More previews and teasers for Insider subscribers today. This preview is for the sorceror, an arcane striker. A lot of speculation floated around the directions the sorceror could take, but I’ll break down what actually has been done for you.
The sorceror remains intact in origin from it’s 3.5 roots, i.e. people who use arcane magic from instinctive talent rather than academic study.
The sorcerer is the arcane antithesis of the wizard. Wielding raw, barely contained magical power, sorcerers channel bursts and blasts of arcane energy through their bodies. They gain their power not through rigorous study of esoteric tomes, but by harnessing magic in their blood, waiting to be tapped and shaped. If wizards wield magic as fighters wield swords, a sorcerer’s magic is the arcing greataxe of a raging barbarian.
You might be a proud dragonborn scion of ancient Arkhosia, calling on the draconic power of your heritage, or perhaps you were bathed in dragon blood as an infant to fill you with that power. You might have been born in a place where planar forces converged in strange eddies, infusing you with chaos, or perhaps you survived implantation of a slaad embryo, which left the taint of chaos upon you. Magic pulses through your veins, calling on you to give it expression. As it grows ever stronger, will it consume you or transform you into magic incarnate?
Two Power Sources. The two builds of sorceror are divided by where they derive their power from. Dragon sorcerors derive their power from, surprise! draconic magic. They tap into the same well of arcane power as dragons do. Wild magic sorcerors draw forth their power from the Elemental Chaos itself.
Strength is Power. Every striker class has some mechanic that allows them to do extra damage on top of whatever powers they are using. For sorcerors, this is just a static bonus to all damage equal to the a secondary attribute. It’s strength for dragon mages and dexterity for wild mages. Keep in mind, this is on top of the primary attribute (charisma) modifier that is added, and there are no other preconditions to the damage. No requirements of combat advantage or restrictions of once per turn mean that sorcerors will be capable of pouring out strong damage every turn.
Resistance is Futile. Both builds give native resistance to a damage type. This resistance is also used to overcome an opponent’s resistance to that type of damage. So, if I have thunder resistance 5, then I can ignore 5 points of my target’s resistance if I target them with a spell that does thunder damage. Dragon mages get to choose permanently from a limited set of damage types, while wild mages randomly roll from a much more diverse set of damage types.
Randomness FTW. Wild mages are interesting in that many powers key off getting an even number on the attack roll for increased effect or damage. The spell Chaos bolt, for example, hits a primary and then keeps hitting other targets as long as you keep getting even numbers on the attack roll. If they offer ways to alter your rolls, this will be quite powerful, but otherwise you’r still going to value wild mage powers in the primary effect and look at the secondary “random” effect as a nice bonus.
One target at a time. As is the case with strikers, most sorceror powers hit one target. There are some blast and burst powers scattered across th powers, but for the most part you’ll focus on a primary and attempt to chop it down ASAP.
Overall, an interesting preview. I’m not as excited about the sorceror as I am the warden, though. I’ll probably need the full class to look over before I become a believer.
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A Jack of All Trades ,or if you prefer, an extreme example of multi-classing, Gamefiend, a.k.a Quinn Murphy has been discussing, playing and designing games straight out of the womb. He is the owner and Editor-in-Chief of this site in addition to being an aspiring game designer. As you would assume, he is a huge fan of 4e.
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Wild sorceror sounds awesome. Random powers and attacks, drawing your magic from chaos itself? Hells yeah.
I’m not crazy about dragon sorceror – someone working on these things has way too much of a crush on dragons. Dragonborn have the most (core book) backstory and two of the most useful stat bonuses, dragonborn fighters get a silly amount of specific feats, and now this. Dragons are cool, and all, but come on. I always thought most people got past the “I want to play a dragon!” stage fairly quickly. Of the two guys in my group playing dragonborn, one is still stuck there and probably always will be, whereas the other hardly even remembers that he has a breath weapon.
I have to admit I’m biased – I’m sure more bloodlines will come out later, and if the first one they’d published had been a tiefling-esque infernal bloodline, I’d be all over it. (Infernal warlocks do get twice as many powers to choose from as the other two pacts, so that would be very unfair.) I’m a sucker for tieflings, even if I think the PHB’s backstory for them is stupid. But if I were designing game material, I would try not to let my love of demonic things be so incredibly obvious as this obsession with draconic things is.
Yeah, I’m split on the attention to the dragonborn. On one hand, I’m sort of happy because one thing that kills out new races is a lack of information or dev “love” for them. But the dragon sorcerors are so tone-perfect for dragonborns it seems a little out there.
I’m convinced that all we need to do is wait a bit for other races to get love. My next pick ? Halflings I feel are very underserved in fantasy, though they are frequently included as a tip of the hat to tolkien. Would love to see more background and information for those guys. Maybe a “little magic” power source?
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