Sorcerer bonus spells known

[Malifice]

With the recent additions of the Favored soul and the Storm sorcerer archetype (and the the comments by the devs regarding the Sorcerer) it seems like its only a matter of time before the PHB Sorcerer gets bonus spells known in line with those two new archetypes.

While we wait, here's my take for you guys:

Draconic
Level
1st absorb elements*, burning hands*
3rd Aganazazzars scorcher*, See invisibility
5th Fear, protection from energy
7th Fire shield*, elemental bane*
9th Circle of power

* these spells can only be used to deal, modify or effect the elemental damage type associated with your draconic ancestry

Rationale: I wanted to work within the draconinc bloodline ability to give Sorcerers something to work with the 6th level ability to gain bonus damage with elemental attacks linked to the bloodline. This should work with burning hands (a cone attack) and A's scorcher (a line attack). Feel free to re-fluff both to eminate from the sorcerers mouth instead of hands! Fear was a no-brainer (emulates frightful presence) and same with see invisibility (utility and mirrors the draconic blindsight). Elemental bane provides the sorcerer with the ability to 'punch through' defences with his elemental attacks (and lessens the issues re one dimensional elemental attacks), and Circle of power emulates legendary dragons ability to resist magical attacks via legendary resistance and spell resistance. It's a potent ability to gain at 9th level due to only being available to paladins a sa 5th level spell.

Wild
Level
1st tashas hideous laughter, hex
3rd alter self, crown of madness
5th bestow curse, blink
7th confusion, polymorph
9th Mislead

With wild bloodline, I wanted to stick with the 'chaos' theme. The options above are all pretty self explanitory with a good mix of offence and utility.

Thoughts?

[TheOOB]

The draconic and wild magic bloodlines were designed without extra spells in mind, and this do(should) have more powerful abilities to compensate.

[Malifice]

The draconic and wild magic bloodlines were designed without extra spells in mind, and this do(should) have more powerful abilities to compensate.

When I compare them to the two new bloodlines, they come up well short.

[Blyte]

please post a link... edit never mind found them.

[Kryx]

My post on the topic (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?413398-Sorcerous-Origin-Bonus-Spells) if you wanted to see what I've done. Though it has heavily devolved in the later pages as is the norm.

I do like Mislead and Tasha's Hideous Laughter for Wild Mage - I'm taking those to replace 2 of my choices.

I'm not a fan of having all Draconic Sorcerers cant the same spell refluffed to their damage type. I think elemental diversity is important and each type should cast their own unique spell if possible. Therefore I'd suggest replacing burning hands, Scorcher, and fire shield with unique spells from those levels.

I don't see how See Invisibility or Circle of Power fits the Draconic Sorc.

As discussed in my thread the sorcery point costs don't match up with the new origins. I'd suggest the following:

Elemental Affinity: Remove the Sorcery point cost to gain the resistance. Bronze and Blue Dragons add their Charisma modifier for Thunder damage in addition to Lightning Damage.
Draconic Presence: Reduce the Sorcery point cost to 3 points.
Wild Magic Surge triggers for every non-cantrip spell on a 1 or a 20. Replace entry 07-08 on the Wild Magic table with a Stinking Cloud, centered on self, cast as a 3rd Level Spell that lasts for 1 minute.
Bend Luck: Remove Sorcery point cost


If you do go that route I don't see Absorb Elements/Protection from Energy being used as commonly, especially with Elemental Affinity's ability to give you resistance to a damage type.

[Malifice]

I'm not a fan of having all Draconic Sorcerers cant the same spell refluffed to their damage type. I think elemental diversity is important and each type should cast their own unique spell if possible. Therefore I'd suggest replacing burning hands, Scorcher, and fire shield with unique spells from those levels.

By my reasoning they can still pick up offensive spells of a different energy type via normal spell selection (which is the default at present). This just gives them a line and a short range cone effect that works in conjunction with the +cha to damage class feature, and the Elemental bane spell to punch through defences and deal more damage.

They are always going to get at least two short range offensive spells to work in tandem with the +cha class feature now, without having to select them with normal advancement spells.


I don't see how See Invisibility or Circle of Power fits the Draconic Sorc.

Dragons get blindsight, massive perception scores and the legendary ability to make additonal perception checks. Notcing the unseen is kind of implied in the monster.

Circle of power ties into the Aura feature of the bloodline, and factors into Magic resistance usually found on powerfull dragons. It is also a little reminiscent of the Dragon Shaman feature from 3.5 PHB2. It is also a solid defensive ability usually only found in the paladin list, and I wanted to add something nice to the top level sorcerer option for dragon blooded sorcs. Also - I seem to get a lot of Paladin/ Sorcerer (Dragon disciple) types so in my mind it kind of worked. I wanted to get away from another elemental type power.


If you do go that route I don't see Absorb Elements/Protection from Energy being used as commonly, especially with Elemental Affinity's ability to give you resistance to a damage type.

Absorb is still nice as its a reaction. You may be onto something with Protection.

What would you suggest replacing it with?

[Kryx]

By my reasoning they can still pick up offensive spells of a different energy type via normal spell selection (which is the default at present).
I think a less offensively focused setup is a good idea - and I don't mean to suggest you should make the same choices I did.


This just gives them a line and a short range cone effect that works in conjunction with the +cha to damage class feature, and the Elemental bane spell to punch through defences and deal more damage.
It's a decent option to give all Dragon sorcs the same baseline, but I think it's much more exciting to have them be unique in their spells. Sorcerers casting an Acidball or Lightningball or Coldball for example is mundane. Each energy type should have their own unique spells as much as possible. At level 1 the energies have good spells: Cold has Ice Knife, Fire has Burning Hands, Lightning has Witch Bolt, and Poison has Ray of Sickness. Acid taking a refluffed burning hands makes sense here(Erodist mist in my version), but at least the rest have unique abilities.
This may be a personal preference, but I think Elemental diversity is a worthy goal and should be achieved as much as possible.



Dragons get blindsight, massive perception scores and the legendary ability to make additonal perception checks. Notcing the unseen is kind of implied in the monster.
I understand you want more utility spells mixed in, but I find See Invis to be a very rarely used spell, but maybe that's just my games. If you want another utility spell Darkvision is going to be more commonly used than See Invis.
I personally wouldn't really want to use either on a Sorc and prefer a blast spell unless there was a decent alternate utility spell.


Circle of power ties into the Aura feature of the bloodline, and factors into Magic resistance usually found on powerfull dragons. It is also a little reminiscent of the Dragon Shaman feature from 3.5 PHB2. It is also a solid defensive ability usually only found in the paladin list, and I wanted to add something nice to the top level sorcerer option for dragon blooded sorcs. Also - I seem to get a lot of Paladin/ Sorcerer (Dragon disciple) types so in my mind it kind of worked. I wanted to get away from another elemental type power.
Ah, I just realized this is a Paladin spell. That makes total sense for why it's a buff spell.
IMO it doesn't fit with the Sorcerer's theme, especially with the Draconic Sorc. It feels like a Divine buff spell that a Paladin or Cleric/Druid should have. I wouldn't want that spell as a Sorcerer, but that's just my opinion.


Absorb is still nice as its a reaction. You may be onto something with Protection.

What would you suggest replacing it with?
You're limiting Absorb to the damage type chosen though - which they likely have commonly if you went with removing the sorcery point cost of elemental affinity. If you opened it up to be all damage types then I could see it being a decent choice.
Protection replacement: I struggled with the same issue that Protection wasn't super useful. At level 3 you already have a combat utility that isn't direct damage in Fear. I'd suggest putting in some damage spells here. Sleet Storm, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Stinking Cloud, and a replacement for Acid (I use Hunger of Hadar all acid or a variant of Fire Shield from PF that is called Eruptive Pustules that does less dmg and causes blidness).


I do think your choice of more utility is good, but I think they just need to be useful. I'm a bit committed after reworking all the spells for Draconic, but I may revamp mine a bit to include some spells like Fear.

EDIT: I actually replaced chromatic orb with Absorb Elements (all) and Fear is set as 3rd with having to choose between the other 2 choices for the 2nd one that level. I think these are good changes.