Tiefling Draconic sorcerer w/ Flames of Phlegethos as a tank?

[LudicSavant]

is Flames of Phlegethos worth it?

Flames of Phlegethos is a pretty good feat, for the following reasons:

- It boosts your primary stat! This is a big enough deal on its own that FoP doesn't need to be applying in every situation to get its money's worth. That is to say, you should not feel like you have to cast fire spells all the time, if you're in a situation where another spell would be better.

- Mathematically, Flames of Phlegethos improves your average fire damage by approximately .5 damage per die, regardless of the die size (making it nice and easy to remember). So for example a Fireball would effectively be doing about 8d6+4 damage... that's about as much as the Draconic Sorcerer's level 6 feature! What's more, unlike said feature, it applies on all hits, so things like Create Bonfire or Wall of Fire will benefit repeatedly.


To be exact, it's +.38 per d4, +.42 per d6, +.44 per d8, +.45 per d10, +.46 per d12

- The 1d4 retribution damage hits automatically, so it's basically a straight +2.5 true DPR per melee hit on you (people usually underestimate the damage output of things that hit automatically). Also, it will totally proc stuff like Hexblade's Curse. You can stack it up with things like Fire Shield or Armor of Agathys or Hellish Rebuke (or all of the above and more) in order to make attacking you in melee a suicidal endeavor. You can then take Warcaster to make a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" decision tree (e.g. hitting the tank is bad, walking away from the tank is also bad).