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What’s that? A new class preview from the upcoming PHB2 has been released? Ah, it’s the Sorcerer. Good to have you back. Honestly, I’m a little surprised to see an actual Sorcerer class; I thought they would have simply used warlock pacts.

One of these days I’m going to add a stat-block definition to my CSS file…

Anyways, this all looks straightforward enough. Pew-pew lasers with CHA for the attack roll and STR and DEX to modifiy the damage or effect. Wait, what? Being physically strong or lithe determines the power of my magic? OK, I’ll roll with it for now. Let’s look at that class feature, “Spell Source.” There’s two options here, Dragon Magic and Wild Magic. Each one covers a lot of ground though.

Dragon Magic is the typical Sorcerer fluff we all love and remember. “A dragon’s blood flows through my veins” and all that jive. You get a bonus to damage rolls equal to STR/STR+2/STR+4 depending on your tier. You can use your STR for your AC instead of DEX or INT while wearing light armor (cbpye’s note: I’m getting tired of all this “your AC is good even if you have a poor DEX” crap). You gain a +2 bonus to AC the first time you become bloodied during an encounter (goes away at the end of the encounter). The real gravy here though is the bit named Dragon Soul. This feature gives you +5/+10/+15 innate resistance against a damage type of your choice, while at the same time allowing your powers to ignore that same amount of resistance for that damage type against your enemies. That is ridiculously good.

Wild Magic is exactly the sort of thing I’d like to see more of in 4e. The first attack roll you make gives you one of two bonuses: +1 AC (until your next turn) on evens, make a saving throw on odds. You get a bonus to damage rolls equal to DEX/DEX+2/DEX+4 (like Dragon Magic’s bonus, above). When you roll a natural 20 with an arcane power, push the target back a square and knock it prone after applying the power’s usual effects. When you roll a natural 1 with an arcane power, push all creatures within 5 squares of you back one square. Oh, know that resistance bonus/ignorance that Dragon Magic sorcerers get? Wild Magic sorcerers get it too, but the damage type is randomly determined by a d10 roll after each extended rest.

Let’s talk about two of the at-will powers. HOLY SHIT they are good. How good? The first one in the list is Acid Orb, which can be used as a ranged basic attack. Range is 20 squares, CHA vs. Reflex, 1d10+CHA damage. “Acid” is one of the choices available for the Dragon Soul option, BTW.

Here’s one for the Wild Magic dudes called Chaos Bolt. Ranged 10, one creature. CHA vs. Will, 1d10+CHA psychic damage. Wild Magic users get to make a secondary attack (CHA vs. Will) if they rolled an even number on the attack roll. If this attack hits, it deals 1d6 psychic damage to a target within 5 squares of the previous target. Repeat the process so long as you roll evens on the attack roll, but you can’t hit anything more than once per turn with this power.

I thought the at-will powers were good, but the encounter powers are simply nuts.  There are five first-level encounter powers given in this preview. They all use CHA for the attack, most target Reflex and they deal damage like this: 1d10+CHA (vs. will, Wild perk), 3d6+CHA (vs. fortitude), 2d10+CHA, 2d8+CHA, 2d6+CHA (acid, burst 3, Dragon perk). Yeah, massive damage. There’s no drawback to using any of these, either.

The first-level daily powers… well, there’s only one I’d take: Dazzling Ray. Ranged 10, CHA vs. Will, 6d6+CHA damage, half damage on a miss. That’s not even including the little perk that Wild Magic users get with the power. It’s so DAMAGE that I’d pick it even as a Dragon Magic sorcerer.

The utility powers are what you’d expect for second-level utility powers, and the third-level encounter powers are about on-par with the first-level encounter powers. The sorcerer is a solid damage-dealer all around.

I’m OK with the sorcerer having this kind of damage potential. Tim should be going pew-pew-acid-lazor-ball-BOOM every 6 seconds. I just think that the sorcerer, as shown here, has too much HP. Sorceror HP progression is fine starting at 12+Constitution, but the advancement should be 3 per level and not 5. With this kind of damage output they should be re-enforcing the concept of a “glass cannon” magic-user. I don’t think WotC will ever do something like that, though, what with a person’s STR determining their AC.

OK, nice-time is over; now it is rant-time.

Using the measure of how much you can lift and how hard you can hit things to determine how (un)likely you are to be hit? Seriously? I know that these tabletop games must employ some measure of abstraction (even my beloved Dark Heresy does) but 4th Edition has really been getting carried away with this. I actually prefer that wizards and sorcerers are making attacks against static defenses using INT and CHA (it’s no different from 3.5’s system of setting the DC to a static number based on your INT or CHA and having the target roll a saving throw), but someone using their STR or CON to determine their AC is a huge stretch. Even using INT to determine AC is taking it too far, I think. “I’m really smart, so you’re not going to hit me.” No, Tim, if you were really smart you’d be standing where you’re less likely to be hit in the first place (like cowering behind that crate, you frail little magic-man).

All that this pointless abstraction does is pamper players that don’t know how to balance the pro’s and con’s of a class choice (and when they balance it poorly they probably get upset about the consequences). This ridiculousness isn’t new, and it isn’t limited to AC. How does being smart (INT) improve my reflexes instead of my awareness (WIS)? Why are some classes and paragon paths determining their weapon-based attack rolls with stats other than STR or DEX (Paladin, Rogue, Artificer)?

This almost makes the use of ability scores pointless. Consider, for a moment, if D&D had no mention whatsoever of ability scores and every class description included this bit:
“Add 4 to all attack rolls and 3 to all damage rolls. Increase your AC by 3 if you are wearing light armor. Add 1 to each of these numbers every two levels.”

Ignoring starting HP, the other three defenses and skills I just gave you a way to completely remove ability scores from character creation in D&D (give me another 30 minutes and I can probably think of a way to get it to work for skills, defenses and HP, too). Perhaps this is just a reflection of something that D&D has become: a system that panders to a lowest common denominator consisting of a bunch of munchkins that are locked in a perpetual awesome-face.

That being said, I want to make a Dragonborn Dragon-Magic-Sorcerer named Xulfer dica Ytsan.  DEX as his third-highest stat, acid-based Dragon’s breath and using “acid” for his Dragon Soul choice.  A lifetime of agonizing heartburn must end! …  Don’t look at me like that.  Ask any of my friends and they’ll tell you that I’m a filthy powergamer when it comes to D&D.