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Warforged Clockwork Soul Sorcerer. Is It fun and iconic?
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<blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 8197249" data-attributes="member: 5948"><p>I like the idea of trying to make a low-Cha sorcerer viable. It's always bugged me how all sorcerers (and especially warlocks) have to be so personable and charismatic to be any good at spellcasting. This does make the limitations of the approach stand out though - the D&D spell list and action economy is just not built for this sort of thing.</p><p></p><p>Doubling down on the mechanical theme with a warforged sorcerer is a cool idea. Having your mechanical guy polymorph into apes and t-rexes is a fair bit less thematic though - the exemplar of Mechanus turning into a primitive drooling monster as a primary combat tactic? That's no for me. Animate objects is less powerful, but more interesting in context.</p><p></p><p>In-game - not sure how it'd go. You've got polymorph, animate objects, bigby's hand, invisibility, greater invisibility, wall of force, magic weapon, and fly all competing for your Concentration slot. You've got shield, absorb elements, counterspell, and bastion of law (surely a low priority, it's useful but horrifyingly expensive in terms of sorcery points for what it does) all competing for your reaction. And while you've got a solid selection of non-concentration buff spells, getting them all cast is going to take multiple rounds and by then the combat is well under way, and/or you've burnt a lot of sorcery points casting everything subtly to stay hidden (which fire shield will make impossible, and only works if you're lucky enough to be able to choose when the combat starts), and by the time you're ready to go, a lot of the shorter-duration spells are half way to expiring anyway.</p><p></p><p>Damage output is an issue too. Animate objects, bigby's hand, and polymorph are obvious dispel targets (animate objects and bigby's hand especially, since the spell effect is going to be a long way away from you and anyone dispelling them will likely be out of counterspell range), and other than those, you're short of options. Magic missile's damage output is laughable at this level, fire shield only works if someone's attacking you melee, and a single attack with booming blade isn't going to frighten any melee combatants you'll meet at 14th level. The lack of instantanous damage spells that don't rely on your casting stat makes it hard, unfortunately. I like 5e, but it's not at all friendly to PCs who try to play against type, stat-wise.</p><p></p><p>If I was playing this in a real campaign i'd try to talk my DM into letting me have Summon Construct for sheer thematic value, though this is yet another concentration spell, which is the last thing you need, and sadly it's cha-dependant. And jeez, in a real campaign, a high-level spellcaster without Detect Magic or ANY capability to locate invisible enemies is going to have a tough time.</p><p></p><p>And how does this guy live long enough to get to 14th level anyway? Low-level spellcasters are very reliant on cantrips for damage output, which either has this guy using a Cha-dependent cantrip with an ability penalty, or running into combat with booming blade and hoping his 2-3 daily castings of Shield can keep him alive...</p><p></p><p>Edit: clockwork soul sorcerer already gets Summon Construct. It's still a pretty bad spell unless you have a solid casting stat though...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="humble minion, post: 8197249, member: 5948"] I like the idea of trying to make a low-Cha sorcerer viable. It's always bugged me how all sorcerers (and especially warlocks) have to be so personable and charismatic to be any good at spellcasting. This does make the limitations of the approach stand out though - the D&D spell list and action economy is just not built for this sort of thing. Doubling down on the mechanical theme with a warforged sorcerer is a cool idea. Having your mechanical guy polymorph into apes and t-rexes is a fair bit less thematic though - the exemplar of Mechanus turning into a primitive drooling monster as a primary combat tactic? That's no for me. Animate objects is less powerful, but more interesting in context. In-game - not sure how it'd go. You've got polymorph, animate objects, bigby's hand, invisibility, greater invisibility, wall of force, magic weapon, and fly all competing for your Concentration slot. You've got shield, absorb elements, counterspell, and bastion of law (surely a low priority, it's useful but horrifyingly expensive in terms of sorcery points for what it does) all competing for your reaction. And while you've got a solid selection of non-concentration buff spells, getting them all cast is going to take multiple rounds and by then the combat is well under way, and/or you've burnt a lot of sorcery points casting everything subtly to stay hidden (which fire shield will make impossible, and only works if you're lucky enough to be able to choose when the combat starts), and by the time you're ready to go, a lot of the shorter-duration spells are half way to expiring anyway. Damage output is an issue too. Animate objects, bigby's hand, and polymorph are obvious dispel targets (animate objects and bigby's hand especially, since the spell effect is going to be a long way away from you and anyone dispelling them will likely be out of counterspell range), and other than those, you're short of options. Magic missile's damage output is laughable at this level, fire shield only works if someone's attacking you melee, and a single attack with booming blade isn't going to frighten any melee combatants you'll meet at 14th level. The lack of instantanous damage spells that don't rely on your casting stat makes it hard, unfortunately. I like 5e, but it's not at all friendly to PCs who try to play against type, stat-wise. If I was playing this in a real campaign i'd try to talk my DM into letting me have Summon Construct for sheer thematic value, though this is yet another concentration spell, which is the last thing you need, and sadly it's cha-dependant. And jeez, in a real campaign, a high-level spellcaster without Detect Magic or ANY capability to locate invisible enemies is going to have a tough time. And how does this guy live long enough to get to 14th level anyway? Low-level spellcasters are very reliant on cantrips for damage output, which either has this guy using a Cha-dependent cantrip with an ability penalty, or running into combat with booming blade and hoping his 2-3 daily castings of Shield can keep him alive... Edit: clockwork soul sorcerer already gets Summon Construct. It's still a pretty bad spell unless you have a solid casting stat though... [/QUOTE]
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Warforged Clockwork Soul Sorcerer. Is It fun and iconic?
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