Editing Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (section)

===Sorcerer===
The [[Sorcerer (Dungeons & Dragons)|Sorcerer]] is a particularly sore spot for 5e fans because of how underwhelming it is. It went from 4e's version, which had a strong thematic and mechanical niche, back to its 3e "variant Wizard" approach. But, with the loss of [[Vancian Casting]], the 3e-style Sorcerer is straight up inferior, because it doesn't have nearly as many special tricks, like more spells per day, to make up for its limited selection - their spell is literally a wizard's list except vastly cut-down, with fewer spells known to boot!  (''Enhance ability'' is the only really good spell sorcerers get but wizards don't, and they have few-to-no fun unique spells of their own the way bards, druids, or even half-casters like rangers or paladins do to soften the blow. Then a UA went and gave it to wizards anyway.)

Although [[Metamagic]] is now unique to Sorcerers, the combination of having so few metamagic options and the dearth of "sorcery points" with which to fuel them makes them far less valuable than they were in 3e.  Plus, since said points are the only mechanism by which a sorcerer can gain more spell slots, and therefore regain their traditional advantage over the wizard of having more of their smaller selection of spells per day, any given sorcerer now has to choose between actually using their metamagic or trying to save up for more spell slots.  Notably, at the level the player ''gets'' sorcery points, they ''literally'' do nothing but offer one extra level one spell per day.

Unlike virtually ''any other class with similar mechanics in the game'', a sorcerer regains ''nothing'' on a short rest but hit points from hit dice until level ''20'', a ridiculous oversight. Even the class's advocates agree that the "sorcery points" system would be a much better, more-elegant means of doing what it's clearly intended to do, if only the ability to regain sorcery points on a short rest were implemented, possibly in some scaled way, before the class's capstone.  Also, to add insult to injury, thanks to the wizard's Arcane Recovery class feature, it effectively gets ''more'' spells per day than a sorcerer, and in an elegantly-scaling package to boot, as this '''first level feature''' allows wizards to recover half their level (rounded up) in spell-slots 1/day with just a short rest.

Notably, one of the two core book sorcerer classes, the Dragon bloodline, ''is'' pretty nice, offering what's effectively permanent ''mage armor'' and the ability to apply one's Charisma modifier to appropriately-elementally-aligned spells right out of the gate... provided the player picks a fire dragon color.  Those who do not are undercut by the lackluster number of elemental damage spells for just about every other element (poison especially can go cry in a ditch) unless a kind DM lets them take homebrewed equivalents that cause the same effects but with different damage types. Even picking fire can backfire on you though since fire is the single most commonly-resisted non-weapon damage type in the ''Monster Manual'', and practically demands the character spend at least one feat on Elemental Adept to penetrate it. Subsequent releases of new spells have lessened, but not removed, this issue.

The Chaos sorcerer may be '''FUN''' in some ways, it's also, well...  '''FUN''', if you know what I mean.  And literally needing the DM to remember to call for the PC to roll on a table and get one of their powers back is lame.

Also, while wizards were ''spoiled'' for archetype options to chow down on like gluttonous children, with ''eight'' in the Player's Handbook alone, and tons of others from sourcebooks and UA articles (the Lore wizard is still a sore point for in practice being basically better at metamagic than the whole Sorcerer class is, to the point that its rework spent time mocking them and making them comedic), Sorcerers mostly begged for spare change, only getting a few options here and there, and most of those being UA material - which means that a lot of DMs will refuse to let players use them on principle.  Most of them weren't ''bad'' options per se (though the Phoenix bloodline was laughably awful), but they weren't great either, and they did the class no favors in basically being a weaker wizard.

Oh, and unlike almost every other spellcasting class (with even the ''ranger'' getting a couple new choices these days), no sorcerer gets any bonus spells from their Sorcerous Origin (except for in Xanathar's, where the Divine Soul and Shadow Soul get ONE), despite it being an excellent way to widen the class's option pool a little and mitigate many of its problems. Both half-casters know more spells than this ''full'' caster, and the third casters get only 2 less spells known.

All in all, the sorcerer has become similar to the [[Fighter]] in 3e - a class that you dip into for some bonus goodies, and then focus on advancing as a [[Bard]], [[Paladin]] or [[Warlock]] instead. Even a player who ''wants'' to progress primarily as a sorcerer is better served by getting at least one regenerating spell slot from a warlock, just to gain ''some'' freaking benefit from a short rest!  

Sure, they're the only naturally-spellcasting class in the entire game to get proficiency in Constitution saves out of the gate, and in an edition where those are used to concentrate, that's not nothing... but they're ''also'' the only full caster in the entire game to ''not'' have access to ritual casting, so that's a wash and fuck me for giving them the benefit of the doubt.

It's not truly terrible, but it is easily the weakest full caster in the entire game. (Which, to be fair, means it's quite powerful, just could be better.)

What especially incenses sorcerer fans is that the playtest version had some legitimately interesting mechanics to it, where Sorcerous Origin would actually give you special benefits as you ran out of spells - for example, the Draconic Sorcerer would turn into a [[Half-Dragon]] and gain melee bonuses, making it switch from a caster to a decent fighter. Despite the positive response that the playtest had, WotC still wound up giving us the 5e canon sorcerer.