Divine Sorcerer help

[Telesphoros]

Nothing to see here, TPKs happen.

[Spectrulus]

I would cut out so many level 9 spells, as you can only cast then sparingly per day. Guiding Bolt does decent single target for a level 1, 4d6 and gives advantage to an ally, which is a decent 1st.

Twin spell can be helpful, especially with Healing Word, Stone Skin, etc. I like it overall but 4 9th levels seems high.

[sophontteks]

In my experience it works best if you decide your metamagics first then build around them. This is a little less impactful with a level 20 sorcerer of course, but still may help.
For example, if you want to be a buffer type, you can take twinned spell with haste, greater invisibility, and enlarge/reduce. Taking twinned without spells like this would be a bit of a waste.

[sophontteks]

Twinned is very expensive. It will rarely be worth twinning those spells. Quickining those spells, however, would be awesome.

Twinned spell doesn't look expensive on paper, but in practice its awful ineffecient outside of a few select spells. You can only concentrate on one spell, but if you twin a spell you are effectively concentrating on two spells, for one action. That is where twinned spell becomes powerful.

Instead of healing in combat, which is ineffecient, you could cast greater invisibility on two players, giving them advantage on their attacks and making them very hard to hit, for the entire fight.

Haste is also great. For the rest of the fight you can give two players +2 AC and an additional action. They could use that action to dodge and then you wouldn't need to heal. It'd be very hard for an opponent to hit them at all.

[Xihirli]

You cannot use your haste action to dodge.

[th3g0dc0mp13x]

Are you the only Caster?
Are you just a healbot or do you want to help with other things.

Without more info I'll stab in the dark.

Prayer of healing is ooc healing which is better done by hit dice. I'd swap it for healing word which is twinnable and can get two people back up as a BA.
Counterspell and dispel magic: unless you're the only person with these I'd take one or the other not both.
Catnap: Niche usefulness, it's pretty rare that you can get ten minutes but not an hour. Ignore unless your dm has frequent things that prevent short rests
Death Ward- Twinnable
Greater Restoration- Twinnable
Wish-------------\
Mass Heal--------\
Meteor Swarm----Drop any two of these I'd recommend Psychic Scream and Meteor storm
Psychic Scream--/

For metamagics I'd go with twinned, quickened, and Distant. Twinned is expensive but has the ability to be either clutch or extremely useful, quickened quicken whichever spell needs to go off really bad and then drop toll the dead or firebolt on them. Distant makes a lot of your spells more effective in a combat situation especially if your mobility is hindered somehow.

[sophontteks]

You cannot use your haste action to dodge.
Whoops, good call. I didn't notice that. For the best, makes greater invisibility worth the higher cost.

[Citan]

Hello there, I'm looking for help for a 20th level Divine Sorcerer that is the primary healer for the party. I've already played a Life Cleric, Druid, and Lore Bard healers so Divine Sorc is next on my list.

Potential Spell List at Level 20:

1 - Shield
2 - Prayer of Healing
3 - Counterspell
3 - Dispel Magic
3 - Catnap
4 - Death Ward
5 - Mass Cure Wounds
5 - Greater Restoration
6 - Heal
6 - Globe of Invulnerability
7 - Regenerate
7 - Crown of Stars (this is mostly a flavor choice)
9 - Wish
9 - Mass Heal
9 - Meteor Swarm
9 - Psychic Scream

Any glaring omissions? Changes you would make? Have to have Cantrips?

What Meta Magic should they have? Twinning? Quickening? Extended Spell? Subtle Spell?

What Feats should they have? I figure Inspiring Leader should be a given. Resilient Wisdom? Ritual Caster? Just max Charisma and Dexterity?

If you could pick anything for the character which 3 attuned magic items would you have? Robe of the Arch Magi? Staff of Power? Amulet of Health?

Any other suggested non-attuned magic items?

Cheers and thanks for any help, insights and/or recommendations.
Hi!
Considering your post and also your primary goal as stated in a later post (primarily healer) I'd suggest picking Extend metamagic instead, to pair with...
- Aid (only if upcast as at least 4th level),
- Death Ward (always useful),
- Invisibility (now you can make whole party invisible for twice the time, great for infiltration), same idea with Comprehend Languages and Tongues,
- Polymorph (greater range of scouting under inocuous form),
- Fly (easier to cross annoying swamps/mountains with twice the time)
- Enhance Ability/Skill Empowerment (when you don't know *exactly* when you need to be extra good on a check).
Decent "targets" also: Polymorph, Freedom of Movement, Longstrider, Haste, Suggestion, Warding Bond, Spiritual Weapon, Silence, Leomund's Tiny Hut, See Invisibility, Levitate...

On offensive side, any spell that you use to divide and conquer could also benefit from lasting twice the time, especially those that don't offer extra saves each turn or those you feel you can keep efficient through your own actions: Animate Objects, Sleet Storm, Stinking Cloud, Banisment, Polymorph etc...

From your list, those I'd keep whatever happens are Shield, Counterspell, Dispel Magic and Catnap. I'd grab Healing Words to start and keep it unless you pick also Quicken to use with higher level healing spells, and even then.
I'd switch Prayer of Healing for Aid.
I'd pick one "bonus action" offensive spell between Flaming Sphere, Spiritual Weapon and whatever other spell I forgot about.
I'd pick one low-level, always useful buff among Sanctuary / Warding Bond / Enhance Ability.
And I'd pick Revivify > Raise Dead until/unless I'm sure accidents never happen. XD

[Citan]

Healing Word, Mass Healing Word, Mass Cure Wounds, Heal discussion/question:

My original plan for level 20 was to either Quicken (thus bonus action) Heal a single fallen party member or Mass Cure Wounds for multiple fallen party members. Do I really need Healing Word/Mass Healing Word at level 20? I have Mass Healing Word on the list for now...
Thanks, added Haste and Greater Invisibility.


Nice stabbing. Not the only caster, Abjurer in the party, but she's the one most likely to miss a session. Two Battle Masters in the party, a half-orc tank and an archer. Mostly a healbot it's looking like, with damage cantrips pow powing away with bonus action/reaction spells as needed.

Catnap is there atm since yes, short rests are sometimes hard to come by and the entire party runs off them. There's also a Weapon (Dagger) of Warning in the party which synergizes well with it. Hopefully things will change in the future (it's pretty fast paced right now) or I can get the Wizard to get it's if still needed and I can replace it ;)

Dropped Prayer of Healing, Meteor Swarm and Psychic Scream (even though I like the idea of exploding heads lol).



Nice crunchy bits, thanks. First time playing a Sorc all the way to 20, mostly just a dip here or there.

Traded out Prayer of Healing for Aid and added a slot for Revivify/Raise Dead. Probably choose Revivify in the end unless there's a stronger argument for a different res type spell.

My bonus action offensive spell was going to be Crown of Stars, dunno if I can find room for it.

Thankfully there's a Wizard in the party that does a lot of the other stuff you mentioned. Don't have a lot of spells known to be much more than a heal bot with some other recommended tidbits thrown in.
Hey again!

About bolded part, honestly, I don't think we can answer for you.
I was under the impression you were theorycrafting for a character that you'd still level from the ground up, so I'd say "Healing Words is kinda the obvious, mandatory pick at low-levels, you'll see around level 10-11 if it's still worth keeping".

For a level 20 Sorcerer that has Quicken? You *may* ditch it, the problem I see with it is the following:
Aid now becomes your only "low-level" heal.

If you Extended an upcast version of it, then need to cast it again on someone to make him stand up, wouldn't that "overwrite" the upcast version, meaning you actually nerf him?

If you don't pick Extend, then Quickened Aid is probably enough at higher levels in place of Healing Words, but it still means you will sometimes waste a 2nd level slot and 2 SP just to get one ally up for a round.

It also won't be enough if your whole group gets squashed in a single round. Although to be honest, if such thing happened, I don't think Mass Healing Words would help either, except for maybe giving you a chance to flee: but enemy party pushing you that fast and that hard? You can't win usually unless it so happens that either you or Wizard has the perfect spell to put down enemies and it works perfectly, which seems a big bet to me.

Then comes the problem of Heal: it's imo a great spell, very underrated around here, because 70 HP means you give your ally a high chance to survive a full round unless special case (squishy caster, group of creatures ganging up, powerful creature with heavy hits and multiattack).
But it's a level *six* spell IIRC. You won't spam this. And it covers only one people.
And there will be situations at high level when even 70 won't make any difference in the end pertaining the "will ally stand longer than its turn".

Healing Words has the merit of being a very low-cost way to get up one ally just long enough for him to take his turn, which is usually the best you can hope for, unless...
- Enemy is unusually predictible or influencable.
- You use Heal on a guy you know won't be under much threat, or has resources he can use to make that HP last extra longer (BM's Parry, Barbarian's Rage, Rogue's Uncanny Dodge.
- You bet on that ally doing something that will bestow victory upon you.

So personally, I'd keep it for a long while, and possibly always.
Especially since, with two Battlemaster in your group, learning Twin to use on Haste / Greater Invisibility is a potent choice.
Meaning you could also Twin Healing Words as a bonus action (a bit lesser cost than Aid, potentially a few more HP healed, and no problem of overwriting max HP).
And I'd choose between either Mass Healing Words or Heal (or maybe even neither), depending on what I feel based on experience so far.

So imo for you the fittest Metamagics would be Extend, Quicken and Twin, unless you also want to shine in social situations and guarantee you can cast freely with enemy spellcasters Counterspelling around, in which case I'd still pick Subtle in place of Twin and instead pick AOE control/debuff spells that are as friendly as possible.

Not sure why you'd put Meteor Swarm aside though: you'd be sure to kill your own party with it if inside, so it's obviously not a spell to use in regular fights, but when you can get the jump on enemy party and don't care about environmental damage nor capturing alive, it's kinda flattens them. XD

[CTurbo]

I don't like straight up heal bots in 5e. I've played several Clerics and I've found that healing is usually not the best course of action during combat. I think the Divine Sorc is a mechanically strong class, but I would probably build one with a more blasting first, healing secondary focus. That's just my 2 cents

[Snowbluff]

I think Telekinesis and Synaptic Static should make it on the list at least.

If you're a dedicated healer, probably pick up sanctuary.

For your own protection, Shield and Absorb Elements are good.
Robe of the archmagi is a great item, but is better on DC casters. At least it saves you a spell on mage armor. Probably the other two items should be a chromatic dragon mask and a staff of power.

Getting Wis and Dex as saves profs is probably a really good idea.