[GUIDE] Born to be Wild, a sorcerer guide.

[Cognomen's Cassowary]

Well, blocking vision would help with the confusing gaze, to be sure, but an umber hulk has termorsense, so I qua DM would rule that it would not suffer the penalties of being blinded the way the party would. With a high Con, it has a reasonable chance to pass the saves, as well. You should have just lightning bolted it in the face.

Even if you are flinging fire bolts at its 18 AC, you have blocked your allies from casting spells and using features that require sight. Vicious mockery, Tasha's hideous laughter, sacred flame, healing word, hunter's mark, hex, chromatic orb, magic missile, protection fighting style, barbarian's danger sense, cutting words, uncanny dodge, a number of channel divinities--those all are affected and all have common applications.

That is the generic problem, any time you cast a spell that creates a heavily obscured area, whether with careful spell or not.

 

[mellored]

Well, blocking vision would help with the confusing gaze, to be sure, but an umber hulk has termorsense

Missed that.
So yea, the umber hulk would have advantage. So not the best option there.

Even if you are flinging fire bolts at its 18 AC, you have blocked your allies from casting spells and using features that require sight. Vicious mockery, Tasha's hideous laughter, sacred flame, healing word, hunter's mark, hex, chromatic orb, magic missile, protection fighting style, barbarian's danger sense, cutting words, uncanny dodge, a number of channel divinities--those all are affected and all have common applications.

That is the generic problem, any time you cast a spell that creates a heavily obscured area, whether with careful spell or not.

Yes, but it works both sides. And you have the prio-knowlage of the effect. So flaming sphere, spiritual weapon, moonbeam, polymporh/summon something with tremorsense. Heck, melf's as a bonus actoin, and hide as your normal action.

Not that it would make it worth while by itself (darkness is a level lower, and purple). But the ability to stand in the middle of a control zone is great, and it's much bigger than web.

 

[InspetorG]

I have some 'Wild' questions, here...

First:

Would it be worthwhile, with a DM who is a bit hesitant with Wild Magic Surges, to frame the matter as you are willing to concede expecting a Roll after every lvl1+ spell you cast in exchange for having the Player retain the option to choose to roll on the Wild Surge Table after Tides of Chaos in order to recharge it?

The Player can thus ensure fewer rolls due to normal casting, easing any DM or fellow Player fears, and judiciously use Tides until the party gets hooked on the Clutch-factor.

Second:

If you use Tides to get Advantage on casting a Scorching Ray, does the Advantage apply to all 3 Rays? Or just one?
(The next part is about the Action Economy, and assumed your DM agreed to the above mechanics.)
And if its just one, can you roll on the Wild Table to recharge Advantage BETWEEN attack rolls for the Rays?

RAW, the rules for Tides do not indicate an action cost or timing, just DM fiat.

Third:

Has anyone did the Maths on a Wild Sorcerer as a Controller with Tides+Bend Luck factored into the various Saves or Checks?

Thanks in advance!

 

[mellored]

First:

Would it be worthwhile, with a DM who is a bit hesitant with Wild Magic Surges, to frame the matter as you are willing to concede expecting a Roll after every lvl1+ spell you cast in exchange for having the Player retain the option to choose to roll on the Wild Surge Table after Tides of Chaos in order to recharge it?

The Player can thus ensure fewer rolls due to normal casting, easing any DM or fellow Player fears, and judiciously use Tides until the party gets hooked on the Clutch-factor.

Rolling after each spell has a very low chance of happening. You could go though the first 3 levels without a single surge. It's easy enough to remove without issue.

If you use Tides to get Advantage on casting a Scorching Ray, does the Advantage apply to all 3 Rays? Or just one?
(The next part is about the Action Economy, and assumed your DM agreed to the above mechanics.)
And if its just one, can you roll on the Wild Table to recharge Advantage BETWEEN attack rolls for the Rays?

RAW, the rules for Tides do not indicate an action cost or timing, just DM fiat.

Tiides works for 1 attack. Whichever one you want.
You can surge immidiatly AFTER the spell is cast, recharging it for the next spell.

So you can use it for a scorching ray, and surge and recharge immidiatly afterwards. But you can only use it for 1 ray.

Has anyone did the Maths on a Wild Sorcerer as a Controller with Tides+Bend Luck factored into the various Saves or Checks?

They work very well.
Tides of chaos doesn't help land control spells. It's only for your rolls.

But heighten and bend luck can give you a very strong chance (about -7 to the roll) of landing a spell. Though it can eat though your SP quickly so make sure it's a good one.
Fortunatly, bend luck is a bit harder to waste.

 

[Cognomen's Cassowary]

4th-level spells:

I think you are a little generous to wall of fire. It has a couple of noteworthy shortcomings. For as much damage as it does, you are only rarely going to deal damage to any individual creature more than once in the absence of forced movement. It is also expressly opaque, which limits spellcasting through it and leads to guess targeting of attacks. I'm not sure why you say that the spell has "control and damage." Are you looking at the deterrence effect as control?

Vitriolic sphere is underrated. It has several advantages over fireball, beyond the synergy with spell bombardment. It deals more damage, scales better, deals a less-resisted damage type, and doesn't burn down the house. It also has a small advantage with careful spell.

If we assume a 35% chance for a successful save, the average-damage comparison looks like this:

4th level
Fireball - 26.0
Vitriolic sphere - 20.6 immediate + 8.1 delayed = 28.75 total

5th level
Fireball - 28.9
Vitriolic sphere - 24.75 immediate + 8.1 delayed = 32.9 total

6th level
Fireball - 31.8
Vitriolic sphere - 28.9 immediate + 8.1 delayed = 37 total

By 6th level, even a fire-dragon sorcerer gets more total damage from vitriolic sphere.

7th level
Fireball - 34.7
Vitriolic sphere - 33 immediate + 8.1 delayed = 41.1 total

8th level
Fireball - 37.5
Vitriolic Sphere - 37.1 immediate + 8.1 delayed = 45.3 total

Note that vitriolic sphere has all but pulled even in initial damage at this point, so the delayed damage is icing. The two questions that will always enter into this comparison are, "How much damage now is damage later worth?" and "What is the danger of delaying damage?" They are difficult questions to answer in a white room, but they become less relevant as you go up in spell level.

In my experience, a spell like fireball is almost always cast early in a combat, while enemies are still clustered together and allies are not mixed in with them. In those cases, the delay of damage with vitriolic sphere is less consequential, since the enemies are likely fresh enough that they would not have been one-shot by a fireball.

 

[mellored]

4th-level spells:

I think you are a little generous to wall of fire. It has a couple of noteworthy shortcomings. For as much damage as it does, you are only rarely going to deal damage to any individual creature more than once in the absence of forced movement. It is also expressly opaque, which limits spellcasting through it and leads to guess targeting of attacks. I'm not sure why you say that the spell has "control and damage." Are you looking at the deterrence effect as control?

Hmm...
For some reason, I thought there it reduced movement going through it.

I must have mixed it up with another spell. I'll bump it down.

If we assume a 35% chance for a successful save, the average-damage comparison looks like this

4th level
Fireball - 26.0
Vitriolic sphere - 20.6 immediate + 8.1 delayed = 28.75 total

5th level
Fireball - 28.9
Vitriolic sphere - 24.75 immediate + 8.1 delayed = 32.9 total
Cone of Cold - 29.7

6th level
Fireball - 31.8
Vitriolic sphere - 28.9 immediate + 8.1 delayed = 37 total
Chain Lighting - 37.125 (+targeting)

7th level
Fireball - 34.7
Vitriolic sphere - 33 immediate + 8.1 delayed = 41.1 total
Firestorm - 31.7625

8th level
Fireball - 37.5
Vitriolic Sphere - 37.1 immediate + 8.1 delayed = 45.3 total
Sunburst - 34.65 (+blind)

That does scale nicely....
Though I think a 40% would be more accurate, which would hurt vitriolic a bit more than the others.

In my experience, a spell like fireball is almost always cast early in a combat, while enemies are still clustered together and allies are not mixed in with them. In those cases, the delay of damage with vitriolic sphere is less consequential, since the enemies are likely fresh enough that they would not have been one-shot by a fireball.

Fair. But it's still damage now > damage later. And there just isn't enough difference to make up for it. And being able to be used in level 3 and 4 slots > just level 4 slots. So it's still black at level 4.

But, yea, that's some pretty good scaling. Particularly since it's 1 blast that covers several levels, giving you room for other stuff.

 

[Cognomen's Cassowary]

That does scale nicely....
Though I think a 40% would be more accurate, which would hurt vitriolic a bit more than the others.

Sounds to me like another way of saying that vitriolic sphere scales better with your spellcasting mod.

I use a 65% chance to deal full damage on Dex saves based on observations of ability-score trends in the monster manual. If you are up against a random enemy from that book, about which enemy you know nothing, and if you have a 60% chance of dealing full damage by picking a random ability score (or AC) to target, Dex will, on average, deal full damage about 66.5% of the time. When I'm just scratching something out, I round to the nearest 5% for ease of calculation, making Int/AC 70%, Dex 65%, Wis/Str/Cha 55%, and Con 45%. I use this as a yardstick to compare spells and attacks across ability scores and AC. I would thus calculate cone of cold and sunburst differently than you have above, but that's beside the point.

Fair. But it's still damage now > damage later. And there just isn't enough difference to make up for it. And being able to be used in level 3 and 4 slots > just level 4 slots. So it's still black at level 4.

I don't disagree with "damage now > damage later" as a rule of thumb, but it's awfully hard to say how devalued damage later ought to be considered. Especially when it comes to damage later within a round, value can vary widely depending on the initiative order. Thus, the consideration to me is not whether, at 4th level, vitriolic sphere's additional damage is worth the loss in immediate damage; it is whether the initial-damage advantage of fireball justifies its retention under the sorcerer's stringent spells-known structure, when vitriolic sphere is clearly the better spell at higher levels.

This is actually one reason why I consider lightning bolt on par with fireball, as well. It allows you to retain a third-level AoE without the redundancy of keeping two 20-foot spheres known, and it gives you greater versatility in spell form at higher levels.

That aside aside, vit sphere has other advantages over fireball, as I mentioned previously. There are fewer than half as many acid-resistant and -immune monsters as fire-resistant and -immune, and there is less likelihood with vitriolic sphere of heinous property damage.

But, yea, that's some pretty good scaling. Particularly since it's 1 blast that covers several levels, giving you room for other stuff.

Yes, agreed.

 

[mellored]

vitriolic sphere is clearly the better spell at higher levels.

Agreed. But I still don't think it's all that good at the level you get it.

So I rated it again as a level 5 spell. When it's worth more.

 

[Blue]

I think you are a little generous to wall of fire. It has a couple of noteworthy shortcomings. For as much damage as it does, you are only rarely going to deal damage to any individual creature more than once in the absence of forced movement. It is also expressly opaque, which limits spellcasting through it and leads to guess targeting of attacks. I'm not sure why you say that the spell has "control and damage." Are you looking at the deterrence effect as control?

I would count Wall of Fire as soft control.

1. You can easily force creatures to avoid certain areas (within 10' of the wall).
2. Taking the damage a second time to move through it is a soft deterance.
3. Blocking line of sight also affects foes, who may waste actions going around (if terrain allows) or may take more damage to go through to reestablish LoS.
4. A ringed wall (explicitly given option) is 20' in diameter, which leaves nowhere not within 10' if you make it inward facing. However, if you make it outward facing it gives you an area where you can protect objectives with both an area foes don't want to physically enter and also have blocked line of site - makes it pretty secure.

Not saying it's a fantastic spell, but it does have it's uses.

 

[mellored]

xanathar's update.