What Spells would you select for this Divine Soul Concept?

[Zetakya]

Because of everything that's going on in the world at the moment, my regular group is on a hiatus. A few of us are going to do a small game over skype and R20, and the scenario we've been set by the GM for this one is for us all to be Drow.

We're also disallowed Clerics, and we're not allowed Noble or Courtier backgrounds - the scenario is that we're lower class malcontents within a Drow city.

Based on this, I've decided to go with a Divine Soul Sorcerer; both because the party is going to need some healing spellpower, and because I figure that Clerics of Lloth aren't going to be well disposed to sharing access to Divine Magic with a non-cleric, probably not very well inclined towards Lloth, male who claims Divine descent.

The concept for the character that I'm working with is that he sees his Magic as being based on sacrifice and blood. For this reason I want to try and balance his spells between healing/protective/enhancing on the one hand, and damaging/weakening/destructive on the other, in (rough) balance.

I expect that the party will be rapidly accelerated to level 3 in early play. The rest of the party is a Ranger (almost certainly Gloomstalker) and a Rogue (most likely Swashbuckler, Assassin or Thief). There will be one other, but I don't know what class yet (hard to guess; it's the regular groups DM, and he's almost exclusively DM'd in my experience).

I'm probably reflavouring Necrotic damage as featuring horrible blood loss, and I think his "healing" magics will be pretty gory visually as well.

My thinking thus far is to have Toll The Dead and Chill Touch (so I have the option between a Save Spell and an Attack Spell) as offensive Cantrips and Spare the Dying (a necessity, really) as a protective one - which leaves one more, that would ideally fall on the heal/enhance side of the equation. I can't really see much other than Guidance and Resistance - is there anything better.

As Level 1 Spells at the start of the game, I can take either Bane or Inflict Wounds for free from Divine Soul. Cure Wounds is another obvious necessity, but I'm not sure what else to pick up.Would I be better served going for Bless to provide variety of spells and utility in non-combat circumstances here?

2nd level is very tough, as without a free spell it's hard to choose between Blindness/Deafness and Hold Person on the offensive side (both physical impairments of one sort or another) or between Lesser Restoration and Enhance Ability on the restorative. One spell that does catch the eye is Enlarge/Reduce which could be considered either depending on the effect that's in use.

So the point of the question here is to ask the Playground Brains Trust: What have I missed? What do you think I should add (or subtract) from this that would work well within the context of the character?

[Nidgit]

It's generally better to only take a few Cleric spells, as most Sorcerer spells are better for damage. That said, certain spells like Bless, Healing Word, Spiritual Weapon, and Revivify are good enough that they're definitely worth taking.

Personally, I'd skip Lesser Restoration at 2nd level and only come back to it as a replacement spell later if statuses are a frequent issue. Bless is typically a fair bit better than Bane, especially if everyone is using attack rolls. Enlarge/Reduce is a neat buff but unless your Gloomstalker is going TWF it's not worth it.

[T.G. Oskar]

Drow or not, the best advice is to get the better and more useful Cleric buffs alongside a focus on either single-target blasting, AoE damage, or crowd control. A bit of the three isn't bad, but you'll spread yourself thin.

Cleric spells that are good include Bless (Bane allows a saving throw, whereas Bless affects your allies without problems), Spiritual Weapon (a great DoT spell that requires no concentration, and since it's a spell attack roll and not a saving throw, you have better chances of affecting someone with it), Healing Word (on-demand healing), Mass Healing Word (on demand AoE healing), Mass Cure Wounds (better AoE healing which can be Quickened) and Heal (best healing spell around). YMMV on spells like Shield of Faith and Death Ward (which can be Twinned), Conjure Celestial (because you can summon a Couatl which is the bee's knees), Flame Strike and Dawn (Cleric offensive spells; the latter is an AoE DoT BTW) and the Raise Dead line (though Revivify is nice).

On the Sorcerer side, you'll want at least to keep Haste. Haste is a very good buff, and getting to Twin it makes it even better. Thing is, it'll compete with Bless, so add it if you have at least two good meatshields, archers, or a combo of both, since you'll maximize their damage that way. If you focus on Single-Target, then it's mostly Scorching Ray (fire is resisted a lot but you get a ton of hits with it) and Magic Missile (when you absolutely, definitely and without a matter of a doubt need to hit someone); if you want AoE, pretty much nothing beats Fireball...except Synaptic Static as a level 5 spell (goodness gracious that spell is fun!), and for DoT you'll probably want Flaming Sphere or Storm Sphere (the latter can be a pain in the bum).

As I've found, you'll probably have four 1st level spells to choose, and then 2 spells of each level until 5, and then 1 spell of 6th to 9th level. You can go for 1 Cleric and 1 Sorcerer spell, but IMO 4th level Cleric spells aren't as great as 4th level Sorcerer spells, so think of that. By 6th level, you'll probably have Heal, and from there it's basically choosing the only spell you'll use during the day of 7th to 9th level (I'd consider Wish for 9th, because it's just super-practical).

As for Necrotic damage...Ray of Enfeeblement can be fun, but Ray of Sickness is poison damage and it's resisted the most. From there, you get Blight (which can probably be Twinned, but it won't be as amazing as a Fireball), and Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting is pretty far away to be useful. I'd consider good ol' blasting, preferably one of each element if possible. And remember: Cantrips are your friends.

[MrStabby]

I love command as a spell.

With a rogue in the party it can be pretty brutal to allow attacks of opportunity as well as the control element. It is particularly nice on a sorcerer who is tight on spells known - a low level spell that scales well with higher level spell slots takes some of the pressure off as you can go light on level 2 spells. Furthermore, drow have an additional benefit to using spells that don't need attack rolls (although I imagine much of the game will be underground?).

[Spiritchaser]

I haven’t played a DS with anything like this party comp but:

You are a sorcerer. Control, buff/debuff/damage/healing? You cannot possibly do it all. Because you have a Ranger, minimize your healing. Maybe one low level spell and one or two later, then pick what your party needs (control and buff/debuff are my favourites)

As others have said: Bless is generally a better spell than bane.

Guidance is outstanding. Resistance is... not. If your going to take hasten I’d actually consider taking blade ward here... especially if you take quicken spell... but probably guidance is just best.

Hasten is a double edged sword. With a rogue in the party I can totally understand the desire to have hasten on the list, it’ll let that character use their hasten action to attack with sneak attack, and their action to ready an attack to obtain a second sneak attack on someone else’s turn. This is obviously pure gold even before you consider AC, mobility and twinning the spell. And you do have your once per rest save bonus but... you are going to be fighting in the underdark, likely against a lot of intelligent foes who are going to have a very good understanding of how magic works. If you cast hasten expect clever foes (I would guess most of them) to focus on YOU. You are going to be even more of a target than you would normally be. I typically do not like hasten in a party without strong protective tools because the inevitable focus fire, lost concentration and penalties are so severe. I do understand why you would want it here, but don’t consider it as a must have, and while I don’t have the details, it’s not obvious that there’s anyone in the party who can really provide protection for you. If you do go hasten, figure out a way to add in warcaster and maybe take blade ward. Be very afraid of drawing a lot of aggro. They’re going to try and put your face in a blender.

Your gloomstalker will have healing spirit, and out of combat, will be a better healer than you. If you do take some healing, prioritize emergency combat healing which YOU are better at. That means healing word rather than cure wounds, or if you do take cure wounds at first at least switch once the ranger gets healing spirit.

You mentioned twinned, What other metamagic are you taking? My personal favourite is subtle, though it really depends on social interaction, what spells you take and, to a degree, how many charm resistant foes you encounter. Quickened is also a favourite, probably less so here, but if you go twinned hasten consider the advantages of quickening a spell and casting blade ward when things look dire.

Almost forgot: you have a gloomstalker. Depending on what your fourth party member is, twinning invisibility on yourself and the rogue might let the whole party get away with some awesome clandestine shinanigans. You are taking stealth right?

[Zetakya]

Thanks for the replies everyone;

In case it isn't obvious, my group is generally into "what would the character do?" rather than total optimization.



It's generally better to only take a few Cleric spells, as most Sorcerer spells are better for damage. That said, certain spells like Bless, Healing Word, Spiritual Weapon, and Revivify are good enough that they're definitely worth taking.

Personally, I'd skip Lesser Restoration at 2nd level and only come back to it as a replacement spell later if statuses are a frequent issue. Bless is typically a fair bit better than Bane, especially if everyone is using attack rolls. Enlarge/Reduce is a neat buff but unless your Gloomstalker is going TWF it's not worth it.

Yeah I have no doubt that pulling in a fair number of Sorcerer spells to complement the Cleric ones is the way to go.

Regarding Lesser Restoration I plan to see how it goes, but this is the Underdark and a Drow campaign. Both Paralysis and Poison are in pretty abundant supply down there. I suspect that not having a means of removing them would be a poor idea...


Drow or not, the best advice is to get the better and more useful Cleric buffs alongside a focus on either single-target blasting, AoE damage, or crowd control. A bit of the three isn't bad, but you'll spread yourself thin.

I don't think AoE is really this characters "thing", so (aside from possibly twinning some spells) I'm happy to go with mostly single-target magics. Quite apart from anything else I think it's more likely that we're going to be dealing with smaller numbers of reasonably potent opponents for the most part, and intelligent ones at that, so AoEs are likely to be less effective than raw numbers would otherwise suggest.

I do want to have control spells though. In particular, given the characters focus on bodily effects and that most of our likely enemies will be humanoids, I'm thinking that Hold Person is going to be very useful although the Wisdom Save is going to mean that good target selection is necessary.


Cleric spells that are good include Bless (Bane allows a saving throw, whereas Bless affects your allies without problems), Spiritual Weapon (a great DoT spell that requires no concentration, and since it's a spell attack roll and not a saving throw, you have better chances of affecting someone with it), Healing Word (on-demand healing), Mass Healing Word (on demand AoE healing), Mass Cure Wounds (better AoE healing which can be Quickened) and Heal (best healing spell around). YMMV on spells like Shield of Faith and Death Ward (which can be Twinned), Conjure Celestial (because you can summon a Couatl which is the bee's knees), Flame Strike and Dawn (Cleric offensive spells; the latter is an AoE DoT BTW) and the Raise Dead line (though Revivify is nice).

Yeah, I later realised this with Bane, especially because it's a Charisma Save, and those tend to be pretty good on Drow just by virtue of them being Drow. So I'll likely take Inflict Wounds as the free spell from Divine Soul; it upcasts well, and if I take Distant Spell it can have a range of 30 feet, which is the cramped confines of the Underdark is fine.

Shield of Faith I looked at and passed over in my thinking because of the Concentration requirement; Bless (& later Haste) just seemed more likely to be worth maintaining. The various Healing spells are obvious picks, although I'm not sure I need to take all of them for the limited picks available, and if I take Twinned and/or Quickened Metamagics I can reasonably duplicate the effects of the AoE and Bonus Action Heals.

I'm not really enamoured of Dawn, because Sunlight Sensitivity penalises attacking targets who are in Sunlight, even if I or my allies aren't, nor Flame Strike as fire spells aren't really appropriate to the character. Both are also massively obvious and I think subtlety is going to be a winning tactic.


On the Sorcerer side, you'll want at least to keep Haste. Haste is a very good buff, and getting to Twin it makes it even better. Thing is, it'll compete with Bless, so add it if you have at least two good meatshields, archers, or a combo of both, since you'll maximize their damage that way.

It's looking like the 4th player is going to be a Shadow Monk, which certainly passes for a front-line combatant. Being the only full caster (compared to my groups usual preponderance of them) is going to be an interesting experience. It does mean that Haste is looking very tempting, expecially if I combine it with Twinspell.


If you focus on Single-Target, then it's mostly Scorching Ray (fire is resisted a lot but you get a ton of hits with it) and Magic Missile (when you absolutely, definitely and without a matter of a doubt need to hit someone); if you want AoE, pretty much nothing beats Fireball...except Synaptic Static as a level 5 spell (goodness gracious that spell is fun!), and for DoT you'll probably want Flaming Sphere or Storm Sphere (the latter can be a pain in the bum).

As I've found, you'll probably have four 1st level spells to choose, and then 2 spells of each level until 5, and then 1 spell of 6th to 9th level. You can go for 1 Cleric and 1 Sorcerer spell, but IMO 4th level Cleric spells aren't as great as 4th level Sorcerer spells, so think of that. By 6th level, you'll probably have Heal, and from there it's basically choosing the only spell you'll use during the day of 7th to 9th level (I'd consider Wish for 9th, because it's just super-practical).


As I said a bit earlier, I think Hold Person has a lot of value in this campaign and is more characterful, so I'm not really bothered about taking a fire attack spell. I'm not really even thinking of the level 6+ spells at this stage. In fact the longer I think about this the more I think Control is more of a priority than outright damage for this character. Focusing on impairing the enemy and boosting my allies sounds much more this character's thing than throwing fireballs.

I also suspect that the fact that these are more subtle effects is going to be important. Explosions are cool, but they tend to draw attention and that could quickly escalate into more than we can handle in a Drow City. Drow society rewards the knife in the dark more than the vulgar magics.



As for Necrotic damage...Ray of Enfeeblement can be fun, but Ray of Sickness is poison damage and it's resisted the most. From there, you get Blight (which can probably be Twinned, but it won't be as amazing as a Fireball), and Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting is pretty far away to be useful. I'd consider good ol' blasting, preferably one of each element if possible. And remember: Cantrips are your friends.

Oh yes, I have not forgotten the cantrips :)


I love command as a spell.

With a rogue in the party it can be pretty brutal to allow attacks of opportunity as well as the control element. It is particularly nice on a sorcerer who is tight on spells known - a low level spell that scales well with higher level spell slots takes some of the pressure off as you can go light on level 2 spells. Furthermore, drow have an additional benefit to using spells that don't need attack rolls (although I imagine much of the game will be underground?).
Almost certainly entirely within the city, so aside from spells that cause Sunlight (which I don't really want to take, as they are highly obvious) I don't think Sunlight Sensitivity is going to be an issue. I thought forced movement didn't trigger OAs?


I haven’t played a DS with anything like this party comp but:

You are a sorcerer. Control, buff/debuff/damage/healing? You cannot possibly do it all. Because you have a Ranger, minimize your healing. Maybe one low level spell and one or two later, then pick what your party needs (control and buff/debuff are my favourites)

As others have said: Bless is generally a better spell than bane.

Guidance is outstanding. Resistance is... not. If your going to take hasten I’d actually consider taking blade ward here... especially if you take quicken spell... but probably guidance is just best.

I don't think I am going to be able to hand the healing duties off to the Ranger; his character concept is a murderer on the run from what passes for justice in drow society, so I expect him to be more focused on the "killing things with extreme prejudice" angle than on healing. In any case, Healing Spirit doesn't arrive until Ranger 5. At most I expect a few Goodberries at downtime.

Bane I've covered above, point taken.

Guidance is looking better and better because it's an anti-mistake agent. Much less chance of making that one error that ends up with us drowned in hostile guards or whatever. We're definitely in a campaign where we don't want to draw undue attention, if at all possible. Murderhobo Inc. this is not.


Hasten is a double edged sword. With a rogue in the party I can totally understand the desire to have hasten on the list, it’ll let that character use their hasten action to attack with sneak attack, and their action to ready an attack to obtain a second sneak attack on someone else’s turn. This is obviously pure gold even before you consider AC, mobility and twinning the spell. And you do have your once per rest save bonus but... you are going to be fighting in the underdark, likely against a lot of intelligent foes who are going to have a very good understanding of how magic works. If you cast hasten expect clever foes (I would guess most of them) to focus on YOU. You are going to be even more of a target than you would normally be. I typically do not like hasten in a party without strong protective tools because the inevitable focus fire, lost concentration and penalties are so severe. I do understand why you would want it here, but don’t consider it as a must have, and while I don’t have the details, it’s not obvious that there’s anyone in the party who can really provide protection for you. If you do go hasten, figure out a way to add in warcaster and maybe take blade ward. Be very afraid of drawing a lot of aggro. They’re going to try and put your face in a blender.

Point taken.


Your gloomstalker will have healing spirit, and out of combat, will be a better healer than you. If you do take some healing, prioritize emergency combat healing which YOU are better at. That means healing word rather than cure wounds, or if you do take cure wounds at first at least switch once the ranger gets healing spirit.

You mentioned twinned, What other metamagic are you taking? My personal favourite is subtle, though it really depends on social interaction, what spells you take and, to a degree, how many charm resistant foes you encounter. Quickened is also a favourite, probably less so here, but if you go twinned hasten consider the advantages of quickening a spell and casting blade ward when things look dire.

Twinned really looks good. It works on direct healing spells, buffs and single-target CC - what's not to like? So I'm pretty set on that. The other options are Quickened, which from a certain perspective converts the regular Cure spells into Healing Word spells, or Distant for 30' range Inflict Wounds and other tricks.

Subtle is an option for the obvious reasons given above. Anything that lessens the changes of getting caught doing something is a good idea. However, this is a Drow city, and magic is pretty ubiquitous, so I'm not sure how much utility there is in it when everyone knows magic anyway.




Almost forgot: you have a gloomstalker. Depending on what your fourth party member is, twinning invisibility on yourself and the rogue might let the whole party get away with some awesome clandestine shinanigans. You are taking stealth right?

This is an awesome idea, which I had not really considered. Especially with a Shadow Monk in the party now as well, I really have to do that. That really does reinforce my thinking of not taking vulgar and obvious attack spells and sticking to more insidious magics as well.

Thanks for your help all!