Shadow Sorcerer build help

[Dalebert]

I made the character in a hurry tonight to join an AL game and DM rewarded up to 3rd level. I can rebuild him before level 5. Right now he's a lightfoot halfling shadow sorc 2 / hexblade 1. Bought him a breastplate and shield and am using a whip. Hexblade seems pretty front-loaded. Think it's a good call? I figured I'd go one more sorc level and then 1 more hexblade and the rest sorc. Then I'd probably take agonizing blast and maybe repelling blast.

I'm torn though. Things I've contemplated changing:
1) going full sorc.
2) human, if so what feat?
3) Keeping the dip but staying at only 1 level lock
4) Keeping the dip only until I turn 5 for survivability then rebuilding to full sorc. Level 4 lasts a while

Okay, so typing that out, I sorta talked myself through it and I'm leaning toward #4. Still wondering about going human though. I don't get very excited about the feats for casters, especially on a sorc when I don't need resilient con for concentration. I like the flavor of being a halfling probably more than the mechanics, but halfling luck and being able to move through larger creatures seems nice. I've considered the lucky feat if I go human.

[Chugger]

Study the new invo's before you stop progressing in hexblade. How far up are you playing this guy? Hexblade alone may look like it peters out but it doesn't - not with the right spells and invos.

You know how fast AL battles run - most of em anyway (some go long though) - so are you planning to be a 100% caster using hexblade for armor class - or a mostly meleer who uses the sorc to get darkness to fight in or other buffs? Or a little of both?

[Chugger]

Also if you plan on meleeing, how are you going to get extra attack?

You need to go five into hexblade (did I misunderstand - are you going in that far?) to get the invo, w/ blade pact, to do extra attack. The other way to extra attack is to use sorc pts to quicken gfb or twin bb ... except that comes from the scag book, not xgte. So you're screwed there - AL rules - phb + one book per char.

If you want hexblade for the curse and med armor (and shield) that's cool - so you're an armored caster if you go this way. It's more how do you want to play it?

[Dalebert]

I tried to delete the thread and ended up deleting just the last post. Anyway, I've decided to dip one level of nature cleric and go the rest sorcerer. I might take a 2nd level of cleric at lvl 20 if I ever get there or might not so I can take the feat. Not going to worry about that right now.

[Chugger]

I tried to delete the thread and ended up deleting just the last post. Anyway, I've decided to dip one level of nature cleric and go the rest sorcerer. I might take a 2nd level of cleric at lvl 20 if I ever get there or might not so I can take the feat. Not going to worry about that right now.

Are you Nature Cleric mostly for the armor?

[Dalebert]

No, I'm only going to wear medium. Investing in str is way too mad. It's for the other perks and utility. I only have 13 wisdom so I'm sticking to non-aggressive cleric spells like Healing Word and Prot from G&E, both of which can be twinned.

[lordserpentus]

No, I'm only going to wear medium. Investing in str is way too mad. It's for the other perks and utility. I only have 13 wisdom so I'm sticking to non-aggressive cleric spells like Healing Word and Prot from G&E, both of which can be twinned.


Why not try bard, it has those same spell but cha based and i think medium armor as well.

im curently doing the same build and and trying to figure out what most compliments it and does not hinder progression to much.

[Dalebert]

Why not try bard, it has those same spell but cha based and i think medium armor as well.

Only light armor and not shields actually. I think the answer is partly because I've already done it. It's been fine but I really want that significant armor boost this time vs. just a base 12 + dex AC.

With that character, I've given into the temptation to dip 6 levels of bard. I really want to go to at least 18 in sorc with this one as I like the lvl 18 shadow sorc feature. The wild mage one is "meh". I want the front-loaded big bump to AC and some utility of a first level cleric without that temptation to go further. And it's not just a good starting AC. This massively expands my option for non-attunement increases to AC later. While I don't expect to be in danger very often (relatively), when I am, that AC will actually help me maintain concentration on my spells. Combined with a high con and con save prof, I should be doing great in that dept.

I'm definitely a fan of optimization but one thing I've learned after many characters is if you focus too hard on optimization, you end up making the same character over and over. I want to play different things. My sorc 11 / bard 1 is amazeballs. He won't be as amazeballs at sorc 14 / bard 6 as my draconic sorc 17 / lock 3 but I'm quite okay with that. He will be extremely versatile and have tons of resources with all those bard spell choices to use metamagic on and short rest inspirations and cutting words and Jack of all Trades and the whole shebang. The biggest price--he won't get Wish but I'm okay with that as well. Why? Because Wish is actually TOO good. If there's anything my draconic sorc can't do, he just wishes for a simulacrum of someone who can and makes them do it. It's obscene. He's effectively two characters all the time. The potential of broken things he can do with that combined with a large array of tactical magic items has me scheming constantly to the point of my head wanting to explode. Looking forward to this other sorcerer who's powerful and effective but has some reasonable constraints.

[lordserpentus]

sounds awesome, as i'm building a similar character im looking at 2 warlock 18 sorcerer, i want to make a blastlock with quickened eldritch blast, im using hexblade and shadow sorcerer, that way i can use cast darkness use shadow sorcerer sight to see through that darkness for 2 sorcery points and with elven accuracy feat, as im a half elf. every attack roll with be with super advantage, and then on a short rest i can renew my warlock spell slots for sorcery point reload. any tips or ideas you would like to share?

[Dalebert]

I'm a super flake and have reverted back to staying Hexblade 2 level dip. Stealing your idea Lordserpentus. I got swayed by the idea of going half-elf and taking Elven Accuracy. Start with 17 cha and you're up to 18 in just one ASI and get to essentially roll 3 d20s for your EBs when in your magical Darkness (or later Greater Invis). Now when you can combine that with Hexblade curse--you're adding cha bonus to dmg and adding prof bonus to dmg for EACH one and you crit on a 19 or 20 which raises chance of crit a LOT. And I forgot just how good half-elves are for the stats and skills bonus. At lvl 20 that's 4 blasts of d10+11 with high chance of crit!

So now I'm just rebuilding to half-elf from halfling. I also switched from sailor to outlander. Should be helpful in Chult jungles.

To Lordserpentus:
Having super advantage for agonizing blast is a great reason to dip warlock but I think you'll find the regaining 2 spell points on a short rest part to stop being that great at higher levels. At that point, having full spell slot progression would tend to give you more slots and points just by giving you higher level slots faster, and without making you short rest dependent. That my two bits after having played a sorc with a 3 level lock dip. Again, it's nice because I wanted to warlock features--agonizing blast and an imp. If you don't think imps are amazeballs, you haven't been using your imagination! Also, the Disguise Self at will has become a defining thing about him.