Introduction
The iconic Sorcerer, the Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer leans into elemental damage matching a chosen type of true dragon. This emphasis on elemental damage, combined with unusually high durability for a Sorcerer makes Draconic Sorcery a simple and reliable Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer to build and play. It’s directly comparable to the Evoker Wizard in many ways.
Because Draconic Bloodline leans so heavily on elemental damage of your chosen type, the Elemental Adept feat is essentially required. Resistances will be a persistent problem which can negate your most exciting Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer features and render your favorite spells nearly useless. Transmuted Spell Metamagic is another tax so that you can fit more spells into your favorite element.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Disclaimer
- Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Features
- Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Backgrounds
- Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Species
- Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Ability Scores
- Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Feats
- Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Weapons
- Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Armor
- Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Multiclassing
- Example Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Build – Chromatic Orb Enthusiast
Disclaimer
RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.
- : Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
- : OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
- : Good options. Useful often.
- : Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.
We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.
The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows.
Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Features
- : A fantastic improvement to your durability. Don’t go diving into melee, though.
- : Almost everything on the
spell list will be consistently useful, and many of the options are staple
Sorcerer choices that I would recommend taking if they weren’t already on
your subclass spell list.
- : Command is a powerful crowd control option at any level. Chromatic Orb is good single-target damage.
- : Alter Self is only situationally useful, but Dragon’s Breath can be a very efficient AOE damage option, especially if you cast it on a familiar that normally can’t do damage.
- : A powerful crowd control option and a crucial utility.
- : Arcane Eye is my favorite scouting option. Charm Monster is only situationally useful.
- : Legend Lore is only useful if your DM feels like conducting a lore dump. Summon Dragon is great.
- : Powerful, but the choice is definitely stressful. If you pick a more common damage type like Fire, you’ll get more use offensively, but you’ll run into resistances more often. If you pick a less common damage type like Lightning, you’ll have very few spell options, but damage resistances will be less of an issue. Don’t pick poison. It’s commonly resisted and there are few good spells that deal poison damage.
- : As powerful and effective as casting Fly on yourself, but it doesn’t require Concentration.
- : Summon Dragon is a level 5 spell, and at
level 18 when you have level 9 spell slots, a level 5 summon spell isn’t
especially impressive unless you upcast it. The free summoning won’t be
especially impressive in combat, but since you’re not using a spell slot, you
can cast another spell with a spell slot on the same turn, such as casting
Misty Step as a Bonus Action.
Casting Summon Dragon without Concentration leaves room for you to do a lot of other cool stuff at the same time. Even if you’re repeatedly casting low-level versions of Summon Dragon as canon fodder, it can be a huge tactical advantage simply by flooding the battlefield with bodies for a few turns and wearing down enemies with the dragons’ breath weapons.
Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Backgrounds
No different from a typical Sorcerer.
Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Species
No different from a typical Sorcerer.
Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Ability Scores
No different from a typical Sorcerer. The AC and additional hit points change very little. You may be able to afford to drop Dexterity and Constitution to put resources elsewhere, but there is little reason to do so.
Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Feats
Little different from a typical Sorcerer.
- (PHB): Essentially required with the type matching your Elemental Affinity.
Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Weapons
No different from a typical Sorcerer.
Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Armor
No different from a typical Sorcerer.
Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Multiclassing
No different from a typical Sorcerer.
Example Draconic Sorcery Sorcerer Build – Chromatic Orb Enthusiast
The 2024 DnD rules updated Chromatic Orb to absorb the “leap” mechanic of Chaos Bolt, a Sorcerer-exclusive spell from the 2014 rules that essentially never saw play because Chromatic Orb did the same job better. These changes made Chromatic Orb a powerful and exciting single-target damage option. We’re going to lean heavily into Chromatic Orb in this build, seeking to optimize our damage output and our probability to leap.
But don’t worry. This is still a perfectly functional Blaster even if you’re not spamming Chromatic Orb.
Fun With Chromatic Orb
Chromatic Orb Leap Probability
Chromatic Orb leaps if we roll doubles (at least two dice match; triples, quadruples, etc. all count) on the damage dice. This becomes increasingly likely as we add additional dice, but we’re also bounded by a maximum number of leaps so that things don’t get too out of hand. The designers were smart enough to know that this could turn into a problem. Still, we’re going to try to maximize our leaps to stretch the spell’s efficiency.
| Spell Level | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Damage Dice | 3d8 | 4d8 | 5d8 | 6d8 | 7d8 | 8d8 | 9d8 | 10d8 | 11d8 |
| Leap Chance | 34% | 59% | 79% | 92% | 98% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Max Leaps | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
Have you ever started a build and thought “maybe this wasn’t necessary”? I sure have. It’s not going to stop me, but I’ve had the thought. I want 100% Leap chance on a level Chromatic Orb!
So how do we boost those probabilities? We reroll the damage dice to give ourselves more chances to get doubles. We have two very easy options for this: Elemental Adept and Empowered Spell. Both of these will allow us to reroll damage dice, and we don’t need to spend additional Sorcery Points with Empowered Spell once we’ve decided to use it, so we can reroll dice on each leap in case we don’t get doubles.
When rerolling dice, be sure not to reroll dice that got you doubles. If you have double 1’s, for example, don’t reroll them unless you have another set of doubles. Giving up a leap to get a tiny bit more damage on the current target is rarely worth the trade.
Unfortunately, I’m not qualified to give any more specific advice on when to reroll. The statistics get confusing very quickly.
Missing and How to Not Do That
Chromatic Orb can continue to leap so long as your spell attack hits, and then you roll doubles on the damage for your new target. This means that you need to reliably hit with multiple attacks in quick succession to maximize the value of Chromatic Orb.
Maximizing our Charisma is essential, just as with any Sorcerer. That’s table stakes. What we need is additional improvements to our spell attack roll.
- Innate Sorcery. Activate it as a Bonus Action and you get Advantage on the attack rolls of Sorcerer spells you cast. This means that we don’t need to rely on stealth, invisibility, etc.
- Seeking Spell Metamagic. For 1 Sorcery Point, reroll the d20 on a missed attack for a spell. Even if you used Empowered Spell, you can use Seeking Spell even if you’ve already used a different Metamagic. However, it doesn’t look like you can use this multiple times on the same spell, so it’s not enough to guarantee that you will hit.
- Spell Sniper. Cover will absolutely be a problem when Chromatic Orb leaps, so ignoring half cover and three-quarters cover will be consistently helpful. It also lets us cast Chromatic Orb safely while in melee, which makes it even more useful.
- Spellcasting Focuses. A Wand of the War Mage provides a bonus to spell attacks. A Bloodwell Vial is preferred, but Wand of the War Mage is much more likely to appear as randomly generated treasure or in a published adventure.
Range, Targeting, Cover
The spellcasting rules specify that “a spell’s description says whether the spell targets creatures, objects, or something else.” Chromatic Orb doesn’t. It would be perfectly reasonable to target creatures or objects with Chromatic Orb, so I’m going to assume that we can do so.
The rules for upcasting Chromatic Orb do specify that “a creature can be targeted only once by each casting of this spell”, but it says “a creature”, not “a target”, so you may be able to target the same object multiple times. You do need to leap to another target first, but you could repeatedly hit the same object with other targets between each hit.
Chromatic Orb’s range is 90 feet, which is comfortably long, but leap targets must be within 30 feet of the previous target. This isn’t a huge distance, but it’s typically enough to bounce between several enemies in a typical encounter. Spell Sniper both extends our range and allows us to ignore all but total cover, both of which make attacking easier, but it doesn’t extend the 30-foot leap range.
If 30 feet isn’t enough range to jump between creatures, use a nearby object as a target to stretch your range. You may be able to target spaces on floors, walls, and ceilings if there isn’t a convenient piece of furniture or a plan or something, but your DM might give you a funny look. As a DM, I would allow it because you’re spending one of the limited number of bounces to damage scenery.
The interaction with total cover is a bit weird. The spellcasting rules specify that “to target something with a spell, a caster must have a clear path to it, so it can’t be behind Total Cover.” This applies to our leap targets, too. So, unfortunately, we can’t fire Chromatic Orb and then leap it around a corner at targets that we can’t see. The orb could leap through a space which is behind total cover, but we still need to see the target to attack it.
Is the Damage Worth All of This?
Sometings, but only if you have enough targets to justify it, but also can’t justify using an area damage spell like Fireball or Chain Lightning. It’s admittedly a narrow use case, but the total damage can be exceptionally high in the right circumstances.
Let’s look at Chromatic Orb alongside some other ranged attack spells:
| Spell Level | Chromatic Orb (1 Target) | Max Targets | Chromatic Orb (Max Targets( | Guiding Bolt | Scorching Ray |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3d8 (avg. 13.5) | 2 | 6d8 (avg. 27) | 4d6 (avg. 14) | – |
| 2 | 4d8 (avg. 18) | 3 | 12d8 (avg. 54) | 5d6 (avg. 17.5) | 6d6 (avg. 21) |
| 3 | 5d8 (avg. 22.5) | 4 | 20d8 (avg. 90) | 6d6 (avg. 21) | 8d6 (avg. 28) |
| 4 | 6d8 (avg. 27) | 5 | 30d8 (avg. 135) | 7d6 (avg. 24.5) | 10d6 (avg. 35) |
| 5 | 7d8 (avg. 31.5) | 6 | 42d8 (avg. 189) | 8d6 (avg. 28) | 12d6 (avg. 42) |
| 6 | 8d8 (avg. 36) | 7 | 56d8 (avg. 252) | 9d6 (avg. 31.5) | 14d6 (avg. 49) |
| 7 | 9d8 (avg. 40.5) | 8 | 72d8 (avg. 324) | 10d6 (avg. 35) | 16d6 (avg. 56) |
| 8 | 10d8 (avg. 45) | 9 | 90d8 (avg. 405) | 11d6 (avg. 38.5) | 18d6 (avg. 63) |
| 9 | 11d8 (avg. 49.5) | 10 | 110d8 (avg. 495) | 12d6 (avg. 42) | 20d6 (avg. 70) |
A level 3 Chromatic Orb hitting 4 targets does more total damage than a level 9 Scorching Ray. Of course, that’s spread across multiple targets, which isn’t always as useful as eliminating a single enemy. But if we can hit just 2 targets, Chromatic Orb deals significantly more total damage than a Scorching Ray of the same level.
We can also compare Chromatic Orb to area damage spells. We’ll look at Fireball because it’s the go-to area damage spell and at Chain Lightning because it share’s Chromatic Orb’s ability to hit multiple enemies without hurting your allies. It’s not a perfect comparison, but it’s still informative.
| Spell Level | Chain Lightning | Chain Lightning Secondary Targets | Fireball |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | – | – | – |
| 2 | – | – | – |
| 3 | – | – | 8d6 (avg. 28) |
| 4 | – | – | 10d6 (avg. 35) |
| 5 | – | – | 12d6 (avg. 42) |
| 6 | 10d8 (avg. 45) | 3 | 14d6 (avg. 49) |
| 7 | 10d8 (avg. 45) | 4 | 16d6 (avg. 56) |
| 8 | 10d8 (avg. 45) | 5 | 18d6 (avg. 63) |
| 9 | 10d8 (avg. 45) | 6 | 20d6 (avg. 70) |
Let’s assume that we can hit 4 targets with each spell. With a level 6 spell slot, we’ll deal 180 damage with Chain Lightning, 196 with Fireball, but just 144 with Chromatic Orb. This shows us that Chromatic Orb doesn’t make those other spells obsolete: it’s a precision tool for specific circumstances. If there are more targets that support the orb leaping, Chromatic Orb can quickly outdamage Chain Lightning and Fireball. But that’s a big “if”.
Now that you’ve indulged my need for math, tables, and bouncing a magical ball of acid across everything in the room, let’s get back to an actual build.
Ability Scores
We’ll start from a very typical build for the Sorcerer.
| Base | Adjusted | Level 20 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Str | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Dex | 14 | 14 | |
| Con | 15 | 16 | |
| Int | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Wis | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| Cha | 17 | 17 |
Background
Merchant. We like the Lucky feat to get Advantage on attacks with Chromatic Orb if we can’t bring up Innate Sorcery for some reason.
Species
Halfling. We want Lucky. It’s a small boost on all of our d20 tests, and occasionally it will help with our Chromatic Orb attacks.
Skill and Tool Proficiencies
We get Animal Handling, Persuasion, and Navigator’s Tools from our background. We’ll take Insight and Intimidation from our class skills.
Feats and Ability Score Increases
At level 1 we get Lucky from our background.
At level 4 we take Elemental Adept to lean into fire damage even harder. We increase Charisma to 18.
At level 8 we take Spell Sniper to support our spell attacks. We increase Charisma to 19.
At level 12 we take War Caster. We increase Charisma to 20.
At level 16 we increase Constitution from 16 to 18.
At level 19 we take Boon of Fate. We increase Charisma to 21.
Levels
| Level | Feat(s) and Features | Notes and Tactics |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spellcasting Innate Sorcery Cantrips: – Acid Splash – Mage Hand – Prestidigitation – True Strike Prepared Spells – False Life – Witch Bolt | Acid Splash for groups, True Strike with a crossbow for single targets. Mage Hand and Prestidigitation for utility. We’ll take False Life instead of Mage Armor since we’ll get 13+Dex AC for free starting at level 3, and we’re already planning to retrain a spell at level 3. We’ll take Witch Bolt for sustained damage output at low cost. |
| 2 | Font of Magic Metamagic – Empowered Spell – Transmuted Spell Prepared Spells – Chromatic Orb – Shield | Empowered Spell gets us a little more power out of our damage spells and maybe get doubles on Chromatic Orb if we didn’t on our initial roll. Transmuted Spell will pay off later. |
| 3 | Draconic Sorcery Draconic Resilience Draconic Spells Prepared Spells – Enhance Ability – Web – Alter Self* – Chromatic Orb* – Command* – Dragon’s Breath* | Our subclass comes online and we immediately get much more durable. 15 AC, and a decent pile of hit points. We’re still frail, but at least we can cast Shield. Retrain Chromatic Orb into anything else since we get it prepared for free thanks to Draconic Sorcery. Absorb Elements is a good choice for non-acid damage. |
| 4 | Feat: Elemental Adept (Acid) (Cha 17 -> 18) Cantrips: – Mind Sliver Prepared Spells – Misty Step | According to the 2014 SRD, Acid is the least common damage immunity of our damage type options, so we’re going to lean acid damage as much as we can. Leaning into fire damage makes things much easier until we hit the solid wall of fire resistance. You’ll need to decide if you want to deal with a Sorcery Point tax or with common damage immunity. |
| 5 | Sorcerous Restoration Prepared Spells – Fireball – Hypnotic Pattern – Fear* – Fly* | We’ll need to use Transmuted Spell frequently to benefit from Elemental Affinity’s damage bonus, which is an annoying tax, but it’s worth the cost if we’re casting Fireball. If there aren’t enough targets to justify Fireball, use Chromatic Orb. At this level, retrain True Strike. Since cantrip damage has improved, regular cantrips are usually a better choice. Ray of Frost is a good option. |
| 6 | Elemental Affinity (Acid) Prepared Spells – Slow | A bonus to one damage roll on our spells dealing acid damage. Great for instantaneous AOE damage, but it doesn’t do much for our Chromatic Orb leaps. It also notably doesn’t apply multiple times with things like Dragon’s Breath. |
| 7 | Sorcery Incarnate Prepared Spells – Wall of Fire – Arcane Eye* – Charm Monster* | We could take Vitriolic Sphere since it’s one of very few acid spells, but it’s just not as good as Fireball, so we’ll need to continue to transmute Fireball. |
| 8 | Feat: Spell Sniper (Cha 18 -> 19) Prepared Spells – Banishment | Spell Sniper extends the range of our spells. If you still have Witch Bolt, you can keep it running on an enemy as long as they stay with 120 feet, but that’s not a good use of your action economy at this level. |
| 9 | Prepared Spells – Insect Plague – Hold Monster – Legend Lore* – Summon Dragon* | Nothing super fancy or novel here. Summon Dragon quickly becomes a favorite Concentration option. You can ride on its back and it can use its breath weapon for a full hour. Unfortunately, I don’t think Elemental Adept applies to the dragon’s damage. |
| 10 | Metamagic – Extended Spell – Seeking Spell Cantrips – Any Prepared Spells – Telekinesis | Extended Spell makes our dragon last 2 hours. |
| 11 | Prepared Spells – Chain Lightning | Chain Lightning is a more efficient use of a level 6 spell slot than upcasting Chromatic Orb in most cases. Not all, but most. It’s also a single damage roll, so it benefits from Elemental Affinity much more. |
| 12 | Feat: War Caster (Cha 19 -> 20) | Our Concentration is exceptionally reliable. |
| 13 | Prepared Spells – Plane Shift | Excellent both for utility and for sending enemies somewhere horrible. |
| 14 | Dragon Wings | Easy flight without Concentration. |
| 15 | Prepared Spells – Incendiary Cloud | Oh look, more things to transmute. And, unlike Cloudkill, Incendiary Cloud isn’t a Constitution save. |
| 16 | Feat: ASI (Con 16 -> 18) | More HP, more Concentration. |
| 17 | Metamagic – Any 2 Prepared Spells – Meteor Swarm | Meteor Swarm, but it’s acid. |
| 18 | Dragon Companion Prepared Spells – Wish | The ability to cast Summon Dragon without Concentration is cool, especially since we can still Extend it for 1 Sorcery Point. |
| 19 | Epic Boon: Boon of Fate (Cha 20 -> 21) Prepared Spells – Time Stop | Boon of Fate is amazing on a spellcaster. If you’re getting a ton of mileage out of Chromatic Orb, Boon of Combat Prowess is weirdly good. |
| 20 | Arcane Apotheosis Prepared Spells – Any | Finally Transmute Spell is free! Acid all day, every day! |
