Primal Soul Sorcerer

[paladinn]

Hola all,

I've begun tinkering with a different take on the Divine Soul sorcerer (my favorite origin) with a Druidic spin. I call it the Primal Soul; and as you might guess, it allows access to the Druid spell list much as the DS allows access to Cleric spells. The spellcasting part is easy; but I'm wondering what other class features and/or bonus spells to allow.

Any thoughts?

[Garfunion]

I have also tinkered with this idea and went with a dryad connection. Giving the archetype a “charm” feature and a plant teleport (like tree stride) feature.

[Dragonsonthemap]

I'd probably look at Circle of the Land's different bonus spell sets for something like the alignment-based bonus spells on Divine Soul. I'd also change Favored of the Gods, but I'm not sure to what, since creating another ability on par with that (pretty good) one isn't the easiest.

[Fable Wright]

You're proposing a sorcerer with native access to Conjure Animals and Conjure Woodland Beings here.

To reiterate, this is someone able to summon 16 wolves at level 7 via SP shenanigans, and Subtle Counterspell.

To reiterate, this is a class that has all of the incredibly powerful Druid Concentration spells, with full access to the powerful nova options and defensive spells that Druids don't have, except in restricted cases like Mountain Druid Lightning Bolt or Coastal Druid Mirror Image.

To reiterate, this is a class with Empowered Moonbeam, able to use sorcery points to boost damage EVERY time Moonbeam deals damage.

I would not allow this at my table. Ever.

I would suggest that you carefully curate a list of spells that the Primal Soul can add to their list instead of inadvertently making a super class that completely overcomes the limits of both the Druid and Sorcerer lists.

[RSP]

To reiterate, this is a class with Empowered Moonbeam, able to use sorcery points to boost damage EVERY time Moonbeam deals damage.

Why are you so worried about this? The timing of the damage effect of Moonbeam actually makes using Empowered worse than with standard AoEs.

[Fable Wright]

Why are you so worried about this? The timing of the damage effect of Moonbeam actually makes using Empowered worse than with standard AoEs.

1. The d10 size of damage dice means highly efficient at boosting damage.
2. It can trigger (and be empowered) twice per turn for a couple targets, meaning that you can convert SP into a LOT of single-target nova damage with a grapple build, quicker than a normal sorcerer.

It's not AS bad as the others, but Moonbeam has done a lot of damage without Empower, and Empower spiking it would have blown open a few encounters in my experience. YMMV.

[Garfunion]

1. The d10 size of damage dice means highly efficient at boosting damage.
2. It can trigger (and be empowered) twice per turn for a couple targets, meaning that you can convert SP into a LOT of single-target nova damage with a grapple build, quicker than a normal sorcerer.

It's not AS bad as the others, but Moonbeam has done a lot of damage without Empower, and Empower spiking it would have blown open a few encounters in my experience. YMMV.

I’m sorry but there are now far better spells for a sorcerer to use, now that they can actually change the damage type of their spell with transmute spell meta-magic.

Additionally moonbeam uses constitution for the saving throw, which most monsters are good at.

[RSP]

1. The d10 size of damage dice means highly efficient at boosting damage.
2. It can trigger (and be empowered) twice per turn for a couple targets, meaning that you can convert SP into a LOT of single-target nova damage with a grapple build, quicker than a normal sorcerer..

1) Empowered has such a niche effectiveness, d10 vs d8 or d6 doesn’t really mean too much: you still would need to roll really bad (1 or 2’s), then roll really well (9 or 10s) for it to be a drastic difference, and if so, well that’s what it’s supposed to do. Spending a SP for an extra point or two of damage over a d8 doesn’t have huge ramifications.

2) it activates on the enemy’s turn though, so you’d need to use 1 SP for each enemy (as they’re separate damage rolls on separate turns). So even if 3 enemies are affected, and the separate rolls are bad for each, each roll would require their own use of Empowered, that’s 3 SP just to reroll damage for each.

Compare that to using Empowered with a Fireball that hits 5 enemies: 1 SP increases the damage on each.

Spells like Moonbeam are just an inefficient use of SP to use Empowered on.

[TyGuy]

Perhaps split the sub into a few flavors of
Animal focused
Plant / land focused
Storm / elements focused

Doesn't have to be as divergent as storm herald. But would be cool to have it kind of like divine soul.