Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana Sorcerers: Favored Souls, Phoenix Sorcery, Sea Sorcery, & Stone Sorcery

Favored Soul (again), Phoenix Sorcery, Sea Sorcery, Earth Sorcery.

Could this be the start of Elementalists?

 

[GobiWon]

The Draconic Sorcerer is at least as good a melee character as a Blade singer...and not are full 9 level casters still.

Already have Eldritch Knight, doubt a new Arcane Fighter subclass is in the cards. Maybe Arcanist Paladin?

Sent from my BLU LIFE XL using EN World mobile app

I want something with arcane smite and shield and misty step.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Are there any obvious cleric spells that combine well with metamagic?

Cure Spells with Distant Spell.

 

[Bitbrain]

FAVORED SOUL/STONE SORCERER
Looks awesome.

PHOENIX SORCERER
There's only one way I would play this guy:
First, I would choose to be a Scourge Aasimar.
Then I would name my character Firestorm (from DC Comics).

SEA SORCERER
This looks like it could be quite a lot of fun, especially if the main DM decides for his next campaign to be based on seafaring and piracy.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

The more I think about it, the less I like stone. I wanted a sword mage as a subclass of fighter and this steals it's thunder. I don't really see Sorcerers as melee characters.

The sorcerer was the lone hold out of every caster class having a gish subclass, so it was bound to happen. Likewise every melee class has a gish subclass (barely so with the totem barbarian and their one spell [I think]). I suspect in the fullness of time, every class will have the psychic subclass (knowledge cleric and GOO pact warlock are practically there already) and possibly a divine one too.

 

[Parmandur]

I want something with arcane smite and shield and misty step.

Well, that's what this is; a magicy Paladin might also fit the bill. Doubtful a full class or Fighter archetype are incoming, though.

Sent from my BLU LIFE XL using EN World mobile app

 

[Tony Vargas]

Personally, I think Favored Soul should be a warlock with a Celestial patron.

Sounds like an Invoker. Covenant of Wrath?

Water.- How does water relate with not having to eat, drink or sleep? The benefits are too complex otherwise.

Earth.- Ughh yet another "you are a monster"

D&D has always seemed to have trouble with elements that aren't just about blasting things. Fire it steps right up and handles no problem. Air, if you count thunder & lightning, it's OK with. Water ends up being ice-everything, because cold is a damage type.

The associations of elemental water traditionally include a lot more than freezing things or knocking them over with a wave. Indeed, they /rarely/ include those things. The element of water has been associated with time (because of the tides, for instance), with life, with healing, with wisdom, with secrets, with strength, with yielding resilience, and so forth.

So to answer the first question, if you have the elemental forces of water flowing through you, they could support life for you without eating and certainly without drinking. Without sleep? Well there's the wisdom & depth aspects, maybe that allows you the benefits of sleep? It's just nice for a Sorcerer to get something/anything other than I blast you for X damage type, because element X.

The other thing is that, aside from Earth, the Dragon sorcerer already had element-tossing sorcery covered. So everything in this UA is just covering ground that's already been touched on, either by the Dragon Sorcerer or by the prior UA Favored Soul.

 

[Parmandur]

The bizarre part about associating elemental water with frost damage is that, strictly speaking, frozen water has started the process of becoming elemental earth (because solid = earth, liquid = water). At least, using ancient alchemy...

Sent from my BLU LIFE XL using EN World mobile app

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

Favored Soul:

This UA proved to me once again that adapting a separate base class into a subclass of one of the PHB classes doesn't always work. It was first seen with the first draft of the Favored Soul. The first draft of the Artificer reinforced this notion. I thought that they learned from this mistake by releasing a version of the Artificer as its own class. However, that seemed to be all for naught, as this version of the Favored Soul confirms that subclass system doesn't work that well for adapting base classes that are very disparate from the chassis onto which they are placed.

The Favored Soul truly deserves to be a base class of its own with subclasses themed around the three main playstyles of a FS: Melee, Blasting, and Support. I know that WotC is trying to limit the amount of new base classes in 5e, but some classes just don't work as being pared down to fit the subclass system of existing classes. There are some good ideas here in this version of the FS that could be class features for a FS base class, but nothing that really stands out to warrant FS being a Sorcerer subclass.

Phoenix Sorcery:

Not bad, but not good either. Mantle of Flame needs more uses to really be worthwhile. They should make it like Bladesong's uses, twice per short/long rest. Phoenix Spark seems cool at first, but it's really just an accidental TPK waiting to happen. Other than that, it's mostly complete.

Sea Sorcery:

The only thing that hurts this subclass is the limited amount of cold/lightning damage spells available to Sorcerers, and that really only applies to AL games since they limit your character options to PHB+1. Easy fix for that is to either reprint those necessary spells in the same book that this subclass gets added to or treat the Sea Sorcery book as an universal resource. I feel like we might actually see both, as the release of so many class-specific UAs in such a short span means that we're very close to the upcoming Big Book of Crunch reaching the final pre-production stages.

Stone Sorcery:

The subclass itself is good, but the name is all wrong for what the subclass contains. Call it what it really is, the Swordmage, and then get back to work making a Earth Sorcerer that actually specializes in Earth magic. It also suffers from the same problem as Sea Sorcery when it comes to AL play. Same fix applies here.

Stone's Edge is kind of a waste of a 14th level class feature, as it only adds an extra 7-10 damage per turn throughout the career of the Sorcerer.

Honestly, the more that I look at this misnamed Swordmage, the more I realize that this subclass would be better suited as a subclass for a half-caster arcane gish class. Less Fighter-y than an Eldritch Knight and less Wizard-y than a Bladesinger. Throw in Duskblade as another subclass for this theoretical base class as the offensive subclass.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

The bizarre part about associating elemental water with frost damage is that, strictly speaking, frozen water has started the process of becoming elemental earth (because solid = earth, liquid = water). At least, using ancient alchemy... EN World mobile app

That's it! Alchemical Origin should be the theme of the element based sorcerer. You are a master of the transmutation of the raw element, you body serving as a living arcane alambic like the people who played a game of WoD Promethean: the created. It would reduce the need to have 4 different archetypes for the element theme, stealing book space for other concepts.

Quick draft:
level 1: Arcane Admixture-» Spend 1 SP to change the damage type of a spell.
level 1: Transmute the primordial spark -» Gain CHA mod THP when killing with elemental damame.
Level 6: Favored Element-» Metamagic cost 1 less SP (minimum 1) when spent on specific damage type spell.
level 14: Transmute Self-» Spend SP to end an effect on self.
level 18: Chosen Element-» Choose a second Favored element, gain level THP when damaged by favored element.

 

[Thurmas]

After mulling over the Favored Soul a bit more, I still don't like getting access to the entire cleric spell list. However, I also think that accessing the cleric class domains is the wrong route also. Too many of them, like Light, are really just adding more spells the FS already has access to. I think the best route is a combination of the two. Give the class its own, balanced domains, similar to a Circle of the Land Druid. Create a series of domains that would pertain to certain deities or maybe concepts. Maybe alignment based with a Good domain, a neutral domain, an evil domain, etc. Have them include spells only from the Cleric/Paladin/Druid lists. If that many extra spells known is still an issue, you could gain just one spell per domain level instead of two. The class would need a whole lot of extra abilities to balance it out compared to other sorcerer subclasses. I think this would be a fantastic route for some of the other subclasses, such as giving the Phoenix some fire domain spells, Sea Sorcerer some water domain spells, etc.

And bring back my Favored Soul wings!

Just as an example, but you could easily add more:

Good Domain:
Level 1: Cure Wounds
Level 3: Lesser Restoration
Level 5: Spirit Guardians
Level 7: Aura of Life
Level 9: Mass Cure Wounds

Evil Domain:
Level 1: Bane
Level 3: Silence
Level 5: Animate Dead
Level 7: Blight
Level 9: Contagion

Vengeance Domain:
Level 1: Bless
Level 3: Spiritual Weapon
Level 5: Crusader's Mantle
Level 7: Banishment
Level 9: Destructive Wave

Nature Domain:
Level 1: Faerie Fire
Level 3: Spike Growth
Level 5: Conjure Animals
Level 7: Grasping Vine
Level 9: Insect Plague