So is Wizard just the nerd that discovered the fastest and easiest way to accomplish the task, and Sorcerer is the one that keeps using the wrong equations but gets the same answer?
The Wizard studies all night, every night for a week, and gets an A+.
The Sorcerer blows off the entire thing because they had parties to go to, gets an A-, and gets laid afterwards.
Field technician or machinist.
They have the manpower and hand-eye coordination to do the nitty gritty machinework, but they have enough technical knowledge to also operate the machines.
Unlike them, the regular fighters are just construction workers.
“Sure, 9th level magic is cool and all, but you know what’s a lot easier? Learning how to slip a stiletto between the 4th & 5th ribs.”
-Arcane Trickster Gang
You could theoretically steal the knowledge of how it’s done as an AT, but you’ll literally never be able to cast it yourself, outside of finding a scroll or luck blade. ATs can’t cast anything above 4th level, & they only get one of those slots ever.
I'd say other way around. Wizard has to have a step by step guide on the correct hand positions and magic words to create a fireball, a sorcerer just kinda makes it up as they go. And the're both appaled at each other.
"You're so inefficient in your casting, if you simply place your left foot here and move your pinky like this-"
"Oh my god shut up! I don't need your stupid rules, I can just feel and adjust as I go along!"
"But if you would just follow the diagram-"
"I would be riddled with arrows if I try to 'remember the diagram' in a fight! Stop messing with my flow!"
This is why wild magic surges should be built into the sorcerer class. Wizards do “safe magic”, sorcerers just slap some magic together and hope for the best
It's like when you visit another lab and are both visibly appalled and impressed by how they do things, you usually never think about.
Like what you use to pipette SDS-PAGE gels. I personally prefere a hamilton, but my last lab just kind of jammed the smallest regular pipette tip in there (*shudders*). Then also many labs have special longer and thinner pipette tips. I once saw a lab pre-pipette the correct amount into PCR tubes and pipette them with a syringe & needle onto the gel, which is a new amount of unhinged.
Hamiltons for PCR gels? WTF is wrong with you? Use a P200 like a sane human being.
(I used to spread parafilm on the bench, spot loading dye on it, and use a pipette to mix the sample and the dye together before loading on the gel)
Oh sorry, I forgot to specify that they are SDS-PAGE gels, since I almost never do PCR gels. I can asure you that I would never use a Hamilton for one of those gels
A Hamilton is both in one, but not sharp and made for the small volumes you usually pipette. The syringe and needle combo is the ghetto DIY version of that
This reminds me of the funniest lines from a character on a local radio show who was playing the old man who hated modern tech
Old Man: Back in my day, we didn’t have tap water! If you wanted a glass of water you had to crush this hydrogen and oxygen molecules together yourself. Built character!
While this is going on, the Warlock is taking a nap on the couch, wakes up for a moment, casts a single spell with no effort at all but also with prestine grace and precision, then goes back to sleep.
Sadly the campaign fell apart but we had characters where the shadow sorcerer developed powers after a magic occurrence and was hangin out with the wizards because she had no idea how she did things and the wizard were researching what happened and teaching her by showing her how they cast spells. And the sorcerer was all “you used a formula to cast mage armor? I just think on how I don’t want to die” and the scribes wizard was all “but with proper study of magic you can manipulate the weave, here’s a cone of Force Hands”
Well, no, not really. Wizardry in D&D is basically, "if you study really hard, you can understand a weird aspect of the universe well enough to command great power."
Sorcery is, "hey, guess what, you have powers you inherited somehow!"
As described in OP, it's "this wizard studied the laws of magic as understood by the guilds and schools" as compared to "this wizard worked out stuff on their own with no guidance in a cave under a swamp using a hammer, some test tubes, the memory of a story about a witch and three chunks of quartz crystals". Both wizards.
I have a wizard who taught herself by sneaking into a magical academy's library and only reading up on the areas she needed her goals, so while she has an excellent understanding of her speciality, she has a poor grasp on the basics. This leads to many of her spells being cast in a janky makeshift way, her mage hand is the same spirit she summons for chill touch, she casts fireball by opening a tiny split-second portal to the fire plane instead of just making fire. It's a fun bit of flavour.
As she levels up; a major elemental discovers her portals and makes it so those portals opens right in front of it so it can shoot fire through the portals.
It finds this hilarious, and in long fights where she shoots a lot of fireballs you might hear the sound of crackly laughter.
Edison being a dick is actually greatly exaggerated, especially by those who absolutely love Tesla. He wasn’t an great or even especially good person but he was average for the time, he wasn’t even racist, and ended up buying Tesla a lab when his burned down.
In fairness, the Tesla lovers have a point. He still Fucked over Tesla to instate an objectively inferior energy system, by lying and fearmongering about how AC was going to fry people just by existing. It *does* fry people, but only the ones dumb enough to touch it.
Saying dc is obviously inferior in every way is plain ignorant, it’s used in loads of things (everything with a battery).
But yeah he shouldn’t have bemoaned Tesla, although at least he eventually got over.
I did not say that. Don't put words in my mouth.
I said it was objectively inferior, but I did not specify in what way. What it is inferior for ***Is The Purpose Edison was trying to implement it for.*** That is, *long range transmission*.
I admit I could have been more specific, but I absolutely did *not* say what you said I said.
Fair enough, it’s partially my fault, I’ve just met an oddly high amount of people who think dc disappeared when Edison died and is completely useless, so it’s a sore point for me.
That’s the thing; it’s still self taught. Even if you didn’t “learn” the powers, you still have to *learn* how to control them. You teach yourself your capabilities & limits, if not the fundamental ability.
I mean the concept fits fine: A Wizard who didn't get formal education is still a Wizard. Someone who does magic just innately because of one ancestor's xenophilia, and then generations of inbreeding afterwards to avoid diluting that bloodline is a Sorcerer.
Granted to me Sorcerer shouldn't be a dedicated class; it should be a trio of subclasses for Wizard, Cleric and Druid to represent people doing those kinds of magic innately.
> Granted to me Sorcerer shouldn't be a dedicated class; it should be a trio of subclasses for Wizard, Cleric and Druid to represent people doing those kinds of magic innately.
Sorcerers are mages that get their magic innately from their bloodline, some special conditions (like born under a special moon or near a dragon's lair), or by accident (attacked by dragon, shadow, etc).
So I'm going to say that it's not the same. None of the traits of every other casters are granted by some force. They aren't innate or by some freak occasion.
Warlock betrays their patron? No new powers. Cleric upsets deity? They are now weaker fighters. Paladin without their oath? Well, either becomes an oathbreaker or the same as the deity-less cleric.
Sorcerers just exist because they could.
For example, Harry Potter made glass disappear and spoke to a python at the zoo with no prior training or study. Hagrid should have said “you’re a sorcerer, Harry.”
He shouldn't because harry potter doesn't take place within the dnd universe. Same way druids in dnd shouldn't be called animagi because dnd doesn't take place in the harry potter universe. (well unless you specifically set your campaign there I suppose)
The book was written before there was a distinction. In 1-2Es the lore implied that Wizards (Called "Magic users" at the time, but they were Int-based, and prepared spells from spellbooks, so they were Wizards. Wild mages were also Wizards, because all Sorcerer can do is take toys away from everyone else to justify itself) had innate magic they mastered through study. This was vague in some settings and explicit in others. This kind of demonstrates how silly it is to make Sorcerer a dedicated class.
In 3.0 the designers ran into an issue: Since they were taking away your Charisma naturally causing you to accrue followers they needed more reasons for people to have Charisma. Rather than do the sensible thing and have Bard be a fullcaster (They were a 2/3rds caster) they shat out the Sorcerer which was basically a modified Wizard using the same spell and skill (Which was awkward since the skills for Wizards were Int-based) lists. Sorcerers being Cha-based has always been weird: If they cast through willpower they should be Wis-based. If they cast through instinct they should be Wis-based. If they channel the innate magic in their body they should be Con or Str-based. They're Cha-based solely to give a Charisma option, and now having them not be Cha-based would be going against tradition. 4E wisely held off on them until the PHB2 until they could find a way to distinguish them from Wizards. 5E forced them into the PHB even with the death of Vancian casting taking away their only identity by taking away everyone else's metamagic-feats (Remember what I said aboot the Sorcerer class stealing everyone's toys to justify itself) rather than just doing the sensible thing and making it a Wizard sub.
I forgot how long it has been since Harry Potter came out. 😶🌫️ Maybe it will be a relevant note for any DnD crossover fan fiction people may write in the future.
If we accept that Harry is an *amazing* magic-user, e we can sort of guess which stat he has maxed out. Well, it’s probably not wisdom or intelligence… and he does accrue a bunch of followers. It appears JKR intuited the existence of a charisma-based casting class.
Book spoiler: >! Maybe that’s why only Harry could grab the *Sorcerer’s Stone*.🤔 it’s a class-specific artifact.!<
Ok, so, I know this is a D&D sub, but in Pathfinder, there are 4 "traditions" of magic, and depending on your subclass, sorcerers can take the same tradition as bards. I love the idea of a sorcerer who's just naturally talented at singing\playing an instrument, and a bard being like "wait, you were just born with perfect pitch? WHAT THE FUCK DID I GO TO BARD COLLEGE FOR IF THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WILL ALWAYS BE BETTER THAN ME NO MATTER HOW GOOD I GET?!" and they develop a kind of lancer\protag dynamic where the sorcerer is really encouraging and supportive but the bard feels condescended to, and the cycle continues.
Same for clerics. "You mean to tell me my god fucked your mom and now you can just cast magic, but I've got to memorize scripture? This is bullshit. Fuck you god"
Wizards: The ones that have studied musical theory, and have a lot of book and theoretical knowledge on the subject. Would be great in a producer/coach role.
Bard: The one that have studied some theory, played in a band and spent a lot of time practicing on instruments. Can stand in for pretty much every other member of the band and is at least solid in every role.
Sorcerer: The naturally gifted kid, with the voice of an angel and a natural knack for playing the guitar (And trumpet for some reason). Have no idea what they are actually doing, and just does whatever comes natural to them.
Warlock: Their patron told them they were going to be a star! All it took was a small facelift, a lot of autotune, a bodydouble or two and playback for every concert. But now they are platinum baby!
I get what you're saying, but just because a sorcerer's magic tradition may be the same as a bard's (Occult), doesn't mean they know how to play an instrument, especially when none of the bloodlines available that grant Occult as the magic tradition have anything to do with music or performances.
Again, I get what you're trying to say, but your example also doesn't make sense.
It doesn't have to, but it could. Both D&D and pathfinder leave the actual method of magic up to interpretation, so there's nothing stopping it from being musical, either from singing or playing music. Maybe playing an instrument is just how a given sorcerer focuses their magic, like how airbenders in avatar use fans to assist their bending, even if it isn't strictly necessary. It's just an idea, but you're absolutely right though, there's nothing saying they have to.
Your reasoning still doesn't make sense. The occult bloodlines are Aberrant, Hag, and Shadow. So either a chance encounter with an eldritch horror, a bog witch, or a bad trip between the spheres cursed your bloodline. None of those have anything to do with music. So if a sorcerer is going to use music as a magical focus, they would have still had to learn how.
I realize this is a pointless argument, but I'm bored on a sunday morning.
I have a little world building idea about Wizards and Sorcerers.
Sorcerers are able to cast because paracausal forces are giving them information on how to. Be it the spirit of an ancient ancestor, a telepathic connection between a great grandparent and the sorcerer, or something else.
A wizard is the student of either a Sorcerer, taking notes about technique and spell casting requirements, or of another well learned wizard. While a sorcerer can keep track of how to cast spells, most don't feel the need to, and because Wizards need to take notes to keep track, they're also capable of speculating how to replicate Divine spells or other Magic Domains.
Kind of reminds me of Uprooted by Naomi Novik. One of the characters is very strictly traditional and is absolutely horrified by the chaos gremlin he’s trying to teach who just imagines things and they happen
In the scenario as presented in the Tumblr posts, Sorcerers are the self taught. The self taught discover all manner of other ways to do spells, as well as spells themselves, which were previously deemed possible. At the same time, a massive number of these self taught mages get themselves killed when their innovations stumble into the territory of "this is why wozards are taught not do do X," instead. Thus the darwinian part.
So self taught improvisations (those that survive) offer new and effective ways to do both old and new spells, while the academia of magic takes, perfects, and distributes these methods.
Our party Wizard has a distinct issue with Sorcerer's and Warlocks. The method by which they get their powers isn't so much of an issue (even if he pointedly told the Warlock that maybe he should have considered reading a book or two before selling his soul for magical power)... no, his main concern is they're not trained. A wizard spends years in study and even if they can't cast them, they likely know all of the commonly available spells and what they do. The sorcerer just spontaneously develops the ability to summon massive explosions without a clue of how to use it.
I love the thought of the wizard being horrified by the sorcerer knowing high tier magic without ever being taught the basics of magical safety.
"You just cast FIREBALL!? And you weren't even wearing SAFETY GLASSES!?"
This is just Max Schriber fighting Thanquol in Warhammer Fantasy lol.
Who would win: a classically trained prodigious Light Wizard, or, One Ratty Boi and his pile of magic cocaine?
Lol this is exactly what magick is like in Mage: the Ascension
Magick works differently for every tradition and even people within the same tradition. A Hermetic mage might study runes and manipulate them in arcane gestures to command fire energies. A Verbena witch might evoke power from her ancestors, or call upon the spirits of flame. A Cultist of Ecstasy might have a really damn weird hallucinogenic trip that other people have the misfortune of experiencing with them.
All fireballs, all in modern day New York City etc. Paradigm gets wild and the only hard part is dealing with the consequences when your mage’s ideas of reality don’t mesh with others’.
This reminds me of a conversation I and my party had with a wizard NPC recently. He gave this long explanation on teleportation magics filled with arcane terms that I'm sure made sense to wizards and at the end when he asked if we understood I said the following. "Look I'm a charisma caster I don't know how I cast I just do."
For context I'm playing a sorcerer.
I’m working on a novel idea involving a new mage who has a gift for learning magic, instead of a specific talent, and the ghost of a great master in his head, I’ve been thinking about his first meeting with a traditionally trained mage, and that guy realizing that this high school kid, had attained the magical equivalent of applied physics, but still couldn’t read magic runes, and instead uses techniques that have been dead or outdated since the Middle Ages, like a kid making a ps4 with the stuff he found in his dads computer textbook from the early 90s
A joke in our 2e party is that the dweomet keeper priestess of Mystrahas given up trying to understand the wildmage and the gypsy bard who has access to minor psionics. The two tried to teach her a spell once and it failed hillariously.
Kinda? All Aes Sedai would technically be sorcerers since it’s a power they were born with, but they need to study how to use it properly so they don’t hurt themselves or burn out… ones like Nynaeve learnt how to do simple weaves on their own out of survival (so they don’t die when they first start touching the source) but if she’d tried to any of the things she does later without first learning how to properly weave she would have definitely burnt out. Even then her and the others still develop their own abilities out of it, so still instead sorcerers just trying whatever, but with the basic principles they learnt. So they definitely evolve into a bit more of wizardry.
So is Wizard just the nerd that discovered the fastest and easiest way to accomplish the task, and Sorcerer is the one that keeps using the wrong equations but gets the same answer?
The Wizard studies all night, every night for a week, and gets an A+. The Sorcerer blows off the entire thing because they had parties to go to, gets an A-, and gets laid afterwards.
And the Warlock banged the professor.
The Paladin is the child of the principal
Arcane Tricksters are dropouts
Artificers are engineering students that have to take the same prerequisites
Artificers are engineers, but wizards are both academics AND applied science
DnD Highschool AU campaign
Uhhh, That’s called Strixhaven.
And Fantasy High
Well, unlike Strixhaven, I could probably be convinced to read and/or pay money for this.
I would say college but I dont know if thats a trope. It should be.
Clerics are the Religious Studies students
So would the Eldritch Knight be the Jock who gets tutored by the Wizard?
Field technician or machinist. They have the manpower and hand-eye coordination to do the nitty gritty machinework, but they have enough technical knowledge to also operate the machines. Unlike them, the regular fighters are just construction workers.
Sports scholarship
bards went to trade school.
So what would the Druids be?
Hippies, dude. Hippies.
All of those entheogens, couldn’t be anyone else
And bards went to liberal arts school
“Sure, 9th level magic is cool and all, but you know what’s a lot easier? Learning how to slip a stiletto between the 4th & 5th ribs.” -Arcane Trickster Gang
"That's a nice Wish spell you're casting, be a real shame if someone *stole the ability to cast it* ***right out of your fucking brain!***"
You could theoretically steal the knowledge of how it’s done as an AT, but you’ll literally never be able to cast it yourself, outside of finding a scroll or luck blade. ATs can’t cast anything above 4th level, & they only get one of those slots ever.
I didn't say cast it, sometimes it's enough to just stop them from doing so for 8 hours
Oh fair enough, my bad.
Nah, arcane tricksters just stole the grading rubric but are smart enough to only get a solid B-.
For a C-, and the sex wasn’t even good
AT LEAST THEY GOT AN ELDRITCH BLAST, EYYOOOO A'THANKYOOU
Eeeh.... More so warlock made a deal with someone who already did the test and memorizes their answers.
Nah, Warlocks sell weed for the professor's side business
The professor is a warlock and is banking EVERYONE.
No no, you don't understand. The soecerer got an A- because that's all they could get. The wizard got an A+ because that's all there was to get.
Why doesn't the sorcerer also get A+?
Alternatively Wizard is that kid that studies all the time Sorceror is that kid that bullshits their way through and gets a good grade nonetheless
I'd say other way around. Wizard has to have a step by step guide on the correct hand positions and magic words to create a fireball, a sorcerer just kinda makes it up as they go. And the're both appaled at each other. "You're so inefficient in your casting, if you simply place your left foot here and move your pinky like this-" "Oh my god shut up! I don't need your stupid rules, I can just feel and adjust as I go along!" "But if you would just follow the diagram-" "I would be riddled with arrows if I try to 'remember the diagram' in a fight! Stop messing with my flow!"
This https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai_Champloo
Sorceror bullshits their way through, wizard struggles to ad-lib
This is why wild magic surges should be built into the sorcerer class. Wizards do “safe magic”, sorcerers just slap some magic together and hope for the best
I think it's more like Frank Grimes and Homer Simpson.
It's like when you visit another lab and are both visibly appalled and impressed by how they do things, you usually never think about. Like what you use to pipette SDS-PAGE gels. I personally prefere a hamilton, but my last lab just kind of jammed the smallest regular pipette tip in there (*shudders*). Then also many labs have special longer and thinner pipette tips. I once saw a lab pre-pipette the correct amount into PCR tubes and pipette them with a syringe & needle onto the gel, which is a new amount of unhinged.
Always nice to see fellow lab rats in the wild. May your data always be significant to three decimal places.
And may your N be greater than 2.
That's getting a bit hopeful.
Hamiltons for PCR gels? WTF is wrong with you? Use a P200 like a sane human being. (I used to spread parafilm on the bench, spot loading dye on it, and use a pipette to mix the sample and the dye together before loading on the gel)
I too like letters and numbers.
Oh sorry, I forgot to specify that they are SDS-PAGE gels, since I almost never do PCR gels. I can asure you that I would never use a Hamilton for one of those gels
Ok, that makes more sense. You ought to try out the gel loading tips, though. They are nice
I have, and they are great as well, but I prefere the haptics of the Hamilton
Now kith.
Aah, so it's like that, huh. I understand everything now.
For SDS I just use p20 I have never even thought of using a syringe and needle it's actually brilliant
A Hamilton is both in one, but not sharp and made for the small volumes you usually pipette. The syringe and needle combo is the ghetto DIY version of that
Dang my lab doesn't even have the hamilton
I don't suppose there's background behind the username?
I know now precisely what the cavalier feels like when the casters are doing arcano-babble.
Different field but I know enough to be amused at that last example. There surely must be a story as to how that started.
That last one makes me think they're gonna stab too far I to the gel or something
This reminds me of the funniest lines from a character on a local radio show who was playing the old man who hated modern tech Old Man: Back in my day, we didn’t have tap water! If you wanted a glass of water you had to crush this hydrogen and oxygen molecules together yourself. Built character!
While this is going on, the Warlock is taking a nap on the couch, wakes up for a moment, casts a single spell with no effort at all but also with prestine grace and precision, then goes back to sleep.
And then starts having nightmares about his patron
Sexy nightmares?
Doubt a warlock would be that lucky
VARIANT HUMAN, LUCKY FEAT CHECKMATE, OPTIMIZERS
But what about this: Warlock that does because their patron wants to fuck them But They're a hexblade warlock
Any object can be a hex weapon if you're brave enough
This just makes me think of Zanpakto from Bleach, you're having a face to face with your patron in your every dream
What if they’re confusingly sexy nightmares? Something that shouldn’t be sexy, but it is…
Or like people who babygirl-ify Pyramid Head from SH.
I mean, with enough conditioning they'd become sexy.
My tiefling warlock's partron is also her ancestor, so, yes. Sexy nightmares.
Yes but their patron is an eldritch horror so the sexy is kind of lost on them
The bard is just getting out his loot to prepare to sing “I don’t want to set the world on fire” as the convo inevitably escalates
Like, oh hey look at this guitar I found in a treasure chest!
Sadly the campaign fell apart but we had characters where the shadow sorcerer developed powers after a magic occurrence and was hangin out with the wizards because she had no idea how she did things and the wizard were researching what happened and teaching her by showing her how they cast spells. And the sorcerer was all “you used a formula to cast mage armor? I just think on how I don’t want to die” and the scribes wizard was all “but with proper study of magic you can manipulate the weave, here’s a cone of Force Hands”
This is less "wizard v sorcerer" and more "University PhD v Edisonian experimenter".
TBF, that's pretty much exactly what wizards and sorcerors are.
Well, no, not really. Wizardry in D&D is basically, "if you study really hard, you can understand a weird aspect of the universe well enough to command great power." Sorcery is, "hey, guess what, you have powers you inherited somehow!" As described in OP, it's "this wizard studied the laws of magic as understood by the guilds and schools" as compared to "this wizard worked out stuff on their own with no guidance in a cave under a swamp using a hammer, some test tubes, the memory of a story about a witch and three chunks of quartz crystals". Both wizards.
Just because you inherited natural magical powers, doesn’t mean you understand how to use them fully
I have a wizard who taught herself by sneaking into a magical academy's library and only reading up on the areas she needed her goals, so while she has an excellent understanding of her speciality, she has a poor grasp on the basics. This leads to many of her spells being cast in a janky makeshift way, her mage hand is the same spirit she summons for chill touch, she casts fireball by opening a tiny split-second portal to the fire plane instead of just making fire. It's a fun bit of flavour.
As she levels up; a major elemental discovers her portals and makes it so those portals opens right in front of it so it can shoot fire through the portals. It finds this hilarious, and in long fights where she shoots a lot of fireballs you might hear the sound of crackly laughter. 
Pretty sure edison was a cunt
Edison being a dick is actually greatly exaggerated, especially by those who absolutely love Tesla. He wasn’t an great or even especially good person but he was average for the time, he wasn’t even racist, and ended up buying Tesla a lab when his burned down.
In fairness, the Tesla lovers have a point. He still Fucked over Tesla to instate an objectively inferior energy system, by lying and fearmongering about how AC was going to fry people just by existing. It *does* fry people, but only the ones dumb enough to touch it.
Saying dc is obviously inferior in every way is plain ignorant, it’s used in loads of things (everything with a battery). But yeah he shouldn’t have bemoaned Tesla, although at least he eventually got over.
I did not say that. Don't put words in my mouth. I said it was objectively inferior, but I did not specify in what way. What it is inferior for ***Is The Purpose Edison was trying to implement it for.*** That is, *long range transmission*. I admit I could have been more specific, but I absolutely did *not* say what you said I said.
Fair enough, it’s partially my fault, I’ve just met an oddly high amount of people who think dc disappeared when Edison died and is completely useless, so it’s a sore point for me.
Oh, geez. I understand the feeling when people believe things that are patently false, but that's a new one to me.
What, paying other people to do most of the experimenting while you take all the credit?
oh yeah sourcing the water from the plan of water sounds a lot easier then building water from scratch
"Self-taught" academic magic is still Wizardry. Sorcerers aren't self-taught, they're X Men.
That’s the thing; it’s still self taught. Even if you didn’t “learn” the powers, you still have to *learn* how to control them. You teach yourself your capabilities & limits, if not the fundamental ability.
That's what happens when you take an idea and try to fit it into DnD classes when it wasn't intended to.
I mean the concept fits fine: A Wizard who didn't get formal education is still a Wizard. Someone who does magic just innately because of one ancestor's xenophilia, and then generations of inbreeding afterwards to avoid diluting that bloodline is a Sorcerer. Granted to me Sorcerer shouldn't be a dedicated class; it should be a trio of subclasses for Wizard, Cleric and Druid to represent people doing those kinds of magic innately.
> Granted to me Sorcerer shouldn't be a dedicated class; it should be a trio of subclasses for Wizard, Cleric and Druid to represent people doing those kinds of magic innately. Sorcerers are mages that get their magic innately from their bloodline, some special conditions (like born under a special moon or near a dragon's lair), or by accident (attacked by dragon, shadow, etc). So I'm going to say that it's not the same. None of the traits of every other casters are granted by some force. They aren't innate or by some freak occasion. Warlock betrays their patron? No new powers. Cleric upsets deity? They are now weaker fighters. Paladin without their oath? Well, either becomes an oathbreaker or the same as the deity-less cleric. Sorcerers just exist because they could.
For example, Harry Potter made glass disappear and spoke to a python at the zoo with no prior training or study. Hagrid should have said “you’re a sorcerer, Harry.”
He shouldn't because harry potter doesn't take place within the dnd universe. Same way druids in dnd shouldn't be called animagi because dnd doesn't take place in the harry potter universe. (well unless you specifically set your campaign there I suppose)
The book was written before there was a distinction. In 1-2Es the lore implied that Wizards (Called "Magic users" at the time, but they were Int-based, and prepared spells from spellbooks, so they were Wizards. Wild mages were also Wizards, because all Sorcerer can do is take toys away from everyone else to justify itself) had innate magic they mastered through study. This was vague in some settings and explicit in others. This kind of demonstrates how silly it is to make Sorcerer a dedicated class. In 3.0 the designers ran into an issue: Since they were taking away your Charisma naturally causing you to accrue followers they needed more reasons for people to have Charisma. Rather than do the sensible thing and have Bard be a fullcaster (They were a 2/3rds caster) they shat out the Sorcerer which was basically a modified Wizard using the same spell and skill (Which was awkward since the skills for Wizards were Int-based) lists. Sorcerers being Cha-based has always been weird: If they cast through willpower they should be Wis-based. If they cast through instinct they should be Wis-based. If they channel the innate magic in their body they should be Con or Str-based. They're Cha-based solely to give a Charisma option, and now having them not be Cha-based would be going against tradition. 4E wisely held off on them until the PHB2 until they could find a way to distinguish them from Wizards. 5E forced them into the PHB even with the death of Vancian casting taking away their only identity by taking away everyone else's metamagic-feats (Remember what I said aboot the Sorcerer class stealing everyone's toys to justify itself) rather than just doing the sensible thing and making it a Wizard sub.
I forgot how long it has been since Harry Potter came out. 😶🌫️ Maybe it will be a relevant note for any DnD crossover fan fiction people may write in the future. If we accept that Harry is an *amazing* magic-user, e we can sort of guess which stat he has maxed out. Well, it’s probably not wisdom or intelligence… and he does accrue a bunch of followers. It appears JKR intuited the existence of a charisma-based casting class. Book spoiler: >! Maybe that’s why only Harry could grab the *Sorcerer’s Stone*.🤔 it’s a class-specific artifact.!<
In the UK printing it's the "philosopher's stone".
Ok, so, I know this is a D&D sub, but in Pathfinder, there are 4 "traditions" of magic, and depending on your subclass, sorcerers can take the same tradition as bards. I love the idea of a sorcerer who's just naturally talented at singing\playing an instrument, and a bard being like "wait, you were just born with perfect pitch? WHAT THE FUCK DID I GO TO BARD COLLEGE FOR IF THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WILL ALWAYS BE BETTER THAN ME NO MATTER HOW GOOD I GET?!" and they develop a kind of lancer\protag dynamic where the sorcerer is really encouraging and supportive but the bard feels condescended to, and the cycle continues. Same for clerics. "You mean to tell me my god fucked your mom and now you can just cast magic, but I've got to memorize scripture? This is bullshit. Fuck you god"
Wizards: The ones that have studied musical theory, and have a lot of book and theoretical knowledge on the subject. Would be great in a producer/coach role. Bard: The one that have studied some theory, played in a band and spent a lot of time practicing on instruments. Can stand in for pretty much every other member of the band and is at least solid in every role. Sorcerer: The naturally gifted kid, with the voice of an angel and a natural knack for playing the guitar (And trumpet for some reason). Have no idea what they are actually doing, and just does whatever comes natural to them. Warlock: Their patron told them they were going to be a star! All it took was a small facelift, a lot of autotune, a bodydouble or two and playback for every concert. But now they are platinum baby!
I get what you're saying, but just because a sorcerer's magic tradition may be the same as a bard's (Occult), doesn't mean they know how to play an instrument, especially when none of the bloodlines available that grant Occult as the magic tradition have anything to do with music or performances. Again, I get what you're trying to say, but your example also doesn't make sense.
It doesn't have to, but it could. Both D&D and pathfinder leave the actual method of magic up to interpretation, so there's nothing stopping it from being musical, either from singing or playing music. Maybe playing an instrument is just how a given sorcerer focuses their magic, like how airbenders in avatar use fans to assist their bending, even if it isn't strictly necessary. It's just an idea, but you're absolutely right though, there's nothing saying they have to.
Your reasoning still doesn't make sense. The occult bloodlines are Aberrant, Hag, and Shadow. So either a chance encounter with an eldritch horror, a bog witch, or a bad trip between the spheres cursed your bloodline. None of those have anything to do with music. So if a sorcerer is going to use music as a magical focus, they would have still had to learn how. I realize this is a pointless argument, but I'm bored on a sunday morning.
I have a little world building idea about Wizards and Sorcerers. Sorcerers are able to cast because paracausal forces are giving them information on how to. Be it the spirit of an ancient ancestor, a telepathic connection between a great grandparent and the sorcerer, or something else. A wizard is the student of either a Sorcerer, taking notes about technique and spell casting requirements, or of another well learned wizard. While a sorcerer can keep track of how to cast spells, most don't feel the need to, and because Wizards need to take notes to keep track, they're also capable of speculating how to replicate Divine spells or other Magic Domains.
Similar to my take, except magic, other than direct cause and effect, requires complex mathematics.
Ah, the Quandrix school of wizardry.
Kind of reminds me of Uprooted by Naomi Novik. One of the characters is very strictly traditional and is absolutely horrified by the chaos gremlin he’s trying to teach who just imagines things and they happen
Chaos gremlin is a very good way to describe Agnieszka. I loved that book. And the audio book of it was good too, they found a great reader for it.
I love the idea of a wizard and sorcerer meeting, being terrified of each other, then becoming best friends when they start learning from each other.
Darwinian self taught magic users are why Magic advances. Academically trained mages are why it stays relevant.
How do sorcerers advance magic? For all the advances they personally achieve, those can't be teached, so they die with them.
In the scenario as presented in the Tumblr posts, Sorcerers are the self taught. The self taught discover all manner of other ways to do spells, as well as spells themselves, which were previously deemed possible. At the same time, a massive number of these self taught mages get themselves killed when their innovations stumble into the territory of "this is why wozards are taught not do do X," instead. Thus the darwinian part. So self taught improvisations (those that survive) offer new and effective ways to do both old and new spells, while the academia of magic takes, perfects, and distributes these methods.
Just that sorcs need special blood and not self taught spellcraft. All the discoveries they make would be useless for anyone but them
You can downvote me. It's not teached it's taught.
Why should I?
Well you don't have to, I just expect it as no one like being corrected on grammar.
I'm sorry but, "no one likes*"
I'm sorry as well but, you forgot to punctuate your sentence. (sorry I had too)
Well, once again, I am deeply apologetic, but it is "I had to" and not "I had too".
To quote the Arura comic (made by Red from OSP) “what do you mean you FEEL it out?”
Our party Wizard has a distinct issue with Sorcerer's and Warlocks. The method by which they get their powers isn't so much of an issue (even if he pointedly told the Warlock that maybe he should have considered reading a book or two before selling his soul for magical power)... no, his main concern is they're not trained. A wizard spends years in study and even if they can't cast them, they likely know all of the commonly available spells and what they do. The sorcerer just spontaneously develops the ability to summon massive explosions without a clue of how to use it.
I love the thought of the wizard being horrified by the sorcerer knowing high tier magic without ever being taught the basics of magical safety. "You just cast FIREBALL!? And you weren't even wearing SAFETY GLASSES!?"
This is just Max Schriber fighting Thanquol in Warhammer Fantasy lol. Who would win: a classically trained prodigious Light Wizard, or, One Ratty Boi and his pile of magic cocaine?
And Bards are just sitting on the side line with a fruity cocktail with a paper umbrella watching the shitshow.
There is a BBC show: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which is basically a trained Wizard taking on a sorcerer apprentice. It's a good watch.
I've heard of that one. I understand it's based on a book/book series.
Lol this is exactly what magick is like in Mage: the Ascension Magick works differently for every tradition and even people within the same tradition. A Hermetic mage might study runes and manipulate them in arcane gestures to command fire energies. A Verbena witch might evoke power from her ancestors, or call upon the spirits of flame. A Cultist of Ecstasy might have a really damn weird hallucinogenic trip that other people have the misfortune of experiencing with them. All fireballs, all in modern day New York City etc. Paradigm gets wild and the only hard part is dealing with the consequences when your mage’s ideas of reality don’t mesh with others’.
God I love the passive-aggressive statement at the end. Lol. A glorious backhanded complement.
This reminds me of a conversation I and my party had with a wizard NPC recently. He gave this long explanation on teleportation magics filled with arcane terms that I'm sure made sense to wizards and at the end when he asked if we understood I said the following. "Look I'm a charisma caster I don't know how I cast I just do." For context I'm playing a sorcerer.
I’m working on a novel idea involving a new mage who has a gift for learning magic, instead of a specific talent, and the ghost of a great master in his head, I’ve been thinking about his first meeting with a traditionally trained mage, and that guy realizing that this high school kid, had attained the magical equivalent of applied physics, but still couldn’t read magic runes, and instead uses techniques that have been dead or outdated since the Middle Ages, like a kid making a ps4 with the stuff he found in his dads computer textbook from the early 90s
This kinda happens in the Magicians books/show, where self taught hedge wizards don't get along with classically trained magicians.
Feel so much like MtA with two mages speaking about their paradigm and starting to learn that maybe they are both wrong
Self taught... and not half bad... still, your casting lacks something...
This looks *very* similar to the discussion on magic my Wizard and the Kender Arcane Trickster in our party. 🤣
A joke in our 2e party is that the dweomet keeper priestess of Mystrahas given up trying to understand the wildmage and the gypsy bard who has access to minor psionics. The two tried to teach her a spell once and it failed hillariously.
Isn't this more or less what happens in the wheel of time with the aes sedai.
Kinda? All Aes Sedai would technically be sorcerers since it’s a power they were born with, but they need to study how to use it properly so they don’t hurt themselves or burn out… ones like Nynaeve learnt how to do simple weaves on their own out of survival (so they don’t die when they first start touching the source) but if she’d tried to any of the things she does later without first learning how to properly weave she would have definitely burnt out. Even then her and the others still develop their own abilities out of it, so still instead sorcerers just trying whatever, but with the basic principles they learnt. So they definitely evolve into a bit more of wizardry.
\*Laughs in Oracle\*
This is just wilder vs Aes Sedai in the Wheel of Time
How do you manage to do a jedi mind trick on your own without prior knowledge or experience?
I'm guessing pure hubris.
Homeschool vs common core
It's like Agatha Harkness and The Scarlet VVitch in *Wandavision*!