Help Me Remove the Cheese from the Sorcadin

[Waifu]

So, I was reminiscing about an old sorcadin I played a few months ago. At the time, since the rest of the party of powerful and because it was a high-fantasy campaign, so we were pretty much encouraged to power game as much as possible.
Frankly, despite the high power level of the campaign, I still ended up being totally disgusted with just how cheesy and powerful it was. So, as a player who has trouble limiting their own power, what are some options to kind of gimp the build, without falling behind when it comes to power. I like the idea of having all the smites that I would need should push come to shove, but I don't want it to the point where I can abuse it. I know I could just go pure Paladin, but even doing that might make me fall behind power-wise, since the DM is forced to balance the encounters around everyone else.
We are level 17, and we will be going beyond level 20.

[Gastronomie]

Consider making the spell list less optimized and more thematically unified. I've seen a necromancer who was allowed to spam Animate Dead all he wants by choosing only Necromancy spells and spells related to the art thematically. Perhaps take only spells related to the Sorcerous Origin and Oath (or at least base the spell list around those spells as much as possible), and see how it goes.

[stoutstien]

Honestly I don't see the problem with the power lv unless your getting rests after a
Every fight you'll run dry of slots fairly quickly.

[Waifu]

Every DM in our group allows us to have frequent long rests. Some more than others, of course, but we always have enough long rests to not worry about running out of spell slots. From what I've seen so far from this campaign, running out of spell slots shouldn't be a problem-especially for a standard sorcadin.

[stoutstien]

Go pally/ bard it reduces the power curve a tad by removing meta magic but opens a huge window role playing wise. Oath of ancients with glamour bard is very supportive and still can ditch out a lot of hurt. If you're going to epic lvs adv on spell saving throws is worth more than a fist full of d6s

[Rebonack]

Well there's your problem.

If you're only getting one or two big encounters a day then the Sorcadin is going to out-perform basically everything as it is the KING of going nova.

The easiest way to keep the Sorcadin in check is to enforce the adventuring day, that is throw six to seven medium difficulty encounters at a group between long rests. If that isn't happening, then nova builds are going to be grossly over-powered and short rest classes like Monk and Warlock are going to seem terrible.

[coyote_sly]

Well there's your problem.

If you're only getting one or two big encounters a day then the Sorcadin is going to out-perform basically everything as it is the KING of going nova.

The easiest way to keep the Sorcadin in check is to enforce the adventuring day, that is throw six to seven medium difficulty encounters at a group between long rests. If that isn't happening, then nova builds are going to be grossly over-powered and short rest classes like Monk and Warlock are going to seem terrible.

Yeah, I'll second that. A paladin is an avatar of death itself if it only has to fight once or twice a day, pretty much no matter how you build it.

[Waifu]

I'll admit that I've never considered Paladin/Bard. I think the image of a divine battle performer (how I envision the Paladin/Bard, anyway) is very appealing. Buffing, Skill-monkey-ing, and still being able to dish out damage when need-be looks very delicious indeed.

[Sception]

that would then be the reason sorcadin looks so ridiculous then. I mean, don't get me wrong, they're good, but in game-assumed rest schedules they have to pace themselves and choose their options, not just do everything they conceivably can do, all at the same time.

First suggested change then would be to go for paladin/warlock instead. Similar overall feel, but fewer, non-cumulative slots and no metamagic will put a cap on over the top shenanigans while still leaving plenty of room to be a badass mage knight.

Alternatively, theme-based spell selection as already suggested might work. Like, 'only fire' spells or whatever. skip some of the good-but-boring staples like Shield.

Off-type racial, equipment, or stat choice could also but breaks on things a bit, while letting you play something novel and exercise your optimization instincts to play around problems rather than overclocking strengths. Eg: 'witchdagger' dex based, dagger using sorcadin optimizing around the limitations of poor damage dice, worse base AC, and the stat constraints of needing a 13 in your otherwise unused strength.

[Specter]

Every DM in our group allows us to have frequent long rests. Some more than others, of course, but we always have enough long rests to not worry about running out of spell slots. From what I've seen so far from this campaign, running out of spell slots shouldn't be a problem-especially for a standard sorcadin.

That's the problem, not the multiclass. Both Paladin and Sorcerer can nova the hell out of any encounter, and combining them potentializes that. But once you're out of slots, you're just a bad Paladin with less HP. By contrast, if you had 6+ encounters a day, you'd find Rogue overpowered since they don't rely on resources.

[Unoriginal]

You're basically George Foreman before Rumble in the Jungle. 'Course you will feel overpowered if you can just burn all your ressources quick and be done for the day.

[MagneticKitty]

Add a third class that's mostly for utility for the last few levels. Maybe ranger beastmaster revised, warlock pack of anything but blade (no hexblades either) fighter and pick another fighting style, maybe champion... :P

[Malifice]

So, I was reminiscing about an old sorcadin I played a few months ago. At the time, since the rest of the party of powerful and because it was a high-fantasy campaign, so we were pretty much encouraged to power game as much as possible.
Frankly, despite the high power level of the campaign, I still ended up being totally disgusted with just how cheesy and powerful it was. So, as a player who has trouble limiting their own power, what are some options to kind of gimp the build, without falling behind when it comes to power. I like the idea of having all the smites that I would need should push come to shove, but I don't want it to the point where I can abuse it. I know I could just go pure Paladin, but even doing that might make me fall behind power-wise, since the DM is forced to balance the encounters around everyone else.
We are level 17, and we will be going beyond level 20.

Have your dungeon Master enforce the longer adventuring day of 6 to 8 encounters.

[Blood of Gaea]

Play a Paladin/Hexblade instead. Still powerful but your spell slots will be more limited than before.

[Matrix_Walker]

Sorcadins are cool and all, but are they really that much more effective than a straight pally?

[coyote_sly]

Sorcadins are cool and all, but are they really that much more effective than a straight pally?
When you only have 1-2 fights per long rest, yeah - you can literally smite *2 and then quicken a Fireball on top to mop up trash, choosing whether to use high level smite, go with a single target spell, or upcast the AoE depending on the situation. With that few encounters, you can do that basically every turn.

[Snowbluff]

I've already demonstrated that more slot efficient spells get around the daily LR problem. Plus, most content simply isn't written with it in mind. This is made more evident with the release of divine sorcerer, who can get Spirit Guardians, which is basically a prefect spell for a melee centric sorcerer.

I think getting a more themetic/weaker spell list will help. Further more, building a Bard/Paladin would also make a less NOVA-centric character who can buff his teammates with inspire with his bonus action instead of nuking the board.