Who Invented the Sorcerer?

[W E Ray]

I know that when they were creating the d20 System and writing 3.0, near the end of the design stage they realized with some consternation that the content of the PHB was going to be, like, 1/3 spells -- 2/3 of which was Wizard (1/5 of the whole book) -- so they decided to invent a second Arcane Caster (and solved the 'Why-the-Hell-is-CHA-even-an-Ability-Score-at-all' problem that had been hounding the game for 25 years).

And they invented Sorcerer.

But who's idea was it originally?

Monte Cook (lead design and the DMG)?
Chris Pramas (original lead for the PHB)?
Skip Williams (lead for Monster Manual and overall rules Sage)?
Jonathon Tweet (second designer for PHB)?

[Grand Magus]

Here is an interesting blog post about Sorcery.

And Then there were None

Just kidding!

.

[W E Ray]

You know, that video really should come with an NSFW tag!

[Grand Magus]

W E Ray wrote:

You know, that video really should come with an NSFW tag!

Is that because you spontaneously started screaming, "No, Mother F!+*er! No!!!" ?

But seriously, you ask a great question. Furthermore, we all know "Frankenstein" was the first science fiction
book, and I would like to know what is the first story to use Sorcerers in a way we think about it today?

.
Edit: maybe E.Mona knows, I'll ask in his q&a thread.

[thejeff]

Grand Magus wrote:

W E Ray wrote:

You know, that video really should come with an NSFW tag!

Is that because you spontaneously started screaming, "No, M#$@$% F@%~!*! No!!!" ?

But seriously, you ask a great question. Furthermore, we all know "Frankenstein" was the first science fiction
book, and I would like to know what is the first story to use Sorcerers in a way we think about it today?

.
Edit: maybe E.Mona knows, I'll ask in his q&a thread.

I'm not convinced it's a meaningful question outside of D&D gaming based stuff. That particular distinction between sorcerers and wizards is just a D&D thing. Fantasy fiction rarely uses prepared casters in quite the strict sense that D&D does (Vance aside and even that is different.) Spontaneous casting is usually more like a spell point or fatigue system and often an invent or modify spells on the fly approach.

W E Ray's original question at least has a meaningful answer. If they were thinking of specific fictional examples, that would be interesting too, even if they don't quite match the way the class turned out.

[Aaron Bitman]

W E Ray wrote:

I know that when they were creating the d20 System and writing 3.0, near the end of the design stage they realized with some consternation that the content of the PHB was going to be, like, 1/3 spells -- 2/3 of which was Wizard (1/5 of the whole book) -- so they decided to invent a second Arcane Caster (and solved the 'Why-the-Hell-is-CHA-even-an-Ability-Score-at-all' problem that had been hounding the game for 25 years).

And they invented Sorcerer.

That's interesting. Where did you hear that?

(Personally, I always assumed that the Sorcerer class resulted from designers saying "What if the player doesn't want to prepare ahead of time? 'I prepared Sleep... darn it, we only encountered undead today!' 'I prepared Magic Missile... darn it, we only encountered constructs with hardness of at least 5 today!' etc.")

And yeah, as thejeff seemed to imply*, the "wizards" of fiction are typically more like sorcerers than wizards. Gandalf was never seen studying a spellbook to prepare his spells for the day, nor did he ever seem to lack spells due to preparing the wrong ones.

* Forgive me, thejeff, if you feel I'm putting words into your mouth.

[thejeff]

Aaron Bitman wrote:

W E Ray wrote:

I know that when they were creating the d20 System and writing 3.0, near the end of the design stage they realized with some consternation that the content of the PHB was going to be, like, 1/3 spells -- 2/3 of which was Wizard (1/5 of the whole book) -- so they decided to invent a second Arcane Caster (and solved the 'Why-the-Hell-is-CHA-even-an-Ability-Score-at-all' problem that had been hounding the game for 25 years).

And they invented Sorcerer.

That's interesting. Where did you hear that?

(Personally, I always assumed that the Sorcerer class resulted from designers saying "What if the player doesn't want to prepare ahead of time? 'I prepared Sleep... darn it, we only encountered undead today!' 'I prepared Magic Missile... darn it, we only encountered constructs with hardness of at least 5 today!' etc.")

And yeah, as thejeff seemed to imply*, the "wizards" of fiction are typically more like sorcerers than wizards. Gandalf was never seen studying a spellbook to prepare his spells for the day, nor did he ever seem to lack spells due to preparing the wrong ones.

* Forgive me, thejeff, if you feel I'm putting words into your mouth.

No problem. :)

Though I think they're really not much like either.
You don't really get the feeling Gandalf's working off a predetermined spell list, for example.
There are also plenty of scholarly research type casters who fit the wizard stereotype, but don't actually do anything like "prepare spells for the day".
Slotting fictional casters into the "prepared caster" bucket vs the "spontaneous caster" bucket doesn't work well, since they're not written with that in mind. With a few exceptions.

[Aaron Bitman]

thejeff wrote:

There are also plenty of scholarly research type casters who fit the wizard stereotype, but don't actually do anything like "prepare spells for the day".

That's a good point.

[W E Ray]

Aaron Bitman wrote:

Where did you hear that?

.

Oh, I'm sure I read it in an editorial or article in Dungeon or Dragon 15-odd years ago -- maybe during the transition from 3.0 to 3.5 where they talked about the game's mechanics evolution or something.
But I guess I could've also heard it on the Boards a decade or so ago.