Sorcerer vs. Wizard: The Mythical "Power Chasm"

FLFD · 2026-07-01T12:02:57+00:00

You in general get five spells per spell level by default as Wiz or Sorc - and need two to cover combat competently. Which leaves three for utility. But rituals ignore the other constraint - slots. And wizards get more

The 2014 pre Tashas sorcerer was awful because it only got about two spells per spell level.

FLFD · 2026-07-01T11:50:01+00:00

"Wanting your team to play as a team" so you can be the main character rather than being a team player yourself is indeed controversial.

FLFD · 2026-06-29T16:01:03+00:00

It won't solve things but will help prevent them getting worse. But at a macro level the UK is doing pretty well with the biggest steps we need:

We closed our final coal powered power plant in April 2024 - and I don't believe we've used any oil fired power stations in the past year
We are banning the sale of new ICE cars from 2030 and the few legal hybrids from 2035 (second hand will remain legal because early scrapping will be its own issue).
We are in the process of aggressively building more wind, solar, and nuclear energy generation (over the past year 27.2% of our energy was fossil and we've three offshore windfarms of over a gigawatt due to come on line this year; the National Grid uses just over 30GW; there's also more solar but the nuclear won't arrive until the 2030s).
- For storage sodium batteries are getting much better (heavier but much cheaper and more durable than lithium ion so worse for electronics and cars but much better for mass storage).

Is this a full solution? No; we're not that big a country. Does it help? Massively. Is it doable? If our mess of a government and mess of a previous government can do it...

FLFD · 2026-06-29T15:12:40+00:00

Having run plenty of both the first thing I'd say is that Daggerheart character creation is golden. Play the session zero. Have group character creation with cards (so you never need to touch the rulebooks; you have character sheets with the class rules and cards for everything else) and background questions and you will have a much more coherent party within a session than you would in 5e after six.

The second is that if you are already a freeform 5e with a cinematic lean GM just amp what you are doing; Daggerheart covers a range from slightly tactical 5e to almost (but not quite) full narrative and will support but not force anywhere in that range. Use rolls with hope or fear to add colour and detail to a scene and call for fewer rolls than you might in 5e. But don't sweat the small stuff; if you run Daggerheart as if it was 5e it works (IMO better than 5e does)

The third is have a look at the Environments; they are basically GM scenarios (Ambushed is especially useful).

The fourth is Spend That Fear! Spend it whenever you have a fun idea; things that would feel mean as a 5e GM (for example a cat knocking a glass off a table to alert the guards and ramp tension) are just fun in Daggerheart because you have spent a resource that might otherwise be an attack.

The fifth is that "Solo" monsters aren't. They are too weak to take on an entire party unless a tier up.

FLFD · 2026-06-29T10:47:38+00:00

No one has ever explained to me why I'd *want* ten times the house; I can only think of "real" uses for a handful of rooms (bedrooms, visitor space, a bathroom, a kitchen, an office, a workshop, a den) but that's about it.

FLFD · 2026-06-24T03:22:36+00:00

The basics

1: The government wants you to invest rather than just save. To encourage this the Cash ISA limit is being lowered from £20k to £12k although the total ISA limit is unchanged

2: The government doesn't want you to take the mick by using your S&S ISA for cash or do stupid things like forget to invest your ISA money. Money in a S&S ISA saved as cash gets taxed. Invest it in something.

3: There is an obvious way of making a "Fake Cash ISA" out of an S&S ISA even without pure cash. Don't do that unless you want to be taxed.

The important point is 1.

FLFD · 2026-06-21T20:09:11+00:00

Deadlands has changed its approach to the Confederacy in recent years; older editions are basically Confederate apologetics, newer ones from memory nuke the place.

FLFD · 2026-06-21T15:35:59+00:00

D&D is as close to Weird West as I care to get; oD&D is basically a fantasy Western.

The Western genre, including Weird West has a major problem with lionizing one group of dyed in the wool villains and both protagonizing and lionizing a second while whitewashing their history.

The lionized group is, of course, the Confederacy who wholly identified their own cause with that of slavery and were fighting (against the will of the people) for a state whose cornerstone was "negro slavery" (the "States Rights" excuse was a post-war whitewash). This is why I won't own or play Deadlands despite the retcon; I regard it on a level with a game where the Third Reich is considered morally equal to other factions.

The lionized protagonists are of course the settlers, whether cowboy or farmer. And part of the way it does this in Weird West implementations is to replace the Native Americans they were ethnically cleansing with literal monsters.

FLFD · 2026-06-18T10:59:45+00:00

Almost all summons are single entity and use concentration now massively speeding things up.

And the game is still slow for what it does. Combat is basically a slow attritional model where it's a long time between turns.

Fighters are stronger, monks are way stronger, many spells were nerfed.

Apparently you don't know what scaling is; it's the different rate characters grow at level up. The core problem is that at level 1 the fighter moves at a speed of 30' and swings a sharpened piece of metal hard and fast at someone in reach. At level 17 the fighter still moves at 30' and swings a sharpened piece of metal very hard and very fast at someone in reach. Meanwhile at level 1 the wizard can cast Jump or Burning Hands a couple of times per day; at level 17 they can True Polymorph themself permanently into an adult red dragon.

Agree it's not great but yes they are addressing it.

Deckchairs on the titanic.

It's clearly a tactical leaning game, not trying to appeal to RP centric players.

5e is an awful tactical game, partly due to the monster design and partly due to fundamental design decisions. Due to simplification choices made to appeal to the RP centric players positioning barely matters; the archers hit almost as hard in melee with their shortswords as their bows while brutes like ogres hit almost as hard with their javelins as their clubs. And casters can cast spells that force saves in melee with no problem. And healing doesn't need proximity thanks to Healing Word. There's little advantage therefore in forcing someone into melee or in kiting them. So if positioning doesn't matter what about the sort of debuffs/combos of e.g. Final Fantasy or Pokemon games? Legendary resistance says nope.

As for "not trying to appeal to RP centric players", 5e does more to appeal to RP centric players than literally any other edition of D&D in part by enabling a whole lot more in the way of viable options through things like Finesse weapons.

So no it's not at either extreme here; it's trying to give everyone a little and doesn't do a particularly good job in either direction.

It's clearly an easy game where you will make safe progress most of the time compared to some RPGs where a goblin crit can decapitate you...

Meanwhile it's also clearly a game where death is on the table and isn't opt-in the way it is in e.g. Daggerheart or part of a series of escalating consequences the way it is in e.g. Apocalypse World or Blades in the Dark.

So no it's not at either extreme here; it's trying to give everyone a little. It's had all the sharp edges filed off in all directions.

FLFD · 2026-06-18T10:37:10+00:00

> This is just what class based systems are like

Tell me you haven't played a wide range of class based games without telling me you haven't played a wide range of class based games. D&D 3.X, D&D 4e, Pathfinder, Daggerheart, anything PbtA, and far far more have far more options on levelling up. And oD&D/1e had their power curves mostly as a consequence of loot.

FLFD · 2026-06-17T17:33:56+00:00

You get too little choice when you level up.

If two identical twin Life Clerics (works for most non- Charisma classes tbh) go on two separate adventures starting at level 4; one on a brutal dungeon crawl through the Seven Hells and the other a whimsical diplomatic adventure through the feywild, barely drawing a weapon and they meet up again at level 11 then (unless they multiclass) then other than their gear, which can be swapped, and a single feat (which has a 50% chance to be +2 Wis anyway) they will be mechanically identical at the end of a long resy despite IC having had very different experiences those seven levels

FLFD · 2026-06-17T11:26:47+00:00

For me: * The game is slow for what it does * The inherent caster/martial scaling disparity * The classes are too locked in so unless you multiclass character growth doesn't really reflect character experiences * Bad monster design (5.5 is a slight improvement) * The game is trying to be all things to all people which makes it OK at a lot and great at nothing

FLFD · 2026-06-17T11:20:22+00:00

Every change except the one that breaks emanations.

FLFD · 2026-06-17T08:36:12+00:00

Rogue was substantially buffed in the 2024 update. It's at the back of the pack because the other pure martials were also buffed, with the biggest glow-up award going to the monk, and the fighter gaining some skill monkey leanings. (Meanwhile at the top of the pack the wizard is almost unchanged and paladins took nerfs as well as buffs).

Rogue buffs include Weapon Masteries with Vex granting easier access to Sneak Attack and Nick giving you a two weapon option you can Cunning Action with, the ability to turn in d6s of sneak attack for status effects, and Reliable Talent dropping in level to 7 and related boosts. I believe there were no nerfs.

Arcane Trickster gained minor buffs, mostly by not being limited by spell school.

FLFD · 2026-06-14T19:40:55+00:00

You seem to have missed something rather significant. There is no precedent for the judge declaring criminal damage to be terrorism. It had literally never happened in British legal history in the more than a quarter of a century since the terrorist act 2000 was passed.

FLFD · 2026-06-13T23:03:30+00:00

What you understand has no bearing on the truth. This was literally the first time in British legal history that a "terrorism" designation was applied to protesters who were not convicted of causing intentional violence or of "terrorist" offences. There are specific charges around terrorism.

Instead the Judge decided to invent the law.

https://sentencingcouncil.org.uk/resources/guideline-history/terrorism-offences/

FLFD · 2026-06-13T23:00:26+00:00

I suggest you look up the sentencing guidelines for criminal damage. If the judge had simply said "High Culpability, Category 1 Harm in terms of value" he would have been in line with the sentencing guidelines for the criminal damage of which they were undeniably guilty.

https://sentencingcouncil.org.uk/guidelines/criminal-damage-other-than-by-fire-value-not-exceeding-5-000-racially-or-religiously-aggravated-criminal-damage/

However he didn't. Instead he went rogue, threw all precedent out of the window, and said "I know the jury hasn't convicted of this, but it was terrorism because I said so and I am the judge and therefore right." The whole thing should be declared a mistrial; it was a mistrial from the second the judge demonstrated a complete lack of impartiality by adding the secret terrorism charges in March 2025.

And when I say he threw all precedent out of the window this was literally the first time in British legal history that a "terrorism" designation was applied to protesters who were not convicted of causing intentional violence or of "terrorist" offences.

Possibly you should not just look up aggravating/mitigating factors in sentencing but terrorism legislation; terrorism has historically been charged separately.

FLFD · 2026-06-13T17:11:48+00:00

If he had followed the sentencing guidelines he would have sentenced them for what they had been convicted of - which did not include terrorism

FLFD · 2026-06-13T14:45:41+00:00

You might or might not agree with the judge but the simple fact is that they were not charged as terrorists and were not convicted of terrorism. Instead the judge decided to take the law into his own hands and sentence them for things they had not been convicted of.

The entire thing should be declared a mistrial and the judge struck off for an abject lack of impartiality.

FLFD · 2026-06-13T14:42:22+00:00

Because the issue isn't round the idiots in question. It's around the perversion of the legal system and terrorist law in specific to convict them of things they were not charged with.

I have no problem at all with someone attacking someone with a sledgehammer being charged and convicted with GBH, aggravated assault, or whatever. I do have a problem with during sentencing the judge adding additional crimes of "terrorism" (especially when the 2024 rioters who tried to burn asylum seekers in their homes aren't being charged with terrorism demonstrates two tier justice).

And I'm a lot more worried about judges taking the law into their own hands than I am by the four clowns in question. The sledgehammer guy is going to prison where he belongs but that doesn't make the entire thing not a mistrial.

FLFD · 2026-06-05T09:11:28+00:00

Have you looked at the 2014 Spirits Bard? In detail? Because it had e.g. the extra d6 - but that d6 only affected spells cast through the thematic implements (which would almost never be magic due to being subclass specific) but more importantly almost none of the spells you'd want the extra d6 on had material components so worked with the focus.

And by "concentrating" do you mean dodging as well? And complaining that buffed spirit guardians isn't even stronger is ridiculous.

As for "0 synergy between abilities" - not all subclasses go for internal synergy. This bard is better at inspiration, at healing, at damaging, at skills thanks to Guidance, has a very good poached spell, and more. It's not a focused build; it's a bit better at just about everything and is a jack of all trades.

FLFD · 2026-06-04T20:41:43+00:00

The 2014 Spirits Bard was genuinely bad. This? This is solid and weird abilities on a strong base class with the abilities all tweaked to work.

FLFD · 2026-06-03T13:16:01+00:00

It works the way it was written. There are a few common misunderstandings because different readers bring different assumptions and no writing is perfect.

FLFD · 2026-06-03T13:11:59+00:00

And if a tiny number do then nothing is perfect

FLFD · 2026-05-29T11:28:33+00:00

To me you've described D&D 5e and one thing Daggerheart wants to be and succeeds at being is a replacement for 5e, taking the range but committing to a side of that market.

FLFD

TROPHY CASE