The Wildcard Magic sorcerous origin has a totally unique casting mechanic based round literally drawing your spells at random from a deck of cards. It forces you to act responsively in combat, playing the hand as it's dealt, and planning out your massive deck of spells to exploit the synergies it introduces! Designed to be played with those cool spellcards you can get online for free (or buy).
It's good to be back. See you next week with another.
Would love feedback on this one. Also, have some extensive design thoughts below the break!
Initially I started making this for a Wizard subclass, but I quickly realised the class' concept of a "deck of spells you randomly draw in combat" worked best when it was full of blasting spells. Sorcerers are the "oops! all blasting spells" class - they have fewer choices than the wizard, but they get all the good evocations - much better suited to being chosen at random. Also, the Wildcard is a subclass that has a lot of spells, and therefore a lot of decisions - if I limit the players decisions to only the best options, then the average player will have more fun.
Also, sorcerers generally get very few spell choices. Wizards already have lots of spellchoices - on a wizard, the Cartomancy feature is more like a nerf than a buff. But on a sorcerer, it feels amazing. This feature's unusual limitation is completely unique, and makes combat a whole lot more engaging. And the noncombat abilities you get feel stellar too.
Cartomancy gives you more different spells in combat than the OG sorcerer until around level 9 (Cha+Prof vs Lv+1) after which it starts to act as a real limit. The feature is a massive buff at early levels but then starts to feel weaker. To compensate, 6th level Snap Caster packs a monstrous punch - acting like the beefy 6th level Draconic Bloodline feature, alongside an occasional free metamagic! These are both wrapped up with a deckbuilding requirement- I want people to be encouraged to pick a specific theme, without giving them a hard-and-fast set of rules. Chromatic orb, absorb elements, and chaos orb are all really thematic spells for sorcerers imo, and Snap Caster encourages you to exploit all three.
Sorcerers always get a way to spend sorc points at this point, andat 6th level, the random draw requirement starts to feel more of a limit. Card Counting lets you spend sorc points to stack the cards in your favour. But it still calls for some good planning, and doesn't completely undo the subclass' theme. In playtesting, I found that this feature was pretty necessary at later levels, as a way to mitigate against bad luck.
Almost half of sorcerers get a flying speed at 14th-18th level, and I decided to give this lot "flying speed with a properly thematic twist". House of Cards rounds things out with an absurd capability that lets you trap tiny foes and make bridges through the air with conjured cards
Lastly, Paper Trail finally gives you a way to break the rules of your 1st level feature and draw more cards as the combat goes on. It also gives you damage resistances and the ability to move through gaps. This is very strong, of course, but 18th level is all about giving sorcerers superpowers - and if it can't consistently cast an 8th/9th level spell on the first turn, it's gonna need some epic boosts to keep up with another sorcerer!
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