"Crystal Sorceress" Build ideas

[Rashagar]

Hi everyone,

"Crystal Sorceress" is a nice evocative phrase for me, and I'm liking the idea of a character introducing themselves as one in an upcoming DnD game.

Regardless of what the phrase evokes for me, what classes/themes do you think you would take/incorporate to make a character that fits the title?



(For me, because I've spent too much time lately playing a game called Dominions, my mind jumps to magic themes like fate, light, illusion and air, so if you have any ideas on a class that nicely incorporates these I'm also all ears).

Note: not sure if it needs to be said but I'd rather steer away from making it reference any kind of new age crystally stuff, since I just wouldn't feel comfortable with that.

Thanks for your thoughts!

[Shadean207]

First thing that came to my mind is a Sorcerer or Wizard, with a heavy focus on ice, mist, and other things. Might be a Draconic Sorc for the elemental bonuses, or an evoker/illusionist wizard.

You could also with some work reflavor a Wildfire Druid to instead work with ice/cold damage.

Some spells I would include are
- Fog Cloud
- Misty Step
- Cone of Cold
- Investiture of Ice
- Sleet Storm/Ice Storm
- Ice Knife
- Blur/Mirror Image
- Otilukes Freezing Sphere
and so on, there's lots to choose from

These are the ones that come to my mind immediately, although the complete build of course depends on your playstyle and preferences. Sorcerer, Druid and Wizard play somewhat differently from each other, so there's lots of variety here.

Just going off of the key word "Crystal Sorceress", you'll most probably end up with one of these three classes, in my opinion.
I'm excited to see where this is going; I love themed builds like this :D

[LumenPlacidum]

I've spent too much time lately playing a game called Dominions

Oh man, I really want to turn the world of Dominions into a 5e campaign setting. C'tissian necromancers, Van berserkers, Hinnom's cannibal giants. There would be a ton of new races, though. Lots of work to be done.

Maybe a way to generate NPC statblocks from the in-game stats would help.

[Kane0]

Hearing that makes me think of sorcerer firstly, but which subclass is a bit harder to narrow down. Shadow and Divine dont have any connection for me here, nor does draconic and steering away from new-age drops aberrant mind too. Which leaves wild, storm and clockwork. I’d be inclined to take one of the former two personally, spinning those into a prismatic caster (all sorts of colored crystals) or someone who uses crystals to bring out a lot of lightning and wind spells (flying crysal shards, crystals holding electric energy, etc).

Metamagic selection could be anything, but i like the idea of transmuted and twinned with some empower and quicken thrown in. Spells can be reflavored fairly easily but some choices might include catapult (crystal chunk), color spray, ice knife, cloud of daggers (crystal shards), scorching ray/snowball swarm, erupting earth, sleet storm, ice storm, wall of stone, investiture of stone/ice, earthquake and the prismatic spells.

I’d likely as the DM to reflavor any scrolls, pearls of power, ioun stones, etc as magic crystals too. Any gear worn would be heavily adorned in crystal and any material components that could feasibly be replaced with crystal would be.

Edit: Or goong a completely different route, becoming crystalline rather than using them. Like a reflavored Goliath Fighter (EK/Psi Knight/Rune Knight) or even Barbarian (Ancestral/Beast/Totem) depending on how you want to inplement being partially crystalline.
Or if UA is available to you combine both of the above as a Stone Sorcerer!

[Iku Rex]

Earth genasi Genie (Dao) Warlock. Maybe Pact of the Blade (crystal weapons) or Pact of the Talisman (magical lucky crystal). Pick spells and invocations that can be re-fluffed to fit the theme.

[BlueHydra]

I would think aberrant mind sorcerer due to the associations between crystals and psychic stuff. Could also work with talisman warlock (the talisman is a crystal).

[TyGuy]

Crystals are always glowing and healing stuff in fantasy.
Easiest: divine soul sorcerer
More complex: divine soul sorcerer + celestial warlock

[JackPhoenix]

If we're going with Dominions...

Aberrant mind sorcerer or divination wizard.

Astral magic involves divination, luck and mind manipulation. Aberrant mind does the first and the last, divination handles all 3. Propably pick up Ritual Caster (wizard or cleric, I think wizard got some of cleric's ritual divinations in Tasha) on a sorcerer for divination rituals. Lucky feat. Air magic has illusions, speed, flight and lightning stuff. Sorcerer can do that, so can wizard.

[Amnestic]

Crystal Sorceress just makes me think of Crystal Maiden from DotA, so pretty much any ice/cold-oriented spellcaster.

Genie (Marid) Warlock, Dragon (Cold) Sorc, maybe a Scribe wizard that focuses on swapping spells into Cold damage.

[Rashagar]

Oh man, I really want to turn the world of Dominions into a 5e campaign setting. C'tissian necromancers, Van berserkers, Hinnom's cannibal giants. There would be a ton of new races, though. Lots of work to be done.

Maybe a way to generate NPC statblocks from the in-game stats would help.

I would play that in a heartbeat haha! The transition from EA to MA would provide really good imagination fuel for overarching plots or detailed backdrops to the story arc.


If we're going with Dominions...

Aberrant mind sorcerer or divination wizard.

Astral magic involves divination, luck and mind manipulation. Aberrant mind does the first and the last, divination handles all 3. Propably pick up Ritual Caster (wizard or cleric, I think wizard got some of cleric's ritual divinations in Tasha) on a sorcerer for divination rituals. Lucky feat. Air magic has illusions, speed, flight and lightning stuff. Sorcerer can do that, so can wizard.

I don't know why I didn't draw a parallel between the whole mind burn/paralysis/soul slay aspect of Dominions astral magic being very much in the Aberrant Mind wheelhouse. As weird as it might sound I think DnD mind magic is just a different colour when I imagine it haha!

[Rashagar]

I'm loving how many different interpretations of the theme there are so far to be honest.

Crystal maiden/ice crystals I can definitely see working for the friends without too much head scratching on their part/explaining on my part.

The prismatic caster idea is a group of spells I hadn't even considered but makes complete sense. I wonder if there are enough spells of that type to round out the theme without diluting it too much though.

Lightning/wind/thunder was one that had felt right to me but I couldn't identify why outside of the Dominions feeling, it's nice to know that it might feel right outside of that too.

I think the tricky part of making it about physical barriers kind of crystal magic for me would be keeping it... "clean/pure" and not just feeling like earth bending, but it's also worth thinking about.

It had also never occurred to me about the crystal weaponry/living crystal warrior idea, I think I'm going to have to spirit that away for another time. Might be a way that I can try flavouring an armourer artificer without feeling too Ironman-y.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Clockwork Soul seems tailor made. It does well to represent the ordered nature of crystalline structures and the class features deal with some of the themes discussed above.

Spell list is amazing, Good luck!

[Vogie]

I'd go a step further and actually do Armorer Artificer 3 / Sorcerer X. That way you can have Crystalline armor that wraps around you as well.

[LordShade]

"Crystal Sorceress"

https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Crystal_Maiden

[Evaar]

I think Genie - Dao Warlock. Your Eldritch Blast can even be some crystals that float around you, either firing energy blasts or just launching at bullet speed to strike enemies.

[Ogre Mage]

I know this is from 4E, but I think of a Shardmind.


https://dnd4.fandom.com/wiki/Shardmind (https://dnd4.fandom.com/wiki/Shardmind)


Someone did a 5E conversion:

https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Shardmind_(5e_Race)

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

A Google search says the Dominions crystal mages use astral and earth magic. I'm not sure if astral magic translates to anything in 5e, but Gith are from the astral plane, and Githyanki get light and medium armor proficiency plus weapon proficiencies you can swap for tool proficiencies if using Tasha's. Their default stat adjustments aren't great, but hopefully you can swap those to something useful.

I'd go Sorcerer, pick one of the origins from Tasha's and flavor it however you need to make it fit. Genie (Dao) Warlock makes sense given what I've found, but just about any spellcaster that gets the right kind of spells can work.

[Rashagar]

Hi again everyone,

I think I'd discounted the Clockwork Soul sorcerer due to perceived flavour reasons without actually looking at the subclass properly. Looking at it now with all the above suggestions in mind I see how it might actually be a great fit, so that's what I'll be going with. Thanks all!

This character will probably be coming in to play at a fairly high level (11+) so thoughts on the spell list would be appreciated if no one minds helping further, since putting together a functional spell list for high level play isn't something I have a lot of experience of.

Character idea:
The Crystal Sorceresses of Dominions were (loosely) inspired by the Amazons of Greek myth, with Crystal being one tribe among a handful of others. Between that and my recent playtime in Age of Wonders Planetfall, I think I've got the feel of a character to go with the flavour.

Flavour of Magic:
Crystal barriers, growing crystals, healing/cleansing, energy manipulation/absorption, light, illusions, divination, possibly prismatic casting. (Can't tell if this is too broad to feel cohesive though)

Class Features:
Restore Balance and Magical Guidance (optional level 5 feature) both work for divination flavour, and Bastion of Law for crystal barrier/protection.

Subclass Spells:
Protection from Evil (A crystal floats from my palm to orbit around the creature, projecting a protective field around them)
Armour of Agathys potentially? (Crystalline growths form over my limbs and body, that snap off and shatter in a burst of energy when hit). Although it feels like more of a waste to spend a high level sorcerer spell slot on casting it than it would for a warlock, though that might just be me...
Aid (Protective crystalline formations form over or orbit my allies)
Lesser Restoration (Cleansing/extracting toxins)
Counterspell (Absorbing spell energy)
Protection from Energy (Absorbing energy) could be swapped out but nothing else is really calling to me.
Summon Construct (Growing/animating a crystal being)
Freedom of Movement (?) could be swapped out but nothing else is really calling to me.
Greater Restoration (Cleansing/extracting toxins)
Wall of Force (Crystal Barrier)

Metamagic:
With the subclass spells in mind, I think I'll definitely be going for Twin spell, I might be biased but I like Protection from Evil and twinning it is so cheap!
Not sure yet about the other 2+ (depending on if I afford the feat for more)

So in all honesty I really like the above. Picking standard spells is a bit more overwhelming though. 12 known at level 11:
1. Shield, Absorb Elements (barriers and energy manipulation fit the flavour well)
2. Enhance Ability (flavoured as divination)
3. Hypnotic Pattern (probably the most flavourfully fitting crowd control spell)
4. Greater Invisibility (might be a bit of a stretch for illusions/bending light but it's a good spell)
5. Wall of Light? (it's flavourful but I don't know if it's good, or serves a purpose in this list when Wall of Force is available)
6. Sunbeam (radiant damage is fitting, though other spells at this level also seem like they could be good, eg. True Seeing, Globe of Invulnerability, and upcast Summon Construct might also be competing for this slot?)

I can potentially squeeze a feat into a level 11 character.
Eldritch Adept is always an option to get some kind of useful at-will spell (eg. silent image).
Metamagic Adept is something I know lots of people like for their sorcerers, but I already have 2 unpicked metamagic options so not sure it's needed.
I quite like the idea of Inspiring Leader for how I envision this character. It combines nicely with Aid, and with it and a maybe on Armour of Agathys I could be a weirdly beefy sorcerer. Maybe Quicken Spell metamagic and taking Blade Ward to make AoA stretch further as well? I don't know.

Any thoughts on how you would round out the above spell list, or any substitutions you'd recommend?

*Edit*
Yikes, sorry about the wall of text. Not a wall spell I was thinking of specialising in.