New updated Sorcerer Guide!

[TheUser]

This one covers some fairly advanced concepts like economizing sorcery points and gambling as well as statistical analysis of metamagic features. It's also horrendously long and opinionated but should be helpful to those who want to play a sorcerer.

http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/rJHwSSR0e
(use chrome)

PDF:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxHRu80oFd2iSkNLeVBISzZxMzQ

Typos abound!

[Waterdeep Merch]

It's a very good guide, and I agree with a lot of what I'm seeing. I might show this to some of my nascent mage players to help them understand the nuances of arcane casting better.

There's some formatting weirdness, though. Entire paragraphs are put off past the page, pictures and text overlap in a few places. Check your header spacing. It's also entirely possible that the problem lies in the browser being used. I'm running MS Edge here at work. I'll let you know if it's any different with Chrome when I get home.

[TheUser]

I updated the original post to include a pdf version

[Gray Mage]

Is it just me or is there some typos on the first sentence of the DEX paragraph in the stats section?

[Sans.]

nvm nothing was ever here looks good tho

[TheUser]

I found the typo and edited it lol

Anybody have feedback of any kind besides typos?

[Kryx]

Anybody have feedback of any kind besides typos?
You lost me at hard =/= bad. I love the Sorcerer, but RAW has well established problems. It's fine to focus on what we have, but glossing over the issues as if they don't exist does a disservice to the reader imo.

Additionally your argument against spell point is quite definitive without any evidence.

Those points made me stop reading.

[TheUser]

You lost me at hard =/= bad. I love the Sorcerer, but RAW has well established problems. It's fine to focus on what we have, but glossing over the issues as if they don't exist does a disservice to the reader imo.

Additionally your argument against spell point is quite definitive without any evidence.

Those points made me stop reading.

Being able to spam high level spells is pretty evident don't you think?

"Try it out and form your own opinion" is apparently not what you wanted to read.
Nice.

Did you even make it to that part? Or did you just get to the part where I say it's overpowered and shutdown over someone having a different opinion?

Thanks for the feedback on two paragraphs....means so much...

[Kryx]

Did you even make it to that part? Or did you just get to the part where I say it's overpowered and shutdown over someone criticizing your flawed opinion?

Thanks for the feedback on two paragraphs....means so much...
You have serious aggression problems. People like you are why I often do not enjoy coming to these forums. Your attitude is incredibly hostile and toxic. If you're here to recieve actual feedback then you should not respond with such hostility. Goodbye.

[TheUser]

You have serious aggression problems. People like you are why I often do not enjoy coming to these forums. Your attitude is incredibly hostile and toxic. If you're here to recieve actual feedback then you should not respond with such hostility. Goodbye.

Serious question, did you actually expect a positive response from reading two paragraphs and labeling it "actual feedback" Or did you think that coming into the thread and stating you deem it not worth your time to read all of it would elicit a positive response?

You're your own worst problem if you do passive aggressive shenanigans like this and then get flustered when people reciprocate with actual aggression. I get that you don't like people getting aggressive, but take a second to look at your own bull**** and take some responsibility for what you put out there man.

In retrospect I shouldn't have replied and just let everyone in the forum judge you on the merits of your response (or lack thereof) but seriously... it sounds like you got so disappointed with my view on spell points, and while I get that you don't like what I said (likely* because it has been echoed by more people than just myself), at least I have the humility to state that my opinion is just that and that the players should try it to form there own. Completely discrediting everything else that follows isn't just overly judgmental, it's foolish; I encourage you to actually -read the guide- instead of judging a book by its cover so to speak.

[Lombra]

Skimming through it I would say that the DEX >= CON comparison should be reversed, concentration >>> AC.
The metamagic explainations are good, but quickened fly to disengage is a very valueable combo from level 5 when you get ambushed and surrounded, and I hoped that you would have given the out of combat role that most metamagics have, like extended spells.

What's written is helpful, but I'm looking forward to some more "pillars" coverage, for now it's very combat oriented, adding also considerations on the exploration and social pillars of the game would make this guide more complete IMO.

[Arkhios]

Why no Storm Sorcery? *sadface*

That said, relatively good guide nonetheless.

[TheUser]

Skimming through it I would say that the DEX >= CON comparison should be reversed, concentration >>> AC.
The metamagic explainations are good, but quickened fly to disengage is a very valueable combo from level 5 when you get ambushed and surrounded, and I hoped that you would have given the out of combat role that most metamagics have, like extended spells.

What's written is helpful, but I'm looking forward to some more "pillars" coverage, for now it's very combat oriented, adding also considerations on the exploration and social pillars of the game would make this guide more complete IMO.

I'm getting the feeling you glossed over verrrry quickly as opposed to read it... everything you've thought was missing is there...

-Dex is only considered greater than con for sorcerers with subtle spell (my highest rated metamagic) because it governs stealth and sleight of hand checks as well as thieves tools. Con is roughly equal and even greater when playing a stone sorcerer.

-Fly was listed as one of the better quickened spells with a specific statement about disengage/dash being useful with it. It's right there in the list of spells that combine well with the metamagic and a brief sentence explaining why...

-Moreover, the S-tier #1 metamagic is the one that makes you a "social magic god"; subtle spell, with a detailed explanation as to why it's useful both in and out of combat. It specifically looks at the social elements of the metamagic and why it's strong and often undervalued.

I'm not sure how to edit the document to make this any more clear...

As for your gripe about extended spell I'm at a bit of a loss. It's all well and good that alter self can last 2 hours instead of 1, but if you have to be isolated in a private room so nobody can see or hear you cast it (instead of casting/renewing it on the go with no hand gestures or arcane invocations using subtle spell) then it strikes me as not really at all superior for social situations if one excludes the use of the other (only 1 metamagic per spell). I guess my point is, the trade offs you lose out on to get that double duration pale in comparison to what subtle brings to the social game. Does your DM just let you cast spells willy nilly without people getting suspicious? How audible are your arcane invocations in a private room? Would people hear your through the door in the hallway? Do you have to rush off to some private bathroom and hope you aren't being followed or listened to?

[Lombra]

I'm getting the feeling you glossed over verrrry quickly as opposed to read it... everything you've thought was missing is there...

-Dex is only considered greater than con for sorcerers with subtle spell (my highest rated metamagic) because it governs stealth and sleight of hand checks as well as thieves tools. Con is roughly equal and even greater when playing a stone sorcerer.

-Fly was listed as one of the better quickened spells with a specific statement about disengage/dash being useful with it. It's right there in the list of spells that combine well with the metamagic and a brief sentence explaining why...

-Moreover, the S-tier #1 metamagic is the one that makes you a "social magic god"; subtle spell, with a detailed explanation as to why it's useful both in and out of combat. It specifically looks at the social elements of the metamagic and why it's strong and often undervalued.

I'm not sure how to edit the document to make this any more clear...

As for your gripe about extended spell I'm at a bit of a loss. It's all well and good that alter self can last 2 hours instead of 1, but if you have to be isolated in a private room so nobody can see or hear you cast it (instead of casting/renewing it on the go with no hand gestures or arcane invocations using subtle spell) then it strikes me as not really at all superior for social situations if one excludes the use of the other (only 1 metamagic per spell). I guess my point is, the trade offs you lose out on to get that double duration pale in comparison to what subtle brings to the social game. Does your DM just let you cast spells willy nilly without people getting suspicious? How audible are your arcane invocations in a private room? Would people hear your through the door in the hallway? Do you have to rush off to some private bathroom and hope you aren't being followed or listened to?

I definately missed some things in the hurry, just wanted to give you a gut feel. I don't really have a gripe over extended spell, but I feel like it shines more for it's exploration utilities rather than combat utilities. I'm not even saying that subtle isn't useful, in fact it's the most useful out of combat and I totally agree, but other metamagic also can shine in that field.

[Sans.]

Definitely post this in the guides compilation. This is great!

[GorogIrongut]

It's definitely a well put together guide... made me rethink some of my spell choices. Though I'm not sure you can get away from concentration and still have spell variability.

[TheUser]

Definitely post this in the guides compilation. This is great!

I'm just contemplating whether or not I want to just update the version on my original guide or keep it there.

[Chunkosaurus]

I would note that if you are trying to do the stone sorcerer gishiness quicken and twin are even better combined with booming blade and green flame. You can twin booming blade to give two attacks and quicken greenflame for a third.

[TheUser]

I would note that if you are trying to do the stone sorcerer gishiness quicken and twin are even better combined with booming blade and green flame. You can twin booming blade to give two attacks and quicken greenflame for a third.

As noted in the guide, until level 11 these kinds of strategies are an asinine way to smash through your resource pool. The scaling nature of cantrips, the large amount of sorcery points spent, and proficiency bonus affecting hit chances create a statistical environment that simply doesn't make this viable unless you are *almost guaranteed to finish off an opponent. All of this is detailed in economizing sorcery points. Considering the attacks are made using a stat that isn't Charisma (the thing you'll want to max first) these chances are even lower than would be expected with charisma based cantrips. They also aren't being made with a charisma bonus to damage the way a draconic sorcerer would and instead banking on the offstat being used to attack with. While I can appreciate the over-tuned nature of both green flame blade and booming blade I'm not sure a Gish needs to be told to take material that is entirely at the discretion of the DM.

[MrStabby]

It looks good, although I have just skimmed it so far.



You have serious aggression problems. People like you are why I often do not enjoy coming to these forums. Your attitude is incredibly hostile and toxic. If you're here to recieve actual feedback then you should not respond with such hostility. Goodbye.

Whilst it was a bit hostile it wasn't entirely undeserved. Using phases like "well established" to describe a very controversial viewpoint and pretending that your specific view on sorcerer "issues" is universally accepted is not setting a high standard for debate. Just because a few people on the internet believe a class has problems doesn't make it so (It doesn't mean it isn't true either), but dropping that in reference to a guide that explains quite well where the power comes from and how to overcome the deficiencies does make it seem like you haven't read it. Such an undeservedly condescending comment made in such a way as to imply you hadn't bothered to digest the points in the guide on which you were commenting was bound to elicit a slightly sharp response at best.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Sorry it took so long to test, but the guide looks perfectly fine in Chrome and Firefox. I think it's just Edge that has issues.

No surprises there.

[TheUser]

Sorry it took so long to test, but the guide looks perfectly fine in Chrome and Firefox. I think it's just Edge that has issues.

No surprises there.

Does the PDF load properly in Edge?

[Arkhios]

Does the PDF load properly in Edge?

Yes. (No, I don't normally use Edge /shivers)

[TheUser]

Yes. (No, I don't normally use Edge /shivers)

Thanks Ark
To answer your previous question regarding Storm Sorcs. I updated the guide significantly since last you read it. Storm Sorcs are a) something your DM can turn down and b) not very good imho. My edited intro even takes a slight jab @ the subclass.

Sorry bro. Maybe I'm missing something but it just doesn't seem that good...

[Gray Mage]

Sorry, my feedback was short earlier. I found your guide to be very well written and I must say that you have changed my mind around about Subtle Spell. :smallsmile:

Only complain I have is a minor one. My OCD bothers me on page 10 how the description of heightened spell and the suggested spell list collumns are reversed (with the spells appearing first, then the metamagic). But yeah, nothing that takes away from your guide. :smalltongue:

[Arkhios]

Thanks Ark
To answer your previous question regarding Storm Sorcs. I updated the guide significantly since last you read it. Storm Sorcs are a) something your DM can turn down and b) not very good imho. My edited intro even takes a slight jab @ the subclass.

Sorry bro. Maybe I'm missing something but it just doesn't seem that good...

To each their own, as always. I like their flavor and find them to be rather cool.

a) To be fair, though, your DM can turn down anything from anywhere. Even from PHB. DM is the law at each table after all. Imho, a respectable guide shouldn't make any such assumptions into a direction or another. I mean no offense with this, just a fair note, I hope.

b) In all honesty, I believe you may have underestimated (some of) the value of Storm Sorcery. I've seen a Storm Sorcerer in action multiple times, and in my experience Tempestuous Magic is pretty damn useful, especially if you find yourself too close or too far to your liking with a certain foe. It doesn't cost anything more than your bonus action and is available whenever you cast a spell other than cantrip.
Plus, since it's "forced movement", it frees you from grapple!

Heart of the Storm is quite impressive especially if you're surrounded by a little too many foes, as I think that every bit of damage counts. Especially if it's unavoidable such as this.

Storm Guide is a bit meh mechanically, but it's a flavorful ribbon.

Storm's Fury is imho pretty alright use for your reaction as it doesn't cost anything. It deals its damage always, and pushes the target if it fails a save.

Granted, you gain non-spell flight rather late, but the ability to spread your non-spell flight with up to 8 targets of your choice seems to me really powerful.

But those are just my opinions anyway. Also, as I said previously, I mean no offense.

[TheUser]

Sorry, my feedback was short earlier. I found your guide to be very well written and I must say that you have changed my mind around about Subtle Spell. :smallsmile:

Only complain I have is a minor one. My OCD bothers me on page 10 how the description of heightened spell and the suggested spell list collumns are reversed (with the spells appearing first, then the metamagic). But yeah, nothing that takes away from your guide. :smalltongue:

Another Subtle Spell convert joins the fold....

I was so disappointed when WebDM didn't even mention it in their sorcerer video. Completely changed the way I felt about them as an authority on anything D&D.

As for the Heightened section I was totally thinking that too when I made that formatting choice. I just wanted it to look dynamic and not a repetitive format ya know?

[Orion3T]

So far this looks really great! Thanks for this.

I do have some suggestions for your maths on Empower and offer them as constructive criticism. Obviously it's your guide and I won't be at all hurt if you don't think my points have merit.

__________________________________________________ ________

Firstly, your maths to calculate the value of a die is arguably a bit more complex than I think it needs to be. A rerolled die can be given an average value of 3.5. So if you reroll 1s and 2s your average (total of all outcomes, averaged for rerolls, divided by the number of outcomes) can be shown as:

(3.5+3.5+3+4+5+6)/6 = 25/6 = 4.17.

Rerolling 3s also gives:

(3.5=3.5+3.5+4+5+6)/6 = 25.5/6 = 4.25.

I think this is a bit simpler, and therefore clearer?

__________________________________________________ ________

Secondly, you don't fully explain the damage increase of 19% which I found a bit confusing at first (though I agree with your result). Since you explained everything else and this isn't much more difficult, you could consider adding something like:

Let's assume we reroll 1-2. Then 1/3 of dice will have an average of 3.5 and 2/3 will average 4.5. So the damage of a typical fireball would become 8*(3.5+9)/3 = 8*12.5/3 = 33.3.

That's just a suggestion; maybe it doesn't add much but I guess it's there fore those who like t have the maths explained. Personally, I do.

__________________________________________________ _________

OK - I see you do address this later on in the feats section, and you make very good points. So I retract this point - please disregard it. Perhaps you could mention instead that you do revisit this later on? Just adding (see p12) would cover it nicely.

Thirdly, I don't think you entirely justify saying to mazimise Charisma ASAP just based on Empower. I'd agree you will want at least 18 Charisma when you get fireball, but I think a strong case could be made for sticking with 18 charisma to fairly high levels. e.g. Elemental Adept before trying to get Charisma to 20. My reasoning would be that until you are regularly rolling 10+ dice, 4 rerolls is enough and ignoring an element resistance while also turning 1->2 is better than the benefits of getting 20 charisma. I could be wrong but that's my impression; I think this particularly would apply to Dragon sorcerers because it compliments their extra damage to that element.

My subjective opinion of course, and will vary with build and personal preference, but I offer it for your consideration (maybe you cover it later, but this commen seemed like an assumption and one I felt inclined to challenge somewhat).

__________________________________________________ __________


Finally, I'm a bit puzzled by your suggestion to only reroll the lowest results (1-2 on d6 for example) rather than any result which is below average (1-3 on d6). For me, the latter seems like it should be the default assumption. But I may not be entirely clear what you're advocating here - which dice to reroll if you do empower? Or whether to empower at all?

I can see the case for ignoring 3s when deciding whether to empower. Rerolling those is only +0.5 damage on average and it would be annoying to roll worse, which is not that unlikely if you reroll say 4x3s. And is certainly not something to try if you are at risk of running out of Sorcery points before you can rest. However if you are in a single difficult encounter, even +2 damage on average is not terrible. Especially if you might die before you can spend all your points.

I see no case for not rerolling 3s once you have decided to use empower. But the maths you show suggests this is what you are advocating. If I can reroll a 3 along with those 1s and 2s, then I'm going to do it. I'm not sure why you wouldn't, so if that's really what you are suggesting I feel like some more justification might be useful here. I don't see it personally.



As I said at the start though, I really appreciate it. It's well written and extremely insightful. I just felt the Empower section may benefot from some tweaks.

[Corran]

I like how this sorcerer guide focuses on metamagic, as optimizing a sorcerer revolves around metamagic more than anything else. This makes sorcerer unique, in a sense, that as most other classes would look at their archtypes to determine character optimization, in the sorcerer's case, character optimization instead derrives mainly from metamagic. So, in that sense (ie from a mechanics' point of view), metamagic are more of a sorcerer's subclasses, than its actual subclasses, so once again, it's good to see that the focus of the guide is spot on, or at least that's my opinion.

Now, some criticism. Yes, it will be about subtle spell. Let me preface this, by saying that I love subtle spell. Easily my favourite metamagic on a singleclass sorcerer (for gishes, I have to settle for it as my 3rd pick, unless I dont mind taking some focus out of my combat role in order to take it earlier; the style of the campaign would impact this choice ofc). Now comes the criticism bit (I build it up slowly). I like how you rated it (subtle) as a first class pick, but at the same time I dont. Weird, huh? As I said previously, I like subtle. Subtle and careful are my favourite picks for sorcerer metamagic. And you are right that subtle is quite unique in what it allows a sorcerer and no other class to do, and moreover I would add, that since concentration is the limiting factor that it is, having one combat oriented metamagic (careful or twinned or heightened) and another one that offers out of combat potential, not conflicting and overloading your combat use of concentration with additional opportunity cost, and all while being very cheap at the same time, is not a bad plan. But.... you dont seem to take into accounts personal preferences, or rather you seem to take into account just your own personal preferences, and that is a bit counterintuitive to the scope of a guide. Dont get me wrong, it is very important (if not nice), that you expanded that much in what you can do with subtle (and with the other metamagic), as that falls directly under optimization and what's more, it can spark ideas to others and allow them to approach the class with a very different (to what they have used to till now) and effective approach. But saying that subtle spell is a better choice than most other metamagic just because of that, is like placing the sorcerer under a ''sneaky enchanter'' niche, and IMO it is a diservice to both the player and the class. Think of twinned for a moment. It allows the sorcerer to be one of the best, if not the best, buffer in a game. You say that twinned is expensive (and you are obviously right on that), and that a sorcerer should probably pick it later in their career, but now think of the best candidates for twinning. They come at levels 5 and 7. That's 3-5 levels before you suggest the sorcerer picking this metamagic, and under a favorable scenario for the party composition, this can be a huge missed opportunity for a player who wants to utilize a sorcerer for buffing (and I am not talking about personal preferencesand playstyle, it can be quite an optimal way to spend your resources too). Three sorcerer points to twinn haste on both the GWM paladin and the SS ranger of the group? Sold! I cannot think of much better uses of your resources during combat. Four sorcery points to twinn greater invisibility on the melee rogue and the GWM fighter? Sold! Four sorcery points to twinn polymorph on your two frontliners who are both on very low HP, to prevent the enemies from dominating the field and charging into the back row where you are? Sold? All of these are expensive options, but so what? With a matching group composition they can easily become your best options for spending sorcery points on. If out of sorcery points, turn slots into sp and dont mind the entropy cost, as IMO it is quite worth it. Throw a favored soul as your origin to get some concentration-free buffs, and you've got perhaps the best buffer in the game. How does subtle and empower compare? They cannot compare. Not because they are objectively worse, or better, but because they serve a different function of the sorcerer (one of the many functions a sorcerer can accomplish). Which function is best? Well, I dont think we can say for sure, as this is determined to a very great extent by your party composition (for example empower might not find best use if you are in a party full f melee's, then again you might prefer to play an evoker if you really wanted to focus on AoE's, so I digress) and the style of the campaign (too much combat oriented, more rp/social oriented?). You can of course still pick subtle and twinned, or empower and twinned, but my point is that picking both subtle and empower cannot always be the best two early choices for metamagic, as all of twinned, heigthened and careful, offer you a better way to handle and boost your concentration spells, which ofc are the big weapon in your toolkit. So while I could get behind something like ''pick one of heightened or twinned or careful, and one of empower or subtle for your first two choices of metamagic'', or something like ''it would be a missed opportunity not to include both subtle and empower in your final list of metamagic, due to how they dont overuse your sorcery points and how they dont compete for your best use of concentration, thus they dont provide additional opportunity cost if you want to specialize which as a sorcerer you should do'', I cannot stand behind such a generalized rating of metamagic, because I believe that such a generalized rating is based on oversimplifications that do not hold up well when you take into account the group composition. And as I said earlier, I believe it does a diservice to the class, which can be as competent a buffer or a controler, as it can be a blaster and a sneaky enchanter. The benefit is that you can add the ''enhanter/ manipulator'' and the ''blaster'' roles more eaily on top of the other roles, as controler, debuffer, and buffer, all 3 compete for concentration. But that doesnt mean that you shouldnt focus on one of these three last roles (with the debuffer perhaps being an exception, as I am not a fan of the heightened metamagic) at the start of your career. In fact I believe that rither twinned or careful should be included on your first two picks of metamagic.

Anyway, apologies for the wall of text, take whatever you want from this ''criticism'', if you think something wold help you to improve the guide.




ps: This is maybe a bit outside of the scope of the guide, but what the heck. I am currently trying to build a warlock/ sorcerer gish, relying on AoA among other things, and I am leaning on stoneskin as my prime use of concentration (at least when this character hits the mid levels). I was thinking that maybe extended could be of use here, allowing stoneskin to stay in effect for 2 hours instead of 1. Now, at first glance that doesnt seem impressive, considering that there is always the risk to lose concentration. But on a high con (16+) build with both resilient CON (or just con save prof) and warcaster, and assuming a DM who follows the guidelines for combat encounters per day, extending stoneskin from 1 to 2 hours could be very important, in that it would allow me to spam less the material cost (not that important at the high levels, but still, it is a cost that will accumulate dangerously if stoneskin is your prime choice for concentration), and it would allow me to save on my spell slots (which would be used for AoA aming other things, so yeah, each and every one counts) at the cost of 1 sorcery point (= nothing). Well, as I said, with a DM that follows the DMG guidelines for combat encounters, extending stoneskin would allow me to have it for 2/3 of the day's encounters, most likely, instead of just for 1/3, as I would probably be able to have it going still, even after the first short rest. Nothing fancy (and probably I am overthinking it), just though I should mention it.

[Tetrasodium]

The section on metamagic was interesting & was nice to see it going into the deeper look of how the realities of spells (ie lots have verbal component) work out, but the section on races was so lacking that even after reading the whole guide I went backover the whole thing with ctrl-f thinking that I must have missed it. Yes sorcerers are cha based, but the various races (even those without +cha) often bring their own extra abilities to the table (especially the volo's races) & how that kinda stuff can reshape things is something that was missing. also sorely missing was multiclassing options & how picking up/starting with a splash of a different class can wildly change things for you

[Kryx]

Using phases like "well established" to describe a very controversial viewpoint and pretending that your specific view on sorcerer "issues" is universally accepted is not setting a high standard for debate.

..Just because a few people on the internet believe a class has problems doesn't make it so (It doesn't mean it isn't true either)
You're using words and phrases like "a very controversial viewpoint" and "belief" to distort the argument here. Please don't.
The numbers are very "well established". The Sorcerer is significantly lagging behind in nearly every aspect related to spellcasting. Examples:

Spell list size: Wizard has ~230, Sorcerer has ~130.
Spells known: Wizard has 44+, Sorcerer has 15.
Effective spells prepared: Wizard has 29, Sorcerer has 15.
Short rest Recovery: Wizard recovers spells once/long rest on a short rest. For a Sorcerer to match or exceed this they'd have to not use metamagic (their only schtick), but turn all of their points into spell slots

It has other benefits and those can be nice, but the phrasing was the problem I encountered (see below)


dropping that in reference to a guide that explains quite well where the power comes from and how to overcome the deficiencies does make it seem like you haven't read it. Such an undeservedly condescending comment made in such a way as to imply you hadn't bothered to digest the points in the guide on which you were commenting was bound to elicit a slightly sharp response at best.
He asked for feedback on his guide. I read the first page and provided the feedback that his introduction is very offputting. His introduction, for example, starts with the title "Hard≠Bad" which insuinuates that people should just "git gud".

Another example

I still do not factor UA or EE for the very simple reason that it's not guaranteed material; any DM can choose to deny you access to a Storm Sorcerer (they're doing you a favor snort)
Power Overwhelming (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?469126-GUIDE-Power-Overwhelming-A-Sorcerer-Guide) ranks Storm as Light blue.

The "gid gud" styling wording made me stop reading. He asked for feedback and I provided it. I could've worded it a bit nicer, but my phrasing was not hostile.
These forums are full of toxic attitudes. I choose to not engage with people who have them.

[krunchyfrogg]

I like it, but I wish you'd add a couple of things:

1) you include the stone sorcerer (UA), but not the storm sorcerer, which is AL legal.
2) I prefer paladin 2/sorcerer X, and I'm not alone
3) drop the swearing if you want the guide stickied/added to the guide post.

I really do like it though.

[D-naras]

(snippped)
Power Overwhelming (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?469126-GUIDE-Power-Overwhelming-A-Sorcerer-Guide) ranks Storm as Light blue.
(snippped)

Forgive me if I am mistaken, but doesn't that guide treat the Storm Sorcerer as the UA version with the bonus spells known?

[jaappleton]

My biggest gripe with the guide is that really, you don't go in depth into the offerings of the Origins. You mention Stone as a Gish, but don't really dive into it. You take a jab at the Storm Sorc. So you've mentioned a UA without diving into it and don't even gloss over an official archetype.

[Orion3T]

I retracted my comment about getting to 20 Charisma because you addressed it in the Feats section.

However I feel your dismissal of Elemental Adept as being a trap still might not be justified. Firstly, not all feats need to work on all enemies at all levels. If your campaign stops at level 10-15 you might never run into anything immune to your chosen element. It also might depend on what your element is. Not to mention that if you die at a lower level to mobs that were resistant to your chosen damage type, the later levels hardly matter.

It's also highly campaign dependent; if you expect to fight a lot of X resistant enemies then it can be worth it.


Otherwise I really like the guide though. Gives me a bit more to work with and definitely helps with spell and metamagic feat selection. Great work!

[Kryx]

Forgive me if I am mistaken, but doesn't that guide treat the Storm Sorcerer as the UA version with the bonus spells known?
That's true, but I don't think the spells played a large role in the rating as most of the features are sky blue and the spells have this wording: "Overall a lot of these spells you might not necessarily pick, but free is free, these fit your theme, and none of them are stinkers."

[TheUser]

@ Orion3T a common trend in the guide is reducing gambling (and hence losing), re-rolling a 3 yields a reduction in damage 1/3 of the time and an increase in damage only 1/2 of the time. So while statistically speaking, you will have a net increase of damage if you re-roll 3's it is not nearly as guaranteed and can actually lower your damage in some cases, whereas re-rolling 1's and 2's on a d6 is much safer.



@ Corran Wow...what a block of text. Ok so the thing I want you to take away from my rating for metamagics is that I never explicitly say "take this over that" but from a metrics perspective let's analyse subtle vs twinned:

-Subtle has 95% spell compatibility - twinned is no longer compatible with several spells after errata and it was already very limiting to begin with (it's one of the justifications for dropping it to A-tier)

-You aren't gambling with subtle spell - twinned you are either gambling with offensive factors or concentration factors; either you can miss/target saves or while concentrating can get hit and lose concentration. Even a subtle spell that requires concentration inherently carries the safety of not giving away your position and thus has higher odds of you keeping concentration.


-Subtle spell is always one spell point - twinned goes up in cost with level and can have the highest cost of any metamagic the sorcerer could take, I never say take it @ 10 the way I do quicken and heighten though, only that it can **** on your sorcery points.

So one has no limitations on spell list, is completely safe to use and is always cheap. The other, while it may elicit a great effect, has very low spell compatibility, can be gambled with and lost, banks on a lot of concentration spells, and can ream more than half your sorcery points even at mid levels. It's just more prone to misuse. Go ahead and take Twinned spell; it's just going to carry the pitfalls detailed in the guide. The point isn't for me to make a decision for you, it's for you to make an informed decision.


@Kryx EDIT: So much for you not participating anymore....Anyway! If at any point a wizard could cast enchantment spells silently and without somatic components I would completely agree with you. But as it stands, a sorcerer with subtle spell vs a wizard without puts one on a whole 'nother level. I do state that subtle spell requires good DM's to really shine and I'm sure your DM's don't want to stress your wizard players out and probably never try to infringe on their ability to cast spells with clever tactics. Moreover empower means that every damage spell counts where as a wizard can cast their damage spells more often it requires more turns and a short rest to regain some resources. The whole "git gud" tone you are getting is entirely the point of a guide "GO BE A BETTER PLAYER" is literally why people read these things. The guide is pretty clear about the trade-offs. If you don't like having a limited set of spells...don't play sorcerer. The thing is, many players -are- good enough to play with a limited set of spells (especially when another player plays a caster to cover up the holes in their diversity). Lastly, if a sorcerer had all the spells known that a wizard could memorize and had access to the wizard spell list.....why would anyone then play a wizard? The whole point is that they offer two seperate styles of magic; one is a generalist and one is a specialist.


@KrunchyFrogg I am currently combing the guide for "the swears" and seeing if I can clean it up. Are "hell" and "damn" off the table?

[Orion3T]

@ Orion3T a common trend in the guide is reducing gambling (and hence losing), re-rolling a 3 yields a reduction in damage 1/3 of the time and an increase in damage only 1/2 of the time. So while statistically speaking, you will have a net increase of damage if you re-roll 3's it is not nearly as guaranteed and can actually lower your damage in some cases, whereas re-rolling 1's and 2's on a d6 is much safer.

I would agree if the question were whether or not to reroll several 3s at all - at least situationally. But the point of rerolls is that those dice can be manipulated to approach their expected value, so more is always better. The more dice you reroll, the less likely it is you will waste your Sorcery point.

Even with the approach you advocate here, consider what you are balancing; There's a 1/3 chance to roll 1-2 and lose average 1.5 damage, and a 1/2 chance to roll 4-6 gaining an average 3 damage. Better odds and a bigger reward than risk; sounds like a good deal to me.

Your approach seems excessively risk-aversed to me when you consider you're rolling this along at least 3 other dice. More rolls means your results approach the expected value. Your reasoning might be persuasive if rollng just 1 die, but doesn't seem to work as well if we consider it as part of a bigger roll.

If there were any cost associated I'd also see the point. But if there are 4 1s and a 3, you're hardly taking a 'risk' by rerolling the 3 because it doesn't cost you anything. Considered as a group, you can think of it as converting 5 dice worth 7 into 5 dice worth an average of 3.5 = 16.5. Rerolling the 3 is hardly a risk when considered as part of a larger group.

Look at it another way - if you could always reroll 5 dice with no cost, and your 5 worst dice were all 3s, would you really decline to reroll them? What about 10 dice showing 3s?

[Orion3T]

Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting you should always empower 3s. If my worst dice were all 3s I probably wouldn't. (EDIT - Now I checked the 5d6 roll table I still might - it's only 22% likely to decrease your damage. The other 78% is all good, and 22% of that means you got 20+ for a gain of +5. 2.5 damage on average is not great fr 1SP, but I'd definitely spend it if my life is in danger).

But I am suggesting that if you do decide to empower, the default assumption is that you should roll as many below-average dice as possible.

The more dice you reroll, the more you are playing the odds, and on average will be making the most of your sorcery point.

[TheUser]

Even with the approach you advocate here, consider what you are balancing; There's a 1/3 chance to roll 1-2 and lose average 1.5 damage, and a 1/2 chance to roll 4-6 gaining an average 3 damage.

Except you aren't gaining an average 3 damage....
you'd gain 3 damage 1/6 of the time (since you need a 6)
You are gaining an average of 0.5 damage mediated across the roll.

That's a really bad reason to re-roll.


If there were any cost associated I'd also see the point. But if there are 4 1s and a 3, you're hardly taking a 'risk' by rerolling the 3 because it doesn't cost you anything. Considered as a group, you can think of it as converting 5 dice worth 7 into 5 dice worth an average of 3.5 = 16.5. Rerolling the 3 is hardly a risk when considered as part of a larger group.

Look at it another way - if you could always reroll 5 dice with no cost, and your 5 worst dice were all 3s, would you really decline to reroll them? What about 10 dice showing 3s?


Except there is a cost; it's the sorcery point. That's entirely the point of the whole guide is milking sorcery points for maximum worth. I wouldn't re-roll 3's because it's not statistically significant enough to merit the risk of reducing my damage. In the grand scheme of things I will always be using sorcery points to increase my damage but I will statistically put out 0.083 less damage per d6 which is *ahem* less than 1 damage per fireball.

You, however, will spend sorcery points more often (because 1-3 comes up 50% more than 1-2) and will sometimes reduce your damage.

Calculated risk bro.

EDIT: just saw your second post. It makes no difference. I've had an array of 3's and even thought to myself while empowering "I could re-roll these for free...." and just said "nah, I could reduce my damage very easily this way" and decided not to. My logic still stands.

[EvilAnagram]

I have to say that the formatting on this guide is fantastic, and it's very good at showing the potential for optimized sorcerer builds. Well done!

[ad_hoc]

I think you have a skewed idea of probabilities.

You put a lot of value in avoiding 'gambling' saying that if you miss then it was a waste.

EV (Expected Value) should be used to calculate the value of an action.

Poker is gambling but if you make +EV plays then it is profitable.

For example, I would rather have a 50% chance to make $100 than a 100% chance to make $40.

[TheUser]

I think you have a skewed idea of probabilities.

You put a lot of value in avoiding 'gambling' saying that if you miss then it was a waste.

EV (Expected Value) should be used to calculate the value of an action.

Poker is gambling but if you make +EV plays then it is profitable.

For example, I would rather have a 50% chance to make $100 than a 100% chance to make $40.
Did you actually read the guide? Because I do talk about EV like the very first time I talk about gambling in Economizing sorcery points. When disucssing quickening + twin cantrips: 3 sorcery points for an EV of +1.3 cantrips is craptacular efficiency. When you're a) level 11+ or b) attacking at advantage it alters your EV enough to make it an efficient use of sorcery points.

Please actually -read- the guide before jumping into the thread with feedback. kthnx

[Orion3T]

Except you aren't gaining an average 3 damage....
you'd gain 3 damage 1/6 of the time (since you need a 6)
You are gaining an average of 0.5 damage mediated across the roll.

That's a really bad reason to re-roll.

My bad - I'm not sure why I put 3, that was a typo. It should have been a 2. There's a 50% chance of gaining an average of 2 damage ((1+2+3)/3).

I obviously agree it's an average gain of 0.5, and that's good enough for me. It's you who seems to want to isolate the risk from the reward. If you're going to look at the risk (1/3 * -1.5 = -0.5) that's meaningless unless you compare it to the potential reward (0.5 * +2 = 1). Add those up and of course you get an average gain of +0.5 as expected. There are 2 factors:

- It's more likely you will increase your damage than decrease it (0.5 vs 0.33)
- If you do increase it, the potential gain is bigger (average +2 vs -1.5).

Both of these add up to rerolling being the better statistical option. It still might not always be worth it, but if it comes with no additional cost then I believe it is usually going to be a risk worth taking.


Except there is a cost; it's the sorcery point. That's entirely the point of the whole guide is milking sorcery points for maximum worth. I wouldn't re-roll 3's because it's not statistically significant enough to merit the risk of reducing my damage. In the grand scheme of things I will always be using sorcery points to increase my damage but I will statistically put out 0.083 less damage per d6 which is *ahem* less than 1 damage per fireball.

There is no associated cost with rerolling the 3 if you already decided to empower because you also rolled 4 dice at 1-2s. That is the point I'm trying to make.

I feel like you are still being unclear whether you're discussing whether to empower or not, with which dice to reroll if you do decide to empower. Which was part of my criticism of the guide as well.

Let's try some examples. You can reroll 5 dice and your 5 worst dice are:

1,1,1,1,3 = 8: Empower? Definitely. I would also reroll the 3. Are you saying you would not?

3,3,3,3,3 = 15: Empower? It depends. If I'm in a reasonably comfortable situation and need to conserve resources, probably not. If I have a lot of sorcery points and/or the situation look like it will be ciritical, I would because it maximises my chances to actually live through the combat. As before, the probability of increasing my damage is significantly greater than the probability of decreasing it. The average result is 17.5 and it's fairly unlikely I will roll less than 15 again because I'm rolling 5 dice. (Actual probabilities below - but it's only about 20% likely I will get less, and if I do it probably won't be by much).




You, however, will spend sorcery points more often (because 1-3 comes up 50% more than 1-2) and will sometimes reduce your damage.

Not necessarily. We are both empowering the same roll because it's got 4 dice at 1s and 2s. I will also reroll the 3. I'm not spending anything more.

Whether to spend the point in the first place is not really what I'm trying to challenge you on (though I do actually disagree, even moreso now I checked the stats for a 5d6 roll, see below). I'm primarily challenging you on whether to reroll the 3 when you already decided to empower.


Calculated risk bro.

I would argue that it's you taking the greater risk by not rerolling that extra 3, because it is less likely you will improve your damage for the entire reroll. Rerolling the 3 increases your average damage by 0.5.

Any risk you are taking by rerolling 1-2 is offset exactly by the chances to roll 4-5. I am also giving myself the added 1/6 chance to roll a 6 and that skews the odds in my favour. That's yet another way to think about it.


EDIT: just saw your second post. It makes no difference. I've had an array of 3's and even thought to myself while empowering "I could re-roll these for free...." and just said "nah, I could reduce my damage very easily this way" and decided not to. My logic still stands.

That's not an argument of logical deduction; it's your personal assessment of the risk compared with how risk-aversed you are. I'm not saying it's invalid but it completely ignores the actual probabilities. By the same reasoning you shouldn't reroll a 2 for free either because you could roll a 1 instead.

You are either being excessively risk-aversed, or your estimation of the probabilities is incorrect and you're not at all playing the odds. You're either overestimating the risk, or you are underestimating the probability for gain.

The probability of rolling <15 again on 5d6 is 22.15%.* And it is just as likely you will roll 20 or more damage (5 4s). The other ~60% of the time you will get something in between. You are passing up an 80% chance to improve your damage, and if you do increase it the potential gains are larger than the potential losses. That means it's a great bet. And even if you do decrease your roll, it's unlikely to be by much. Realistically you're gambling with about 4 points (5.88% chance of getting <11).

*Which is abut the same as the odds of rerolling a 2 and getting a 1, which you are prepared to 'risk'.

[Arkhios]

Forgive me if I am mistaken, but doesn't that guide treat the Storm Sorcerer as the UA version with the bonus spells known?

You're correct, and as it stands, Waterborne UA and SCAG versions of Storm Sorcerer are largely different beasts... Still, I would rate the official (SCAG) version at the very least "black" in that scale, probably even "blue".

[Orion3T]

Did you actually read the guide? Because I do talk about EV like the very first time I talk about gambling in Economizing sorcery points. When disucssing quickening + twin cantrips: 3 sorcery points for an EV of +1.3 cantrips is craptacular efficiency. When you're a) level 11+ or b) attacking at advantage it alters your EV enough to make it an efficient use of sorcery points.

Please actually -read- the guide before jumping into the thread with feedback. kthnx

I think suggesting your overall view is skewed was overstating it, but your responses on this particular point do suggest there's something about this situation which you are not quite getting right.

Here's the table we are discussing for rerolling 5d6:

http://anydice.com/


If you have 5 3s then you have 15 damage. On 5d6 you have only a 22% to make that worse, and even if you do most of that 22% is still 10+. So realistically you're gambling about 5 points of damage. It's just as likely you will get >20 damage which exactly balances that out in terms of average, then there's the other 60% of 'average-ish' rolls (15-20) which are all better than what you had.

If you applied the same reasoning to a single 2, you might not reroll that either. It's 1/6 you will be worse and the EV is only 1.5 greater. With 5 3s your EV is 2.5 damage more. I may or may not consider that worth spending a SP, but I'd definitely take it for free. (unless I had very good reason to believe the 2 damage is enough to kill the enemy, but we probably shouldn't complicate the issue with that consideration).

[ad_hoc]

Did you actually read the guide? Because I do talk about EV like the very first time I talk about gambling in Economizing sorcery points. When disucssing quickening + twin cantrips: 3 sorcery points for an EV of +1.3 cantrips is craptacular efficiency. When you're a) level 11+ or b) attacking at advantage it alters your EV enough to make it an efficient use of sorcery points.

Please actually -read- the guide before jumping into the thread with feedback. kthnx

I did read the guide.

The problem is that you don't understand what EV is.

There are glaring problems in your reasoning but I don't even know where to start. I tried with EV.

I think the problem is that you are mixing up what you are evaluating and changing it around.

You start out evaluating the effectiveness of metamagic but then switch to the effectiveness of cantrips half way through.

Add to that that you don't like 'to gamble' (which leads you to make incorrect EV assumptions) and it throws everything off.

Metamagic doesn't give you 1.3 cantrips. If you are getting decimals then something is wrong, they give you whole numbers of extra cantrips per action. It's the same with damage, they're going to increase your damage by whole number multipliers. The only time this is not true is if you have wasted damage by killing a creature by more than their current HP but this is true in general and should not be counted.

Your reasoning is way off but I'm not really sure where to start to help you.

[Orion3T]

I did read the guide.

The problem is that you don't understand what EV is.

There are glaring problems in your reasoning but I don't even know where to start. I tried with EV.

I think the problem is that you are mixing up what you are evaluating and changing it around.

You start out evaluating the effectiveness of metamagic but then switch to the effectiveness of cantrips half way through.

Add to that that you don't like 'to gamble' (which leads you to make incorrect EV assumptions) and it throws everything off.

Metamagic doesn't give you 1.3 cantrips. If you are getting decimals then something is wrong, they give you whole numbers of extra cantrips per action. It's the same with damage, they're going to increase your damage by whole number multipliers. The only time this is not true is if you have wasted damage by killing a creature by more than their current HP but this is true in general and should not be counted.

Your reasoning is way off but I'm not really sure where to start to help you.

I think this is a bit harsh. I agree there's something here he isn't quite 'getting' but the section regarding damage output does show the author can calculate the average damage outputs and how empowering will modify them. At least, it's correct so far as I can tell.

[EvilAnagram]

You're correct, and as it stands, Waterborne UA and SCAG versions of Storm Sorcerer are largely different beasts... Still, I would rate the official (SCAG) version at the very least "black" in that scale, probably even "blue".
Personally, I think Storm Sorcerer is a great Archetype with a lot of potential, but this particular guide is primarily about how to use metamagic, and I don't think Storm Sorcerers add much in that respect.

[Arkhios]

Personally, I think Storm Sorcerer is a great Archetype with a lot of potential, but this particular guide is primarily about how to use metamagic, and I don't think Storm Sorcerers add much in that respect.

I suppose that's fair, although the guide should make that a bit more clear from the start, imho.

[TheUser]

I think this is a bit harsh. I agree there's something here he isn't quite 'getting' but the section regarding damage output does show the author can calculate the average damage outputs and how empowering will modify them. At least, it's correct so far as I can tell.

I think that when I put it up there that re-rolling 3's is still statistically beneficial and that I personally just don't like the associated risk it's a pretty clear choice that can be left to the reader. You can re-roll 3's and it will have a statistically beneficial effect on your average damage. An EV that will increase your damage minimally, but there's risk associated with that and I find it easier to just avoid with minimal reduction of damage. It's an opinion that the reader is given all the facts about. Our re-rolling 3 debate is rather derailing since it represents a very small facet to the guide that accounts for less than 1/10th of a damage from a d6... I'm glad you liked it though. Don't worry about the guy talking EV, he's clearly trolling. The fact that empower is an entire statistical break down about EV without using the term EV means he's either just annoyed that the term "expected value" wasn't thrown out there, he's illiterate or most likely he's a nitpicky douchebag.

[Orion3T]

I think that when I put it up there that re-rolling 3's is still statistically beneficial and that I personally just don't like the associated risk it's a pretty clear choice that can be left to the reader. You can re-roll 3's and it will have a statistically beneficial effect on your average damage. An EV that will increase your damage minimally, but there's risk associated with that and I find it easier to just avoid with minimal reduction of damage. It's an opinion that the reader is given all the facts about. Our re-rolling 3 debate is rather derailing since it represents a very small facet to the guide that accounts for less than 1/10th of a damage from a d6... I'm glad you liked it though.

I agree there is some situational element as well as a somewhat subjective view on risk taking.

But, if you read my original post, this wasn't really my main point. My main point was that is isn't actually entirely clear what exactly it is you are arguing for; whether one should empower or not, and what dice one should reroll if you do decide to empower. I am suggesting the guide would be improved by making a distinction here.

I also think you overemphasise the 'risk'. The simplest and least debateable fact to emphasise is that rerolling a 3 will, on average, gain you +0.5 damage. It's a pretty clear benefit to do so (depending on the cost in SP and how igh you are for resources) and the 'gamble' is fairly minimal (at most you lose 2 damage and could gain as much as 3). That's assuming there's only 1 and that you already decided it's worth empowering to reroll a few 1-2s.

Finally, you didn't seem to acknowledge my suggestion to drastically simplify the maths. That alone would save several lines of unnecessarily complex reasoning (which I think is partially why you over estimate the risk).

The improvement 'per die rolled' is interesting but a red herring because it's diluted by the other dice you rolled which are completely unaffected. Rerolling a 3 will on average grant +0.5 damage; it's that simple. Rerolling 5 3s will net you +2.5 damage on average (and it's more likely to be close to that because you're rolling more dice).

If you would just explain those simple facts, while pointing out that there is some risk of reducing your damage by rerolling 3s (but the more you reroll the less likely that is) I think the whole section on empower could be much improved.

But hey, like I said at the start it's your guide and you admitted from the start that some of it is subjecive opinion. My concern about this section is that you are presenting subjective opinion reflecting your risk-aversion, but it's dressed up as a rigorous mathematical analysis. You present caution with rerolls as the default when the maths strongly supports a more liberal use of them.

Ultimately though, I'm trying to suggestions which I think would improve clarity and provide better explanations, but if you disagree it's not going to affect me. I'm confident my own analysis is more robust than yours so it won't disadvantage me to ignore your guide in this single small regard. It's only one section and most of the rest of it is quite useful.

If anything, this discussion has convinced me that it's more worthwhile than I previously thought to empower even if you are only rerolling 3s, unless you are concerned about running out of sorcery points. In the campaign I'm playing I think that's literally only happened a couple of times, if ever. IThat could significantly affect our judgement of how liberally we should spend sorcery points. If you have a DM who doesn't give much chance for rest and gives lots of smaller challenges then your approach makes more sense.

[jaappleton]

Overall?

It's a very good guide on Metamagic. The spell suggestion breakdown for each Metamagic option is outstanding.

I think it focuses on that far too much. The Origins themselves are barely discussed.

I'm not suggesting to take away from the Metamagic discussion, but to add to the Origins.

[TheUser]

Overall?

It's a very good guide on Metamagic. The spell suggestion breakdown for each Metamagic option is outstanding.

I think it focuses on that far too much. The Origins themselves are barely discussed.

I'm not suggesting to take away from the Metamagic discussion, but to add to the Origins.

It's an advanced guide; there's nothing particularly nuanced I can add to one's subclass selection because it's pretty cut and dry what with one subclass providing a 1/1000 chance per non-cantrip spell cast to kill itself and everyone around them before level 4 (fireball surge). I even included a section for storm sorcs so people can subversively be delivered the message that it's a flawed monoclass design.

[EvilAnagram]

It's an advanced guide; there's nothing particularly nuanced I can add to one's subclass selection because it's pretty cut and dry what with one subclass providing a 1/1000 chance per non-cantrip spell cast to kill itself and everyone around them before level 4 (fireball surge). I even included a section for storm sorcs so people can subversively be delivered the message that it's a flawed monoclass design.

It's a bit lower than 1/1000. I've seen the fireball go off at level 1 nonlethally, and there's a one in 1,000 chance it will go off.

[TheUser]

It's a bit lower than 1/1000. I've seen the fireball go off at level 1 nonlethally, and there's a one in 1,000 chance it will go off.

1/20 chance to surge x 2/100 (1/50) chance to fireballl....that's 1/1000
This is ignoring DM surges from tides of chaos recharge.

I'm glad you made your saving throw and or 3 death saves but I think despite your nitpicks my point still stands

[EvilAnagram]

1/20 chance to surge x 2/100 (1/50) chance to fireballl....that's 1/1000
This is ignoring DM surges from tides of chaos recharge.

I'm glad you made your saving throw and or 3 death saves but I think despite your nitpicks my point still stands

I understand the math you used, as you might tell by looking at my post, but the fireball at level one is not instant death. Assuming that you have at least a +1 to dex, you have a 45% chance of passing your save. Assuming average damage (28), that's not instant death if you r con is 14+, and if your con is under 14, you aren't optimizing.

And there are other ways of mitigating damage. Resistance? Not dead. Low damage roll? Not dead. And that's level 1. By level three, you're much less likely to die than live.

This isn't nitpicking: calling it a one in one thousand chance to die is simply wrong.

[TheUser]

I understand the math you used, as you might tell by looking at my post, but the fireball at level one is not instant death. Assuming that you have at least a +1 to dex, you have a 45% chance of passing your save. Assuming average damage (28), that's not instant death if you r con is 14+, and if your con is under 14, you aren't optimizing.

And there are other ways of mitigating damage. Resistance? Not dead. Low damage roll? Not dead. And that's level 1. By level three, you're much less likely to die than live.

This isn't nitpicking: calling it a one in one thousand chance to die is simply wrong.

Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise the fireball only went off when the sorcerer was at full health, my mistake.

[EvilAnagram]

Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise the fireball only went off when the sorcerer was at full health, my mistake.

I'm enjoying the salt, but being glib doesn't make you less wrong. The potential for character death is there, but it's considerably less than 1/1000. You're more likely to summon a unicorn that kills the bad guy than you are to die in a fireball.

[ad_hoc]

I think this is a bit harsh. I agree there's something here he isn't quite 'getting' but the section regarding damage output does show the author can calculate the average damage outputs and how empowering will modify them. At least, it's correct so far as I can tell.

It may have come across a bit harsh, but I don't really know how else to put it. I tried to be gentle but then was dismissed as 'not having read the guide'.

I jumped in here because, having played poker professionally at one time, I understand EV and complex decision making using it in games.

They are free to take my advice or not. But if not, I am at least going to let people know in the thread about the guide that it is flawed.

Of course, D&D is just a game with no real stakes so it's not like it really matters. Games can be hard too, that's why poker is so profitable. Most people think they are really good at it. There has been far worse advice posted to poker forums where it matters far more.

[TheUser]

It may have come across a bit harsh, but I don't really know how else to put it. I tried to be gentle but then was dismissed as 'not having read the guide'.

I jumped in here because, having played poker professionally at one time, I understand EV and complex decision making using it in games.

They are free to take my advice or not. But if not, I am at least going to let people know in the thread about the guide that it is flawed.

Of course, D&D is just a game with no real stakes so it's not like it really matters. Games can be hard too, that's why poker is so profitable. Most people think they are really good at it. There has been far worse advice posted to poker forums where it matters far more.

I think the difference I don't explain directlly is that the sorc points you burn have indirect worth as spell slots which if used have a minimum value of 1/2 damage instead of 0 when used for damage spells (mostly)


EDIT:

I'm enjoying the salt, but being glib doesn't make you less wrong. The potential for character death is there, but it's considerably less than 1/1000. You're more likely to summon a unicorn that kills the bad guy than you are to die in a fireball.

I think when you factor in that a) your DM can surge you when Tides of Chaos are down (so you could just -not- have a level 1 feature to be completely safe), coupled with the fact you won't always be at 100% HP means that even though your odds of summoning a unicorn are roughly on par you still have ~ a 1/1000 chance of blowing yourself to smithereens; if surges scaled with level even this might alleviate the problem but at levels 1-4 when you cannot counterspell them they represent a catastrophic level of volatility that removes too much agency from the player and their party.

[Sgt Jiggz]

I enjoyed the previous version and I liked this one even more. Thanks for a great guide! :)

[JNAProductions]

Suggestion may or may not work that way.

Detect Thoughts-Not QUITE as good, but probably serves in a pinch.

Silence-Um... Who are you Suggesting that too? The Wizard's ally? That's unreasonable, in most any DM's book. Your allies? Just tell them-no need to magically compel them. A random bystander? Maybe they'll do it, but any Wizard worth their salt has ways out of a grapple, be it a decent Dex and Acrobatics proficiency, or Misty Step, or probably many other options. Also, what if there are two Wizards? Or you need to sneak into somewhere quietly?

Charm Person-Could work... But requires a hospitable target to start. That can easily take someone from neutral to friendly, but not hostile to friendly.

Blindness/Deafness-Just... Are you expecting to use that in a combat situation? Because that's not gonna work in a combat situation. If you're fighting someone, he's not gonna drop his weapon and shield to cover his ears, and won't close his eyes, because that will swiftly result in him dying.

Scorching Ray-Your example makes no sense. At all. Scorching Ray is about direct damage in combat. You present a sneaky assassination thing.

I wouldn't say Suggestion is a BAD pick, by any means-it's a dinger dang useful spell. But it doesn't work nearly like you say it does.



1.3 Cantrips might be technically accurate, but only if you treat your base cantrip as being .65 cantrips since that's its odds of hitting. Meaning you triple your damage output.



Empowered Spell is S rank?

Empowered Spell is S rank?

Dude. That metamagic literally just gives extra damage. That's the MOST BORING METAMAGIC THERE IS! Seriously, if you want raw damage, play a Fighter, or a GWM Barbarian! Not a full caster.



Subtle spell...

How often are you garroted? Follow up question, how often do you SURVIVE being garroted?

Silence Field likewise.

And you can still talk underwater. Now, it's garbled enough that a DM could rule there's no way to cast Verbal components, or you have an X% failure chance or something, but that'll vary DM to DM. Also, how often does that occur?

You say it comes up often. I say that if someone is in position to garrote you, they're in position to slit your throat, meaning you're dead. Not even Subtle Spell lets you cast spells from the grave.

Silence is a more realistic possibility, but that requires the enemy to 1) have casters, and 2) not need to use them (since they're equally affected by silence).

Liquids... Again, read what I wrote above. Also, that's something that's more player choice. It's hard to use offensively against them. (Not impossible. Just not easy. Not something most people can do.)

Phantasmal Force! Great!

...

Until the target runs away. Then you wasted a slot, some sorcery points, and did maybe 3d6 damage.

Subtle Telekinesis, though, does seem like a good trick.



EMPOWERED SPELL IS S RANK!

Seriously, dude, that's JUST DAMAGE! That's both incredibly boring and not that important, so long as you have reasonable party make up!



You don't see Twinned Polymorph as S-Rank, but Empowered Spell is?

Let me put it this way.

Empowered Fireball deals an average of (assuming Charisma of 20, which is actually on the high side for Fireball levels) 31.75 damage per failed save. Assuming we're at 8th level (so Polymorph is on the table, as is Charisma of 20) two T-Rexes deal 33 damage per bite, 20 per tail, and each gets one.

If you're facing a SINGLE BAD GUY, Polymorph blows it out of the water by a country mile. Dealing (even with a high AC of 21) 33 damage and grappling your target, as opposed to Fireball's 31.75 ASSUMING A FAILED SAVE. And Polymorph keeps going! And has a HUGE HP buffer added to your frontliners! (Or hell, your backliners!)

Against a mob of, say, 10 Hook Horrors (random CR 3 monster), your Fireball will probably hit 6, and at DC 16, only one will make it. Deals about 175 damage, all up front, but doesn't kill anyone.

T-Rexes (two of) will deal an average of 52.8 HP to one and 32 to another. Or splits the damage up even more and grapples two of them. Oh, did I mention T-Rex grapples RESTRAIN the targets?

Anyway, it only takes about two turns to match the Fireball's damage, but also provides a hella useful HP buffer, battlefield control, utility forms, infiltration forms...

Empowered is boring, and not that useful. Twinned is exciting and VERY useful.



T-Rexs have a +10 to hit. They have a greater than 6% chance of hitting you, assuming you somehow got full plate, a shield, and the shield spell.

Hobgoblin Warlord has +9.

Gold Dragon has +17.

Hydra has +8.

Really, I'm just flipping through. A LOT of monsters have more than +6.

In addition, how, pray tell, are you getting full plate and a shield?



This guide doesn't seem bad. But it doesn't seem that good either.

[Orion3T]

It may have come across a bit harsh, but I don't really know how else to put it. I tried to be gentle but then was dismissed as 'not having read the guide'.

I jumped in here because, having played poker professionally at one time, I understand EV and complex decision making using it in games.

They are free to take my advice or not. But if not, I am at least going to let people know in the thread about the guide that it is flawed.

Of course, D&D is just a game with no real stakes so it's not like it really matters. Games can be hard too, that's why poker is so profitable. Most people think they are really good at it. There has been far worse advice posted to poker forums where it matters far more.

My point was he gets it right in the 'Math' part of empower, even if the method used is a bit long-winded.

__________________________________________________ ____

The ''Quicken then Twin Cantrips' argument presented in the guide seems quite bizarre to me. Saying you only get 1.3 cantrips because they might miss means that cantrip is only ever worth 0.65 cantrips because it always might miss. And Chromatic Orb is only worth 0.65 level 1 spells. This argument could be applied equally badly to save or suck spells, so Hold Person is only worth 50% of a spell if there's a 50% save chance.

Hmmm... I don't think so. :smallconfused:

It would make far more sense to calculate the actual damage and state that. Let's see:

Twinned Fire Bolt with 65% hit chance at level 11 gives an average (3*5.5*0.65) = 10.725 damage per target, or an additional 21.45 damage total, against 2 targets. If you are Draconic you'd maybe get +5 to both targets and a bit more still if you have Elemental Adept to turn 1->2.

Empowering a Chain Lightning assuming you reroll 1-4s gives:

Normal damage: 10*4.5 = 45

50% of dice will be 1-4 which on average is 5 so we will want to reroll 5 dice on a typical CL. The other 5 will be 5-8 for an average damage 6.5. So the Empowered damage becomes: (5*4.5 + 5*6.5) = 5*(11) = 55.

So the empower gives about 10 extra damage on a typical CL (again, about 20% as for the fireball examples).

Of course that will be against multiple targets so it's situational.


I think the point to take is that for serious burst damage you would want all three:

Empowered Quickened CL: 55 damage (+10)
Twinned Fire Bolts: for +21.5


Of course the Fire Bolt could be even better if you empowered those as well, rerolling 1-5. Typically you might reroll a 1.5 dice giving 0.65*1.5*(5.5+8) = 0.65*1.5*13.5 = 13.16 damage per bolt, an improvement of 4.875 across both bolts. Actually not bad for a single point since it only added.

Overall we are spending 2 points for quicken then another 2 to empower both spells. On a 'damage per SP' basis those results are:

Empower CL (or other 10d8 spell typical at level 11): +10 damage per target for 1 SP = 10 damage per target, per SP. Assuming 2 targets or more (we are twinning right?) that means 20 damage per SP.

Quicken CL then Twin FireBolt: +21.45 damage for 3 SP = 7.1 damage per SP.

Empower Twinned FireBolt: +4.875 damage for 1 SP = 4.875 damage per SP.


Clearly the Empowered CL is best because it does most damage per SP and also hits multiple targets, potentially more than the 2 the FireBolt will hit.

But really, this isn't surprising. Using a cheap metamagic on a high level spell is generally going to be much more efficient than using 3 points to cast a cantrip, or empowering even that twinned cantrip.

What it does do in combination is allow pretty massive burst damage against 2 targets. You spend 4SP and get about 46 extra damage in total; that's actually about double what you would get from not using any metamagic. You're dealing 90 damage which is enough to put a serious dent in anything a level 11 is likely to face.

Sure, you spent 4/11 of your SPs but if it's a climax encounter that's what they are there for; kill the enemies as fast as possible. The enemy would need to have at least 200 HP to survive 2 rounds of this, assuming the other party members deal any significant damage at all.

You would save 1 SP if there's only a single target by not twinning the fire bolt. So you could do this 3 times per day against single targets. That's a lot of extra burst damage. And if there are any minions you're frying those at the same time.


All this maths was done in a bit of a rush so please let me know if it's way off.

Also, note the guide doesn't exactly say Quicken is bad, just that it's inefficient. I agree with that, but if you're in a life or death situation with SP to spend then efficiency shouldn't be your priority. You just want to survive the battle. No point saving your SP if it can be over in 2-3 rounds by spending them.

Fighing more rounds than you need to is also inefficient because you will end up using more spell slots over the fight.

[TheUser]

Empowered Spell is S rank?

Empowered Spell is S rank?

Dude. That metamagic literally just gives extra damage. That's the MOST BORING METAMAGIC THERE IS! Seriously, if you want raw damage, play a Fighter, or a GWM Barbarian! Not a full caster.



Subtle spell...

How often are you garroted? Follow up question, how often do you SURVIVE being garroted?

Silence Field likewise.

And you can still talk underwater. Now, it's garbled enough that a DM could rule there's no way to cast Verbal components, or you have an X% failure chance or something, but that'll vary DM to DM. Also, how often does that occur?

You say it comes up often. I say that if someone is in position to garrote you, they're in position to slit your throat, meaning you're dead. Not even Subtle Spell lets you cast spells from the grave.

Silence is a more realistic possibility, but that requires the enemy to 1) have casters, and 2) not need to use them (since they're equally affected by silence).

Liquids... Again, read what I wrote above. Also, that's something that's more player choice. It's hard to use offensively against them. (Not impossible. Just not easy. Not something most people can do.)

Phantasmal Force! Great!

...

Until the target runs away. Then you wasted a slot, some sorcery points, and did maybe 3d6 damage.

Subtle Telekinesis, though, does seem like a good trick.



EMPOWERED SPELL IS S RANK!

Seriously, dude, that's JUST DAMAGE! That's both incredibly boring and not that important, so long as you have reasonable party make up!



This guide doesn't seem bad. But it doesn't seem that good either.

I think you're not looking at sorcery points as a resource; two T-Rexes may do 33 damage per bite but there is an associated opportunity costs that they aren't doing the damage they would normally do as your allies and that you could get 4 empowers in AoE damage spells....that niche you fill better than a martial.

All caps bold with a question mark doesn't contend with what was written in the guide; the power to ignore crappy damage rolls represents unrivalled spell slot efficiency and a significant affect on the player's morale.

A fighter might be able to do more single target damage but he'll never rival your AoE blasting power. 1 fireball doing 30+ damage to 4+ targets -consistently- is something no other caster can do.

While you might think it's boring, the math would dictate that unless you have unlimited sorcery points it's vastly more efficient than any other. When you consider that sorcery points have an indirect value as spell slots this becomes that much more important.

As for your subtle rant... if the humanoids and other intelligent enemies aren't trying to at least cup a hand over your caster's mouths or stop them from casting (the slit throat example is actually great because the subtle sorcerer can still cast while choking to death on their own blood!) Then your DM has been coddling you and I directly state this in the guide that this DM dependancy exists. If you have an easy mode DM who never does anything to contest the casting abilities of their players so as to give martials the spotlight and protect/save them but instead lets them cast willy nilly all day vs what would otherwise be intelligent opponents is a negligent DM at worst and a noobie at best.

Honestly I think you glossed over it and didn't read the substance of what was written...

*EDIT: Your interpretation of Phantasmal force is wrong btw; the illusion you manifest is no larger than a 10ft cube; it can still remain stuck to the target, moreover why would someone start running around when choking to death? If they don't know it's an illusion and don't know you've cast a spell, everyone around them is going to be trying to help the choking person, they don't start running a marathon while their airway is obstructed....

[JNAProductions]

I think you're not looking at sorcery points as a resource; two T-Rexes may do 33 damage per bite but there is an associated opportunity costs that they aren't doing the damage they would normally do as your allies and that you could get 4 empowers in AoE damage spells....that niche you fill better than a martial.

All caps bold with a question mark doesn't contend with what was written in the guide; the power to ignore crappy damage rolls represents unrivalled spell slot efficiency and a significant affect on the player's morale.

A fighter might be able to do more single target damage but he'll never rival your AoE blasting power. 1 fireball doing 30+ damage to 4+ targets -consistently- is something no other caster can do.

While you might think it's boring, the math would dictate that unless you have unlimited sorcery points it's vastly more efficient than any other. When you consider that sorcery points have an indirect value as spell slots this becomes that much more important.

As for your subtle rant... if the humanoids and other intelligent enemies aren't trying to at least cup a hand over your caster's mouths or stop them from casting (the slit throat example is actually great because the subtle sorcerer can still cast while choking to death on their own blood!) Then your DM has been coddling you and I directly state this in the guide that this DM dependancy exists. If you have an easy mode DM who never does anything to contest the casting abilities of their players so as to give martials the spotlight and protect/save them but instead lets them cast willy nilly all day vs what would otherwise be intelligent opponents is a negligent DM at worst and a noobie at best.

Honestly I think you glossed over it and didn't read the substance of what was written...

*EDIT: Your interpretation of Phantasmal force is wrong btw; the illusion you manifest is no larger than a 10ft cube; it can still remain stuck to the target, moreover why would someone start running around when choking to death? If they don't know it's an illusion and don't know you've cast a spell, everyone around them is going to be trying to help the choking person, they don't start running a marathon while their airway is obstructed....

See, that's the thing-you don't listen to other people. You just say "you clearly didn't read it" instead of saying "okay, I'll take what you said into consideration". I'm not saying you have to change it, but I am saying you shouldn't dismess everything so easily.

Subtle spell is useful, not doubt about that. But that being said, there are plenty of other ways to avoid getting your casting negated. Something as simple as being good at Acrobatics can save your butt for much cheaper than Subtle spell.

And okay-what illusion do you manifest to make them choke? Because it has to be something they can notice-so you CANNOT simply illusion up a lump in their throat, because they can't notice that. You COULD illusion up someone choking them, that only they could see. In which case, people would notice them attacking the air, or running away, or many other things that simply choking DOES NOT MAKE YOU DO.

[TrinculoLives]

See, that's the thing-you don't listen to other people. You just say "you clearly didn't read it" instead of saying "okay, I'll take what you said into consideration". I'm not saying you have to change it, but I am saying you shouldn't dismiss everything so easily.


Good point. When submitting content for peer review, one should not be looking to win arguments but to collate and evaluate feedback.

"This feedback isn't good enough." Imagine if WotC dismissed much of their feedback on UA content, simply because they thought people didn't "get" it? At the very least, it discourages other people from commenting.

[EvilAnagram]

Good point. When submitting content for peer review, one should not be looking to win arguments but to collate and evaluate feedback.

"This feedback isn't good enough." Imagine if WotC dismissed much of their feedback on UA content, simply because they thought people didn't "get" it? At the very least, it discourages other people from commenting.

Yeah, the strength of guides in forums is that you're able to collect a variety of opinions and see things from several points of view. My guides would be far worse if I didn't accept the critiques of other playgrounders, and even on those rare occasions when I'm right I try to be polite about it.

[TheUser]

Good point. When submitting content for peer review, one should not be looking to win arguments but to collate and evaluate feedback.

"This feedback isn't good enough." Imagine if WotC dismissed much of their feedback on UA content, simply because they thought people didn't "get" it? At the very least, it discourages other people from commenting.

1) I've been accepting many criticisms and points that show the guide has been read. What good are your criticisms if you can't be bothered even reading the parts you give feedback on...

2) I am not WotC; you are not my customers I owe you nothing. When WotC asks for feedback on UA it's because the customer is always right.

3) If people give me feedback which is wrong, rather than ignore wrong feedback, which would be far far easier, I defend my claims so the community doesn't regard the guide as misinformation. I do not care who is right, I care about -what- is right. I am more than happy to admit when I am wrong; the guide has gone through over 30 rounds of re-uploading and editing. I simply just don't have the patience or tact for those who swagger in here and make arguments which are already covered in the guide.

[JNAProductions]

1) I've been accepting many criticisms and points that show the guide has been read. What good are your criticisms if you can't be bothered even reading the parts you give feedback on...

2) I am not WotC; you are not my customers I owe you nothing. When WotC asks for feedback on UA it's because the customer is always right.

3) If people give me feedback which is wrong, rather than ignore wrong feedback, which would be far far easier, I defend my claims so the community doesn't regard the guide as misinformation. I do not care who is right, I care about -what- is right. I am more than happy to admit when I am wrong; the guide has gone through over 30 rounds of re-uploading and editing. I simply just don't have the patience or tact for those who swagger in here and make arguments which are already covered in the guide.

Can you provide an actual example of you adjusting your guide based on feedback?

[TheUser]

Can you provide an actual example of you adjusting your guide based on feedback?

Storm Sorcerer added. Web removed from careful spell. Suggestion added to Twinned spell list to name a few

[JNAProductions]

Storm Sorcerer added. Web removed from careful spell. Suggestion added to Twinned spell list

Alright, that's a good start. Sorta. (I mean, you added something you completely ignored in the first place, and changed two spells. That's... Not much.) Now, I would like to think I'm worth listening to as well, but then again, I'm just me.

That being said, you dismissed Kryx out of hand, and Kryx has the maths. Seriously-he's a smart guy, and you've basically blown him off.

More than that, your guide is very... You focused. You talk a lot about minimizing risk, not wasting resources, all that-you're very risk averse. That's one playstyle-but it's important to think OUTSIDE yourself and address other playstyles.

Overall, like I said before-it's not a bad guide. It has its bad parts (Empowered is not an S Rank metamagic) but on the whole, it's worth reading. Your attitude, though... It's not good. You don't take critiques very well, and tend to lash out.

[Corran]

That being said, you dismissed Kryx out of hand, and Kryx has the maths. Seriously-he's a smart guy, and you've basically blown him off.

Kryx understands things that mere mortals were never supposed to, and he will lead you into darkness...:smalltongue:
Edit: Seriously though, I would pay a lot of attention to what he has to say, too.

[evolutionXXVII]

My enthusiasm for contributing to this thread is tempered by the OP's aggressive attitude. For other members of the community who might be interested in discussing sorcerer play, I disagree on two main points:

1. Careful is underrated by the guide. I realize the guide states that Careful Spell "profoundly changes the value of the spells it affects", but beyond that, not much detail is provided. Careful adds tremendous value to two key spells in particular, Hypnotic Pattern and Fear (yes, I see Hypnotic Pattern is bold). Let me explain the mechanics:

The flaw in Hypnotic Pattern is that the spell ends "if someone uses an action to shake the creature". If you cast the spell at range and catch half your enemies in it, it wastes about a round of action for them to shake each other out of it. If you carefully cast it on your party once the melee has begun, it now becomes far more difficult and costly for enemies to wake each other out of the stupor. It also becomes more valuable towards the end of a fight when there are maybe only 2-3 enemies left. The fewer enemies there are, the more likely it is they all will fail, giving your party a chance to deal with the most powerful enemies one at a time, and or taking a few rounds for quick recovery when people may be down and out. It's a little confusing given that it's an AoE, but sometimes less is more. The value of Hypnotic Pattern at range as an opening move is half (or less) what it is once the trash mobs are cleared and the important enemies are engaged in melee.

Careful Fear is potentially even better. First, the range of the spell is self, so ranged casting at range isn't an option. To use the spell effectively, you have to awkwardly move around a fight, potentially taking op attacks or putting yourself in a dangerous spot, just to hit from the right angle. Careful lets you hit from any angle. Second, an often overlooked aspect of the spell is that it will cause an affected target to "drop whatever it is holding". Even if the affected targets find cover after a round and rejoin the fight, they've lost their weapons... if you cast this when your party's already engaged, they can just pick up the enemy's weapons. Using Careful on Fear can frequently double the number of targets you can catch within it, and puts your party in a better position to capitalize on the effects.

Careful doubles the value of already powerful, extremely efficient spells, for only 1 point. It's subjective and circumstantial, but I believe better than the estimated bump of 19% to an empowered fireball.

2. The guide overlooks the fact that concentration spells automatically scale (despite recognizing that "concentration spells are the most efficient and some of the strongest"). At level 5, a well placed Fireball, Hypnotic Pattern, or Fear can all completely trivialize an encounter. At level 10, a 3rd level fireball (while still tremendously efficient) cannot trivialize an encounter, but Hypnotic Pattern and Fear still can! The higher your level, the harder your opponents, the more valuable careful crowd control becomes. Fireball and empower still do the same thing.

While it's true that selecting a bunch of concentration spells will make you feel the "concentration crunch", chances are that by simply maintaining concentration on key spells, your maximizing benefit to the party. And sorcerers are better designed to cast concentration spells than any other class, due to the fact that they can enhance them with metamagic (namely careful and twin), and actually use all the saved resources, albeit entropically, for other interesting things. I don't think there's a class that benefits more from being economical than the sorcerer.

3. Bonus disagreement - Wild Mage is for "lulz/friends". The downside risk of wild magic is a significant deterrent, I get it. But Tides of Chaos and Bend Luck are both super powerful and interesting abilities. And the good news is that surges scale incredibly well. At level 1-2, it can easily be fatal. At level 3-4, you'll probably start using ToC a in crucial situations. By level 5-6, you can be more aggressive with it. By level 7, you can start really taking advantage of ToC. Flight is amazing, but I think bend luck is more likely to completely alter an encounter and save your party.

Furthermore, if you're playing in a super serious group, who cares what happens at level 1-2? You're in it for the long haul. There's no better time to wipe than 3 days into your campaign.

[TheUser]

My enthusiasm for contributing to this thread is tempered by the OP's aggressive attitude. For other members of the community who might be interested in discussing sorcerer play, I disagree on two main points:

1. Careful is underrated by the guide. I realize the guide states that Careful Spell "profoundly changes the value of the spells it affects", but beyond that, not much detail is provided. Careful adds tremendous value to two key spells in particular, Hypnotic Pattern and Fear (yes, I see Hypnotic Pattern is bold). Let me explain the mechanics:

The flaw in Hypnotic Pattern is that the spell ends "if someone uses an action to shake the creature". If you cast the spell at range and catch half your enemies in it, it wastes about a round of action for them to shake each other out of it. If you carefully cast it on your party once the melee has begun, it now becomes far more difficult and costly for enemies to wake each other out of the stupor. It also becomes more valuable towards the end of a fight when there are maybe only 2-3 enemies left. The fewer enemies there are, the more likely it is they all will fail, giving your party a chance to deal with the most powerful enemies one at a time, and or taking a few rounds for quick recovery when people may be down and out. It's a little confusing given that it's an AoE, but sometimes less is more. The value of Hypnotic Pattern at range as an opening move is half (or less) what it is once the trash mobs are cleared and the important enemies are engaged in melee.

Careful Fear is potentially even better. First, the range of the spell is self, so ranged casting at range isn't an option. To use the spell effectively, you have to awkwardly move around a fight, potentially taking op attacks or putting yourself in a dangerous spot, just to hit from the right angle. Careful lets you hit from any angle. Second, an often overlooked aspect of the spell is that it will cause an affected target to "drop whatever it is holding". Even if the affected targets find cover after a round and rejoin the fight, they've lost their weapons... if you cast this when your party's already engaged, they can just pick up the enemy's weapons. Using Careful on Fear can frequently double the number of targets you can catch within it, and puts your party in a better position to capitalize on the effects.

Careful doubles the value of already powerful, extremely efficient spells, for only 1 point. It's subjective and circumstantial, but I believe better than the estimated bump of 19% to an empowered fireball.

2. The guide overlooks the fact that concentration spells automatically scale (despite recognizing that "concentration spells are the most efficient and some of the strongest"). At level 5, a well placed Fireball, Hypnotic Pattern, or Fear can all completely trivialize an encounter. At level 10, a 3rd level fireball (while still tremendously efficient) cannot trivialize an encounter, but Hypnotic Pattern and Fear still can! The higher your level, the harder your opponents, the more valuable careful crowd control becomes. Fireball and empower still do the same thing.

While it's true that selecting a bunch of concentration spells will make you feel the "concentration crunch", chances are that by simply maintaining concentration on key spells, your maximizing benefit to the party. And sorcerers are better designed to cast concentration spells than any other class, due to the fact that they can enhance them with metamagic (namely careful and twin), and actually use all the saved resources, albeit entropically, for other interesting things. I don't think there's a class that benefits more from being economical than the sorcerer.

3. Bonus disagreement - Wild Mage is for "lulz/friends". The downside risk of wild magic is a significant deterrent, I get it. But Tides of Chaos and Bend Luck are both super powerful and interesting abilities. And the good news is that surges scale incredibly well. At level 1-2, it can easily be fatal. At level 3-4, you'll probably start using ToC a in crucial situations. By level 5-6, you can be more aggressive with it. By level 7, you can start really taking advantage of ToC. Flight is amazing, but I think bend luck is more likely to completely alter an encounter and save your party.

Furthermore, if you're playing in a super serious group, who cares what happens at level 1-2? You're in it for the long haul. There's no better time to wipe than 3 days into your campaign.

I really like this feedback.

The point about disables scaling is something I have known and neglected to put in the guide so I will very likely shoehorn it in with regards to efficiency because it's absolutely 100% true. You've articulated it very well and the word "trivialize" is I think the best way to describe how these two spells can "swing" and entire group fight. I try to say it's the most efficient metamagic but the analogy of damage vs disables isn't evaluated on well enough.

For fear, it is definitely a very powerful ability and what you've detailed is very true, however, there's a few shortcoming's to fear that I didn't like which hypnotic pattern doesn't have.

There are a great deal of monsters with immunity to, advantage against, or the ability to end fear, whereas the incapacitate from hypnotic pattern has very low resistance/immunity seeded within pre-existing monsters in the MM. This to me is the greatest detractor from fear.

Secondly, the running away part of fear can cause a cascading encounter, which is to say it's no longer an isolated incident but rather chains other groups of enemies into joining the encounter as the targets dash and dash and dash into new rooms (it's been directly responsible for a TPK for me), it also makes it harder to follow up on since they've now been dashing for each round and creating space from your party.

I definitely agree with what you said and may just do a detailing on the pros and cons of hypnotic pattern vs fear. I do not think using hypnotic pattern early is bad; the snowballing effect of the first few rounds tends to be the most crucial part of fights and though you might not be able to hypnotic pattern from super long range it's definitely still worth using early imho. The part that seems really effective for fear is that they also have to spend any round they spent running away from their dropped weapons running straight back to it if it's the only weapon they have.

Great feedback, thank you

EDIT: I bolded fear, you convinced me

EDIT 2: Wild Mage might be where it is because I just love subtle spell so much and wild surges can force you to counterspell yourself (when applicable). I also crutch on not needing mage armor as a spell a whole heck of a lot and the extra AC/HP has saved my bacon more times than I can count. Bend Luck and Tides of Chaos are both -really- strong features but the lack of agency and volatility that wildsurges impose on the class really hurts my feelings towards it. ToC being so risky before level 4/5 is...well I think it's poorly designed to say the least. I think that perhaps this is the one place my risk averse nature with regards to D&D in terms of creating consistent results has definitely bled onto my opinion but I feel like that might also be important for pushing players towards a consistently positive experience when playing the class.

[TheUser]

Alright, that's a good start. Sorta. (I mean, you added something you completely ignored in the first place, and changed two spells. That's... Not much.) Now, I would like to think I'm worth listening to as well, but then again, I'm just me.

That being said, you dismissed Kryx out of hand, and Kryx has the maths. Seriously-he's a smart guy, and you've basically blown him off.

More than that, your guide is very... You focused. You talk a lot about minimizing risk, not wasting resources, all that-you're very risk averse. That's one playstyle-but it's important to think OUTSIDE yourself and address other playstyles.

Overall, like I said before-it's not a bad guide. It has its bad parts (Empowered is not an S Rank metamagic) but on the whole, it's worth reading. Your attitude, though... It's not good. You don't take critiques very well, and tend to lash out.


Reducing gambling of sorcery points/spell slots/turns isn't a -me- strategy it's a -good- strategy. If you perform actions that have high odds of success, don't waste your resources, and maximize your output...that's a good strategy. Risk averse or not, spending sorcery points doing nothing isn't a good strategy, even if the payoff is good having turns/resources spent doing nothing can play out really badly in a high stakes combat encounter. Consistency breeds success.


I'm real glad you don't think empower is S tier and you've gone through the rigors of articulating a coherent argument to back that claim up (oh wait..."boring" was pretty much all you had to say...) you're certainly welcome to your opinion, but I can, with great certainty, tell you that empower belongs where it belongs because of it's compatibility (both with spells and other metamagics), it's efficiency, it's effects on the player's morale, and it's ability to increase consistent damage in a spammable and unique fashion. I absolutely loathe playing blaster wizards/light clerics after playing my sorcerer because rolling low damage AoE nukes feels like a crappy use of a turn+spell slot. If you think embracing consistently high damage and efficiency is somehow a -me- strategy and not a -good- strategy then... like I don't know what else I can say to convince you.


I don't take -bad- critiques well without stating why they're bad. You literally had nothing to say besides your opinion with no mathematical, contextual or strategic backing. It was just blanket assertion after blanket assertion with little to no support for your claims. That's not the kind of feedback I'm interested in and I'm not afraid to critique my critics especially when trying to push the merits of an advanced guide.

I find it ironic that you look up to kryx. He pretty much did what you did which was: disagree, offer no backing to his opinion and refused to actually read the guide. The two of you have a lot in common....

[Litania]

Amazing! Been looking for something like this!
Any tips on cool combinations of metamagic tricks and cleric spells? Planning for a Favored Soul.

[TheUser]

Amazing! Been looking for something like this!
Any tips on cool combinations of metamagic tricks and cleric spells? Planning for a Favored Soul.

Probably the best antimage: you can cast silence on yourself while next to another caster and if you have sentinel + subtle spell they can't get away and can't cast but you can.

Empowered specifically stipulates when you are rolling "damage" so you can't boost your heals with it, however.... Twinned healing.

Subtle or Heightened Geas both seem insane.

Empowered Flamestrike.

That's just off the top of my head.

EDIT: HEIGHTEN BESTOW CURSE

[Kryx]

Kryx has the maths. Seriously-he's a smart guy, and you've basically blown him off.


Kryx understands things that mere mortals were never supposed to, and he will lead you into darkness...:smalltongue:
Edit: Seriously though, I would pay a lot of attention to what he has to say, too.

This is off topic of the thread and for that I apologize, but I just wanted to say thanks to both of you. I've started posting here more lately and have stumbled into some of the more toxic threads that make me want to avoid D&D communities.
Thank you for your kind words and letting me know that some of my past work has been of value to you.

[evolutionXXVII]

Glad you like the feedback! One other change I'd make if it was my guide: I would add a new section below "Why Not" for a "Sorcerer vs. Wizard" conversation, and I'd move the "Cycle out spells" discussion there to expand on it.

I always see the argument that the wizard is stronger because of spells known, and it seems to ignore the fact that at every level you can swap out an old sorcerer spell. If you compare the potential number of spells both classes could have had access to throughout the course of their adventure, the numbers would align much better.

The fact that you can swap out spells means you can take a spell like Sleep which is horribly overpowered at levels 1-2, and drop it at level 4. Planned obsolescence allows the Sorcerer to take the most powerful spells at a given level with no regrets. A wizard doing this would end up with a book full of useless spells.

More important than dropping early damage spells is dropping early concentration spells. Suggestion and Phantasmal Force are amazing spells... but by the time you have Animate Objects, they're probably not getting much use. Swapping those out for defensive spells like Mirror Image or even Blindness eventually makes a lot of sense, and allows you to always concentrate on the most powerful spells you have access to.

I actually find the Wizard's spell book to be more restrictive than the Sorcerer. Below level 5, every time I get to pick new spells, I have to make a call between power now, or survivability/utility later. I usually go with utility, and end up with a Wizard who can do nothing but cast rituals, misty step, and shield. It's a sacrifice Wizards have to make, which Sorcerers don't have to worry about. The end result is that Wizards end up with more utility, Sorcerers end up being more powerful in combat.

Druids and Clerics can swap from a huge list, does that make them feel more powerful in play? I usually end up with a few key spells I always equip, and make some slight adjustments at the fringes. Half the time I make an adjustment, I end up regretting it anyway. Even when you think you know what you're going to face in an adventuring day, you're wrong. So the ability to prepare spells from a larger list of known spells, in my opinion is overrated.

[MaxWilson]

This one covers some fairly advanced concepts like economizing sorcery points and gambling as well as statistical analysis of metamagic features. It's also horrendously long and opinionated but should be helpful to those who want to play a sorcerer.

http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/rJHwSSR0e
(use chrome)

PDF:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxHRu80oFd2iSkNLeVBISzZxMzQ

Typos abound!


Because Wild-magic surges are counter-intuitive to my favourite metamagic and cannot have metamagic applied to them after errata, the archetype is less than ideal. Even in campaigns where your DM will guarantee a surge to replenish Tides of Chaos every time, it's so volatile I would never consider the archetype an option for serious play (#1 oxymoron). A 1/1000 chance to fireball yourself with every spell and possibly wipe your party is never going to be optimal in my books.

You overestimate the severity.

(1) If you're a multiclassed wild sorc on tanking duty, the Fireball (or Confusion or whatever) can affect as many or more of the enemy as the party.
(2) Fireball doesn't do that much damage anyway, to a mid-level party.
(3) You can Counterspell the Fireball if you really want to, as can anyone else in the party.

Imagine that I told you I was going to add a Flameskull to 1/1000 of your combats; that Flameskull would throw one poorly-aimed Fireball that might or might not even hit most party members, and then it would die. How much time would you spend worrying about that Flameskull if you were in a 10th level party? Not much, I imagine. You might learn Counterspell and then stop worrying about it; you might not even bother to do that much.

You'll get way more utility out of Bend Luck helping PCs make critical saves and causing enemies to fail critical saves than you will lose utility from unlucky Wild Surges.

In a 1st level party you might sweat it quite a bit more, obviously. Wild Magic Surges are a problem at low levels, not at high levels. At mid-high levels, 6+, Wild Mages become almost pure goodness to have in the party. (Similarly, Dragon Magic is useless at low levels, but nice at mid-high levels, 6+.)

[TheUser]

Glad you like the feedback! One other change I'd make if it was my guide: I would add a new section below "Why Not" for a "Sorcerer vs. Wizard" conversation, and I'd move the "Cycle out spells" discussion there to expand on it.

I always see the argument that the wizard is stronger because of spells known, and it seems to ignore the fact that at every level you can swap out an old sorcerer spell. If you compare the potential number of spells both classes could have had access to throughout the course of their adventure, the numbers would align much better.

The fact that you can swap out spells means you can take a spell like Sleep which is horribly overpowered at levels 1-2, and drop it at level 4. Planned obsolescence allows the Sorcerer to take the most powerful spells at a given level with no regrets. A wizard doing this would end up with a book full of useless spells.

More important than dropping early damage spells is dropping early concentration spells. Suggestion and Phantasmal Force are amazing spells... but by the time you have Animate Objects, they're probably not getting much use. Swapping those out for defensive spells like Mirror Image or even Blindness eventually makes a lot of sense, and allows you to always concentrate on the most powerful spells you have access to.

I actually find the Wizard's spell book to be more restrictive than the Sorcerer. Below level 5, every time I get to pick new spells, I have to make a call between power now, or survivability/utility later. I usually go with utility, and end up with a Wizard who can do nothing but cast rituals, misty step, and shield. It's a sacrifice Wizards have to make, which Sorcerers don't have to worry about. The end result is that Wizards end up with more utility, Sorcerers end up being more powerful in combat.

Druids and Clerics can swap from a huge list, does that make them feel more powerful in play? I usually end up with a few key spells I always equip, and make some slight adjustments at the fringes. Half the time I make an adjustment, I end up regretting it anyway. Even when you think you know what you're going to face in an adventuring day, you're wrong. So the ability to prepare spells from a larger list of known spells, in my opinion is overrated.

Interesting thought but the managing spells known section comes -right- after and the swaps correlate to the wizard getting 2 new spells per level to add to their book (since using swaps can only ever get you 2 new spells per level). They also get to plunder lots of spells every time they kill or party up with another wizard so I'm not sure if this is much of a limiting factor as you've made it out to be, especially with comparison to a sorcerer.

I'm not really interested in perpetuating the tired trope of Wizard vs Sorcerer by bashing wizards. If anything it should be promoting the Sorcerer's strengths and showing how to avoid their weaknesses.

I'm not sure I am following your logic with regards to concentration and animate objects; I regard phantasmal force and suggestion as more OOC/utility than in combat concentration effects and since I don't run spellpoints I can't very well spam animate objects every fight without crapping on my sorcery points/other slots.

[Gort]

Great guide.
I enjoyed your thoughts on the meta magics.

[Orion3T]

Reducing gambling of sorcery points/spell slots/turns isn't a -me- strategy it's a -good- strategy. If you perform actions that have high odds of success, don't waste your resources, and maximize your output...that's a good strategy. Risk averse or not, spending sorcery points doing nothing isn't a good strategy, even if the payoff is good having turns/resources spent doing nothing can play out really badly in a high stakes combat encounter. Consistency breeds success.

It's a good core strategy, for sure. It will work well in getting through resource-draining dungeons. Which may well be your default assumption, but it's not how many of the modules work. And in 5e (DM dependent) resting isn't always a particularly big issue. Over 11 levels of play, I think my sorcerer has been close to running out of SPs once... maybe. And even then, she didn't. So it's highly campaign/DM dependent.

What it won't do (at least not as well) is get you through that single deadly encounter in which every single turn counts because you're only likely to survive if you can defeat the enemy in 2-3 rounds before people start dropping. In those fights you want to be able to blow your sorcery points to maximum damage and get over the finishing line before the enemy kills you. So in a campaign which has many isolated difficult encounters, your resource-efficiency approach is likely to be less effective. You coould die before you even have chance to spend your SPs.

This is why I mentioned burst damage. Of course it isn't resource-efficient just like sprinting the 100m isn't resource efficient. But if you need to get to that ladder that's 100m away before the tiger grabs you and eats you, then running along at your 1500m pace isn't going to work.

Point being, some builds will be built more for endurance and 'sustain' while others sacrifice some of that for peak power output over a smaller length of time. Both are valid but you seem to basically ignore the latter.


On the subject of taking criticism, I feel I have mentioned several things which are well argued but you did not even respond to (unless I mssed it, in which case I apologise!). In case you missed them:


- Your maths on empower is overly complex and, to a mathematician, clumsy. A reroll is worth the average roll for that die, e.g. a rerolled d6 is worth 3.5. No need to go into the probability of rolling each result.

- Your wording "do an average of 1.3 cantrips" does not make sense. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your argument here (which you could take as an indication it's lacking clarity, even if your underlying reasoning is sound). By the same reasoning any spell with an attack or save is only worth some % of a spell. For example casting Chromiatic Orb on the same enemy is actually only worth 0.65 level 1 spell slots. This argument makes no sense to me. It would be better to just use an example cantrip and calculate the damage. If you have space, show how the 'damage per sorcery point' is worse, making it inefficient. However, it can significantly increase burst damage (damage per round, as I showed above) and in a single big fight could still be something worth having at your disposal.

- The empower section still doesn't make a clear distinction between deciding when to empower, and which dice to reroll if you do empower. It blends them into a single paragraph and is particularly unclear on the first point. I think it would be much more helpful to separate the two. Put simply; the expected damage improvement in a reroll is the average of the rerolled dice minus their current value. The player should then decide whether that damage increase is worth the sorcery point at all. If it's not even worth it on average, then it's (nearly always?!) not worth looking further.

- I still disagree on the rerolling of 3s (in fact working through the maths only convinced me of my original position on this). I gave you some hard statistics on this but I don't believe you even acknowledged them, preferring to focus on your percieved 'risk'. I do appreciate that you address it to some extent by saying rerolling them does give more damage on average, but you really just seem to mention it in passing, when I would still argue that for the most efficient use of resources (something you otherwise advocate) the default assumption should be to reroll 3s (or 4s on d8s). Those who are particularly risk aversed to the point they won't take a small risk (1-2 points) even when the odds are in their favour, should be the exception not the rule.



Putting some of this yet another way, I think there are 3 distinct points to consider which might help clear up some areas:

1. Considering maximum resource efficiency by calculating an average damage/utility per point spent. (you emphasise this strongly)

2. Considering maximum possible damage output per turn/round. (which is almost certainly less efficient use of resources, but could still be extremely important and life-saving in a pinch). (you seem to gloss over this at best)

3. Balancing the risk associated with maximising damage per point spent/damage per round in different ways. This might affect spell selection more than metamagics but since the 2 play off each other it's difficult to separate the to areas. For example is it better to use Fire Bolt or a Save for 1/2 spell? Often this will be situational

I think your lack of attention to 2, which is arguably where the Sorcerer can excell in many circumstances, is why someone mentioned it being 'you focused'. Meaning it doesn't give much consideration that reliable and resource-efficient output may not be the sorcerer's role in most groups. It sounds more like a solo-focused build. If you have some allies who can deal steady damage without spending any resources then the Sorc shouldn't be spending their Sorc points at all. They should be saved for that deadly encounter where you need maximum output over a short time.




These points might seem long-winded because I'm trying to explain them clearly; I apologise for that. But really this is just 3 paragraphs out of an otherwise insightful and well written guide (for me, as someone who knows maths but isn't that familiar with all the spells etc). I realise you're under no obligation to respond and appreciate what responses you have given. But I think you missed or still underappreciate some of the above and your thoughts are of interest.

[Orion3T]

One last point - I am seeing quite a few 'You didn't read it properly' type responses.

An honest self-critique of multiple people giving me the same feeling of "They must not have read it properly" would lead me to consider that it might not be that they all didn't read it properly.

It's frustrating, and an understandable feeling. After all, whenever we publish something we wrote I'm sure we all feel we have communicated our ideas clearly. While I sympathise with the feeling, accusing people of such comes across as uncharitable at best, and arrogant at worst.

Instead, assuming you didn't find their argument persuasive, perhaps consider how you could make the point more clearly, or support it better? There's always room for improvement. Accusing people of not reading something they are trying to provide feedback on is never productive.

[Corran]

So, decided to expand on my previous argument.


@ Corran Wow...what a block of text. Ok so the thing I want you to take away from my rating for metamagics is that I never explicitly say "take this over that"
Yet the suggestion you make is for both your first two metamagic to be cheap, and that's a point I will debate. Moreover, the rating you present is certain to affect these first two choices, and imo picking both subtle and empowered as your 2 first metamagic is a tactical mistake, and I will expand on this below. Finally, as a guide that is focused on metamagic that extensively (but even if that wasn't the case), I would expect a conclusive suggestion as to how one should go about picking their metamagic (and on that last point I will conclude, by the end of this reply).


but from a metrics perspective let's analyse subtle vs twinned:

-Subtle has 95% spell compatibility - twinned is no longer compatible with several spells after errata and it was already very limiting to begin with (it's one of the justifications for dropping it to A-tier)
Spell compatibility is not an actual factor. All that matters is what use you make out of your metamagic. Assume metamagic A can apply to 5 of my known spells, and that metamagic B can apply to only 1 of my known spells. Can I make a safe bet on which of A or B is the more useful metamagic? Of course not, and the reason is that spells are not equally effective. I might be able to consistently profit a lot more from just one spell when combined with the metamagic that supports it, rather than by having another metamagic that supports every single spell that I know and that just takes space in my build, because every one of its many applications is inferior to what I can do with just one spell combined with one metamagic. Compatability can tell us next to nothing. What matters is how much your ''action'' mattered. Set up your tactics and profit specifically, by combining the right metamagic with the right spell. A theoritical approach of spell combatability can lead to false conclusions and be misleading, one should look at practical/efficient spell and metamagic compatability.


-You aren't gambling with subtle spell - twinned you are either gambling with offensive factors or concentration factors; either you can miss/target saves or while concentrating can get hit and lose concentration.
Optimal use of twinned = buffing, so here we agree. So gambling with miss/ target saves is out of the picture as far as our conversation goes (ie we agree on that much).
But gamble with concentration? Is that even a dilemma? Of course you gamble by having some concentration spell running. You always take that gamble and you try to minimize it, by trying to stay far away and to avoid to take damage, even throwing a defensive buff on you like mirror image if necessary, or even adding warcaster on top of con save prof (which is given from the class anyway) to boost more your concentration checks if necessary (imo this last one is not necessary). I mean, if a sorcerer who already starts with con save prof and whose positioning is to be in the back row, doesnt take up and use concentration spells, then who does? If you wanted exclusive focus on blasting, then your best bet is the evoker anyway. There is no question whether a sorcerer should gamble or not with concentration spells (I expect some exceptions can be made under very specific circumstances, but that's what they will be... exceptions).


Even a subtle spell that requires concentration inherently carries the safety of not giving away your position and thus has higher odds of you keeping concentration.
I wont delve much into this, as my opinion is that your suggestions for in-combat use of subtle aree either entirely DM-dependent and very situational. You one suggestion about subtle minor illusion (footsteps) when you are invisible, suggests to me that you consider concentration defensive buffs on self to be a thing that happens as part of some optimal srategy or something, but since I cant be sure, I wont focus on that, and for the time being I'll just consider this one specific example as an extremelly situational benefit.


-Subtle spell is always one spell point - twinned goes up in cost with level and can have the highest cost of any metamagic the sorcerer could take, I never say take it @ 10 the way I do quicken and heighten though, only that it can **** on your sorcery points.
True, but sorcery points are meant to be spent. It doesn't matter how slowly or quickly you spend them. All that matters is what you gain by doing so. Classic example, extend vs heightened. Sp cost by its own tells us nothing, just like spell compatability.


So one has no limitations on spell list, is completely safe to use and is always cheap. The other, while it may elicit a great effect, has very low spell compatibility, can be gambled with and lost, banks on a lot of concentration spells, and can ream more than half your sorcery points even at mid levels. It's just more prone to misuse. Go ahead and take Twinned spell; it's just going to carry the pitfalls detailed in the guide. The point isn't for me to make a decision for you, it's for you to make an informed decision.
So, as a summary of my points above, spell compatability and sorcery points cost tell us nothing by themselves. You have to put on the scale the effect gained to get an accurate reading. There is no gambling with concentration, concentration spells are your most useful spells, and a back-row caster with direct access to con save proficiency you should focus on concentration spells or you are playing suboptimaly (as sorcerers are not the ideal choice neither for a blaster, nor for artilery; they pale in comparison against evokers and warlocks/ ranged martials respctively). Include a part where you make clear suggestions on the order by which one should pick their metamagic, because as is, the implied/ suggested order is suboptimal imo.
-------

And on that last thing I said, I provide my suggestions:

1) Decide your main combat role for the first half of your career. It can be either being a debuffer (with crowd control thrown in there too) or a buffer. Your secondary role is blaster. This is because once your melee's engage, it wont be easy to throw AoE's. And single target damage spells are not that efficient (mostly leave single target damage for your martials, as they can do it better, but you dont have to neglect completely single target damage spells).

2) For that reason, you have to pick one of careful, twinned or heightened (meh on the last one), as one of your two first metamagic choices. This choice will of course influence your spell selection for the first half of your career, so that you can accomplish the role you chose and with which you will be more efficient than mst other classes (careful and twinned offer unique in combat benefits to the sorcerer and her party). This is to be the most effective in battle.

3) For the second choice of metamagic (ie apart from the one you picked above), pick either empowered or subtle. The first boosts your blasting potential, so it further boosts your in-combat potential, the second gives you out of combat utility and some situational in-combat benefits (though nothing you cant leave without). This is (as you said) to better manage your sorcery points, but also because it isn't a good idea to invest in metamagics that both boost different uses of your concentration, as that presents opportunity cost that cannot be justified in the first half of your career.

Question: Without neither of careful, twinned, and heightened, on what are you concentrating for the first half of your career? Upcated hold person? Too situational, or too campaign dependent. Animate objects? Comes rather late. The likes of greater invisibility, fly, or stoneskin? All falling under suboptimal use of your resources and honestly, quite possibly suboptimal group tactics too. Banishment? This is perhaps the only reason as to why one should perhaps pick heightened at level 3, before starting to facing enemies with legendary resistances (remember, upcasting save or suck spells is very good, sometimes you really want that extra edge against the most dagerous opponent on the map, and at the first half of your career, legendary resistances are not that common.

[Zene]

Love the guide! I have two Tier 3 sorcerers (a pal 2 / wild sorc 9 and a warlock 3 / dragon sorc 11), and this still gave me quite a bit to think about regarding plystyle and mechanics. I will definitely refer back to it when leveling/picking new spells/selecting metamagics. Thank you!

[TheUser]

Honest question Corran, have you ever played a subtle sorcerer or seen one played?

I get that your paradigm of "blaster or controller" is a commonly accepted trope but have you considered what a social manipulator can do in the context of this game? And not just persuasion checks, like actual magic being used subversively to trick NPC's and enemies into doing what you want? Is choosing to hide and cast DM dependant or player dependant?

You might think that taking subtle + empower early is some grievous mistake but I've done it enough times at enough tables that the people I play with are convinced subtle spell is broken AF. I also never stipulate that you must take either, whereas you are arguing I have to focus on control spells with careful or twinned or heightened because you forget concentration spells like blur, cloud of daggers, web, wall of fire, and fly exist or that casting any of the other spells you'd normally twin is not viable with subtle. Why can't I just blow things up again? With subtle you dominate the social game and are almost undetectable, untraceable and unstoppable in combat encounters. Furthermore nothing about either of these metamagics stops me from taking control spells; I just can't twin support magic for large costs but the associated risks are far less. I can still cast the fear spell, I just can't include my allies in the AoE whenever I want.

Concentration spells are a risk no matter what, you are right, but remaining hidden while you do it is less so (significantly). Moreover, the risk of twinned concentration is in the sorcery points being spent to do very little; the use of the turn, as you put it, carries the downside of you spending the points and potentially losing the concentration soon after; those points are gone with very little effect on the combat. It's worth on the round was very bad, and it cost you a lot of resources. Yes, it can have tremendous effects, but there is very little guarantee you won't take damage or be forced to stop by enemies who see/hear you eliciting these effects.

Oh right, that's DM dependant. Sometimes your DM's will just ignore your magic users because they want them to have a good time and feel useful. Or let their invocations be inaudible over the sounds of a pitched battle. Casters just get to cast, take cover and not worry about enemies coming after them or trying to flush them out. Cool. That has -never- been my play environment. Consistently, without fail, casters are targeted by semi-intelligent enemies because they represent a huge threat and aren't armored, hulking, combat hardened tyrants made even more daunting now that they've been imbued with magical support spells. Even just being included in AoE's that wrap around corners and cover carries the risk of dropping the twinned spell. If anything I think -your- strategy is far more DM dependant; you're depending on a DM propping up enemies that will ignore you as a threat without silent spells....

As for spell compatibility, it definitely does have worth. If you have cross compatibility for metamagics your options are greater than if you pick one spell with one metamagic in mind. Even though you can't use more than one metamagic on a spell, being able to choose which metamagic you want to apply can give you more options which is never a bad thing to have. "I really want to use phantasmal force here but I can either make it silent or force disadvantage on the save; is it more important that I remain undetected or that I botch their roll?" If one metamagic is compatible with all of your spell list and the other isn't which will have more situations to be used?

There's a reason I leave it open ended, because lots of people love different metamagics for different reasons, but objectively, subtle spell provides a paradigm shift that no other metamagic (or other class) comes close to providing with almost no restrictions and empower is always going to help you kill enemies quicker and fill the AoE damage niche better than any other caster could dream of doing. They both also carry little to no risk and are the cheapest metamagics to use. If that's not S-tier I really don't know what is...

EDIT: @ anyone who has come in and critiqued the guide you should go back and check to see what changes have been made on those specific sections; many changes were made. For instance Orion's criticism on the empowered section has been cleaned up for simplicity and almost all other gripes have been taken into consideration (with the exception of Kryx).

[Corran]

Honest question Corran, have you ever played a subtle sorcerer or seen one played?
I omitted my initial reply to this one, so that we can continue our conversation in good spirit.



... have you considered what a social manipulator can do in the context of this game? And not just persuasion checks, like actual magic being used subversively to trick NPC's and enemies into doing what you want?
It depends greatly on campain style.
The group I regularly game with, likes settings/games that ooze of political intrigue and where social manipulation is a powerful tool at the hands of a PC (that's because we are huge GoT nerds, I guess). Using magic to accomplish that will vary according to more setting-specific factors and according to who of us is DM'ing (I will delve more into that later).
Another group I join from time to time, prefers more straighforward (perhaps Tolkin-esque is a good way to describe it? not sure...) tropes, where the PCs are usually the heroes who take up quests from important (or not) NPCs, usually something along the lines of ''go into place X and defeat the evil threat that is on the rise'', with the quest remaining mostly the same as the campaign progresses and with the evil threat rising in difficulty and/or complexity as the PCs gain more levels. In such campaigns, the out of combat usefullness of subtle is diminished.
It depends greatly on the DM
Even assuming a campaign style that favors social manipulation, the DM is still a factor that singlehandedly determines how effective subtle magic manipulation is going to be. First and foremost, how common are high level spellcasters in that world? Equally, if not more important, how common are sorcerers in the campaign world? And as a consequence, how common knowledge is that subtle magic is a thing? If you are playing in a campaign where the world is for some reason unaccustomed to subtle magic, then you can go crazy! If on the other hand you play in a campaign where the world is for some reason (perhaps the king fell once prey to such magic, and now the king and the local lords -and anyone of importance really- are taking measures to guard against this, to picture the complete opposite scenario to your default one) more aware of this possibility, you can expect less profit from such tactics.
Moreover, suggestion, which is perhaps the best use of subtle magic (I like the dominate spells, but they come relatively late and after you have taken your 3rd metamagic, and what's more in many cases you will really profit from upcasting them, so you look at even higher levels), is again entirely DM dependant.



Is choosing to hide and cast DM dependant or player dependant?
Yes, it is DM dependant, to the point that it can determine the player's choices. It depends on how your DM interprets the stealth rules, and on how much use of the environment the DM makes for their encounters.




You might think that taking subtle + empower early is some grievous mistake but I've done it enough times at enough tables that the people I play with are convinced subtle spell is broken AF.
My suggestion that empower and subtle is a poor combination for your first two metamagic picks, has very little to do with if you can utilize subtle to a great or to little effect. It is about missing on opportunities to pair certain spells with metamagic like heightened, twinned or careful, for the first half of your career. Without any off these three metamagic, you have no clear role in combat and you miss on the unique opportunity to become a specialist in one of the areas a sorcerer can excel (again, as far as combat is concerned).

No one else can cast twinned haste, or careful hypnotic pattern, or hightened banishment, to just give some examples of what you will be missing. Obviously my point is not about picking all of these metamagic asap. My point is that one of these should be among your first two picks, else you are giving up on combat specialization which is one of the BIG reasons for playing a sorcerer in the first place. You said it first (and I agree).... specialist.

As far as your group thinking that subtle is broken, I believe you, but that's just judgement based on personal experience and it is certain that it will fail to hold up at some other tables. Personally, I think that you like subtle spell so much, that you went out of your way (ie describing how it can be useful) to make it seem like the absolute metamagic pick and the absolute way to play a sorcerer to the maximum effect, without taking into account, or purposely dismissing as non-important or rarely-occuring, factors that can render this kind of sorcerer moot and subtle spell a burden.

As I said in my very first post, I like subtle spell too. And I like to see that the guide goes into detail as to how to make the most of it. But I am left with the impression that you kind of chose to fool yourself into believing that objectively it is the best pick, as I am led to believe by the combat applications of subtle that you are suggesting over the course of this thread. Which would normally be fine if that was anything other than a guide, but guides have to be as much objective as possible. And imo this guide is heavily opinionated when it comes to metamagic rating, as you fail to take into account a different set up of parameters other than the one you are used to playing with. Yes, you are not explicitely say pick subtle and empower as you first two metamagic (though you say that it is better to pick cheap -1sp- metamagic as your first two choices), but come one... the majority of the people who will read or skim this guide, will come to that very conclusion if they see no counter-arguments to the logic you present. The table that rates metamagic against each other is not doing much good either, considering the way you are rating them.



I also never stipulate that you must take either, whereas you are arguing I have to focus on control spells with careful or twinned or heightened because you forget concentration spells like blur, cloud of daggers, web, wall of fire, and fly exist or that casting any of the other spells you'd normally twin is not viable with subtle.
There are some good concentration spells that dont rely on metamagic, agreed, wall of fire/stone being the first ones that come to mind (with your help reminding me). But as I said earlier, you are missing on combat specialization that the sorcerer chassis offers. As for self buffing (blur, fly, greater invisibility, stoneskin, anything else that uses your concentration), it is generally a suboptimal strategy, or at best case scenario, an optimal strategy used under suboptimal group tactics. If you are in dire need to defensively buff yourself (generally not a good idea), there are always good concentration-free buffs, and if you intend on buffing yourself with concentration defensive buffs, you should at least take twinned so that you put the concentration effect to some decent use (ie sharing it with an ally that can actually make better use of it than you).


Why can't I just blow things up again?
You can blow stuff up. You cannot bet on doing so consistently, due to not being able to sculpt spells, just like an evoker can. So that takes much away from your blasting potential, so much that I believe that blasting is the secondary focus of the sorcerer, at least as far as combat is concenred.
You can choose single target blasting spells if you want, but focusing too much of them is not a good idea either, as the damage these spells typically provide, is below what a martial or a warlock can offer, so once again, it is suboptimal to focus on single target blasting as your primary sorcerer's function.


With subtle you dominate the social game
Depends.
It depends greatly on campain style.
The group I regularly game with, likes settings/games that ooze of political intrigue and where social manipulation is a powerful tool at the hands of a PC (that's because we are huge GoT nerds, I guess). Using magic to accomplish that will vary according to more setting-specific factors and according to who of us is DM'ing (I will delve more into that later).
Another group I join from time to time, prefers more straighforward (perhaps Tolkin-esque is a good way to describe it? not sure...) tropes, where the PCs are usually the heroes who take up quests from important (or not) NPCs, usually something along the lines of ''go into place X and defeat the evil threat that is on the rise'', with the quest remaining mostly the same as the campaign progresses and with the evil threat rising in difficulty and/or complexity as the PCs gain more levels. In such campaigns, the out of combat usefullness of subtle is diminished.
It depends greatly on the DM
Even assuming a campaign style that favors social manipulation, the DM is still a factor that singlehandedly determines how effective subtle magic manipulation is going to be. First and foremost, how common are high level spellcasters in that world? Equally, if not more important, how common are sorcerers in the campaign world? And as a consequence, how common knowledge is that subtle magic is a thing? If you are playing in a campaign where the world is for some reason unaccustomed to subtle magic, then you can go crazy! If on the other hand you play in a campaign where the world is for some reason (perhaps the king fell once prey to such magic, and now the king and the local lords -and anyone of importance really- are taking measures to guard against this, to picture the complete opposite scenario to your default one) more aware of this possibility, you can expect less profit from such tactics.
Moreover, suggestion, which is perhaps the best use of subtle magic (I like the dominate spells, but they come relatively late and after you have taken your 3rd metamagic, and what's more in many cases you will really profit from upcasting them, so you look at even higher levels), is again entirely DM dependant.


and are almost undetectable, untraceable and unstoppable in combat encounters.
This is simply not true. Or at least it would take for a very specific DM for that to be the case. You are stretching the supposedly helpful ways in which the subtle metamagic can contribute, and try too hard to tie its usefulness with various (heavily DM dependent, to say the least) combat applications. I have no interest in debating this one, as I think you have a very strong opinion on it and further conversation between us regarding this specific topic wouldnt be productive. I just noted my objection, without providing justification (partly for the reason I mentioned above, and partly because I dont think I really have to -it's one of these things that imo someone gets it or not-).


Furthermore nothing about either of these metamagics stops me from taking control spells;
Per Crawford's ruling, careful takes a serious blow, as web and stinking cloud can no longer be used with it. Not sure if this is supposed to be new RAW or not, but if it is, I will be re-evaluating my stance on careful. If it isn't, then your ability to control and debuff takes a serious blow by not taking careful at 3rd level. You can still pick such spells, but keep in mind that concentration is a very valuable resource. If you are using a concentration spell without making the most of it, then you should maybe not pick such a concentration spell in the first place, and instead pick up the concentration spells that you can make the most of. Concentration is a very limiting factor, so it makes sense to pick up the concentration spells that you can make the best use out of, and that is determined by what metamagic you will pick. (check below when I discuss the fear spell you metioned as an example, and how much fear upgrades when I combine it with careful)


I just can't twin support magic for large costs but the associated risks are far less.
You just presented the negative side of things here, overlooking the increased profit. Talking about the drawbacks without taking into effect the extra gain, is not a basis for objective analysis. The correct way to talk about this, is to try and estimated the new gain (subtract from the increased profit the increased cost, factoring in an estimate for the loss of concentration as a risk facor) to the previous gain (initial profit - initial loss, factoring in the same risk factor). Now, I dont ask of you to do this (since I dont know if I could do that myself), but if we are to be objective about our analysis, we cant talk about the one (increased cost) without taking into account the other (increased gain). Risk aversion by itself is not something on top of which we can base objective conclusions, so you might want to rethink the way you seem to evaluate it on its own (same thing you did with spell compatability and sp cost; all of these on their own cannot lead us to meaningful conclusions, without taking into account the increase in gain/profit).



I can still cast the fear spell, I just can't include my allies in the AoE whenever I want.
(emphasis added)
We look at the same sentense and draw completely different conclusions.
The value of a spell is also determined by being able to cast it when it matters most, and also making the most out of it.

To expand my second point (ie making the most out of it). Yes, you can take up fear and cast it when your allies are not in the AoE, but you probably made a less effective use of your concentration and spell slots than if you had just spent 1 sp and cast fear with your allies in the burst. That can be for any number of reasons. For example, your frontline will probably draw enough enemies close so that you can affect more targets with fear. Then there are the OA's. There can be other things too, like an ally having sentinel thus not allowing an enemy to get out of sight range for a couple more rounds, etc etc. All that and maybe more because you picked careful at level 3. If you didnt, then maybe there are far better spells to pick and use instead of fear in the first place.

To expand on my first point (ie when it matters most). I was tempted to use the word consistecy, but that may not be 100% accurate. I'll draw a parallel example in an atempt to better convey my thoughts. Take the evocation wizard. Now, the evocation wizard gets things that increase his blasting potential. But it would all be for nothing, if they didnt get sculpt spell at level 2. Now, there is a reason why evokers are considered to be the chassis for a master blaster, and that is mainly because of how they can bet delivering their AoE's under whatever circumstances (ie whether there are friendlies about or not). In fact, in most cases, they will do an even better job when there are some friendlies drawing enemies closer or to choke points. Well, that's the case for a careful sorcerer too, though replace blast AoE's with non-damaging AoE's that work with careful. So, in a sense, it is still somewhat about consistency (ie knowing that you can rely on important spells more often than not), but it is also about effectiveness too (as detailed with the fear example in the previous paragraph).



Concentration spells are a risk no matter what, you are right, but remaining hidden while you do it is less so (significantly)....

Oh right, that's DM dependant. Sometimes your DM's will just ignore your magic users because they want them to have a good time and feel useful....
Just quoting this for the sake of completeness, and so that you dont think I didnt read it.:smallamused:
I'll choose not to argue with you on this one, because as I said earlier, I dont think expanding on this will be productive for neither of us.


As for spell compatibility, it definitely does have worth. If you have cross compatibility for metamagics your options are greater than if you pick one spell with one metamagic in mind. Even though you can't use more than one metamagic on a spell, being able to choose which metamagic you want to apply can give you more options which is never a bad thing to have.
I guess we will agree to disagree on this one. I made some further comments, specifically how you isolate factors like spell compatability, sp cost and concentration risk, from the increased gain, and why this isn't a meaningful approach. But you are entitled to your own option, obviously.

Preface: Mini rant follows:
Moreover, the argument that ''having more options is never a bad thing'', is utterly false, unless these options are free and acquired at no cost (even then, it can still lead to harm, but this last remark is not very meaningful to the topic at hand so I'll just digress). Seriously, I always hate when this kind of argument pops up (I wont hold it against you though :smallsmile:). There is a point when too much versatility, paid at the expense of specialized effectiveness, after which it starts becoming more of a burden than a gain. The line can be very blured regarding when this happens, and I dont think we can be too objective about it, but I just wanted to get this out of the way. More options come at a cost. So we cannot say with certainty that having more options is not a bad thing, because it can be. Mini rant over.



"I really want to use phantasmal force here but I can either make it silent or force disadvantage on the save; is it more important that I remain undetected or that I botch their roll?"
If one metamagic is compatible with all of your spell list and the other isn't which will have more situations to be used?
(emphasis added)
Ok, I really disagree with you on this, and I dont know how else to make you understand where I am coming from with this one. I tried before on my previous post, and I made some hints regarding it during this reply already, but I'll now try with providing a couple of examples.
Take careful spell. It can apply on damaging AoE's. Then again, I will probably never use it with any damaging AoE's. If it didnt apply on damagin AoE's, would I have less of a reason to pick this metamagic on the first place?
Take twinned spell. It can apply to offensive spells, like disintegrate. I will probably never use it with any such spell. If twinned didnt apply on such spells, would I have less of a reason to pick it up in the first place? Or, is picking twinned enough of a reason on its own to lead me to later pick up disintegrate?
(My answer to all of the above is a ''no'', btw)

It doesn't matter how often I will use a metamagic. What matters is what this use of metamagic when combined with a certain (handful of) spell(s) will net me.

Metamagic when combined with certain spells, have the potential to trivialize encounters. It's not about spamming, it's about increasing your effectiveness (when it matters the most) If you are not seeing that, I dont know what else to say...




There's a reason I leave it open ended, because lots of people love different metamagics for different reasons, but objectively, subtle spell provides a paradigm shift that no other metamagic (or other class) comes close to providing with almost no restrictions
Objectively? No. Too DM/campaign dependent. Made my case, you are ofc free to disagree (I wash my hands).

No other class provides careful debuffing or twinned buffing either, but that's not an important argument anyway. No other class or feature provides you with a sign/code language that thieves know, like thieves' cant does, but that does not mean it is such a great class feature. Uniqueness has no bearing on how good sth is or isn't.

No restrictions? Sure. I just dont see how it can be useful in combat (and I am not talking about sitiuational usefulness, I am talking at providing you with a trick that you can reliably fall back to, without taking away from playing optimally). I guess I am not too impressed with your in-combat uses for subtle, but also I think this disagreement has its root deeper, specifically regarding how much dnd play can deviate significantly from table to table.






and empower is always going to help you kill enemies quicker and fill the AoE damage niche better than any other caster could dream of doing. They both also carry little to no risk and are the cheapest metamagics to use. If that's not S-tier I really don't know what is...

Better than any other caster can dream of?
I haven't compared how empower measures up against overchannel, but then again I dont need to. Evokers can blast more reliably and more importantly, they can do so when it really matters. And in most such cases sorcerers wont be able to do so, or at least they will do so at the significant cost of hurting their allies caught in the blast too.
About the lower risk, I made my case. I will say it one more time. Risk by itself says nothing whatsoever. You have to plug in profit, before you can start working your way to an objective conclusion. I dont expect you to do that, but I once again advise you to stay away from statements with no objective meaning; this is a guide.

[Zene]

Not intending to argue with anyone, just adding my 2 cents: I freaking LOVE subtle. So much fun. Such a unique power. So much potential for rp shenanigans, coupled with strong actual mechanical utility.

One of my most fun recent sessions was when I totally derailed a plotline by casting a Subtle Detect Thoughts on a slightly suspicious ally NPC ...and ended up realizing he was the big bad in disguise, long before the DM's planned reveal and betrayal. The DM had to frantically improvise a new ending, but a blast was had by all.

Subtle counterspell makes almost every DM i play with do a double-take as they realize they can't counter-counterspell it; and then throw up their hands (or grimace, or smile) in frustration as I subtle cast for the rest of the fight so they can't counter any of those either.

Subtle Suggestion is so dang game-breaking in many non-combat encounters I'm actually afraid to use it a lot of the time. (And once I upgrade to subtle Dominate Person... hoo boy)

[TheUser]

I omitted my initial reply to this one, so that we can continue our conversation in good spirit.

Is it because the answer is "no" ?

I'm just curious what this "DM" dependancy you constantly reference is. I reference it once where relevant in my guide (rules loose campaign) and it's to help give people a more creative outlook on the effects of silent spells but I'm not really sure what you're referring to.

Is it dependant on the DM that when I make no noise and no movements and elicit a magical effect that I would give up my position if there were no rays or projectiles?

I mean you have outlined a scenario where subtle sorcerers being everywhere and society taking precautions is one where the DM has crafted a world specifically to **** over one character's feature then of course DM dependant can apply to anything.

"Oh this is a world where there's an iron shortage and weapons shatter or break when you use them..every time you roll an attack roll you must roll again to see if the weapon takes durability damage and/or breaks. The same applies for every time you take damage to your armor."
This is emersive and realistic it's also a setting that explicitly targets martial classes.

or

"The gods have grown weary over the paladins collectively over-drawing on their power; unless you smite things the god doesn't like your paladin smite does half damage."

You see where I'm going with this? Your niche setting of ****ing over subtle spell can be used to literally **** over any feature. By your logic, every single feature is DM dependant (which it is), including twinned spell. ("this is a magically dense region of the weave; concentrating on twinned spells is hard, you must roll concentration checks for both spells separately and at disadvantage")

You're talking about a DM being annoyed with a specific feature and creating campaign that specifically targets that feature to nullify it when they may as well make every high king's castle take place in an antimagic zone. The DM could just very well say "I don't like social magic because I'm not sure how to adequately respond to it without ****ing it over, so if you could be a pal and not roll a social magic focused caster I'd really appreciate it."


You can blow stuff up. You cannot bet on doing so consistently, due to not being able to sculpt spells, just like an evoker can. So that takes much away from your blasting potential, so much that I believe that blasting is the secondary focus of the sorcerer, at least as far as combat is concenred.
You can choose single target blasting spells if you want, but focusing too much of them is not a good idea either, as the damage these spells typically provide, is below what a martial or a warlock can offer, so once again, it is suboptimal to focus on single target blasting as your primary sorcerer's function.

Invoker is a 2 level multiclass dip that I highly recommend first thing in the multiclass section of the guide; you don't need to lecture me on the merits of sculpt spells. It also affords you the bulk of the strength of the class.

Oh I'm sorry I forgot that multiclassing is DM dependant. And the single target damage of martials is DM dependant because Sharpshooter and GWM are feats which are technically optional. And that sculpt spells doesn't exclude the Invoker himself so if he gets dogpiled he will still blow himself up but that's also DM dependant on whether or not the DM wants to ambush you or make the fact that you aren't casting silent spells draw a lot of attention from enemies...maybe the entire encounter takes place in an antimagic field.



I'll choose not to argue with you on this one, because as I said earlier, I dont think expanding on this will be productive for neither of us.

Does that roughly translate to "You're absolutely right and I really can't argue with this logic." ?


Better than any other caster can dream of?
I haven't compared how empower measures up against overchannel, but then again I dont need to. Evokers can blast more reliably and more importantly, they can do so when it really matters. And in most such cases sorcerers wont be able to do so, or at least they will do so at the significant cost of hurting their allies caught in the blast too.

Overchannel? Really? You're going to tell me that a once a day (or murder yourself) level 14 feature is comparable to a 1 sorcery point spammable damage increase that you have 11 levels of access to prior?

"I get to do damage when it MATTERS"

Doing damage always matters....

Listen. I get that you don't think subtle spell is all that great, but maybe you should try it first before you use the easiest fallback argument in the D&D community (dM DepENdAnT!) (http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/022/940/spongebobicon.jpg)

Sculpt spells is really good, but if you're party is creating formations that facilitate your AoE or pick and position the right AoE spells OR you take a whopping 2 level multiclass dip the biggest weakness you've outlined virtually vanishes.

I'm not sure what your argument is anymore. Is it that subtle isn't that great, empower isn't that great or that the 2 level Invoker multi-class is really effective? I think you've been drinking the Kryx-koolaid a little too heavily.

[Corran]

Is it because the answer is "no" ?
The answer is a ''yes'' (in case you really couldn't tell...).
Two such characters. One hybrid with subtle @lvl 15 (quickened and twinned @lvl 7), one sorcerer with subtle @lvl3 (careful @lvl 3, twinned @lvl 10). Happy?
In fact, my first post to this thread was supposed to provide you with an in-game experience I enjoyed with a subtle spell (????????), to share it and see what people thought about it and if it was considered good enough to make it to the list of suggested spells (probably not, to be honest). Then I noticed how you blamed everyone supposedly for not reading the guide and for not providing actual feedback. So, I actually read the guide and proceeded to provide my feedback and suggestions instead, thus engaging you into a conversation that it still going. I dont like getting defensive (especially when I dont have to), but nevertheless I decided to acknowledge and answer your honest question after your insistence. So with that out of the way, can we hopefully go back to discussing and arguing about what needs to be dicussed and argued, rather than going about listing what characters we have played and what not? Rhetorical question



I'm just curious what this "DM" dependancy you constantly reference is.
What??!!! User, didnt you read my previous post???!!! (I couldn't resist...)
Here, it's fine, I'll just quote the relevant parts for you to read again/this time.
(I like how I specifically made sure to repeat myself on this during my previous post, so you wont miss it. Lol)


It depends greatly on campain style.
The group I regularly game with, likes settings/games that ooze of political intrigue and where social manipulation is a powerful tool at the hands of a PC (that's because we are huge GoT nerds, I guess). Using magic to accomplish that will vary according to more setting-specific factors and according to who of us is DM'ing (I will delve more into that later).
Another group I join from time to time, prefers more straighforward (perhaps Tolkin-esque is a good way to describe it? not sure...) tropes, where the PCs are usually the heroes who take up quests from important (or not) NPCs, usually something along the lines of ''go into place X and defeat the evil threat that is on the rise'', with the quest remaining mostly the same as the campaign progresses and with the evil threat rising in difficulty and/or complexity as the PCs gain more levels. In such campaigns, the out of combat usefullness of subtle is diminished.
It depends greatly on the DM
Even assuming a campaign style that favors social manipulation, the DM is still a factor that singlehandedly determines how effective subtle magic manipulation is going to be. First and foremost, how common are high level spellcasters in that world? Equally, if not more important, how common are sorcerers in the campaign world? And as a consequence, how common knowledge is that subtle magic is a thing? If you are playing in a campaign where the world is for some reason unaccustomed to subtle magic, then you can go crazy! If on the other hand you play in a campaign where the world is for some reason (perhaps the king fell once prey to such magic, and now the king and the local lords -and anyone of importance really- are taking measures to guard against this, to picture the complete opposite scenario to your default one) more aware of this possibility, you can expect less profit from such tactics.
Moreover, suggestion, which is perhaps the best use of subtle magic (I like the dominate spells, but they come relatively late and after you have taken your 3rd metamagic, and what's more in many cases you will really profit from upcasting them, so you look at even higher levels), is again entirely DM dependant.
*********************


Is choosing to hide and cast DM dependant or player dependant?

Yes, it is DM dependant, to the point that it can determine the player's choices. It depends on how your DM interprets the stealth rules, and on how much use of the environment the DM makes for their encounters.
*********************


With subtle you dominate the social game

Depends.
It depends greatly on campain style.
The group I regularly game with, likes settings/games that ooze of political intrigue and where social manipulation is a powerful tool at the hands of a PC (that's because we are huge GoT nerds, I guess). Using magic to accomplish that will vary according to more setting-specific factors and according to who of us is DM'ing (I will delve more into that later).
Another group I join from time to time, prefers more straighforward (perhaps Tolkin-esque is a good way to describe it? not sure...) tropes, where the PCs are usually the heroes who take up quests from important (or not) NPCs, usually something along the lines of ''go into place X and defeat the evil threat that is on the rise'', with the quest remaining mostly the same as the campaign progresses and with the evil threat rising in difficulty and/or complexity as the PCs gain more levels. In such campaigns, the out of combat usefullness of subtle is diminished.
It depends greatly on the DM
Even assuming a campaign style that favors social manipulation, the DM is still a factor that singlehandedly determines how effective subtle magic manipulation is going to be. First and foremost, how common are high level spellcasters in that world? Equally, if not more important, how common are sorcerers in the campaign world? And as a consequence, how common knowledge is that subtle magic is a thing? If you are playing in a campaign where the world is for some reason unaccustomed to subtle magic, then you can go crazy! If on the other hand you play in a campaign where the world is for some reason (perhaps the king fell once prey to such magic, and now the king and the local lords -and anyone of importance really- are taking measures to guard against this, to picture the complete opposite scenario to your default one) more aware of this possibility, you can expect less profit from such tactics.
Moreover, suggestion, which is perhaps the best use of subtle magic (I like the dominate spells, but they come relatively late and after you have taken your 3rd metamagic, and what's more in many cases you will really profit from upcasting them, so you look at even higher levels), is again entirely DM dependant.



I reference it once where relevant in my guide (rules loose campaign) and it's to help give people a more creative outlook on the effects of silent spells but I'm not really sure what you're referring to.
See? Even that assumption (rules loose campaign) is about DM dependency. But it's not only that. It is also about the style/tone of the game you are playing at (please do take some time to read the spoiler above). And it doesn't stop there. Picking subtle means you are not picking something else. I am not saying that subtle is a bad choice, even for a 3rd level metamagic pick. I am just saying that this choice comes at a cost and is far from a mandatory one (criticism on presenting the sorcerer as someone who falls under a ''sneaky enchanter niche'' more than under anything else). Specifically, what I have repeatedly stated and made arguments about, is that picking both subtle and empowered at level 3 is a tactical blunder, as you are missing out on combat specialization, which is the sorcerer's main strength (S.P.E.C.I.A.L.I.S.T). If this is NOT an optimization guide, you should preface it as such, making it clear and easy for people to see, not imply it at some random spot or throughout the guide. The small print is how they get you (the ominus ''they'').


Is it dependant on the DM that when I make no noise and no movements and elicit a magical effect that I would give up my position if there were no rays or projectiles?
(emphasis added)
No.
It is DM dependent however if you make no noise.
To be fair to myself, I was implying an in-combat scenario, because this is when DM-dependency is usually most important, but an out-of-combat scenario still depends on the DM (remember, the DM is the one who calls hide checks; if they think there is no way for you to hide, or do thing X without being unnoticed, then no party). But to be clear, this was addressing an in-combat scenario, because throughout this thread you have hinted repeatedly to an in-combat situation where the sorcerer starts/becomes/stays hidden. That's perhaps one of the most DM-dependent things, feel free to check threads discussing stealth rules if you dont believe me.



I mean you have outlined a scenario where subtle sorcerers being everywhere and society taking precautions is one where the DM has crafted a world specifically to **** over one character's feature then of course DM dependant can apply to anything.
In the future, I advise you to quote me when addressing a point I make. This way there will be less room for missinterpretation. What I said, was:


If you are playing in a campaign where the world is for some reason unaccustomed to subtle magic, then you can go crazy! If on the other hand you play in a campaign where the world is for some reason (perhaps the king fell once prey to such magic, and now the king and the local lords -and anyone of importance really- are taking measures to guard against this, to picture the complete opposite scenario to your default one) more aware of this possibility, you can expect less profit from such tactics.
(emphasis added to the part you ignored)


My point is, that your default assumption (correct me if I am wrong, but that's what I understand from all of your replies) of a world where subtle magic is something rare, doesn't have to be the default scenario of most campaigns. In fact, it is as an extreme as the scenario I highlighted, perhaps even moreso. We cant objectively say which is most probable to be the case under a random campaign, but that's besides the point.

My (rather obvious) point was (to repeat myself once again...), that for low magic campaigns, or for campaigns where sorcerers are almost extinct, or very very few, then subtle spell would be of more value. Where for high-magic campaigns, it will likely be of less value. Thus, another reason that adds up to campaign/DM dependency.

As I said earlier in my previous post, I just think that you judge everything from a very personal angle, judging how things tend to work under the campaign style that you are used to playing, and under a certain type of DM. Writting a guide means to try and look things from different perspectives too, so that you can ensure the guide is more objective than subjective (that's generally the aim of a guide, to offer objective evaluation; if it's not in your case, I advise you to preface everything with it). So I am offering you a different angle to look things from. Isn't that what you asked for?

ps: Oh, and dont translate different default settings than the one you are used to, into ''the DM tries to screw with the players''. Grow up.




"Oh this is a world where there's an iron shortage and weapons shatter.....(snip)

or

"The gods have grown weary over the paladins collectively over-drawing on their power.....(snip)

You see where I'm going with this?.....(snip)
Funny.
Confer my points just above.
And try to quote me from now on if you want to discuss about 'what I actually say'.




Invoker is a 2 level multiclass dip that I highly recommend first thing in the multiclass section of the guide; you don't need to lecture me on the merits of sculpt spells. It also affords you the bulk of the strength of the class.

(snip)

"I get to do damage when it MATTERS"

Doing damage always matters....
(emphasis added)
Sigh...
Once again....


Take the evocation wizard. Now, the evocation wizard gets things that increase his blasting potential. But it would all be for nothing, if they didnt get sculpt spell at level 2. Now, there is a reason why evokers are considered to be the chassis for a master blaster, and that is mainly because of how they can bet delivering their AoE's under whatever circumstances (ie whether there are friendlies about or not). In fact, in most cases, they will do an even better job when there are some friendlies drawing enemies closer or to choke points.

You seem to be missing the fact that sculpt spell is what makes evokers good blasters. The sorcerer doesn't get anything like that, that it will allow them to blast when it really matters. You say that doing damage always matters, yet you are missing the fact that a fireball that catches 5 enemies within its blast radius is better than a fireball that catches within its blast 3 enemies. If you catch allies within your blast to maximize damage dealt to enemies, then that carries with it an extra loss for your team, in the form of weakkening your friendlies. Besides, the big bulk of the damage will come from you including more enemies within the blast zone, and not by just rerolling some dice which comes at the cost of commiting one metamagic to empowered and at the cost of sorcery points. An evoker gets a pass on team damage. That's why blasting is better for evokers, as they have the tools to trully specialize for it, where the sorcerer gets nothing as important as sculpt spell. Blasting is not bad for sorcerers, not by any stretch, but it is not an area where they can specialize best (as opposed to buffing, debuffing and control).
(Once again, please do read what's in the spoilerr)


Sculpt spells is really good, but if you're party is creating formations that facilitate your AoE or pick and position the right AoE spells OR you take a whopping 2 level multiclass dip the biggest weakness you've outlined virtually vanishes.
(emphasis added)

Please do expand. I would love to know how to make my sorcerers perform better as blasters.



Oh I'm sorry I forgot that multiclassing is DM dependant. And the single target damage of martials is DM dependant because Sharpshooter and GWM are feats which are technically optional. And that sculpt spells doesn't exclude the Invoker himself so if he gets dogpiled he will still blow himself up but that's also DM dependant on whether or not the DM wants to ambush you or make the fact that you aren't casting silent spells draw a lot of attention from enemies...maybe the entire encounter takes place in an antimagic field.
Cute.


*******

I'll choose not to argue with you on this one, because as I said earlier, I dont think expanding on this will be productive for neither of us.

Does that roughly translate to "You're absolutely right and I really can't argue with this logic." ?
Nope. It means exactly what it says.
Should I assume that you agree with everything I said that you didnt bother answering to?
(Hmmm, I should have probably used ''to either'' instead of ''for neither''. Not sure...)
*******


Listen. I get that you don't think subtle spell is all that great
Subtle spell is hard to rate objectively. Its usefullness can range from very poor to very good. Persolly I like it. I just dont believe it is as good and as widely applicable (in regard both to campaigns and in-game situations) as you are claiming it to be, and made my case about the ''why''. I encourage you to give it some more thought.


but maybe you should try it first
I see you answered you own question.

''Corran disagrees with ME, so clearly he must have no idea what he is talking about and he has never used subtle spell''

''The DM warned me that if my character tries to subtle-dominate the king he will be found out. The DM is a jerk!''

Grow up.

Should I start saying something similar about you regarding the rest metamagic? Where would such a discussion lead us to?


before you use the easiest fallback argument in the D&D community (dM DepENdAnT!) (http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/022/940/spongebobicon.jpg)
It is not a fallback argument, at the very least not in the way I used it. I expanded on it and provided context (read it), and I didnt get back a serious answer. You just ignored it for the most part, then you misquoted me (actually you didnt quote me at all and instead chose to refer to what I said, without providing reference to my exact words, and also by changing the meaning. And then you built on this by providing laughably comparable -yet entertaining, I give you that- examples. Not sure if I am the one who uses fallback arguments and avoids at all cost contributing to a meaningful discussion.



I'm not sure what your argument is anymore.
1. You encourage picking both subtle and empowered as your first two metamagic. The language you use during the guide heavily suggets it, and so does the metamagic rating table which is far from objective. By NOT picking any of careful/twinned/heightened @lvl 3, you gimp yourself in combat, since for the whole range of levels 3-9, you wont be able to specialize in any of the areas a sorcerer can specialize and excel, combat-wise. If you dont intend for your guide to give optimization advice regarding combat, then make it clear in the very beginning. If not, then provide a section talking about the order one should consider picking up metamagic (I'd be surprised if you didnt say that subtle and empowerd are your best picks for lvl3).

2. Try to be less opinionated about subtle. What holds in the campaigns you play is not necessarily the case for most campaigns out there. If you take for granted a number of assumptions for subtle to be great, then list them (no, loose rules doesn't cut it). I gave you a few pointers on that. Try to be more objective, this is a guide and you should not factor in your personal preferences when rating things.

3. The sorcerer is much more than a ''sneaky enchanter'' type of character. That's just one of the many things a sorcerer can be. Identifying a sorcerer with a ''sneaky mage'' than with anything else, is just pigeonholing the class for no apparent reason (moreso because this out-of-combat function will be as effective as the DM wants it to be... I kid you not, DM-dependent). And even when it's useful, it cant exactly compare to what other metamagic allow the sorcerer to do during combat, because as I said earlier in this thread, it will be like comparing apples and oranges.

I'll stop here because I am getting tired (and I suspect there is no much point in continuing).

I literally talked about most of these stuff during my previous posts, I even numbered some suggestions in one of my previous posts.


Include a part where you make clear suggestions on the order by which one should pick their metamagic, because as is, the implied/ suggested order is suboptimal imo.
-------

And on that last thing I said, I provide my suggestions:

1) Decide your main combat role for the first half of your career. It can be either being a debuffer (with crowd control thrown in there too) or a buffer. Your secondary role is blaster. This is because once your melee's engage, it wont be easy to throw AoE's. And single target damage spells are not that efficient (mostly leave single target damage for your martials, as they can do it better, but you dont have to neglect completely single target damage spells).

2) For that reason, you have to pick one of careful, twinned or heightened (meh on the last one), as one of your two first metamagic choices. This choice will of course influence your spell selection for the first half of your career, so that you can accomplish the role you chose and with which you will be more efficient than mst other classes (careful and twinned offer unique in combat benefits to the sorcerer and her party). This is to be the most effective in battle.

3) For the second choice of metamagic (ie apart from the one you picked above), pick either empowered or subtle. The first boosts your blasting potential, so it further boosts your in-combat potential, the second gives you out of combat utility and some situational in-combat benefits (though nothing you cant leave without). This is (as you said) to better manage your sorcery points, but also because it isn't a good idea to invest in metamagics that both boost different uses of your concentration, as that presents opportunity cost that cannot be justified in the first half of your career.
The fact that you chose to ignore it is not my fault. There are a lot more things that I would like to add to this small synopsis above, but as I said I am getting kind of tired, and also, I would be repeating myself since I have already mentioned my objections and suggestions by now. If you are geniunly interested, you can check upon it without me trying to sum up and repeat everything for you.




Is it that subtle isn't that great, empower isn't that great or that the 2 level Invoker multi-class is really effective?
Tried to sum up some of it just above, but as I already said, you can look at my previous posts where I talk more analytically about everything I wanted to object to or to suggest. All it takes on your part is an open mind and an interest in objectifying/improving your guide.

ps: Multiclassing can influence optimization to a great extent. This is true for all classes. I am not against talking multiclass optimization, but we are talking about sorcerer optimization, and jumping from one topic to another wont be helpful, because of what I said in the beginning of this sentence (dont worry, I'll just copy paste it: Multiclassing can influence optimization to a great extent).



I think you've been drinking the Kryx-koolaid a little too heavily.
Not sure what that means, but if it is relevant at all, let me tell you that I left my impression of your general attitude at the door, when I started talking to you about sorcerer optimization. What I hoped for was a fruitful discussion, but I guess I should know better.


------------------------------------------

You reply was a very poor one. Not because we might disagree here and there, but because of the following.
First and foremost you seemed more interested in provoking me rather than in having an actual discussion about the sorcerer's mechanics and about sorcerer optimization with me. Furthermore, you failed to quote me and instead you gave the meaning you wanted to things I said in a couple of occasions. Misquoting people is a bad habbit, cut it out. You ignored my main suggestions/objections, as well as context I had already provided (that is when you didnt choose to misinterpret it), and then you went on saying ''I do not understand why you say that''. That gives me the impression that you didnt read what I had typed, or that you didnt understand it. If it is the latter then I wont hold it against you, but if it's the former, then you should take your own advice:

I'm getting the feeling you glossed over verrrry quickly as opposed to read it... everything you've thought was missing is there...

-----------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting back to having a meaningful discussion about sorcerer optimization, then please avoid repeating any of the things I just listed. Thank you for reading.

[yPants]

TheUser: I think you're missing some of Corran's points. Everyone should probably try to limit the passive aggression.

I want to rephrase and summarize what I think Corran is saying. Hopefully this makes sense and is what he intended.

Subtle Spell is good, but it's not always S-rank.
* In social situations, it is incredibly strong. However, some groups don't emphasize social situations, and you won't get to exploit this power. In addition, NPCs may be able to sense magical effects, even if they didn't see the sorcerer casting the spell. In other words, this strength is in fact DM and campaign dependent.
* In combat, it is not as strong as you make it out to be. It is indeed strong for avoiding counterspell and silencing fields. However, garrotes, pinning, and liquid submersion are DM-dependent. In addition, a number of spells may betray your position even when trying to hide with Subtle Spell.

In contrast, Twinned Spell, Careful Spell, and Heightened Spell all give strong combat specialization.
* Twinned Spell allows for twice the CC or twice the buffing power. It is often costly, but sometimes turn economy matters more than spellslot/SP economy.
* Careful Spell allows you to hit groups of enemies while avoiding allies, especially when they're clumped. At least in my tables, the melee combatants tend to be in melee range of each other; without Careful Spell, it's often impossible to cast an aoe without affecting your allies.
* Heightened Spell makes your spell more likely to succeed.

You're overselling the perk of metamagic being compatible with virtually all spells. For example, you are capable of using Subtle Spell with any spell, but it does not always provide a useful benefit. If there are no enemies left with counterspell and you are not being subdued, it's not really helpful in battle.

In the early levels, a sorcerer has the opportunity to specialize in a combat role. If you take Subtle+Empowered, then you lose out on some of that. Subtle+Empowered is clearly a build focused on the social pillar with a side-helping of blasting. If you want to specialize in something else, then you should take other metamagics. The guide is effectively telling you that any other playstyle is wrong.
* If you want blasting, Careful Spell is also a valid option. If you want debuffing, Careful Spell, Twinned Spell, and Heightened Spell are good options. If you want buffing, Twinned Spell is amazing.
* Empower Spell is fun and is good for player morale, but it is rarely "optimal." Often times, the SP economy is not as important as turn economy.
Overall, the main criticism is how the guide seems to ignore the limitations of certain features and the strengths of other features.


---

My own comments, in no particular order:

On my computer, there's a broken image for Empower Spell on page 6 or 7.

On my computer, there's formatting errors at the end of Quickened Spell section on page 8 or 9. Can't see the Level 6+ spells.

On my computer, there's a broken image for Heightened Spell on Page 9 or 10.

In general, there's a bit of formatting inconsistencies on spells. Some spells have comments with parentheses, while others have comments after a colon.

I think "The Math" section under Empower Spell is a little weak. Though it is proclaimed to be simple, the explanation is far more complicated than the reality. Here's my attempted rewrite. Feel free to use, reformat, or ignore as you desire.


Attempted Rewrite of "The Math" of Empower Spell:
As you doubtlessly learned in school, the average roll of a fair die is the sum of the values divided by the number of values.

Example: average of d6 is (1+2+3+4+5+6)/6 = 3.5.
If you reroll 1s (only once), then you replace the 1 in the equation with another die roll.

Example: average of d6 rerolling 1s is [(1+2+3+4+5+6)/6 +2+3+4+5+6)]/6 = 3.92
This is messy, so you can just plug in the average value instead.

Example: average of d6 rerolling 1s is (3.5+2+3+4+5+6)/6 = 3.92
Taking this example further: If you reroll 1s and 2s (only once), then you replace 1s and 2s with average die rolls.

Example: average of d6 rerolling 1s,2s is (3.5+3.5+3+4+5+6)/6 = 4.17
And likewise: If you reroll 1s, 2s, and 3s (only once), then you replace 1s, 2s, and 3s with average die rolls.

Example: average of d6 rerolling 1s,2s,3s is (3.5+3.5+3.5+4+5+6)/6 = 4.25


I disagree with the comment about rerolling certain numbers for Empower Spell. More often than not, 3.5 average with 1.7 std deviation is better than a flat 3. Even your guide mentions it's mathematically better to reroll 3s on d6. The thing I have an issue with is the phrasing in "you should reroll . . ." when your recommendation is knowingly not the mathematical best option.
(If you have limited number of rerolls, I wholeheartedly agree that you pick the 1s and 2s first; if you initially rolled nothing lower than a 3, then it might not be worth spending the SP to reroll; if you meta-game the monsters' hp, sometimes you want the guaranteed damage. But these are limited cases.)

I like the concept behind the multi-purpose spells, but your example of Suggestion is a bit of a stretch, depending on DM disgression.

The section on higher level slots and Twinning Banish is rather difficult to follow. It might just be me. I would suggest outright stating "costs 4th level slot and 3 SP" before explaining the mechanics letting you do so. Note that RAW, it uses two bonus actions.

I especially like and agree with the sections about limiting concentration spells known, mid-level spells, cycling out low level spells, and picking inexpensive metamagics early. There's honestly quite a number of good points, but it would just waste time to list them all.

[Zalabim]

I wanted to take this second opportunity to provide some concise feedback. I don't think I did the concise part very well.

I want to speak in defense of Storm Sorcery. The bonus action flight at level 1 lets you disengage, like a limited but free quicken spell.

The thunder damage at level 6 is pairs with this disengage effect, and while it doesn't benefit cantrips, it also doesn't require charisma, scales up to 10 damage on the turn anyway, and is enemy selective without offering any saving throw or requiring an attack roll. It's not as good as being able to fly around and rain destruction from the heavens, but it clearly has other benefits instead.

The retaliation damage is not ideal, but it offers some incentive to attack someone else.

The flight comes late, but it is there, and it can provide flight for your whole party now.

Overall, the archetype discourages getting quicken spell ASAP, doesn't demand you get cantrips that deal the same type of damage as your primary offense, gives you ways to get out of direct melee, and actually lets you add its bonus damage safely around your allies while using a rarely resisted element. These are all practical incentives towards making good decisions.

Unfortunately, the archetype also encourages you to hang out still near melee and spend all your spell slots on spells that deal lightning or thunder damage. The first is acceptable if the campaign forces it anyway. The second is a very narrow selection and probably best actually used sparingly.

In Careful Spell, Color Spray doesn't use saving throws. Maybe I'm missing some joke.

In multiclassing at the very end, Bards cannot self-inspire.


For fear, it is definitely a very powerful ability and what you've detailed is very true, however, there's a few shortcoming's to fear that I didn't like which hypnotic pattern doesn't have.

There are a great deal of monsters with immunity to, advantage against, or the ability to end fear, whereas the incapacitate from hypnotic pattern has very low resistance/immunity seeded within pre-existing monsters in the MM. This to me is the greatest detractor from fear.
Hypnotic Pattern is a Charm. If you want an effect that faces fewer immunities, that'd be Slow and Confusion, I think.


I also crutch on not needing mage armor as a spell a whole heck of a lot and the extra AC/HP has saved my bacon more times than I can count.
I think it might be worth a mention that Mage Armor is not good choice for your limited spells at levels 1 and 2. There's only a 15% chance any attack is blocked by the +3 AC, which means it blocks one attack in 6.66~ overall. False life has a shorter duration, but it's guaranteed to save you from a certain amount of damage. Mage Armor could let you die without ever actually protecting you from an attack, or it could protect you from several attacks. I'll take it for free, but might not spend half my spell slots/spells known on the effect. It's too much of a gamble.

[JNAProductions]

15% reduction in damage isn't QUITE accurate. It's technically correct, but you want to look at relative damage a little more.

Say you have a +3 Dex (AC 13) and the enemy has a +5 to-hit. You are hit on an 8 (65% of the time). Mage Armor bumps that up to an 11 (50%), for about a 25% reduction in damage.

THAT BEING SAID! Sorcerers (without using Shield) are unlikely to hit critical AC levels-namely, enemies hitting on 18+. (Or at least, that's what I'd consider critical levels.) If you somehow DO manage an AC that high without Mage Armor, it becomes a STELLAR investment. An enemy hitting on an 18 has a 15% of hitting-on a 20, only a 5% chance. (Now, that one hit DOES deal double damage, but still.) Counting crits, you halve the damage you take, on average.

[TheUser]

For example, you are capable of using Subtle Spell with any spell, but it does not always provide a useful benefit. If there are no enemies left with counterspell and you are not being subdued, it's not really helpful in battle.

How is remaining hidden while casting spells not really helpful? Like I said prior, if you are banking on a DM propping up paperdoll enemies who ignore you as a threat then yes, subtle spell is probably not very useful outside of social situations... I've just rarely found this to be the case.



In the early levels, a sorcerer has the opportunity to specialize in a combat role. If you take Subtle+Empowered, then you lose out on some of that. Subtle+Empowered is clearly a build focused on the social pillar with a side-helping of blasting. If you want to specialize in something else, then you should take other metamagics. The guide is effectively telling you that any other playstyle is wrong.

I think he's reading into that a bit much and making some strange assumptions. Being a "sneakmage" is still a combat role. I never say "don't take anything that isn't S-Tier" just that anything that isn't S-Tier has risks and weaknesses. Meanwhile calling empower a "side helping of blasting" seems to downplay just how much increased damage the metamagic provides (literally over 100 total damage in AoE spells @ level 5).


Empower Spell is fun and is good for player morale, but it is rarely "optimal." Often times, the SP economy is not as important as turn economy.
Overall, the main criticism is how the guide seems to ignore the limitations of certain features and the strengths of other features.

I'm sorry but how is turning a fireball from 20 damage to 30+ damage with one sorcery point and still have it be affected by other metamagic not an optimal/economic use of a turn? I'm just sort of baffled that people can lay out assertions like this with zero rationale or backing and expect me to take them seriously....

Where is the limitation? That if I roll a high damage fireball already I don't get to use the metamagic?
I get that you are paraphrasing (and did a good job of it too) but this is asinine...
"Empower's bad ok bruh? Just trust me ;)"



My own comments, in no particular order:

On my computer, there's a broken image for Empower Spell on page 6 or 7.

On my computer, there's formatting errors at the end of Quickened Spell section on page 8 or 9. Can't see the Level 6+ spells.

On my computer, there's a broken image for Heightened Spell on Page 9 or 10.

In general, there's a bit of formatting inconsistencies on spells. Some spells have comments with parentheses, while others have comments after a colon.

I think "The Math" section under Empower Spell is a little weak. Though it is proclaimed to be simple, the explanation is far more complicated than the reality. Here's my attempted rewrite. Feel free to use, reformat, or ignore as you desire.


I disagree with the comment about rerolling certain numbers for Empower Spell. More often than not, 3.5 average with 1.7 std deviation is better than a flat 3. Even your guide mentions it's mathematically better to reroll 3s on d6. The thing I have an issue with is the phrasing in "you should reroll . . ." when your recommendation is knowingly not the mathematical best option.
(If you have limited number of rerolls, I wholeheartedly agree that you pick the 1s and 2s first; if you initially rolled nothing lower than a 3, then it might not be worth spending the SP to reroll; if you meta-game the monsters' hp, sometimes you want the guaranteed damage. But these are limited cases.)


I recently rewrote the empower spell section with a brief and easy to follow rule with regards to expected damage increase: If you take the old roll and subtract it from 3.5 the average that is the expected damage increase you will see. If you have a total of around +5 damage it's a good use of a sorcery point, especially for AoE. And while I can understand how most of you might want to re-roll on 3's I have had it come up where I spent sorcery points to reduce my damage because I re-rolled 3's, and when you re-roll a 3 on a d6 you have a 1/3 chance of doing just that. This also means you'd have to re-roll 10 dice if they were all 3's to get an efficient increase in damage from the sorcery point. Rerolling 3's is 3x less valuable than re-rolling 2's and 5x less valuable than re-rolling 1's. I also stipulate that you will see an average increase of less than 1/10th of a damage per dice by re-rolling 3's or you could just eliminate the risk of reducing your damage. The choice is presented and I give -my- rationale on why I'd make the risk averse decision, but all the present information allows the reader to make an informed decision on their own.



I like the concept behind the multi-purpose spells, but your example of Suggestion is a bit of a stretch, depending on DM disgression.


Ok just to put the Subtle Suggestion and Subtle Dominate person shtick to bed we're going to talk about "expressio unius est exclusio alterius" a legal mantra that is very applicable within this context; it roughly means "when anything is listed, anything not specifically listed is assumed not included." Granted, we aren't in a court of law, but we are attempting to interpret rules nonetheless.

When you look at a spell like Friends or Charm Person there are very clear stipulations that the spell lets the target know they have been the victim of enchantment magic after the effect wears off; it's written in the body of the spell's description.

Because this specific stipulation is absent from something like Suggestion or Dominate Person, it implies that this awareness is not present, and while a DM certainly has it within their power to allow a target to deduce they have been enchanted, because it is not specifically stated as is with other spells it is therefore not RAI or RAW that it does and means that an interpretation of the rules where a person is aware of the magic (especially when subtle) is actually the DM dependent one.



The section on higher level slots and Twinning Banish is rather difficult to follow. It might just be me. I would suggest outright stating "costs 4th level slot and 3 SP" before explaining the mechanics letting you do so. Note that RAW, it uses two bonus actions.

I especially like and agree with the sections about limiting concentration spells known, mid-level spells, cycling out low level spells, and picking inexpensive metamagics early. There's honestly quite a number of good points, but it would just waste time to list them all.

Cool. I'm glad you at least like something within the guide lol. I've also gone back and reworded the twinned banish piece because I was pretty aware it was super incoherent.

I get that you guys see social interactions as setting dependent but I'm not sure how you can look at the stealth/anti-lockdown applications of this metamagic and think they have little relevant combat value or that somehow control/support spells are mandatory let alone required to be used with metamagics.

Control and support spells are definitely great and Careful Spell not having any ideal spell candidates until level 5 is a pain in the neck. Heightened costs a buttload and Twinned carries ramping costs and risk of concentration failure; despite this I have labelled twin polymorph as (#worth) and it is, but people need to know that the metamagic has downsides and pitfalls and when you put those same pitfalls next to empower or subtle spell they simply aren't there. These shortcomings don't go away because they allow for double haste or easy fears. Nothing about the guide says you have to take twinned or not take twinned and it even describes twinned as the best of the A-Tier (infact if you could still twin EB, Scorching Ray or Ice Knife it probably would be S) but it has limitations and pitfalls.



Overall, the archetype discourages getting quicken spell ASAP, doesn't demand you get cantrips that deal the same type of damage as your primary offense, gives you ways to get out of direct melee, and actually lets you add its bonus damage safely around your allies while using a rarely resisted element. These are all practical incentives towards making good decisions.

Unfortunately, the archetype also encourages you to hang out still near melee and spend all your spell slots on spells that deal lightning or thunder damage. The first is acceptable if the campaign forces it anyway. The second is a very narrow selection and probably best actually used sparingly.

In Careful Spell, Color Spray doesn't use saving throws. Maybe I'm missing some joke.

In multiclassing at the very end, Bards cannot self-inspire.

Hypnotic Pattern is a Charm. If you want an effect that faces fewer immunities, that'd be Slow and Confusion, I think.


I think it might be worth a mention that Mage Armor is not good choice for your limited spells at levels 1 and 2. There's only a 15% chance any attack is blocked by the +3 AC, which means it blocks one attack in 6.66~ overall. False life has a shorter duration, but it's guaranteed to save you from a certain amount of damage. Mage Armor could let you die without ever actually protecting you from an attack, or it could protect you from several attacks. I'll take it for free, but might not spend half my spell slots/spells known on the effect. It's too much of a gamble.

The storm sorcerer damage doesn't work through cover and any class that provides incentives to be within melee or 10ft range of enemies with a d6 hit dice and no armor proficiencies seems wholly awful.

The Color Spray catch, I'm not sure what happened...I must've read the word save somewhere with a different spell and just...I was up late I must've just had a memory from when I tried the spell in my 5th edition noobie days or started seeing things.

The bard catch OMG thank you. It's one sentence and it makes a big difference (being completely serious)

While picking Mage Armor is maybe not an ideal spell the +3 AC from Dragon Sorcerer represents a static 15% chance reduction in hits, @ low levels it can mean a far larger reduction in damage when you factor in the shield spell, cover, disadvantage and/or low level encounters.

Suppose you have 16 AC and are fighting a +4 to hit monster: the creature has roughly a 45% chance to hit you yes? If you dropped that down to 13 AC (because no dragon scales) they now have a 60% chance to hit you and are dealing roughly 33% more hits now!

If you factor in the shield spell this discrepancy SKY ROCKETS as a +4 to hit enemy now has a 20% chance to hit you and becomes 35% without the 3 bonus AC; that's 66% more hits!

This is a very niche example but I would argue that when +to hit is low the +3 AC is much more impactful and while taking mage armor may not be ideal when spells known are so limited the bonus AC is extremely impactful at all stages of the game. Perhaps I should reword it to indicate this but I still often do take mage armor on my wild mages because I don't like having 13AC (or I multiclass).

[JNAProductions]

What action are you taking to hide, after casting your Subtle Spell? Because if you don't take an action to hide, you aren't hidden.

Fireball (3rd level) goes from 28 to 34 with Empower, on average.

In addition, he didn't say the target KNOWS they've been suggested-he said that Suggestion doesn't always work like that. It's a very DM dependent spell.

Edit: For someone who accuses others of not reading your guide, you don't do a very good job reading peoples' posts.

[TheUser]

What action are you taking to hide, after casting your Subtle Spell? Because if you don't take an action to hide, you aren't hidden.

Fireball (3rd level) goes from 28 to 34 with Empower, on average.

In addition, he didn't say the target KNOWS they've been suggested-he said that Suggestion doesn't always work like that. It's a very DM dependent spell.

Edit: For someone who accuses others of not reading your guide, you don't do a very good job reading peoples' posts.

Ok so if you cast a spell and you don't move, make noise or have an associated ray or projectile; how are you no longer hidden? Please explain. As per the rules of hiding in the PHB you haven't made an attack roll and you haven't made noise to give away your position, there's no DM dependancy here, it's literally in the rules for hiding.

Average damage is not the damage you always get; the point is you do get fireballs that are ~20 damage and you can bring them up to 30 or higher very easily, are you just being argumentative for the sake of it or do you honestly not know how rolling 8d6 works in the real world?

If they are given a sentence and they are compelled to follow through on so long as it doesn't directly harm them, pray-tell, how is that not the intent of the spell? How else might it work? Is the DM going to tell you "No. That's not how the spell works." When it's plain as day in the writing of the spell?

You seem to be just arguing now for the sake of it...

[JNAProductions]

How are you intentionally making no noise at all? That, my friend, is the Hide action. It's assumed you're moving about a little bit, perhaps keeping an eye for enemies, and are generally (if not OBVIOUSLY present) making enough noise and movement that someone who's battle-ready will notice your position. Now, there's arguments to be had here, as evidenced by these forums, but it's certainly not "You're just not detected."

You could also roll 20 damage (1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4), reroll the 1s, 2s, and a 3, and get all 1s. Unlikely, sure, but possible. Using that example, you'd have to average 3.8 on your dice to achieve 30.

Suggestion (http://www.5esrd.com/spellcasting/all-spells/s/suggestion/), well... I've gone over it before, but I'll repeat myself.


Suggestion may or may not work that way.

Detect Thoughts-Not QUITE as good, but probably serves in a pinch.

Silence-Um... Who are you Suggesting that too? The Wizard's ally? That's unreasonable, in most any DM's book. Your allies? Just tell them-no need to magically compel them. A random bystander? Maybe they'll do it, but any Wizard worth their salt has ways out of a grapple, be it a decent Dex and Acrobatics proficiency, or Misty Step, or probably many other options. Also, what if there are two Wizards? Or you need to sneak into somewhere quietly?

Charm Person-Could work... But requires a hospitable target to start. That can easily take someone from neutral to friendly, but not hostile to friendly.

Blindness/Deafness-Just... Are you expecting to use that in a combat situation? Because that's not gonna work in a combat situation. If you're fighting someone, he's not gonna drop his weapon and shield to cover his ears, and won't close his eyes, because that will swiftly result in him dying.

Scorching Ray-Your example makes no sense. At all. Scorching Ray is about direct damage in combat. You present a sneaky assassination thing.

I wouldn't say Suggestion is a BAD pick, by any means-it's a dinger dang useful spell. But it doesn't work nearly like you say it does.

Edit: Did you, perhaps, not read my post? /snark

[Corran]

Let me preface this by saying that imo this is not perhaps the best place to discuss stealth rules. It will derail the thread and it wont do much good to anyone.


Ok so if you cast a spell and you don't move, make noise or have an associated ray or projectile; how are you no longer hidden? Please explain. As per the rules of hiding in the PHB you haven't made an attack roll and you haven't made noise to give away your position, there's no DM dependancy here, it's literally in the rules for hiding.

I have to say, that I do not agree with JNAProductions' interpretetion of the stealth rules (ie 'that you always have to take the hide action to become stealthy'), assuming I didnt miss anything. But the way I understand the stealth rules, neither of us is wrong. Pending any further RAW, we are both within RAW right to rule differently on that subject. But that again, is my opinion on the topic, which shows how vague the stealth rules are and how it is perhaps the most DM-dependent thing in 5e.

Let me provide you with the most recent (and there were many before that) thread regarding the discussion about the RAW for stealth.
Just have a quick look, to see how divided the opinions are on this subject. Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?520595-Locating-Invisible-Bob-Who-Isn-t-Hiding) it is.

That said, if this:


Oh right, that's DM dependant. Sometimes your DM's will just ignore your magic users because they want them to have a good time and feel useful. Or let their invocations be inaudible over the sounds of a pitched battle. Casters just get to cast, take cover and not worry about enemies coming after them or trying to flush them out. Cool. That has -never- been my play environment.
(emphasis added)
holds true for your games, then the DM should probably be asking for a stealth check, as overlaping noise is the within-RAW ''excuse'' for DM's that wont ask for invisible PCs to take the hide action at all times.

And that is just my opinion. There are plenty of DMs that consider obligatory for an invisible PC to take the hide action to conceal themselves during combat. Check out the thread I linked if you dont believe me. This might make you re-evaluate the usefullness of subtle during combat.

[TheUser]

The precise wording is "continue hiding" to remain hidden. Not "continue to take the hide action" if you have dictated an action which specifically uses a feature to avoid making noise or movement one would surmise you could continue to stay hidden. You're trying to use a rules lawyery tone over something that doesn't even dictate the necessity for a continual hide action. While the interpretation is certainly there to assume that it could, any sane individual will let you remain hidden.

It'd be like saying 'I sneak into the brush and hide" (assume wood elf);and on the next turn "I take a perception action to try and locate the sniper"

"Well because you didn't specify that you kept using the hide action you are no longer hidden even though the rules as written don't specify that you need do that every enemy in the combat now knows exactly where you are."

Would you say that's the argument you're making or am I straw manning you in some way?

[JNAProductions]

The precise wording is "continue hiding" to remain hidden. Not "continue to take the hide action" if you have dictated an action which specifically uses a feature to avoid making noise or movement one would surmise you could continue to stay hidden. You're trying to use a rules lawyery tone over something that doesn't even dictate the necessity for a continual hide action. While the interpretation is certainly there to assume that it could, any sane individual will let you remain hidden.

It'd be like saying 'I sneak into the brush and hide" (assume wood elf);and on the next turn "I take a perception action to try and locate the sniper"

"Well because you didn't specify that you kept using the hide action you are no longer hidden even though the rules as written don't specify that you need do that every enemy in the combat now knows exactly where you are."

Would you say that's the argument you're making or am I straw manning you in some way?

Good job ignoring half my post.

But to address this, according to strict RAW? Yes, you have to take the Hide action each turn. That being said, any good DM is going to call for you to hide again. They are not machines.

Now, as a DM myself, I wouldn't be QUITE that strict. If you take the Hide action and then take NO ACTIONS subsequently (Perception doesn't take an action-it's just shifting your eyes and listening with your ears) then I won't require any subsequent Hide actions. But if you take actions, from attacking to moving to casting a spell, I will require another Hide check. Which you can't take, unless you dipped Rogue (for Cunning Action) or Fighter (for Action Surge). (Or you could Quicken a spell and Hide with your main action.)

Subtle spells might be subtler than normal, but it's going to take concentration to cast. Maybe you shuffled around a little to get a better stance, and your feet rustled some leaves. Maybe you just took a deep breath, as part of casting the spell-no verbal components, and an UNAWARE opponent probably won't notice. But an active fighter WILL.

Think about this way-if you DON'T require Hide checks with good frequency, what's the point of Cunning Action granting a Bonus Action Hide?

Edit: Also, I had some friends do some math. There's a less than 5% chance of rolling a 20 or less on Fireball, then rerolling it with Empowered to 30 or higher. So while it's possible, sure, it's... Unlikely. About the same odds as rolling a crit or a nat 1.

Although double-checking the method, I'm not sure it's 100% accurate. I'll assume it's off by a factor of about 2, on the side of you being right, meaning you're looking at around a 10% chance of rolling 20 or less then Empowering it to 30 or higher.

[TheUser]

Except it's not RAW:

Continue hiding != continue to take the hide action....otherwise they'd have written "continue taking a hide action on each of your turns"

[JNAProductions]

Except it's not RAW:

Continue hiding != continue to take the hide action....otherwise they'd have written "continue taking a hide action on each of your turns"

"Until you are discovered or stop hiding"

Taking an action stops you from hiding.

I will admit, rereading it, my ruling (no extra Hide action needed until you move or take an action) is more RAW than I thought the RAW was.

Now, I won't claim I'm 100% right here-there's pages and pages of stealth debate here on these forums. THAT BEING SAID. Hiding is going to be DM Dependent. Some DMs will be nice, use kiddy gloves (to use your terms) and let you hide without taking the Hide action even while spell slinging. Other DMs won't coddle you, and will instead require you to dip Rogue or something if you want to sneak mage.

Also, care to address the rest of my points?

Edit: Mostly the Suggestion one. The Empowered one is a minor detail.

[TheUser]

Except nothing in the rules dictates that taking an action stops you from hiding; if a DM tries to rules lawyer you in the future you can tell them "I don't need to keep taking the hide action because nothing in the rules says I do."



Edit: Mostly the Suggestion one. The Empowered one is a minor detail.

Empowered: http://anydice.com/programd89

>30% chance to roll 25 or under

Once you account for the fact that you can keep the high dice and re-roll the low ones the odds of getting above 30 are very high.

As for suggestion...
" The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable. Asking the creature to stab itself, throw itself onto a spear, immolate itself, or do some other obviously harmful act ends the spell."

Notice how all the examples are ones in which the target is being asked to cause direct harm to themselves? That is the distinction I think you are missing. As long as you can make it sound reasonable and doesn't involve the creature causing harm to itself you're A-ok (also you and your allies can't hurt them).

Detect Thoughts: It's actually better because you don't have to probe their mind for what you want and make them aware you are doing so, you can just ask them to tell what you want to know and they don't know they are being compelled to tell you.

Silence: The target can be an ally of the enemy; probably a big stupid looking one with a crappy WIS save and a high str/athletics check. Because you're not telling it to explicitly endanger itself it complies; how does the wizard misty step if it's being silenced and how does moving 30ft stop the enemy you've cast the suggestion spell on from attempting to close distance again and trying all over?

Blindness/Deafness: I am expecting that in a combat situation. If the wizard just stands there with it's hands cupped over its eyes and doesn't have any of your allies attacking it the wizard can't cast anything that requires sight of the target and isn't being asked to cause direct harm to itself. Furthermore if you say "This could get very gruesome. Use both your hands to cover your eyes and we'll spare you." they can't use somatic spell components either....

Scorching Ray: This one was intended to be taken as a joke and I've gone back into the guide to add the (joke) in brackets for people who don't get it off the bat.


Would you like to nitpick about anything else?

[Corran]

So it has come to debating whether hiding and the spell suggestion are DM dependent or not? Yeah...

[JNAProductions]

I do agree on Detect Thoughts substitute-it's a good Detect Thoughts substitute.

I do not agree on Silence-it's not reasonable to ATTACK YOUR ALLY when you are under attack by other people. That's presenting a very clear and present danger to yourself.

I do not agree on Blindness/Deafness-it's not reasonable to completely disarm yourself in the middle of a fight, which is what this situation is.

And glad to see you're admitting the Scorching Ray example was stupid! Not quite admitting you're wrong (claiming it as a joke), but hey, baby steps.

But yeah-if you don't understand why attacking your ally or disarming and blinding yourself aren't reasonable suggestions in the middle of a fight, I don't what you're on.


Average damage is not the damage you always get; the point is you do get fireballs that are ~20 damage and you can bring them up to 30 or higher very easily, are you just being argumentative for the sake of it or do you honestly not know how rolling 8d6 works in the real world?

You said ~20. Not 25. I admit, I could've had the math done for maybe as high as 23, but not 25.


So it has come to debating whether hiding and the spell suggestion are DM dependent or not? Yeah...

Yeah. I'll freely admit that Hiding CAN work the way TheUser suggests it does. It's a stealth nerf to Rogues, but some DMs don't know that or care about that.

Suggestion, though... It's DM dependent, yes, but rare indeed is the DM that will allow the Blindness/Deafness or Silence ones to slide.

Hey, TheUser-would YOU allow that to happen to you? Let's say you're in a fight with a Wizard, two Gladiators and, I dunno. Eight Cultists. The Wizard casts Suggestion on your character, you fail your save, and says "This could get very gruesome. Use both your hands to cover your eyes and we'll spare you." Would you consider that reasonable? Would you have your character do that, no questions asked, just cripple themselves for the fight?

[Corran]

Yeah. I'll freely admit that Hiding CAN work the way TheUser suggests it does. It's a stealth nerf to Rogues, but some DMs don't know that or care about that.

Just show him this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?520595-Locating-Invisible-Bob-Who-Isn-t-Hiding) link (he seems to have blocked me:smallamused:)
If that doesn't make him understand that stealth/hiding (especially when in combat) is DM dependent, then he'll never get it.

ps: The funny thing is, that according to how his DM seems to NOT be taking into account overlapping noises from what he says....


Oh right, that's DM dependant. Sometimes your DM's will just ignore your magic users because they want them to have a good time and feel useful. Or let their invocations be inaudible over the sounds of a pitched battle. Casters just get to cast, take cover and not worry about enemies coming after them or trying to flush them out. Cool. That has -never- been my play environment.
(emphasis added)
then he would pretty much have to take the hide action at the start of each combat. Ask him about it if you want ofc, I bet he will start talking about surprise or he will simply ignore it.

[JNAProductions]

Oh right, that's DM dependant. Sometimes your DM's will just ignore your magic users because they want them to have a good time and feel useful. Or let their invocations be inaudible over the sounds of a pitched battle. Casters just get to cast, take cover and not worry about enemies coming after them or trying to flush them out. Cool. That has -never- been my play environment.

I believe this post might be applicable.

Also, there is a 28 page thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?520595-Locating-Invisible-Bob-Who-Isn-t-Hiding) about the Stealth Rules. Again-I won't claim my way is the one true right way. The point is, your way isn't either, and you're going to have to talk to your DM if you want to be a Sneak Mage.

[tieren]

I am offended by the implication that you think someone can be dominated and not know it. It is basically a mind rape, you are disabling their conscious control of their body and forcing it to do things they don't want without any impact on their memory of the event.

[JNAProductions]

I am offended by the implication that you think someone can be dominated and not know it. It is basically a mind rape, you are disabling their conscious control of their body and forcing it to do things they don't want without any impact on their memory of the event.

In his defense, he might mean not knowing WHO dominated you, not total ignorance of being dominated. I can't find the passage or quote you're referring to, so I can't say for sure.

[TheUser]

Just show him this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?520595-Locating-Invisible-Bob-Who-Isn-t-Hiding) link (he seems to have blocked me:smallamused:)
If that doesn't make him understand that stealth/hiding (especially when in combat) is DM dependent, then he'll never get it.

ps: The funny thing is, that according to how his DM seems to NOT be taking into account overlapping noises from what he says....

then he would pretty much have to take the hide action at the start of each combat. Ask him about it if you want ofc, I bet he will start talking about surprise or he will simply ignore it.
I have not blocked you I just don't really care what you have to contribute.

If someone used suggestion to do that I'd start trying to kick his allies to provoke them or hope my allies catch on and break his concentration....

[Corran]

Just show him this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?520595-Locating-Invisible-Bob-Who-Isn-t-Hiding) link (he seems to have blocked me:smallamused:)
If that doesn't make him understand that stealth/hiding (especially when in combat) is DM dependent, then he'll never get it.

ps: The funny thing is, that according to how his DM seems to NOT be taking into account overlapping noises from what he says....


Oh right, that's DM dependant. Sometimes your DM's will just ignore your magic users because they want them to have a good time and feel useful. Or let their invocations be inaudible over the sounds of a pitched battle. Casters just get to cast, take cover and not worry about enemies coming after them or trying to flush them out. Cool. That has -never- been my play environment.
(emphasis added)
then he would pretty much have to take the hide action at the start of each combat. Ask him about it if you want ofc, I bet he will start talking about surprise or he will simply ignore it.

I have not blocked you I just don't really care what you have to contribute.

If someone used suggestion to do that I'd start trying to kick his allies to provoke them or hope my allies catch on and break his concentration....
Mmmmm..... Suggestion....??? How is that relevant?

[tieren]

In his defense, he might mean not knowing WHO dominated you, not total ignorance of being dominated. I can't find the passage or quote you're referring to, so I can't say for sure.

This is what he put:

"Ok just to put the Subtle Suggestion and Subtle Dominate person shtick to bed we're going to talk about "expressio unius est exclusio alterius" a legal mantra that is very applicable within this context; it roughly means "when anything is listed, anything not specifically listed is assumed not included." Granted, we aren't in a court of law, but we are attempting to interpret rules nonetheless.

When you look at a spell like Friends or Charm Person there are very clear stipulations that the spell lets the target know they have been the victim of enchantment magic after the effect wears off; it's written in the body of the spell's description.

Because this specific stipulation is absent from something like Suggestion or Dominate Person, it implies that this awareness is not present, and while a DM certainly has it within their power to allow a target to deduce they have been enchanted, because it is not specifically stated as is with other spells it is therefore not RAI or RAW that it does and means that an interpretation of the rules where a person is aware of the magic (especially when subtle) is actually the DM dependent one."

He is clearly saying a person can be dominated and not realize it; its a misogynistic adoption of rape culture.

[TheUser]

He is clearly saying a person can be dominated and not realize it; its a misogynistic adoption of rape culture.

Almost got baited by the trolls....

[JNAProductions]

Tieren, I don't think it's misogynistic to say that fantasy magic works in a certain way. I do agree, it's pretty stupid to say someone doesn't realize they've been Dominated, but it's not misogynistic.

To TheUser, Domination takes over your whole body. There's no way you could NOT know it happened, short of the Enchanters memory ability. But suggestion, I agree, the subject will probably not realize.

[Orion3T]

I recently rewrote the empower spell section with a brief and easy to follow rule with regards to expected damage increase:

I read an earlier comment by you saying the latest version included changes to this section, however the versions I can see from your links in the OP still look the same to me. If you changed anything, the changes didn't address my criticisms so far as I can tell. So, you may want to check your files/links are updating correctly. Or is there some way to check the latest version which I have missed?

[tieren]

Tieren, I don't think it's misogynistic to say that fantasy magic works in a certain way. I do agree, it's pretty stupid to say someone doesn't realize they've been Dominated, but it's not misogynistic.

To TheUser, Domination takes over your whole body. There's no way you could NOT know it happened, short of the Enchanters memory ability. But suggestion, I agree, the subject will probably not realize.

I believe he is implying that he can violate a person and perhaps leave them with the impression that it wasn't domination, maybe they actually wanted it. I find that vile and disgusting.

[TheUser]

I read an earlier comment by you saying the latest version included changes to this section, however the versions I can see from your links in the OP still look the same to me. If you changed anything, the changes didn't address my criticisms so far as I can tell. So, you may want to check your files/links are updating correctly. Or is there some way to check the latest version which I have missed?

"When used properly it's not a gamble
The metamagic is used after you've seen the roll, which is
great! If you roll uniformly moderate or high, no big deal,
don't empower it. If you decide to empower, you should re-
roll 1s and 2s on d6 rolls, 3 and lower on d8's and 4 and
lower on d10s (1/2 max -1). Even though you are
statistically at an advantage re-rolling 1 number higher on
each die, it also risks lowering results for less gain. If you
look at the die roll and subtract it from the die's average that
is your expected damage increase for re-rolling (Re-rolling 1
on a d6 is +2.5 average damage). It's cheap enough even as
little as +5 total damage is efficient (moreso for AoE)."

Bolded for emphasis.

[Klorox]

Wow, what a guide!

How is this not linked to in the Guides, Tables, and other useful tools for 5E D&D (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?377491) thread?

[KorvinStarmast]

I believe he is implying that he can violate a person and perhaps leave them with the impression that it wasn't domination, maybe they actually wanted it. I find that vile and disgusting. Then don't play games with (1) evil and (2) magic. An actually evil person with access to actual magic that influences the minds of other people might very well do exactly that.

Heck, real people without magic try to do it, and occasionally succeed by using psychology and tricks -- Not Magic -- and thankfully some of them get caught and get jailed.

You are trying to derail a thread, here, and it's not helpful.

[Sans.]

Wow, what a guide!

How is this not linked to in the Guides, Tables, and other useful tools for 5E D&D (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?377491) thread?

Hasn't been updated in a while.

[Klorox]

Hasn't been updated in a while.

I wonder who to contact to get this stickied. I really think it's great.

[TheUser]

You're a sweetie Klorox. I'm glad you like it.

[tieren]

I saw an error in the feats section, it is possible to take some feats more than once, such as resilience choosing a different stat each time or elemental adept with different elements.

Overall though I really like it. I agree it is not as objective as some guides, but it was also less sterile and more interesting to read. You clearly have a bias towards a particular play style, but you explain the reasons and I can then easily evaluate the suggestions based on how much I agree with that bias.

Personal thought, I am playing a sorceress now and planning to take the distant metamagic and spell sniper feat, but I think the fun won't be so much in the crazy far distances, but in taking short range or melee spells and zapping with them from 60 feet or beating counterspell by keeping out of range of it.

[TheUser]

I saw an error in the feats section, it is possible to take some feats more than once, such as resilience choosing a different stat each time or elemental adept with different elements.

Overall though I really like it. I agree it is not as objective as some guides, but it was also less sterile and more interesting to read. You clearly have a bias towards a particular play style, but you explain the reasons and I can then easily evaluate the suggestions based on how much I agree with that bias.

Personal thought, I am playing a sorceress now and planning to take the distant metamagic and spell sniper feat, but I think the fun won't be so much in the crazy far distances, but in taking short range or melee spells and zapping with them from 60 feet or beating counterspell by keeping out of range of it.

Page 165 Player's Handbook.

You can take each feat only once, unless the feat's description says otherwise.



As far as melee spells...there's very few in the sorcerer list. You might want to take a look at your options and if you want to multi-class or talk with your DM about making the metamagic work with certain self spells.

[tieren]

Page 165 Player's Handbook.

You can take each feat only once, unless the feat's description says otherwise.



As far as melee spells...there's very few in the sorcerer list. You might want to take a look at your options and if you want to multi-class or talk with your DM about making the metamagic work with certain self spells.

Well, elemental adept does say it, I would have sworn resilient did but you are right it doesn't.

Not necessarily melee, but short range. I'm a sea sorcerer so I'll be able to do things like shocking grasp from 60 feet away or lightning lure an opponent from 60 feet away and yank him 25 feet back towards me (with sea curse).

Even poison spray seems more usable from 40 feet than 10.

[samcifer]

This one covers some fairly advanced concepts like economizing sorcery points and gambling as well as statistical analysis of metamagic features. It's also horrendously long and opinionated but should be helpful to those who want to play a sorcerer.

http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/rJHwSSR0e
(use chrome)

PDF:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxHRu80oFd2iSkNLeVBISzZxMzQ

Typos abound!

I notice on the first link that the third column on each page is cut off and unreadable. :(

[TheUser]

I notice on the first link that the third column on each page is cut off and unreadable. :(

There should be no third column for any page; are you viewing in chrome?

[samcifer]

There should be no third column for any page; are you viewing in chrome?

I was viewing it at work and the computers there use Microsoft Edge. We're not allowed to install any software there. Only IT can do that and only with the permission of the heads of the company (I work for a major company that deals with finances, so security is super strict there).

[samcifer]

I was viewing it at work and the computers there use Microsoft Edge. We're not allowed to install any software there. Only IT can do that and only with the permission of the heads of the company (I work for a major company that deals with finances, so security is super strict there).

But even using anything but chrome browser at home, there's a third column of text on most pages that is cut off at the right side of each page. Wish it was compatible with other browsers.

[TheUser]

But even using anything but chrome browser at home, there's a third column of text on most pages that is cut off at the right side of each page. Wish it was compatible with other browsers.

Ok just view the pdf then lol

[samcifer]

Ok just view the pdf then lol

sadly the pdf behaves the same way. :/

[TheUser]

sadly the pdf behaves the same way. :/

Just tested the PDF in mozilla and internet explorer, both work.

[samcifer]

Just tested the PDF in mozilla and internet explorer, both work.

comes up as cut off text for me on firefox. :(

[Arkhios]

I was viewing it at work and the computers there use Microsoft Edge. We're not allowed to install any software there. Only IT can do that and only with the permission of the heads of the company (I work for a major company that deals with finances, so security is super strict there).

Goes waaaay off-topic (sorry about that) but I couldn't keep it in. Any company that forbids the use of trustworthy freeware browsers such as Chrome or Mozilla and insists on using such garbage as IE or - especially - Edge should get their sanity checked.

Just recently CISCO discovered that Edge has a severe security risk (http://blog.talosintelligence.com/2017/09/vulnerability-spotlight-content.html); Microsoft has acknowledged it and still they refuse to fix it, claiming it's in there on purpose... I mean, wtf?


comes up as cut off text for me on firefox. :(

As adviced in the OP, use Chrome. Even to open/create a pdf.

[RacingBreca]

I loved this guide; it's first iteration and now this one.

It will definitely be used with my next build. I am curious why you didn't touch on the multi class potential for Warlock 2/ Sorcerer x. Mask of many faces alone is worth the price of admission, but Eldritch blast and short rest recovery of lvl1 spells (Hellish rebuke and hex) sounds really sweet to me.

Keep up the good work!

[ZorroGames]

I believe he is implying that he can violate a person and perhaps leave them with the impression that it wasn't domination, maybe they actually wanted it. I find that vile and disgusting.

I find this linkage excessive and excessively PC in what is a fantasy game. I am shocked and feel violated. Not.

Some people insist on taking fantasy game choices and making moral lectures for the real world somehow applicable through their personal values lense. That kind of magic manipulation does not occur in the real world. Get real.

[cyberfunkr]

One thing I would love to see added to the Twinned Spell section; healing.

One of my sorcerer's is a Divine Soul so they can get Cleric spells as well as Sorcerer. I can't tell you how many times he became a clutch player because he was able to Twin Healing Word and bring back two people to consciousness then give them cover with a 5' Minor Illusion, or Spare the Dying a third.

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: Any info on the dreaded Necrothread Sorcerer?