Just how good is aberrant mind from Tasha?

[MaxWilson]

By having a good selection of divination and enchantment spells, on top of the known spells of the base Sorcerer class, we are landing halfway between a Wizard and a Sorcerer. Thus we do not need a Wizard at all.

That does not compute.

[LudicSavant]

Hey there I just read this new bloodline and it looks Hella amazing by flavor alone but I'm not sure how mechanically good it can be.

So I'd like to hear your opinion about, I usually go dragon for blasting but AM looks more like a hold, charm, dominate and so on specialist

AM isn't bad even if you just want to focus on blasting.

Oh sure, +5 damage on a fireball certainly helps your blasting, but so does having the right spell for the situation (as a result of more spells known), or being more resource-efficient (like with 5 SP Subtle Synaptic Statics, 4 SP Black Tentacles, or keeping Hex up for 1 SP so you can open with Hex Scorching Ray), or having access to summons (they upcast well and don't eat action economy), using Warping Implosion to set up damage combos, or an extra offensive cantrip that can be used to set up Quickened blast spells. You can actually afford to spend more spells known on blasting options since you can use the Aberrant list to round out your versatility, too.

[micahaphone]

I'll say this, when building a hypothetical shadow sorcerer I've agonized over every spell choice and whether to choose optimal spells or thematic spells. With the tasha origins I can fit several thematic spells along with the real bangers. MaxWilson already brought up a great list of spells to get from the origin list, you'll have another 3-5 spells to play with and choose some fun stuff.

[Thunderous Mojo]

The 'value' of a spell is partially controlled by the conditions of a campaign. Here is some additional commentary regarding the following spells:

I find the rest of the options... underwhelming, and widely circumstantial.

Detect Thoughts is good when interacting with suspicious NPCs in social campaigns - and not for much else. The 1 minute duration is so short, the slot is essentially wasted if you don't anything useful out of the reading.

Detect Thoughts also allows you to determine the presence of creatures that have an Intelligence score greater than 3 and speak at least one language, without having to see the creature.

Detect Thoughts, therefore, has a scouting application. Note that stone and metal have varying degrees of foiling the spell, but not wood. Detect Thoughts is the spell you can cast from the outside of a closed door, to determine if a creature is inside the room. It is also the spell you cast when you are fairly certain there are hidden creatures ahead.

Information gathering has differing levels of importance from campaign to campaign, but reading the thoughts of your attackers can yield critical tactical and strategic information....The order of assassins known as the Voiceless, never communicate about their assignments and rise as zombies when Speak with Dead is used on them...time for Detect Thoughts!🔮

Clairvoyance seems rather expensive, for what it does. Is knowing what's on the other side of the door worth a level 3 slot (or even 3 sorcery points)? Usually not.

Clairvoyance at one point in the past, used to have a 3 segment casting time, and unlimited range...it was a fairly quick spell to cast.

In 5e Clairvoyance has a 10 minute casting time, and the range of 1 mile, (which is a very long range for 5e spells). While Clairvoyance can be used to "bug" the room right in front of you, I don't believe that is typically the 'best' use for the spell.

Having an unseen spy at a particular spot can pay significant dividends, depending upon the campaign. Clairvoyance is a 5e 'Hacker' spell....useful to 'bug' a meeting or to serve as an unseen camera/microphone.

Clairvoyance probably could be a Ritual Spell.

An Aberrant Mind's Psionic Sorcery gives the space for the sorcerer to select the Extended Metamagic feat. Doubling the duration of a spell for the cost of a single Sorcery Point can lead to some very efficient spell casting. (This is very true for Divine Soul Sorcerers...20 minute Spirit Guardians or Shield of Faith).

[MaxWilson]

(B) Information gathering has differing levels of importance from campaign to campaign, but reading the thoughts of your attackers can yield critical tactical and strategic information....The order of assassins known as the Voiceless, never communicate about their assignments and rise as zombies when Speak with Dead is used on them...time for Detect Thoughts!🔮

(A) In 5e Clairvoyance has a 10 minute casting time, and the range of 1 mile, (which is a very long range for 5e spells). While Clairvoyance can be used to "bug" the room right in front of you, I don't believe that is typically the 'best' use for the spell.

(A) Whoa, how did I never notice that?! For years I've believed that Clairvoyance is a spell you can use to "hop around" inside an enemy base by just recasting it in a new location that you can see from your current scrying location (Clairvoyance or Scrying), but with a ten minute casting time that's illegal since you lose concentration on the first spell long before the second spell activates. I guess I'll continue to run it my way as a rule variant because frankly a 10 minute casting time makes it a much more awkward and niche spell. With that in mind my 3rd level picks would be Enemies Abound and Sending, instead of Clairvoyance.

(B) It's not just for active attackers and suspicious NPCs, it's also for your own proactive shenanigans when you're the suspicious ones, and for interrogations after you've already defeated your recent attackers and need to learn more about their origin and allies. I think this may be what you had in mind with the Voiceless but just to be clear, the scenario is something like asking a captured mook, "How many more of you are there? Are there any wizards among your number? Where do you sleep?" etc. where the mook cannot refuse to answer because you read his mind.

Except, if you can cast it subtly, then you don't need to actually capture someone to interrogate them, you can do it in broad daylight! Disguise Self as the Drow Ambassador and then walk right up** to the Fire Giant King, cast Detect Thoughts, and ask "Who is your biggest enemy? Who do you hate the most? What are you afraid of?" to gain information prior to a Combat As War shenanigan where you break into his treasure vault and pin the blame on someone else (perhaps another Fire Giant, if that's what the King already suspects might happen). The value of Detect Thoughts here is that you can ask intrusive personal questions without having to worry about whether or not the target will answer them. Even if they just grunt and turn away, you get the answer.

** Yes, it would be more complex than this. I'm not trying to trivialize the problem of pulling a heist on a Fire Giant King and pinning the blame on someone else, I'm just summarizing the aspect of the operation where subtle casting helps.

[Thunderous Mojo]

(B) It's not just for active attackers and suspicious NPCs,

Very true.
Mercudo, (in the post I was responding to), had relegated Detect Thoughts to only being useful in the 'Social Tier', so Intended to use examples that showed how the spell can apply in the other Tiers of Play.

I just rushed, and apparently did not effectively communicate.

One idea I have been musing over is having a Aberrant Mind with the Eldritch Adept Feat: Gaze of Two Minds, use a charm spell, and the invocation, and their telepathy to scout an area with a humanoid that will not draw undue attention.

If the Fire Giant King has humanoid servitors, this might be a good way to scout, and get "eyes on" vault, (or the area around the vault), without entailing much threat to one's person.

D&D heists, and 'running silent' is one of my favorite ways to play.

[ZRN]

AM isn't bad even if you just want to focus on blasting.

Oh sure, +5 damage on a fireball certainly helps your blasting, but so does having the right spell for the situation (as a result of more spells known), or being more resource-efficient (like with 5 SP Subtle Synaptic Statics, 4 SP Black Tentacles, or keeping Hex up for 1 SP so you can open with Hex Scorching Ray), or having access to summons (they upcast well and don't eat action economy), using Warping Implosion to set up damage combos, or an extra offensive cantrip that can be used to set up Quickened blast spells. You can actually afford to spend more spells known on blasting options since you can use the Aberrant list to round out your versatility, too.

I've been wondering what people thought about Improved Invisibility hijinx with an aberrant mind. The way I see it, if you subtle spell Fireball or something while invisible, observant enemies can still trace the little bead of flame back to a source, but theoretically spells like Synaptic Static and Dissonant Whispers don't (necessarily) have a visible effect so there's really no way for you to be detected if you go invisible and then just nuke the battlefield from a safe distance with those spells. Does that sound right? And psionic spells would let you do so pretty efficiently slot-wise.

[sophontteks]

I've been wondering what people thought about Improved Invisibility hijinx with an aberrant mind. The way I see it, if you subtle spell Fireball or something while invisible, observant enemies can still trace the little bead of flame back to a source, but theoretically spells like Synaptic Static and Dissonant Whispers don't (necessarily) have a visible effect so there's really no way for you to be detected if you go invisible and then just nuke the battlefield from a safe distance with those spells. Does that sound right? And psionic spells would let you do so pretty efficiently slot-wise.

Dissonate whispers has a audable cue in the description. They can hear you whisper a discordant melody. From a strict ruling the target (and only the target) would know your location then.

Otherwise, yes, that's right. My go-to is using phantasmal force to make bees attack followed up with many Nicholas Cage memes. Natural phenomena wouldn't normally be perceived as an attack, so it could prevent combat from starting while dishing out 10d6 in 1 minute.

[ZRN]

Dissonate whispers has a audable cue in the description. They can hear you whisper a discordant melody. From a strict ruling the target (and only the target) would know your location then.

From the spell description:

You whisper a discordant melody that only one creature of your choice within range can hear, wracking it with terrible pain.

So for sure nobody other than the target can detect it, and it's a fine point whether the target would be able to pinpoint you since your voice is clearly magically altered, especially if you used the subclass feature to communicate telepathically. But they DO know enough of your location to be forced to run in the opposite direction, so that's a point.

[sophontteks]

From the spell description:



So for sure nobody other than the target can detect it, and it's a fine point whether the target would be able to pinpoint you since your voice is clearly magically altered, especially if you used the subclass feature to communicate telepathically. But they DO know enough of your location to be forced to run in the opposite direction, so that's a point.

I wouldn't take for granted that you can choose to whisper telepathically. Whispering is something I'd consider different from communicating telepathically. In this case, as you noticed, the spell does depend on the target knowing where you are, and the seperate verbal rider in the description was a clever way to ensure the target knew that.