New to 5e sorcerer build questions

[Mike Miller]

My group has a ranger, cleric, wizard, and fighter. I plan to go sorcerer using heighten and quicken as my level 3 metamagic. I am using the draconic origin.

What are some recommendations for spells from levels 1-3 that are most useful with heighten?

Also, I planned on going fire, but if my dm lets me learn spells with a different element with fluff changes, I plan on going cold. I may use the UA subraces for tieflings with Levistus to get some cold spells.

Are there good damage spells with riders that would make heighten useful?

[Skyblaze]

I would recommend taking at least a single 1 sorcery point costing metamegic for level 3 since you'll be able to use it more often.

As to blasting spell recommendations, theres really not a huge selection for those levels to make anything worth debating. Chromatic orb is good, fireball, scorching ray, ice knife, etc.

[R.Shackleford]

I would suggest taking subtle and quicken.

Heighten is very costly at low levels.

Subtle might be the most broken casting feature in the game. Not in battle, but outside of battle... Ugh so many uses to take control or manipulate a scenario.

Even if you don't take subtle, another 1 sp option is definately the way to go.

But the best spells for Sorcerers are usually not even the blast spells. Heighten and Quicken do well with support and debuff spells.

Charm Person, Hold Person, and Suggestion is nice with Heighten.

Quicken anything works well, I love a good quicken Darkness, Enlarged/Reduced (enlarge the barbarian), or Web.

As a Draconic Sorcerer your Cantrips will do good enough damage that you can get away with that as your primary damage dealer.

[Amemnon91]

Heighten spell is a costly amount of sorcerery points but could be worth it for save or suck spells. Especially ones over a wide area. Charm person, ice knife, Chrom orb, or thunderwave are some of the better ones that come to mind. My personal opinion would be to choose a different metamagic but of course, it's your character.

[R.Shackleford]

Heighten spell is a costly amount of sorcerery points but could be worth it for save or suck spells. Especially ones over a wide area. Charm person, ice knife, Chrom orb, or thunderwave are some of the better ones that come to mind. My personal opinion would be to choose a different metamagic but of course, it's your character.

Don't use heighten spell on a spell that deals damage on a save.

That's kind of a waste.

[Amemnon91]

Don't use heighten spell on a spell that deals damage on a save.

That's kind of a waste.

The OP specifically requested for damage spells. But you're right, heighten is much better for save or suck i.e. Charm person

[clash]

Twin is very good for dealing damage and cheap as well. For 1 sorcery point you can cast 2 firebolts at the same time at two different creatures

[Mike Miller]

The OP specifically requested for damage spells. But you're right, heighten is much better for save or suck i.e. Charm person

I was thinking more along the line of spells that deal damage and some rider effect, like slow, stun, blind, etc.

[ImproperJustice]

Empower is frequently under rated.

Spending 1 point to turn a 20pt fireball into a 30+ fireball is usually worth it.

Generally you get more mileage out of the cheaper meta-magica than the expensive ones.

Subtle is great as mentioned, and also helps in battle if grappled/ underwater/ silenced, etc...

Extend is another that slips under the radar, but in a dungeon crawl spending 1 point to carry a spell into more than one encounter can pay off, and the range extension on a touch based spell can be handy in some very specific scenarios.
Flight for 20 minutes or 2 minutes of Sunbeam Blasting as an example.

Obviously your choices will center on what type of Sorceror you want to be. Blaster, Controller, Buffer, or generalist.

[Citan]

My group has a ranger, cleric, wizard, and fighter. I plan to go sorcerer using heighten and quicken as my level 3 metamagic. I am using the draconic origin.

What are some recommendations for spells from levels 1-3 that are most useful with heighten?

Also, I planned on going fire, but if my dm lets me learn spells with a different element with fluff changes, I plan on going cold. I may use the UA subraces for tieflings with Levistus to get some cold spells.

Are there good damage spells with riders that would make heighten useful?
Hi OP!

I would recommend taking at least a single 1 sorcery point costing metamegic for level 3 since you'll be able to use it more often.

As to blasting spell recommendations, theres really not a huge selection for those levels to make anything worth debating. Chromatic orb is good, fireball, scorching ray, ice knife, etc.


Don't use heighten spell on a spell that deals damage on a save.

That's kind of a waste.

Basically this.
Heighten is still a fine choice overall if you want to have fun with it early, but you have to be aware that for some levels you'll have to make it a "once a day" or burn (many) spell slots instead.
Also using this on damaging spells is a waste at least until you get 6th level spells or so.

However, Blindness / Hold Person / Suggestion / Phantasmal Force or even AOE effects like Slow / Fear / Hypnotic Pattern (so you have more control on having the VIT that you want to fail, actually fail) are prime candidates for Heighten.

If your DM would allow refluff, just keep Chromatic Orb in your arsenal for whenever you need particular damage, and otherwise "cold-refluff" spells you learn and swap for the next in that order: Burning Hands -> Shatter -> Fireball. You don't need many AOE spells really (imo). :)

[R.Shackleford]

The OP specifically requested for damage spells. But you're right, heighten is much better for save or suck i.e. Charm person

Yes. However if a player wants to optimize, I feel it's needed to point out that Heighten Spell is a waste for save half damage spells.

Empower works a lot nicer and is vastly overlooked. If you want to deal damage, don't pick controller features.

[samcifer]

As someone who played a sorc and kind of messed it up, I'd offer you this advice bu asking a question. Which do you care more about of the two?:

The spells you cast or the metamagics you want to use?

Once you answer that question, decide which spells or metamagics you like best, then either pick spells that work with your metamagics or pick metamagics that work with the spells you like best.

A sorc is only effective when metamagics and spells known are truly compatible. Picking mms and spells that don't go together is how most players screw up a sorc build.

[sophontteks]

If you want to deal damage, pick empowered. Turning a low roll AOE into a high roll is extremely strong and easily underestimated.

If you want to deal with single target save or suck spells, pick subtle. The enemy won't know you cast a spell if you fail, and you can cast these spells in public. Your spells seem like natural (or supernatural) phenomina unrelated to your presense. Also highly underestimated.

Empower and subtle are the best metamagics in the game. Cheap, effecient, effective. Having at least one is pretty much a must-have.

Heighten is just too expensive. 1-2 uses will be all of your metamagic for the day. Its best picked at level 10.

[Citan]

As someone who played a sorc and kind of messed it up, I'd offer you this advice bu asking a question. Which do you care more about of the two?:

The spells you cast or the metamagics you want to use?

Once you answer that question, decide which spells or metamagics you like best, then either pick spells that work with your metamagics or pick metamagics that work with the spells you like best.

A sorc is only effective when metamagics and spells known are truly compatible. Picking mms and spells that don't go together is how most players screw up a sorc build.
Huh. This is a very interesting, and very nice way, to stress the defining difficulty of sorcerer leveling: you must indeed think "from" either a few spells you really want, OR the metamagics you like to test... But trying to decide while keeping both faces of the coin basically requires you to master the class in the first place. XD

[R.Shackleford]

If you want to deal damage, pick empowered. Turning a low roll AOE into a high roll is extremely strong and easily underestimated.

If you want to deal with single target save or suck spells, pick subtle. The enemy won't know you cast a spell if you fail, and you can cast these spells in public. Your spells seem like natural (or supernatural) phenomina unrelated to your presense. Also highly underestimated.

Empower and subtle are the best metamagics in the game. Cheap, effecient, effective. Having at least one is pretty much a must-have.

Heighten is just too expensive. 1-2 uses will be all of your metamagic for the day. Its best picked at level 10.

Subtle is just so broken, it's hilarious that it does it in a subtle way XD.

Empower works no matter, and I love that, if the creature passes or fails their save, win win on any damage spells. The average damage for something like burning hands ends up being very close on a passed save as it would be on a failed save. Which, is 2 SP less than heighten for essentially the same thing.

Though, you can even mix empower with other metamagics. Subtle Empowered Burning Hands is always a fun one. That dude just spontaneously consisted, honestly I'm as shocked as you are.