Introduction

Sorcerers are defined thematically by their subclass, and they’re one of very few classes who decide their subclass at first level. Because this choice comes so early, it defines your build immediately, and the way your character functions at the table depends heavily on your subclass features.

Table of Contents

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.

  • Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
  • Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
  • Green: Good options. Useful often.
  • Blue: 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.

Tasha’s Subclasses

Recent subclasses introduced in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything introduced a new mechanic: free spells known as part of your subclass. If you’re eyeing that addition but want to play a different subclass, check out this blog post which has some suggestions. Be sure to check the comments on the post, too, as other folks have provided wonderful suggestions of their own.

Sorcerer Subclasses – Sorcerous Origin

Aberrant Mind (TCoE)

The Sorcerer’s psionics-themed subclass, the Aberrant Mind notably lacks the same Psionic Energy Dice shared by the Psi Warrior and Soul Knife. Jeremy Crawford explained that feedback from the Unearthed Arcana playtest pointed out that the Sorcerer already has a pool of class-specific expendable resources in their Sorcery Points, and adding a second pool felt weird. So, WotC listened to community feedback and removed it for the final version of the subclass. It’s fun to be part of the design process, isn’t it?

Without Psionic Energy Dice, there’s little that makes this subclass actually “psionic”; it’s mostly just themed around tentacles. In fact, it’s much more “Great Old One” than “Psionic”, though I’m starting to think that the two might be more closely related than I realize. If you can’t decide between a GOOLock and a Sorcerer, this is a great compromise.

Mechanically, the Aberrant Mind is excellent. Psionic Spells dramatically expands your number of known spells, and doesn’t completely lock you into the granted spells like most similar subclass features. The other subclass features offer a number of interesting and powerful utility options, allowing you to solve many problems without needing to find a suitable spell and committing one of your precious few spells known. If you’re more comfortable playing a cleric or a wizard and having a lengthy list of spells available, the Aberrant Mind can make the Sorcerer a much easier prospect since its toolbox is so mucg larger than a typical sorcerer.

Aberrant Mind Sorcerer Handbook

  1. Psionic Spells: There is a lot of complexity buried in this feature that’s very easy to overlook, but understanding what makes this so powerful will help you to capitalize on it.

    The first and most obvious benefit is that you get several excellent spells, including some warlock exclusives like Hunger of Hadar and wizard exclusives like Evard’s Black Tentacles. Not everything on the list is a gem, of course, and be sure to check my Warlock Spell List Breakdown and my Wizard Spell List Breakdown for details on the spells borrowed from other spell lists.

    Slightly less obvious: this adds a total of 10 known leveled spells to your sorcerer (Mind Sliver is buried in the 1st-level spells on the table, and it’s a cantrip). A 20th-level sorcerer typically knows just 15 spells, so this is a massive increase. Even at level 1, you know twice as many spells as a typical sorcerer, plus you get an additional cantrip.

    Third, and easiest to overlook, is the retraining mechanic. The Sorcerer can already retrain one known spell every time they gain a level, but Psionic Spells also allows you to retrain the spells granted by the feature. Surprisingly, you can choose from the sorcerer, warlock, and wizard spell lists, though you’re limited to divination and enchantment spells. Of course, there are plenty of excellent divination and enchantment options (Hex is tempting at early levels), so that’s not a problem. Trade in spells that you’re not benefiting from as you gain levels, especially since divination options are often useful long after their spell level stops being defining in combat.

    1. 1st Level: Two decent low-level damage options, and the absolutely phenomenal Mind Sliver. I recommend retraining Arms of Hadar after a few levels, but you might enjoy Dissonant Whispers as an inexpensive way to force enemies to remove themselves from grapples and/or to provoke opportunity attacks.

      Replacing either of these spells with Silvery Barbs makes that spell eligible for Psionic Sorcery. Even though it would cost a reaction, using it on our own save-or-suck spells would be like getting to use Heighten for only 1 Sorcery Point.

    2. 3rd Level: Two options with situational uses. Detect Thoughts is difficult for spellcasters that aren’t Intelligence-based, so consider retraining it.
    3. 5th Level: Hunger of Hadar is an excellent AOE damage and area control option, and I’ve eyed it jealously from other spellcasting classes since 5e’s initial release. Sending is neat but not crucial, so you might retrain it, especially once you have long-distance teleportation available at higher levels.
    4. 7th Level: Black Tentacles is a good spell, but it does less damage and has a smaller AOE than Hunger of Hadar, and also doesn’t scale with spell level, so there’s a lot of redundancy between the two that the Sorcerer can’t justify. I recommend picking one of the two to keep and retraining the other. Summon Aberration is one of the new summon options presented in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, and it’s pretty good, offering three very effective choices to suit your needs.
    5. 9th Level: Two excellent utility options. Rary’s Telepathic Bond feels like a weird choice since you get Telepathic Speech at first level, but Telepathic Speech is extremely limited so Rary’s Telepathic Bond is a big upgrade.
  2. Telepathic Speech: A useful utility, but very limited compared to most forms of telepathy. You can communicate, but you still need to share a language, the duration is short, and you can only connect to one creature. That’s enough to send your party’s Scout off on their own with a way to remain in contact, but beyond stealth and subtlety there are few meaningful ways to use this.
  3. Psionic Sorcery: This saves you one or two Sorcery Points (depending on the spell level) when you spend Sorcery Points to get extra spell slots. You also don’t need to spend the Bonus Action to convert Sorcery Points into spell slots first. You also get to cast the spell without verbal or somatic components (and some material components), so you get the benefits of Subtle Spell for free.

    It’s not perfectly clear how this works if you retrained the spells from Psionic Spells. This definitely applies to the default spells that you get, but I’m not sure otherwise. I think RAW it works with retrained spells since you still get those spells from the feature, but keep an eye out for Sage Advice or Errata, and check with your DM until then.

  4. Psychic Defenses: Psychic damage is rare, but charm and fear effects are very common.
  5. Revelation in Flesh: For a single Sorcery Point, every one of these effects is excellent. Replicating any of these is at least a 2nd-level spell, so the effects aren’t just good, they’re very cost-efficient. Note that since the fly and swim speeds are based on your walking speed, it’s easy to boost your new movement speed with buffs like Longstrider or Haste.

    Personal note: Tyler finds the term “writhing sensory tendrils” upsetting.

  6. Warping Implosion: Great for setting up combos with Quicken Spell. Follow this with a quickened AOE damage spell like Meteor Swarm or area control spell like Force Cage and you can eliminate whole encounters in one turn even at this high level. The saving throw is Strength, though, and with the exceptions of enemies who rely on magic in combat many enemies will have high Strength saves.

Clockwork Soul (TCoE)

Where the Wild Magic Sorcerer is chaos, randomness, rerolls, and wacky fun chaos, the Clockwork Soul Sorcerer is order, no rerolls, numerical minimums, and straight order and efficiency. It offers tools to solve a variety of problems in orderly fashion, including spell options borrowed from the Cleric and Wizard. However, the Clockwork Soul leans heavily on its spell list, and the other subclass features are often only situationally useful, leaving the player to wait for these features to matter from time to time in between casting spells every turn.

The Clockwork Soul shares a lot of design philosophy with the Abberant Mind, giving sorcerers 10 more known leveled spells and the ability to retrain them into a pair of specific schools of magic. However, the Clockwork Soul’s other features are notably more situational in nature than those given to the Abberant Mind. The Clockwork Soul is by no means bad or weak, though, and its spell list includes several excellent options from the Cleric spell list (though none of them are hit point restoration so you’ll need to get that elsewhere), in addition to a lot of staple spellcasting options which a sorcerer might otherwise be forced to take with their very limited known spells to avoid leaving their party without crucial options like Dispel Magic.

For a veteran player with a solid grasp of the rules and of their party’s capabilities, the Clockwork Soul Sorcerer is an excellent option. However, unless you know exactly where the Clockwork Soul fits into your party, you may find that the subclass has a lot of redundancies with other spellcasters. If your party wants to go without a cleric or druid, the Clockwork Soul is a great option, though you’ll still need to solve the issue of hit point restoration. For less experienced players, the Clockwork Soul may be a great introduction to the Sorcerer due to their abnormally large list of known spells, but personally I would still point new players to less complex subclasses like draconic bloodline or less “serious business” options like wild magic.

Clockwork Soul Sorcerer Handbook

  1. Clockwork Magic: There is a lot of complexity buried in this feature that’s very easy to overlook, but understanding what makes this so powerful will help you to capitalize on it.

    The first and most obvious benefit is that you get several excellent spells, including some cleric options like Aid and wizard options like Summmon Construct and Wall of Force. Not everything on the list is a gem, of course, and be sure to check my Cleric Spell List Breakdown (for the cleric spells which you get by default) and my Warlock Spell List Breakdown and Wizard Spell List Breakdown for details on the spells borrowed from the Wizard’s spell list as well as possible retraining options.

    Slightly less obvious: this adds a total of 10 known leveled spells to your sorcerer. A 20th-level sorcerer typically knows just 15 spells, so this is a massive increase. Even at level 1, you know twice as many spells as a typical sorcerer.

    Third, and easiest to overlook, is the retraining mechanic. The Sorcerer can already retrain one known spell every time they gain a level, but Clockwork Magic also allows you to retrain the spells granted by the feature. Surprisingly, you can choose from the sorcerer, warlock, and wizard spell lists, though you’re limited to abjuration and transmutation spells. Of course, there are plenty of excellent abjuration and transmutation options (Absorb Elements and Shield are good at any level), so that’s not a problem. Trade in spells that you’re not benefiting from as you gain levels, especially since abjuration options are often useful long after their spell level stops being defining in combat.

    1. 1st Level: Protection from Evil and Good is a staple buff at any level, covering a wide range of dangerous creatures. Alarm isn’t useful enough to justify on a sorcerer, so retrain it.
    2. 3rd Level: Two staple cleric options.
    3. 5th Level: A staple utility option and an important defensive buff. Not glamorous or flashy, but hard to go without.
    4. 7th Level: Freedom of Movement is situationally useful, but helpful against enemies which like to grapple. Summon Construct is a wizard exclusive, and it’s a decent summon option if you need a pet Defender.
    5. 9th Level: Greater Restoration isn’t as important as Lesser Restoration, but it’s still very important. The conditions which it fixes are miserable and in many cases borderline lethal. Wall of Force (another wizard exclusive) is one of the best area control effects around, especially if you have another spellcaster in the party who can drop some ongoing area damage before you put your enemies inside the impenetrable hemisphere.
  2. Restore Balance: This solves a lot of problems. Creatures which have Advantage on saves against specific conditions are common, and for a sorcerer encountering those resistances can handicap you a great deal due to your limited pool of spells knowns. Similarly, if your allies have Disadvantage on a save (such as because they are Restrained or Poisoned), you can help protect them. The usage pool is limited, so save this for when it really matters.
  3. Bastion of Law: This is similar in many ways to temporary hit points (though you can notably apply this on top of temporary hit points). The duration is great, and allowing the target to choose when to use the ward allows you to take a little damage when you know that there’s a Short Rest coming so you can spend some hit dice to manage your limited resources.

    Compare this to casting False Life. False Life is a 1st-level spell, so you can spend two Sorcery Points to get a spell slot with which to cast False Life. False Life lasts for one hour, and grants 1d4+4 (average 6.5) temporary hit points. Each additional spell level adds 5 more hit points. For those same two Sorcery points, you can give a creature a ward with two dice, which will prevent an average of 9 damage and lasts until you take a Long Rest. Each additional Sorcery Points adds 4.5 more damage protection, compared to one or two Sorcery Points for 5 more temporary hit points from False Life. So Bastion of law is cheaper compared to a 1st-level spell slot, and the scaling cost of converting Sorcery Points into spell slots keeps this more efficient.

  4. Trance of Order: The Fundamental Math of DnD 5e assumes that players will succeed on attack rolls against a typical CR-appropriate AC if they roll an 8 or better (provided that your primary ability scores hits 16, 18, and 20 at levels 1, 4, and 8), giving players a 65% chance of hitting an attack against an average, CR-appropriate enemy. Giving you a minimum guaranteed roll of 10 on attacks, saves, and ability checks means that you’re mostly guaranteed to hit with attacks, pass on any saves in which you’re proficient and have a decent ability score, and pass any ability checks with skills in which you’re well-suited. With a 1-minute duration, this is enough to get through one combat or to perform series of skill checks if you move quickly.

    This is a great ability on almost any other class, but on the Sorcerer its usefulness is extremely limited. Spells which require attack rolls (with the exception of cantrips) mostly vanished around 2nd-level spells unless you’re upcasting low-level spells. Sorcerers are proficient with Constitution saves so this helps with Concentration, so this helps a lot with that. Since sorcerers are Charisma-based, most of your skills will be too and using Persuasion in combat doesn’t work particularly well. So the three best uses for this are cantrips, upcasting low-level spells like Scorching Ray, and Concentration. That’s underwhelming for an ability which costs 5 Sorcery Points to recharge.

  5. Clockwork Cavalcade: Even with three effects, this is still only situationally useful. The 100 points of healing will be the most consistently useful option for adventurers, allowing you to get allies back on their feet and restore a nice chunk of hit points. But at this level, healing options like Mass Cure Wounds and Heal have been around for a while.

    The repair effect is neat, but only rarely useful. This could be used to solve some puzzles though: Picture the Rosetta Stone, now picture the Rosetta Stone after a Clockwork Soul snaps their fingers and all the broken pieces that have been missing for millennia just reappear in place with complete text and all the wear and tear of time is undone.

    Perhaps the most remarkable effect is the last one, which outright ends spell effects without the ability checks required by Dispel Magic. But even then, it’s rare that you’ll face more than a small handful of enemies with magic effects on them, so in most cases you can just upcast Dispel Magic to 6th level to get the same effect if you don’t want to risk making the ability checks.

Divine Soul (XGtE)

If you can’t decide between playing a divine caster or an arcane caster, play a Divine Soul. Access to the Cleric’s spell list allows you to combine some of the best spell options in the game, allowing a single character to solve nearly any problem that can be solved using magic.

Divine Soul’s biggest challenge is the inherent analysis paralysis imposed by fitting two spell lists into just 15 spells known. You simply can’t learn everything that you want to learn on one character. But that’s the guiding principle of the Sorcerer: you need to pick your favorites and use Metamagic to make those options work.

Divine Soul Sorcerer Handbook

  1. Divine Magic: Access to the cleric spell list is amazing. They have many of the absolute best divine spells, including most of the best healing options, a ton of great support options, and many fantastic divinations. Unfortunately you’ll need to split your focus between normal arcane spells and pretending to be a cleric, but the possibilities for combinations are amazing.

    You also gain an additional spell known at level 1 based on your alignment. One spell doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s still very useful for the Sorcerer.

    • Good: Important in most parties, but Healing Word is more frequently useful.
    • Evil: Beyond low levels the damage is poor, the scaling is bad compared to many sorcerer spells, and getting into melee to use this is risky.
    • Law: A fantastic buff at any level.
    • Chaos: Decent but difficult to rely upon, and if you’re going to force Charisma saves you really want failure to be more meaningful than a small debuff. Still, Bane may be a good way to burn through Legendary Resistances.
    • Neutral: A fantastic defensive buff.
  2. Favored by the Gods: Most features like this only grant 1d6, which has a lower average and is less reliable because it’s only a single die. This also recharges on a short rest, making it a frequent and reliable defensive option.
  3. Empowered Healing: The problem with this ability is the problem with healing in combat. If you’re in a fight, healing is rarely the best option. Death is easy to prevent in 5e, and if you’ve got Healing Word you can get an ally back into the fight as a bonus action. Being massively injured isn’t much of an impediment, so allies can limp around at 1 hp and still be perfectly effective. With the exception of Heal, getting a creature back to full hit points should generally be reserved for healing out of combat. Once you’re out of combat and your action economy isn’t limited, you usually don’t need to expend limited resources like spell slots to scrape together every last hit point. Sit down and spend some hit dice.
  4. Otherworldly Wings: Persistent flight is amazing at any level.
  5. Unearthly Recovery: This could be a lot of healing, but by this level you probably know Heal.

Draconic Bloodline (PHB)

Draconic Bloodline is primarily a blaster focusing on damage via a single elemental damage type, and between its unusal durability and emphasis on direct damage, it’s very simple to play. This makes the Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer an excellent choice for new players.

  1. Dragon Ancestor: Your choice of ancestor only matters mechanically for the energy type, and it only affects the Elemental Affinity ability. That said, you want to pick an energy type which you can use frequently and which offers a large number of spell options which can apply Elemental Affinity.
    • Acid: Recent sourcebooks have gradually added new and powerful options for acid damage, including excellent spells like Tasha’s Caustic Brew. Acid damage from enemies is roughly as common as cold or lightning.
    • Cold: Roughly as many damage options as Acid or Lightning, but they’re less consistently good. Expect to rely on spell options like Ice Knife and Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm which may be slightly more challenging than comparable fire-based spells.
    • Fire: Of the available options, fire damage has the most available spells by far, but resistance and immunity to fire are common, so expect to take Elemental Adept. Enemies who deal fire damage are also common, so the resistance is frequently helpful.
    • Lightning: Nearly as common as Fire spells, and considerably fewer creatures resist it.
    • Poison: Poison resistance and immunity are extremely common, and since Elemental Adept doesn’t allow you to select Poison you will have trouble overcoming resistance. There also aren’t many good spells which deal poison damage. Poison damage from enemies is common, but if you’re worried about it you can play a dwarf.
  2. Draconic Resilience: This helps offset your d6 hit points, and gives you the equivalent of permanent Mage Armor. You’ll still want a bit of Dexterity and Constitution, but this is very helpful. Note that the bonus hit points only apply to Sorcerer levels, but if you’re taking a Sorcerer dip the armor will continue to function.
  3. Elemental Affinity: According to Sage Advice and the Errata, this effect (and similar effects) apply to a single damage roll per spell, so it’s much more effective on AOE spells like Fireball than on multiple-attack style spells like Scorching Ray. A boost of up to 5 damage per spell, especially with AOE spells, is a considerable boost, especially on low-level spells like Burning Hands, so your low-level spells can continue to be big damage dealers while consuming your less-powerful spell slots. You also have the ability to grant yourself energy resistance for an hour without the need to concentrate.
  4. Dragon Wings: Flight is crucial at high levels, especially for spellcasters who need to stay out of reach of terrifying melee enemies. Spells like Fly require Concentration, which severely limits your options, so the ability to remain in flight and concentrate on other effects is a massive tactical advantage.
  5. Draconic Presence: Cast Fear or cast Calm Emotions or something. This is rarely worth 5 Sorcery Points. The big advantage over other options is that the AOE follows you and creatures that enter the area after you activate Draconic Presence are affected. The best use case for this is when a mob of enemies are charging you and your allies, but those situations are rare and could easily be handled by Wall of Fire.

Lunar Sorcery (SotDQ)

The Moon Mage from Planet Krynn. Lunar Sorcery comes to us from the Dragonlance campaign setting with some very strong features. Boasting 15 extra spells known as well as a bonus cantrip, a cursory glance might mislead you to believe it is too strong. But first, read over the list of spells and also keep in mind that they do not have the ability to replace any of these spells. Once you cross off all the less than stellar spells on the list, it ends up being in line with the Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul: Better than the PHB options but not overly strong vs other classes.

Instead of power creep, the Lunar Sorcerer has what I would call versatility creep. It’s not overly strong by any traditional DPR or sturdiness metrics, it just has more options to use from round to round. I suppose what it does have over other Sorcerers would be longevity, thanks to the Lunar Boons feature giving a small discount on Spell Point costs, allowing a Lunar Sorcerer to push out a few more effects each day.

Lunar Sorcery Sorcerer Handbook

  1. Lunar Embodiment: There are two halves to this feature. One half grants the Sorcerer 15 total spells known from a fixed list. The list is generally good, but unlike other Sorcerous Origins that allow the user to swap spells out, this list is static.

    The second half allows the user to cast one of the 1st-level spells once per day without expending a spell slot, depending on which Moon Phase is chosen at the start of the day.. At later levels, this expands to allow each of the three 1st-level spells once each per day without expending a spell slot.

    And by which phase you choose, we mean always Full Moon and only Full Moon from levels one to five where the only thing the phase controls is the free 1st-level spell. Because Full Moon is the shield spell and the other two spells are too situational to need a free cast each day.

    • Level 1: One great spell, one okay spell, and one not great spell. All three are already on the Sorcerer list as well. Still, the good spell is something most Sorcerers already take so having it be available as a once per day free spell is even better.
    • Level 3: Fantastic options here. One great spell not on the Sorcerer list, and two spells ranked Green on the Sorcerer spell breakdown.
    • Level 5: Overall rather solid. Two spells from outside the Sorcerer list as well as a commonly taken spell for Sorcerers. While one of these spells is a bit niche, ranked Orange on the Wizard list even it still has occasional uses.
    • Level 7: One dud spell ranked red on the Sorcerer list is made up for by getting both a good and an okay spell from outside the Sorcerer list.
    • Level 9: Continuing the trend, one spell from the Sorcerer list, ranked blue this time, as well as two spells from outside the list. A very good blue ranked Wizard-only spell and a niche but still useful orange spell from Wizard.
  2. Moon Fire: An additional cantrip known that is normally exclusive to Cleric but with a twist that allows it to hit an extra target. Strong boost when you can hit the extra target, but also nice to gain another out of class spell in a valuable damage type that’s hard to access.
  3. Lunar Boons: An upgrade to metamagic to really stretch out your spell points, as long as you prepare ahead of time for the schools of magic you want to add metamagic to. Yes, because it can only be used PB times per long rest, it’s at most 6 more Spell Points worth of metamagic at the high end, but that’s still more than other Sorcerers.
  4. Waxing and Waning: This is the feature that allows you to switch up your Moon Phase, changing, among other things, which schools of magic the enhancement to metamagic from Lunar Boons is applied to. This is also the feature that allows you to get those extra free 1st-level spell casts from Lunar Embodiment, as mentioned above.
  5. Lunar Empowerment: Three passive benefits depending on which Moon Phase we’re in.
    • Full Moon: Being a flashlight with some extra benefits to searching for stuff is likely to be useful more often than not.
    • New Moon: Sneaky stealth mode for sneaky stealth missions.
    • Crescent Moon: Resistance to multiple uncommon damage types.
  6. Lunar Phenomenon: Three potent options that can each be used as a bonus action once per long rest, or repeated for 5 Sorcery points. As a great QoL feature, this can also be activated with the same bonus action that changes your form via Waxing and Waning. Meaning you could start in Full Moon, use Waxing and Waning to spend one Sorcery Point to switch to Crescent Moon and simultaneously activate the Crescent Moon Lunar Phenomenon.
    • Full Moon: An AoE Con save to inflict Blindness for a round along with some minor healing, which is very nice but still the “weakest” of the three options.
    • New Moon: AoE damage and speed reduction paired with self Invisibility for a round as a non-spell bonus action, so you can still cast a spell as your Action.
    • Crescent Moon: Duo misty step with free resistance for you and your partner for a round as well.

Shadow Magic (XGtE)

Powerful and versatile with a good mix of abilities, the Shadow Magic bloodline is at its best in the dark. Even in areas of bright light, the magical darkness rules will give you a massive tactical advantage over anyone except devils and the handful of warlocks (or people who take Eldritch Initiate) who have the Devil’s Sight invocation.

Hound of Ill Omen makes the Shadow Magic Sorcerer an ideal save-or-suck caster, providing an easy and relatively inexpensive way to impose Disadvantage on targets’ saving throws. While your spell selection isn’t so broad as subclasses like Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul, the sheer incredible power of Hound of Ill Omen allows you to thrive with a very small spell selection.

Shadow Magic Sorcerer Handbook

  1. Eyes of the Dark: Darkvision is important in a game that often includes a lot of dungeons, caves, and other poorly-lit locales. 120 ft. Darkvision means that you can safely attack other enemies with Darkvision while remaining outside their vision range. In places that are well lit (like outside, if that’s somewhere that you go for whatever reason), casting Darkness using Sorcery Points means that you’ve got a fun little bubble where you (and often only you) can see normally. Darkness is a 2nd-level spell, and converting a 2nd-level spell slot to Sorcery Points gives you 2 Sorcery Points, so all that it costs you is the Bonus Action to make the conversion.
  2. Strength of the Grave: This might keep you going if you’re dropped by an attack that doesn’t deal a lot of damage, but against abilities which deal lots of damage all at once like breath weapons or spells it’s going to be very difficult to make the saving throw.
  3. Hound of Ill Omen: Even at high levels when the dire wolf stat block won’t be threatening, forcing Disadvantage on saving throws means that you can easily hit the target of your hound with a save-or-suck spell immediately after summoning the hound.

    The hound also moves unerringly toward the target, so if they become invisible you have a great way to locate them. The hound can move through objects (though it can’t fly), so even solid walls won’t stop this thing once you summon it, and it has enough hit points that it can suffer a few attacks before it dies.

    In essence, this is Heightened Spell attached to a very determined set of teeth, and unlike Heightened Spell the target suffers Disadvantage on all saves against your spells rather than the first save for an affected spell. As an example: you can target a creature with your hound then hit it with Hold Monster, and it will make every save against Hold Monster at Disadvantage. Even better, your wolf will attack it with Advantage and score automatic critical hits (provided that it hits, which is still a problem against high-AC foes) since the target it paralyzed.

    Curiously, there’s no limitation on how many hounds you can have beyond the Sorcery Point cost. If you want to summon a hound every turn until you run out of sorcery points, you’re free to do so. If you want to get multiple hounds on the field then upcast Hold Monster to paralyze a bunch of things, that’s a thing you can do. I’ve done it, and it’s exactly as amazing as it sounds.

    Now, your foes might decide to try killing the hound, but any attack against the hound is damage not taken by your less instantly resummonable party members. One more fun little tidbit, even though it’s called “Hound” you can just decide it’s whatever you want. A black cat bringing bad luck, a totally rad dinosaur, a horrible goose. Flavor is free.

  4. Shadow Walk: Free teleportation as a Bonus Action! The range is pretty good, and in a pinch you can cast Darkness to create an area in which to teleport. You can even use this while travelling, allowing you to move roughly 5 times as fast as normal by combining a comfortable walking pace and frequent teleportation.
  5. Umbral Form: What if Rage let you cast spells and walk through walls instead of hitting things really hard? That’s kinda how this works. The Sorcery Points are cheaper than casting many spells which let you walk through walls and creatures like Etherealness. Hopefully you won’t need the damage resistances because you have great defensive options like Improved Invisibility, but you might be able to use Umbral Form before polymorphing and maintain the damage resistance.

Storm Sorcery (SCAG / XGtE)

Storm Sorcery faces several issues, which is unfortunate because the flavor is really fun. Tempestuous Magic doesn’t scale, and it’s obsolete by level 3. The premise of the subclass requires you to stay just outside of melee range, dodging in to use Heart of the Storm before retreating with Tempestuous Magic.

It’s an interesting premise, but it’s extremely risky. Unless you’re somehow boosting your speed (spells like Longstrider can help) or flying (aarakocra, winged tieflings, etc.), you’re stuck within walking distance on your enemies’ turns. It’s much safer for sorcerers to remain at the longest distance possible and assail their enemies from well outside of weapon range.

On top of the simple challenge of positioning, Heart of the Storm expects that you will know some spells which deal thunder or lightning damage, but you don’t get any for free. A misguided player could select spells which make Heart of the Storm totally useless.

You can make Storm Sorcery work, but doing so successfully all but requires flight as a racial trait so that you can dart in and out of melee easily. An extremely fast race like the Centaur might also suffice, but flight is still an easier choice because putting yourself 10 feet above your enemies makes you unassailable to half of the monster manual.

If you want a fix for Storm Sorcery, you need to solve one of two problems: Spells known, and Tempestuous Magic. Giving the Storm Sorcerer some spells known that will trigger Heart of the Storm makes the subclass functional at a bare minimum because players can’t accidently negate an entire subclass feature. You could also adjust Tempestuous Magic to work with cantrips which deal lightning or thunder damage (currently only Booming Blade, Shocking Grasp, and Thunderclap), which allows the Storm Sorcerer to use Tempestuous Magic more frequently so that they can practice the hit-and-run tactics built into the class right from level 1.

Storm Sorcery Sorcerer Example Build

  1. Wind Speaker: Essentially four free languages. Especially nice if you are your party’s Face.
  2. Tempestuous Magic: 10 feet of flight won’t get you anywhere interesting. The primary function is to remove you from melee combat without drawing opportunity attacks. This will quickly stop being exciting once you can pick up Misty Step as a 2nd-level spell.

    The fact that it’s free is nice, especially if you like to run into close quarters to deliver spells like Thunder Wave. If this worked with cantrips it would be a defining feature of the subclass, but limiting it to leveled spells makes this a situational novelty.

  3. Heart of the Storm: Being within 10 feet of foes is rarely a good idea for a Sorcerer. The resistances are great, but it’s hard to bring the bonus damage into play without seriously endangering yourself.

    The damage bonus is pretty good so if you can manage shuffling into melee or flying just over your targets’ heads you can do quite a bit of damage. Combined with Tempestuous Magic you can rush in, trigger Heart of the Storm, and fly safely out of reach. You’ll still need to do something to prevent enemies from walking over and killing you, but at least you didn’t end your turn within reach.

  4. Storm Guide: Unless you’re in a seafaring campaign, this will almost certainly never matter.
  5. Storm’s Fury: This is very helpful since you’re apparently expected to stand within 10 feet of foes. Of course, knocking them 20 feet away means that you’ll need to follow them to continue applying Heart of the Storm.
  6. Wind Soul: Flight for your entire party at Essentially no cost and without Concentration.

Wild Magic (PHB)

The Wild Magic Sorcerer is unpredictable, which means it’s unreliable and therefore ineffective. But it’s a lot of fun, so if your group can survive you not min-maxing this adds an element of zany fun to your game. Just be sure that your DM is willing to play along or you’ll have trouble.

Wild Magic Sorcerer Handbook

  1. Wild Magic Surge: If your DM forgets to ask you to roll, this doesn’t matter. But it’s a core component of the subclass, so, as a DM, I would make you roll every time you cast a qualifying spell (unless we were trying to get through an encounter quickly). The effects range from comedic to catastrophic to fantastic, so there’s really no way to rate this.

    Roughly 7 of the 50 options on the table are potentially harmful to you or your allies in some way, so most of the effects are benign. Perhaps the most iconic option on the table is casting Fireball centered on yourself, which will almost certainly kill an entire low-level party. Fortunately, there’s only a 1 in 50 chance of that occurring when you roll on the table. (although it has happened to me and made several party members unconscious, as well as nearly getting us kicked out of the inn).

  2. Tides of Chaos: How useful this is depends entirely on how often your DM will call for a Wild Magic roll to let you recharge Tides of Chaos. Your DM is absolutely allowed to never trigger the recharge mechanic, limiting you to just one use per day. Or, they might allow you to recharge Tides of Chaos after every time you cast a leveled spell, allowing you to use Tides of Chaos frequently.

    The safest bet is to assume that you will get this once per day, and possibly more if your DM is feeling whimsical. In that case, using this for attack rolls is an absolute waste, but using it for saving throws can save your life.

  3. Bend Luck: When your allies fails a save against death by 1 or two, it’s heart-breaking. Spend the Sorcery Points and be everyone’s best friend. Two Sorcery Points is expensive, but your allies’ lives are worth it. If your group is using magic items, strongly consider a Bloodwell Vial so you have extra points to spend.
  4. Controlled Chaos: This considerably reduces the threat of the Wild Magic table and makes it more of a source of unpredictable buffs and comic relief.
  5. Spell Bombardment: This is a little bit of extra damage on many of your damage-dealing spells. Spells which use large dice like Toll the Dead are less likely to trigger the benefit, but the extra damage is higher on average. Spells which roll a ton of small dice (like Meteor Swarm’s small mountain of d6s) are more likely to benefit, but the additional 3.5 damage feels really insignificant for such a high-level class feature. More damage is nice, of course; it’s just not very exciting since Empowered Spell has been an option for 15 levels.

    Keep in mind that this applies whenever you roll damage for a spell, rather than the first time that you roll damage for that spell like most damage boosting features. This means that you can reapply this benefit multiple times for spells which deal damage multiple times. It’s only once per turn, of course, but most spells that would benefit this way will only roll damage once per turn. For example: Tasha’s Caustic Brew deals damage at the beginning of the target’s turn. This may be enough to justify picking spells that specifically benefit.

3rd-Party Publishers

RPGBOT has covered some 3rd-party content from our favorite creators. This content is published under the Open Gaming License, under Creative Commons, or through DMsGuild, and is not considered official content. As such, it is not available in Adventurer’s League organized play, and your group may not allow it in your game. If your group wants to explore 3rd-party content, we hope that these articles will help you make them work for you.