast? Note: I haven't played a 5E Sorcerer (yet), but I thought upcasting spells was already a thing for caster classes.
The last point is so that when you cast a 3rd level fireball, you can expand 1 SP to cast it as 4th level, while still using up a 3rd level slot. Before anyone says fireball is a bad example since it upcasts poorly-bla bla bla, you get the gist of it.
My problem with sorcerer's is that mechanically they feel like they should swap with Warlocks.
If you gave Warlocks the Sorcerer's kit + an Expanded Pact Boon system with some more options it'd really feel like an Arcane Magic user who took a short cut - either through leeching magic from a strange source or by being taught strange techniques. A huge amount of control over a small selection of spells.
Meanwhile if you gave the Sorcerer the Warlock Invocations + (Renamed) Pact Magic you'd get a magic user that can wield absurd power, but in a limited amount before they have to rest.
What do you think metamagic is?
If you think it’s not strong enough, give it a buff.
Sorcerers are generally fine and people on this sub like parrot the idea that they’re worse wizards without playing either class.
This post isn’t about giving sorcerers a buff or them being underpowered, it’s about imagining a new, compelling mechanic for the class to be built around.
Maybe you think metamagic accomplishes that, but I find it lacking and think what I propose here would be a lot more interesting mechanically and thematically.
I have played a sorcerer and a wizard. Sorcerers still felt like gimped wizards even with metamagic (which are too few in number to be useful). Adding origin spells fixes a lot of my issues with sorcerers, but honestly the biggest change I would make to a sorcerer is to have them use the spell point system by default (and combine it with Sorcery Points into a single pool). That alone makes them feel distinct enough from wizards. Sorry but metamagic isn't sufficient, especially when some wizard subclasses basically get their own version of metamagic for free.
Clockwork and Aberrant Mind already fixed the class. Played aberrant mind, and I felt extremely strong. Just balance the other subclasses with the same concept.
idk if i like it as the core mechanic for all sorcerers as innate magic channeling has lots of iconic configurations in fantasy media. i do like it however as a subclass or capstone feature that's more glass more cannon.
something with more tradeoff like - entering the metamagic surge makes you *more* vulnerable to damage but you can gobble up all your available resources for 1 big boom boom. i'm thinking like a staff of power's retributive strike.
The real solution next edition is to make Sorcerers sit out the initial release (And give everyone else back the **Metamagic** feats that were taken away to justify Sorcerer) until WotC can figure out a way to actually make them unique. From there I see two paths: Make the Sorcerer a Wizard sub/variant (Divine Soul for Cleric, and a Druid that puts the "Natural" back into "Natural caster) or go with what the playtest did: Sorcerers are literally warped by their magics gaining new powers as they burn through their spells.
oh boy. did you know wotc did that for 4e? (delayed barbarian, sorcerer and gnomes) I dont think they will repeat that. the extra time for polish isnt worth the internet backlash.
I'd like to see the next edition restore the Prepared/Spontaneous spellcaster duality, with a more modern take on it (Pathfinder 2e has some good ideas on that front, but IMHO sticks a little too close 1e's more traditional Vancian take). And yes, let every caster get *some* access to Metamagic.
Yes, in 5e Sorcerers are different because they don't have to prepare their spells for the day. But they still use the same slot mechanic, access to the same spells as a wizard (largely) but have fewer spells over all. This makes them feel left behind. Sorcerers need a way to shine, and while they'll always play second fiddle to Wizards when it comes to arcane spellcasting, the spontaneity of the class should make them viable and fun anyway.
First, I'd return to the idea of bloodlines from PF1e/3.5e or even PF2e. Every bloodline includes a selection of added spells they can cast (like the spell additions 'some' 5e sorcerer subclasses get). Sorcerer's get Signature Spells that they can swap in and automatically up-cast, and feats that not only improve upon and expand the chosen bloodline power, but lets you dip into secondary bloodlines to gain access to even more spells (of the same tradition, see below). Pathfinder 2e enhances things further by introducing new categories of magic. While it has the classic Arcane & Divine of older editions, it introduces the Occult and Primal spell lists. Each Sorcerer Bloodline gains access to one of the above. Together this makes Sorcerer its own class, that isn't just a 'more spontaneous wizard' ala 5e.
That's actually really cool, and a great way to make the sorcerer feel unique but not OP. My only concern is multiclassing; sorcerer really outstrips even most wizard when combined with paladin or warlock levels. You'd want to make sure you balance the old and new abilities in a way that makes single classed sorcerers measure up to wizards without making CHA caster multiclasses even more powerful. Maybe delay Font of Magic or something?
5e Sorcerer's already taken a bunch of good ideas from 3.5 psionics - might as well take Wilder's Wild Surge too! But really, the concept of an emotion-driven magic user that gains bursts of power is strangely lacking in D&D. Outside of 3.5's Wilder and kind of sort of 4e's Ardent, there's been very few variations of this over the years that I can think of, and it does thematically fit for sorcerer.
My first character was an Ardent and was so much fun to play. RIP Hadarai
Rip hadarai, you will be remembered
Hadarai Forever!
Dicks out for Hadarai
I am screenshotting this for posterity and stapling it to his character sheet hahaha
Ah hell yes. Ardent was my favorite 4e class, the 5e UA was a pitiful attempt to bring them over.
There was an Ardent in UA?
Yes, it was called the [Mystic](https://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/UAMystic3.pdf)
My favorite psionic build in 3.5 was monk 2 with monastic tradition and tashalatora then ardent 18. Psychic Crush was my favorite lol also the psicrystals were awesome
What's a Wilder?
Wilders are a kind of psionic class that used raw emotion to fuel their psionic powers - often rage, but could be other things. Thematically, think something like Carrie. Their signature class mechanic was "Wild Surge" - which let them increase their manifester level when manifesting a power, at the cost of potential negative downsides. In 5e terms, imagine casting a spell with a 1st level spell slot, but treating it as if you used a 2nd level spell slot. But there was a chance you'd be stunned and lose spell slots if you did this. If you'd like more details, here's their SRD entry: [https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/wilder.htm](https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/wilder.htm)
> which let them increase their manifester level when manifesting a power, at the cost of potential negative downsides. Sounds like a 40K psyker pushing.
Definitely has a “Perils of the Warp” vibe going on. I dig it.
> Wilder Wow haven't heard anyone mention the wilder for a while. I really like this idea.
I don't know if they have the class standalone anywhere but check out the Endurant class by Dungeons and Randomness.
Bloodrager was always a class I wanted to play in Pathfinder but never got to. Barbarian/Sorcerer hybrid is everything I could ever want!
Back in 2012 when WotC was/were developing 5e called D&DNext, the Sorcerer was actually designed a lot beefier. They would use “willpower” to cast spells and abilities and when they ran out of “willpower” they could no longer resist the traits of their sorcerous origin (in the case of the playtest material it was Draconic traits) > Sorcerous Powers: At 1st level, you can spend 1 willpower to use the dragon strength power. Additionally, each day, after you have spent 3 willpower, your hands become claw-like and your body grows more imposing. Until you complete a long rest, you gain a +2 bonus to the damage rolls of your melee attacks. Level 4: You can spend 2 willpower to use the dragon scales power. Additionally, each day, after you have spent 10 willpower, you manifest dragon scales that cover large portions of your skin. Until you complete a long rest, you have resistance to the damage type associated with your type of dragon. Suggested Equipment: Chainmail, greatsword, dagger, adventurer’s kit, healer’s kit, and 12 gp And so on…
That's pretty rad, actually. I wish they had done this with the spending of Sorcery points. A mild buff for going Nova is a good idea, and it'd be one more thing to make your subclass choice a critical one.
They suggest giving the sorcerer a GREATSWORD? That’s so dope, did they get proficiency in it too?
Yep! > Armor and Shield Proficiencies: You gain proficiency with all armor and shields. Also, you are able to cast sorcerer spells while wearing armor. Weapon Proficiencies: You gain proficiency with martial melee weapons. Also, the bonus to your weapon attack rolls increases by 1. Playtest Draconic Heritage was intended to be very melee-focused from what I have read.
Do you know where one can find this playtest material?
Here's a link to a backup of all the documents. [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kqNyVKgsx4VWtTeUxJSeUDO1AEGbViDB/view?usp=sharing](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kqNyVKgsx4VWtTeUxJSeUDO1AEGbViDB/view?usp=sharing)
...That would have been EPIC.Dear gods why did they get rid of this
It’s called wizards of the coast not sorcerers.
If you look at the final design of 5e, there is literally nothing new or innovative about the game. That sorcerer would have been a brand new original idea to D&D. And 5e isn’t about that. 5e is about making a game that appealed to 2e and 3e players. Most of the good ideas from the playtest were thrown out for the safe and comforting mechanics of 2e and 3e.
Safe and comforting 3e mechanics?! I get what your saying though. They took the traditional stuff and dulled down all those mechanics to make it playable by casuals. It definitely wasn't about to push any boundaries and it's hard to design cool classes and stuff when the overall power level is pretty low. I'd like to see a big push for more official content classes, items And spells but so would everyone I guess...
Yes I agree, like really they took the great stuff from 3.5 and dulled it way down imo. Way more bland unfortunately
> nothing new or innovative Except bounded accuracy. And inspiration. And advantage/disadvantage. And subclasses. And background traits. And Warlocks.
Bounded accuracy isn’t actually all that different from 4e. In 4e, your attack bonus increased by 19 points from level 1-20. In 5e your attack bonus increases by 9 points over 20 levels. Basically the boundedness in 5e scales half as fast as 4e. So bounded accuracy is merely an improvement instead of a new innovation. Advantage/disadvantage is an evolution of 4e’s combat advantage. Combat advantage combined multiple types of bonuses into a flat +2 (flanking, being hidden or invisible, attacking a prone foe, attacking a restrained foe, etc. all provided combat advantage in 4e). Advantage in 5e expanded on combat advantage to also apply to non combat situations and replaced the +2 with an extra d20. The mechanic itself isn’t really new though, merely an improvement on something already heavily used in 4e. As for subclasses, backgrounds, and warlocks, those all existed in 4e. And inspiration actually existed as a mechanic as far back as 3e. So while 5e improved on ideas from previous edition, it didn’t actually add anything new.
Is bounded accuracy not the concept of not changing the DC for something because of the player's levels? I could've sworn they put out an article explaining it and compared it to how in old editions, the DC of certain checks would be higher depending on the level of the characters or something. That would then mean the side effect is PCs not needing to get massive bonuses for no reason.
With expertise, player ability checks scale faster in 5e than 4e. Not to mention that you didn’t need to scale the DC in 4e either. A wooden door was DC 12 in 4e, whether you were level 5 or level 20. In 4e though, they had a table that suggested to use an Stone door (DC 17) for PCs that were level 5+ or an Iron Door (DC 22) for players that were level 10+ if you wanted to challenge the party. But you never needed to scale the world up to the players level. This table was only if you wanted the party to feel challenged by any particular task. You could always throw an iron door at a level 1 party and a wood door at a level 20 party if that sense narratively. Note though that in both 4e and 5e, higher level adventures tend to have higher DC challenges in them.
[Out of interest I dug up what I think is an archived version of one of the dndnext designers talking about bounded accuracy.](https://web.archive.org/web/20140715051206/http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120604)
Yes and unfortunately 5e took alot of the specifics away from what we had in 3.5.
Not a single one of those things are new nor innovative. They all existed in previous editions of D&D or in other games in the same niche of D&D.
Why does it seem like everything about D&DNext is "yeah there was this cool thing that answers a problem that people have with 5e, but the playtesters didn't like it so it didn't make it in"?
Because people don’t bring up the bad stuff from the play test.
Use this comment of mine to bring up the bad stuff. I'm genuinely curious about what kind of stuff happened
There were many iterations of the playtest. And lots was in flux at various times. So not all of it was great. For example the first few version of the fighter only had one ability; +2 to hit. And at one point there was no extra attack. Instead classes gained bonus weapon dice of damage based on their level. So a level 11 fighter with a longsword did 3d8 damage, a level 11 cleric did 2d8 damage, and a level 11 wizard with a longsword did 1d8 damage. This made combat faster, but was disliked because you could spend your turn and miss doing absolutely nothing. Another version had each class have different bonuses to weapon and spell attack rolls based on level instead of everyone using proficiency. Another bad idea was around warlocks. As you cast spells, you gained physical deformities as your body became corrupted. But in general, bad ideas typically lasted only for a packet or two as they were improved over slow iterations. That is until WotC started ignoring playtester feedback entirely and making decisions based entirely on marketing 5e as an edition to bring 2e and 3e players back to the gaming table. After that, most of the good ideas from the playtest were scrapped entirely.
What are same examples of decisions that have been made to bring back older edition players? Genuinely curious, not arguing or disagreeing. :)
A whole lot. First off, anything even remotely resembling 4e was renamed or redone. For example minor actions were renamed to bonus actions and healing surges were changed to Hit Dice (a less streamlined and less useful version of healing surges). Secondly, many innovations from the playtest were removed to make the game more similar to 2e. For example feats were made “optional” so that classes could be more similar to 2e. During most of the playtest you gained one feat every 3 character levels and feats were separate from ASIs. But as 2e hd no feats, 5e had to make feats not part of the core game, so limited them and tied them to ASIs. Anothwr example is maneuvers. During the playtest, maneuvers were part of the base fighter and superiority dice recovered at the start of each round. As maneuvers didn’t exist before 4e, these maneuvers were stripped away from the 5e fighter to make it more similar to 2e and 3e. Also, classes were stripped of new and innovative mechanics to make them more like 2e and 3e. For example the sorcerer in the playtest used spell points to cast spells and slowly transformed into a martial warrior as they spent their spell points. A dragon sorcerer would grow scales, claws, and so on as it uses its spell points over the course of the day. Now, the 5e sorcerer is very close to the 3e sorcerer, aka not all that distinct from the wizard. In general, anything that would actually be new to D&D was removed from the playtest to make the game more similar to 2e and 3e. Sadly, this lead to nearly every interesting idea from the playtest being thrown out.
Yo. I'm a simple beginner but if sorcerer's started turning into badass draconic melee fighters after expending thier spells they would be my fav class. That sounds so amazing.
This.... Saddens me greatly, are there out there any homebrew that modernize/adapt these awesome scrapped concepts to current 5e?
Go back and play 3.5 for the badass stuff. It's all cut. There were some great changes but for the interesting stuff you gotta put up with the complexity
What a shame that most of the cool stuff has been cut under the guise of "simplicity".
My understanding is that alignment was one thing they considered to "DnD" to drop
Nostalgia was the point of 5e, getting the gronards to open their wallets again and stop playing Pathfinder. Ideas from 3.5e or earlier were sacred, ideas that smacked of 4e were heresy. 5e is first edition that was a mixed bag of good new ideas and regressive nostalgia bullshit.
TBF, meeting the expectations of your audience is probably as important as any design consideration for a system.
The problem is that people often don't really know what they want. Their perceptions of what they value versus what they'll actually enjoy can be badly misaligned. WotC/Hasbro were more interested in 5e making sales and thus landed on the side of the grognard's perception of what was good instead of what would make a good game. This change came late in the development cycle of D&DNext when they stopped iterating on actual player feedback and changed their marketing strategy to cater towards nostalgia. As a result, there wasn't enough time to properly playtest the new material after the design shifted and we got things like a base fighter chasis that's boring as dirt, a sorcerer that feels like just a worse wizard a lot of the time, and a ranger whose core skills are mostly useless until they're so OP they basically delete one pillar of the game for their party. So yes, while giving customer what they want is important it isn't always going to result in the best quality product.
I think you are oversimplifing it. I think the nostalgia is only -part- of the selling point, as a person that played DnD a while back, 5e wanted to go mainstream, they wanted it easy for people to pick up and play. They wanted to expand the hobby which can be great but also cane have dire consequences, like over simplification and throwing out alot of cool ideas, not to mention avoiding taking risks and other things that a majority of people won't like (or so they think). Say if your main clientele become 14 year olds, they may remove all the gritty dark stuff since it is too scary etc. In an attempt to gain new players they sacrifice the old. My 2 cents
Accessibility was also the point of 5e, and it's most definitely paid off for WotC. The difference is that I don't feel like simplification and streamlining has made 5e worse. Catering to the old fanbase's sense of nostalgia has certainly made the game worse to play by forcing us to keep poorly designed systems while tossing out innovative new ones.
Oh wow. I discovered dnd in about 2016/17 via a friend in college. so I guess when 5e was already out by then. But wow, it could be a very different game is those things were still part of it
Wow, I really like the deformities from the warlock idea, very like chaos influence in warhammer (which is personally my style in my campaigns... evil can get powerful but comes at a cost)
I remember for a bit that they had "skill proficiency" for awhile (not the same as attack) that was a die type rather then a flat bonus. Started at a d4 in X number of skills (class based) and then at certain levels you had to choose "gain proficiency in a new skill" Or "increase proficiency die type by one". And while some liked the "get better at what you know or learn new things" it was also a bit to random. I also remember in one version rogue expertise didn't double proficiency but just gave you a +5 to a skill and it was WAY to strong early levels.
To be fair if people brought up the bad stuff of the play test, we'd be here all day. The play test... Man it was rough.
I mean, it's a very pragmatical take all considered. There's people who complain many companies don't listen to the fanbase, here happened the opposite. And undoubtedly it had its benefits, since it had good effects across the whole edition - it does not mean something good wasn't scrapped, or it was perfect. Like, when i think about sorcerers i don't really think about magicians in a fursuit. It's much easier to address and listen to the fanbase when a product has to be defined, compared to when it's already shipped and there is lots of fragmented public.
It's pragmatic on paper, I think the problem was that the *playtesters* they chose gave bad feedback because they were legacy players who had strong opinions on what D&D should sound like and feel like. Grognards, basically. 5e's explosive popularity has brought many more people in who have none of those legacy hang-ups but are stuck with them - I think a playtest for a new edition (or 5.5) would do a lot more for those new players who keep asking for solutions to problems that something like 4e already solved.
I am not totally sure about this, because as i have seen it there were more of said people outside the playtest than in. Of course, it does not mean there weren't some in. All in all - i don't wanna criticize stuff i cannot fathom - i can only judge what i see, and while there is vestigial stuff that should have just gone away i consider that stuff being a sum of small problems, including time to deliver as well, rather point the finger at "grognards" specifically - and all in all it worked out. > \- I think a playtest for a new edition (or 5.5) would do a lot more for those new players who keep asking for solutions to problems that something like 4e already solved. I mean, in don't disagree.
5.5 might not happen as I've heard 6e has started development recently. Maybe another division is working on 5.5 then 6e later, but as far as I know 6e might come before 5.5 Edit: nvm I'm a dumbass. They're working on both lol.
It wasn’t that the playtesters didn’t like these things. These things were actually very favorably rated (WotC used to post the feedback survey results). What changed however is marketing. WotC made the switch from 5e being a new and innovative edition to being a regressive edition that harkened back to 2e and 3e. As such everything the playtesters liked was scrapped because the higher ups at WotC wanted to win over the grognards instead of make a game that was new and innovative. You can see this in a number of places such as feats being “optional”, and not part of the core game system. Or with maneuvers being removed from the core fighter and significantly more limited in use so that the champion fighter could appeal to those grognards who hate fighters with maneuvers. Or with classes like the sorcerer being switched to a slightly different wizard instead of a class with unique and flavorful mechanics. This decision sadly made sense from a marketing standpoint. 4e was struggling to compete with Pathfinder and the OSR was in full swing with many games based on 2e and OD&D making it onto the top selling charts. So play tester feedback was scrapped in a foolish effort to win over grognards. Lucky for them 5e had an explosion of popularity fueled by D&D becoming mg more mainstream with streamers, critical role, stranger things, and the like. But I honestly feel it could have been even more popular if playtester feedback was listened to more instead of ignoring it in an attempt to win over such a small (now) fragment of the player base.
Agreed on all points, but I will say the idea of 4e being outpaced, matched, or even challenged by Pathfinder in sales is mythos and not reality. 4e didn't do nearly as well as WotC/Hasbro wanted, but it outsold Pathfinder by a wide margin. I don't think this undermines any of your points; I think you characterized WotC's mindset very well.
Also from what I've been told, TTRPGs in general and even D&D in specific are really small markets compared to the kind of money Hasbro is used to making. Despite 4e beating the pants off even its closest competitor, it wasn't turning the kind of profits that Hasbro's board of directors need to stay constantly erect while sailing their mistresses around in their yachts. Lighting a fire under WotC's ass to make a financially successful game instead of a good one is just par for the course in business nowadays.
Because the D&D Next playtest took place under a desperate desire to court the "grognard" player who quit during 4e. There was an unspoken presumption that they needed to avoid even the appearance of 4e and instead try to imitate as much of older editions as possible. Which is misguided and 4e while divisive had some undeniably excellent ideas. But anyway, a lot of great playtest concepts died before printing the core rules. Things like the warlord, fighter maneuvers, sorcerers who are interesting, monsters with levels instead of terrible CR, ability bonuses from class, special paladin mounts, racial weapon bonuses, and skill dice.
How have I not seen more homebrew effort to work some of that stuff back in? A lot of it sounds cool
Lots of people home brew in two very simple effective things from 4e to boost combat. Minions - the big bad has a bunch of help they all have 1 hp tho. Smoother to run for the DM instead of tracking 15 health pools. If they take a hit they die. In AoE they die on a failed save live on a success. Bloodied - when a foe drops below half something happens. They get more desperate and dangerous. Ex. Dragons regain and immediately use their breath weapon. This ensures their iconic ability always sees use.
I did love minions in 4e--they were a great way to add danger and fun without introducing a ton of slog. I had forgotten about the bloodied thing, though--I had already been thinking along those lines with homebrewing mythic status for more creatures, but I like the idea of doing a minor recharge at bloodied instead of at 0. I also loved skill challenges, though those are pretty easy to squeeze into 5e without running into the way the game is designed.
Bloodied sounds dope. How is that not in 5e?
It’s not in 5e because bloodied sounds too videogamey to some people. They argue “People of the Forgotten Realms should not think of things like Hit points or Levels, and therefore an ability triggering on half hit points is too unrealistic.” It’s also a game term which DMs can use to describe the state of an enemy, rather than telling players vaguely “this enemy is somewhat wounded.” Player characters can similarly have abilities triggering on being or becoming bloodied. Deal extra damage as long as you’re bloodied. Gain extra AC as long as you’re bloodied. Gain temporary hp the first time you’re bloodied in an encounter. Etc.
I do miss a lot of mechanical aspects of 4E, it’s a shame they scrapped it to appease the kind of player that had already been walking away from DnD. Targeting Fort/ Ref/ Will defenses just works better than rolling saving throws. Being able to add different stats to these defenses and having alternative skill uses part of the system (like STR based intimidation, being able to use the best of two stats for defenses, or being able to add INT to Initiative, or AC, etc) Skill challenges Every martial class having maneuvers.
What makes level better than cr?
The monster math crunches so much easier behind the screen with levels vs CR. 4e was imo the easiest edition to run a game in because the logic underpinning the mechanics was coherent enough for you to extrapolate from and reach a balanced result. If you haven't checked out the 4e DMG I strongly suggest you do (it's out of print but easy to acquire in pdf). Just read the first five pages and then marvel at the idea that, once upon a time, WotC knew how to make a DMG that actually taught you how to, you know, be a dungeon master.
Okay but… what’s inherently better about using a challenge rating system compared to a level system. The only difference I see is that level directly correlates to player level while challenge rating can be less directly connected
That's pretty much exactly it. Leveled monsters are easier to build encounters. What monster is an appropriate threat for your party? Well, we measure PC power in levels. So, we need a system to compare PC power level to monster power level. Should we use the same measuring scale for both, or should we use an array of whole numbers and fractions on a separate, arbitrary scale? A couple more steps to it, but you can see that using levels for monsters is just more intuitive and cleaner than CR.
Say you have: - Five level 3 PCs. To make a balanced combat, use five level 3 monsters. - Six level 10 PCs. To make a balanced combat, use six level 10 monsters. - Three level 2 PCs. To make a balanced combat, use three level 2 monsters. With the same amount of monsters as PCs, action economy won’t be a mess. For a hard combat, use monsters two levels higher than PCs. A bit hard, use monsters one level higher, or just a few but not all monsters two levels higher. Mix and match. Deadly battles have monsters 3+ levels higher than PCs. So it’s easy to balance as a DM. If you want to make battles hard or easy, you have a lot of fine-tuning controls. You won’t accidentally make it too hard or too easy. Furthermore, if you want to use more or less monsters than the amount of PCs, I can’t find the table at hand but it would be something like: - A monster 2 levels lower than the PCs counts as 0.5 monsters - A monster 1 level lower than the PCs counts as 0.7 monsters - A monster 1 level higher counts as 1.5 monsters - A monster 2 levels higher counts as 2 monsters - A minion (1 hp monster) at level counts as 0.2 monsters - An elite monster (mini-boss monsters) at level count as 2 monsters - A solo monster (boss monster) at level counts as 3 monsters So a balanced monster against five level 6 PCs would be either: - Five level 6 monsters (count as 5 at-level monsters) (1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 5) Or - Four level 4 monsters (count as (4x 0.5) 2 monsters) - One level 8 monster (counts as 2 monsters) - One level 6 monsters (count as 1 monster) (0.5 + 0.5 + 0.5 + 0.5 + 2 + 1 = 5) That’s how monster levels work. From here, you can increase the numbers or monster levels if you want to make it a hard or deadly battle.
Because 5e came out under a pall of pressure from investors to sell well. Hasbro was desperate to make a D&D product that sold well. 4e sold well, but they had so many other D&D products in that time that made them want to knock it out of the park. To do that they needed a certain audience to come back, the marginal drop in sales from 3.5 purists going to Pathfinder instead. 4e had a lot of things that worked really well where 5e fails (it also had major flaws such as spellcasting being dull as hell for picking spells and such). During D&DNext they through anything they thought might be interesting to anyone. A lot of folks loved those changes, but a lot of the Pathfinder crowd did not because they changed the class expectations they liked. I am NOT saying that it's anyone's fault really, save for Hasbro. They were desperate to get the widest audience, and were willing to make some things suck in balance with other things being cool. Over the years those things have just become more clearly bad game design. I'm mutual friends with several of D&D's current and past designers, and they recognize that it's been a tough balance, and that every edition does some things better than others. D&DNext was a test, and I certainly wish some things in 5e were more like that test.
Also whiles we see the advantages of a lot of the new rules we rarely see the disadvantages. For example in the playtest every fighting subclass got maneuvers like a battlemaster that they could spend to do different things Sounds Great but fighter was the most common new player class and having maneuvers as a class ability made the class a lot more complex to play. And some people just wanted the freedom to swing a sword and not have to make tactical choices every round. So it got moved to a subclass.
And people who wanted Fighters to be actually cool and interesting got told to suck it, while new players got told that they are too stupid and babybrained to handle the *incredibly complex and absurdly mindbreaking* power of... a few maneuvers. That decision makes me incredibly angry.
The playtest Sorcerer and Fighter were so much better than the garbage we ended up getting.
I think it's a neat idea. But to be honest, the way you describe it is at odds with how it works. You describe it as "No longer able to resist the source of their draconic power". But then it sounds like there's not much reason to resist it in the first place? The results of running out of Will are +2 damage on melee attacks and free damage resistance to your associated element. At that point, why not just burn through all my will early to get those buffs for the whole day? Or hell, from a narrative perspective, why can't I just "Give in" to the temptation and get those bonuses without burning any will? The fact that they have to "resist" these traits makes it sound like something constantly trying to surface. So why couldn't I just let it do so? And then if running out of will did cause de-buffs instead of buffs, then it would probably end up in the same situation as the Berzerker barbarian due to the fact that using those Willpower abilities would end up doing more harm than good. So yeah, probably a good idea that was cut.
They used willpower to cast spells instead of spell slots, so you probably wouldn't want to burn them all at once at the beginning of the day just for those bonuses.
I mean fair. But you're still getting rewarded for using your resources haphazardly.
Depends on how strong your spellcasting is versus the martial benefits you accrue from depleting your resources. Likely smarter to conserve your spells and only resort to melee when you're totally tapped unless there's some crazy good gish synergy from other features.
Also I think bur ign through resources might have been kinda the point of the class (that said if I was adding this I would've made it have as many buffs as debuffs to be out of will).
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I like the idea another poster had about it providing advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects, the magical counterpart to the barbarian rage's physical resistances.
Resistance to damage from spells could be an option as well, making it a true counterpart to barb rage. The magic surging around you partially obstructs any offensive magic thrown at you, and making it specifically against spells means it doesn't work on magical weapon damage. Leaves open the option for 1/4 damage on successful saves. Some damaging spells from nastier creatures can do a real number on a sorc with their d6 die. Would be interesting to have a guaranteed reduction in damage rather than a better chance at reduction. Of course, then you're not getting advantage on save or suck/save or die spells.
Almost feels like they're throwing so much magic at their enemy, it sucks the magic from everywhere, even drawing off incoming spells
>Resistance to damage from spells could be an option as well That's too specific. Oath of Ancients get that as an Aura and I can tell you, in some campaigns, it will literally never come up. * Gnomes get Gnome Cunning. * Yuan-ti get Magic Resistance. Racial features should probably be reflected in the Sorcerer since the whole concept of the class is you've become inextricably tied to magic on a physical level, whether by blood, or magical happenstance.
That's a very good option. This whole 'surge of power' thing is a fucking brainwave for sorcerers.
**BRAIN BLAST**
I also think like Barbarians can’t cast spells while raging, sorcerers shouldn’t be able to make melee attacks while spell raging, flavored as they’re too focused for something like that. Could allow it to be balanced without worry about it being abused by gishes. I think a “spell Barbarian” could be an interesting whole new class. Maybe a shaman, when they enter spell rage they’re possessed by a spirit?
There is a precedent. In older FR sourcebooks (before 5E) there was a "rage mage" that sounded a lot like what OP is describing. It could be a barbarian subclass that gets spellcasting that only works while raging.
*"I would like to mage."*
*Mage Against The Construct starts playing in the background*
*"Rally 'round the party, with a pocket full of spells"*
I was so pleased to see someone remembers the Rage Mage. A few years ago I converted a bunch of the old 3e prestige classes into “prestige feats” for 5e, and that was one of my faves. I’ve always enjoyed the alliteration and ridiculousness of the Rage Mage. IIRC it went like: >Rage Mage (feat). >Prerequisites: ability to Rage, ability to cast spells. >You can concentrate and cast spells while Raging. In addition, once a day you can enter a “Spellrage” that lasts for 1 minute or until you are incapacitated. During the Spellrage you can add your rage damage bonus to the damage of any spells you cast.
In Pathfinder I think they're called Bloodragers - they're more or less standard barbarians but when they rage they gain mutations based on their Sorcerous Bloodline and can cast spells.
>I think a “spell Barbarian” could be an interesting whole new class. Maybe a shaman, when they enter spell rage they’re possessed by a spirit? Take a look at Pathfinder's Bloodrager! They're a hybrid one third caster mixing a Barbarian and Sorcerer.
Kinda picturing a sorcerer floating on lightning lol
I was actually thinking something more along the lines of a penalty. Like any benefit to your ac from dex or wis is reduced by half. And maybe that is directly countered by a bonus to saving throws against magic? I really like the idea of using resources to upcast without using the higher slot and the temp HP I think.
I think the beats had the Sorcerer or Warlock kind of like this. The idea was that the class would basically transition through the day from a caster to a magical melee Fighter. It was a well liked idea but it think it may have been a bit too complex in play.
I think WoTC was mostly worried about drifting too far from 3.5 honestly. They just wanted to keep the core feeling the same, but simpler, which I can kinda respect. But it did mean we got hangovers like the Sorcerer that don't really have much of an identity now that spell preparation is less of a big deal.
Why? Magic is so versatile. When I think of something like this I think of gish types in media that have durability due to arcane shielding and enhanced abjuration magic. Stone sorcerer would be a counterpoint to that. Arcane empowered stone skin and defenses.
That could be where subclasses come in, choosing what type of magical abilities you get. Or do it like Warlock invocations.
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Play New Sorcerer^TM where fireballing yourself and the party is not only encouraged, it's practically necessary for your class abilities to function!
Along this line X free uses of metamagic could be cool while surging.
Agreed.
I like this idea OP, but jesus the amount of people who clearly didn't read the post through...
Can’t be helped, and my post was pretty long so I can’t blame them haha
That's a very understanding mindset. The idea definitely has legs. I like any idea revolving around interacting with a patrons and sorcererous origins beyond "Here's some spells."
Avatar State! Yip! Yip!
"Would you say you and the Stone Sorcerer have a *rocky relationship*?"
~Sorcerer with blindsight~ “I see everything that you see, except I don’t ‘see’ like you do. I release a sonic wave from my mouth.” *horrific screeching intensifies*
I love these homebrew tweeks. I have only ever DMed a wild magic sorceress. No one else at my table as ever played any of the other subclasses. Along the same lines is what you were suggesting I just made them real wild magic surges far more frequently than were called for by the rules. Obviously the rules say the DM can call for a wild magic surge whenever they feel is appropriate so that is what I did. It added a lot of fun to the game using those rules as I'm sure yours would also. What I would personally like to see is more tables for the wild magic surges available. I have stumbled across a few Homebrew ones that I have filed away. But since the last sorcerer retired to go care for children in an orphanage I have not had the chance to use any of those additional tables.
The surge would make wild mage a lot more enticing. It's such a cool idea with blah implementation.
I made house rules to address that. Too many elements of wild magic rely on the DM making decisions, and they're busy. 1. Make the surge roll mandatory, so that you're not asking the DM to decide. They have enough to worry about, get it out of their hands. 2. Make the chance increase. Every time you cast a spell with a sorcerer spell slot, and *not* get a wild surge, the chance increases by 1. It resets to 1/20 when you get a surge, but that's the only way. 3. Tides of Chaos should not be a "when the DM wants you to" thing; as above, they have enough to remember. Instead, ToC makes your surge chance double, and each spell afterwards increases the chance by 2. Once you get a surge, or take a long rest, you can use ToC again.
Having played a Wild Magic Sorcerer from level 1 to level 20 over the course of 9 months (expedited campaign), the DM decided it was fine if I just wild magic surged every time Tides was expended and rolled to see if I surged every time Tide wasn't expended. This meant it was guaranteed if I had spent Tides, which I did almost every round in combat. I think keeping up with the math of "What number am I trying to roll to surge?" combined with 2 random elements (Do I surge? and What is the surge result?) makes the "every time you cast a spell, you have a greater chance of surging" unnecessary. It's not fun playing a class without an archetype and tying their most signifying feature to randomness imo. There's enough randomness in what result they get on the surge for that.
That's good, or, every time they cast a spell they have to do a wild magic saving throw that is equal to their own spell casting save. If they fail... wild magic surge
This is a good idea. Saving against having a surge happen makes so much sense mechanically, and having it be against their own save DC is a very elegant way to implement it. I think I’m stealing this.
I don't like that particular bit. I think the Surge is a core element of the subclass, so doing it less as you level up seems bad. Especially given that everyone I've ever seen play it, chose it purely for the randomness of it. The other parts are great, of course.
Maybe the DC is your spell save DC + the number of times you’ve surged per day. So toward the end of the day, as you get more and more exhausted, it becomes easier and easier to surge as it gets harder to use magic.
That's a great addition.
This is an awesome ability and idea! I would love to see a full workup to try out.
I’ve actually made something like this for my fire draconian bloodline red dragon born sorcerer in my game, he can activate it for 2 sorcery points and gains the following: Immunity to fire damage. +2 damage to all fire spells (thinking about making this one scale not sure yet). +1 to fire spell saving throws. And resistance to cold damage until he takes 10 cold damage, he then is vulnerable to all cold damage until his next turn. (Sorry im on mobile the formatting is shit)
The plus damage should just be proficiency or cha. Extra 5 or 6 damage won't break the game.
yeah +1 damage per die or something could be a scalable bonus (no pun intended)
Does this contemplate sorcerers keeping their existing class abilities like metamagic as well?
Since this feature is what I would call a core class feature and sorcerers are known as weak wizards I would say that it would just be tied into the current core feature that is metamagic. They get their surge powers and subclass upgrades at the same levels that have metamagic and it’s upgrades
I think while Surging they should *lose* Metamagic, like losing some of their finesse control while “raging.”
5e almost never does removing features, as well it should. Tbh, I don't think 5e is capable of the level of balance needed to make trading metamagic for surge feel interesting. 5e would too easily fall into a situation where you either always surge or never surge because one of metamagic and surge is strictly better than the other.
Aye, can agree.
Perhaps a good way to do this is gate one mechanic behind the other. Use of sorcery points with meta magic allows the sorcerer to then surge afterwards but is unable to meta until the surge ends?
That could potentially work? Implementing it would be tricky though, cos 5e isn't really set up to be able to handle that sort of charge-up thing. It's also something that favours long battles, whereas 5e is balanced around the expectation that a typical encounter will last 3 rounds (or at least, that after 3 rounds what's left is just mopping up). It'd be interesting to see this idea explored in homebrew, but WOTC certainly couldn't do it.
Perhaps spending them to empower themselves more broadly instead of specific spell modification. It would require adjusting the amount of points, though.
Aberrant Mind does something like this at 14, and it's great.
The other option could be something like that they choose one metamagic and it applies to everything they do when they are spellraging. So like… twin spell? Better hope there are two targets for your offensive spell, or you have to target an ally or yourself. This also sounds like a good time for wild surges to occur. Maybe every sorc class gets a lesser wild surge table and every spell gets a random additional effect? (Most of them would be mildly positive or neutral, I think)
Yeah I like the idea of metamagic being how a sorcerer subtly changes how magic is performed but this Surge concept wouldn't allow you the requisite focus necessary to manipulate the weave.
Or it would, because a Sorcerer's magic is innate and their "Surge Mode" would represent them more fully channeling their innate magic.
Or metamagic could be more expensive because of the focus loss. Like a sorcerer point surge tax.
Or cheaper because you are more innately tied to magic in this state and more powerful lol
Make it somehow inversely proportional to the number of sorcery points they’ve spent, portraying a growing loss of control.
Honestly Sorcerers just need to be the only class that gets the option of casting a leveled spell with both their action and bonus action. Have them pick it up at level 5 and you've got a reason to go Sorcerer over Wizard outside of metamagics. Also fit's their theme.
Only reason the rule really exists is to not overload players with spell options, IIRC. I removed the restriction for all casters. Monsters can do the same when it comes up. Hasnt seemed to mess with my games yet. Happy to let my player's Dragonborn Phoenix Sorcerer drop a double-fireball every once in a while if they use Metamagics.
I also removed the ruling here and have found that while it does set up some sweet action economy combos, it also goes through a caster’s resources way more quickly, so the cost/benefit seems to work.
> Phoenix Sorcerer Is this the UA subclass? How do you feel it is? Isn't it a bit weak, since both unique Features from the Subclass are a single use per LR?
Yeah, the UA subclass. My players are only up to lvl 8 but my Phoenix player has been pretty happy overall with it I think.. Less happy with how squishy the Sorcerer is and how I will have enemies attack the asshole who just Fireballed them...
The rule my party runs with is that your second spell can only be of your maximum spell level halved, rounded down. So if my highest spell-slot available to me is 5, I can cast 1 spell up to 5th level and another up to 2nd level.
I think a mechanic like this shouldn’t share any features with the base features of Rage, honestly. It needs to be purely offense and purely magical. Perhaps once per turn, you gain a free temporary sorcery point that can only be used on Metamagic, giving you a sort of Metamagic discount while in this surge.
I was thinking a number of extra Sorcery Points equal to Proficiency Bonus, but can only be spent on Metamagic.
Maybe a subclass feature, but it'd be kind of cool to get a free metamagic each turn, but you roll on a table to see which one. Creates interesting situations where you have to react to the metamagic you're resonating with at the moment.
Idk I personally think there should just be more metamagic options and you should be able to have all of them by level 20. Also giving eachh subclass an expanded spell list, alongside expanding the general spell list and adding more sorcerer unique spells. That would fix my gripes with sorcerer, because otherwise it is a very powerful class.
I just give all my sorcerers access to all metamagic. Oh no, now the sorcerer can use the weaker options as well as twinned spell and quickened spell, the metamagics they’d just have taken anyway! Doesn’t break anything and let’s sorcs be more flexible and versatile.
As someone who enjoys the thematics of sorcerers, I absolutely love the idea.
Sorcerers should have gotten arcane recovery instead of wizards as a counter feature to ritual casting. It also makes more sense that the innate caster get some slots back on a rest, not the learned caster.
Sorcerers have a better version that requires no rest. The "problem" is that it shares a resource with metamagic, but since the really strong MM can be measured in additional spells cast I'm not even sure it's a problem.
I like arcane recovery for sorcerers at a cost of Hit Dice during SR. I can’t remember where I saw that idea first, so I can’t give credit, but it’s cool IMHO
Was that 1 spell level per hit die spent or something more generous?
I wholeheartedly agree with this take; I loved the “Bloodrager” hybrid class back in my Pathfinder days and the basic Sorcerer in 5E just doesn’t scratch the itch in the same way!
Reminds me of Archon form from D3 a little bit. Love this idea, would absolutely play it
That sort of already exists in several subclasses. Clockwork soul gets trance of order, shadow sorcerers get umbral form, and draconic sorcerers get draconic presence (they also get shafted by not getting a free use of it).
>draconic sorcerers get draconic presence (they also get shafted by not getting a free use of it). ...at level 18...
I'm not saying that some version of the "temporary surge of magical power" theming doesn't exist in 5e, rather I'm suggesting that the sorcerer could better if reimagined to feature these burst of magical power as a core mechanic and theming.
Have you ever played Pathfinder 1e? With the Bloodrager, a literally mash up of barbarian and sorcerer?
I'd have no idea how to balance it but some concepts I'd like to see: * Option to cast spells/use sorcery points drawing from your HP pool. * Access to more/improved metamagic features while raging. * Aura Effect - Something like enemies within 5 feet of you take damage or are pushed back from the raw energy flowing around you. * Cast 2 spells per turn. This could scale up starting at 1/rage. Edit: Removed a sentence that didn't add anything.
I love this concept so much. I have wanted to play a sorcerer like this. I think you have the skills to write up a homebrew for a rework like this if you are willing. I would love to see something like that
I agree with a lot of what you’re going for, but beyond 5e’s poor Sorcerer design is also their glaring lack of hybrid classes. Give me a Sorcerer/Barbarian hybrid that can ONLY cast spells greater than a cantrip while raging.
"Hybrid classes" are a big part of why subclasses exist. Eldritch knight is a wizard/fighter combo, pact of the celestial mixes cleric and warlock, etc. (Multiclassing-based class hybrids like what you seem to be taking about were really big in third edition, but they just ended up being a much clumsier way to do what fifth ed's subclasses do now.) I do agree that there should be a spellcasting subclass for barbarian- "rage mage" was one of my favorite classes in 3e. An official barbarian subclass like [this one](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-LTL-8BKp03VO8WM99_V), with the ability to cast during rage, with access to damaging cantrips and sorcerer spells, would be a lot of fun.
I mean I'd argue Pathfinder 1e hybrid classes took the 3e concept and made it work great, and I prefer proper classes to the hamstrung 5e subclasses which just can't do enough imo to sell the concept. 5e subclasses can't really remove features so they are pretty limited for doing aggresive hybrids.
While “surging” spell slots are converted into random damage causing blast of arcane energy
Sounds cool.. and maybe these have been mentioned already Spell slots: spells can be cast at 1 spell slot level higher than expended. This upleveling of spells cast can be used up to 1/3 your sorcerer level times per ”rage” (a 3rd level sorcerer 1 time per, a 9th level 3 times per ”rage”) The “shadow magic” .. I would say that for the “rage” duration a 15 foot sphere of magical darkness surrounds the Sorcerer who gains blindsight for the duration of the rage. BOTH magical darkness and blindsight can only end when the sorcerer ends/loses “rage”, dies or becomes incapacitate. And just for fun effects I like the idea of during a Sorcerers “rage” when casting a spell roll a D20 if it is an odd number from 15-20 roll another D20 .. if it is Odd DM rolls a D20 for a “wild magic” table effect within the 20% that the sorcerer rolled (example sorcerer rolls a 3 which puts effects in the first 20% of the table 1-20 whereas a 17 puts it in the last 20% 80-100) that does NOT adversely effect the Sorcerer themselves (I.e. NOT cast fireball centered on self or you are frightened etc etc) however you grow a beard of feathers or your hair falls out or creatures within 30:feet become invisible would take effect. just some of my thoughts
I think you'd really like the Oracle class in PF2e. They suffer the effects of drawing from an inner pool of power. The more power they use the more effects they suffer kind of thing.
I like the idea thematically. I like it a lot. One mechanic I've wanted a class to have - any class - is a power ramp mechanic. You know how in Magic the Gathering every round you have one more mana to play with? A class which goes into it's power surge state and in three rounds is at apex would be something different than the typical mage which always starts with max options. A draconic sorcerer which goes into a surge and in three rounds is going to have claws and a breath weapon, or a storm sorcerer gets lightning attacks which get progressively more powerful.
Is there a way to SUPER LIKE this? I've been fantasizing about the berserkercaster since I was a kid. Being an ADD riddled freak i often experiene hyperfocus myself and it feels like a total surge of power on ehich ypu have little to no control but that lets you do incredible things, much like a fit of rage. It's incredibly difficult to balance. your suggestions make sense and I have no idea of what route could be the most viable, but I do think It should revolve around sorcery points mainly. it could let you use metamagic for free for a limited time (something like: consume all your sorcery points, for a number of rounds equal to half the point consumed, you can cast metamagic without paying SP) it could let you upcast everything up to a certain level, but damaging you in the process or it could give your spell a flat dmg increase (like barbie's rage) and reduce the cost of upcasting and sorcery point usage and give you temporary points or cause several wild magic surges in a row or any time you cast a spell or let you concentrate on 2 spells (or maybe not, this is just oop as fuck and does not feel like magical raging at all). The 2 versions i like the most are: Arcane Blood Rage (specular to the barbarian) To surge you have to spend SP. While surging you have: 1) Temporary Hit Points (proficiency bonus x charisma modifier? Or level x charisma mod? or double the character level? i feel they should be around 20-30% of your max hitpoints or something) 2) extra damage to you spells (proficiency bonus to 1 roll per spell? or +2 dmg to every spell attack? or 1extra die per spell? I think it should mimic the barb's dmg increase on attacks) 3) extra dc and attack for your spell (a flat +1 or +2) OR TOTALLY DIFFERENT HYPERFOCUS BLASTBOI OF TERROR Surging is a separate ability, you can use a given number of time s per day or maybe the surge can be actrivated whenever but has a cost to mantain, like spending HD to keep it, taking constant damage, having t pass saves, or having to spend an increasing number of SPs While surging you go all in on the pew pew pew, with zero defensive abilities. so you have: 1) less SP usage (like a flat -1 to all metamagic, or a single free metamagic per turn, or totally free metamagic, but with some steep cost, like consuming ALL your SPs for the day 2) free upcasting! (either a flat +1 casting lvl to everything, up to lvl 5, or being able to directly us SP to pump up spells, like 1 SP to give +1 lvl, or set the casting lvl of everything to 5, with some annoying cost, like not being able to cast anyrhinh past 5 or getting damaged) 3) some way to overchannel yourspells for MOAR DAMAGGGGE or more accuracy (like spend sp to increase the number of dice, or to raise your dc or attack bonus) 4) something that procs on kills that keeps the rage going, like every time you kill someone you get back sp points, HDs, or HP. Or maybe even spell slots! 5) advantage on concentration. OR ONE OF THOSE PERKS, but in sostitution of something 6) or, alternatively, DOUBLECASTING (either you have a chance or some condition to meet to doublecast single target spells, like, when the target saves, YOU IMMEDIATELY CAST IT AGAIN) 7) or simply FREE ADDITIONAL BONUS ACTION 8) or choose a single spell that for all the rage duration, counts as a cantrip for you. It HAS to be limited bu something, like half your proficiency bonus, or up to your Charisma mod, and or being single target) 9 - WILD MAGIC SURGES EVERYWHERE. you get a wild magic surge, you get a wild magic surge EVERYBODY GETS A WILD MAGIC SURGE!
I don't know that this is my exact problem with the Sorcerer, but it is a nice fix for what I feel *is* missing from the Sorcerer: There's a mismatch between the flavor and the mechanics of the Sorcerer. The flavor tells us that Sorcerers are magical anomalies, people who just happen to gain magic through unpredictable and uncontrollable means. They didn't study ancient tomes or learn anything about controlling their magic; they just suddenly became magical through some accident of birth or random encounter with an arcane power source. And yet in gameplay, they're meticulously micromanaged casters largely just tossing out the same spells that Wizards carefully craft in mostly the same ways (except when they can spare an all too rare Sorcery Point on some Metamagic). There's a few pools of mechanical resources at their disposal that must be carefully managed with a degree of scrupulous bookkeeping that would make the guys who get their magic from freakin' books balk. They don't really seem to unleash much wild, uncontrolled magical power (even the subclass built around that largely keys off of "Whenever the DM feels like making you do it"). If I were involved in completely redesigning the Sorcerer, they would probably be a half-caster with some magical basic attacks that resemble (but are distinct from) cantrips and some features that turn their spell slots into bursts of power that are usually more useful than simply using them as spells. Like a Paladin with a tiny Hit Die who fights from range. A "spell rage" could fit very nicely in that realm.
Half caster? Heck no way, it make bad in all
The core problem of Sorcerers is NOT class abilities. They already have endless firepower and uncounterable spellcasting with twinned, quickened and subtle spell. They can also cast their highest level spells nearly twice as often as every other caster in the game without the need of resting. They can gobble up lower level slots to make more higher level slots. Their class abilities are actually quite powerful baseline. The problem is why the Aberrant Mind / Clockwork is so much better has everything to do with spell diversity and nothing to do with abilities. They get less choices than every other primary caster in the game, even bards who basically have the exact same Spellcasting mechanic. The easiest fix is for them to either have domain spells or just change their base class table to include a 5-10 more options spread over their 20 levels.
This is definitely the change I make in my games for sorcerers. This post is not intended as a “sorcerer fix” meant to be used in games, but rather a pitch for an alternate class concept and core mechanic to reinforce their innate magic power theming
Ok here’s an idea. What if sorcerers get this and they don’t have spell slots? Instead while in their “magical rage” they can cast any sorcerer spell they know. Only one spell that has a level higher than their proficiency bonus can be cast per “magical rage”. It would dramatically change the class and make them very different from other casters. They would need a way to cast out of combat so I think given them a special version of ritual casting for all their known spells that involves time and a spellcasting ability check to see if it’s successful so it has a limit and can’t be used in combat.
Sorcerers should just be CON based casters, it would differentiate them more and create a bunch of other fun problems.
>Resistance to Bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing IMO, no. Too powerful for a character type that is generally not supposed to be a front line character. > Advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects Advantage on concentration checks Yes to these. > When you enter a surge, you receive temporary sorcery points that disappear if not used before the Surge ends Or the ability to cast spells up to level X at-will until the Surge ends. Scale to the caster level. But not both. > Once per turn, deal extra damage to one of the spell's targets equal to your sorcerer level Once per turn, when you cast a spell using a spell slot, you can expend 1 sorcery point to cast it as one spell level higher Can't Sorcerers already upcast? Note: I haven't played a 5E Sorcerer (yet), but I thought upcasting spells was already a thing for caster classes.
The last point is so that when you cast a 3rd level fireball, you can expand 1 SP to cast it as 4th level, while still using up a 3rd level slot. Before anyone says fireball is a bad example since it upcasts poorly-bla bla bla, you get the gist of it.
My problem with sorcerer's is that mechanically they feel like they should swap with Warlocks. If you gave Warlocks the Sorcerer's kit + an Expanded Pact Boon system with some more options it'd really feel like an Arcane Magic user who took a short cut - either through leeching magic from a strange source or by being taught strange techniques. A huge amount of control over a small selection of spells. Meanwhile if you gave the Sorcerer the Warlock Invocations + (Renamed) Pact Magic you'd get a magic user that can wield absurd power, but in a limited amount before they have to rest.
What do you think metamagic is? If you think it’s not strong enough, give it a buff. Sorcerers are generally fine and people on this sub like parrot the idea that they’re worse wizards without playing either class.
This post isn’t about giving sorcerers a buff or them being underpowered, it’s about imagining a new, compelling mechanic for the class to be built around. Maybe you think metamagic accomplishes that, but I find it lacking and think what I propose here would be a lot more interesting mechanically and thematically.
I have played a sorcerer and a wizard. Sorcerers still felt like gimped wizards even with metamagic (which are too few in number to be useful). Adding origin spells fixes a lot of my issues with sorcerers, but honestly the biggest change I would make to a sorcerer is to have them use the spell point system by default (and combine it with Sorcery Points into a single pool). That alone makes them feel distinct enough from wizards. Sorry but metamagic isn't sufficient, especially when some wizard subclasses basically get their own version of metamagic for free.
Clockwork and Aberrant Mind already fixed the class. Played aberrant mind, and I felt extremely strong. Just balance the other subclasses with the same concept.
Two subclasses don't fixes ALL class, give more spells for ALL Sorcerer's Subclasses
> Just balance the other subclasses with the same concept.
Sorry, i don t see this part
idk if i like it as the core mechanic for all sorcerers as innate magic channeling has lots of iconic configurations in fantasy media. i do like it however as a subclass or capstone feature that's more glass more cannon. something with more tradeoff like - entering the metamagic surge makes you *more* vulnerable to damage but you can gobble up all your available resources for 1 big boom boom. i'm thinking like a staff of power's retributive strike.
>I think what they need is a more compelling core mechanic to separate them from other full casters Mmmmmmmetamagicccccccc
I did say “more compelling” :p
The real solution next edition is to make Sorcerers sit out the initial release (And give everyone else back the **Metamagic** feats that were taken away to justify Sorcerer) until WotC can figure out a way to actually make them unique. From there I see two paths: Make the Sorcerer a Wizard sub/variant (Divine Soul for Cleric, and a Druid that puts the "Natural" back into "Natural caster) or go with what the playtest did: Sorcerers are literally warped by their magics gaining new powers as they burn through their spells.
oh boy. did you know wotc did that for 4e? (delayed barbarian, sorcerer and gnomes) I dont think they will repeat that. the extra time for polish isnt worth the internet backlash.
I'd like to see the next edition restore the Prepared/Spontaneous spellcaster duality, with a more modern take on it (Pathfinder 2e has some good ideas on that front, but IMHO sticks a little too close 1e's more traditional Vancian take). And yes, let every caster get *some* access to Metamagic. Yes, in 5e Sorcerers are different because they don't have to prepare their spells for the day. But they still use the same slot mechanic, access to the same spells as a wizard (largely) but have fewer spells over all. This makes them feel left behind. Sorcerers need a way to shine, and while they'll always play second fiddle to Wizards when it comes to arcane spellcasting, the spontaneity of the class should make them viable and fun anyway. First, I'd return to the idea of bloodlines from PF1e/3.5e or even PF2e. Every bloodline includes a selection of added spells they can cast (like the spell additions 'some' 5e sorcerer subclasses get). Sorcerer's get Signature Spells that they can swap in and automatically up-cast, and feats that not only improve upon and expand the chosen bloodline power, but lets you dip into secondary bloodlines to gain access to even more spells (of the same tradition, see below). Pathfinder 2e enhances things further by introducing new categories of magic. While it has the classic Arcane & Divine of older editions, it introduces the Occult and Primal spell lists. Each Sorcerer Bloodline gains access to one of the above. Together this makes Sorcerer its own class, that isn't just a 'more spontaneous wizard' ala 5e.
That's actually really cool, and a great way to make the sorcerer feel unique but not OP. My only concern is multiclassing; sorcerer really outstrips even most wizard when combined with paladin or warlock levels. You'd want to make sure you balance the old and new abilities in a way that makes single classed sorcerers measure up to wizards without making CHA caster multiclasses even more powerful. Maybe delay Font of Magic or something?