Bastion’s are great places for players to build up during adventures and spend downtime working on.
Sorcerers can benefit from these options in D&D.
The difference between awizard,sorcerer, andwarlockis harder to work out purely from the name.
Each of the three in D&D has a distinct identity and a history behind their name.
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How they became magical
Wizard
A wizard achieves magical power through careful study.
Sorcerers
Sorcerers areborn with inherent magical power.
Diviner’s Portent by Lie Setiawan
A sorcerer can often trace their ancestry back to adragon, fey or other magical creature.
Warlocks
Warlocks barter for their power, rather than fully owning it.
There are a few exceptions to these broad themes.
Diviner’s Portent by Lie Setiawan
Some sorcerers come into power later in life as a result of something other than ancestry.
This could bethe result of wild magic, unpredictable and potentially dangerous arcane happenstance.
A warlock meanwhile, might gain power not by barter but by theft.
The theatre of the mind runs at many speeds.
Wizards and sorcerers have the same number of spell slots, with warlocks following a unique ruleset.
Spellcaster
Advantage
Example In Play
Weakness
Wizards are the only ‘prepared casters’ of the trio.
Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy by Cristi Balanescu
A wizard expecting to fight trolls mightpurchase scrolls containing fire spells and transcribe theminto their spellbook to learn them.
When the wizard isnot able to plan for the situation, they are at a disadvantage.
Sorcerer
Sorcerers invert the wizard formula as ‘spontaneous casters’.
The sorcererwon’t be able to adjust their available spellsto target an enemy’s weaknesses.
Warlock
Warlocks learn even fewer spells than sorcerers and have fewer spell slots as well.
This makes them generally better at short bursts of combat rather than extended dungeon dives.
Conjuration Wizard by Zoltan Boros
This spell makes warlocks reliable ranged damage dealers even after exhausting their spell slots.
A warlockregains all their spells by taking a short restafter ending combat with a powerful Fireball.
Prolonged combat reduces a warlock’s potency, forcing them to resort to Eldritch Blast.
Hellish Rebuke by Heonhwa Choe
More of the warlock’s power comes from features outside their spellcasting, calledinvocations and pacts.
Description
Invocation
Invocations are modular abilities that customizehow the warlock functions in and out of combat.
Out-of-combat invocations give the warlock access to new abilities, such aschanging their face or reading any language.
Fireball by Xavier Ribeiro
Pacts
Pacts are a larger singular choiceakin to a second subclassafter their patron.
Choosing the right Eldritch Invocations can empower a warlock’s Eldritch Blastspell to truly absurd levels.
Home is where the profit is.
Elminster by Viktor Titov
Roleplaying A Warlock
The warlock has the greatest diversity in how it can be represented.
They might also be fearful of their power.
The biggest consideration for a warlock is theinteraction they have with their patron, the source of their magic.
These warlocks might grow very concerned if their patron ever decides to directly observe or interact with them.
Mythologies vary but generally agree that it is very dangerous to owe any debt to the feyfolk.
They mightaccept their magic as a birthrightor view it as something external to themselves.
The result is magical powers focused on the mind, such as telekinesis, telepathy, and precognition.
This gives them great power over time, physics, and the fundamental rules of nature.
Wild Magic Sorcerer
A Wild Magic sorcerer is blessed(or perhaps cursed)with immense magical potential.
Whatever the cause, this sorcerer subclass struggles to contain its incredible power.
This could be asource of smug superiority or impostor syndromedepending on their personality.
This might come across as a specialdedication to the arcane, or a lust for power.
The wizard might alsohave a proactive goalto which they intend to use their magic.
Abjurer Wizard
An Abjurerspecializes in defensive magic.
Abjurersalso learn to banish otherworldly entitiesand learn totravel great distances via portals.
Diviner Wizard
Diviners look into the mists of time to determine the fate of all things.
Theyspecialize in portents, clairvoyance, astral projection, and seeing what is typically invisible.
Their knowledge of potential futures allows Diviners to influence events to achieve desired outcomes.
Illusionist Wizard
Illusionistsconceal, deceive, and misdirect the senses of others.
Sometimes the illusions conjured by wizards of this subclass can seem so real that they might as well be.
They might also want to raise an undead army to conquer the continent.
TheSchool of Evocation wizardhas beenrenamed the ‘Evoker’ subclassin the 2024 D&D rules update.
Learn how to build an Echo Knight in D&D, and summon yourself to fight alongside you.
