Desert themed caster?

[erok0809]

Hi all,

So when I was playing 3.5e, my favorite character Soren was a fire-based human sorcerer, going into the Sand Shaper prestige class from Sandstorm and learning some wind and earth/dust focused spells later on to solidify the desert theme. Now, obviously I can't replicate the abilities granted by the Sand Shaper class without homebrewing, but if I wanted to make a desert themed caster to do my best to port Soren to 5e, how would I best do that? What classes and spells should I pick? Are there any that would work well with only a little refluffing? I'd prefer to remain human, and some optimization would be nice but theme is more important here. Any ideas would be appreciated.

[Waazraath]

Hi all,

So when I was playing 3.5e, my favorite character Soren was a fire-based human sorcerer, going into the Sand Shaper prestige class from Sandstorm and learning some wind and earth/dust focused spells later on to solidify the desert theme. Now, obviously I can't replicate the abilities granted by the Sand Shaper class without homebrewing, but if I wanted to make a desert themed caster to do my best to port Soren to 5e, how would I best do that? What classes and spells should I pick? Are there any that would work well with only a little refluffing? I'd prefer to remain human, and some optimization would be nice but theme is more important here. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Some random thoughts:

Subclass: Dragon ancestor (fire) seems obvious. You might also pick storm sorcerer (for wind abilities) and maybe refluff a few abilities (have fire damage replace fire damage) and refluff the, eh, fluff of the subclass? For me, this would probably be most thematic.

Spells: selecting some relevant spells your old char had seems obvious (can imagine stuff like fireball, wall of stone / fire, stone skin, gust of wind - though spell selection of the sorcerer is really limited in 5e, so I'd only pick the best and no overlapping ones). Maybe ask your DM for 1 custom or refluffed spell, that lets yous summon giant insects (i think Sand Shaper gave those as bonus spells every level?) - standard sorcerer doesn't really let u do summon spells, except for animate objects.

A different take would be land druid (desert). That would give you most of the thematic spells, but you'd have a wis based char instead of a cha based.

[JackPhoenix]

Transmuter or Conjurer wizard may serve as decent Sand Shaper replacement. Minor Conjuration allows you to make small objects, just refluff them as made from sand instead of pure magic. Similarily, sand technically *is* stone, so it possibly may work with Minor Alchemy.

Generally, wizard is a better choice than sorcerer, though it depends on the specifics of your previous build.

[Mortis_Elrod]

Ah Sandstorm, aka “It’s Hot Outside” , one of my favorite books just for Walker in the Waste and Sand Shaper.

For the Fire bit, dragon Sorcerer is one of the best ways to deal out flames .

Wizard Conjuerer/Transmuter can be refluffed with sand but isn’t really diviney like the sand shaper kind of was.

Land Druid might be good with the dessert terrain, I think druids still have a bit of fire spells. Espescially through Xans so look into that.

A different look might be reflavoring Shadow Sorcerer as Sand Sorcerer, wouldn’t take much I think and would be a really cool way to play the same character.

Similar effect could be done with storm Sorcerer

I’d say warlock might be useful but this ones actually difficult to replicate with warlock....huh.

I’m sure there’s a cleric domain that might be useful , not too good with clerics tho so idk

[Vogie]

Refluff a Spore Druid into a Sandstorm druid, replacing spores with sand and swapping poison damage with fire damage.

Fiend Warlocks have a ton of fire spells available to them and could be fluffed as a Desert caster as well. The force damage from EB could be fluffed as done by telekinetically thrown sand, or downgraded to fire damage. Doubly so if you could do that same as above with Cloak of Baalzebul (or cloak of flies), replacing flies with sand and poison with fire.

[Deox]

I actually played a similarly themed character. I ended up going Tempest Cleric. Worked with my DM to keep the functionality of my spells the same, however fluffed them accordingly for a desert based character. Sleet / Ice Storm -> Sand Storms, etc. Worked out really well. This was before XGtE.

I suspect Storm Sorcerer could work, with a similarly re-fluffed approach.

[ProseBeforeHos]

Surprised no-one has mentioned Circle of Land Druid yet. Desert is by no means the best option for that class, but it's good enough, and you'll still have plenty of fire and earth manipulating spells to fill out the concept.

[Specter]

Surprised no-one has mentioned Circle of Land Druid yet. Desert is by no means the best option for that class, but it's good enough, and you'll still have plenty of fire and earth manipulating spells to fill out the concept.

Uh... Yes. Desert Druid for the win. You can even get Investitude of Stone, which is asclose as you'll get to 'sand shape'. Also use a cactus as your focus for bonus points.

[Vogie]

A gishy type of desert magic warrior could be a Vengeance Paladin 3 / Desert Herald Barbarian X. You could even turn up the Paladin to 5 for an extra attack or 6 for the Aura of Protection, while still getting all of the Desert Storm Herald bonuses. You'll have a fair bit of utility casting for out of combat, or the beginning of combat, but once you go into a storm aura rage and start smashing things, you can still Channel Divinity & Smite away


Surprised no-one has mentioned Circle of Land Druid yet.
Literally the first post after the OP


A different take would be land druid (desert). That would give you most of the thematic spells, but you'd have a wis based char instead of a cha based.

[xroads]

Some random thoughts:

Subclass: Dragon ancestor (fire) seems obvious.


This was my first thought. Maybe have your character be a descendant of a type dragon that lives would live in a desert (ex. brass, blue, etc.) A slightly different direction for the character, but still has that desert sorcerer flavor to it.

[vicente408]

My vote goes to either Brass Dragon Sorcerer or Evocation Wizard. Both should give you access to a variety of fire and wind/sand themed spells. Desert druid is a fine choice but seems to stray a bit further from the original character in the OP.

[DarkKnightJin]

Well, you guys have inadvertently helped me make a decision for the Xerath Sorcerer I'd been trying to get to work.

I could still go with Draconic, but Storm Sorcerer and fluffing the winds as little sandstorms would be amazingly thematic for the character.

As for my 2 cents.. Storm Sorcerer and work with the DM to refluff, possibly get some custom spells not normally on the Sorcerer list. If you are set on full caster.

Otherwise, the Storm Herald Barbarian, with possibly that Paladin dip for the heck of it, could work as well, if you're not married to being a caster.
That one is probably going to be a bit more MAD though, I think.

Of you do go Human(Variant), have a look at Elemental Adept as your starting Feat, and picking the damage type your Sand Shaper will be dealing the most. Especially so if it's going to be Fire.