Sorcerer - New official Metamagics? Way to resolve the Bonus Spell question?

[Monster Manuel]

So, I'm making some assumptions here, but hear me out.

Based on some of the most recent UAs relating to the Sorcerer, it seems increasingly like the devs at WotC feel like the Sorcerer needs some bonus spells earned through the subclass they take. Shadow Sorcerer and Divine Soul both get some bonus spells. Mark of the Ordning playtest proposed to give more. The new Aberrant Mind UA gets more than ever. But the problem is that the previously-published subclasses in the PHB don't have them, so any new subclasses that do seem to be outclassing their core versions. This can't be changed without an Errata to the Sorcerer class and a reprint of the PHB, which is not great.

There is something they could do, though, that could be slapped into a future supplement and apply retroactively to all the old subclasses. They could introduce a new Metamagic, that would allow a sorcerer to spend some number of points to unlock a set of extra Bloodline spells. By way of example, they could provide a suggested list of Bloodline spells for the Draconic, Wild Magic, and Storm sorcerers.

Here's an initial stab at what this might look like:

Bloodline Magic
When you cast a spell you know that is between 1st and 5th level or greater, you can spend a number of SP equal to the level of the spell to change the spell into another spell of the same level. This spell must come from a pre-defined list of spells thematically relevant to and appropriate for that sorcerer's sub-class; 3 of the spells may be from another class' spell list. This table should includetwo spells for each level from 1 and 2, and one for levels 3-5; your DM will provide an appropriate list for your character, but some examples are below.

Draconic:
1st- Cause Fear, Charm Person
2nd- Darkvision, Dragon's Breath
3rd- Protection from Energy
4th- Mordenkeinen's Private Sanctum
5th- Legend Lore

Wild Magic:
1st- Bane, Chaos Bolt
2nd- Alter Self, Blur
3rd- Hypnotic pattern
4th- Etc

Essentially, the sorcerer gets access to the spells in the table for a per-casting cost of spell points, but they don't add to or impact their limited amount of Spells Known in any way. Any sorcerer could take it, regardless of what subclass they have.

Other than the SP cost, of course, is the cost of a much more limited resource; metamagic known. Would it be worth giving up, say, Twin Spell for an improved spell list?

Feel free to comment/critique the actual spells recommended here; I'm sure there might be better-balanced selections, but like I said this is a first-pass, and I'm more interested in what the Playground thinks of the idea in general. It would be easy enough to plug into a sourcebook as a back-door revision to the existing sorcerer sub-classes. But does it work? Would it be worth taking?

[Protolisk]

There is another thread about what spells each subclass should get, but the idea of making it a meta magic is...

Well, it is not a bad idea, but I dislike it as it takes a metamagic slot. Which you get 2 of at level 3, and you won't get another until level 10. And, based on how Metamagic is usually written, you can only use 1 option of metamagic on a spell at a given time. Would that mean that these spells, which are inherently now Metamagic, not be able to be careful spells/twinned/quickened? It gets iffy.

As valiant an effort in trying to fix the spells known issue, it ends up exacerbating the metamagic issue. So my preferred fix would just be: give the subclasses the expanded spells known, without the cost of metamagic. But we all know how that's been working out so far.

[Monster Manuel]

That's a good point about not being able to apply more than one meta magic in most cases. Might be worth adding a rider in there that, once activated, the sorcerer could use another meta magic on one of these bonus spells. That gets expensive fast, though.

I agree it's a clumsy way to handle the issue. My preference is to just give the existing subclasses a list of bonus spells, like you describe. But how do you do that for the subclasses that are already published? That's why I'm proposing something like this...awkward as it is, it would be a way to work it in.

[Crgaston]

My preference is to just give the existing subclasses a list of bonus spells, like you describe. But how do you do that for the subclasses that are already published?

They could Errata a Bonus Spell list for those Bloodlines and include it in future printings if they wanted to.

[PhantomSoul]

For my campaign I give a smaller-than-current-UA bonus spell list (5 spells; one for each of levels 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9) that the Sorcerer (a) knows, and (b) can optionally cast at the cost of one SP per spell level instead of using spell slots. No sorcerers in the game yet, but we'll see how that goes.

I think it'd be ideal for them to put it as a variant/optional rule and give spell lists for all published sorcerous origins... but then the book that contains that might be essentially a required +1 for AL sorcerers unless they say that rule doesn't "consume" your +1 since it's a rule and not really a player option in the same way...

[Spiritchaser]

Honestly, it seems unlikely that they’d retroactively fix the spells known at this point.

I’d just home brew a fix that gives sorcerers between 2 and 5 additional spells known (no I don’t know which is exactly right, it’s somewhere in there) and let them pick at least two spells from the wizard list if they wish. Yes I know spells that have the spell creator’s name in them at supposedly not conceptually suited to sorcerers... but barring evard’s tentacles from a shadow sorcerer on that count is a far greater conceptual violation than letting them pick it, and as a separate point... why on earth nondetecion isn’t on the sorcerer’s list is quite beyond me.

As for special bloodline lists? Sure if you want, but two to five spells picked by the player are likely to fit a specific player’s concept as well or better than ten from a list, but... I can see the argument for the list, particularly if it contains spells that are not just stylisticly aligned, but functionally coherent as well.

[micahaphone]

I remember someone on these forums linked to their guide for Divine Soul sorc with no damage spells, a purely buff/debuff build - does anyone know what I'm talking about?

Edit: Found it!
But can't post links!

Search for the thread "Re: An Eclectic Collection of Fun and Effective Builds" and the part ""The Passive Soul