D&D 5E Companion thread to 5E Survivor - Subclasses (Part X: Sorcerers)

[CleverNickName]

I'm pretty sure Storm or Shadow will win, but that was always the case.

What I object to is the notion that only good ideas make it into publication. As if Xanathar's or Tasha's were a gold-standard or something.

 

[Tonguez]

I think that it is going to be a race between shadow magic lovers and everybody else pilling on it. My money is on sea somehow surviving to the end because it remains unnoticed.

Minor confession, I’ve been voting for Sea as an experiment after noticing that the inoffensive mid tier sub classes tend to stay at 20 for a long time while people vote the ‘star’ options up and down. So I started voting up sea early to get it high to see if it would last to the end -I’m suprised its done so well!
but as it may not be there when I wake up in the morning I’ll share my confession now…

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Effectively a four-way tie at this point is quite surprising.

I'm pretty sure Storm or Shadow will win, but that was always the case.

What I object to is the notion that only good ideas make it into publication. As if Xanathar's or Tasha's were a gold-standard or something.

Actually, Tasha's generally has pretty well-received stuff as I understood it? I always thought people just liked to complain about the book because "noooo how dare you break tradition!!!"

Minor confession, I’ve been voting for Sea as an experiment after noticing that the inoffensive mid tier sub classes tend to stay at 20 for a long time while people vote the ‘star’ options up and down. So I started voting up sea early to get it high to see if it would last to the end -I’m suprised its done so well!
but as it may not be there when I wake up in the morning I’ll share my confession now…

Likewise, I've been specifically avoiding targeting subclasses I actually dislike, and instead targeting only those that are doing well (in the top 3.) That's bee a bit muddy this time around, because sometimes we've had four or even five different options all tied for first. Because, in my experience, people rapidly vote down widely-disliked things no matter what, so there's no profit to my preferences to voting those down faster (and, indeed, often a detriment, if my preference is merely tolerated...which it usually is.)

So, I let others downvote the objectionable things, and instead focused on what I expected to be the primary threats, the things actually inclined to last as opposed to the things I truly have antipathy for. It didn't help that much in the end, likely because downvotes are worth so much more than upvotes. Of course, it also didn't help that for whatever frustrating reason THIS time being bog-standard ordinary is somehow a sin, while in every previous thread it's been a cardinal virtue bordering on automatic win.

 

[CleverNickName]

Effectively a four-way tie at this point is quite surprising.

I gotta hand it to the Bad Healbot Divine Soul. It's held on a lot longer than it ever should have I thought it would.

Actually, Tasha's generally has pretty well-received stuff as I understood it? I always thought people just liked to complain about the book because "noooo how dare you break tradition!!!"

I mean, you're not wrong: most of the complaints about Tasha's Cauldron of Everything that I've read on the internet have been along those lines. But what I read on the internet and what I hear at my game table are often different. My players love the customization and expanded options in Tasha's, for example, and all of my players unanimously went with TCoE options for their new characters. Menawhile the Internet loves Xanathar's Guide to Everything, but my players never touch it except for a spell or two...seems like most of it is just bunch of stuff they aren't interested in.

TL;DR: Saying "this got published" isn't always the same as "this is good."

 

[J-H]

Actually, Tasha's generally has pretty well-received stuff as I understood it? I always thought people just liked to complain about the book because "noooo how dare you break tradition!!!"

Mix. The magic items were "meh" and heavily caster-focused, while mostly ignoring martials aside from tattoos... when martials are the ones who are more item-dependent for versatility.
The ACFs were generally good.

Some subclasses, like Rune Knight, Psi Knight, and Psychic Rogue (mis-named soulknife), are great. Others, like the Twilight and Peace domains, should not have made it into print in their current form, and are banned at my table. They also added bonus spells for the new sorcerer subclasses, but not for the old ones. With Tasha's, some classes/subclasses end up with a substantially higher power ceiling compared to options from previous books and other classes.

I gotta hand it to the Bad Healbot Divine Soul. It's held on a lot longer than it ever should have I thought it would.

I haven't been voting, but just a couple of spells known devoted to Cure Wounds and Revivify can be a big help to a healer-light party. This is especially valuable for a 3-4 person party.
In a big fight, if there's only one character with Revivify, and that character goes down, it gets a lot harder.

 

[CleverNickName]

I haven't been voting, but just a couple of spells known devoted to Cure Wounds and Revivify can be a big help to a healer-light party. This is especially valuable for a 3-4 person party.
In a big fight, if there's only one character with Revivify, and that character goes down, it gets a lot harder.

I agree that healers are always handy. But surely you can agree that--as far as healers go--the Divine Soul isn't the best option for a whole character subclass. It's only slightly better than the Magic Initiate feat, if all you want is a splash of healing. (And I'd argue that Healing Word is far more important on the battlefield than Revivify, based on the amount of use it sees, but ymmv.)

There are some pretty cool necromancy spells on the cleric list, though. If you could ignore the "healbot" vibes, you could build a pretty rad necromancer by cherrypicking from those two spell lists.

I don't want folks to think that I hate the Divine Soul subclass as a concept, though. Like I said upthread, the Divine Soul is a great framework for customization...sort of a "How-To Guide" for DMs wanting to make extraplanar bloodline sorcerers more interesting. It deserves to be in the Top Five for that reason alone, IMO. But I wouldn't say it's Top Three material.

 

[Gradine]

Yeah I'm struggling with figuring out what to vote for today; I can see the merits of all four remaining choices, though I will say that Divine Soul makes a poor substitute for my old 3.5 Favored Soul PC.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Divine Soul's lv6 feature is nothing but healbot proficiency, regardless of your lv1 alignment pick, so meh, it has to go on principle.

I wish I felt as good about Shadow as so many others do, but I just don't like seeing casters with a pet feature.

 

[Undrave]

Divine Soul's lv6 feature is nothing but healbot proficiency, regardless of your lv1 alignment pick, so meh, it has to go on principle.

I wish I felt as good about Shadow as so many others do, but I just don't like seeing casters with a pet feature.

vote for Sea Sorcery, just to have a UA make it to the Big Showdown!

 

[niklinna]

I wish I felt as good about Shadow as so many others do, but I just don't like seeing casters with a pet feature.

It's more a short-term summon than an actual pet. For actual caster pets, you need a World of Warcraft warlock!