Sorcerer: the most unsatisfying class

[Easy_Lee]

Spawning this from the Kryx houserule thread. Sorcerers are the most unsatisfying class according to a recent enworld poll.

Why?

To those who have played the base sorcerer and didn't like it:

1. What didn't you like about it?
2. What did you like?
3. In your mind, how should a sorcerer feel to play? What differentiates your ideal of a sorcerer from your ideal wizard?

I hope to spark a discussion with this thread. There are no wrong opinions.

[Sigreid]

I've got a sorcerer level 9 and I get frustrated by the limits on his spells known.

[Kane0]

Problem 1: limited spell list and spells known
I like to fix this by granting additional spells known at levels 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 much like land druids, cleric domains and paladin oaths.
There is also the point that sorcs don't get their own unique spells like other classes do, but I pinch spells from the Tome of Spells so that's not a problem for me.

Problem 2: lack of unique abilities and reliance on a single resource pool
I correct this by using the spell point variant rule for sorcerers only, merging their spell points and sorcery points, and moving the short rest recovery mechanic to come along sooner. I also use a wider array of metamagic options with more granted to a sorcerer as they level up.

This I feel makes the sorcerer more unique and fun while also boosting power just a touch to compete with warlocks, bards and wizards. They become one of the most flexible casters trading breadth and utility for depth and longevity.

[MeeposFire]

I am not a fan that the spells known are so limited that you really cannot get adequate (IMO of course) personal choices to go with a set of thematic choices at the same time.

I get that fixed by giving them bonus spells at levels 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15, and 17. You get two thematic spells for spell levels 1-5 and one spell for spell levels 6-9.

I think this gives them more spells than a bard but are restricted to one spell list for most of their choices and their extra spells are limited to their theme. A bard gets less spells but much more choice.

[ImproperJustice]

I wholeheartedly disagree.

I'm running a level 4 Phoenix Sorceror based on a 4 elements concept.

I always have a solution to problems even with the majority of my spells being somewhat blasty.

I have made frequent use of forgetting spells that don't work and gaining more of the higher level spells.

Twin spell and shifting spell slots around have gone a long way towards upping my action and spell economy.

Twinned 1st level spells only cost one SP, and do twice the work.
Bad spell roll? Just empower it.

I'm not there yet, but subtle and heighten spell look cost effective and deadly.

I get a lot of mileage out of my five cantrips. Mold Earth and Mage Hand (Fingers of the Wind) are great exploration tools. Twinned Shocking Grasp is fun, and works with Phoenix Mantle for those times when goons get too close.

Ritual Caster at 4th gives me all the utility I care for, and I have been pretty careful with my spell selection to give me a wide breadth of combat options.

I think the problem is not the Sorceror class but people's approach to it. It's like the Nintendo Wii of casters. It's simple, and does more with less power to be simply fun. And likewise, until enough people play it for themselves they won't see what all the fun is about.

As an aside: EN World is for people who approach D&D like they are playing Torchlight or Diablo. They are hyper focused on DPS, proc %, etc....
These are the same people that think all fighters should tank, Clerics should heal, and wizards should blast and any deviation from that is failing to be a credit to team.
At least that has been my experience over there and my prime reason for coming over to Giant in the Playground.

[Kane0]

Also I'm sort of surprised that sorcerer beat out ranger on that. Maybe the revised ranger alleviated that.

[Specter]

Other than the few spells known after level 10, I see no problem at all.

[90sMusic]

I have homebrewed my own little changes to sorcerer to make them a little better.

For example, a draonic sorcerer gains a cantrip that functions similar to eldritch blast doing 1d10 and gaining additional rays as you level up, but it's damage type is linked to the damage type of your draconic heritage. When you advance enough in levels to add your charisma modifier to the damage of your spells, it adds it to each attack with this cantrip in the same vein as agonizing blast does for eldritch blast.

They also have access to additional metamagic options like changing their cantrip into a dex save instead of rolling to hit, and taking half damage on a save, or changing it into a cone or line attack changing the dice from d10s to d6s but capable of hitting multiple enemies. They also have a metamagic option to convert the damage type of any spell they cast into the damage type of their draconic heritage.

Then at 18th level, instead of getting Draconic Presence, they gain the ability to true polymorph into an adult dragon of their type. True Polymorph typically isn't on their spell list, but it is available to wizards, warlocks, and bards, so I always thought it was silly Sorcerers couldn't do it as well, and this limits them specifically to only being usable on themselves and only changing into that one form. Always felt like the logical end game for a draconic sorcerer.

Also gave Dragonborn Sorcs the ability to refresh their breath weapon with sorcery points. :)

I also revamped wild magic quite a bit too.

[Sigreid]

I wholeheartedly disagree.

I'm running a level 4 Phoenix Sorceror based on a 4 elements concept.

I always have a solution to problems even with the majority of my spells being somewhat blasty.

I have made frequent use of forgetting spells that don't work and gaining more of the higher level spells.

Twin spell and shifting spell slots around have gone a long way towards upping my action and spell economy.

Twinned 1st level spells only cost one SP, and do twice the work.
Bad spell roll? Just empower it.

I'm not there yet, but subtle and heighten spell look cost effective and deadly.

I get a lot of mileage out of my five cantrips. Mold Earth and Mage Hand (Fingers of the Wind) are great exploration tools. Twinned Shocking Grasp is fun, and works with Phoenix Mantle for those times when goons get too close.

Ritual Caster at 4th gives me all the utility I care for, and I have been pretty careful with my spell selection to give me a wide breadth of combat options.

I think the problem is not the Sorceror class but people's approach to it. It's like the Nintendo Wii of casters. It's simple, and does more with less power to be simply fun. And likewise, until enough people play it for themselves they won't see what all the fun is about.

As an aside: EN World is for people who approach D&D like they are playing Torchlight or Diablo. They are hyper focused on DPS, proc %, etc....
These are the same people that think all fighters should tank, Clerics should heal, and wizards should blast and any deviation from that is failing to be a credit to team.
At least that has been my experience over there and my prime reason for coming over to Giant in the Playground.

I don't really disagree with you. I don't think there's anything wrong with the class, but as a player who prefers wizards it feels like putting a straight jacket on to me.

[Hrugner]

Their base archetypes are a bit too DM dependent for me. Their casting options are also narrow enough to be frustrating without being narrow enough to warrant the additional support the warlock gets. I don't think I'll ever get past the concept stage of making a sorcerer, I just don't see the appeal.

[Evorox]

I agree with most of these posts, they are jsut magical cannons with not enough flavor and oppertunities to really be anything other than a magical cannon

[Sigreid]

I agree with most of these posts, they are jsut magical cannons with not enough flavor and oppertunities to really be anything other than a magical cannon

Well, my sorcerer excels as a controller, but the point is still valid. You can control or blast but you more or less have to pick one.

[Kane0]

Fun thing to try: Changeling 'shapechanger' sorcerer using the Spy background and Subtle Metamagic. UA/Homebrew approval needed of course.

Even then I'd like additional spells known, spell point variant and more metamagic to choose from but its still a damn fun infiltrator without resorting to bard/rogue.
I like to add these metamagic options into the list

[Safety Sword]

One of the problems I think is that they are probably supposed to have a theme to their spells.

But if you stick to the theme you end up just doing the same thing in every situation. Ever tried to play a lightning themed sorcerer? "Kill it" is literally the only way to stick to the theme.

Or, you can branch out and take utility spells. You will take the same spells every time. No matter the theme you're supposed to be going for.

I just think that the options are too narrow and the limited number of spells puts a cap on the fun.

[Deathtongue]

I think one of the reasons why sorcerers are unsatisfying is that they're at they're best when you play them completely counter-intuitively. For example, using Subtle Spell to dominate social encounters and Mexican standoffs, Twin Spell for double Polymorph and Greater Invis action, Quicken Spell + Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast, Careful Spell + Web / Hypnotic Pattern, the entire Sorceradin build, soforth.

Like, one of my buds at a home game plays a Hexblade Warlock 2 / Shadow Sorcerer 11. He's completely and utterly dominating; in additional to completely disgusting tricks like Web/Sleet Storm + Repelling Blast his Subtle Spell + Hex -> Wisdom Ability Checks lets him completely ruin one-on-one social encounters. But I also play SKT with a Sorcerer 10 who plays like a typical not-so-optimized Sorcerer would: bunch of damaging fire spells that matches his Gold Dragon ancestry plus a couple of utilities, Empower Spell + Heightened Spell.

[strangebloke]

I've only had one at my table. She had a lot of fun, but this was also her first character. She was more effective than the party wizard, but this was largely due to the party wizard being one of those 'optimize for a weird niche' kinds. Every spell the wizard took was either a charm effect or an anti-magic ability...

So they're supposed to be magical specialists, and they totally are...

But they don't get enough benefit for specializing as much as they have to.

Like, draconic sorcerer, right? You're committing to playing a single-element blaster. Your +CHA to damage only applies to one element and you only have spells known enough to get the spells for one element anyway. By level 10 you will have two metamagics, which is not enough to get just the evocation-relevant metamagics: empower, careful, quicken, and heighten. You certainly don't have room to pick up other handy metamagic like subtle or twin. Having options isn't bad, but it's pretty bad if you can't get stuff relevant to your concept.

Compare to the wizard. They get two metamagic options by level 10, a little bit of (low efficiency) flexibility through arcane fount, and a slightly stronger subclass than the wizard. They lose... 2/3rds the spells known, close to half the spells prepared, arcane recovery, and a third of the wizard spell list.

It doesn't completely fall on its face. Quicken and twin are incredibly strong. But overall, it's much weaker than the wizard.

I don't think its a fluff reason, exactly. I think they are just too weak.

[Theodoxus]

I wholeheartedly disagree.

I'm running a level 4 Phoenix Sorceror based on a 4 elements concept.

I always have a solution to problems even with the majority of my spells being somewhat blasty.

I have made frequent use of forgetting spells that don't work and gaining more of the higher level spells.

Twin spell and shifting spell slots around have gone a long way towards upping my action and spell economy.

Twinned 1st level spells only cost one SP, and do twice the work.
Bad spell roll? Just empower it.

I'm not there yet, but subtle and heighten spell look cost effective and deadly.

I get a lot of mileage out of my five cantrips. Mold Earth and Mage Hand (Fingers of the Wind) are great exploration tools. Twinned Shocking Grasp is fun, and works with Phoenix Mantle for those times when goons get too close.

Ritual Caster at 4th gives me all the utility I care for, and I have been pretty careful with my spell selection to give me a wide breadth of combat options.

I think the problem is not the Sorceror class but people's approach to it. It's like the Nintendo Wii of casters. It's simple, and does more with less power to be simply fun. And likewise, until enough people play it for themselves they won't see what all the fun is about.

As an aside: EN World is for people who approach D&D like they are playing Torchlight or Diablo. They are hyper focused on DPS, proc %, etc....
These are the same people that think all fighters should tank, Clerics should heal, and wizards should blast and any deviation from that is failing to be a credit to team.
At least that has been my experience over there and my prime reason for coming over to Giant in the Playground.

So... your solution is to use UA and feats to fix the base class... ok, cool.

@OP, while the small spells known is definitely a problem, the biggest issue for me is sorcerer's feel like tacked on cheese from the sacred cow milk of 3.5. Their only unique mechanic is metamagic, and that appears to be solely for the purpose of having the class! It's circular logic at it's worst.
There's literally no reason for the sorcerer to exist when you have the Bard. Sorcerer takes the worst parts of wizard (small spell list) and bard (no cool spells) and mashes it up into a pointless class.

Yank metamagic out, either keep sorcery points for bards and grant wizards x metamagic uses per long rest and warlocks y metamagic uses per short rest; or scrap sorcery points all together and come up with some other way (x/long rest - probably where 'x' = casting stat mod, maybe +prof bonus if you're really generous) and call it a day.

As I noted in the Kryx thread. Develop a Wild Bard - cuz that'd be fun as all get out, and move the Draconic sorc ribbons onto the Dragonborn race and you might see them a little more often...

[SharkForce]

I've only had one at my table. She had a lot of fun, but this was also her first character. She was more effective than the party wizard, but this was largely due to the party wizard being one of those 'optimize for a weird niche' kinds. Every spell the wizard took was either a charm effect or an anti-magic ability...

So they're supposed to be magical specialists, and they totally are...

But they don't get enough benefit for specializing as much as they have to.

Like, draconic sorcerer, right? You're committing to playing a single-element blaster. Your +CHA to damage only applies to one element and you only have spells known enough to get the spells for one element anyway. By level 10 you will have two metamagics, which is not enough to get just the evocation-relevant metamagics: empower, careful, quicken, and heighten. You certainly don't have room to pick up other handy metamagic like subtle or twin. Having options isn't bad, but it's pretty bad if you can't get stuff relevant to your concept.

Compare to the wizard. They get two metamagic options by level 10, a little bit of (low efficiency) flexibility through arcane fount, and a slightly stronger subclass than the wizard. They lose... 2/3rds the spells known, close to half the spells prepared, arcane recovery, and a third of the wizard spell list.

It doesn't completely fall on its face. Quicken and twin are incredibly strong. But overall, it's much weaker than the wizard.

I don't think its a fluff reason, exactly. I think they are just too weak.

minor correction: you get 2 metamagics at level 3. the one you get at level 10 is your 3rd.

still not enough to compensate for their limitations. but slightly less bad.

(also, unless your DM religiously follows dev tweets, careful spell is more of a CC pick than evocation. of course, if your DM does follow dev tweets, it might be more of a never-choose pick than evocation, unless everyone in your group has evasion or shield expert).

[Deathtongue]

Like, draconic sorcerer, right? You're committing to playing a single-element blaster. Your +CHA to damage only applies to one element and you only have spells known enough to get the spells for one element anyway. By level 10 you will have two metamagics, which is not enough to get just the evocation-relevant metamagics: empower, careful, quicken, and heighten. You certainly don't have room to pick up other handy metamagic like subtle or twin. Having options isn't bad, but it's pretty bad if you can't get stuff relevant to your concept.

This is what I was getting at. I don't think there's an official class that's as anti-synergistic with its base class features and its subclass features as the sorcerer. This includes actual 'bad' classes like the Bladelock and old-Ranger. All of the effective sorcerers I've seen either grab an UA subclass that actually does synergize (Stone Sorcerer and Old Favored Soul Sorcerer for Sorceradins; Shadow Sorcerer for everyone else) or just mostly end up ignoring their subclass and building around metamagic. Sorcerers that actually try to play to their subclass, like a Wild Mage sorcerer that recycles 1st level spells to trigger their Wild Magic or a Fireball Gold Dragon Sorcerer that stacks Heightened + Empower, end up floundering.

That said, sorcerers who do end up building around their metamagic and/or get a good subclass tend to shine or even dominate. So I wouldn't go as far as to call it a weak class. But it's still a very counterintuitive class.

[Jerrykhor]

I posted this on Enworld, so I'll just copy paste it here, and explain my points.

1. Tiny number of spells known
2. Cannot change spells known list
3. Balance of subclasses is out of whack (Fire Draconic is most viable, Acid Draconic is unplayable, Non-Draconic need spell knowns tax for Mage Armour/Shield)
4. No Ritual casting
5. No unique spells or cantrips (e.g Vicious Mockery, Hex)
6. Run out of Sorcery points super fast

Point 1, 2 and 4 are compared to every other full caster class (except warlock, because they are very different). I know bards cannot change their spells known too, but they have a bit more than sorcerers. Plus they have Magical Secrets.

Point 5 makes them unnecessary to the game because they are what happen when you strip off all the features that makes a Wizard good, and give them Metamagic. And herein lies the biggest problem: This feature is supposed to be their defining point, and yet it feels so limited. From the get go, you would notice that the balance is quite off. Some are good (Twinned, Subtle), some are useless (Distant, Extended). Anyways, you can only pick 2 (assuming you're below level 10), which feels too little, because they don't add anything that other classes can't do, they just make the sorcerer do the same thing a little better.

Sorcery points is also too few, and the problem is with the garbage Font of Magic. My friend once ask me this: Don't Sorcerers get to create spell slots with their Sorc Points? Yes they do. But lets compare it with Wizard/Druids Arcane/Nature Recovery. A 6th level wiz/druid only need one short rest to create a 3rd level slot. A sorcerer needs to spend almost all his sorc points to create a 3rd level slot. If you were a Wild Mage, you just lost Bend Luck, and all your Metamagic. Wizards or Druids don't lose their other features by recovering their spell slots.

And if one thing that irks me more than anything else, is that the Sorcerer don't have the mechanics to back up their fluff. For creatures born with magic, why do they even need an arcane focus or M components? Why do they need to chant the Verbal component when casting spells? They are BORN with magic, magic comes naturally to them. It should be innate spell casting. I do realise that means giving the Subtle Metamagic permanently to them, but that would be a good thing, because at least that would truly set them apart from Wizards. More importantly, they would FEEL like actual Sorcerers.

[Naanomi]

I've enjoyed the sorcerers I've played (three); but I built them all as 'specialists' from the concept stage so the limited Spell list wasn't a big deal. Two Wild Magic (one dwarven melee sorc; one 'curse' oriented character with Heighten and Bend Luck), and one Draconic (Aasimar/Gold Dragon chosen of Bahamat where I intentionally overloaded my Spell list with fiery blast spells every level).

Trying to be a Wizard in versatility will leave you feeling inadequate, but embracing the specialist role is fun sometimes (and no more limited than an Archer or the like who can only really shoot things with arrows in different ways)

[TheUser]

Makes sense to me. Metamagic is complex and costs resources that can be squandered doing nothing (twinned offensive spells that miss/save, quickened cantrips that miss etc). Not all of the metamagics are good or even well designed and two of the best have been **** on by errata and Dev tweets (twinned / careful). Most mechanically punishing class since it has an inherently entropic resource system; you can spend slots getting sorcery points or sorcery points getting slots but it's always a net loss of energy. Most restrictive number of spells known and small list of spells. Not built for noobies/casuals which seems to be the antithesis of 5e. So all these new players and casuals play it, **** it up and have a bad time giving it a bad rating.

Honestly if it wasn't for subtle and empowered I wouldn't give them a second thought....

My biggest beef is how Draconic feels mandatory because of the alleviating spells known.

[Easy_Lee]

My biggest beef is how Draconic feels mandatory because of the alleviating spells known.

I remember a thread when the first Favored Soul article came out. Everyone was excited about Cleric domains on a Sorcerer. People were coming up with builds such as a Trickery Sorcerer doing subtle mind control on people.

I do think building sorcerers toward a niche is the right approach. I also think that domains encourage that niche. That's probably why people like the dragon sorcerer so much; it encourages you to fill the blasting niche that sorcerers are pretty good at.

[Meepwizard]

First time player here. Maybe they could give other classes like wizard and bard metmagic, with the same number of points that a sorcerer would get at that level, but then let sorcerers themselves have access to every meta magic and more points to use for said meta magic

[Matrix_Walker]

First time player here. Maybe they could give other classes like wizard and bard metmagic, with the same number of points that a sorcerer would get at that level, but then let sorcerers themselves have access to every meta magic and more points to use for said meta magic

I think giving the other casters access to the sorcerer's metmagic schtick would only exacerbate the issue.

[Citan]

This feature is supposed to be their defining point, and yet it feels so limited. From the get go, you would notice that the balance is quite off. Some are good (Twinned, Subtle), some are useless (Distant, Extended).

I won't comment on the other points (too tired of the same endless discussions), but I had to comment on this: to dare say such a thing, you clearly never even tried to imagine how to use them in your mind (let alone actually playing with them).

Distant means you have a whole bunch of spells you can now cast efficiently without putting yourself at risk (many spells -like Blindness- have 30 feet which is damn short in a real fight. Even 60 feet distance -like Ray of Frost or Shatter- often still forces you to expose yourself for a turn).
Using it in combination with spells that already had a good range means you can actually enable some covert ops because you unleash them from so far away that the enemy has no chance to actually locate you casting it (although obviously if it's something like Sleet Storm they would ring the alarm).

Extend means many doubling the duration of many great utility spells (Comprehend Languages, Disguise Self, Fly, Darkness, Enhance Ability to quote a few), which often must be casted with some anticipation as to when will be the really important moment in which the effect must be active. Having twice the time means much greater margin of action.

These are good to great depending on spells and player's wits on any pure Sorcerer, and become extremely great once you factor potential level 1 dips in other classes.

[MeeposFire]

I personally think you either keep the sorc and keep metamagic to it or eliminate the sorc if you want to give meta magic out. Seriously metamagic was their attempt to make the class have any relevance whatsoever considering that the only reason that it originally existed was as a mechanical curiosity that is no longer needed as the current version of prepared casting is even better and gets more spells known. Since the original mechancial reason for the class is no longer really a good reason alone for it to exist you would need to create a mechancial reason to still have the class if you took away metamagic and that will be hard.

If you do take metamagic away it could be its own wizard subclass and you could make many sublasses using the subclasses of the sorc as a base such as wild mage. Doing this would eliminate the sorc from the game.

Personally I like just giving the sorc bonus spells based on the theme of the subclass they take (I also like how it eliminates its dead levels too) but you could do it this way instead.

[ImproperJustice]

I don't really disagree with you. I don't think there's anything wrong with the class, but as a player who prefers wizards it feels like putting a straight jacket on to me.

I can respect that point of view.

It's like Champion and Battlemaster

[Elric VIII]

I wouldn't say I'm unsatisfied with the class, but I don't think I'd want to play a single-classed sorcerer. I see Sorcerer as the other half of a magic-heavy gish. I love sorcerer as levels 7-20 of Paladin. Or even a DIY Arcane Trickster when paired with Swashbuckler.

The class itself feels incomplete. Metamagic is a nice bonus for a front-loaded martial class, but does not provide enough versatility or power to make up for the limited spell list especially considering that all casters are semi-spontaneous now. I would love if it was more like Pathfinder's Arcanist class that can use its spells to power basic effects like damage+debuff while leaving the spells known for utility.

[strangebloke]

This is what I was getting at. I don't think there's an official class that's as anti-synergistic with its base class features and its subclass features as the sorcerer. This includes actual 'bad' classes like the Bladelock and old-Ranger. All of the effective sorcerers I've seen either grab an UA subclass that actually does synergize (Stone Sorcerer and Old Favored Soul Sorcerer for Sorceradins; Shadow Sorcerer for everyone else) or just mostly end up ignoring their subclass and building around metamagic. Sorcerers that actually try to play to their subclass, like a Wild Mage sorcerer that recycles 1st level spells to trigger their Wild Magic or a Fireball Gold Dragon Sorcerer that stacks Heightened + Empower, end up floundering.

That said, sorcerers who do end up building around their metamagic and/or get a good subclass tend to shine or even dominate. So I wouldn't go as far as to call it a weak class. But it's still a very counterintuitive class.

Draconic sorcerers are long-range blasters whose abilities are 1:Mage Armor for free. 2:A buff to HP. 3:blasting damage buff, alright! 3:ability to spend a sorcerery point to get resistance?? 4:Wings, but way too late?

And then, the best metamagic options (twin and quicken) don't even help you!

Twin and Quicken probably need a nerf, whereas the rest of the chassis needs a lot of love. Every time I sit down to theorycraft I find myself saying: "I'm just going to be the double haste guy, aren't I?" That's not good.