Drackolus
2017-02-10, 05:19 PM
So, I tried the constitution-only sorcerer in a one off. I made a bunch of observations that I think will be very important if you ever choose to play a character like this.
For clarity on my specific character: we were level 5, and I rolled quite well (a 16, 15, THREE 14's and a 10). I was tempted to play a paladin with those stats, but I perservered and played this character instead. The idea behind it is that you can completely ignore everything but constitution, and just pick spells that don't rely on your casting stat. For my 6 spells, I took; Magic Missile, Shield, Sleep, Enlarge/Reduce, Invisibility, and Haste. My metamagics were Twin and Quicken. Our group usually allows a free feat at level 1, and I took Warcaster. After my level 4 asi and racial mods, I ended up with 20 con, 16 int, 10 str, and 14 everything else.
So, things I learned.
Produce Flame is AWFUL. It has only 30' range when thrown, and more importantly, has a technical range of "self". This means that it cannot be twinned or used as a reaction with warcaster. A kind dm may allow these, but I felt that it was my tradeoff for only using constitution. This goes into my second point...
You cannot control the battlefield. I ran into melee with my massive 52 hp and 20 ac against ~9 hobgoblins and a chief twice. I definitely could soak up the damage, but there was really nothing keeping them there. I could have cast MM as a reaction, but then I could only hit one. The DM could have had them run up to the squishier allies and I couldn't have really stopped them. Thankfully, my other party members were all clever and stealthy and I charged into the fight screaming, alone, and lit the warlord's tent on fire. I didn't have the level 6 ability, which is probably the best way to protect your allies.
Not having Fireball or Counterspell stinks. However, twinned buffs are plenty powerful.
Warcaster isn't that useful for this build. I already had a +8 to my con saves, so I had to roll a 1 to fail most concentration. At higher levels, it would have been an auto-success. The other two benefits aren't that useful either. Holding my rapier didn't help much. I had no usable cantrips. I could have taken Booming Blade, but with my low dex, it wouldn't have been that great.
You really, REALLY don't want to fall to 0. You lose concentration AND your armor. And, since twinned haste is your only really good 3rd level option, you can make 2 other people lose their turns. Yikes. I was dropped by the half-dragon Hobgoblin Warlord's breath attack while I was concentrating on haste, causing 3 of our 4 members to lose a turn. We thankfully had taken out all of his mooks, and the last member was a life cleric, so we were okay. It's thankfully very hard to take you down with 10hp/lvl and massive ac, but it's always possible. Thus, it's probably smartest to hang around 30' or so (maybe moving in & out between casts so that you can stay 45' away).
It seems the best way to run this build is to just twin whatever buff is appropriate for the fight and convert the slots you don't use into more sorcery points for more twinned spells. And have someone else who can counterspell and fireball. Like a wizard. Once you get your 20 con, Healer and Ritual Caster (if your int/wis are high enough) are probably better feats. Quicken wasn't wildly useful. You can't quicken AND twin, and twin usually takes precedence. You could do things like dodge and magic missile or something. But really, you already don't have enough sorcery points to twin every spell, and it's prett much always your best option.
It's a somewhat satisfying build, but all you really do is stand around, be tough, cast a crappy cantrip every round, and concentrate on your spells. It could get pretty boring after a while. Still, I had fun and I was still quite impactful. It sort of takes all the risk out of twinned haste, making it much more powerful. All in all, a solud character, especially since you give up a lot of the best sorcerer spells and two parts of yoir class features. The very limited number of spells that Sorcerers learn does make it easy to just pick solid ones. I didn't even pick all the ones I wanted to (namely Misty Step).
For clarity on my specific character: we were level 5, and I rolled quite well (a 16, 15, THREE 14's and a 10). I was tempted to play a paladin with those stats, but I perservered and played this character instead. The idea behind it is that you can completely ignore everything but constitution, and just pick spells that don't rely on your casting stat. For my 6 spells, I took; Magic Missile, Shield, Sleep, Enlarge/Reduce, Invisibility, and Haste. My metamagics were Twin and Quicken. Our group usually allows a free feat at level 1, and I took Warcaster. After my level 4 asi and racial mods, I ended up with 20 con, 16 int, 10 str, and 14 everything else.
So, things I learned.
Produce Flame is AWFUL. It has only 30' range when thrown, and more importantly, has a technical range of "self". This means that it cannot be twinned or used as a reaction with warcaster. A kind dm may allow these, but I felt that it was my tradeoff for only using constitution. This goes into my second point...
You cannot control the battlefield. I ran into melee with my massive 52 hp and 20 ac against ~9 hobgoblins and a chief twice. I definitely could soak up the damage, but there was really nothing keeping them there. I could have cast MM as a reaction, but then I could only hit one. The DM could have had them run up to the squishier allies and I couldn't have really stopped them. Thankfully, my other party members were all clever and stealthy and I charged into the fight screaming, alone, and lit the warlord's tent on fire. I didn't have the level 6 ability, which is probably the best way to protect your allies.
Not having Fireball or Counterspell stinks. However, twinned buffs are plenty powerful.
Warcaster isn't that useful for this build. I already had a +8 to my con saves, so I had to roll a 1 to fail most concentration. At higher levels, it would have been an auto-success. The other two benefits aren't that useful either. Holding my rapier didn't help much. I had no usable cantrips. I could have taken Booming Blade, but with my low dex, it wouldn't have been that great.
You really, REALLY don't want to fall to 0. You lose concentration AND your armor. And, since twinned haste is your only really good 3rd level option, you can make 2 other people lose their turns. Yikes. I was dropped by the half-dragon Hobgoblin Warlord's breath attack while I was concentrating on haste, causing 3 of our 4 members to lose a turn. We thankfully had taken out all of his mooks, and the last member was a life cleric, so we were okay. It's thankfully very hard to take you down with 10hp/lvl and massive ac, but it's always possible. Thus, it's probably smartest to hang around 30' or so (maybe moving in & out between casts so that you can stay 45' away).
It seems the best way to run this build is to just twin whatever buff is appropriate for the fight and convert the slots you don't use into more sorcery points for more twinned spells. And have someone else who can counterspell and fireball. Like a wizard. Once you get your 20 con, Healer and Ritual Caster (if your int/wis are high enough) are probably better feats. Quicken wasn't wildly useful. You can't quicken AND twin, and twin usually takes precedence. You could do things like dodge and magic missile or something. But really, you already don't have enough sorcery points to twin every spell, and it's prett much always your best option.
It's a somewhat satisfying build, but all you really do is stand around, be tough, cast a crappy cantrip every round, and concentrate on your spells. It could get pretty boring after a while. Still, I had fun and I was still quite impactful. It sort of takes all the risk out of twinned haste, making it much more powerful. All in all, a solud character, especially since you give up a lot of the best sorcerer spells and two parts of yoir class features. The very limited number of spells that Sorcerers learn does make it easy to just pick solid ones. I didn't even pick all the ones I wanted to (namely Misty Step).