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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Sorcerer Subclass: Pure Sorcerer (PEACH)



TinyBlooper
2017-02-14, 01:12 AM
The Warlock/Wizard UA came out today, and it had a lot of interesting stuff. I was, however, a bit frustrated by the Lore Mastery Wizard, since I feel that its themes of flexibility and modifying spells treads on the Sorcerer design space. So, I decided to bang out this Sorcerer subclass, inspired by the Lore Master. It's my first piece of 5e homebrew, so balancing advice is appreciated.

Pure Sorcerer
Magic wells up from within you, pure and undilluted. Perhaps an archmage experimented on you as a child, or perhaps you were born under a particular alignment of the stars. Whatever the reason, you are a source of raw magic, answerable only to yourself. What will you do?

Source of Magic
Raw magic floods your veins, aching to be released. At 1st level, you do not require material components to cast spells if the components have no cost, and you perceive magical effects within 5 feet of you as per detect magic.

Elemental Flare
You are capable of shaping raw magic into blasts of elemental power. At 1st level, as an action, you may expend a sorcerer spell slot and make a ranged spell attack on a target within 100 feet. On a hit, the target takes 1d6 damage plus 1d6 damage per level of the expended spell slot. The type of damage is chosen from the list below. If a spell slot of 3rd level or higher was used, the target suffers an additional effect based on the type of damage dealt. On a miss, the target takes half damage and suffers no extra effects.
At 1st level, you have access to 2 of the elements below. You gain access to another element at levels 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, and 17.

Acid: Target must make a Dexterity save. On a failure, their AC is reduced by 2 until the end of your next turn.
Cold: Target must make a Constitution save. On a failure, their speed is reduced by 5 feet per level of the expended spell slot until the end of their next turn, to a minimum of 5 feet.
Fire: Target takes additional fire damage equal to twice the level of the expended spell slot
Force: Target must make a Dexterity save. On a failure, they are pushed 10 feet per level of the expended spell slot directly away from you.
Lightning: Target must make a Constitution save or be stunned until either the end of their next turn, or until they take damage, whichever comes first.
Necrotic: Target must make a Constitution save. On a failure, the next attack against them has advantage.
Radiant: Target must make a Wisdom save. On a failure, they have disadvantage on their next attack role.
Thunder: Target must make a Constitution save or be deafened for a number of rounds equal to the level of the used spell slot.
Psychic: Target must make a Wisdom save or be frightened of you until the end of their next turn

Control Magic
Your control of magic has improved to the point that you can attempt to wrest control of a spell away from its caster. At 6th level, whenever a creature you can see casts a spell, you may use your reaction to make a Charisma check at DC 10 + (twice the level of the spell). On a success, you choose the spell's targets and effects instead of the caster, as applicable. On a failure, take psychic damage equal to the level of the spell, and you are stunned until the end of your next turn.

Spontaneous Casting
As you delve deeper into the well of power within you, you learn to shape raw magic into more complex forms. At 14th level, choose a school of magic. You may cast any spell you don't know from that school by expending a spell slot of the spell's level. If the spell isn't a sorcerer spell, it counts as one when you cast it. You cannot apply metamagic to spells cast using this ability, and you can't cast spells higher than 4th level. You may use this ability up to 3 times, after which you must take a long rest before you can use it again.

Perfect Will
Your power has grown to the point that you can impose your will on the world directly. At 18th level, you may spend 10 sorcery points to cast wish as an action. If you cast wish using this ability, you can only use it to duplicate a spell of 8th level or lower, or enact one of the non-spell effects explicitly mentioned in the Player's Handbook. You may cast wish with this ability even if you have lost the ability to cast wish normally. Finally, you suffer none of the negative side effects normally caused by casting wish. After using this ability, you cannot use it again until you have finished a long rest.

UPDATE 1: Changed Source of Magic to no longer grant bonus sorcery points. Reduced damage of Elemental Flare. Replaced Enhanced Metamagic with Control Magic. Nerfed Spontaneous Casting, and made it the 14th level ability. Perfect Will now costs 10 sorcery points to use.

Morphic tide
2017-02-14, 09:49 AM
Oh god, the oneupsmanship is starting... What next, a Cleric subclass that recreates DMM?

Princess
2017-02-14, 12:47 PM
Oh god, the oneupsmanship is starting... What next, a Cleric subclass that recreates DMM?

I think it's very obvious that the Loremaster Wizard is going to be toned down - the most obviously game-bending ability is their power to turn fireball into radiant damage, et c. and render monster resistances entirely useless as much as they please.

To the OP, I think having a wizard class that plays up flexibility is perfectly reasonable and wouldn't undermine Sorcerers at all had it been better designed and suspect a revised version will come up in a future UA or published book. Trying to compete with an unbalanced playtest is an issue here, and a "pure sorcerer" bloodline that really amps up core features above and beyond the norm shouldn't be so powerful that it undermines all previous sorcerer bloodlines, which this rough draft of yours looks like it might.

I think this needs to be re-balanced so that Dragon and Wild Sorcerers aren't overwhelmed - UA playtests are sometimes screwy and Lore Master Wizards are a very clear example of something that needs to be adjusted in future iterations.

TinyBlooper
2017-02-14, 02:17 PM
@Princess: I know that UA materials aren't fully balanced, and it wasn't really my intention to compete with Lore Master. I was just a bit frustrated that Lore Master has several abilities, specifically Spell Secrets, Alchemical Casting and Master of Magic, that seem like things a Sorcerer should be able to do. Modifying spells as they are cast is explicitly the purpose of metamagic, and its the biggest thing Sorcerers have going for them. Giving similar abilities to Wizards feels like taking away the thing that makes Sorcerers unique. Similarly, spontaneously casting spells you don't know seems much more in line with the Sorcerer's instinctive knowledge as opposed to the Wizard's years of study, though I do appreciate the fluff they put into it.

That said, you're definitely right, the subclass as it stands is dramatically overpowered, and completely overshadows the PHB subclasses. That's what I get for drafting late at night. Elemental Flare's scaling is too good, Spontaneous Casting needs fewer uses per rest, and Perfect Will needs some sort of downside. I am curious what people think about the new metamagics and the increase in Sorcery points.

Princess
2017-02-14, 03:50 PM
@Princess: I know that UA materials aren't fully balanced, and it wasn't really my intention to compete with Lore Master. I was just a bit frustrated that Lore Master has several abilities, specifically Spell Secrets, Alchemical Casting and Master of Magic, that seem like things a Sorcerer should be able to do. Modifying spells as they are cast is explicitly the purpose of metamagic, and its the biggest thing Sorcerers have going for them. Giving similar abilities to Wizards feels like taking away the thing that makes Sorcerers unique. Similarly, spontaneously casting spells you don't know seems much more in line with the Sorcerer's instinctive knowledge as opposed to the Wizard's years of study, though I do appreciate the fluff they put into it.

That said, you're definitely right, the subclass as it stands is dramatically overpowered, and completely overshadows the PHB subclasses. That's what I get for drafting late at night. Elemental Flare's scaling is too good, Spontaneous Casting needs fewer uses per rest, and Perfect Will needs some sort of downside. I am curious what people think about the new metamagics and the increase in Sorcery points.

The new metamagic options are interesting but I'm curious how relevant they'd be in practice limited to only level 14 plus. A toned down version of them at level 6 might be a more interesting way to go with a "pure source of magic" type sorcerer. Also, while I do actually think the Lore Master level 14 power is reasonable for that high level of a caster with a 'know-it-all' theme, letting a character from 6th level onward improvise freely with any spell in the game at any moment steps on Lore Bards' toes in the same way that metamagic-like wizard abilities mess with sorcerers. So I'd consider flipping those abilities around, possibly, in addition to generally rebalancing power levels. Limiting Perfect Will seems tricky given that the intended theme is flexibility, but the sorcerer spell list would include dozens of options not known by any specific sorcerer and would still be an impressive capstone to consider.

As for Sorcery points, I think the core sorcerer mechanics for sorcery points are fine as is and would be skeptical of changing that much with a subclass, for the same reason none of the cleric domains grant extra uses of channel divinity per rest.

TinyBlooper
2017-02-14, 09:58 PM
I've updated the subclass features as per some of Princess' suggestions. Still welcoming comments and suggestions.