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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next The Sorcerer (5e + Houserules)



R.Shackleford
2016-07-04, 06:47 PM
The Sorcerer (http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/HJbhzgQ8)

So here is class 3 of 3! The Sorcerer is a class that is a part of the ebb and flow of arcane energies. You can technically make a Warlock, Sorcerer, or with the right change in fluff a Wizard. Eventually I'll make a Bard type set up. The Spell lists that you can take spells from is the Arcane Spell List and the Summon Spell Lists. The summon spell list will be more "Old School Final Fantasy" type than traditional D&D as in the summon shows up, does its thing, then leaves.

Concentration will not work like the 5e version, concentration will just be a way to stop multiple spells from stacking but you won't be losing concentration or anything like that as long as you cast spells from your class lists. Concentration spells last at most an hour, I'll be updating my shaman eventually.

Anyways... Still using Kryx's homebrew rules: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/print/rJND7KpV as they are a more elegant form of what my group has used in the past.

I'm looking on feedback on wording, paragons, how dynamic this class is, and pretty much what all works of homebrew need (other eyes telling me stuff I don't see).

Note: This may not be balanced with the Sellsword or Shaman! Actually, I'm pretty sure it isn't. I'm putting the first draft of each class down and then I'll go back and balance them with each other. I currently feel the Sellsword needs a bit of a change and I need to make the Shaman a bit more consistent but I'll deal with that later :)


Note: NPC Serah will be great at making spells but not so great at naming them. Intelligent based instead of Charisma based and all that fun stuff.


Here is a character sheet I made up for Serah the Folk Hero Nightmare Spinner Halfling,,, I rolled for ability scores and that is what I got, I would probably change a couple things but I'll leave that for later.

Simple, to the point, but still giving the player dynamic options (Serah's hand spells).



http://i.imgur.com/p9DGJxT.jpg

Final Hyena
2016-07-05, 05:31 AM
My concern is that you are turning the sorcerer into a sort of warlock with their spell slots. The warlock makes up for this with;

Short rest spells.
Invocations for more spells outside the slot limits.
A kick ass cantrip.

The new sorcerer as far as I can tell has no way for them to stay competitive despite that huge drawback.

Also the number of spells known has been reduced AND the ability to change known spells removed! Which you have tried to make up for with better scaling spells, but from what I can see they start stronger than most other spells, but scale worse.

I can't see any cantrips.

All in all this class is meh at first level, and quickly gets worse.

I love the theme of having a spell scale rather than having to get new higher powered spells (That's how I prefer things), but it needs to be more powerful compared to the alternatives, right now these are the big concerns;

Add in cantrips.
Have better scaling spells.
Make spells regen on a short rest.
Consider adding in an EB equivalent.
Allow changing a spell known at level up.

R.Shackleford
2016-07-05, 08:41 AM
My concern is that you are turning the sorcerer into a sort of warlock with their spell slots. The warlock makes up for this with;

Short rest spells.
Invocations for more spells outside the slot limits.
A kick ass cantrip.

The new sorcerer as far as I can tell has no way for them to stay competitive despite that huge drawback.

Also the number of spells known has been reduced AND the ability to change known spells removed! Which you have tried to make up for with better scaling spells, but from what I can see they start stronger than most other spells, but scale worse.

I can't see any cantrips.

All in all this class is meh at first level, and quickly gets worse.

I love the theme of having a spell scale rather than having to get new higher powered spells (That's how I prefer things), but it needs to be more powerful compared to the alternatives, right now these are the big concerns;

Add in cantrips.
Have better scaling spells.
Make spells regen on a short rest.
Consider adding in an EB equivalent.
Allow changing a spell known at level up.


Quick notes before I leave for the day

Cantrip Issue: Look at the spells such as Chain Lightning, the cantrips are built into your spell known. Command even has a cantrip version built in. You don't automatically gain cantrips, you have to know certain spells and then you can cast a weaker version without expending a spell slot.

I'll have to check as I did some editing but spell slots should regain on a short rest (just like the shaman) and you should be able to change a spell known as you level up. I may have accidently deleted this text.
Under Spellcasting it says that you regain spell slots at the end of a short or long rest. Though I did delete the part about relearning spells as you level.

Except for Summon Spells, summon spells you won't be able to change as you level up without special circumstances.

EB... I thought about adding it into draft 1.0 but you really don't need it to be a Warlock. The main thing about Warlocks is that they make pacts with higher beings (that aren't gods) for cool features. It will probabaly make its way into draft 2 or 3 though. My groups don't see EB as something the Warlock really needs to shine.

A Paladin or Rogue who gains EB isn't more Warlock-ish, but a Paladin or Rogue who makes a deal with a devil for power IS more Warlockish... If that makes sense haha.

Thanks, I'll take a look and see if edited out pieces I didn't mean to. Also I'll make the "cantrips" more eye catching.

I'm not sure how gaining potent class features make the class worse, Nightmare Spinner being able to craft illusions (Will Saves) or Elementalist being able to make a Chain Acid spell as a bonus action for example but.. Ok...


Edit

These classes won't be used with normal 5e classes. I actually don't think I mentioned that. I'll add a note to each of these in round 2 or 3.

Final Hyena
2016-07-05, 09:09 AM
Cantrip Issue: Look at the spells such as Chain Lightning, the cantrips are built into your spell known. Command even has a cantrip version built in. You don't automatically gain cantrips, you have to know certain spells and then you can cast a weaker version without expending a spell slot.
At level one you only get two spells, having one of them forced to be one of those three so you can get a "damaging cantrip" is a restriction on player choice.


EB... I thought about adding it into draft 1.0 but you really don't need it to be a Warlock. The main thing about Warlocks is that they make pacts with higher beings (that aren't gods) for cool features. It will probabaly make its way into draft 2 or 3 though. My groups don't see EB as something the Warlock really needs to shine.

A Paladin or Rogue who gains EB isn't more Warlock-ish, but a Paladin or Rogue who makes a deal with a devil for power IS more Warlockish... If that makes sense haha.
I'm not too concerned with them looking like a warlock but with the balance. Currently they have a cantrip dealing d6+stat. The warlock gets around that by having EB d10+stat which is force and so reliable. It scales better and works with hex well.

although checking the wording is important the special castings have no attack or save.

R.Shackleford
2016-07-05, 09:37 AM
At level one you only get two spells, having one of them forced to be one of those three so you can get a "damaging cantrip" is a restriction on player choice.


I'm not too concerned with them looking like a warlock but with the balance. Currently they have a cantrip dealing d6+stat. The warlock gets around that by having EB d10+stat which is force and so reliable. It scales better and works with hex well.

although checking the wording is important the special castings have no attack or save.

At level 1 you get 4 spells known (2 x Prof Bonus) and 2 spell slots that refresh on short or long rest. This has been this way since before I did a few edits today (I made the "cantrips" stand out more). Hardly restricting player choice, especially since the Elementalist and Nightmare Spinner broaden the Sorcerer's abilities quite a bit even if you pick up one damaging spell (change element or turn it into an illusion). I've made the Shaman more consistent with this (much like how the Favored Soul was consistent with the Sorcerer in 3e).

You can pick one or two of the damaging spells at level 1 and still have a couple of other spells for other things (Note: Eventually Fly will be turned into Feather Fall and available at level 1 and then will level up to Fly upon reaching level 7)

There currently is no inter-class balance as there were no classes to balance these against until all three were created :smallsmile:. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of classes that are balanced, however specific inter-class balance is two steps down the road. The next step is to make the classes a bit more consistent with each other (which will actually push toward balance but that is a different goal).

These classes aren't being used with the 5e classes but in place of them (so they don't need to be balanced with those classes) :smallbiggrin:... I'm not sure if I made that clear as I've been talking about this with other people (real life and online) so I may have glossed over that part of this homebrew work. The core of 5e will be used, with some alterations, but the classes are being thrown out.


Edit: On consistency... I really need to go back to the Sellsword and work a few things out. The core of classes should be quite consistent but I do want some things different and that balance of working on the same principals but not just one class is the balance I'm looking for in the next step :)

zeek0
2016-07-05, 12:00 PM
There currently is no inter-class balance as there were no classes to balance these against until all three were created . Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of classes that are balanced, however specific inter-class balance is two steps down the road. The next step is to make the classes a bit more consistent with each other (which will actually push toward balance but that is a different goal).

These classes aren't being used with the 5e classes but in place of them (so they don't need to be balanced with those classes) ... I'm not sure if I made that clear as I've been talking about this with other people (real life and online) so I may have glossed over that part of this homebrew work. The core of 5e will be used, with some alterations, but the classes are being thrown out.

Cool, I like big changes. But I would like to note that, largely, the traditional 5e classes are balanced in relation to the core rules.

So when we assess your class, we need to compare it to the core rules to see if it holds up. If it is overpowered for an encounter at a certain level, or underpowered for that encounter.

It is much easier to compare classes than to compare a class to the game. We already assume that [Traditional Classes] = [Core Rules]. And we want to determine if [New Classes] = [Core Rules]. Since if a=b and b=c then a=c, we see if [New Classes] = [Traditional Classes]. If there is a discrepancy, we wonder why that is so.

So while this shouldn't necessarily be compared to other classes, it should be compared to the game itself. And the traditional classes are a lens to look through in this pursuit.

Now, if the core rules are sufficiently adjusted to accomodate any power level changes, I'd be all on board. But that should be mentioned explicitly or implicitly.

R.Shackleford
2016-07-05, 01:04 PM
Cool, I like big changes. But I would like to note that, largely, the traditional 5e classes are balanced in relation to the core rules.

So when we assess your class, we need to compare it to the core rules to see if it holds up. If it is overpowered for an encounter at a certain level, or underpowered for that encounter.

It is much easier to compare classes than to compare a class to the game. We already assume that [Traditional Classes] = [Core Rules]. And we want to determine if [New Classes] = [Core Rules]. Since if a=b and b=c then a=c, we see if [New Classes] = [Traditional Classes]. If there is a discrepancy, we wonder why that is so.

So while this shouldn't necessarily be compared to other classes, it should be compared to the game itself. And the traditional classes are a lens to look through in this pursuit.

Now, if the core rules are sufficiently adjusted to accomodate any power level changes, I'd be all on board. But that should be mentioned explicitly or implicitly.

Well, I wouldn't exactly say the core classes are balanced versus the core rules of the game (monsters/encounters/setting). Martial options are *move and hit* for the most part and casters have a bunch of arbitrary rules that are kinda fiddly and wonky.

However I do get what you are saying.

I think I would like the DPR for classes to come out somewhere around or a bit higher than the 5e Core Rogue Fighter (minus subclass) for At-Will damage of martials and casters with everyone having bursts damage. Then give everyone dynamic options to affect the battlefield and social interactions (this is something I've laid off from for now, I'll get the social abilities later). The more control options you have the less direct damage options you will use.

However damage shouldn't be force as the main focus of any class, which is why I'm working on making all classes dynamic.

Eventually I'll make tweaks to the core rules to get rid of the fiddly and wonky stuff. One of such things, due to the saving throw system I'm using, is that every harmful action (dropping a chandelier on someone, weapon attack, Theodore's Hypnotic Mirror spell casting) will be considered and features will key off *weapon attack* or *spell attack* for the most part. For the Sellsword I have going on things key off Paragon Weapons from the paragon features. This makes things more consistent.

I have a lot of work ahead of me but I don't think the monsters will need much changing. Most monsters are already designed to deal with classes that can *deal damage* and has *buff/debuff* abilities (well, kinda, I mean... with a bit of dynamic encounters help). I mean, it isn't like having a group consisting of cleric, sorcerer, warlock, and paladin is banned in the game. But if monsters need changing it shouldn't be that hard, I've thought about simplifying monsters in a consistent way (creating Index Card versions of them).


Essentially the finish product should be a 5e Semi-Clone that is more consistent and dynamic than 5e so that my groups (and perhaps others) don't have to deal with as much fiddly and wonky rules. And so we don't try new things every so often. I really love the core of 5e but there are just a lot of little things that bug my groups.

Small edit lol