Sorcerers. Redesign thoughts?
Obviously this is now years too late for 5.5e, but it's a topic I've seen come up a lot.
A lot of the frustration with Sorcerer is that in 5e and 5.5, it's basically just "Charisma-based Wizard".
Which of course goes back to Sorcerer's origins: created in 3e to make an accessible Arcane spellcaster at a time when Wizard was the only alternative option, with a more streamlined magic system and the downside of more limited picks for new spells. An excellent inroad for newer players curious about playing a blaster, but potentially overwhelmed by all the options for Wizard.
Well, 5e took a lot of the streamlining that 3e Sorcerers introduced and made it baseline to all casters, so that Wizards essentially are Sorcerers. Problem being that to compensate, the main and sole point of differentiation between Sorcerers and other casters... is just having some of the old Metamagic feats baked in. Spend a class resource here and there to slightly buff or edit your spells, in the ways that Wizards normally have to pick a subclass to do.
Especially in the case of Sorcerers vs Wizards - where literally over 95% of the published Sorcerer spell list (216/225 in 5e, 154/162 in 5.5 RAW, or 222/233 in 5.5 with ports) overlaps with Wizard's - there's very little mechanical differentiation between the two classes, making them sidegrades with mostly flavorful distinction.
But Wizards also have a ~70% larger spell list than Sorcerers including dozens of unique spells, the ability to swap spells more easily, and a niche as premiere ritual casters/spell scroll scribes/basically anything else you want during downtime/the primary Int skill class (versus Sorcerers being the third Cha caster), on top of just being a more "classically D&D" class that predates Sorcerers. So unless you're twinning Enlarge or Haste (which you can't do anymore in 5.5), Wizard has fewer limits on its general utility, and only some niche scenarios where Metamagic makes it mechanically inferior.
And it's a bit disappointing, especially when we compare the other spellcasters in 5e and realize that most of them are extremely unique from and incomparable to one another by right of their unique class features and spell lists... except for Sorcerer and Wizard. And in an era where we already have Bard, Warlock and Paladin as distinctive Cha-based classes, I've even seen calls saying that Sorcerer isn't necessary anymore and/or shouldn't have existed.
I'm most drawn to the comparison between the triad of core Arcane casters: "those who studied magic" (Wizards), "those who bargained for it" (Warlocks), "those who have it innately" (Sorcerers). Warlock has perhaps the most unique spellcasting system in 5e and a number of modular bonuses to personalize your build beyond subclassing, so it's weird that Wizard and Sorcerer are almost perfectly parallel to each other, except that Sorcerer can very slightly tweak spells and Wizard can learn more as long as the DM cooperates (... with subclass abilities that also let them tweak spells).
Sorcerers have a wonderful flavor as innate spellcasters and it really comes through in their subclasses, but the core class is very... redundant.
So I'm wondering if anyone else here has a vision for how Sorcerer could/should have gone differently from Wizard to make the two classes more distinct from one another, beyond just a mechanical sidegrade, while still fitting within its flavor?
Personally I like the idea of leaning into Sorcerers as, essentially, X-Men Mutants with magic substituting their superpowers. But I have no idea how one would mechanically express that difference, only that Metamagic points are a far cry from the level of the flexibility I would have desired for it.
Or, perhaps, having a magical variant on Rage and leaning into all Sorcerers having a bit of Wild Magic to them, that their innate ability comes with a struggle for control that they grow into. 5.5's Innate Sorcery sort of does the Rage part, but mechanically is just an underwhelming "+1 boost for 1 minute" rather than "you went Super Saiyan and raw magical power is literally leaking out of you into the environment." Make the Pyromancers start raising the temperature and setting things on fire by accident, Storm Sorcerers creating high winds or electrical discharges, Dragon Sorcerers start literally turning into dragonkin, that sort.
And yes... I've seen the suggestions to make them a Con-based class that drains their literal blood and HP pool for spellcasting. I'm not going to touch on all the reasons I don't think that would work, but it's something different at least.