How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery

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How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People
A Guide to Sorcery

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“Give a man a fire and he’s warm for a day, but set fire to him and he’s warm for the rest of his life.”

-Terry Pratchett

One of the more recent classes to appear in D&D, the Sorcerer is an arcanist whose innate magical talent allows them to manipulate the forces of nature. The class first appeared in the 3e Player’s Handbook as an alternative to the Vancian magic of the Wizard. While Wizards spend their days studying in stuffy old rooms, the Sorcerer weaves magic instinctively, utilizing pure force of personality. The class proved popular with those who liked the idea of burning everything in sight while avoiding the bookkeeping of wizardry. If the Wizard is a precise magical instrument, the Sorcerer is a precise mystic hammer.

The Sorcerer is an excellent blaster, arguably the best, with solid utility to boot, an excellent addition to any party.

Remember that this is an optimization guide. It is designed to allow readers to understand the strengths and advantages inherent to playing a Sorcerer. That said, if you have a fun idea that isn't terribly optimized, don't be afraid to put fun ahead of numbers. It's a game, after all.

Color Scheme

This is freaking amazing! It provides many options, or will do one thing extremely well.
This is really good, but not quite phenomenal.
This is good. It will regularly be useful, though it won't provide many tactical choices.
Bad. It will be extremely rare that it's useful at all.


Occasionally very useful, but limited in scope or applicability.

With the exception of Red abilities, most abilities will find some use and can be a lot of fun. Even situational abilities can find excellent use depending on the game. They're just not going to be the workhorse on your list.

Table of Contents:

EvilAnagram’s School for Gifted Newbies
A Dragon had a Baby with What???
Sourcery
By Your Powers Combined
Personalize Your Bloodright

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How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People
EvilAnagram’s School for Gifted Newbies

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Ability Scores
Strength: People who wield the forces of the universe as a cosmic sledgehammer don’t need to pick up actual sledgehammers.
Dexterity: The one thing that can boost your AC! Also good for skills and saves, or if you ever want to attack with your hands, for some reason.
Constitution: Hit Points are good. So is making Concentration saves.
Intelligence: This can boost your Arcana. This can also get dumped.
Wisdom: Provides solid saves and skills, but not necessary. Wild Magic Sorcerers may feel obligated to dump it.
Charisma: All the magic you weave is woven through this stat. Always fail not to boost it.

Remember, a Sorcerer knows few spells, but she can make the most of them.

Class Features
Hit Dice: The d6 is the worst you can have.
Armor Proficiency: You’ll get nothing and like it! Fortunately, you can compensate pretty easily.
Weapon Proficiency: Not much. Hopefully, you’ll never have to use them.
Saving Throws: CON is common, and it’s what you need to maintain concentration. CHA is less common, but it’s common enough to be useful.
Skills: You get all conversational skills, Insight, Arcana, and Religion.
Tools: Nothing. Nothing at all.
Spellcasting: Full Casting. You don’t get Ritual Casting, and you get fewer spells known than any other full caster, closer to an Eldritch Knight than a Bard. However, you have the most cantrips our of all the classes and always have all your spells prepared. Besides, you get to alter your spells using your other features.
Flexible Casting: Recover spell slots! Or lose them to get more Sorcery Points, but why would you-
Metamagic: Oh, right, the thing that makes a Sorcerer amazing. I explore the various metamagics in detail below.
Ability Score Improvement: Obviously good for obvious reasons. The only reason it's not sky blue is that the Fighter gets more.
Sorcerous Restoration: It's not bad, but it's about as exciting a capstone as not having a capstone.


A Brief Interlude on the Topic of Metamagic
Metamagic is your most important class feature. Without it, Sorcerers are bottom tier casters with short spell lists and almost as few spells known as a Ranger. With it, they are powerful casters who can instinctively shape their spells to their own liking. Let's explore the uses of the various Metamagic options.


Careful Spell: A useful way to make AoEs more friendly to the party. A few spells, such as Web, will leave your enemies restrained as your allies lay down a beating with wild abandon. Most control spells will leave you completely unaffected, though damage AoEs like Fireball will simply deal half damage to your allies. However, it's worth pointing out that there's some controversy over whether spells with ongoing effects will continue to leave your allies unaffected after your initial casting. Discuss this with your DM.
Distant Spell: It rare that the ability to attack at distance will matter overmuch, though the benefits will be quite useful on occasion. It's certainly nice for those spells with limited range. Witch Bolt, Poison Spray, and even Inisibility can benefit from this in the thick of battle.
Empowered Spell: Dealing more damage is always a good thing.
Extended Spell: This is a decent use of Metamagic that works especially well outside of combat. Charm and Invisibility are solid examples of spells that do exceptionally well with this.
Heightened Spell: Disadvantage is extremely useful when you're casting save spells, and when a spell is save-or-suck and you really want it to go off, this is definitely the metamagic to use. Banishment, Suggestion, and the Hold- and Dominate- lines of spells all work well with this.
Quickened Spell: Blasters can obviously make use of casting twice a round. More damage means more damage. Controllers can also benefit from Quickening, however. Many spells that offer battlefield control include the ability to use an action to do something on your turn. Watery Sphere, for example, lets you use an action to move the sphere. Sunburst, Eyebite, and the Investitures also provide action-based abilities, and Quicken will allow you to cast a spell during those turns.
Subtle Spell: It provides situational advantages that allow you to cast when you are Silenced or when being caught casting would be detrimental to your plans.
Twinned Spell: Double the number of creatures you affect with a spell. This is solid for damage dealers, but it's also an excellent choice for controllers with the Hold- and Dominate- lines of spells, or even Suggestion before Mass Suggestion comes into play.

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How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People
A Dragon had a Baby with What???

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In olden days, Sorcerers came from ancient bloodlines descended from dragons… or more recent bloodlines if a gold got a little tipsy one night. These are the potential partners for those sloppily majestic philanderers.

Player's Handbook
Hill Dwarf: A +2 to CON is nice, as are the other Dwarf features. There’s just not a lot here for a sorcerer.
Mountain Dwarf: A Hill Dwarf that boosts a dump stat and gives you armor. This is actually a decent option for a melee build.
High Elf: Like all Elves, High Elves get Trance, proficiency with Perception checks, and a DEX boost. INT is unhelpful, and you have enough cantrips.
Wood Elf: Again, the basic Elf package is solid, but the Wood-specific features aren’t terribly helpful. It’s a slight improvement on the High Elf.
Drow: Primary/secondary stat boosts pair nicely with a huge increase in your casting potential, superior Darkvision, and proficiency with a Rapier.
Lightfoot Halfling: Another perfect stat pairing grouped with awesome racial abilities. Luck alone is phenomenal.
Stout Halfling: Boost both secondary abilities, plus grab those sweet Halfling boosts.
Human: Plus one to every stat? Sure.
Variant Human: Feats are fun.
Dragonborn: STR adds nothing, but the rest is quite nice.
Forest Gnome: Gnome Cunning is awesome, and you get a DEX boost, but INT is your dump stat, and you don’t get much use out of anything else. Magic save advantage is nice, though.
Rock Gnome: See above, but switch out DEX for CON.
Half-Elf: Did you want everything you need and a little more?
Half-Orc: Just bad. So very bad.
Tiefling: Boost your CHA, gain resistance, and boost your spellcasting! Absolutely great! The SCAG options are fine except for Feral and Winged.

Dungeon Master's Guide
Eladrin: The basic elf package is solid.


Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
Duergar: I know you’re hurting for spells, but this is really better for melee Sorcerers.
Deep Gnome: DEX is good, but INT doesn’t matter. The only saving grace is the spell saves.
Ghostwise Halfling (SCAG): Like other halflings, but worse at being a Sorcerer.

Volo's Guide to Monsters
Aasimar: Charisma, Darkvision, resistances, healing, super awesome damaging abilities... yes.
Firbolg: These guys don't seem terribly interested in sorcery. Their abilities are all better for... anything else.
Goliath: If you wanted something that doesn't improve your sorcering at all, this is it.
Kenku: The DEX is nice, but everything else just makes you sneakier. If you want to be a super sneaky Sorcerer, this is the race.
Lizardfolk: This gives Draconic Sorcerers absolutely nothing. It gives Wild and Storm Sorcerers the 13+DEX AC.
Tabaxi: CHA and DEX are great, and the mobility features are pretty damn nice.
Triton: Tritons are great and you should feel great choosing a Triton. Extra spells and Charisma, baby!

Volo's Monstrous Races
Bugbear: You're not a front line kind of guy, and Bugbears are.
Goblin: Both secondary abilities, extra damage, and some maneuverability. Nice.
Hobgoblin: Pretty nice if you want to make a melee build.
Kobold: Pack Tactics is really, really nice and will usually wash out the Sunlight Sensitivity, and you like Dexterity. Plus, you can Quicken a spell and use Grovel at the same time.
Orc: You know what doesn't offer you anything? This.
Yuan-Ti Pureblood: Charisma, extra spells, poison immunity and magic resistance? Yes, I do believe this is compatible.


Elemental Evil
Aarakocra: Flight is fun, and you get a DEX boost, but there are better options.
Genasi: All the Genasi options provide a CON boost and some CON spells. This is generally a pretty good thing.
Air Genasi: Both secondaries, plus Levitate. Not bad.
Earth Genasi: Not very good at all for a Sorcerer.
Fire Genasi: The only reason to go with this one over a Tiefling is to get Burning Hands outside your spells known.
Water Genasi: The acid resistance is nice, but Dragonborn get that while still having +2 CHA.


Tortle Package
Tortle: I guess if you want a heavily-armored Sorcerer, this is one of the easier ways to get it.

Plane Shift Zendikar
Holy crap, it's a Magic/D&D crossover. A lot of the races in this supplement don't fit the races in traditional D&D settings that well, so be sure to talk to your DM before utilizing them.

Human: About what you'd expect.
Kor: Ghostwise Halfling drops psychic ribbon for a climb speed.
Merfolk: I have a little saying: "If it boosts your primary casting stat and gives you extra magic, it's sky-blue." All Merfolk are sky-blue.
Vampire: The Charisma boost is nice, but the other features are not terribly important for a Sorcerer.
Goblin: A boost to Constitution and two resistances is going to be nice for any class.
Elf: Tajura at least get the Charisma boost, but Juraga and Mul Daya just aren't Sorcerer material.


Unearthed Arcana supplements have provided a few new options:

Eberron

Changeling: CHA and DEX with some Skill action and a free Disguise Self.
Shifters: Shifters tend to provide purely physical boosts. Some of these boosts can be helpful, and DEX is a secondary stat, but they tend to lag.

Beasthide Shifter: Not terrible. You get a boost to both CON and DEX, at least.
Cliffwalk Shifter: No.
Longstride: No.
Longtooth Shifter: No.
Razorclaw Shifter: Not bad for a melee Draconic or Favored Soul. Otherwise, No.
Wildhunt Shifter: No.
Warforged: You don’t need STR, and AC is less important for a caster than people seem to think.

Waterborne
Minotaur: Really not any good for us.

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How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People
Sourcery

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In 5e, the source of your power does not have to be your mom’s wild night in college. You can certainly still go with the Draconic origin, but there are also Wild Sorcerers, who act as conduits for the very forces of chaos, and the Stormborn who channel the raw destructive force of the storm. There is also the official homebrew of Favored Soul, whose power is derived from the blessings of their patron god.

Basically you options are 1/32 dragon, Scarlet Witch, Storm, or Jesus.

Draconic Bloodline
Combining a strong defense with a strong offense, the original origin is still a favorite.
Dragon Ancestor: Your most important feature, as your ancestor has a strong effect on your later features. Still, the actual abilities this feature imparts are quite minor.
Draconic Resilience: Very… resilient. It makes it possible to build a melee Sorcerer, and it makes it easier if you like to stick to range.
Elemental Affinity: Oh, look, it’s the reason to pick this option. +CHA to spells is awesome, even if it’s limited to your affinity. The resistance is just gravy.
Dragon Wings: It saves you concentration and a spell slot. Flight is a pretty sweet bonus, but the cool factor is even sweeter. “Oh, these old things? I just had ‘em lying around.”
Draconic Presence: Not terrible, but not terribly impressive either. The fact that it specifies “hostile” creatures limits its potential use, by RAW if not RAI.

Wild Magic
One of my personal favorite classes for the sheer ridiculocity, this sorcerer channels pure chaos to vanquish his foes, and possibly their foes as well. This is likely the most contentious archetype in the PHB because it has a 0.1% chance to drop a fireball on your head. This can be mitigated by picking a Tiefling or Fire Genasi.
Wild Magic Surge: A lot of focus is put on the miniscule chance that you’re going to kill the entire party before they can deal with a fireball. They forget that you can also maximize your damage, cast an extra spell, or turn yourself into a plant! The basic strategy for mitigating negative effects on the party is to be a fair distance from the party. Melee Wild Sorcerers can keep all negative effects concentrated on the enemy.
Tides of Chaos: Solid ability that gives you the chance to gain advantage on any check at the cost of risking another surge. Since you picked this class because you love surges, this is a good thing.
Bend Luck: Excellent ability. If you know your ally’s AC, can approximate the difficulty of a check, or want to give someone a little boost, spend a couple sorcery points and do it. It can even keep your enemies from making saves against your spells!
Controlled Chaos: Double your chance not to harm yourself and everyone around you!
Spell Bombardment: A conditional, minor boost to spell damage. That’s… less than Draconic Sorcerers get at level six. If this was an earlier feature, it would be fine, but the ability to occasionally add a single die of damage is completely underwhelming at level 18.

Storm Sorcery
A sorcerous origin that marries the desire to blast things to pieces with the desire to have cool glowy eyes! Storm Sorcerers marry mobility, blasting, and thematic consistency in a fun way. You can find it in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (SCAG) and Xanathar's Guide to Everything (XGtE).
Wind Speaker: Like Dragon Ancestor, it’s not terribly important, but can prove useful on occasion. Unlike Dragon Ancestor, it has no bearing on future abilities.
Tempestuous Magic: You get to fly when you cast a spell. That’s a decent boost to maneuverability.
Heart of the Storm: Finally! This ability allows you to deal a nice piece of damage while encouraging your enemies to stay away from you. Combos well with Booming Blade to make moving away from you just as painful as staying nearby.
Storm Guide: It’s not bad. It’s just really, really situational. If you’re in a hurricane, it’s downright OP. If you’re dealing with air elementals, you might tear them apart. If there’s a light breeze, it’s useless.
Storm’s Fury: Again, make it very unappealing to be near you, giving you a great reason to move close to the enemy.
Wind Soul: This is easily the best level 18 ability of any published book.

Divine Soul
DO you want to pretend to be fantasy Jesus? Because this is basically how you play as fantasy Jesus. The Divine Soul provides a ton of versatility, if not a whole lot of potency, compared to other archetypes by opening your spell choices up to the entire Cleric list. You can find it in Xanathar's Guide to Everything (XGtE).

Divine Magic: This is the big draw, right here. An extra spell is okay, but picking out your spells from two lists is huge, especially because Clerics get some sweet spells.
Favored by the Gods: It's more potent than Bend Luck when you get to use it, but you're using it less often for most of your career, and you can't use it on an enemy's saving throw.
Empowered Healing: This is nice. It's not crazy strong, and it uses a Sorcery Point, but it's still nice to reroll some healing.
Otherworldly Wings: Permanent, no-concentration Fly is still nice.
Unearthly Recovery: A once-a-day Super Second Wind is pretty nice, especially when you're a fairly weak casting class.


Shadow Soul
Do you wish the Sorcerer was just a little more emo? Even better, a lot more emo? Well, have I got a class for you! Shadow Sorcerers are touched by the fell and shadowy energies of the Shadowfell. This makes them shadowy... and fell. It's found in the Xanathar's Guide to Everything (XGtE).
Eyes of the Dark: Darkvision's okay, but 2 SP to cast Darkness is neat! And seeing through that darkness is better!
Strength of the Grave: Less awesome than the Half-Orc feature, but still cool.
Hound of Ill Omen: Basically summon the baby Kitty Pride had with a Dire Wolf and let it chomp on a guy while you blast him. Oh, and he's at disadvantage against your spells. It's pretty expensive in SP cost, but spells that force your enemies to make more than one save will benefit from having your Hound near the target. Slow and Hold Person come to mind.
Shadow Walk: Easily as good as the Shadow Monk's ability.
Umbral Form:You know, I don't see the word, "Umbral," used enough. It only ever comes up when someone's talking about eclipses. Good on you, Wizards. Anyways, be a ghost. Murder things. Resist damage. It's pretty sweet, even at the high cost of 6 sp.

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How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People
By Your Powers Combined

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It's important to remember that Sorcerers have few spells known, so it's important not just to pick spells that fulfill multiple rolls, but also not to pick spells that overlap. Each spell you have should fulfill a separate role from your other abilities, and as you grab improvements to older spells, replace the older one to further grow your versatility.

4e Wild Magic Sorcerers may mourn the loss of Chaos Bolt. It was a ridiculous spell, but we loved you well.


Acid Splash: Not terrible. No Twin, but it's nice to get a cantrip that melds with Draco-damage. Save damage cantrips don't sit well with me, though. If this was just an attack roll, it would be great against demons, but it ain't and so it isn't.
Blade Ward: The only reason it's not red is that you can Quicken it and still cast another spell. Melee Sorcerers might find use for it.
Booming Blade (SCAG): If you have a decent melee, this is a perfect cantrip for you. Quicken and Twin, and the way it combines with other spells make this pure awesome. Melee Sorcerers will want either this or Greenflame Blade, if not both.
Chill Touch: Decent damage with good riders, plus Twinnable. Also, gotta love the image of Thing grabbing your enemy. I can feel it.
Control Flames (EE/XGtE): Entirely situational.
Create Bonfire (EE/XGtE): A save cantrip, but it works with Draconic damage and can block choke points. (Concentration)
Dancing Lights: It uses concentration when Light doesn't. (Concentration)
Fire Bolt: Cantrip damage doesn't get much better, and it works with Draconic damage.
Friends: Make yourself some enemies. Disguise Self can get around the drawback, and Changeling Sorcerers can abuse it all day. (Concentration)
Frostbite (EE/XGtE): It's a save, but you can Twin it, it stacks with Draco-damage, and its rider is nice.
Green-Flame Blade(SCAG): Similar to Booming Blade, but works with Draconic Sorcerers and can't be Twinned.
Gust (EE): There's situational, and then there's so situational it's useless. Mage Hand and the Push action replicate its useful features.
Infestation (XGtE): Light damage, a common save, and minor control. It's... just not good.
Light: A true classic. If you don't have Darkvision, you'll want this.
Lightning Lure (SCAG): Melee and Draconic Sorcerers will be able to Quicken and cheese the crap out of this one. Twin Lightning Lure+Quicken Green-Flame Blade seems like a good combo to me. Of course, if you aren't melee, this loses some luster.
Mage Hand: Situational.
Mending: Situational.
Message: Situational.
Minor Illusion: Arguably the most useful cantrip, so long as you have imagination.
Mold Earth (EE): I have been convinced that while this might not see use every day, it will certainly be useful.
Poison Spray: Very damaging, but with a save. Still, it works with Draco-damage.
Prestidigitation: I don't know if it's ever useful, but it's fun.
Ray of Frost: Basic attack with an okay rider, works with Twin. Solid spell for any Draconic Sorcerer with a Cold affinity.
Shape Water (EE): Situational. At least the freezing could potentially be useful.
Shocking Grasp: Great for any Sorcerer who doesn't want to be in melee, works for Draconic riders.
Sword Burst (SCAG): An okay burst in cantrip form, but has no riders. Still, force cantrips are rare.
Thunderclap (EE): Like Sword Burst, but loud.
True Strike: Garbage, even with Metamagic.(Concentration)


Absorb Elements (XGtE): React and reduce some damage. It's nice, especially if you're a melee Sorcerer. It was kind of odd that Sorcerers didn't have it in EE.
Burning Hands: Good damage in a small area, and it works with Draconic damage.
Catapult (EE/XGtE): Deal a good deal of bludgeoning damage. Plus, you can murder your enemies with pieces of your other enemies. Also, it can damage objects you want damaged.
Chaos Bolt (XGtE): I've been waiting so long for this spell. I'm completely, irrevocably biased in its favor as a fan of Wild Magic, and I would rate it sky-blue if not for my desire to seem somewhat objective. This is just a pile of fun.
Charm Person: Better than Friends in that the target is not necessarily immediately hostile. It's situational, but the situation is common and its applicability is nearly limitless.
Chromatic Orb: Excellent damage in any type you wish. Works with Draconic and Storm abilities.
Color Spray: Blind is an okay condition. This is an okay spell. Works well if you've got a Rogue in the party.
Comprehend Languages: Totally situational.
Detect Magic: Also situational, but it's usefulness goes pretty damn far. You get a lot of investigative muscle out of this one spell. (Concentration)
Disguise Self: Combine with Friends for absolute insanity. A solid spell.
Earth Tremor (EE/XGtE): Really bad in most cases. I'm not sure I would want it as a cantrip. That said, as samcifer points out, melee-focused sorcerers might get use out of Quicken with this.
Expeditious Retreat: A decent escape spell, but ranged characters tend not to need mobility as much as martials do.
False Life: 6.5 average temp HP is... not great. If you keep finding yourself in melee, you might want to take it.
Feather Fall: Save your party from dying. If you're prone to falling off cliffs, take this.
Fog Cloud: Obscure an area. It's a great spell if you're more concerned with giving your allies advantages than dealing damage.
Ice Knife (EE): Reminds me a bit of Hail of Thorns. Works with Draco-damage, and it's a solid AoE at this level.
Jump: You get to jump a max of your speed. This is kind of terrible since you can always find another way without using one of your spells known to occasionally jump a bit farther.
Mage Armor: Bad for Draconic Sorcerers. Great for everyone else.
Magic Missile: Auto-hit damage that scales nicely.
Ray of Sickness: A decent attack, you can twin it, and it works with Draconic damage. The poison rider is pretty neat. It could interrupt an enemy's offensive.
Shield: Completely awesome, and everyone knows it.
Silent Image: An improvement over Minor Illusion, but it competes for spells known and uses a spell slot. It's a perfectly decent spell to take, and a must if you want to be an illusionist.
Sleep: Early on, it's awesome. No save, and it puts enemies down faster than anything else. It loses power fairly quickly though. Switch it out around level 5.
Thunderwave: The damage isn't bad, and it works with Storm and Draconic riders. A decent up-close spell with an okay effect.
Witch Bolt: This used to be a complete trap option. With Booming Blade, you can Quicken Witch Bolt and then lay down a Booming Blade, so they'll hurt if they move and they'll hurt if they don't. You can actually build a decent 4e-style defender between those two spells if the dip into Fighter or Paladin. Outside of that build, it's still a bad option. Works with Storm and Draconic riders. (Concentration)



Agnazzar's Scorcher (EE/XGtE): Deal decent damage to up to six people, and it works with Draconic damage.
Alter Self: Advanced Disguise Self with secondary bonuses that aren't going to matter most of the time. (Concentration)
Blindness/Deafness: An okay debuff that you can Twin, but the target can roll for it at the end of each turn.
Blur: Nice little buff for its level, but the concentration kills it. (Concentration)
Cloud of Daggers: A tiny AoE. You could block a doorway, I guess? (Concentration)
Crown of Madness: If it could move before attacking, this would be great. It cannot, and it is terrible. (Concentration)
Darkness: Blind your enemies with more reliability than Blindness. (Concentration)
Darkvision: You probably already have Darkvision. If you don't, you can have a torch.
Detect Thoughts: Situationally useful. excellent when information gathering. (Concentration)
Dragon's Breath (XGtE): Giving someone else an AoE can turn the tide of some larger battles, and the fact that you can specify the damage type can further improve your party's potency. As long as your group can work together, this can be extremely useful at low-to-mid levels. (Concentration)
Dust Devil (EE/XGtE): Some crowd control that can deal a bit of damage. Moving it as a bonus action is nice. (Concentration)
Earthbind (EE/XGtE): Pull something out of the air at an extremely slow speed. The same speed as Feather Fall, actually. (Concentration)
Enhance Ability: A good buff to help your buddies out when not in combat.
Enlarge/Reduce: One day an pretty good buff married a pretty good debuff. Their child was decent. It's a solid boost to your Fighter, and you can Twin it to debuff an enemy at the same time. (Concentration)
Gust of Wind: You can probably use this to good effect, but it's not going to be something you break out every day. (Concentration)
Hold Person: Solid control against one or two enemies, but it's pretty limited in the number of enemies you can use it on. (Concentration)
Invisibility: Decent for a little stealth or to help the Assassin get that opening Sneak Attack. (Concentration)
Knock: Open a door very, very loudly.
Levitate: Fly in a very limited way. (Concentration)
Maximillian's Earthen Grasp (EE/XGtE): Bigby's little brother. The damage is okay, but it's great at keeping your enemy in check. (Concentration)
Mind Spike (XGtE): The damage is weak for a second-level spell, but it comes with some useful situational riders. (Concentration)
Mirror Image: An excellent buff for any Sorcerer, and without concentration.
Misty Step: A little baby teleport that costs next to nothing and you can cast as long as you can speak. Very solid.
Phantasmal Force: An excellent illusion that's extremely widely applicable, and it takes the use of an enemy's action to see through it. (Concentration)
Pyrotechnics (EE/XGtE): Changes to the spell in Xanathar's eliminate its ability t work with other spells, so it's just kind of okay.
Scorching Ray: Three attacks that work with your Draconic damage and can be spread out or concentrated as you wish.
See Invisibility: In certain circumstances, it's precisely what you need. In all other circumstances, it's useless.
Shatter: A decent AoE that works with Heart of the Storm and can destroy nonmagical objects.
Shadow Blade (XGtE): THis is pretty solid for anyone who wants to play as a melee character. The advantage in dim light and darkness is especially nice.
Snilloc's Snowball Swarm (EE/XGtE): A small AoE that deals poor damage, but works with Draconic damage.
Spider Climb: Climb like a spider. A decent movement buff. (Concentration)
Suggestion: I love this spell. It's my favorite. It's a beefed up Charm that compells a certain course of action with no drawbacks. I couldn't ask for more. (Concentration)
Warding Wind (EE/XGtE): A decent buff for yourself that blocks a good deal of effects while imposing disadvantage on ranged attacks. It won't only be applicable, but when it is it's worthwhile. (Concentration)
Web: Solid crowd control over a large area. Careful lets you gang up on the restrained creatures in the web without worrying about your people getting caught in the webbing. (Concentration)



Blink: The randomness can be frustrating, but it's extremely useful. That said, there are a lot of other options at this level.
Catnap (XGtE): A Short Rest can be super nice. Not always needed, but this can be useful. No help at all to an elven party, though.
Clairvoyance: It's a nice spying spell, but it's very situational.
Counterspell: Keep your enemy from casting a spell. Anyone who can take this should take it at some point.
Daylight: Dispelling Darkness is cool. Otherwise, it's 3rd level Light.
Dispel Magic: Oddly enough, it's easier to dispel higher level spells. A solid choice.
Enemies Abound (XGtE): It's a light domination that could seriously hamper a heavy-hitter. It's definitely worth considering, especially since it targets INT, but it's worth remembering that random targeting can still end up targeting you. (Concentration)
Erupting Earth (EE/XGtE): Less damage than Fireball, but magical Bludgeoning is never resisted. The rider is okay.
Fear: Forced movement over a large area that lets you make op attacks. Quite good.
Fireball: Deal a ton of damage to a lot of people, plus the Draconic rider.
Flame Arrows (EE/XGtE): A decent buff for an ally, and it still works with the Draconic rider. 12d6 damage could be worth concentration and a 3rd level slot. Can be Twinned if you have two archers.
Fly: You fly. It's quite a nice buff, especially if you're facing a troll who can't shoot at you.
Gaseous Form: Good for infiltration. That's about it.
Haste: Extra Actions and extra speed. An extremely good spell that you can twin.
Hypnotic Pattern: Incapacitate a large number of enemies, completely changing the battlefield. One of very few save-or-suck spells in this edition.
Lightning Bolt: Fireball with Lightning. Works for Draconic and Storm riders.
Major Image: Some significant boosts over previous illusions, but it's once again competing for your very limited spells known.
Melf's Minute Meteors (EE/XGtE): More total damage than Fireball, but the enemy gets more chances to save from it. Arguably worth it.
Protection from Energy: A decent buff, but it's usually not the Sorcerer's job to handle this.
Sleet Storm: Create a massive area with a slew of debuffs. It's okay.
Slow: The defensive counterpart to Haste. It's a solid spell, but Haste is arguably a better use of concentration.
Stinking Cloud: Obscure creatures with no save required, and repeatedly deny turns to your enemies.
Thunder Step (XGtE): This is just great for a Storm Sorcerer, combining teleporting with AoE damage that triggers your riders.
Tidal Wave (XGtE): AoE damage, and it knocks enemies prone. This is pretty solid for anyone with some melee hitters in their
Tongues: Situational.
Wall of Water (EE): Some crowd control, but it's not terribly powerful.
Water Breathing: Completely situational.
Water Walk: Similarly situational.



Banishment: A true save-or-suck, with the potential for permanence. (Concentration)
Blight: A very solid spell with Twin. Probably the best spell against plant creatures.
Charm Monster (XGtE): Getting advantage on persuasion checks with a Dragon Turtle or a Vampire can be incredibly useful, and dealing with its wrath once your spell has expired sounds like an adventure hook to me! It's difficult not to recommend it.
Confusion: Turn denial in an AoE. The randomness hurts it a little. (Concentration)
Dimension Door: The best teleport available at this level.
Dominate Beast: Sure, if a T-Rex shows up it's great, but at your level most beasts won't be worth dominating. (Concentration)
Greater Invisibility: Like Invisibility, but less balanced. Solid pick. (Concentration)
Ice Storm: Drop a load of ice cubes on an area. Decent damage and creates difficult terrain, but there are more damaging spells. Works with Draconic riders.
Polymorph: Typically, spells that have multiple threads dedicated to them are either terrible or broken. Polymorph is arguably broken. (Concentration)
Sickening Radiance (XGtE): Radiant damage, exhaustion, and it reveals invisible creatures. These are all very good things. (Concentration)
Stoneskin: A perfectly good buff, but maybe not the best use of your concentration. (Concentration)
Storm Sphere (EE/XGtE): A bit like Ice Storm, but it uses concentration and includes a once/turn attack. It works with Storm and Draconic riders. (Concentration)
Vitriolic Sphere (EE/XGtE): It deals the most damage at this level, it works with Draconic damage, and it's an AoE.
Wall of Fire: Decent control combined with decent damage. A decent spell. Works with Draco-damage. (Concentration)
Watery Sphere(EE/XGtE): Amazing control and a whole lot of potential. Restraining up to four people is awesome and it's easy to drop them off a cliff. Very fun. (Concentration)



Animate Objects: This is a ridiculous spell. I love it. Subtly bring the silverware to life to assassinate the tyrant king and fight off the guards. (Concentration)
Cloudkill: Cause a decent amount of damage in a large area and force numerous saves against it. It's worth pointing out that anyone in the area you select will take damage when you cast it and again when their turn starts. (Concentration)
Cone of Cold: Destructive, affects a massive area, and works with Draconic riders. It's only drawback is that the area might be too large, which is a drawback worth having.
Control Winds (EE/XGtE): The disadvantage and knocking fliers prone is fun, but the Updraft benefits are strictly worse than those of lower level spells. (Concentration)
Creation: Situational, though potentially abusable.
Dominate Person: The only drawback is the limit to what can be targeted. Twins. (Concentration)
Enervation (XGtE): They made Witch Bolt, but good. It has a longer range, the continual damage is better, and it heals you. (Concentration)
Far Step (XGtE): An upgrade to Misty Step, and it could easily be useful in a given combat encounter, but it also takes up your Concentration. That's a rough price for some mobility. (Concentration)
Hold Monster: Keep something from acting, or Twin it and keep two things from acting. (Concentration)
Immolation (EE/XGtE): The damage isn't great, but it can be great against a low DEX enemy, and the visual amuses me. Twins and works with Draconic damage. (Concentration)
Insect Plague: The damage is okay, but not great, and it doesn't work with any riders. However, it can be useful for battlefield control. (Concentration)
Seeming: No concentration cost, and you get to change the appearances of as many people as you want. You can even alter an unwilling character. Situational, but widely applicable.
Skill Empowerment (XGtE): Spending a fifth-level slot to succeed at a skill check seems... extreme. Maybe a Wizard can afford to set aside spell real estate for this, but a Sorcerer doesn't' have that luxury. (Concentration)
Synaptic Static (XGtE): It's a psychic Fireball that puts a nasty rider on its targets. You know, there are a ton of spells that deal psychic damage in Xanathar's Guide.
Telekinesis: Hold Monster, with the additional ability to move the enemy around. Unfortunately, it provides a lot of opportunities to save. (Concentration)
Teleportation Circle: Solid transportation. Learning it certainly shortens your travelling time.
Wall of Light (XGtE): Unlike most walls, it does nothing to block movement. Unlike most walls, it also shoots lasers. It's worth it for the blinding effect and the multiple spell attacks at the cost of one slot. Also, radiant damage is nice, especially at a level where you might face Strahd. (Concentration)
Wall of Stone: Solid control merged with situational benefits. (Concentration)



Arcane Gate: A solid teleportation spell with some interesting potential, but it's competing with a lot of solid spells. (Concentration)
Chain Lightning: An excellent spell that deals solid damage to multiple targets and works with both Draconic and Storm abilities.
Circle of Death: It deals the same damage as a Fireball, but in a larger radius. Not terrible, but I expect a bit more from a sixth level spell.
Disintegrate: Deal a massive amount of force damage, and Twin it.
Eyebite: You can inflict a handful of different status effects that you could also inflict with lower level spells. (Concentration)
Globe of Invulnerability: A massive debuff against any spells that come near you. (Concentration)
Investiture of Flame (EE/XGtE): Solid defenses with some offensive capabilities. The damage isn't good, but you can repeat it as often as you like. It works quite well with a Draconic Sorcerer. (Concentration)
Investiture of Ice (EE/XGtE): As above, but cold and fire are reversed. (Concentration)
Investiture of Stone (EE/XGtE): Quite decent in a melee, though you'll have to Quicken any spells you use while it's active. (Concentration)
Investiture of Wind (EE/XGtE): Fly, and while you're flying you can inflict disadvantage the only attacks that can be made against you. Plus, drop some crowd control as an action. Not bad. (Concentration)
Mass Suggestion: Tell a crowd what to do. Really, anything you can think of will work. This is a spell that can completely disrupt an encounter or swing the story in a completely new direction.
Mental Prison (XGtE): Well, it's a ton of damage, it promises more damage if your enemy tries to do anything, and it effectively immobilizes your target. This is pretty sweet. (Concentration)
Move Earth: Situational, but extremely useful. Collapse a wall or a tower with ease. If it could affect stone, this spell would be amazing. (Concentration)
Scatter (XGtE): Repositioning up to five characters with a single action can completely upend an encounter. Or it can be pretty useless. It's situational, but powerful enough in its effect that you can regard it as a pretty reliable spell.
Sunbeam: For ten rounds you can deal okay damage and blind someone as an action. The damage is decent, and you can cast a Quickened spell while still shooting a ray each round. (Concentration)
True Seeing: It has quite a few benefits, but you might be hurting for spells known at this point.


Crown of Stars (XGtE): It's Melf's Minute Meteors, but without Concentration. Honestly, I can't think of a time when I didn't want to deal 26 damage on a bonus action.
Delayed Blast Fireball: Sooooo much fun. It's tremendously open to abuse, and the damage is fantastic. Plus, Draconic CHA bonus. No Twinning, unfortunately. (Concentration)
Etherealness: Excellent scouting spell, plus an automatic "Eff your prison."
Finger of Death: Decent single-target damage for this level, plus a zombie. Oh, and you can Twin it. Make a permanent zombie army killing peasants if you really want to.
Fire Storm: Ten 10' fire AoEs in one spell. This is how you burn down a city.
Plane Shift: Good. Very good. But not necessarily the best choice for a Sorcerer. You have very few spells known, and this one is situational. The debuff is great, but it has two gates to success.
Power Word Pain (XGtE): It's a very potent spell, especially since the first round of debilitating effects occurs with no save.
Prismatic Spray: The randomness hurts its applicability, though Wild Mages might love it more for that very reason.
Reverse Gravity: Why are there so many good spells on this list? Other lists aren't this good. This one lets you immediately disrupt a large area, potentially dealing massive damage as you do so. (Concentration)
Teleport: A great teleportation spell. Instantly escape to anywhere you know. Still, this is a very competitive slot to fill.
Whirlwind (XGtE): The initial damage had my interest, but the everything else grabbed my attention. Restraining enemies in a tornado that flings them away if they escape is just fantastic. And the only way to avoid damage is to get swept up into the tornado! It's a win-wind! (Concentration)



Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting (EE/XGtE): Ew. Effective, but ew.
Dominate Monster: Like Dominate Person, but works against any creature. Can be Twinned. (Concentration)
Earthquake: Oh, you wanted to create a bonafide natural disaster? Well, you got it. Debuffs, structural damage, and damage abound.
Incendiary Cloud: Decent damage, especially for fire-based Draconic Sorcerers. More importantly, its an AoE with a no-save debuff. The very best of the "Cloud" line of spells. (Concentration)
Power Word Stun: Guaranteed chance to prevent at least a single round of actions, plus you can Twin it.
Sunburst: Decent AoE with a rider and a rarely-resisted damage. I like it.



Gate: 5,000 GP to open a gate to anywhere instantly? Not bad at all. (Concentration)
Mass Polymorph (XGtE): It's actually better than summoning pixies. (Concentration)
Meteor Swarm: Kill everything.
Power Word Kill: Do you really want to waste your ninth level slot on something that has less than 100 HP? I suppose that you could Twin it to kill two things with less than 100 HP, but it's still not on the same level as your other options.
Psychic Scream (XGtE): I mean, you get to blow up heads with a psychic shriek. Even without the stunning rider, that would be fun, but inflicting Stun with no Concentration? Awesome.
Time Stop: If you can't think of a way to abuse this, you should go back to Call of Duty. That said, Concentration and the smaller spell list limit the amount of fun to be had.
Wish: Broken. Like, completely broken. Your DM should probably forbid this because it's that broken.


Can be found here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?374604-The-Devout-and-the-Dead-a-guide-to-Clerics&p=18189677#post18189685).

[EvilAnagram]

How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People
Personalize Your Bloodright

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Image by 3nrique on DeviantArt


Barbarian : Being unable to cast makes this pretty bad for a caster.
Bard: Pick up Dissonant Whispers and Bardic Inspiration, using the same casting ability.
Cleric: A couple domains offer enough ancillary benefits that one level might be worth taking, but be sure to pick as few spells that rely on WIS as possible. And why do you have a 13 WIS?
Druid: Doesn't offer anything to a Sorcerer
Fighter: It offers a lot to any Sorcerer who wants to put some effort into melee. You can build quite a decent tank with a Fighter/Sorcerer.
Monk: There is nothing that this offers.
Paladin: This is an excellent multiclass. Aside from melee Sorcerer builds, plenty of people like the idea of smiting with full caster spell slots.
Ranger: If you want a martial dip, go with Fighter or Paladin.
Rogue: Sneak attack is fun, as is Expertise. A decent option.
Warlock: Pick up Eldritch Blast and a couple Short Rest casting slots, maybe a couple invocations, then leave and don't look back.
Wizard: Don't cast spells with your dump stat.




Alert: Going before the enemy is rarely a bad thing.
Athlete: If you want to be better at a skill, go with this.
Actor:I know what you're thinking, "But I'm already good at CHA-skill checks!" Be better. Dominate them.
Charger: No. Just cast a spell.
Crossbow Expert: I can't imagine why a Sorcerer would need a crossbow.
Defensive Duelist: Use Shield instead.
Dual Wielder: Even if you're a melee build, this will be a bad idea.
Dungeon Delver: I'm not opposed to it, but I generally think that people with higher hit dice than d6s should handle trap removal.
Durable: Perfectly respectable, as the Dowager might say. ...sorry, the fiance has Downton on.
Elemental Adept: Fantastic, especially for a Draconic or Storm Sorcerer.
Grappler:
Great Weapon Master: A melee Sorcerer should probably focus more on DEX than STR, though if your first level was Paladin you might be able to swing it.
Healer: Perfectly fine.
Heavily Armored: That's a two feat tax.
Heavy Armor Master: Three feat tax.
Inspiring Leader: You've got the Charisma for it.
Keen Mind: Situational, but abusable, and it only costs a single ability point.
Lightly Armored: Decent AC boost if you're not Draconic.
Linguist: In my experience, knowing the right language at the right time can save your ass.
Lucky: Always worth it.
Mage Slayer: Not how you join a magical metal band. Better for slaying mages than being one.
Magic Initiate: Maybe a better way to get Eldritch Blast than dipping a level.
Martial Adept: I don't think I would take this as a Sorcerer.
Medium Armor Master: It would take an odd confluence of events to take up this feat, but I think it's perfectly acceptable if you find yourself with the opportunity. It's certainly nothing to pursue. Favored Souls like it, though.
Mobile: A decent feat to take. It could keep you healthier.
Moderately Armored: Not entirely necessary most of the time.
Mounted Combatant: If you find yourself frequently mounted, zap monsters from horseback.
Observant: Perfectly good feat. Nothing else to be said.
Polearm Master: It will be rare that this will be a feat you wish to take.
Resilient: Frequently an excellent feat to take.
Ritual Caster: You're not a ritual caster. This will make you one. I approve.
Savage Attacker: You'll typically only attack in melee once a turn. Not a terrible feat.
Sentinel: Decent for a tanky Storm build.
Sharpshooter: Spell Sniper. You want Spell Sniper.
Shield Master: You need a free hand to cast. If you're a melee Sorc, and you have access to Shields somehow, this is a maybe.
Skilled: A perfectly good feat.
Skulker: Personally, I would take another feat. Many other feats, in fact. But this one is a passably nice feat.
Spell Sniper: A neat little blaster cantrip.
Tavern Brawler: I believe I mentioned before that those born with the power to reshape the universe through sheer force of will don't need to use their fists.
Tough: Hit points are good.
War Caster: Quite nice, especially if you prefer melee.
Weapon Master: Almost mandatory if you want a decent melee build.


Bountiful Luck: Giving someone a free reroll on a critical failure without using any resources is unreasonably awesome.
Dragon Fear: If you're at all familiar with me, you'll know I like frightening enemies.
Dragon Hide: Getting a boost to your AC for half a feat is good all by itself.
Drow High Magic: I will never turn down extra spells. Never. Do you hear me!? Never!
Dwarven Fortitude: This is a pretty solid boost to your resilience.
Elven Accuracy: This is goooooood. Really good. Like, really, really good. Dang. It's so good. Why is it so good? It should be less good.
Fade Away: Turning invisible as a reaction with no spell slot is damn nice.
Fey Teleportation: A half-feat that provides a situational ability with a great slotless teleportation spell. Yay!
Flames of Phlegethos: I'm a bit torn on Phlegm Fire. The protection is... minor. Really minor. But rerolling 1s is pretty nice. It's not bad for half a feat, so if you want to boost your CHA by 1 you might as well.
Infernal Constitution: Resisting three kinds of damage and getting advantage on poison saves is nice. Also getting a point in CON is great.
Orcish Fury: This isn't exactly a great feat for a squishy character that doesn't do much in melee. If you build a melee sorcadin, you probably need the ASI for something else.
Prodigy: Four situational abilities make a blue. That's just science.
Second Chance: I like mulligans, especially when you're forcing them on others. At the very least, you can negate 20s.
Squat Nimbleness: This is basically an "I don't want to be grappled," feat, which is fine. Being grappled can be debilitating, so it might be worth it.
Wood Elf Magic: It really doesn't help much, but if you really want those spells then go for it.

[Vemynal]

Would love if you'd rate the Eladrin & Aasimar races outlined in the DMG; also the Unearth Arcana for the Underdark book has a Shadow Bloodline for Sorcerer that looks pretty neat.

There's also a slew of racial changes/alternative bonuses brought up in the SCAG.

[Mara]

Twinning single target buff spells like polymorph is great because it's double the effect for one concentration on a character with con save prof.

I also combine quicken spell with things that take up my action like using telekinesis from round to round.

Heighten spell on dominate can be devastating.

I'm excited to see how you rate the sorcerer spell list given what being a sorcerer means for them.

[EvilAnagram]

Twinning single target buff spells like polymorph is great because it's double the effect for one concentration on a character with con save prof.

I also combine quicken spell with things that take up my action like using telekinesis from round to round.

Heighten spell on dominate can be devastating.

I'm excited to see how you rate the sorcerer spell list given what being a sorcerer means for them.

That's part of the reason I'm taking my time on the spells: you have to account for metamagic when you rate them. It's simply too central to the casting ability of Sorcerers to overlook it, so you have to consider how each metamagic will affect it.

[SharkForce]

pretty sure you didn't mean for half-orc to be blue. based on text, purple or red were your intention (probably red).

can't say i agree with your valuation on dwarf... medium armour isn't half bad, and neither is +1 HP per level. it isn't amazing, but i would consider them to be black; not great, but you're not working against yourself. obviously, they're no half-elf, or even a halfling, but i'd say it's about on-par with the elves.

your intro paragraph in sourcery has a sentence that obviously got cut off btw.

bend luck should be sky blue. it's a reaction to use, and is just about the best thing on the extremely short list of things that can give enemies a penalty on a saving throw (you could argue for arcane trickster's ability, and the UA shadow sorcerer's dog being better, i suppose).

i would give some screen time to the melee wild magic sorcerer. if your DM makes extensive use of surges, there's something to be said for being in the middle of your enemies and a nice distance away from your own squishies; a lot of the surge effects are harmful and centered on the sorcerer.

on a side note, i would bump careful spell to sky blue for a control sorcerer (or for a sorcerer in the right party; if your front line is a monk, a fighter/rogue, and a paladin with shield expertise, you can drop fireball on them all day after a certain level and they won't even get singed, but that's more about party optimization than character optimization). there's something to be said for being able to create a party-friendly web that the fighter can stroll through as if it was a paved road while your enemies are in constant danger of the restrained status, which is quite nasty for anyone who either wants to get into melee or is being forced into dealing with melee.

[deathbymanga]

maybe also do the Shadow Sorcerer?

[EvilAnagram]

pretty sure you didn't mean for half-orc to be blue. based on text, purple or red were your intention (probably red).

your intro paragraph in sourcery has a sentence that obviously got cut off btw.
Fixed, thanks.


can't say i agree with your valuation on dwarf... medium armour isn't half bad, and neither is +1 HP per level. it isn't amazing, but i would consider them to be black; not great, but you're not working against yourself. obviously, they're no half-elf, or even a halfling, but i'd say it's about on-par with the elves.
That's worth looking at. The more I look at it, the more I think the new melee options that have opened up make resilience worth pursuing. Still, there are a lot of ways for Sorcerers to bump their AC, and you're giving up other bonuses to pick them.

Keep in mind that purple isn't badt's situational. You can think of builds that would work well with dwarves, but they aren't necessarily the optimal path.


bend luck should be sky blue. it's a reaction to use, and is just about the best thing on the extremely short list of things that can give enemies a penalty on a saving throw (you could argue for arcane trickster's ability, and the UA shadow sorcerer's dog being better, i suppose).
I'm on the fence about this one. I nearly made it sky-blue, myself, but I don't know that the 1d4 can compete with Bardic Inspiration, which fills a similar niche.


i would give some screen time to the melee wild magic sorcerer. if your DM makes extensive use of surges, there's something to be said for being in the middle of your enemies and a nice distance away from your own squishies; a lot of the surge effects are harmful and centered on the sorcerer.
Noted. I'll explore that at some point.


on a side note, i would bump careful spell to sky blue for a control sorcerer (or for a sorcerer in the right party; if your front line is a monk, a fighter/rogue, and a paladin with shield expertise, you can drop fireball on them all day after a certain level and they won't even get singed, but that's more about party optimization than character optimization). there's something to be said for being able to create a party-friendly web that the fighter can stroll through as if it was a paved road while your enemies are in constant danger of the restrained status, which is quite nasty for anyone who either wants to get into melee or is being forced into dealing with melee.
I think it's an excellent ability, and those are solid uses of it but I don't think it's on par with Quickened, Twinned, or Heightened spells.

Thanks for the feedback!

[SharkForce]

bend luck can target enemy saves. bardic inspiration can't. it isn't as good at buffing skill checks and such, but the sorcerer can be an extremely save-reliant class, and it can even combine with other classes that rely on saving throws. you get to wait until after you know if they would have made it on their own, too.

for dwarves: good con, poison resistance, and extra HP or more AC are not really very situational. you may not need it as much on a sorcerer as on a fighter, but they're still great abilities to have. again, not necessarily the best, but i would still consider them to be middle of the road. they're getting good abilities that are consistently useful... they just aren't getting great abilities that are always useful.

[EvilAnagram]

Well argued. It's changed.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

I haven't read the guide yet, but that is one of the best titles I've ever seen.

[EvilAnagram]

I haven't read the guide yet, but that is one of the best titles I've ever seen.

I live to please

[DizzyWood]

Well this is perfect!! This Sunday i just got to level 5 with my dragon sorcerer. I cam here looking for advice on what spells to take now. Can't wait to see what you recommend!

[EvilAnagram]

Well this is perfect!! This Sunday i just got to level 5 with my dragon sorcerer. I cam here looking for advice on what spells to take now. Can't wait to see what you recommend!

I can help you out right now.

Haste will be useful if you like to melee or like to help your martial buddies. Counterspell is always useful, and any spell that matches you Elemental Affinity will be great. Which Dragon Ancestor did you choose?

[EvilAnagram]

Would love if you'd rate the Eladrin & Aasimar races outlined in the DMG; also the Unearth Arcana for the Underdark book has a Shadow Bloodline for Sorcerer that looks pretty neat.

There's also a slew of racial changes/alternative bonuses brought up in the SCAG.

I've finished including the SCAG stuff, but I'll get around to the other items you've mentioned eventually.

[WickerNipple]

I don't think either Heart of the Storm or Storm's Fury are worth blue ratings.

They're very low damage, very low range and quite situational. Heart of the Storm only pops up when using lightning/thunder. Storm's Fury targets the saving you want to use least vs melee. They're just not good.

Outside of the niche of a melee Booming Blade sorcerer I really can't see the powers being all that valuable. The bonus spell list was the (non-thematic) reason to play this subclass when it was UA.

[EvilAnagram]

I don't think either Heart of the Storm or Storm's Fury are worth blue ratings.

They're very low damage, very low range and quite situational. Heart of the Storm only pops up when using lightning/thunder. Storm's Fury targets the saving you want to use least vs melee. They're just not good.

Outside of the niche of a melee Booming Blade sorcerer I really can't see the powers being all that valuable. The bonus spell list was the (non-thematic) reason to play this subclass when it was UA.
There are a ton of great spells that let Heart of the Storm go off, including four cantrips. Storm Sorcerers will want to get up close to make the most of these abilities, but that's hardly a major setback, especially with how good some of those spells can be. They both make it difficult for enemies to be near you while encouraging you to side up close to them. Hell, it makes Witch Bolt viable with Booming Blade as an up-close HP wrecking ball.

The damage is fine. It scales, it easily surpasses the most a Draconic Sorcerer can add, and many builds will be able to work it in constantly.

[Momar]

I'm away from my SCAG right now, but doesn't heart of the storm specify 1st level or higher spells only? I remember thinking about an aoe melee damage sorc and the booming blade storm sorc combo but it not working for some reason.

[WickerNipple]

I'm away from my SCAG right now, but doesn't heart of the storm specify 1st level or higher spells only? I remember thinking about an aoe melee damage sorc and the booming blade storm sorc combo but it not working for some reason.

Correct. 1st level or higher only. None of the cantrips work with it.


The damage is fine. It scales, it easily surpasses the most a Draconic Sorcerer can add, and many builds will be able to work it in constantly.

I'm surprised to hear you say this. The damage does scale, but it's entirely situational, based on a casting less popular element types with less used spells than Draconic assuming they go fire, and of course doesn't buff cantrips where you'd want it the most. It's a minor damage buff to things like Thunderwave.

Storm's Fury requires you to get hit and eats your reaction, when surely you'd almost always rather Shield away the hit. For something with the high opportunity cost of taking damage I'd certainly want the damage to compare to something like a spell level equilivant of hellish rebuke. And the push rider on the effect is both bad (targetting melee enemies with strength save) and unnecessary given the mobility Tempestuous Magic offers.

I don't see how they line up with things you rated blue on the other subclasses. Storm Sorcerer is just disappointing mechanically.

[EvilAnagram]

I'm away from my SCAG right now, but doesn't heart of the storm specify 1st level or higher spells only? I remember thinking about an aoe melee damage sorc and the booming blade storm sorc combo but it not working for some reason.

You are absolutely right. That hurts its usefulness a bit, but Booming Blade can still combo nicely with Witch Bolt, taking advantage of the Heart of the Storm.

Basically, take War Caster. Attack with Twinned Witch Bolt and Quickened Booming Blade. Target takes damage from both spells and Heart of the storm. If the enemy moves away to get out of Witch Bolt, it takes the BB damage and an op attack with another Booming Blade. If they don't move, deal the Witch bolt damage as a bonus and either use a Twinned Booming Blade or another Lightning/Thunder spell.

Not as potent as sending sparks out every turn with a cantrip, but still nice.

[WickerNipple]

Basically, take War Caster. Attack with Twinned Witch Bolt and Quickened Booming Blade. Target takes damage from both spells and Heart of the storm. If the enemy moves away to get out of Witch Bolt, it takes the BB damage and an op attack with another Booming Blade. If they don't move, deal the Witch bolt damage as a bonus and either use a Twinned Booming Blade or another Lightning/Thunder spell.

Twinned WB and quickened BB is more sorcery points than one has when you gain Heart of the Storm. By the time you'd be able to follow it up with more twinning you're talking about at least a 5th level character blowing a huge wad to do all this, and it still doesn't look especially effective to me compared to draconic scorching ray/quickened whatever.

What does the twinning of Witch Bolt have to do with anything? It can't hit the same target twice and by my reading it wouldn't make Heart proc twice either.

[EvilAnagram]

I'm surprised to hear you say this. The damage does scale, but it's entirely situational, based on a casting less popular element types with less used spells than Draconic assuming they go fire, and of course doesn't buff cantrips where you'd want it the most. It's a minor damage buff to things like Thunderwave.
I was mistaken about it applying to cantrips (though the damage potential there would have been crazy enough that I understand why it doesn't). Still, it combines well with the spells it works with (a big portion of Thunder and Lightning spells are short range). And with Booming Blade and Lightning Lure you can easily keep enemies within range of your spells and Heart of the Storm.

Again, less useful than if cantrips would work with it, but it's still pretty good.


Storm's Fury requires you to get hit and eats your reaction, when surely you'd almost always rather Shield away the hit. For something with the high opportunity cost of taking damage I'd certainly want the damage to compare to something like a spell level equilivant of hellish rebuke. And the push rider on the effect is both bad (targetting melee enemies with strength save) and unnecessary given the mobility Tempestuous Magic offers.
The damage varies between just over Hellish Rebuke at first level to just under it at fourth level, at not cost and with the rider. As for the reaction, you realize that sometimes Shield won't stop an attack, right? Storm's Fury is a solid reaction to use when Shield won't work. And the pushing rider is excellent because it provides decent control over the battlefield. This might not be 4e, but forced movement is still quite nice.

As for targeting the Strength save, a major portion of melee attackers use Dexterity, not that your concerns don't have merit.


I don't see how they line up with things you rated blue on the other subclasses. Storm Sorcerer is just disappointing mechanically.

I'm going to reevaluate it, but I think it's still a workable class.

[EvilAnagram]

Twinned WB and quickened BB is more sorcery points than one has when you gain Heart of the Storm.

You gain Heart of the Storm at 6th level.


By the time you'd be able to follow it up with more twinning you're talking about at least a 5th level character blowing a huge wad to do all this, and it still doesn't look especially effective to me compared to draconic scorching ray/quickened whatever.
I think it's quite a bit more effective. The draconic bonus can only apply to one damage roll of a spell, after all. The damage would be comparable, but you'd be exercising quite a lot of battlefield control.


What does the twinning of Witch Bolt have to do with anything? It can't hit the same target twice and by my reading it wouldn't make Heart proc twice either.
You can twin Witch Bolt, place the Booming Blade rider on one of the nearby enemies, and position yourself to op attack the other. You get to exercise solid control by giving the enemy two poor options from which to choose.

[SharkForce]

You sure about that? I thought Bend Luck had to take place before you had any idea if the check would succeed or not. But after they rolled. So you get to know their roll, but not their result. I'd rate it purple at best.

If you get to know if they succeeded as well as the roll, then it's still only black. If you know they succeeded, what the roll is, and usually know the target number, it's possibly blue. If you know what they rolled, what the result was specifically (ie roll + bonuses = result), and what the target number was, then and only then would it be sky blue.

i suppose it is a bit unclear.

you can use it either before or after the roll (implying you do get to see the roll), but "before any results of the roll occur". depending on your DM's interpretation of that, it might mean 'before you find out if the roll works or not', but it could also mean 'you know if it will work without the modifier, and can choose to use the ability based on that'.

even if it is the former (though considering the resource cost i think it should be the latter), there will still be a lot of times where knowing the roll will give you a pretty good idea of whether it worked or not. low attributes are often fairly obvious, and not many monsters have a bad attribute with a good save modifier. if you're targeting a monster's weak save (which you should always be trying to do), you can figure generally a range between -1 and +1 unless we're talking about extremely powerful monsters.

there are exceptions to that, but it's fairly often true.

[DizzyWood]

I can help you out right now.

Haste will be useful if you like to melee or like to help your martial buddies. Counterspell is always useful, and any spell that matches you Elemental Affinity will be great. Which Dragon Ancestor did you choose?

Fire it has the best spells since the DM ruled out anything from the Elemental Evil handbook. I have Scorching Ray, Mirror Image, Magic Missal, Sleep, Shield, Fire Bolt, Ray of Frost, Friends, & Prestidigitation. I try and stay back out of it but that can't always be the case.

[EvilAnagram]

Fire it has the best spells since the DM ruled out anything from the Elemental Evil handbook. I have Scorching Ray, Mirror Image, Magic Missal, Sleep, Shield, Fire Bolt, Ray of Frost, Friends, & Prestidigitation. I try and stay back out of it but that can't always be the case.

If there's no Elemental Evil, go with Fireball. It's a fantastic AoE.

[Mara]

*cracks whip*

These spells won't review themselves!

*whip crack*

[DizzyWood]

If there's no Elemental Evil, go with Fireball. It's a fantastic AoE.

Can do! Thank you so much!!!

[SharkForce]

eyebite: has the same "do something better than a cantrip while casting a quickened spell in the same round" ability as sunbeam. probably not quite as good (sunbeam deals a very good damage type and blinds enemies in a line, meaning it is AOE, for respectable damage, which is pretty danged awesome; some of the most dangerous monsters - especially spellcasting ones - get completely wrecked if they are blinded because so many spells target "creatures you can see"). but still, if you're looking for crowd control, it's pretty good on a sorcerer.

investiture of wind: doesn't it also let you fly? the combination of flight and people taking disadvantage on ranged attacks against you can be quite powerful.

true seeing: iirc isn't this no-concentration? seeing invisible creatures, seeing through illusions and shapechange spells, *seeing through magical darkness*, personally I consider this one to be black. if sorcerers weren't so short on spells known, I'd even suggest it should be blue, but while it is absolutely worth taking for a wizard, it's hard to justify spending one of your limited spell slots on this unless you know the campaign features a lot of invisible enemies or other such things.

[EvilAnagram]

eyebite: has the same "do something better than a cantrip while casting a quickened spell in the same round" ability as sunbeam. probably not quite as good (sunbeam deals a very good damage type and blinds enemies in a line, meaning it is AOE, for respectable damage, which is pretty danged awesome; some of the most dangerous monsters - especially spellcasting ones - get completely wrecked if they are blinded because so many spells target "creatures you can see"). but still, if you're looking for crowd control, it's pretty good on a sorcerer.
I think we're in agreement that Eyebite isn't quite as good as Sunbeam?


investiture of wind: doesn't it also let you fly? the combination of flight and people taking disadvantage on ranged attacks against you can be quite powerful.
You know, I think I am going to bump this up because in flight the only attacks you'll have to worry about are ranged attacks. Good point.


true seeing: iirc isn't this no-concentration? seeing invisible creatures, seeing through illusions and shapechange spells, *seeing through magical darkness*, personally I consider this one to be black. if sorcerers weren't so short on spells known, I'd even suggest it should be blue, but while it is absolutely worth taking for a wizard, it's hard to justify spending one of your limited spell slots on this unless you know the campaign features a lot of invisible enemies or other such things.
Yeah, I think I was a bit hard on it because of the dearth of spells known for sorcerers. I'll bump it up as well.


*cracks whip*

These spells won't review themselves!

*whip crack*

Third levels are done! Now, I just need to clean enough of the house to not get murdered when the fiance comes home tonight.

[SharkForce]

I think we're in agreement that Eyebite isn't quite as good as Sunbeam?

depends on what saves and what debuffs you need. ideally, you'd have both (obviously that isn't always practical though).

[MaxWilson]

Time Stop: If you can't think of a way to abuse this, you should go back to Call of Duty.

Every time I think of something to do with 1d4+1 turns for the price of one, I run straight into the limitations of the spell: ends when you affect a creature other than you or an object being worn or carried by a creature other than you, or if you move more than 1000 feet.

1.) Oh, you could heal yourself! But, sorcerers and wizards can't self-heal.
2.) Oh, you could buff yourself! But most buffs take concentration, so you might as well just cast them directly.

The only ways I can think of two abuse it are:

1.) Use out of combat, to sneak past guards and steal the McGuffin while time is stopped. (How many McGuffins are protected by something as simple as guards?) Very situational.

2.) In combat, use a Sequence: Time Stop, Delayed Blast Fireball, Dimension Door, Mirror Image, Blink, (Quickened?) Animate Objects VIII. From the perspective of an outside observer, I cast one spell and suddenly I'm 650' away from where I started, a 16d6 DB Fireball goes off, I have three illusionary duplicates and maybe (50%) just went Ethereal, and 16 salad forks are suddenly flying around stabbing everyone in my new location. Oh, and I maybe hit you with a Twinned Booming Blade too because why not.

That's actually kind of impressive, but I just blew my 7th, 8th, and 9th level spell slots and a 2nd and 3rd slot slot (and maybe three sorcery points if I did the Booming Blade thing) plus six of my 15 spells known. Is it really all that much better than Quickened Animate Objects VIII? Moreover, is enabling that sequence really deserving of a sky-blue rating for a 9th level spell?

[EvilAnagram]

1.) Use out of combat, to sneak past guards and steal the McGuffin while time is stopped. (How many McGuffins are protected by something as simple as guards?) Very situational.
There are a ton of situational uses. Steal the MacGuffin, sure, but you can also escape traps, elude pursuit, purloin to your heart's content, and commit any other act that can be facilitated by others' not noticing. That's a tremendous amount of utility.


That's actually kind of impressive, but I just blew my 7th, 8th, and 9th level spell slots and a 2nd and 3rd slot slot (and maybe three sorcery points if I did the Booming Blade thing) plus six of my 15 spells known. Is it really all that much better than Quickened Animate Objects VIII? Moreover, is enabling that sequence really deserving of a sky-blue rating for a 9th level spell?
It doesn't just enable that sequence, though. It enables any sequence you can think of. You can cast Delayed Blast Fireball, animate all anchor points in an area, and Reverse Gravity so that your enemy has to float up to the ceiling, where the Fireball is waiting to detonate, forcing them to take both its damage, the damage of the fall, and the damage of the household items that are now swarming them as they gracelessly tumble skywards. Hell, you could place explosives around the supports of a structure and collapse it on the BBEG.

This is a Reading Rainbow spell: it's as limitless as your imagination.

[MaxWilson]

There are a ton of situational uses. Steal the MacGuffin, sure, but you can also escape traps, elude pursuit, purloin to your heart's content, and commit any other act that can be facilitated by others' not noticing. That's a tremendous amount of utility.

Sure, and if it were a 4th level spell it would be great, about on par with Greater Invisibility.


It doesn't just enable that sequence, though. It enables any sequence you can think of. You can cast Delayed Blast Fireball, animate all anchor points in an area, and Reverse Gravity so that your enemy has to float up to the ceiling, where the Fireball is waiting to detonate, forcing them to take both its damage, the damage of the fall, and the damage of the household items that are now swarming them as they gracelessly tumble skywards.

That sequence is illegal. It ends when you cast Animate Objects, so all you really get out of Time Stop is the equivalent of Action Surge: Delayed Blast Fireball + Animate Objects. And Delayed Blast Fireball is the only offensive spell that works with AFAIK. Grease would work, sort of, except it's not on the sorcerer list.

[EvilAnagram]

Sure, and if it were a 4th level spell it would be great, about on par with Greater Invisibility.
It's an auto-success, compared to Greater Invisibility, but point taken.



That sequence is illegal. It ends when you cast Animate Objects, so all you really get out of Time Stop is the equivalent of Action Surge: Delayed Blast Fireball + Animate Objects. And Delayed Blast Fireball is the only offensive spell that works with AFAIK. Grease would work, sort of, except it's not on the sorcerer list.
It's a bit debatable whether or not Animate Objects would end it. They're only objects when you cast the spell, after all.

Still, there are plenty of other options. Use DBF, Wall of Stone to keep people from moving away, Wall of Fire to hedge in anyone you can't catch with Wall of Stone, buff yourself, and finish it off with whatever damaging spell you wish. You get to exercise a ton of crowd control and pile on a ton of damage while the enemy does nothing. It's a great spell.

And yes, Delayed Blast Fireball is the best combo for this spell.

[MaxWilson]

EvilAnagram,

First, I want to say, thank you for this guide. I'm discussing Time Stop not because I want to attack you, and not even actually because I want to correct you--my motivation is that I'm desperately hoping you can think of a way to use it more effectively than I can, because AFAICT it looks underpowered.


It's an auto-success, compared to Greater Invisibility, but point taken.

Dimension Door is an auto-success too. I think we basically agree on this point though--if you know it, it could be a lot of fun, especially for a sorc with limited spells known who doesn't have Dimension Door/Teleport/Ethereal/etc. as options. Especially a Subtle Time Stop, which nobody would realize you had cast. :)

Counterpoint: if you know Time Stop, you also know Wish and therefore could Dimension Door/Teleport/Ethereal instead, so burning a spells-known on Time Stop for out-of-combat uses actually hurts your versatility. So out-of-combat uses cannot justify turning it sky-blue unless you are a sorcerer who has already permanently burned out Wish.

Returning to combat usages:


It's a bit debatable whether or not Animate Objects would end it. They're only objects when you cast the spell, after all.

Okay, I'm willing to grant that there might be DMs who let you cast Animate Objects and still stay within Time Stop, and if so it gets better. But the combination you suggested is still illegal--you can't concentrate on Delayed Blast Fireball and Animate Objects simultaneously, so your Fireball goes off, ending Time Stop. And you can't concentrate on Animate Objects and Reverse Gravity simultaneously either. You run into the exact same problem when trying to combine Wall of Stone and Wall of Fire and Delayed Blast Fireball.

The fundamental problem for Time Stop in 5E is that the spell is designed to boost your action economy, but concentration is likely to be the bottleneck. At best you can cast one concentration spell (usually a self-buff, but if your DM lets you cast Animate Objects then that works too--maybe he'll even let you tell the objects to read an action to "attack when anyone but me starts moving") and launch a no-concentration attack spell like Chain Lightning, so you get two spells via Time Stop where anyone else would get only one. Except that you're essentially spending your 9th level slot to Action Surge Chain Lightning and Animate Objects, whereas a Fighter 2/Wizard 18 is spending his 9th level slot to Action Surge Meteor Swarm and Animate Objects. And he can do it once per short rest, not once a day.

It could be true that 2nd level fighters get a 1/short rest ability which is as good as a sky-blue 9th level spell... but it could also be true that the 9th level spell in question doesn't deserve to be sky-blue given 5E's concentration rules.

Is there an awesome combo I'm overlooking which gets you something better than an Action Surge? (Aside from the Animate Objects-ready-an-attack thing, which probably wouldn't fly with most DMs because it requires multiple creatures acting outside the normal timestream instead of just the caster.)

Edit: so far the best combo I've got for a Sorlock 20 is Twinned Booming Blade + Quickened Timestop: (Delayed Blast Fireball (16d6), Armor of Agathys VI, Blink, Mirror Image, Animate Objects VIII + Quickened Greenflame Blade). 16d6 AoE (56), 16d8+mods (72+mods, probably about 82) distributed between two targets, a defensive boost to cut your damage taken by about 80% over the next few rounds and inflict 30 HP of cold damage on anyone who hits you, and 16d4+64 (104) in minion damage per turn hereafter. That is a grand total of 196 damage to two targets, plus 56 to everyone else in the DBFB blast radius and whatever your salad forks manage to inflict after this turn. Is that competitive with Action Surge: Meteor Swarm (140) + Animate Objects VIII (104 DPR)? I'm still on the fence about that but it's clearly an improvement, probably competitive, possibly better (but way more expensive too).

At any rate, that sequence is good enough to make me think it would be fun to unleash. Meteors from space is one thing, but "BBEG speaks a word and boom! suddenly you are being stabbed, frozen, exploded, and set on fire" is kind of a fun idea.

[SharkForce]

if sorcerers were not arbitrarily restricted from having wall of force on their spell list, you could drop a bunch of mordenkainen's hounds in an area, block it off with a wall of force, and when regular time resumes the hounds are essentially indestructible damage-dealing machines that last for hours on end.

i suppose you could do something similar with wall of stone, but wall of stone is not completely indestructible. on the plus side, i suppose it blocks LOS. on the minus side, the fact that it gives creatures a saving throw suggests it is not compatible with time stop's "no interaction" rule.

in any event, there are a small handful of no-concentration-required tricks you can potentially pull off with time stop. i'm not sure they'd be enough for me to ever rate time stop as high as wish or even meteor swarm, personally, but they do exist.

[MaxWilson]

if sorcerers were not arbitrarily restricted from having wall of force on their spell list, you could drop a bunch of mordenkainen's hounds in an area, block it off with a wall of force, and when regular time resumes the hounds are essentially indestructible damage-dealing machines that last for hours on end.

i suppose you could do something similar with wall of stone, but wall of stone is not completely indestructible. on the plus side, i suppose it blocks LOS. on the minus side, the fact that it gives creatures a saving throw suggests it is not compatible with time stop's "no interaction" rule.

in any event, there are a small handful of no-concentration-required tricks you can potentially pull off with time stop. i'm not sure they'd be enough for me to ever rate time stop as high as wish or even meteor swarm, personally, but they do exist.

Yeah, the sorcerer spell list is quite narrow--Forcecage, Wall of Force, and Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound are not on it.

Timestop + Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound x4 is interesting, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be possible, since the hound will immediately bite a hostile creature at the start of your second turn, ending the Time Stop before you can cast another--it's ambiguous what happens to the rest of your turn when the spell ends before your turn ends, but I'd rule that you get to finish the turn, so at least you get two hounds for your 9th level spell, or a hound and a Wall of Force. An enemy without teleportation or Dispel Magic is toast, probably, although there are a few things that could probably survive 100 rounds of attacks and outlast the Wall of Force.

Do you know of any good no-concentration Time Stop combos that are on the sorc's spell list?

[EvilAnagram]

EvilAnagram,

First, I want to say, thank you for this guide. I'm discussing Time Stop not because I want to attack you, and not even zee because I want to correct you--my motivation is that I'm desperately hoping you can think of a way to use it more effectively than I can, because AFAICT it looks underpowered.
You seem worried, so I want you to know that I have not taken anything you've said personally, nor have I intended anything I've said to be a personal attack against you.


Counterpoint: if you know Time Stop, you also know Wish and therefore could Dimension Door/Teleport/Ethereal instead, so burning a spells-known on Time Stop for out-of-combat uses actually hurts your versatility. So out-of-combat uses cannot justify turning it sky-blue unless you are a sorcerer who has already permanently burned out Wish.
I'm not comparing any spells to Wish. Wish is ridiculously broken. It deserves its own classification.



Okay, I'm willing to grant that there might be DMs who let you cast Animate Objects and still stay within Time Stop, and if so it gets better. But the combination you suggested is still illegal--you can't concentrate on Delayed Blast Fireball and Animate Objects simultaneously, so your Fireball goes off, ending Time Stop. And you can't concentrate on Animate Objects and Reverse Gravity simultaneously either. You run into the exact same problem when trying to combine Wall of Stone and Wall of Fire and Delayed Blast Fireball.
Fair enough. I was mostly brainstorming there, but you make a good point about concentration.

It does limit a good deal of what you can do, though the sequences you've come up with are pretty sweet examples of what can be done. I've carefully examined the list, and I think you've done a fair job proving that the spell has weaknesses, though it's still potentially quite powerful.

Another good use I've found is Twinned Disintegrate on load-bearing columns followed by a teleportation to get everyone out of there. Of course, having to be clever with terrain does not speak to the raw power of the spell.

[SharkForce]

Yeah, the sorcerer spell list is quite narrow--Forcecage, Wall of Force, and Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound are not on it.

Timestop + Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound x4 is interesting, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be possible, since the hound will immediately bite a hostile creature at the start of your second turn, ending the Time Stop before you can cast another--it's ambiguous what happens to the rest of your turn when the spell ends before your turn ends, but I'd rule that you get to finish the turn, so at least you get two hounds for your 9th level spell, or a hound and a Wall of Force. An enemy without teleportation or Dispel Magic is toast, probably, although there are a few things that could probably survive 100 rounds of attacks and outlast the Wall of Force.

Do you know of any good no-concentration Time Stop combos that are on the sorc's spell list?

in a time stop, you are removed from the flow of time. nothing indicates that spells you cast are removed in the same way, particularly if they are summoning spells that create creatures (you could therefore animate objects, so long as those objects are not in someone else's possession at the time).

in any event, you can always choose to have the wall of force intersect in such a way as to push the target into the hounds' reach.

back on topic a bit though, i can't really think of any particularly amazing combo using only the sorcerer spell list. one of my biggest disappointments with 5e is that instead of making both the 4e striker sorcerer and the 3.x sorcerer options, they mostly aimed for 4e striker with just enough of a hint of 3.x sorcerer to make me disappointed every time i try to make it work. as a result, they don't generally have the spell list to use these combos.

time stop has really become a lot less useful in 5e.

[Shining Wrath]

I think you've underrated Subtle Spell. It's not just when you've been tied up by the DM; it's also for any situation where casting a spell that no one knows where it came from is useful - or that a spell has been cast at all.

Want to impress the locals? Dancing Lights appear to give you a halo effect.
Want to win a court case? Major Image and the villain confesses in front of everyone while tied up back in your room at the inn.

It's ... subtle. It lets you claim the gods are smiting your foes, that your former appearance was the illusion and the illusion you just cast is the real you, you can start a battle with a twinned Ice Storm that no one sees coming because you didn't move or speak to cast it.

Et cetera, et cetera.

[SharkForce]

I think you've underrated Subtle Spell. It's not just when you've been tied up by the DM; it's also for any situation where casting a spell that no one knows where it came from is useful - or that a spell has been cast at all.

Want to impress the locals? Dancing Lights appear to give you a halo effect.
Want to win a court case? Major Image and the villain confesses in front of everyone while tied up back in your room at the inn.

It's ... subtle. It lets you claim the gods are smiting your foes, that your former appearance was the illusion and the illusion you just cast is the real you, you can start a battle with a twinned Ice Storm that no one sees coming because you didn't move or speak to cast it.

Et cetera, et cetera.

it's also highly situational. you could base a character around it, but it isn't really the norm. it's a great, useful ability, and is worth picking up... provided you're doing so as a multiclass dip or if it isn't your first choice. useful in the right situation is purple. consistently pretty good but not great is black. consistently good is dark blue. sky blue is basically "you better have a danged good reason for not taking this".

i like subtle spell. it's a very useful option to have. but it is still quite situational, and has placed it pretty much where it belongs.

[EvilAnagram]

I think you've underrated Subtle Spell. It's not just when you've been tied up by the DM; it's also for any situation where casting a spell that no one knows where it came from is useful - or that a spell has been cast at all.

Want to impress the locals? Dancing Lights appear to give you a halo effect.
Want to win a court case? Major Image and the villain confesses in front of everyone while tied up back in your room at the inn.

It's ... subtle. It lets you claim the gods are smiting your foes, that your former appearance was the illusion and the illusion you just cast is the real you, you can start a battle with a twinned Ice Storm that no one sees coming because you didn't move or speak to cast it.

Et cetera, et cetera.
To add to what Shark said, the problem isn't that I've rated Subtle Spell as situational, it's that people perceive situational to mean bad. Situational is not bad. Situational can easily get you out of a bind. Situational can be great! But if the situations that make it shine don't show up, it won't be useful. Consistency, not usefulness, keeps Subtle Spell as a Purple ability.

[Ogre Mage]

I would downgrade fly from light blue to dark blue. It requires concentration which makes it less attractive. And it carries a considerable risk - if your concentration is suddenly broken you may fall from a considerable height! That is in contrast to the 3E version where there was no concentration requirement and you floated down when the spell ended. Dragons and Favored Souls can eventually fly on their own. That said, it is still a strong utility spell and a fun one to boot.

[Blood of Gaea]

Looking good, definitely will come back to finish reading when it's finished.

[Corran]

I would downgrade fly from light blue to dark blue. It requires concentration which makes it less attractive. And it carries a considerable risk - if your concentration is suddenly broken you may fall from a considerable height! That is in contrast to the 3E version where there was no concentration requirement and you floated down when the spell ended. Dragons and Favored Souls can eventually fly on their own. That said, it is still a strong utility spell and a fun one to boot.
All that is true, but when you cast it at higher level you allow allies to fly along with you. Now that opens up endless possibilities to the party. How many other spells can do that?

[EvilAnagram]

Whoo! All spells done except for the first two spell levels!

The largest two spell levels...

Poop.

[SharkForce]

mold earth might actually be amazing depending on how your DM defines loose earth.

if it means only a pile of dirt that you just dug up, then yeah, it isn't great unless maybe you're in a freshly plowed field or something.

if it means sand and you're in a desert campaign, little bit better.

if it means anything that isn't rock, it is amazing.

mage hand i think is not bad so long as you remember it's a cantrip. it shouldn't be expected to do incredible things. being useful fairly often is good enough, and being able to grab the maguffin from range when you expect it to be a trap, or grabbing things through a barred window, or pulling things out of hazardous materials, or lowering containers *in* to hazardous materials, or silently "throwing" a length of rope somewhere, and so on. situations where it is helpful come up fairly often, and sorcerers have such a limited spell selection that any spell that can be used in multiple ways starts to look pretty good.

one thing i would suggest is that you go through and note which spells combine well with which metamagic rather than mentioning only twin. who knows, you might start to realize why i think careful is worth taking as one of your first two choices :)

(just a short list of some great spells to make careful: web, fear, hypnotic pattern, sleet storm, stinking cloud, confusion; some don't always need to be careful, but there's a big difference between being able to cast these spells even if your melee are right in the thick of things)

[EvilAnagram]

mold earth might actually be amazing depending on how your DM defines loose earth.

if it means only a pile of dirt that you just dug up, then yeah, it isn't great unless maybe you're in a freshly plowed field or something.

if it means sand and you're in a desert campaign, little bit better.

if it means anything that isn't rock, it is amazing.
It includes dirt, gravel, and loose stones.

It's still slightly more effective than a shovel.


mage hand i think is not bad so long as you remember it's a cantrip. it shouldn't be expected to do incredible things. being useful fairly often is good enough, and being able to grab the maguffin from range when you expect it to be a trap, or grabbing things through a barred window, or pulling things out of hazardous materials, or lowering containers *in* to hazardous materials, or silently "throwing" a length of rope somewhere, and so on. situations where it is helpful come up fairly often, and sorcerers have such a limited spell selection that any spell that can be used in multiple ways starts to look pretty good.
Mage Hand isn't bad. It's situational. Situational does not mean bad.


one thing i would suggest is that you go through and note which spells combine well with which metamagic rather than mentioning only twin. who knows, you might start to realize why i think careful is worth taking as one of your first two choices :)
I only mention Twin because it's not available for use with each spell, and it directly affects the power level and viability of spells. Careful is a perfectly good option, but it doesn't affect the viability of your spell choices.

[SharkForce]

mold earth does a 5' cube in a couple of seconds. what kind of shovel are you using where that's a small improvement?

any time you have a few minutes available to set up a battlefield, mold earth lets you do a massive amount of work. need to build some fortifications quickly? empty a 5'cube and place the earth right next to it and you have a trench and a short wall. it's usefulness in the middle of a pitched battle is relatively limited. it's usefulness in preparing for a pitched battle is massive.

mage hand is useful in a lot of situations that come up fairly often. every spell is "situational", purple is for ones where the situation is rare. "i need to move something and either am unable or unwilling to use my hand to do it" is not very uncommon for an adventurer, nor is "i would like to move something from a distance". we're talking about a game where a 10' pole is considered vital adventuring gear to some people.

as to careful not impacting the value of spells, i have to disagree. if your party has melee warriors (and most parties do), there is a gigantic difference between creating a zone that nobody should go into vs creating a zone that no enemy should go into. there is likewise a substantial difference between debilitating status effects that only hit enemies vs debilitating status effects that hit anyone.

it's the difference between darkness in a regular party (maybe one person can see through magical darkness some way or another) vs darkness in a party where everyone has a 2 warlock splash and devi's sight. the former isn't useless by any means, but the latter is so much better it isn't even a close comparison. in such a party, darkness goes from being roughly equivalent to a purple spell to being at least dark blue, probably even sky blue (seriously, if you turn down that buff you must have a very compelling reason).

some spells just get a heck of a lot better with the right metamagic, to a point where it isn't even comparable in value. suggestion goes from being something you can only use in private areas when the subject has no guards, to being a spell you can use any time you're dealing with a person who has something you want and doesn't want to give it up (provided they're not immune to suggestion somehow) if you have subtle spell. huge difference.

your metamagic selections *absolutely* should have a major impact on your spell selections. pretty much the only reason not to take any other spellcaster is because you want to combine specific metamagic abilities with specific spells. outside of metamagic, the sorcerer has *nothing* worth looking at. no interesting class features. even their archetypes tend to be pretty lackluster (storm sorcerer has a danged nice ability at 18, but it isn't worth 18 levels of being a much worse version of a wizard, which is basicalyl what you are if you aren't using your metamagic wisely).

[Flashy]

Careful is a perfectly good option, but it doesn't affect the viability of your spell choices.

I quite agree with this. Twin is the sort of metamagic you choose your spells around, while I doubt there's anyone who has gone "Oh, I wasn't going to pick Fireball but now that my allies all automatically only take half damage I'm definitely going to choose it." It might be worth mentioning on unexpected stuff where the combo is exceptionally strong like Web or Stinking Cloud, but I don't think that every area spell in the guide needs to mention that you can make your allies auto-succeed on their saving throw and I don't think any spell should get a bonus to its rating based on how it combines with metamagic. That at most improves a spell from red to purple.

[EvilAnagram]

Finished with the spells!


mold earth does a 5' cube in a couple of seconds. what kind of shovel are you using where that's a small improvement?

any time you have a few minutes available to set up a battlefield, mold earth lets you do a massive amount of work. need to build some fortifications quickly? empty a 5'cube and place the earth right next to it and you have a trench and a short wall. it's usefulness in the middle of a pitched battle is relatively limited. it's usefulness in preparing for a pitched battle is massive.
Right, but if you have time to prepare a pitched battle, you have time to prepare one with a shovel and use your cantrip slot for something that's better than occasionally preparing for a pitched battle.


mage hand is useful in a lot of situations that come up fairly often. every spell is "situational", purple is for ones where the situation is rare. "i need to move something and either am unable or unwilling to use my hand to do it" is not very uncommon for an adventurer, nor is "i would like to move something from a distance". we're talking about a game where a 10' pole is considered vital adventuring gear to some people.
Mage Hand is situational because its ability to affect the world around you in any meaningful way is incredibly limited. Your ability to pick up something from a short distance away will have very little effect on anything that happens in the game. There are certainly going to be situations in which it will be important to the way a game continues, but those are few and far between.

This isn't to say it's a bad choice. I've picked it before. It's just not one that does much to affect the optimization of your character.


as to careful not impacting the value of spells, i have to disagree. if your party has melee warriors (and most parties do), there is a gigantic difference between creating a zone that nobody should go into vs creating a zone that no enemy should go into. there is likewise a substantial difference between debilitating status effects that only hit enemies vs debilitating status effects that hit anyone.
With the exception of Web, I can't think of a single spell that Careful would significantly alter, and I don't think that Web is so altered as to move it from Blue. It's worth a mention, I suppose, but it's just as decent.


some spells just get a heck of a lot better with the right metamagic, to a point where it isn't even comparable in value. suggestion goes from being something you can only use in private areas when the subject has no guards, to being a spell you can use any time you're dealing with a person who has something you want and doesn't want to give it up (provided they're not immune to suggestion somehow) if you have subtle spell. huge difference.
I mean, I assumed the vocal component of Suggestion was the suggestion, itself. You can hold a snake tongue in one hand and suggest something to someone without raising much suspicion.


your metamagic selections *absolutely* should have a major impact on your spell selections.
I agree, and if you can think of specific examples in which a metamagic significantly alters the spell's usefulness, I would be happy to include it. I think I'll include Careful with Web, anyways.

[Corran]

some spells just get a heck of a lot better with the right metamagic, to a point where it isn't even comparable in value. suggestion goes from being something you can only use in private areas when the subject has no guards, to being a spell you can use any time you're dealing with a person who has something you want and doesn't want to give it up (provided they're not immune to suggestion somehow) if you have subtle spell. huge difference.

your metamagic selections *absolutely* should have a major impact on your spell selections. pretty much the only reason not to take any other spellcaster is because you want to combine specific metamagic abilities with specific spells.
I agree with this.

I think it would be very helpful if we could have a list of the most useful spells per metamagic option. That way, someone who would like to play a sorcerer, could see several potential combinations of metamagic and spells when viewing this guide, so he could get some ideas and make an informed decision as to what metamagic he would choose for his sorcerer.

[EvilAnagram]

I agree with this.

I think it would be very helpful if we could have a list of the most useful spells per metamagic option. That way, someone who would like to play a sorcerer, could see several potential combinations of metamagic and spells when viewing this guide, so he could get some ideas and make an informed decision as to what metamagic he would choose for his sorcerer.

I can dedicate a section to strategies for applying metamagic to spells and choosing your spells based on your metamagic choices. I don't think that I will review all the spells all over again. I've already dedicated several hours to that over the past few days.

[SharkForce]

I agree, and if you can think of specific examples in which a metamagic significantly alters the spell's usefulness, I would be happy to include it. I think I'll include Careful with Web, anyways.

well stinking cloud and sleet storm, for the same reasons as web. also earthquake and reverse gravity. sadly sorcerers don't get magic jar, as careful would be an amazing option for that spell :) good to remember for multiclass though i suppose.

hypnotic pattern, fear, and confusion. they don't create zones, but any time you want to use them after enemies have closed the distance to your party, there is a world of difference between careful and non-careful.

basically you're just looking for spells that have an AoE save effect that is not *half* effect on a successful save, but rather no effect. i agree that careful fireball isn't that amazing (unless everyone has evasion or equivalent). and if the only thing your sorcerer could do was fireball, careful wouldn't be that great. but careful lets you use some very powerful offensive debuffs safely and it is definitely worth it to consider adding one or two of those spells to your selections purely on the strength of careful spell.

as to suggestion, nothing about the spell says the verbal component is the suggestion itself. which implies you still need to spout mystic gibberish to make the spell work. after all, you can't very well have a specific combination of sounds, pitch, resonance, etc, as is required for the verbal component of a spell to work, if you are saying something different every time you cast the spell. that said, if subtle removes the vocal component and the vocal component is the suggestion, that means you can now cast suggestion without having anyone react to the fact that you just suggested something and the target suddenly spontaneously agreed to do something out of character. subtle still makes a fairly significant difference in how the spell works.

mold earth is valuable because it is far easier to get a couple of minutes to prepare for a fight than it is to get a few hours to prepare for a fight. also because it can turn solid rock to difficult terrain; good luck doing that with a shovel.

mage hand, well, i've already listed a variety of situations where it would be useful. seriously, try and come up with uses for it while playing sometime. you may be surprised at how often it can come up. i still remember a 2nd edition game where i found a spell called gauntlet... one of the most useful features of the spell was the fact that it made your hand completely invulnerable. i mean, sure, it also gave you a melee attack that counted as magical and dealt better damage than a dagger, but even though that was the original reason i was interested in the spell it wasn't the part that was most useful in the end. this is at-will and can be used from a distance rather than being on the end of my arm? yes please!

[Corran]

Mage hand can save you a lot of damage from traps, among other uses it may have. It is no wonder that the AT has it. That alone makes it dark blue imo, if no other party member has it ofc.

I also think levitate should be purple at best. Given that a sorcerer has a very limited selection of spells, why should one pick levitate when he can pick fly?

Also, I cant help but feel that invisibility should be sky blue. This spell has a unique effect and it can be a real difference maker in many situations.

Subtle spell can also account for surprise round in certain situations, but also for protection against counterspell, if I am not mistaken. If my thoughts about subtle and counterspell are correct, then it has a use no other feature I can think of has.

The more I think about it, the more important I think subtle spell is. Counterspell is one of the worst nightmares for a caster. If I was playing a pure sorcerer, I would make sure to pick subtle spell at 10th level, as my 3rd metamagic option, so that I would have a defense against enemy spellcasters. It costs only 1 sp, so I would definitely use it when I would cast sth important, and there was at least an enemy spellcaster in the encounter. That way I could counterspell all day long, and at minimum cost of sp I would not even be a target of counterspells.

[Ogre Mage]

I also think levitate should be purple at best. Given that a sorcerer has a very limited selection of spells, why should one pick levitate when he can pick fly?


Remember that levitate can be used on an enemy as well. If they fail their save they are suspended in midair and a sitting duck. The flexibility to use on yourself, an ally or against an opponent leads me to think the current black rating is correct. It is a versatile spell. Also when the spell ends or you lose concentration the target floats down instead of falling like with fly. That is important if you are levitating and something bad happens.

But I agree that fly is better. That is why it's blue.

[Ogre Mage]

well stinking cloud and sleet storm, for the same reasons as web. also earthquake and reverse gravity. sadly sorcerers don't get magic jar, as careful would be an amazing option for that spell :) good to remember for multiclass though i suppose.

hypnotic pattern, fear, and confusion. they don't create zones, but any time you want to use them after enemies have closed the distance to your party, there is a world of difference between careful and non-careful.

basically you're just looking for spells that have an AoE save effect that is not *half* effect on a successful save, but rather no effect. i agree that careful fireball isn't that amazing (unless everyone has evasion or equivalent). and if the only thing your sorcerer could do was fireball, careful wouldn't be that great. but careful lets you use some very powerful offensive debuffs safely and it is definitely worth it to consider adding one or two of those spells to your selections purely on the strength of careful spell.


I just wanted to mention I recently started playing a sorcerer with careful spell (the first time I have played the class in any edition) so I find this discussion very useful.

I was wondering about Quickened Spell. Conventional wisdom is that this is an essential pick and for gishes and blaster sorcerers it certainly is. But for more of a control-oriented sorcerer like myself it seems ... solid but perhaps not essential. So I didn't take it. Is there is something that I am missing?

[SharkForce]

I just wanted to mention I recently started playing a sorcerer with careful spell (the first time I have played the class in any edition) so I find this discussion very useful.

I was wondering about Quickened Spell. Conventional wisdom is that this is an essential pick and for gishes and blaster sorcerers it certainly is. But for more of a control-oriented sorcerer like myself it seems ... solid but perhaps not essential. So I didn't take it. Is there is something that I am missing?

quicken is obviously less valuable to a control sorcerer, but still has some value. for starters, being able to burst when you need to (and sometimes you will probably need to) is obviously not a bad thing, even if you don't mean for that to be your primary role. for another thing, there are a few spells that combine well with quicken because they give you a standard action that is *not* casting a spell, in particular, sunbeam gives you an AoE blind, eyebite gives you a targeted effect of your choice, investiture of ice gives you an AoE slow and a zone of difficult terrain to use with it, investiture of stone gives you an AoE prone (which combines well with careful spell again), and investiture of wind gives you an AoE push (which can also combo well with careful, depending). watery sphere also gives you a potentially useful action (depending on whether you've filled the sphere or not). there are a few others as well. the main point is that quicken prevents you from casting another spell in the same round other than a cantrip, but activating a sunbeam or moving a dust devil is *not* casting a spell. so go right ahead and quicken a spell of your choice in the same round that you activate sunbeam. or, for that matter, quicken sunbeam, and then activate it with your regular action too (nothing limits you to using it once per turn).

[EvilAnagram]

Mage hand can save you a lot of damage from traps, among other uses it may have. It is no wonder that the AT has it. That alone makes it dark blue imo, if no other party member has it ofc.
We will continue to disagree on this. I have made my feelings known.


I also think levitate should be purple at best. Given that a sorcerer has a very limited selection of spells, why should one pick levitate when he can pick fly?
To add to Ogre Mage's comments, when Levitate becomes available, you can't pick fly.


Also, I cant help but feel that invisibility should be sky blue. This spell has a unique effect and it can be a real difference maker in many situations.
It is not a unique effect. Greater Invisibility has the same effect, but much better. That's why it is blue.


Subtle spell can also account for surprise round in certain situations, but also for protection against counterspell, if I am not mistaken. If my thoughts about subtle and counterspell are correct, then it has a use no other feature I can think of has.
That is entirely up to the DM, and as such is outside the scope of this guide.



I was wondering about Quickened Spell. Conventional wisdom is that this is an essential pick and for gishes and blaster sorcerers it certainly is. But for more of a control-oriented sorcerer like myself it seems ... solid but perhaps not essential. So I didn't take it. Is there is something that I am missing?
Sharkforce nails it. Quickened spell can free up a lot of actions that are not casting a spell, and so many controller spells in the Sorcerer list rely on using an action. Quickened allows you to continue casting spells while simultaneously controlling the major effects that you've put into play.

[Tanarii]

right, but if you have time to prepare a pitched battle, you have time to prepare one with a shovel and use your cantrip slot for something that's better than occasionally preparing for a pitched battle.There is a world of difference between what you can do in 2 minutes with a shovel and two minutes with Mold earth. The latter is going to give you a 5ft deep ditch with a five foot pile of earth behind it that's 60 ft long. Or double depth/height and 30ft long. A shovel won't even give you a 5 ft pit.


Mage Hand is situational because its ability to affect the world around you in any meaningful way is incredibly limited. Your ability to pick up something from a short distance away will have very little effect on anything that happens in the game. There are certainly going to be situations in which it will be important to the way a game continues, but those are few and far between. In the average campaign, Mage hand should be the third cantrip any class with it on the class list takes, right after an attack cantrip and Minor Illusion. It's that useful to be able to pick something up from a limited distance away. Mage hand should be blue in a general guide.

I feel like you're playing 5e mostly as a series of battles, and building a sorcerer guide based on that. for example, rating message as purple (typically means low or limited situational use). The situations in which message can be useful are common enough in average campaigns that aren't heavy combat focus to rate it black. Your heavy focus on twinned spell metamagic seems to indicate the same. Rating everything that's non-combat as 'situational' also shows your game style you're writing a guide to. You implied as much in your introduction by taking about blasty with utility, but you really need to just outright state that it's a guide for making heavily combat-focused sorcerers, not a general sorcerer guide. That'll cut down on the number of counter augments you're going to get.

Edit: made my post less antagonistic, and more pointing out what I see as the source of disagreement.

[EvilAnagram]

There is a world of difference between what you can do in 2 minutes with a shovel and two minutes with Mold earth. The latter is going to give you a 5ft deep ditch with a five foot pile of earth behind it that's 60 ft long. Or double depth/height and 30ft long. A shovel won't even give you a 5 ft pit.
I'm not disputing that you can do more with Mold Earth than you can with a shovel in a time crunch, I'm disputing the notion that you will ever find yourself in a situation in which you have the forewarning to prepare for a pitched battle, no natural defenses to use to your advantage, and enough time to prepare with Mold Earth, but not enough time to grab a few shovels. Or rather, I think you might, but not more than once.


In the average campaign, Mage hand should be the third cantrip any class with it on the class list takes, right after an attack cantrip and Minor Illusion. It's that useful to be able to pick something up from a limited distance away. Mage hand should be blue in a general guide.
Why are people acting like I don't like Mage Hand? I love Mage Hand. My Transmuter uses it all the time, but it's still situational. It does not make him more effective at influencing the world around him on a regular basis. It's useful once every two or three sessions, and it's a lot of fun, but it's still only situationally useful.


I feel like you're playing 5e mostly as a series of battles, and building a sorcerer guide based on that. for example, rating message as purple (typically means low or limited situational use). The situations in which message can be useful are common enough in average campaigns that aren't heavy combat focus to rate it black. Your heavy focus on twinned spell metamagic seems to indicate the same.
Message is a perfectly good spell. I think it's black on an Arcane Trickster since you can speak to the party while you scout. It's okay for a Sorcerer, but it's not one of the standouts. Again, you're acting like purple is a bad rating. It isn't. It just means it's not going to be one of the spells you rely on regularly.


Rating everything that's non-combat as 'situational' also shows your game style you're writing a guide to.
Here are some non-combat spells I've rated, with the rating they had as of your post. I have since revised Friends and Disguise Self.

Light
Minor Illusion
Charm Person
Detect Magic
Invisibility
Misty Step
Spider Climb
Suggestion
Feather Fall
Major Image
Dimension Door
Seeming
Teleportation Circle
Arcane Gate
Mass Suggestion
Move Earth
True Seeing
Etherealness
Teleport
Gate




You implied as much in your introduction by taking about blasty with utility, but you really need to just outright state that it's a guide for making heavily combat-focused sorcerers, not a general sorcerer guide. That'll cut down on the number of counter augments you're going to get.
It's an optimization guide. Optimization guides tend to focus on combat utility. It's also a general sorcerer guide, and I purposefully included a lot of out-of-combat utility because I tend to run and play games that frequently involve out-of-combat interactions.

And I welcome counter arguments. I'm just not necessarily going to agree with their conclusions, especially when one of the bases of the argument is that a purple rating is somehow bad.

[Tanarii]

You aren't using the same standard for purple as most other guides. Purple usually means a situation that doesn't arise often. Not only good in some situations. Is a judgement on the frequency of the situation, not just that it's specific in its use to certain situations.

[EvilAnagram]

You aren't using the same standard for purple as most other guides. Purple usually means a situation that doesn't arise often. Not only good in some situations. Is a judgement on the frequency of the situation, not just that it's specific in its use to certain situations.

I think I was fairly clear in my description of how I rated purple abilities in my very first post. I could try clarifying it, but I've tried to be consistent across my guides in that purple is not a bad rating. It simply means that the spell/ability is either going to be used only occasionally, or its effects will not heavily influence your ability to affect the game.

[Tanarii]

Neither of which applies to Mage Hand or Message, unless you're playing a combat-heavy/oriented campaign or character.

What you just described is perfect for Mold Earth in its short-time-available battlefield prep role.

[EvilAnagram]

Neither of which applies to Mage Hand or Message, unless you're playing a combat-heavy/oriented campaign or character.
They fall under, "its effects will not heavily influence your ability to affect the game." Even in non-combat games, Minor Illusion and Friends will be more useful.


What you just described is perfect for Mold Earth in its short-time-available battlefield prep role.
A cantrip whose only use (which, I might add, is a combat use) might come up once in a campaign goes well beyond only being occasionally useful.

[ImperiousLeader]

A nitpick, but it's one that we Sorcerer players need to be extra cautious with:

For Pyrotechnics, you suggest a Quickened Create Bonfire with Pyrotechnics. You have to do it the other way round, a quickened spell, once cast, limits you to a Cantrip spell as your action. So, it's Action: Create Bonfire, Quickened bonus action: Pyrotechnics.

[EvilAnagram]

A nitpick, but it's one that we Sorcerer players need to be extra cautious with:

For Pyrotechnics, you suggest a Quickened Create Bonfire with Pyrotechnics. You have to do it the other way round, a quickened spell, once cast, limits you to a Cantrip spell as your action. So, it's Action: Create Bonfire, Quickened bonus action: Pyrotechnics.
I just fixed it, thanks.

[SharkForce]

just noticed something... i have to disagree with your assessment of silent image.

what can you do with it that you can't do with minor illusion?

1) combine it with minor illusion to get both sound and sight effects.
2) cover 27 times the volume
3) create an illusion of a creature
4) create an illusion of "some other visible phenomenon" (offhand, this would probably include, say, fire, which is not an object or a creature per se).
5) move the illusion.
6) use it at double the range.
7) arguably have the image move at all (minor illusion doesn't specify it can't, but silent image and major illusion both make special note of the fact that in addition to being able to move the illusion's location, you can also make the image move appropriate to the change in location, such as making a creature appear to walk).

now, there is *definitely* something to be said for the ability to use minor illusion at-will, plus the fact that minor illusion is only competing with other cantrips whereas silent image is competing with one of your extremely precious 15 spells known. not saying your rating is inherently wrong (though as with most illusions i consider it more situational on DM than what is happening in game), but it is definitely a substantial improvement on minor illusion in a variety of ways.

likewise your comments with major image. it isn't just bigger. it has better range, allows you to combine sound and image 4 times as far away as the silent image/minor illusion combo, and covers an additional two senses (fire is a lot more convincing when it looks, sounds, smells, and feels hot like fire). lastly, at higher levels you can make the image permanent and concentration-free. which means that, for example, you can expend a level 6 slot today to create an illusion of a fog cloud, introduce everyone in your party to the fake fog cloud so they can see through it, and spend your actions for the rest of your life until someone dispels the fog cloud completely to start off every battle with a 20 foot cube of fog that you can see through but your enemies can't until they get close. heck, if you're willing to spend some prep time, you can technically learn the spell at level 11, spend a few weeks of downtime stockpiling major illusions, and then swap the spell out as soon as you hit level 12 and come back for a fresh copy of the illusion if anyone actually does blow a dispel on it (of course, being able to do something is not the same as it being a good idea for you to do that something; your DM may get slightly annoyed if you actually unlearn the spell).

again, neither spell is necessarily an automatic selection for a sorcerer, or even a good selection for a sorcerer most of the time (obviously, if being an illusionist is your goal, you want them, but not necessarily for a typical adventuring sorcerer). extremely limited spells known may even keep these spells rated purple for most campaigns. but those spells are in fact quite an improvement. the only reason i wouldn't put them as dark blue is the extremely crippling spells known limitation WotC felt necessary to impose on sorcerers.

[EvilAnagram]

Snip

You make some good points. I don't think I'm going to change the ratings, but I've been clearer about their benefits and the reasoning behind their ratings. Honestly, I love illusion magic, and if Sorcerers didn't have so few spells known I would probably rate them higher.

[Corran]

It is not a unique effect. Greater Invisibility has the same effect, but much better. That's why it is blue.

This is about invisibility. I just noticed, greater invisibility has a duration of 1 minute, while invisibility has a duration of 1 hour. So while greater invisibility is better for combat purposes, invisibility is still better (and probably one of the best spells for) for sneaking purposes.

[tsotate]

It includes dirt, gravel, and loose stones.

It's still slightly more effective than a shovel.

A 5' cube of dirt weighs approximately six tons. A ton per second is a heck of a shovel.

[EvilAnagram]

A 5' cube of dirt weighs approximately six tons. A ton per second is a heck of a shovel.
"We dig a hole," doesn't take any longer to say than, "I use Move Earth," and the practical effects will rarely be any different in-game.

[SharkForce]

"We dig a hole," doesn't take any longer to say than, "I use Move Earth," and the practical effects will rarely be any different in-game.

as i've said, my experience differs greatly from yours. i've come across far more situations where i could use 2 minutes to set up than situations where i might have hours or days.

but either way, it's your guide, not mine :P

[tsotate]

It's actually become a running joke in our current campaign just how many encounters and obstacles the one caster has circumvented with Mold Earth, to the extent that the fighter is always asking "How can we solve this with Dig?"

But, like SharkForce said:



but either way, it's your guide, not mine :P

[EvilAnagram]

It's actually become a running joke in our current campaign just how many encounters and obstacles the one caster has circumvented with Mold Earth, to the extent that the fighter is always asking "How can we solve this with Dig?"

If you can give specific examples, I'll gladly change its rating.

[Shining Wrath]

I want to point out Crown of Madness lasts for concentration or until save, and you can command the victim to move after their (non) attack.

Crown of Madness saved a party once in LMoP. Orcs heard the party coming, scrum started at the mouth of the cave, and the sorcerer dropped CoM on the ogre at the back of the pack. While the cleric and paladin fought the orcs at the front of the pack, the ogre smashed orcs at the back. After 3 or 4 rounds the ogre made his save, right about the time the paladin and cleric dropped from fighting two rows of orcs with the back ones flinging javelins.

Sorcerer reapplied CoM to the ogre. The remaining 2 orcs were engaged with the monk when the ogre got one of them from behind. The other one ran, and the orc and the ogre played tag while the monk poured potions into the front-line types and got them back on their feet. When the ogre made his save he was about 150' from the party, and took significant damage from ranged weapons before melee resumed.

No CoM, TPK.

In another campaign, Cloud of Daggers saved the party. Door was opened, Gibbering Mouthers started gibbering, and the fighter and the monk! failed their saves and were standing there ineffective while the mouthers moved out of the room. CoD dropped in the doorway and the mouthers because of their general stupidity and the fact they were starving moved right into the cloud, one at a time. Remaining party members poured fire into the mouther at the front while it bit at the drooling fighter and monk.

Fighter went down; the next round the last mouther was going to move onto him and devour him, and an arrow from the ranger dropped it. No CoD, fighter at a minimum lost.

[SharkForce]

I want to point out Crown of Madness lasts for concentration or until save, and you can command the victim to move after their (non) attack.

Crown of Madness saved a party once in LMoP. Orcs heard the party coming, scrum started at the mouth of the cave, and the sorcerer dropped CoM on the ogre at the back of the pack. While the cleric and paladin fought the orcs at the front of the pack, the ogre smashed orcs at the back. After 3 or 4 rounds the ogre made his save, right about the time the paladin and cleric dropped from fighting two rows of orcs with the back ones flinging javelins.

Sorcerer reapplied CoM to the ogre. The remaining 2 orcs were engaged with the monk when the ogre got one of them from behind. The other one ran, and the orc and the ogre played tag while the monk poured potions into the front-line types and got them back on their feet. When the ogre made his save he was about 150' from the party, and took significant damage from ranged weapons before melee resumed.

No CoM, TPK.

In another campaign, Cloud of Daggers saved the party. Door was opened, Gibbering Mouthers started gibbering, and the fighter and the monk! failed their saves and were standing there ineffective while the mouthers moved out of the room. CoD dropped in the doorway and the mouthers because of their general stupidity and the fact they were starving moved right into the cloud, one at a time. Remaining party members poured fire into the mouther at the front while it bit at the drooling fighter and monk.

Fighter went down; the next round the last mouther was going to move onto him and devour him, and an arrow from the ranger dropped it. No CoD, fighter at a minimum lost.

that isn't how crown of madness works.

you don't have any control over their movement whatsoever. if you did, it would indeed make the spell a whole heck of a lot more useful, and it would be well worth blue or maybe even sky blue for a sorcerer (since you could twin it for impressive results).

the way the spell actually works would be more along the lines of the ogre simply moving away from its allies and then acting normally on each turn (perhaps making non-proficient ranged attacks with thrown rocks or something). the main difference would really be that the orcs aren't getting wrecked by the ogres tbh.

though, with ogres and orcs, there might be some ground to suggest that the orcs would take offence to being attacked and turn on the ogre. the main thing, though, is that the caster has no control whatsoever on your movement. it only allows you to force a melee attack against a target within reach.

[EvilAnagram]

snip

I'm willing to bump up Cloud of Daggers because when you can engineer a bottleneck, it really does perform fairly well. Crown of Madness, however, still seems too limited to me. Maybe getting a single attack in is pretty lame. If the orc had run toward your party instead of away the Ogre still wouldn't have been able to hit him and your back line would have been in trouble.

EDIT: To illustrate my point on CoM, you could have just used Suggestion, which also targets WIS, but doesn't involve repeated saves, and just told the ogre to crush those orcs. He could have used his full turn each round to attack the orcs, whose only recourse would have been to run away or to attack him. You wouldn't have gotten repeated saves, you wouldn't have lost his attack each turn he didn't start next to someone, and you still would have neutralized his threat. You could even have just told him to run away, and he would have. In fact, Crown of Madness is strictly inferior to Suggestion.

[Shining Wrath]

that isn't how crown of madness works.

you don't have any control over their movement whatsoever. if you did, it would indeed make the spell a whole heck of a lot more useful, and it would be well worth blue or maybe even sky blue for a sorcerer (since you could twin it for impressive results).

the way the spell actually works would be more along the lines of the ogre simply moving away from its allies and then acting normally on each turn (perhaps making non-proficient ranged attacks with thrown rocks or something). the main difference would really be that the orcs aren't getting wrecked by the ogres tbh.

though, with ogres and orcs, there might be some ground to suggest that the orcs would take offence to being attacked and turn on the ogre. the main thing, though, is that the caster has no control whatsoever on your movement. it only allows you to force a melee attack against a target within reach.

I am AFB, but my recollection (and I looked up the spell at the time!), was that the caster did get to control the movement of the target.

[EvilAnagram]

I am AFB, but my recollection (and I looked up the spell at the time!), was that the caster did get to control the movement of the target.

The spell says nothing that grants the caster control over the monster's movement, nor does the errata say anything to that effect. The creature attacks something adjacent to itself (the caster chooses what it attacks), and then it moves on its own volition. If it cannot attack when its turn starts, it acts normally during its turn.

What should have happened was the surviving orc moves away, and the ogre starts attacking the party.

[samcifer]

Please make more of these guides! :D with WotC in their infinite cheapness deciding to to delete their forums, all the handbooks now exist solely on my hard drive and only for 4e. :(

[MaxWilson]

Crown of Madness saved a party once in LMoP. Orcs heard the party coming, scrum started at the mouth of the cave, and the sorcerer dropped CoM on the ogre at the back of the pack. While the cleric and paladin fought the orcs at the front of the pack, the ogre smashed orcs at the back. After 3 or 4 rounds the ogre made his save, right about the time the paladin and cleric dropped from fighting two rows of orcs with the back ones flinging javelins.

Sorcerer reapplied CoM to the ogre. The remaining 2 orcs were engaged with the monk when the ogre got one of them from behind. The other one ran, and the orc and the ogre played tag while the monk poured potions into the front-line types and got them back on their feet. When the ogre made his save he was about 150' from the party, and took significant damage from ranged weapons before melee resumed.

No CoM, TPK.

Sounds like Web or Careful Web would have been even better.

[Ogre Mage]

Please make more of these guides! :D with WotC in their infinite cheapness deciding to to delete their forums, all the handbooks now exist solely on my hard drive and only for 4e. :(

Many have been reposted at EN World.

[MaxWilson]

I'm willing to bump up Cloud of Daggers because when you can engineer a bottleneck, it really does perform fairly well. Crown of Madness, however, still seems too limited to me. Maybe getting a single attack in is pretty lame. If the orc had run toward your party instead of away the Ogre still wouldn't have been able to hit him and your back line would have been in trouble.

EDIT: To illustrate my point on CoM, you could have just used Suggestion, which also targets WIS, but doesn't involve repeated saves, and just told the ogre to crush those orcs. He could have used his full turn each round to attack the orcs, whose only recourse would have been to run away or to attack him. You wouldn't have gotten repeated saves, you wouldn't have lost his attack each turn he didn't start next to someone, and you still would have neutralized his threat. You could even have just told him to run away, and he would have. In fact, Crown of Madness is strictly inferior to Suggestion.

Unlike Suggestion, CoM doesn't break when the target it's damaged. It also does not charm the target into not attacking you. It's good but CoM is not strictly inferior.

[EvilAnagram]

Many have been reposted at EN World.

Yeah, the useful things thread here has linked to the EN World reposts.

Edit: Not that you shouldn't read mine, of course!

[Ogre Mage]

Yeah, the useful things thread here has linked to the EN World reposts.

Edit: Not that you shouldn't read mine, of course!

Yes, this sorcerer's guide is a very good one. I recently began playing a sorcerer for the first time and both the guide and some of the thread discussion have given me good ideas.

[samcifer]

Yes, this sorcerer's guide is a very good one. I recently began playing a sorcerer for the first time and both the guide and some of the thread discussion have given me good ideas.

I love spellcasters and like the idea of the Sorcerer better than the wizard as sorcerers can use any spell and not need to have it 'prepared' ahead of time. They also seem better in combat as far as attack spells go.

[EvilAnagram]

Unlike Suggestion, CoM doesn't break when the target it's damaged. It also does not charm the target into not attacking you. It's good but CoM is not strictly inferior.

I'm sorry, I believe I missed your post earlier.

CoM does charm the target, and while it does not break when the target is damaged, it allows the target to save each round. Suggestion, on the other hand, only breaks when the conditions of your suggestion are fulfilled or a member a of your party damages the creature. If you tell an ogre to fight its orc allies, the orcs' damage won't break the spell.

This combines with all the other disappointing aspects of the spell (it requires using an action every turn to maintain it, you can't control its movement, it attacks before moving) to make it strictly inferior.

[tsotate]

I agree, and if you can think of specific examples in which a metamagic significantly alters the spell's usefulness, I would be happy to include it. I think I'll include Careful with Web, anyways.

Sure. A couple examples off the top of my head: (minor spoilers for HotDQ, because that's what we happen to be playing)


Our caravan came across a Harper agent buried up to his neck in the middle of the road. The module has it take two hours to dig him up, during which the caravan is likely attacked by bandit. Six seconds later, and we're on our way.

Later, we get to an (oddly Patrick Swayze-less) Road House, and figure out that the treasure we're trying to follow is being smuggled out through some sort of tunnel. The entrance on our end is inside a guarded and locked room. Druid goes outside, casts Locate Object to find the nearest jewelry, points, and we Mold Earth into the the tunnel.


That's ignoring all the corpses disposed of in not-at-all-shallow graves, the camps fortified in a couple of minutes, the parked enemy wagons which we made sure stayed parked until we were ready to move on, the...

[EvilAnagram]

snip

Well, that's plenty of examples. I'll change it.

[SwordChuck]

Subtle Spell should be Blue at the very least. With subtle spell you can't be counterspelled as the enemies have no clue what spell you are casting or that you are even casting spells.

So while it is niche, it has a lot of niche areas that it excels at.

Defeats silence, defeats mute (gagged etc...), defeats Being tied up, helps being sneaky, prevents counterspell, prevents others from knowing you are actively opposing them... Subtle Spell is fanfrickentastic.

Edit×××

Here is Jeremy Crawford's response to Subtle Spell versus Counterspell.

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/10/30/verbal-subtle-spell-vs-counterspell/

[Rokku]

Can we get some indications on how a melee sorcerer works? I've been hearing about it since SCAG came out but nobody's taken the time to explain it beyond "take greenflame blade".

[SharkForce]

Can we get some indications on how a melee sorcerer works? I've been hearing about it since SCAG came out but nobody's taken the time to explain it beyond "take greenflame blade".

honestly, i'm not sure i would ever make a pure sorcerer melee. i'd pair sorcerer with another class (most likely paladin).

not sure what you need beyond that. paladin 6/sorcerer 14 is i think the typical build as far as classes go, though not the only option. for example, i could also imagine starting off with some combination of sorcerer up to level 3 and tome pact warlock up to 3 for shillelagh so you don't need to have any strength at all, although possibly keep 13 strength so you have the option of bringing some paladin into the mix (for smites), probably devotion if you want to really pile everything into charisma-based melee fighting... if you can make it work fluffwise, that is.

warcaster is an exceptionally good idea so you can use booming blade for your opportunity attack. resilient con if you don't start with sorcerer, possibly heavily armoured if you do. buy as much constitution as you can get, you're going to need the hit points and the con saves are not a bad idea either.

[Corran]

Dont discount a rogue/sorcerer build. Cunning action combines well with greater invisibility and BB (and possibly with shadow sorc when that comes out), and assassinate combines well with quicken and twinned metamagic options. It can make for a good skirmisher build with good social skills and a substancial magic boost to his stealth capabilities. (That does not necessarily prevents you from adding 2 paladin levels for smite and a couple of proficiencies, although you might be stretching your character a bit too thin or too MAD for your taste.)

Imo, the problem with (multiclass) melee heavy-sorcerer builds is the sorcerer's spell list, as not many spells support that idea. For example, for spell levels greater than 4, I cannot see too much synergy, so I tend to think (at least for now), that sorcerer 7 is the ideal place to stop if you aim for a melee build. Please disprove me on this, I want to be proved wrong as I am currently working on such a build and I am stack. Also smites cap with 4th level slots. Greater invisibility is the big prize imo, as it makes it easier for the -5/+10 feats to work, and/or makes you very difficult to hit if you have access to cunning action.

Another thing of note, is that while twinned haste is one of the great tricks a sorcerer can pull, for a melee sorcerer there is a significant danger that he will lose more easily his concentration (compared to a normal sorcerer), and thus the 2 affected by haste allies will be affected by ending haste mid combat, which is very very bad. Still, it is such a good trick (twinned haste), that you will be tempted to use even as a melee sorcerer, but you run a very great risk. Mirror image or blink can help you against losing concentration on haste (via protecting you from being hit), but that does not help your action economy, unless you probably quicken one of those spell on the subsequent round of casting haste on your ally heavy hitters. A good AC and the spell shield can also help you in that respect. (And cunning action from rogue, if multiclassed, helps here too.)

[SharkForce]

the melee sorcerer doesn't need to use every single resource exclusively to melee. if they've got level 7 spell slots, there is no reason they can't use banishment on 4 enemies for their concentration and then wade into melee instead of casting damaging spells (provided, of course, they are built to survive melee). depending on build, you can fairly easily have +16 to con saves and advantage at 20th level. it is going to take one heck of an attack to knock you out of concentration at that point.

[Corran]

Since we are talking a bit about melee sorcerer builds (either pure ones or lightly multiclassed), do you think that magic initiate for armor of agathys is worth spending a feat on it? I mean, you have full caster progression, so it seems to be a very good spell for a gish with high level spell slots to have (bladesinger falls into that category too I guess). Would that make this feat sky-blue for the melee sorc?

[SharkForce]

Since we are talking a bit about melee sorcerer builds (either pure ones or lightly multiclassed), do you think that magic initiate for armor of agathys is worth spending a feat on it? I mean, you have full caster progression, so it seems to be a very good spell for a gish with high level spell slots to have (bladesinger falls into that category too I guess). Would that make this feat sky-blue for the melee sorc?

officially, you need at least one actual warlock level to make that work (otherwise you can only cast it with the magic initiate slot). if you do have a level of warlock, then yes, it is absolutely worth it to take armor of agathys... but obviously you don't need magic initiate.

[Corran]

officially, you need at least one actual warlock level to make that work (otherwise you can only cast it with the magic initiate slot). if you do have a level of warlock, then yes, it is absolutely worth it to take armor of agathys... but obviously you don't need magic initiate.
Hmmm, that makes me think that one level dip in warlock could prove very useful to a melee sorcerer, for the extra survivability it offers. Armor of agathys can act more or less like the song of defense feature of the bladesinger, considering you can quicken it during combat if things are going bad. And if what you are facing is in melee, then it is even better.

So, for heavy sorcerer melee builds (that could act as the equivalent of a bladesinger), I would see something like that: Paladin 2/ Warlock 1/ Sorcerer 17 (perhaps with favored soul origin), or
paladin 2/ Sorcerer 18 (if you really want the last feature of your sorcerous origin, but doing so you lose on armor of agathys), or
replace fighter where paladin in the above builds, or
fighter1/ warlock1/ sorcerer 18.
If you chose favored sould, then GWM pairs well with the extra attack and with haste/greater invisibility (you can twin both of those to help an ally as well). Alterntively, you can pick a shield, in which case warcaster will be very important (helps with OA as it lets you cast BB).
With all the above options, you still have access to 9th level spells, granted, your spell progression is delayed compared to a bladesinger, but between metamagic, armor of agathys and smites (possibly), you get enough tricks to compensate for that.

Another way is to throw in some rogue levels, and act like a skirmisher (your spell selection can support this concept really well). So, rogue2/ warlock 1/ sorcerer 17 still lets you have armor of agathys for extra survivability, but gives you cunning action which you can pair with BB and/or greater invisibility quite well, plus it gives you some extra utility out of combat.

Personally, my favourite atm is the ridiculous paladin2/rogue3/warlock1/sorcerer14, though this way you lose on 8th and 9th level spells (though you have 1 level 8 spell slot available to use with armor of agathys or some other spell that scales well), but I like it because of different possibilities it offers (although paladin 6/ sorcerer 14 is probably strictly better). Anyway, these are just some thoughts... (I guess what I should emphasize is that I tend to think that armor of agathys is too important for a frail melee gish, especially if you can quicken it.)

[Strill]

I strongly disagree with your assessment of Burning Hands vs Thunderwave.

Burning Hands: 6 tile area, 10.5 damage
Thunderwave: 9 tile area, 9 damage, 10' knockback

Thunderwave's damage is only a tiny bit less, but it has a significantly larger area, and a knockback effect

[PoeticDwarf]

While rating the Genasi, you said a dragonborn has +2 charisma, a dragonborn has +1 cha, not +2, that's also why I think you rated it too high.

[grimgold]

So talk me out of the ritual caster feat at 4th level, because right now it seems like a sky blue no brainer. Sorcerers have a very limited number of spells know, and ritual caster can effectively double that number. They all take 10 minutes to cast, but they are utility spells that you generally only use outside of combat anyway. You get access to spells that sorcs would never otherwise take like alarm, detect magic, identify, leomunds tiny hut, awesome spells that are simply too situational to take with a limited spell list. So far as I can tell there are no restrictions on using metamagic on rituals, since the wording of rituals is you cast the ritual as a spell, and metamagics only requirement is that you use the metamagic while casting. So you could extend rituals, twin them, and even heighten them.

The only downsides I see are the 13 int requirement, which might tough for some builds, and loosing out on +2 to your casting stat, which hurts at low levels.

[SharkForce]

So talk me out of the ritual caster feat at 4th level, because right now it seems like a sky blue no brainer. Sorcerers have a very limited number of spells know, and ritual caster can effectively double that number. They all take 10 minutes to cast, but they are utility spells that you generally only use outside of combat anyway. You get access to spells that sorcs would never otherwise take like alarm, detect magic, identify, leomunds tiny hut, awesome spells that are simply too situational to take with a limited spell list. So far as I can tell there are no restrictions on using metamagic on rituals, since the wording of rituals is you cast the ritual as a spell, and metamagics only requirement is that you use the metamagic while casting. So you could extend rituals, twin them, and even heighten them.

The only downsides I see are the 13 int requirement, which might tough for some builds, and loosing out on +2 to your casting stat, which hurts at low levels.

wisdom 13 is also an option (still allows you to choose any list), and much more useful for most builds.

the main thing with ritual caster is that you generally only need one. if you don't have one in your group, then yes, it is probably a good feat to consider.

[SwordChuck]

I strongly disagree with your assessment of Burning Hands vs Thunderwave.

Burning Hands: 6 tile area, 10.5 damage
Thunderwave: 9 tile area, 9 damage, 10' knockback

Thunderwave's damage is only a tiny bit less, but it has a significantly larger area, and a knockback effect

I think thundrwave is the better battle (for the reasons you mention plus a better damage type) choice but it makes a lot of automatic noise. I would say that they are even.

Noise can be a problem a lot of the time in the AL and home games I've played in. Not always mind you, but enough to make me think twice from using it.

×××Edit

That automatic noise can't be reduced due to subtle spell, really only the silence spell would help.

[MaxWilson]

Noise can be a problem a lot of the time in the AL and home games I've played in. Not always mind you, but enough to make me think twice from using it.

I view the noise as a potential positive. If your DM makes monsters always "charge towards the sound of the guns", e.g. exit their defensive terrain and come investigate, then Thunderclap plus some foresight gives you an easy way to draw them out to investigate. Then you kill them from ambush, bury their bodies, and cast a Seeming spell to take their places and re-enter the enemy stronghold. (Or whatever the next phase of your plan is.)

Without a good way to attract attention, you're left instead with your Camouflaged ranger and a bunch of other guys under Pass Without Trace, just waiting around, in the round, hoping that a hostile will eventually come out where you can ambush him.

It depends very much on circumstances under which you are fighting, but the ability to draw an enemy out onto prepared terrain is not to be underestimated--and if the enemy doesn't come out to investigate, then the noise was merely irrelevant.

Obviously if you're sneaking around though you're not going to do this, because in that situation the noise is a negative.

TL;DR being undetected is not the only way to deceive the enemy. Sometimes you want to make noise.

[Dalebert]

Subtle Spell should be Blue at the very least. With subtle spell you can't be counterspelled as the enemies have no clue what spell you are casting or that you are even casting spells.
...
Defeats silence, defeats mute (gagged etc...), defeats Being tied up, helps being sneaky, prevents counterspell, prevents others from knowing you are actively opposing them... Subtle Spell is fanfrickentastic.


I started a thread about how awesome Subtle Spell is (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?472166-Subtle-Spell-is-under-rated). I can't wait to try this diversionary tactic--

Talk to allies ahead of time to set this up. You shout a command to the tank to cast something with concentration on someone, e.g. Polymorph. You intend for enemies to overhear this command but it's also his que. Then you ready an action to cast that spell with Subtle Spell. When his turn comes around, he says a magicky-sounding word and gestures at someone (maybe you) which triggers your casting. Now they're reasonably convinced he cast the spell and are attacking the tank trying to break concentration!

[SharkForce]

sometimes I wish people would just remove the "situational" from the regular colour ranking order and put it in as a separate listing. "situational" is not bad. it is situational. it can be the best thing ever in that situation (which subtle spell often is), but that doesn't make it any less situational.

subtle spell is properly rated as "situational". it's a strong choice when it is useful. but you aren't going to want it all the time. in fact, apart from very specific builds, you are only going to use it quite infrequently.

[Dalebert]

I don't know. Casting powerful concentration spells and convincing enemies that someone else is the caster seems like something that could come up a lot. To an extent, everything is situational. You'll only need Quicken when every moment counts. You'll only need twinned if there is more than one enemy. More situations? Maybe.

[talexsmith]

Saw a few people asking for examples on a melee Sorcerer in this post and others, so going to piggyback on here if that's all right with OP. I don't claim this as the best build, nor do I do formatting very well, but here's what I came up with in the last day or so, and will be playing for the first time in about a month.

Full caveat, there could be something I'm missing that prevents this from working at all.

It actually seems surprisingly fun, with some pretty cool combos. I wouldn't use this as the end all be all, but rather as a starting point. I'm not much of min/maxer but I do tend towards optimization and synergy. One thing to note is that I don't particularly care about capstone abilities. I doubt I'll ever play a campaign past early to mid teens, so when looking at classes I ignore anything past that point.

I would note that the biggest drawback in my opinion, outside of spells known, is how few Spell Points you end up with, and how restrained you feel in using your class features due to the limited pool. Because the riders on the SCAG Cantrips are a lot better than we usually see, you can exert a lot of control through basic cantrips, and since twinning cantrips only costs 1 SP, you actually get a lot of bang for your buck. Melee cantrips also deal a bit more damage than ranged (1d10 [5.5avg] vs. 1d8+3 [7.5avg + rider], which helps a Quickened cantrip not feel like such a waste.

What you are, and what you aren't
What a melee Sorcerer is not is someone who is burning Spell Slots to do massive damage. WotC has done an excellent job of keeping that role restrained to Paladins, and honestly it's a good thing. All the gish builds seem to play a bit differently, with the most similarities being between the Sorcerer and Bladesinger, so let's compare those two mostly.

The Bladesinger gets very little to the class that isn't defensive until 14 Wizard (which is a long way to go to add Int to melee attacks). Additionally, a lot of time people gloss over that Bladesingers only get to Bladesing twice per short rest. It seems a lot of DMs give out ample short rests, but going by the suggested encounters in the DMG, there should be times the Bladesinger is without their boosted AC. Outside of that, non-multiclassed Bladesinger suffers from low hp and low nova capabilities, and don't have Wild Surges, Draconic Resilience, or Heart of the Storm to augment themselves passively. They also have no way of casting and attacking in the same round (outside of Haste's free attack, I suppose).

There's a lot of flexibility with what you can do with Sorcerer simply because there's no real limitations on abilities outside of Twin, and you're only setting yourself back one caster level to gain the proficiencies and fighting style you need. Want more offensive? Swap Dex and Str, put on some Full Plate, drop Dueling and take GWF. You're at 20 AC hasted with the ability to Twin Booming Blade, Quicken GFB, and get a free attack from Haste. At 1F/5S, that's 6d6+12+1d8 Thunder+1d8 Fire (42) to one target, and 2d6+4+3+ 1d8 Thunder (18.5) to an adjacent, and they both have the 2d8 Thunder rider if they move (47.5 and 24)...at character level 6, without mathing out GWF. That's 3 SP and a 3rd level spell. If you twinned Haste you're out of SP...or you can convert your other slots for 10 more SPs (after all, you have 20 AC, what do you need Shield and Mirror Image for?). You're not a Paladin, but it's not bad nova considering you're still holding on to most of your spells.

The build I have below plays out more like a melee controller, but the point is the Sorcerer class features to attack multiple times a round go a long way when you have cantrips with good riders and can apply your ability mods.

My starting point
Start fighter for max d10 hp and proficiencies, still get Con save, no real downsides.

Wild Mage
I'm a big fan. All the negatives turn positives, the less useful positives become incredible, and the incredible positives lose their limiting factors (4d10 on 3 creatures 30' from you...not great when you're 40' from the action, but great in melee). Tides of Chaos is incredible as always, Bend Luck is incredible as always, Controlled Chaos let's you fish for those 1d10 Necrotic bursts and 4d10 lightning strikes. Spell Bombardment isn't great, but who actually plays high level campaigns?

Draconic
Lots to be happy for here, but you can't go Thunder. Tough turns your d6 to a d10, and Draconic Resilience turns your d10 to a d12. 13 base AC is pretty nice, though later on it's really just saving you 1 spell slot per long rest (hey, it's another Shield at least). Elemental Affinity can be pretty hard to proc, since you'll be wanting to use Booming Blade (which is Thunder) or Green-Flame Blade, which you can't Twin and won't deal Fire damage until character 5.

Storm Sorcerer
Nice little package, albeit slightly overrated because the 14th and 18th. Tempestuous Magic adds mobility and keeps you from being Grappled (one of your biggest weaknesses), making Misty Step pretty much unnecessary. Heart of the Storm is pretty freaking great; resistance is never bad and you can get easy procs on the Lightning/Thunder damage from Chromatic Orb (1 sp Twin for 3d8/3d8, + 10' AoE of 3+ damage) and Thunderwaves, though after that Thunder/Lightning gets a little rare. Storm's Fury is just about perfect, as you're already in a position to bait those Opportunity Attacks, and can even want to get hit. Wind Soul is utter insanity.

Favored Soul
It's actually...not that great. I know I know, but hear me out. Sure, you could skip Fighter 1, but you lose out on 4 hp, Heavy Armor Proficiency, Second Wind, a future second level in to Fighter for Action Surge, and by far most importantly Martial Weapon Proficiencies, trading a d8 Rapier for a d4 Dagger. You could go Str over Dex and use a Spear or something, but your AC will cap at out at 15 + dex (probably 0, otherwise you risk MAD), so 17 with a shield, and only 16 until you can afford Half Plate.

So we still need Fighter. But what about the Favored Soul features that don't overlap with Fighter? Chosen of the Gods is pretty fantastic, and honestly might be worth the whole class, but if the class ever goes Official, I fully expect it to get the Storm Sorcerer treatment and have the spells stripped. If your DM allows it, War gets you Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, and Flame Strike. Pretty great, but after that you get...a Second Attack that's not terrible but far from necessary, Divine Wings you could've gotten from Draconic, and Power of the Chosen for a few hp per Domain Spell you cast.

A word on the Second Attack. Let's assume we're 1 Fighter / 8 Sorcerer. We bumped Dex to 20 with our ASIs and we use Booming Blade as our Cantrip, ignoring the rider for the moment.

Favored Soul is:

Attack Action: 2d8+14
Quickened Booming Blade: 1d8+7+1d8 Thunder
Average: 39


Other Sorcerers:

Booming Blade: 1d8+7+1d8 Thunder
Quickened Booming Blade: 1d8+7+1d8 Thunder
Average: 32


At 11, our averages change to 43.5 and 41. Change it to GFB and you end up with more damage to the adjacent target with the double Cantrip. Hell, ignoring the adjacent target and going with Draconic (Fire), you end up with 39 and 38 average at 1F/8S.

My point isn't that Second Attack is bad, but the part of FS that's broken all to hell is Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians, which again I highly doubt will ever make it live if the class does go Official (though I realize it's not really a Favored Soul at that point). If you're wanting to play Favored Soul, just make sure you get your mileage out of it.

Anyways, here's the actual build at level 4, the first level you get Metamagic:

Fighter 1 / Sorcerer 3 (Wild Mage)
Variant Human (Tough at 1st level, turns your d6 in to a d10, War Caster can be good for really holding on to that Concentration spell)

8 Strength
16 Dex
14 Con
10 Int (RP reason)
8 Wis (RP reason)
16 Cha

AC: 18 (Scale mail, shield) - Can bump up to 20 at 20 dex with Mage Armor/Draconic Resilience; or 19 with Half Plate or Studded Armor + 20 dex.
HP: 38 - 10 from fighter, 12 from sorcerer, 8 from con, 8 from Tough feat (Draconic Resilience turns it to 41, swapping Con and Cha gives you 44)

Fighting Style: Dueling
Without multiple attacks, +2 damage isn't much, but Quickened and Twinned will get you decent mileage. Only other viable choice is Defense, but your AC is pretty high as is. Still, 21 AC with Mage/Draconic Resilience and 20 dex is sick, and you only give up 2-6 damage a round. And you can do it more than twice a short rest (looking at you Bladesingers)

Quickened Spell
Flat sorcery point cost is always nice. Melee cantrips hit harder than ranged, and have much better riders, so Quickening cantrips is even better for melee.

Twinned Spell
Just a no brainer really. Can't twin GFB, but you can twin Lightning Lure and Booming Blade. Twin LL to pull 'em in, then Quicken GFB for some decent damage or BB to lock 'em down. Hell, you can Twin LL to pull two in and Quicken a Cloud of Daggers on both of them (Crawford tweeted about putting 5' cube spells on two squares at the beginning of December, but I can't link until 10 posts). Even just Twinning a Booming Blade in melee gets you a pretty gnarly attack for 1 sorcery point.

We still keep all our typical tricks, as well. Obviously you're a little more vulnerable, but 18 AC, with potentially +5 AC from Shield, makes it hard to be hit. Even through that, you'll have a +4 to Concentration saves. Eventually you'll probably want to pick up War Caster, but I'm going to go against the grain and say twinning Haste etc isn't always the best idea. It's a fantastic buff (not just for the damage, but the +2 AC and advantage on Dex saves is amazing as well), and as unlikely as it is with 20-22 AC (+2 from Haste) to be hit much, you'll still have to worry about the occasional Fireball or Dispel magic. Worth saving it for a fight you know you'll get your money's worth, and using Mirror Image afterwards as a buffer. Enhance Ability (Grapplers, Assassin Rogues, also potentially lasts several fights and saves SPs), Enlarge/Reduce (Grapplers, Monks), Stoneskin, Polymorph, etc. are all strong competitors against Haste in certain party set ups.

Wild Magic
All the positives, and those negative rolls suddenly become better than the positive ones. If you're not a fan of Wild Magic, I'm not going to be able to convince you otherwise, but you've taken your biggest weakness (and balancing factor) and turned it in to a major advantage.

Tides of Chaos
Advantage on Attack, Save, or Ability check at your whim. Hopefully your DM is generous with returning it to you.

Spells
These are all personal choices here, and I'm still not locked down on them. Until level 3 spells, you're going to be better off using slots for Defensive buffs or the occasional AoE burst. Many of the spells that were previously unthinkable suddenly become pretty damn good.

Cantrips
Booming Blade - Weapon attack, if they move take 1d8 Thunder. Gets a d8 Thunder attached to the main attack, and another d8 on the rider. Pretty nice lockdown, and twinned gives you a lot of control.
Create Bonfire [c] - See the tweet above. 1d8 on a Dex save. It's a bit convoluted, but Create Bonfire and Twin BB can potential pump out 2d8+8 +1d8 to two targets a round for 1sp. Also your ranged option until later. Honestly I'd probably drop it for something like Ray of Frost to help you close, or even an RP cantrip, but I thought I'd list it here as an example.
Green-Flame Blade - A little overrated tbh, but it's a nice AoE Cantrip. Not eligible for Twinning per Crawford.
Lightning Lure - 15' range, Str save or be pulled 10', then takes 1d8 lightning if it ends up adjacent to you. Strength save hurts it but it's Twinnable and gives you a pretty nice Scorpion pull.

First Level Spells
Burning Hands - Usually a bleh spell, and not totally sold on it myself, but you need something to reset your Tides (or proc EA), and this gives you AoE that you don't cover
Shield - You should probably just never not have this spell honestly

Second Level Spells
Mirror Image - No concentration, your duplicates will have a decent AC from your dex, and they can only be dropped by single target spells. This will probably stay good your entire career.
Pyrotechnics - This is your control. Cast Create Bonfire in the back lines and Quicken a Pyrotechnics for an AoE blind.


That's basically the gist. Your single target isn't Paladin-esque, but it's actually pretty respectable for such low levels. Continue picking up AoE damage spells, in part because most non-Arcane classes suck at it, but also because you can use LL to position. Casting in melee in 5E is a helluva lot more generous than previous editions, to the point if you aren't actually targeting someone, there is no detriment (assuming they don't have Mage Slayer).

Melee Sorcerer seems to fill an interesting niche where they want to constantly be fighting adjacent enemies, to make use of a regular GFB or a Twinned BB. It's a neat, inexpensive playstyle and still allows you nearly full casting progression.

[MaxWilson]

The Bladesinger gets very little to the class that isn't defensive until 14 Wizard (which is a long way to go to add Int to melee attacks). Additionally, a lot of time people gloss over that Bladesingers only get to Bladesing twice per short rest. It seems a lot of DMs give out ample short rests, but going by the suggested encounters in the DMG, there should be times the Bladesinger is without their boosted AC.

How do you figure that? The DMG guidelines would generally result in 5-6 Medium encounters per long rest (depending on how close to Hard they are), and with 2 short rests and a long rest you'll have 6 Bladesongs per day.

For example, daily budget for a 7th level character is 5000 XP worth of difficulty, and a Medium combat ranges from 750 to 1100 XP, averaging 925, so you'd have 5.4 Medium encounters before hitting the daily XP budget. Less if your DM uses Hard or Deadly encounters--3.6 Hard, or between 1 and 2.94 Deadly encounters.

So by DMG rules you can have Bladesong in every non-Easy combat of every day. It really does seem intended to be fairly ubiquitous.

(Note: I'm not claiming that you will have two short rests and a long rest every day, but we're talking DMG guidelines here...)

[Oramac]

Cleric: a couple domains offer enough ancillary benefits that one level might be worth taking, but be sure to pick as few spells that rely on WIS as possible. And why do you have a 13 WIS?

I just want to say, I think you've severely undervalued Cleric as a multiclass option. Specifically, the Tempest Cleric when combined with the Storm Sorcerer.

I'm currently playing a 2 Tempest / 4 Storm character in AL, and quite literally one-shot the BBEG in last nights game. How? The Tempest Cleric's Channel Divinity: Destructive Wrath.

The BBEG was an Mind Flayer. I cast Chromatic Orb at him out of a 3rd level slot, rolled a Nat 20, and used Destructive Wrath to maximize it for 80 Lightning damage.

The Mind Flayer only has 71 hit points.

Fight over.

[EvilAnagram]

I just want to say, I think you've severely undervalued Cleric as a multiclass option. Specifically, the Tempest Cleric when combined with the Storm Sorcerer.

I would argue that you are severely undervaluing the purple rating.

Purple does not mean, "slightly better than red." A purple designation indicates that a choice is not going to be widely applicable to many situations. That build, for example, is very specific. Tempest Cleric levels are only really useful if you happen to specialize in lightning and thunder damage anyways. Otherwise, it's not worth the opportunity cost in delaying your spell progression. Certain domains are useful for certain builds, but a black rating would indicate solid synergy across a wide variety of builds.

Purple is not a bad designation, so no, I am not undervaluing it. Cleric builds are simply not always a good idea, even if sometimes they are a fantastic idea.

[SharkForce]

i'm starting to feel that the rating system might benefit from explicitly placing the "good in the right situation" colour in a completely distinct location.

so for example, you might list sky blue, blue, black, and red (or whichever) all one after the other, then make it absolutely clear that purple is not in that hierarchy at all by spacing it away from the rest of the colours. it might just improve clarity if you demonstrate clearly that it is not a hierarchical ranking of the ability (or whatever) in the same sense that the other colours are; sky blue is better than blue is better than black is better than red, and purple is either (sky) blue or red depending on the situation.

[Oramac]

I would argue that you are severely undervaluing the purple rating.

Purple does not mean, "slightly better than red." A purple designation indicates that a choice is not going to be widely applicable to many situations. That build, for example, is very specific. Tempest Cleric levels are only really useful if you happen to specialize in lightning and thunder damage anyways. Otherwise, it's not worth the opportunity cost in delaying your spell progression. Certain domains are useful for certain builds, but a black rating would indicate solid synergy across a wide variety of builds.

Purple is not a bad designation, so no, I am not undervaluing it. Cleric builds are simply not always a good idea, even if sometimes they are a fantastic idea.

Ahh! Ok, that makes sense. Forgive me.


i'm starting to feel that the rating system might benefit from explicitly placing the "good in the right situation" colour in a completely distinct location.

so for example, you might list sky blue, blue, black, and red (or whichever) all one after the other, then make it absolutely clear that purple is not in that hierarchy at all by spacing it away from the rest of the colours. it might just improve clarity if you demonstrate clearly that it is not a hierarchical ranking of the ability (or whatever) in the same sense that the other colours are; sky blue is better than blue is better than black is better than red, and purple is either (sky) blue or red depending on the situation.

I'll agree with this.

[EvilAnagram]

i'm starting to feel that the rating system might benefit from explicitly placing the "good in the right situation" colour in a completely distinct location.

so for example, you might list sky blue, blue, black, and red (or whichever) all one after the other, then make it absolutely clear that purple is not in that hierarchy at all by spacing it away from the rest of the colours. it might just improve clarity if you demonstrate clearly that it is not a hierarchical ranking of the ability (or whatever) in the same sense that the other colours are; sky blue is better than blue is better than black is better than red, and purple is either (sky) blue or red depending on the situation.

An excellent idea.

Edit: I've employed this suggestion in all of my guides. Hopefully it will cut down on purple complaints.

[Mervold]

Booming Blade (SCAG): If you have a decent melee, this is a perfect cantrip for you. Quicken and Twin, and the way it combines with other spells make this pure awesome.I do not understand all the love this one gets. If the target does not move (and why would it, a big juicy low HP target is within hitting reach) it is only 3d8 extra damage. Ok, it can be Quickened, but you still have to spend on a good physical stat. I can see someone multiclassing into a few levels of Sorcerer for this, but a full caster should be able to do better.


Green-Flame Blade(SCAG): Similar to Booming Blade, but works with Draconic Sorcerers and can't be Twinned.The spell has a target, and another creature. I think it can be Twinned.


Sleep: I love this spell. No save, and it puts enemies down faster than anything else.This gets obsolete pretty fast.


Maximillian's Earthen Grasp (EE): Bigby's little brother. The damage is okay, and it keeps your enemy in check. (Concentration)I think this spell is very underrated. Subsequent escape attempts are checks, not saves, in this regard this is way more powerful than Blindness or Hold Person. More important, you can grab another target once the previous one is properly executed by your comrades. This is something very few other spells can do.


Hypnotic Pattern: Incapacitate a large number of enemies, completely changing the battlefield. One of very few save-or-suck spells in this edition.I think this one is Sky Blue for a Bard, but only because of the Insturments, but in the hands of a Sorcerer it is significantly weaker.

[EvilAnagram]

I do not understand all the love this one gets. If the target does not move (and why would it, a big juicy low HP target is within hitting reach) it is only 3d8 extra damage. Ok, it can be Quickened, but you still have to spend on a good physical stat. I can see someone multiclassing into a few levels of Sorcerer for this, but a full caster should be able to do better.
It's excellent for melee builds, which are perfectly viable. It's also excellent for creating lose-lose situations with quicken. Stay in the Cloud of Daggers or move and take damage. Take another Witch Bolt damage or move and take damage. It can allow you to lock down foes in melee without using a reaction. It's melee damage and control, which is great for any melee build.


The spell has a target, and another creature. I think it can be Twinned.
I would personally say that GFB has two targets, one of whom is the primary target, and from what I can tell the community agrees. Any DM is free to okay it, of course.


This gets obsolete pretty fast.
Yeah, it's low-level broken, but useless by mid levels. I'll update this.


I think this spell is very underrated. Subsequent escape attempts are checks, not saves, in this regard this is way more powerful than Blindness or Hold Person. More important, you can grab another target once the previous one is properly executed by your comrades. This is something very few other spells can do.
True, but in practice it has its downsides. Namely, its damage is well behind other spells of its level, and it targets the strongest abilities of quite a lot of MM creatures. These reduce its effectiveness.

That said, I think you make good points, so it could stand to be blue.


I think this one is Sky Blue for a Bard, but only because of the Insturments, but in the hands of a Sorcerer it is significantly weaker.
Sure, a Bard's instruments make a charm spell more powerful, but it's still ridiculously good at action denial for Sorcerers.

[SharkForce]

hypnotic pattern is crazygonuts with an instrument of the bards. it is still great for anyone else that can cast it; it hits a good-sized area, and even if enemies make the save half the time you'll either disable about half the enemies for multiple rounds, or most/all of the enemies for one round while they wake up their companions. it doesn't need to work on every single enemy to be worthwhile.

[Mervold]

[ Maximillian's Earthen Grasp ]True, but in practice it has its downsides. Namely, its damage is well behind other spells of its level, and it targets the strongest abilities of quite a lot of MM creatures. These reduce its effectiveness.

That said, I think you make good points, so it could stand to be blue.Hold Person and Blindness do no damage either, but when their target dies, those spells are finished. Not this one. The damage is just (a very small bit of) gravy. :smallsmile:

[SharkForce]

Hold Person and Blindness do no damage either, but when their target dies, those spells are finished. Not this one. The damage is just (a very small bit of) gravy. :smallsmile:

hold person does a lot more to help that target on the way to dying, and blindness doesn't cost concentration.

[Mervold]

hold person does a lot more to help that target on the way to dying, and blindness doesn't cost concentration.I agree, every one of them has unique strength and limitations, I usually cite these 3 as the perfect example of balance in DnD5.

All of them is level 2.

Hold Person:

gives you crits
stops movement
can be upcast for more targets
only usable on a very limited number of creatures (an Azer is humanoid if you look at the dictionary definition, but not in DnD5)
stops if the target saves, which they can try every turn
stops if the target is dead
requires concentration

Blindness:

no crits
victim can run away
can be upcast for more targets
usable on almost everyone, blindsight/tremorsense is very rare
stops if the target saves, which they can try every turn
stops if the target is dead
no concentration

Maximillian's:

no crits
stops movement
cannot be upcast for more targets
usable on almost everyone, avoid giants
stops if the target manages a check, which they can try every turn, but no one is proficient with checks, and it takes an action
you can retry, if the target got out, or died
requires concentration
does some damage


I usually suggest taking Blindenss first, concentrationless advantage is rare and precious. Hold Person is the one that is left behind most often, you usually know if you go against undead/fiends/dragons/etc. that day, and you just dont prepare it.
A spell that would do all of the good parts combined is easily worth 7th level, probably even 8th.

(can I crate tables here?)

[SharkForce]

I agree, every one of them has unique strength and limitations, I usually cite these 3 as the perfect example of balance in DnD5.

All of them is level 2.

Hold Person:

gives you crits
stops movement
can be upcast for more targets
only usable on a very limited number of creatures (an Azer is humanoid if you look at the dictionary definition, but not in DnD5)
stops if the target saves, which they can try every turn
stops if the target is dead
requires concentration

Blindness:

no crits
victim can run away
can be upcast for more targets
usable on almost everyone, blindsight/tremorsense is very rare
stops if the target saves, which they can try every turn
stops if the target is dead
no concentration

Maximillian's:

no crits
stops movement
cannot be upcast for more targets
usable on almost everyone, avoid giants
stops if the target manages a check, which they can try every turn, but no one is proficient with checks, and it takes an action
you can retry, if the target got out, or died
requires concentration
does some damage


I usually suggest taking Blindenss first, concentrationless advantage is rare and precious. Hold Person is the one that is left behind most often, you usually know if you go against undead/fiends/dragons/etc. that day, and you just dont prepare it.
A spell that would do all of the good parts combined is easily worth 7th level, probably even 8th.

(can I crate tables here?)

this is a sorcerer guide. you don't leave things behind on a daily basis. you pick it when you level up, and you have it until the next level or longer. also because this is a sorcerer guide, blowing 3 spell choices (1/5 of what the most powerful sorcerers get) on basically the same role is probably not an option.

if this was a wizard guide, then sure, all three of those spells have value because you can switch to what you need at any given time. but when you only get 15 spells at most, you have to be extremely picky about what you're taking. there's no way this rates higher than blue, and honestly, because of the severe limitations on sorcerer spells known, i'm not sure i agree with blue (the enemies it is most likely to work on due to low strength are more likely to attack through saving throws rather than attack rolls, which really lowers value).

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Careful Spell: A useful way to make AoEs more friendly to the party. A few spells, such as Web, will leave your enemies restrained as your allies lay down a beating with wild abandon. Most control spells will leave you completely unaffected, though damage AoEs like Fireball will simply deal half damage to your allies.
Distant Spell: It rare that the ability to attack at distance will matter overmuch, though the benefits will be quite useful on occasion. It's certainly nice for those spells with limited range. Witch Bolt, Poison Spray, and even Inisibility can benefit from this in the thick of battle.
Empowered Spell: Dealing more damage is always a good thing.
Extended Spell: This is a decent use of Metamagic that works especially well outside of combat. Charm and Invisibility are solid examples of spells that do exceptionally well with this.
Heightened Spell: Disadvantage is extremely useful when you're casting save spells, and when a spell is save-or-suck and you really want it to go off, this is definitely the metamagic to use. Banishment, Suggestion, and the Hold- and Dominate- lines of spells all work well with this.
Quickened Spell: Blasters can obviously make use of casting twice a round. More damage means more damage. Controllers can also benefit from Quickening, however. Many spells that offer battlefield control include the ability to use an action to do something on your turn. Watery Sphere, for example, lets you use an action to move the sphere. Sunburst, Eyebite, and the Investitures also provide action-based abilities, and Quicken will allow you to cast a spell during those turns.
Subtle Spell: It provides situational advantages that allow you to cast when you are Silenced or when being caught casting would be detrimental to your plans.
Twinned Spell: Double the number of creatures you affect with a spell. This is solid for damage dealers, but it's also an excellent choice for controllers with the Hold- and Dominate- lines of spells, or even Suggestion before Mass Suggestion comes into play.



Ok, first I wanted to say thank you for giving love to metamagics. So many people think that a majority of metamagics are bad options. Like the only decent or good option is Twin or Quicken.

Carefull Spell should be noted to just not use it on damaging spells. The sorcerer has enough options at single or multiple target spells that aren't AoE that relying on damaging your allies is just... Not a good idea (though Careful + Evasion is great). Why fireball when you can use scorching ray or magic missile?

Distant Spell... The spells you chose to put as examples are horrible spells to use distance spell on. Witch Bolt and Poison Spray aren't really worth the metamgic effect. I would go with an example of Ray of Frost (decent damage but good speed reducer), Charm Person (30' is typically within one movement... Screw that if the spell fails), and then keep invisibility in there.

Empowering Spell, you might want to put a note that this might be essentially useless if you have a damage focused party. Might as well just stick with your normal damage or twin/quicken cantrips.

Subtle Spell should be blue or light blue. Subtle Spell prevents counter-spelling. That right there makes it Royal Blue, add in the roleplaying factors (blaming others for casting, not being seen casting at all, winning over a crowd) I would say it might even be the Light Blue you have going on.

Everything else looked spot on :)

Edit

I would like to say that I'm a huge sorcerer fan in this edition and create mine with the idea of a SWAT member.

[EvilAnagram]

Ok, first I wanted to say thank you for giving love to metamagics. So many people think that a majority of metamagics are bad options. Like the only decent or good option is Twin or Quicken.
And I'd like to thank you for your input.


Carefull Spell should be noted to just not use it on damaging spells. The sorcerer has enough options at single or multiple target spells that aren't AoE that relying on damaging your allies is just... Not a good idea (though Careful + Evasion is great). Why fireball when you can use scorching ray or magic missile?
I already mentioned Web as an example of a solid non-damaging AoE.


Distant Spell... The spells you chose to put as examples are horrible spells to use distance spell on. Witch Bolt and Poison Spray aren't really worth the metamgic effect. I would go with an example of Ray of Frost (decent damage but good speed reducer), Charm Person (30' is typically within one movement... Screw that if the spell fails), and then keep invisibility in there.
I think Charm is a great example, but I wanted to show how certain spells can be useful when they're no longer limited by range. Ray of Frost, for example, is rarely hampered by range, so it's not a big selling point in favor of this option. Poison Spray would actually be a decent cantrip with any range to it.


Empowering Spell, you might want to put a note that this might be essentially useless if you have a damage focused party. Might as well just stick with your normal damage or twin/quicken cantrips.
I'm leaving party optimization up to the individual. I encourage players to play around with their selections and figure out what works best with regards to party dynamics.


Subtle Spell should be blue or light blue. Subtle Spell prevents counter-spelling. That right there makes it Royal Blue, add in the roleplaying factors (blaming others for casting, not being seen casting at all, winning over a crowd) I would say it might even be the Light Blue you have going on.
The Counterspell thing is very DM specific, and even if it weren't I wouldn't think much of that benefit because so few enemies will have Counterspell.


I would like to say that I'm a huge sorcerer fan in this edition and create mine with the idea of a SWAT member.
Awesome! Hope you have fun!

[Mervold]

this is a sorcerer guide. you don't leave things behind on a daily basis. you pick it when you level up, and you have it until the next level or longer. also because this is a sorcerer guide, blowing 3 spell choices (1/5 of what the most powerful sorcerers get) on basically the same role is probably not an option.

if this was a wizard guide, then sure, all three of those spells have value because you can switch to what you need at any given time. but when you only get 15 spells at most, you have to be extremely picky about what you're taking. there's no way this rates higher than blue, and honestly, because of the severe limitations on sorcerer spells known, i'm not sure i agree with blue (the enemies it is most likely to work on due to low strength are more likely to attack through saving throws rather than attack rolls, which really lowers value).You are right with the first part, a Sorcerer can not afford to learn all 3.
But I think Hold Person is the most campaign-dependent. If you do dungeon crawl, it is close to useless. So I usually keep MEG until Evard's Black Tentacles arrive, those are superior in every regard, except being party unfriendly.

Off-topic:Could you please use Capital letter at the beginning of the sentences, it help readability a lot.

[SharkForce]

blindness/deafness is hilariously strong for shutting down the most annoying abilities though (you'd be surprised how many things work on targets that you can see).

and as an added advantage, blindness/deafness can scale up with spell slot or twin metamagic (only as a level 2 slot obviously), whereas... well, let's just say that there's been some lively discussion as to whether MEG can be twinned, and it definitely doesn't scale with spell slot.

I dunno, I feel like MEG just doesn't have much going for it. if you could create two hands with a level 3 slot, 3 with a level 4, etc, I'd say it would be quite worthwhile.

(as to capitals, probably not I'm afraid. it's nothing personal, I'm just not in the habit of doing it, so it would take a conscious effort constantly, which I'm not particularly inclined to do for one person. sorry, that's just how it is).

[Specter]

I'm no expert on sorcerers, but the races are a bit confusing. You say Mountain Dwarf is a good race for melee, but Half-orc is 'very bad'. Why is that?

Also, the PHB Tiefling is great, and the Winged Variant is even better, not worse. You trade some average spells (most of them already on the Sorcerer's list iirc) for the opportunity to never worry about melee again, and well, flying! I'd say it's mandatory if DM allows it.

[Polarthief]

I'm no expert on sorcerers, but the races are a bit confusing. You say Mountain Dwarf is a good race for melee, but Half-orc is 'very bad'. Why is that?

Mtn Dwarf gives you a fair bit of benefits. By no means is it amazing (can't get 16 Cha unless DM unlocks 15 cap on point buy/you roll for stats), but first it gives you an extra Con (2 Con 2 Str) over Half-Orc (1 Con 2 Str). It also gives you Light and Medium armor proficiencies on a class that has no Armor Proficiency, which is amazing (unless you plan to roll Draconic or Favored Soul, in which case it's a terrible pick). You also have Adv on Poison saves and resistance against Poison damage, some martial weapon proficiencies (huge if you're not MCing and have a decent Str), and a few other things. Half-Orcs have some benefits: bonus damage on critical melee hits, a decent skill that uses your Cha, and a 1/day "revive" if you would drop to 0 HP, but I'd argue the armor is better than all that.

Again though, Draconic Sorcs won't gain much from the medium armor (13+Dex instead of ~14+Dex [Max 2] or 15+Dex [Max 2} with Stealth Disadvantage), and Favored Souls get all Cleric armor proficencies (Medium + Shields). If you go Wild Magic or Storm, Mountain Dwarf is by no means a bad pick, it's just less Cha for a lot more permanent survivability (esp if you have 1-2 Dex and no more). If you're trying to be optimized though, one level in Fighter would give you even Heavy Armor prof + shields (neither of which Mtn Dwarf gives you) and you could roll with a +Cha race, giving you your sweet, sweet, +3 to start. Not to mention you could even dump Str entirely, though it'd probably be a lot smarter to go Hill Dwarf if you intend to go Str-less Heavy armor (Dwarves remove the Str requirement to not lose speed).

That said, I'd put Mountain Dwarf at Purple overall. Black for Wild Magic/Storm, Red for Draconic/Favored Soul, and also Red if you MC or obtain at least Medium armor proficiency from any other methods (feats, homebrew, multiclassing, etc). Half-Orc is just red for all of them.

If you like some melee as a Sorc, you might want to consider MCing 3 levels into Warlock. Pick up Pact of the Tome, grab Shillelagh (and a few other cantrips), now all your weapon attacks roll 1d8 with Cha instead of Str/Dex. Otherwise, you kinda need to commit fully building around melee and I don't know how well that would work vs other casters like Wizards or Warlocks. You could do it, but eh. It's just not worth gishing as much. That's just my 2cp though.

[Garresh]

I have to say I disagree with Cleric being rated so low for multiclassing. I dipped life cleric for bonus healing, healing spells, bless, and guidance. In conjunction with bend fate, I can provide +2d4 to any skill check extremely often. If youre playing a utility sorc who twins buffs like haste, tosses around dispels or counterspells, or anything like that, then taking 1 level in cleric for heavy armor, emergency TWINNED healing, slot efficient buffs, and a bit more hp is a good deal. I admit you'll want the wisdom score for healing potentially, but since healing is generally a poor use of resources, you could also go war cleric, pump strength, and get all those benefits along with good melee potential. I wouldnt take more than 1 level in cleric, but its fantastic dip really.

[Fflewddur Fflam]

I do not understand all the love this one gets. If the target does not move (and why would it, a big juicy low HP target is within hitting reach) it is only 3d8 extra damage. Ok, it can be Quickened, but you still have to spend on a good physical stat. I can see someone multiclassing into a few levels of Sorcerer for this, but a full caster should be able to do better.


You obviously haven't seen Booming Blade in action. It's completely broken and does way more damage than any other cantrip when you factor in the melee attack as well. The technique with BB is you do it to an enemy that HAS TO MOVE. You have a swashbuckler or character with the mobile feat, you booming blade a melee-only enemy (of which there are LOTS of. Plenty of creatures in the MM only have a melee attack), and then you move away from it, forcing it to move at you if it wants to attack again and thus take the additional booming damage. Seeing it in action is just ludicrous how broken it is.

[Oramac]

You obviously haven't seen Booming Blade in action. It's completely broken and does way more damage than any other cantrip when you factor in the melee attack as well. The technique with BB is you do it to an enemy that HAS TO MOVE. You have a swashbuckler or character with the mobile feat, you booming blade a melee-only enemy (of which there are LOTS of. Plenty of creatures in the MM only have a melee attack), and then you move away from it, forcing it to move at you if it wants to attack again and thus take the additional booming damage. Seeing it in action is just ludicrous how broken it is.

It's especially hilarious when the player comes up with a silly way to use it.

I played with a guy who used BB on a Palasorc with a whip. Yes, a whip. So he had reach, and would BB from 10 feet away and just bound around like a little Yoda almost (he played a halfling). The Whip Smiting was also pretty hilarious.

[Klorox]

It's especially hilarious when the player comes up with a silly way to use it.

I played with a guy who used BB on a Palasorc with a whip. Yes, a whip. So he had reach, and would BB from 10 feet away and just bound around like a little Yoda almost (he played a halfling). The Whip Smiting was also pretty hilarious.

You have a nice DM. Booming blade has a range of 5'.

[Fflewddur Fflam]

You have a nice DM. Booming blade has a range of 5'.

That's a good point!

[tsotate]

You have a nice DM. Booming blade has a range of 5'.
Possible with Spell Sniper, if you happen to be taking it anyway.

[Oramac]

Seeming: No concentration cost, and you get to change the appearances of as many people as you want. You can even alter an unwilling character. Situational, but widely applicable.

Not really a critique, but if you want to link a really creative and fun use of Seeming, this episode (https://youtu.be/_2CCQnD4AQ8?t=8989) of Critical Role has probably the best one I've ever heard.

[Avraks]

Which would you say is better, a pure Stormborn, or a level 6 bard, X sorcerer? If the multiclass build, which should I level first, bard or sorcerer?

Thanks for a great guide!

[JakOfAllTirades]

Excellent guide, and very helpful for the Favored Soul character I'm working on!

I'm looking over the Feats list and there are a few things I'd like to mention:

Crossbow Expert: The second benefit of this feat reads "Being within 5 feet o f a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls." This includes spell attacks, so this might merit a rating higher than Red.

Dual Wielder: Useful for Twinned Greenflame Blade or Booming Blade. (Or can you do that with only one weapon? I'm not exactly sure that would work.) Having both hands full is also less of a hindrance with the Warcaster feat. Situational, but is this so useless it should be rated Red?

Elemental Adept: In addition to Draconic and Storm Sorcerers, there are several Favored Soul Domains which benefit from this one. (Light Domain is almost all Fire spells.)

Medium Armor Master: Rated Purple for most Sorcerers, but Favored Souls start out with Medium Armor Proficiency, which makes this a more viable option for them. Maybe for them this should have a Black rating.

Shield Master: Again, after taking Warcaster the lack of a free hand for casting is much less of an issue, which would raise this Feat's rating out of the Red zone for melee casters. (Only)

My apologies for lack of color-coding. I'm rushing through this a bit because it's almost time for work. Thanks again for writing up this guide, and I hope at least some of these comments are helpful.

[EvilAnagram]

Not really a critique, but if you want to link a really creative and fun use of Seeming, this episode (https://youtu.be/_2CCQnD4AQ8?t=8989) of Critical Role has probably the best one I've ever heard.
I did not even need to click the link to know you were talking about the cows. Magic is fun.


I have to say I disagree with Cleric being rated so low for multiclassing.
I disagree with your disagreement because the Cleric is not rated low! It is rated Weird, as in the few domains that have benefits worth taking the multiclass for are not going to be for most people, but some people can get a lot of mileage out of them. See my first post!


Which would you say is better, a pure Stormborn, or a level 6 bard, X sorcerer? If the multiclass build, which should I level first, bard or sorcerer?

Thanks for a great guide!

I think the pure Stormborn, unless you're going Valor Bard for the armor and martial weapons, in which case three levels of Valor Bard and then Stormborn.


Crossbow Expert: The second benefit of this feat reads "Being within 5 feet o f a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls." This includes spell attacks, so this might merit a rating higher than Red.
You can take a number of feats and snag a melee or save-based cantrip to use, and those come with ancillary benefits as well. You're simply never better off spending an ASI on Crossbow Expert over Magic Initiate or Spell Sniper.


Dual Wielder: Useful for Twinned Greenflame Blade or Booming Blade. (Or can you do that with only one weapon? I'm not exactly sure that would work.) Having both hands full is also less of a hindrance with the Warcaster feat. Situational, but is this so useless it should be rated Red?
I honestly think so. You'd need proficiency with weapons that make this useful, a high enough ability score for the attack, and also this feat. You're at least at level 8 before this becomes relevant, and by that level you shouldn't be building your Sorcerer around his cantrips. Melee full casters tend to focus on the full casting well before you can sink enough resources to make this worth it. They're fun, but sinking multiple feats into both gaining proficiency and enabling a bonus action attack with a better weapon seems like a waste.


Elemental Adept: In addition to Draconic and Storm Sorcerers, there are several Favored Soul Domains which benefit from this one. (Light Domain is almost all Fire spells.)

Medium Armor Master: Rated Purple for most Sorcerers, but Favored Souls start out with Medium Armor Proficiency, which makes this a more viable option for them. Maybe for them this should have a Black rating.

Shield Master: Again, after taking Warcaster the lack of a free hand for casting is much less of an issue, which would raise this Feat's rating out of the Red zone for melee casters. (Only)
All good points.

[OniKitsuneNinja]

Thanks for this Awesome guide. I just recently started playing D&D and this really helped me in making a Sorcerer

[EvilAnagram]

Thanks for this Awesome guide. I just recently started playing D&D and this really helped me in making a Sorcerer

I'm glad you liked it! More importantly, glad it helped!

[NecroDancer]

Your guides are very helpful, it's also nice how they have personality instead of being pure math

[Squeeq]

I haven't seen this in a cursory google search, but since Delayed Blast Fireball has a casting time of 1 minute, and Extend spell will add an extra 10d6 damage for one spell point, which seems pretty handy to me?

[SharkForce]

I haven't seen this in a cursory google search, but since Delayed Blast Fireball has a casting time of 1 minute, and Extend spell will add an extra 10d6 damage for one spell point, which seems pretty handy to me?

that is an intriguing use of extend spell... considering they nerfed the main other useful options (by limiting the duration after extending to one day maximum), that's probably the only reason i'd ever recommend extend spell to a single classed sorcerer*.

and even that is pretty sketchy (you get great damage out of it, but how often do you have 2 minutes to sit around waiting for the damage increase?).

* extend spell isn't too bad for a cleric, actually. gives great efficiency on spells like death ward and freedom of movement if you need the extra duration at all. better than other options? maybe not. but at least i wouldn't look at you as if you'd grown a second head.

[thelight]

Could you do a review of the backgrounds? I could see my character doing any of them really.

[EvilAnagram]

Could you do a review of the backgrounds? I could see my character doing any of them really.

I intentionally do not review backgrounds, as they are primarily a role playing concept. I dislike the idea utilizing them as optimization tools. I would advise that you pick a background that you feel makes your character feel more interesting.

[X3r4ph]

that is an intriguing use of extend spell... considering they nerfed the main other useful options (by limiting the duration after extending to one day maximum), that's probably the only reason i'd ever recommend extend spell to a single classed sorcerer*.

and even that is pretty sketchy (you get great damage out of it, but how often do you have 2 minutes to sit around waiting for the damage increase?).
I believe that I would get the chance to use this combo on many occasions in the game I play in... But first of all, are we talking 32d6 damage if you concentrate for 2 minutes? That is a reasonable amount of damage to start the party.

[JakOfAllTirades]

I must have missed something somewhere, because there's one thing that's still not clear to me and I'm hoping someone can answer this question:

How do I determine the Sorcery Points used for a Twinned Spell? The PHB says it's equal to the "Spell Level" but I'm not sure if that means the original spell level, or the level of the slot used when casting it. For example, if I Twin a Ray of Sickness spell (which is 1st level) and cast it using a 3rd level slot, does that require 1 Sorcery Point or 3 Sorcery Points?

This is really bugging me cuz it's got me wondering whether to take the Twin Spell option or not.

Many thanks.

[Coffee_Dragon]

For example, if I Twin a Ray of Sickness spell (which is 1st level) and cast it using a 3rd level slot, does that require 1 Sorcery Point or 3 Sorcery Points?

The latter. PHB 201: "When a spellcaster casts a spell using a slot that is of a higher level than the spell, the spell assumes the higher level for that casting."

[Dalebert]

This is really bugging me cuz it's got me wondering whether to take the Twin Spell option or not.

Yes.

I'm kind of joking but not really though clearly biased. It of course depends on what spells you plan to take. I've heard twinning is best for buffs but I honestly use it for a lot of attack or control spells and just feel a lot more effective with my action economy. It's a cheap way to make a cantrip into practically a first level spell. A twinned Firebolt is often (depending on context) better than Burning Hands or even Scorching Ray, especially if you're a draconic fire sorcerer. Twinned Dissonant Whispers can be nuts if you can get that spell from a dip. Twinned Tasha's is a lot of bang for the buck in terms of crowd control. When it's appropriate for the situation, you're basically getting a second spell fast and for cheap. It's like you cast two spells but you didn't use an extra action.

[JakOfAllTirades]

The latter. PHB 201: "When a spellcaster casts a spell using a slot that is of a higher level than the spell, the spell assumes the higher level for that casting."

Okay, thanks for the reference. That makes sense, and I'll plan accordingly.

My next character is going to be a Sorcerer, definitely of the "blaster" variety due to his back-story, and I'm trying to decide whether to take Twin Spell at 3rd level or 10th level. It matters because I'll be playing him in Storm King's Thunder, which I'm told will end around 10th or 11th level.

[jaappleton]

Any plans to rate the races in Volo's? Really curious to see your thoughts on Tabaxi, and especially the new Aasimar.

[EvilAnagram]

Any plans to rate the races in Volo's? Really curious to see your thoughts on Tabaxi, and especially the new Aasimar.

Sure. The moment I get Volo's Guide, I'll start rating them. Unfortunately, I am forbidden from making any purchases for myself until after Christmas, lest I face wifely wrath.

[Felslayer]

You mention that Thunderwave uses Draconic Rider. I am assuming you are referring to using a Lightning Dragon as your Draconic Bloodline. If I am wrong please correct me, but either way the spell generates thunder damage and there are no bloodlines that use that type. I would appreciate clarification because in general I have found your guide very useful, but I have found no support for Thunder Damage receiving any Elemental Affinity from any dragon type.

[Miffles]

The happiest moment was when I realized that tides of chaos could get you to reroll on the wild magic surge table

[Miffles]

too bad i need 10 posts to post links

[Miffles]

Because i clicked on your i am the tactician

[Specter]

I haven't seen this in a cursory google search, but since Delayed Blast Fireball has a casting time of 1 minute, and Extend spell will add an extra 10d6 damage for one spell point, which seems pretty handy to me?

That is, indeed, a good use for it. Turn your Sorcerer into a demolition man. Really, how many structures can take 20d6 damage without collapsing?

The best use of extended spell I've ever seen is by coupling it with Aura of Vitality (Paladin 9 or Lore Bard 6). 40d6 of healing? For an average of 140 points? Yes please.

[SharkForce]

The happiest moment was when I realized that tides of chaos could get you to reroll on the wild magic surge table

it really can't. tides of chaos works on one ability check, saving throw, or attack roll. rolling on the wild surge table doesn't really have an explicit name for the type of roll (so it's probably just a "wild surge table roll" or possibly just a "wild surge roll"), but it definitely 100% is not one of those three types of rolls, because those three types of rolls are always d20 and the wild surge table uses a d100.

of course, if the DM allows it, it works anyways, but that's because the DM can change anything.

[Ogre Mage]

Sure. The moment I get Volo's Guide, I'll start rating them. Unfortunately, I am forbidden from making any purchases for myself until after Christmas, lest I face wifely wrath.

Thank you for updating with the Volo's monster races! I am seriously considering playing a Yuan-ti Pureblood Draconic Sorcerer during the next AL season. I am currently debating metamagic choices.

[Bulhedd]

Hello, I'm new to posting here so I'll try not to sound foolish. I really like the guide, but I wonder if you took into account the fact that the Blink spell isn't a concentration spell. The 50% percent part does suck, but when you factor in that it can be used offensively as well as defensively for 1 casting that lasts 10 rounds without concentration, it seems like an even more useful spell than Mirror Image, and of course Mirror Image is another useful non concentration spell. And as a sorc, you can always create a 3rd level casting again with points.

[SharkForce]

Hello, I'm new to posting here so I'll try not to sound foolish. I really like the guide, but I wonder if you took into account the fact that the Blink spell isn't a concentration spell. The 50% percent part does suck, but when you factor in that it can be used offensively as well as defensively for 1 casting that lasts 10 rounds without concentration, it seems like an even more useful spell than Mirror Image, and of course Mirror Image is another useful non concentration spell. And as a sorc, you can always create a 3rd level casting again with points.

purple is situational. it can be good in the right situation, but otherwise is usually not that great. a 50% miss chance is certainly nice, but level 3 spells can be used for things like fireball, hypnotic pattern, counterspell, etc, and every slot you create with sorcerer points is less of you doing the one thing you have that makes sorcerer worth anything at all. creating spell slots is an act of desperation (or something you do at level 2 before you get metamagic as an option), not something you should plan on using regularly.

also not sure how you plan to use it offensively.

it isn't a bad spell or anything. it's just situational. if you're fighting a ton of powerful AoE nukes and few enemies that use attack rolls, i could see it being worth a pick, but it's got a lot of competition for those level 3 spell slots, and there's a lot of stuff that is just really good in a lot more situations.

[RaphaelDHD]

Are you going to rate the UA Sorcerer Bloodlines?

[EvilAnagram]

Are you going to rate the UA Sorcerer Bloodlines?

Maybe. I'm a bit busy in real life at the moment, but now that the torrent of new archetypes has slowed I'll get around to it.

[Elabama]

New to this whole post thing... But Tempestuous Magic under Storm Sorc might need a higher color value... that 10 feet of fly speed includes movement that does not incur opportunity attacks - so like a get out of jail free card in a pinch - does have the cost of a 1st+ level spell, but that can help in a pinch.

[EvilAnagram]

New to this whole post thing... But Tempestuous Magic under Storm Sorc might need a higher color value... that 10 feet of fly speed includes movement that does not incur opportunity attacks - so like a get out of jail free card in a pinch - does have the cost of a 1st+ level spell, but that can help in a pinch.

I think it's very helpful in a pinch, but I also think it's only helpful in a pinch. That quick escape is very nice, and it means you don't necessarily have to grab Misty Step, but it lacks versatility. 10 feet of movement is just not that useful under most circumstances, with the notable exception being escaping imminent danger.

Since it's very useful in some common, but limited situations, black fits it best.

[SirGraystone]

I think it's very helpful in a pinch, but I also think it's only helpful in a pinch. That quick escape is very nice, and it means you don't necessarily have to grab Misty Step, but it lacks versatility. 10 feet of movement is just not that useful under most circumstances, with the notable exception being escaping imminent danger.

Since it's very useful in some common, but limited situations, black fits it best.

It does let you use your bonus action to disengage and move a total of 40' (assuming your normal move is 30') each round you cast a spell. It also let you move 10' before the spell, so you don't have the disadvantage of casting in melee.

[Flashy]

It does let you use your bonus action to disengage and move a total of 40' (assuming your normal move is 30') each round you cast a spell. It also let you move 10' before the spell, so you don't have the disadvantage of casting in melee.

Casting in melee isn't a problem unless you're for some reason casting a ranged attack roll spell, which would be a generally silly thing to do when you likely have a lot of other spell options. It's a handy thing to have when you want to disengage, but I really think EvilAnagram's rating is right on the mark.

[SharkForce]

It does let you use your bonus action to disengage and move a total of 40' (assuming your normal move is 30') each round you cast a spell. It also let you move 10' before the spell, so you don't have the disadvantage of casting in melee.

casting in melee has no disadvantages most of the time. maybe if you were about to cast firebolt, but if you were about to cast firebolt, odds are good you could afford to disengage anyways, making it nice... but not really that critical.

it isn't bad. it just isn't that great, either.

[Elliofino]

This is awesome! You should add pyromancer from Khaladesh Plane Shift and races from the Plane Shift stuff.

[TheUser]

I really dislike that this guide rates subtle spell as poor. Considering how unique, flexible and cheap it is to use as well as gamebreakingly strong for sneak mages I'm a bit taken aback that it's not rated higher.

[SharkForce]

I really dislike that this guide rates subtle spell as poor. Considering how unique, flexible and cheap it is to use as well as gamebreakingly strong for sneak mages I'm a bit taken aback that it's not rated higher.

it isn't rated poor. black is good. it isn't as good as blue or (cyan?), but it is still good.

[TheUser]

it isn't rated poor. black is good. it isn't as good as blue or (cyan?), but it is still good.

ehh
careful spell is not compatible with web for instance it's actually only fully compatible with like...3 spells?

Hypnotic Pattern, Fear and Reverse Gravity.

If the saves occur on another turn it doesn't work (thanks Jeremy Crawford....) and only half effective with things like fireball/cone of cold. I don't see it being that great anymore.

EDIT: to the point where I see subtle as being vastly superior to careful

[SharkForce]

ehh
careful spell is not compatible with web for instance it's actually only fully compatible with like...3 spells?

Hypnotic Pattern, Fear and Reverse Gravity.

If the saves occur on another turn it doesn't work (thanks Jeremy Crawford....) and only half effective with things like fireball/cone of cold. I don't see it being that great anymore.

EDIT: to the point where I see subtle as being vastly superior to careful

he can intend it all he wants. until he issues errata, it works on all saves, regardless of what turn it is.

now, i might give more weight to clarifications in some cases, but simply put, metamagic is the only thing sorcerers get. so in this case, crawford can take his intended rule and shove it where the sun don't shine. i'm not going to ruin something that is worth picking sometimes just because someone intended for sorcerers to be crap.

[TheUser]

he can intend it all he wants. until he issues errata, it works on all saves, regardless of what turn it is.

now, i might give more weight to clarifications in some cases, but simply put, metamagic is the only thing sorcerers get. so in this case, crawford can take his intended rule and shove it where the sun don't shine. i'm not going to ruin something that is worth picking sometimes just because someone intended for sorcerers to be crap.

Careful Spell:
When you cast a spell that forces other creatures to make
a saving throw, you can protect some of those creatures
from the spell's full force. To do so, you spend 1 sorcery
point and choose a number of those creatures up to your
Charisma modifier (minimum of one creature). A chosen
creature automatically succeeds on its saving throw[singular]
against the spell.

It's not RAI, it's RAW. One saving throw and only when you cast the spell (e.g. the same turn).

If you're making a guide the assumption is that people are playing by the rules....

[SharkForce]

Careful Spell:
When you cast a spell that forces other creatures to make
a saving throw, you can protect some of those creatures
from the spell's full force. To do 50, you spend 1 sorcery
point and choose a number of those creatures up to your
Charisma modifier (minimum of one creature). A chosen
creature automatically succeeds on its saving throw[singular]
against the spell.

It's not RAI, it's RAW. One saving throw and only when you cast the spell (e.g. the same turn).

If you're making a guide the assumption is that people are playing by the rules....

when you cast a spell, yes. but not when you cast a spell, they automatically pass their save. when you cast a spell, you choose creatures to protect.

then, when those creatures have to make a saving throw against the spell (which they only ever need to make one at a time), they automatically pass. no limitation to one saving throw. no limitation to on your turn. it isn't RAW, and if it's RAI then it's a steaming pile of turds, and as i said they can take their stupid RAI and shove it where the sun don't shine, because that's where it belongs.

[TheUser]

when you cast a spell, yes. but not when you cast a spell, they automatically pass their save. when you cast a spell, you choose creatures to protect.

then, when those creatures have to make a saving throw against the spell (which they only ever need to make one at a time), they automatically pass. no limitation to one saving throw. no limitation to on your turn. it isn't RAW, and if it's RAI then it's a steaming pile of turds, and as i said they can take their stupid RAI and shove it where the sun don't shine, because that's where it belongs.

I get that you're upset but it dictates you protect the creature when you cast the spell. Read the first sentence again.

Whether or not you or I like the ruling (I don't) is of no consequence; when you write a guide you stick to the rules, not what you want the rules to be. Heck I wrote an entirely new sorcerer guide because of how much errata and JC tweets changed / clarified. My first guide assumed it worked with Stinking Cloud, and Web rating it very highly. Since Evil Anagram can update his in realtime he should be honest with players instead of misleading them.

Does it make careful spell a steaming pile of crap? Yep. And if you go into standard play or AL the DM is forced to consult the rules they will make the same ruling. Guides are for standard play and the assumption you adhere to the rules.


You don't write guides based on homebrew right?

[SharkForce]

I get that you're upset but it dictates you protect the creature when you cast the spell. Read the first sentence again.

Whether or not you or I like the ruling (I don't) is of no consequence; when you write a guide you stick to the rules, not what you want the rules to be. Heck I wrote an entirely new sorcerer guide because of how much errata and JC tweets changed / clarified. My first guide assumed it worked with Stinking Cloud, and Web rating it very highly. Since Evil Anagram can update his in realtime he should be honest with players instead of misleading them.

Does it make careful spell a steaming pile of crap? Yep. And if you go into standard play or AL the DM is forced to consult the rules they will make the same ruling. Guides are for standard play and the assumption you adhere to the rules.


You don't write guides based on homebrew right?

it doesn't say you protect them only on the turn it was cast. it just says you protect them. it said that 3 years ago. it still says it now. and it will continue to say that until errata is issued. they can say whatever they like about what they wanted it to say. if they want to change something, they have the power to do it, and they haven't done it. if that tweet said "it was supposed to be on the turn of casting only, and we're going to issue errata on that next time errata comes out", then fine, but just a vague "oh, here's how we intended it", well, i don't care how you intended it. how you intended it was for it to be a steaming pile of suck, and i'm sure as hell not going to give weight to your intentions to make something useless, whether you happen to have been around when that ability was designed or not.

when they issue errata, *then* it is required for AL play.

[tieren]

1. Thank you for the guide, overall I find it very useful.

2. I am playing a Sea Sorcerer in a STK campaign.

As a sea sorcerer I don't have the good AC of a draconic sorcerer, and moreover the particular character concept I have is very good mentally and poor physically, so my Dex and Str are below average, therefore my AC is poor (literally a 10).

Also as a sea sorcerer I have a class feature that pushes me towards cold and lightning damage types, which at my current level (2) means mostly cold. Cold spells seem to have a shorter range than similar fire spells.

Since I don't want to get hit because of my poor AC staying far away from the combat seems desirable, and I think is a specialty I'd like to build the character around a bit.

Therefore I have decided my level 3 metamagics are going to be Distant and Quicken. At level 4 I am also going to take spell sniper for absurd range abuse.

Now I get in a dungeon crawl it may not come up much, but I am figuring we are going to be fighting giants and big things in big open areas a good bit in this campaign and I want to do it from as far away as possible.

I'll miss out on the twin hyjinx (at least until level 10 when I pick my next metamagic) but I think it fits my character well and is something I'll enjoy.

Also with my class features will allow some neat effects (like lightning lure someone 60 feet away and pull them 25 feet towards my melee friends)

[samcifer]

it doesn't say you protect them only on the turn it was cast. it just says you protect them. it said that 3 years ago. it still says it now. and it will continue to say that until errata is issued. they can say whatever they like about what they wanted it to say. if they want to change something, they have the power to do it, and they haven't done it. if that tweet said "it was supposed to be on the turn of casting only, and we're going to issue errata on that next time errata comes out", then fine, but just a vague "oh, here's how we intended it", well, i don't care how you intended it. how you intended it was for it to be a steaming pile of suck, and i'm sure as hell not going to give weight to your intentions to make something useless, whether you happen to have been around when that ability was designed or not.

when they issue errata, *then* it is required for AL play.

Just let the DM decide. That's how I'd resolve the issue.

[werescythe]

Hello, my name is Werescythe and I was hoping that someone could offer some ideas/suggestions for a character I am working on.

I am working on creating a Yuan-ti Shadow Sorcerer character for my brother's campaign. I would prefer to avoid multi-classing if possible. Does anyone who has played a shadow sorcerer (or has considered the idea) have any suggestions on what types of spells I should use?

The reason I am asking is because this guide (while very helpful) seems to aim a bit more toward Draconic Sorcerers/Melee Sorcerers (which I could see a shadow sorcerer being possibly) but not so much on shadow sorcery. So any suggestions would be very helpful.

Thank you.

[X3r4ph]

Hello, my name is Werescythe and I was hoping that someone could offer some ideas/suggestions for a character I am working on.

I am working on creating a Yuan-ti Shadow Sorcerer character for my brother's campaign. I would prefer to avoid multi-classing if possible. Does anyone who has played a shadow sorcerer (or has considered the idea) have any suggestions on what types of spells I should use?

The reason I am asking is because this guide (while very helpful) seems to aim a bit more toward Draconic Sorcerers/Melee Sorcerers (which I could see a shadow sorcerer being possibly) but not so much on shadow sorcery. So any suggestions would be very helpful.

Thank you.
Shadow Sorcerer basically gets Heighten metamagic for free. So, I would suggest anything that has a save or suck effect.
Subtle Spell and Quicken are great start of metamagic picks. At 10 take Twin.

But. Since you are using UA, and talk about going melee, why not the Stone Sorcerer? It's pretty kick ass. After your level 6 ability you could go 14 Rogue for some serious Sneak Attack action in other people's turn. Anyways. Stone Sorcerer is also great with a little Hexblade or Paladin.

[werescythe]

Shadow Sorcerer basically gets Heighten metamagic for free. So, I would suggest anything that has a save or suck effect.
Subtle Spell and Quicken are great start of metamagic picks. At 10 take Twin.

But. Since you are using UA, and talk about going melee, why not the Stone Sorcerer? It's pretty kick ass. After your level 6 ability you could go 14 Rogue for some serious Sneak Attack action in other people's turn. Anyways. Stone Sorcerer is also great with a little Hexblade or Paladin.

You'll have to forgive me, I'm not too familiar with the term save or suck. lol.

As for the UA, the reason I am going with Shadow Sorcery is kind of due to a theme/story idea I had for the character and the world my brother is using for his campaign.

Any suggestions on what would be good spells to pick? Also I was thinking of taking Actor as my first feat as that would put my Charisma to 18(+4) while also allowing me to imitate voices (great from roleplaying with the Darkness ability), what do you think?

[X3r4ph]

You'll have to forgive me, I'm not too familiar with the term save or suck. lol.

As for the UA, the reason I am going with Shadow Sorcery is kind of due to a theme/story idea I had for the character and the world my brother is using for his campaign.

Any suggestions on what would be good spells to pick? Also I was thinking of taking Actor as my first feat as that would put my Charisma to 18(+4) while also allowing me to imitate voices (great from roleplaying with the Darkness ability), what do you think?
A save or suck spell is a spell that has a really nasty effect if the target doesn't scceed it's save. Like Hold Person. Really nasty spell.

As for feats I wouldn't take anything else than Ability Increases until Charisma is 20. If you have half scores, like a 15, add the other point in Constitution.
Once Charisma is maxed, pick Resilient: Constitution. Getting the most out of your Concentration check is paramount.

[EvilAnagram]

Hello, my name is Werescythe and I was hoping that someone could offer some ideas/suggestions for a character I am working on.

I am working on creating a Yuan-ti Shadow Sorcerer character for my brother's campaign. I would prefer to avoid multi-classing if possible. Does anyone who has played a shadow sorcerer (or has considered the idea) have any suggestions on what types of spells I should use?

The reason I am asking is because this guide (while very helpful) seems to aim a bit more toward Draconic Sorcerers/Melee Sorcerers (which I could see a shadow sorcerer being possibly) but not so much on shadow sorcery. So any suggestions would be very helpful.

Thank you.

As X3r4ph suggested, the save-or-suck is perfect for the Shadow Sorcerer.

To explain more fully, a save-or-suck is a spell that forces its target to make a save against a harmful effect. These spells include Hypnotic Pattern, Hold Person, Slow, and Banishment. I would also throw in Sleet Storm as a way to force some particularly nasty Concentration saves against enemy spellcasters.

[werescythe]

As X3r4ph suggested, the save-or-suck is perfect for the Shadow Sorcerer.

To explain more fully, a save-or-suck is a spell that forces its target to male a save against a harmful effect. These spells include Hypnotic Pattern, Hold Person, Slow, and Banishment. I would also throw in Sleet Storm as a way to force some particularly nasty Concentration saves against enemy spellcasters.

So I was just wondering in the case that another character can't see in the Darkness "spell" cast my the shadow sorcerer do they have a disadvantages on saves when it comes to sight. Like if I were to cast a save-or-suck spell on an enemy in darkness to they have a disadvantage on the save?

Just curious.

[EvilAnagram]

So I was just wondering in the case that another character can't see in the Darkness "spell" cast my the shadow sorcerer do they have a disadvantages on saves when it comes to sight. Like if I were to cast a save-or-suck spell on an enemy in darkness to they have a disadvantage on the save?

Just curious.

Not unless you convince your DM. It's not in the rules as written.

[Grog Logs]

How useful would multiclassing into Bard and using Twinned Spell with Vicious Mockery be? You'd have two creatures with Disadvantage on their first attack.

Maybe not the most powerful, but you could do it throughout the day if you cannibalized your spell slots with Flexible Casting.

If you went up to Lore Bard 5, you could add in some additional shut down to enemy attacks with Cutting Words that replenish on short rests.

Would this ideas work better as a Sorcerer multiclassing into Bard or a Bard dipping into Sorcerer (only three levels needed in Sorc if cannibalized your spell slots heavily)?

[EvilAnagram]

How useful would multiclassing into Bard and using Twinned Spell with Vicious Mockery be? You'd have two creatures with Disadvantage on their first attack.

Maybe not the most powerful, but you could do it throughout the day if you cannibalized your spell slots with Flexible Casting.

If you went up to Lore Bard 5, you could add in some additional shut down to enemy attacks with Cutting Words that replenish on short rests.

Would this ideas work better as a Sorcerer multiclassing into Bard or a Bard dipping into Sorcerer (only three levels needed in Sorc if cannibalized your spell slots heavily)?

The problem with this strategy is that you're essentially eating your spell slots to cast cantrips a bit more effectively. The further you go into Bard, the less often you'll use your Sorcery Points. That's less effective than just casting Hypnotic Pattern, which is the same save.

A dip into Bard is pretty effective because Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Dissonant Whispers, and Vicious Mockery are amazing with Twin, but I can't recommend more than a dip because Sorcery Points are too precious.

[Grog Logs]

...less effective than just casting Hypnotic Pattern, which is the same save...A dip into Bard is pretty effective...but I can't recommend more than a dip because Sorcery Points are too precious.

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you

[werescythe]

Not unless you convince your DM. It's not in the rules as written. I talked with my GM about this and he said that in his opinion that unless the character is able to see while they are in darkness they are considered blinded.

So I guess it would depend upon the GM (I'm just lucky in my case).

[Gydian]

I love this guide. I used it when creating my first sorcerer and still refer to it. do you think you could update the archetypes to Xanathar's by December? I know I need to change my drag-queen name to Divine now, so I can pick which bonus spell I get.

[EvilAnagram]

I love this guide. I used it when creating my first sorcerer and still refer to it. do you think you could update the archetypes to Xanathar's by December? I know I need to change my drag-queen name to Divine now, so I can pick which bonus spell I get.

I will definitely be updating by then.

[Back Stabbath]

Any advice on multiclassing with Bard beyond dipping for BI and Dissonant Whispers + a couple other useful spells?

I was thinking of doing some kind of gish build with Dragon Sorcerer (at the start, for RP reasons), dipping into Hexblade, and then going Bard of the Sword college. Does this sound viable or does it sound like a trainwreck?

[EvilAnagram]

Any advice on multiclassing with Bard beyond dipping for BI and Dissonant Whispers + a couple other useful spells?

I was thinking of doing some kind of gish build with Dragon Sorcerer (at the start, for RP reasons), dipping into Hexblade, and then going Bard of the Sword college. Does this sound viable or does it sound like a trainwreck?

The big problem you're going to run into with this build is that you won't get second-level spells until level 6, and you won't get an extra attack until ~level 9 (I don't have Xanathar's yet). So, you're basically lagging behind in everything but cantrips. At level 9 you'll be alright, but until then it might be rough.

[Back Stabbath]

The big problem you're going to run into with this build is that you won't get second-level spells until level 6, and you won't get an extra attack until ~level 9 (I don't have Xanathar's yet). So, you're basically lagging behind in everything but cantrips. At level 9 you'll be alright, but until then it might be rough.
What would an ideal sorcerer/bard multiclass look like? In general, not just for gishing

[EvilAnagram]

What would an ideal sorcerer/bard multiclass look like? In general, not just for gishing

Ideally, because they're both full casters, you're going to dip into one and spend the rest of your time in the other. Generally, take the first level in Sorcerer for the Con save and bloodline features, then either go Bard the rest of the way or take three levels in Bard before heading back to Sorcerer for your remaining levels.

The three levels in Bard give you either Lore goodies or medium armor and a shield with Valor, plus skills, expertise, and Bardic Inspiration. Those can mesh very well with a Sorcerer, especially a disabling/buffing build.

The only reason to stick around with Sorcerer for more than a one-level dip (when you're primarily something else) is metamagic, and it's hard to justify putting off spell progression for two more levels to use metamagic once or twice a day the rest of your career. Maybe if you really want Heighten and don't mind only using it twice a day it's for you.

Edit: Also, that's a killer screen name.

[Back Stabbath]

Ideally, because they're both full casters, you're going to dip into one and spend the rest of your time in the other. Generally, take the first level in Sorcerer for the Con save and bloodline features, then either go Bard the rest of the way or take three levels in Bard before heading back to Sorcerer for your remaining levels.

The three levels in Bard give you either Lore goodies or medium armor and a shield with Valor, plus skills, expertise, and Bardic Inspiration. Those can mesh very well with a Sorcerer, especially a disabling/buffing build.

The only reason to stick around with Sorcerer for more than a one-level dip (when you're primarily something else) is metamagic, and it's hard to justify putting off spell progression for two more levels to use metamagic once or twice a day the rest of your career. Maybe if you really want Heighten and don't mind only using it twice a day it's for you.

Edit: Also, that's a killer screen name.
Thanks!! Appreciate the help

[Raif]

First, wanted to thank you for the thread. It was immensely helpful as a first time player who chose sorcerer. Just looking for some advice.

I'm currently playing a Phoenix Sorcerer multi-classed into Hexblade Warlock with a 5/2 split in Princes of the Apocalypse (no spoilers please!). I just realized that I will be missing out on the level 14 feature and level 8 spells since my DM said it will go to level 15 with how he is running the adventure. Is missing out on those 2 features really that big a deal? I multiclassed in general because it fit the character and truly felt a little underpowered and not so useful due to the phoenix sorcerer's limitation of the once per day features.

What is the general "best" time to multiclass into the "sorlock" build? Right away, as in 1 level sorcerer then 2 into warlock then back into sorcerer?

Also last but not least, spell help! I'm working on a final spell list for progression and have come up with the following for a level 15 build (sorcerer 13/warlock 2):

Sorcerer
1st - shield, absorb elements
2nd - hold person, misty step
3rd - haste, fireball, counterspell, dispell magic
4th - banishment, dimension door, greater invisibility, sickening radiance
5th - animate objects, synaptic static
6th - mental prison, sunbeam
7th - crown of stars or reverse gravity


Warlock
1st - protection from evil and good, hex, comprehend languages

Problem is I have 4 too many spells from sorcerer. I'm going for a buff/debuff type and already have quickened spell and twinned spell. I'm good on damage with Eldritch Blast with Hex and the Hexblade Curse as well. Party composition is Path of the Storm Primal Barbarian, Lore Bard, Grave Cleric, Mercers Gunslinger, Fighter. .

Any advice on what to drop? Having a hard time letting go of 3 of them. This is of course if my DM lets me use the spells from Xanthar's, though he did let me use Hexblade. If I can't use Xanthar's spells this becomes a lot easier.

[Byke]

What is the general "best" time to multiclass into the "sorlock" build? Right away, as in 1 level sorcerer then 2 into warlock then back into sorcerer?

It really comes down to personal preference. I have been playing a lot of Sorclock recently and my path is to take 3 levels of sorcerer first for 2nd level spells and MM and then 2 levels of Warlock. Warlock really doesn't come online until 5th when you get 2 EBs.


Also last but not least, spell help! I'm working on a final spell list for progression and have come up with the following for a level 15 build (sorcerer 13/warlock 2):

Sorcerer
1st - shield, absorb elements
2nd - hold person, misty step
3rd - haste, fireball, counterspell, dispell magic
4th - banishment, dimension door, greater invisibility, sickening radiance
5th - animate objects, synaptic static
6th - mental prison, sunbeam
7th - crown of stars or reverse gravity


Warlock
1st - protection from evil and good, hex, comprehend languages

Any advice on what to drop? Having a hard time letting go of 3 of them. This is of course if my DM lets me use the spells from Xanthar's, though he did let me use Hexblade. If I can't use Xanthar's spells this becomes a lot easier.

Your spell selection is solid (I wish Sorcs got 4 extra spells known).The issue I see is you have to many concentration spells. Things I would change

1st - Armor of Agyth (Non-conc + HP), Hex, Shield

Sorcerer
1st - Absorb Elements
2nd - Misty Step
3rd - Haste, Fireball, Counterspell, Dispel Magic
4th - Banishment, Dimension Door, Greater Invisibility,
5th - Animate Objects, Synaptic Static
6th - Mental Prison (Sunbeam may be better as you are Pheonix)
7th - Reverse Gravity (You don't have a problem with damage)

Haste really depends on you party comp and MM selection. If you are running a melee centric party and Twin then it may be worth it. If not I would swap it out for Polymorph (which can be used offensively, defensively and for utility)

Misty Step and Dimension Door you have two mobility spells. I get that one is a bonus action vs action, but I would only pick one.

[Raif]

It really comes down to personal preference. I have been playing a lot of Sorclock recently and my path is to take 3 levels of sorcerer first for 2nd level spells and MM and then 2 levels of Warlock. Warlock really doesn't come online until 5th when you get 2 EBs.



Your spell selection is solid (I wish Sorcs got 4 extra spells known).The issue I see is you have to many concentration spells. Things I would change

1st - Armor of Agyth (Non-conc + HP), Hex, Shield

Sorcerer
1st - Absorb Elements
2nd - Misty Step
3rd - Haste, Fireball, Counterspell, Dispel Magic
4th - Banishment, Dimension Door, Greater Invisibility,
5th - Animate Objects, Synaptic Static
6th - Mental Prison (Sunbeam may be better as you are Pheonix)
7th - Reverse Gravity (You don't have a problem with damage)

Haste really depends on you party comp and MM selection. If you are running a melee centric party and Twin then it may be worth it. If not I would swap it out for Polymorph (which can be used offensively, defensively and for utility)

Misty Step and Dimension Door you have two mobility spells. I get that one is a bonus action vs action, but I would only pick one.

Thanks for the input!

Haste is very good for my party. I've got a cleric/pally, fighter/pally, barbarian, and a gunslinger (variant fighter that uses guns but gets all the fighter stuff).

A few questions:

Does Warlock get shield in Xanthar's? I didn't see that they did..
Sickening Radiance - not a fan?
Sunbeam - I don't believe it gets affected by Phoenix sorcerer since it's not fire damage.
Hold Person - Why the drop? Too many concentration spells?

[Byke]

Thanks for the input!

Haste is very good for my party. I've got a cleric/pally, fighter/pally, barbarian, and a gunslinger (variant fighter that uses guns but gets all the fighter stuff).

A few questions:

Does Warlock get shield in Xanthar's? I didn't see that they did..
Sickening Radiance - not a fan?
Sunbeam - I don't believe it gets affected by Phoenix sorcerer since it's not fire damage.
Hold Person - Why the drop? Too many concentration spells?


1) 99.9% sure they do...but don't have the book in front of me
2) Sickening Radiance: Few reason i dislike it, Con save and 4th level already has to many good spells competing for those slots. It could have a niche spot on the list if your DM uses lots of cover or invisibility in his encounters. As is goes around corners, it could be used to flush enemies out. Just feels to situational for me to give it a spot on the list.
3) Then definitely Synaptic Static
4) Yes exactly that...concentration. If you want another control spell then I would choose Web.

You group seems to have little to no "utility" spells. I would definitely ditch one of the mobility spells and snag Polymorph. Aside from the twin T-Rex shenanigans. It was instrumental to my group surviving a TPK last game.

**Last game my group was crossing a section ocean to get to our next objective, when we get attacked by a dragon turtle and our Barb/Fighter was pulled/grappled underwater. The Barb couldn't escape to save his life, but a twin Poly (giant shark) on the Rogue and Paladin saved the day (The bard poly'd himself as well). It just has to many application to pass up**

Our group has Barb/Fighter, Paladin/Hex, Monk/Rogue, Bard (Lore) and my Sorclock (Shadow/Hex)

***EDIT Thunder Step might be a decent replacement for MS and DD****

[Raif]

1) 99.9% sure they do...but don't have the book in front of me
2) Sickening Radiance: Few reason i dislike it, Con save and 4th level already has to many good spells competing for those slots. It could have a niche spot on the list if your DM uses lots of cover or invisibility in his encounters. As is goes around corners, it could be used to flush enemies out. Just feels to situational for me to give it a spot on the list.
3) Then definitely Synaptic Static
4) Yes exactly that...concentration. If you want another control spell then I would choose Web.

You group seems to have little to no "utility" spells. I would definitely ditch one of the mobility spells and snag Polymorph. Aside from the twin T-Rex shenanigans. It was instrumental to my group surviving a TPK last game.

**Last game my group was crossing a section ocean to get to our next objective, when we get attacked by a dragon turtle and our Barb/Fighter was pulled/grappled underwater. The Barb couldn't escape to save his life, but a twin Poly (giant shark) on the Rogue and Paladin saved the day (The bard poly'd himself as well). It just has to many application to pass up**

Our group has Barb/Fighter, Paladin/Hex, Monk/Rogue, Bard (Lore) and my Sorclock (Shadow/Hex)

***EDIT Thunder Step might be a decent replacement for MS and DD****

I do have a lore bard that has tons of utility (polymorph,counterspell,dispell magic, fear, slow, etc.) But poltymorph is definitely one id like to get. I can drop DD maybe in this case.

As i mentioned im running princes of the apocalypse(again, please no spoilsers) o lots of close quarter dungeons. Sickening radience might not be good then.

[Byke]

I do have a lore bard that has tons of utility (polymorph,counterspell,dispell magic, fear, slow, etc.) But poltymorph is definitely one id like to get. I can drop DD maybe in this case.

As i mentioned im running princes of the apocalypse(again, please no spoilsers) o lots of close quarter dungeons. Sickening radience might not be good then.

Never played Princes, but definitely come back and tell me how is worked out for you. I haven't had a chance to play with Sickening Radiance...I'm just going on gut feel.

[Raif]

Never played Princes, but definitely come back and tell me how is worked out for you. I haven't had a chance to play with Sickening Radiance...I'm just going on gut feel.

Will do.

I just checked regarding Warlocks and shield in Xanthar's and no, they don't get shield as a spell. I'll have to pick that up from sorcerer spell list and drop dimension door for it, so no polymorph unless I drop something else.

[samcifer]

Will do.

I just checked regarding Warlocks and shield in Xanthar's and no, they don't get shield as a spell. I'll have to pick that up from sorcerer spell list and drop dimension door for it, so no polymorph unless I drop something else.

Actually, Hexblades get shield, but yeah, only that Patron Pact gets it.

[Raif]

Actually, Hexblades get shield, but yeah, only that Patron Pact gets it.

totally forgot to check their expanded spell list. thanks!

[EvilAnagram]

The guide is updated with everything from Xanathar's but the racial feats. Tl;dr, everything deals psychic or radiant.

[SharkForce]

looks good, though one little thing; you haven't got any comments about enemies abound ;)

(you should also check if it's the right rating, since black is default, but i don't know enough about the spell to conclusively say how it should be rated so maybe that is accurate... i've heard good things, but it could be that someone was reading the spell description wrong when they explained what it does).

[EvilAnagram]

looks good, though one little thing; you haven't got any comments about enemies abound ;)

(you should also check if it's the right rating, since black is default, but i don't know enough about the spell to conclusively say how it should be rated so maybe that is accurate... i've heard good things, but it could be that someone was reading the spell description wrong when they explained what it does).

Good catch!

[Raif]

Just wanted to weigh in with some experience with Sickening Radiance:

Played Against the Giants (Tales of the Yawning Portal) last night as a one shot at level 11. Here's how epic that spell can be in the right usage:
So in this adventure there's a fortress right at the start filled with a ton of giants of a varying kind (by a ton I mean 20+ in one room). Normally you're supposed to wait and watch the meeting in secret and get info, but it was a one shot so we went at it anyway. Funneled the giants into a corridor so that only 1 at a time could come through, or at most 2 or 3 but they would have to wade through Sickening Radiance. Wiped 20+ giants due to it as they just had to chill in the cloud since there was nowhere for them to go. Eventually they fail a save, especially with Heightened metamagic, and it's downhill from there. Throw in Synaptic Static and it becomes worse. Spell is borderline broken in the right circumstances, but then again a DM can use it against you too so beware.

[SharkForce]

heighten works on one enemy for one save. there isn't much "eventually" with heighten, it either works or it doesn't, and then the spell is exactly the same as it would've been in the first place. the eventually came from the combination of the giants being trapped in with the radiance for the full duration :P

[Raif]

heighten works on one enemy for one save. there isn't much "eventually" with heighten, it either works or it doesn't, and then the spell is exactly the same as it would've been in the first place. the eventually came from the combination of the giants being trapped in with the radiance for the full duration :P

Good to know! I didn't have Heightened at that game anyway, but I will in my real game. So in a clarification question, when you cast an AoE spell like this with Heighten (something like Fireball or Sickening Radiance) and catch 5 targets:


Does only 1 target make the save at disadvantage or do all of them make it at disadvantage?
If it's a persistent AoE (like Sickening Radiance, Wall of Fire, Reverse Gravity, etc.) does it affect a target on their first turn of being affected? Or only the targets hit by that spell on the moment of casting? For example, I cast Reverse Gravity and catch 5 monsters and another monster walks into the Reverse Gravity field, does it now make it at disadvantage? Or only the initial 5?

[SharkForce]

Good to know! I didn't have Heightened at that game anyway, but I will in my real game. So in a clarification question, when you cast an AoE spell like this with Heighten (something like Fireball or Sickening Radiance) and catch 5 targets:


Does only 1 target make the save at disadvantage or do all of them make it at disadvantage?
If it's a persistent AoE (like Sickening Radiance, Wall of Fire, Reverse Gravity, etc.) does it affect a target on their first turn of being affected? Or only the targets hit by that spell on the moment of casting? For example, I cast Reverse Gravity and catch 5 monsters and another monster walks into the Reverse Gravity field, does it now make it at disadvantage? Or only the initial 5?


well, some of that depends on what your DM considers to be a target of the spell. for example, do they consider someone who is not currently in the AoE but *could* walk into the AoE to be a target?

in any event, with heighten, when you cast the spell one of the spell's targets (as noted above, this can be a bit unclear, but by default anything that is going to make a save at the moment you cast it should be fine imo) makes their first (and only their first, it can't be saved for later) save against the spell is made at disadvantage. strictly speaking, the ability doesn't let you choose your target, but i don't think i've ever heard of a DM that doesn't assume that as part of the intent. still, given enough DMs exist, i'm sure there's one out there somewhere that will rule that way. hopefully not yours.

it only works on one target, so no matter how many you catch in the AoE, only one of them makes their save at disadvantage (unless other factors are in play, such as exhaustion or a shadow hound).

as to whether that one could be the one that walks into the reverse gravity field after the fact, that goes right back to what your DM considers to be a target of the spell, and also on how they consider the selection of heighten target to be made, which is also not specified... for example, do you need to know who the target is? could you create a gylph of warding with a stored sickening radiance and select "the creature that triggers the glyph"? how about "the largest creature that triggered the glyph"? likewise, with your reverse gravity, the DM may require to choose one creature in the initial area, or may allow you to choose a specific creature in the event that it walks into the area (and if they never do, the heighten effect is wasted), or may even allow you to designate the first creature to walk into the area after it is cast. that's all pretty much up in the air. there is no clear RAW on the matter, so ask your DM, i cannot give you a ruling that is valid by default, it's all down to what is valid at your table with your group.

however, if i were to attempt to guess the typical default for most DMs, i would *guess* that most will allow you to choose a creature that you can somehow distinguish from others (which could be something like "the orc that is giving orders", but may also include "whichever creature is hiding behind that box" depending on DM) that is initially targeted by the spell.

[Raif]

snip

I see, that sounds... odd. I always understood it as Heighten spell just makes whoever is hit by that spell (regardless of # in cases like Fireball) makes it at disadvantage. I missed the part I bolded below.


When you Cast a Spell that forces a creature to make a saving throw to resist its effects, you can spend 3 sorcery points to give one target of the spell disadvantage on its first saving throw made against the spell.


That makes Heighten less... attractive for AoE spells. Thanks for the help!

[SharkForce]

I see, that sounds... odd. I always understood it as Heighten spell just makes whoever is hit by that spell (regardless of # in cases like Fireball) makes it at disadvantage. I missed the part I bolded below.




That makes Heighten less... attractive for AoE spells. Thanks for the help!

heighten kinda requires some specific spells to make it shine at all, in my opinion. it combos well with banishment, for example. the target fails a save, and now they're gone until you've cleaned up all their allies. maybe even just straight up gone, if they are from another plane and have no means of coming back.

it does less well with AoE, and with spells that allow additional saves (unless you intend for those to never come up... for example, if you use hold person on someone and then all of your melees get around that person and kill them off in a single round). personally, i'm not a huge fan... it is very expensive for what it does, imo, and is tremendously painful to pick up as one of your early choices as a result (at level 3, it is all of your free daily sorcerer points. even by level 7, when you finally get a spell that is versatile and works well with it in banishment, it is almost half of your daily free sorcerer points to use it just once on a single target, anything beyond that is coming out of your spell slots).

[Raif]

heighten kinda requires some specific spells to make it shine at all, in my opinion. it combos well with banishment, for example. the target fails a save, and now they're gone until you've cleaned up all their allies. maybe even just straight up gone, if they are from another plane and have no means of coming back.

it does less well with AoE, and with spells that allow additional saves (unless you intend for those to never come up... for example, if you use hold person on someone and then all of your melees get around that person and kill them off in a single round). personally, i'm not a huge fan... it is very expensive for what it does, imo, and is tremendously painful to pick up as one of your early choices as a result (at level 3, it is all of your free daily sorcerer points. even by level 7, when you finally get a spell that is versatile and works well with it in banishment, it is almost half of your daily free sorcerer points to use it just once on a single target, anything beyond that is coming out of your spell slots).

Yea I can see that. Im level 7 atm (5 phoenix sorcerer & 2 hexblade) with twin and quicken. I was planning on picking Heighten up at level 10 sorcerer since then I'll have a decent amount of sorcery points for spells like Mental Prison, Hold Person, and Banishment but I guess it won't work well for Hold Person. Seems best for single target save or suck spells along the lines of Mental Prison, Banishment and Disintegrate.

I'll have to rethink my choice, though I don't think anything else works as well. Maybe empower...

[SharkForce]

Yea I can see that. Im level 7 atm (5 phoenix sorcerer & 2 hexblade) with twin and quicken. I was planning on picking Heighten up at level 10 sorcerer since then I'll have a decent amount of sorcery points for spells like Mental Prison, Hold Person, and Banishment but I guess it won't work well for Hold Person. Seems best for single target save or suck spells along the lines of Mental Prison, Banishment and Disintegrate.

I'll have to rethink my choice, though I don't think anything else works as well. Maybe empower...

subtle is pretty cool too. lets you do some neat tricks if you choose the spells for it.

and hold person could work with heighten, it just needs to be used as a death sentence rather than as control. the moment you hold the target, everyone needs to get in there and nuke them down immediately.

[AnkhyMaFar]

Create Bonfire (EE/XGtE): A save cantrip, but it works with Draconic damage and can block choke points. Works well with Pyrotechnics and Quicken. (Concentration)

Pyrotechnics (EE/XGtE): Quickened Create Bonfire gives you a fire, and this spell lets you blind a lot of people with that fire. This might even make Blindness/Deafness obsolete.

Following the changes in wording to both Create Bonfire and Pyrotechnics in XGtE, where Create Bonfire now creates a magical bonfire, and Pyrotechnics requires a nonmagical flame, these two spells can no longer be comboed together. This has been confirmed by Jeremy Crawford on Twitter. It seems like they were never intended to work together.

[Back Stabbath]

Any advice on a Dragon Sorcerer Hexblade gish setup

I figure you should stick with Sorcerer until level 6 at least to get elemental damage bonus

[werescythe]

This might just be me, but I think Xanathar's guide actually buffed (in some areas) the Shadow Sorcerer.


While Eyes of the Dark has its darkness spreading ability delayed until 3rd level, the nightvision you get at level 1 has been increased from 60ft to 120ft.
The saving throw for Strength of the Grave is now Charisma instead of Constitution (since we're a Charisma based class that is a buff in my book).
Hound of Ill Omen now gives the Hound temporary hit points equal to your sorcerer level (perhaps that is a good reason to not multi-class).
Shadow Walk stayed the same (not that it needed to change, if you ask me).
Shadow Form (which is now Umbral Form) did get a nerf as the sorcery points needed to use it increased from 3 points to 6 points and you lose your resistance to Radiant (it used to be only Force, now Radiant will damage you as well).


Looking at this is it worth working your way up to Umbral Form, or would it be better to multiclass into Warlock/Bard instead?

I was thinking it could be interesting to maybe become a bard for 6 levels and go into the College of Whispers so you can gain some of their cool shadow abilities.

Also the new 2nd level spell, Shadow Blade, would work really well with a Shadow Sorcerer I think.

[Shayahz]

Draconian resilience should be sky blue, it's basically like having really good light armor on ALL the time. If you bump up your dex and cha and take a fire dragon and use fire bolt ALOT ( as a go to spell, it's a good cantrip that scales amazingly) , you can do very well in combat despite being a non combatant class

[GhostInYourIcee]

An important note on Mage Armor for non-Draconic Sorcerers: its range is Touch, not Self. This means that if you have a Wizard, Monk, or another Sorcerer in the party, you can Twin the spell and apply it to two characters with only one spell slot. That's the equivalent of plate or at least splint armor for a decently built Monk, or one more attack/utility/support spell for your other caster to have prepared/known and one extra slot available. Given that it only costs 1 Sorcery Point, it's a pretty efficient defensive spell to have on your list, and perhaps even more worth knowing than Shield depending on your party composition and the campaign you're facing (if you're only looking to take one of the two of them, that is).

[werescythe]

I just wanted to say that for a Shadow Sorcerer above lvl 6, the 2nd lvl spell, Mind Spike isn't quite so bad (some aspects are still situational).

At lvl 6 you should be trying to harass your enemies (especially the big baddies with all the hard hitting attacks and spells) with your hound of ill omen. With Mind Spike you should be able to deal 100% of the damage most of the time so long as the enemy is affected by the hound. Also its effects last for an hour, so even if the hound is disposed of (either by death or by its 5 minute timer) you will still be able to follow and track the actions of that enemy (even when they are invisible).

Sure the spell stops once they leave the plane you are on, but usually when most enemies do that, its a last ditch effort to survive (plus now you can confidently tell your allies that this enemy has the ability to move from plane to plane). :smallbiggrin:

[KorvinStarmast]

EA, I noticed this note in your spoiler tag for multiclassing.

Rogue: Sneak attack is fun, as is Expertise. A decent option

You rated it blue.

Is there a place in this thread where I can look at the Sorc/Rogue MC plusses and minuses?

[DaComputerNerd]

Can we have the Tal'Doreh Campaign Setting added to this (the Runechild sorcerous origin)? It seems interesting, but complex, and I really don't know whether it's worth playing.

[EvilAnagram]

Can we have the Tal'Doreh Campaign Setting added to this (the Runechild sorcerous origin)? It seems interesting, but complex, and I really don't know whether it's worth playing.
I have no intention of covering homebrew or third-party classes.

That said, the Runechild gets its first offensive feature at level 14, long after every other origin. It works well if you want to thank some damage, but otherwise it's underwhelming.

[werescythe]

I was wondering, let's say you want to make a Shadow Sorcerer Build that focuses on the Hound of Ill Omen, but not in the just Save or Suck spells but kind of focused on the Sorcerer treating it as a pet (kind of like a Familiar). I know that's mainly Roleplayey but I thought I would ask.

Are their any good feats, spells or even classes you can multiclass into (but not for too many levels due to the whole extra temp hit points thing) to do something like this?

[Raif]

I was wondering, let's say you want to make a Shadow Sorcerer Build that focuses on the Hound of Ill Omen, but not in the just Save or Suck spells but kind of focused on the Sorcerer treating it as a pet (kind of like a Familiar). I know that's mainly Roleplayey but I thought I would ask.

Are their any good feats, spells or even classes you can multiclass into (but not for too many levels due to the whole extra temp hit points thing) to do something like this?

From a roleplaying PoV - that is sort of entirely up to you. However:


At 6th level, you gain the ability to call forth a howling creature of darkness to harass your foes. As a bonus action, you can spend 3 sorcery points to magically summon a hound of ill omen to target one creature you can see within 120 feet of you. The hound uses the dire wolf statistics (see the Monster Manual or appendix C in the Player’s Handbook), with the following changes:

The hound is size Medium, not Large, and it counts as a monstrosity, not a beast.
It appears with a number of temporary hit points equal to half your sorcerer level.
It can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. The hound takes 5 force damage if it ends its turn inside an object.
At the start of its turn, the hound automatically knows its target’s location. If the target was hidden, it is no longer hidden from the hound.
The hound appears in an unoccupied space of your choice within 30 feet of the target. Roll initiative for the hound. On its turn, it can move only toward its target by the most direct route, and it can use its action only to attack its target. The hound can make opportunity attacks, but only against its target. Additionally, while the hound is within 5 feet of the target, the target has disadvantage on saving throws against any spell you cast. The hound disappears if it is reduced to 0 hit points, if its target is reduced to 0 hit points, or after 5 minutes.

Note the bold parts - The hound only exists for a maximum of 5 minutes if it takes no damage or your target doesn't die. Not sure how much of a "familiar" you can RP with that, but it's absolutely up to you.

[werescythe]

Note the bold parts - The hound only exists for a maximum of 5 minutes if it takes no damage or your target doesn't die. Not sure how much of a "familiar" you can RP with that, but it's absolutely up to you.

Well, the idea I had was that Shadow Hound (roleplaying wise) might speak subconsciously with the character as it doesn't have a physical form, so the player has to spend the sorcery points to summon it, thus bringing it into the physical plane.

[EvilAnagram]

Well, the idea I had was that Shadow Hound (roleplaying wise) might speak subconsciously with the character as it doesn't have a physical form, so the player has to spend the sorcery points to summon it, thus bringing it into the physical plane.

That's cool. I like the idea of having an invisible dog friend that sometimes murders people with you. However, there really isn't anything out there to solidify that concept mechanically.

[Raif]

Well, the idea I had was that Shadow Hound (roleplaying wise) might speak subconsciously with the character as it doesn't have a physical form, so the player has to spend the sorcery points to summon it, thus bringing it into the physical plane.

It's definitely a cool idea, but it's totally RP which means it's up to the DM and the player to work that out. It doesn't give the player any extra power, just flavor. You can have it be like Kindred from League of Legends that is technically 2 characters, but 1 is a wolf head that just floats around a lamb. Wolf doesn't do anything but talk to Lamb (together they are known as Kindred) until you use on of it's abilities.

You can flavor it as the players shadow that is animated or awakened, or a floating dog shadow head that hangs out on the body of the player and occasionally peeks its head out of the clothes to talk to the player.

Very cool idea.

[werescythe]

That's cool. I like the idea of having an invisible dog friend that sometimes murders people with you. However, there really isn't anything out there to solidify that concept mechanically.

Oh, I understand that. I was just wondering if there were any spells that the Sorcerer might have access to, that could be used on the hound to increase its potential, or if their was even a feat that could somehow benefit it. :smallsmile:

[werescythe]

So I have a question. With Dragon's Breath, if you cast it onto your Hound of Ill Omen and it attacks an enemy within 5ft of it, does the character it is attacking have disadvantage, since you technically did cast the spell and gave your hound the ability to use the breath weapon?

Also if you have Elemental Adept, does the benefits of that feat apply to Dragon's Breath if the Hound attacks with the spell?

I guess here is another dumb question, can you twin Dragon's Breath? I mean it targets 1 other creature using touch (not self). And if it can be twinned could you give it to your Hound and yourself?

[werescythe]

Well? Does anyone have any feedback on the last question?

[EvilAnagram]

Well? Does anyone have any feedback on the last question?
You can twin Dragon's Breath, but I believe the Hound is specifically only able to use its action to attack, so it cannot benefit from the spell.

Empower specifies that it can only be used when you roll damage from a spell, and if someone else is using the spell they get to roll damage, so you can't empower.

[werescythe]

You can twin Dragon's Breath, but I believe the Hound is specifically only able to use its action to attack, so it cannot benefit from the spell.

Empower specifies that it can only be used when you roll damage from a spell, and if someone else is using the spell they get to roll damage, so you can't empower.

Okay, I thought it might work as Dragon's Breath seemed to merely give the Hound a breath weapon it could use to attack but I guess not.

However both Haste and Enlarge/Reduce should work as the enhance the Hounds speed or increase its size will giving it advantage against smaller enemies.

[Luke7658]

Thank you so much, you have saved a noob's life with this guide.

I am currently a Half-Elf Sorcerer wondering if I could take a Pyromancer from the Kaldesh Plane Shift and would like to hear your opinion on that subclass. Until now I had not been choosing a Origin and just figured out I should be using one (Level 10). Also you helped me realize I had been overspecializing in fire, and that multiclassing into Wizard might not have been the best idea.

[EvilAnagram]

Thank you so much, you have saved a noob's life with this guide.

I am currently a Half-Elf Sorcerer wondering if I could take a Pyromancer from the Kaldesh Plane Shift and would like to hear your opinion on that subclass. Until now I had not been choosing a Origin and just figured out I should be using one (Level 10). Also you helped me realize I had been overspecializing in fire, and that multiclassing into Wizard might not have been the best idea.

Wow. Yeah, you should have chosen an origin a long time ago. As long as you haven't taken Elemental Adept for fire damage, I think a Pyromancer will do fine. The Fire in the Veins feature is solid if you're fine committing to that damage type, and Heart of Fire will keep bruisers off of you.

[Luke7658]

By the way, can you change the picture on A Dragon Had A Baby With What???. I think that technically, this would not have been, because it seems to be be using a lot of artifacts rather than just pure power, which I think misrepresents Sorcerers. You could replace it with a famous Sorcerer such as Chandra or Karn from from Magic: The Gathering.

[EvilAnagram]

By the way, can you change the picture on A Dragon Had A Baby With What???. I think that technically, this would not have been, because it seems to be be using a lot of artifacts rather than just pure power, which I think misrepresents Sorcerers. You could replace it with a famous Sorcerer such as Chandra or Karn from from Magic: The Gathering.

I'd rather not, thanks.

[werescythe]

Here is a fun idea I had for Shadow Sorcery players (depending upon their quirk). On occasion the GM asks the player to roll percentiles. If its below 20% everyone else performs a perception check. If they succeed they see the shadow sorcerer blink. ;)

[werescythe]

I'm excited to see what MToF has to bring us Sorcerers. Shadar-kai look promising. <-Ignore this statement. Someone showed me the stats for the Shadar-kai in MToF and sadly they changed the ability increase from Charisma (as it was in the Unearthed Arcana) to Con.

I guess I have to stick with an Eladrin Shadow Sorcerer, probably winter.

[Miracle_Matter]

I think you should give the cleric multi-class a much better rating, but only when combined with a divine soul sorcerer. Metamagic combined with the bonus healing of the life cleric comboes really well for a support caster.

[EvilAnagram]

I think you should give the cleric multi-class a much better rating, but only when combined with a divine soul sorcerer. Metamagic combined with the bonus healing of the life cleric comboes really well for a support caster.

The fact that you're only willing to apply an improved rating to a specific build tells me that I rated it well. Remember, purple isn't bad, it's just not consistently good across all or most common situations.

[Miracle_Matter]

The fact that you're only willing to apply an improved rating to a specific build tells me that I rated it well. Remember, purple isn't bad, it's just not consistently good across all or most common situations.

That may be the case, but you could maybe hint to the readers that there might be a interesting concept if you look into that specific subclass of sorcerer. I'm going to try it out for one of the campaigns I'm going to be playing in and I can give you more input afterwards.

[werescythe]

That may be the case, but you could maybe hint to the readers that there might be a interesting concept if you look into that specific subclass of sorcerer. I'm going to try it out for one of the campaigns I'm going to be playing in and I can give you more input afterwards.

I don't know. The fact that he hasn't modified the base guide to help Shadow Sorcerer players (I'm sure there are a few black spells that will turn blue thanks to the Hounds of Ill Omen), I don't think it would make much sense for him to change his multiclassing section for something that very few players will use.

Just saying, Divine Soul Sorcerers are fine healer sorcerers (considering how few healing spells and of the other sorcery subclasses have access to) if you really want to be a better healer, might as well be a cleric or a bard (though multiclassing into a lore bard for some extra spells might work nicely).

Especially since in a few days they will have to update it with information for the new subraces coming from MToF.