Meanwhile the wizard gets rituals. And
Find Familiar doesn't take a slot (and is wizard exclusive (until a warlock poaches it)) and is IME substantially better still. A flying scout whose eyes you can see through,
and that has darkvision and advantage on perception checks is really useful.
I mentioned rituals, but yeah I don't think that, even with Find Familiar is as good as selecting from the Cleric and Sorcerer list or as good as Strength of the Grave and an extra Cantrip.
A Shadow Sorcerer's darkvision beats any familiar in the game and the vast majority of enemies that have darkvision and that is not even their primary 1st level ability.
But at first level Strength of the Grave is really only an unreliable casting of Shield that only partially protects you even when it works.
You only have two spell slots total at 1st level and shield is not very effective unless paired with Mage Armor, which uses one of them and if your Wizard is relying on Shield and Mage Armor at 1st level then that means they are also relying on Cantrips as well for most of their spell power and here a Sorcerer has a big advantage.
If we were talking about 3rd level or 7th level or something it would be different, but at 1st level Strength of the Grave is huge. The average enemy you will be facing does about 4 damage, meaning you need a 9 to save and have a +5 typically. Certainly it does not work all the time, but it is going to work most of the time at this level.
So I'm saying that this is at best equal to the wizard's extra spell. At later levels you can layer the two - but when you've only got two first level spells spending one on shield is expensive.
No it isn't. Shield has a straight 25% chance of preventing a hit (and going down) SOG statistically has about a 75% chance of keeping you from going down at 1st level, that is 3 times more likely to be the difference from the use itself, but on top of that it stacks with shield and does not use a reaction as well. You can use strength of the Grave on something you can't shield and then still shield the very next attack.
I mean sure, if you are going to tank your entire class going forward by picking Divine Soul (the class that doesn't know enough spells getting the "benefit" of having more spells they can't buy added to the shop is not a good benefit).
Guidance is arguably the best Cantrip in the entire game and the thing is you can get both Cleric and Sorcerer (which are mostly Wizard) spells.
The two best 1st level spells in the game are Shield and Healing Word and a Divine Soul can get them both.
I'm also going to be blunt about the first level Divine Soul played the way you suggest.
When you are unarmoured, have 6+Con mod hit points, have either a bad weapon off your secondary stat or a cantrip attack, and you are spending your two first level spell slots on Healing Word you are a terrible wannabe caster.
You are just wrong. Yo-yoing allies with healing word is probably more than anything else the most effective use of a 1st level spell in the game.
I had an 8th level party that beat Orcus, and the way they did it was by casting healing word on the Barbarian over and over until he managed to down Orcus. Now at 1st level you can't do that, but having healing word, as a bonus action way to bring up any ally is huge.
You get 3 spells on a 1st level divine soul. Usually that is going to be Bless, Healing Word and something else suitable to your specifics. Maybe sleep, maybe shield, maybe Silvery Barbs, maybe Sanctuary
Any cleric or druid worth their salt can, if they choose, match your guidance and healing word while hitting harder and being armoured and with a better primary stat for everything other than casting. Meanwhile a wizard or sorcerer who brings something like sleep can win an entire fight at level 1.
Sure, but Cleric is the most powerful class at 1st level bar none and by a pretty wide margin. This post is about Wizard vs Sorcerer though, not Cleric or Druid vs Sorcerer.
I think any decent wizard should be better than a first level Shadow Sorcerer - while the first level Divine Soul isn't competing with the wizard but failing miserably to be a cleric or druid (or even a bard).
Sure and all 4 of those are stronger than a Wizard at 1st level, including both of the Sorcerers you mention.
The exception I will make is for the Aberrant Mind. Who even gets another cantrip - but the big thing they gain is Dissonant Whispers, the strongest first level single target damage spell in the game. (It's not the 3d6 psychic damage but the opportunity attack from the raging barbarian on top of that that makes it lethal).
DW is very strong, but at 1st level because of the limited number of spell slots and hit points it is not as powerful as Healing Word at any level. In terms of offensive spells it is not as powerful as Sleep at this level.
I've played all 3 Sorcerer subclasses mentioned and at 1st level AM is the weakest of the three, despite having the most spells, most cantrips.
I'm going to disagree here. At 3rd and 4th level the sorcerer has three and four metamagic points per day.
Unless they are an Aberrant Mind twinning Dissonant Whispers or are in one of the rare situations that Subtle Spell is useful then the wizard's extra second level or two extra first level spell slots from Arcane Recovery is more useful.
Metamagic is a big deal, and 4 sorcery points means you can twin two second level spells. A 3rd level Sorcerer has two 2nd level spell slots. He can twin hold person, use flexible casting to generate another one and then twin it again in another battle. For the cost of a 1st and two second level slots he has cast Hold person on 4 enemies.
That kind of thing is a huge multiplier in combat.
Your only "low level slots" you can burn this way are second level. Your first level slots are wanted for things like Shield, Absorb Elements, Mage Armour, and Silvery Barbs, and if you can cast fireball out of it it's not low level. There aren't honestly that many spells higher level than Haste and Polymorph that are worth twinning.
I was calling "low level" anything below 6th level. At 20th level you have 2 6th, 2 7th, 1 8th and 1 9th level spell per day.
That is 43 sorcery points to twin all of those high level spells. You have 20 SPs, so you can do your highest two spells without even using a lower level slot, but yes Twinning Power Word Stun is going to be worth a 5th and 3rd level slot.
That is not all though, for a measly 1 sorcery point you can lay down Psychic Scream on top of your martials and with careful spell, and while they will take 24 damage, the enemies they are mixed up with will mostly be stunned.
I'd say at this point the sorcerer is completely out of gas. Meanwhile the Warlock has a 3d10+15 Eldritch Blast
The Sorcerer has 6d10 Firebolt on a single sorcery point and 9d10 on 3, plus the flexibility to do nearly as much with Chill Touch if they need to kill regeneration and enough Cantrips to have both of them on their list.
Also the sorcerer has a much smaller collection of fifth level appropriate spells than the warlock. The sorcerer knows only one more spell than the warlock but they need to spread them across five levels of spell. Meanwhile the warlock can retrain anything that's not appropriate.
To start with it is 6 levels of spells at 11th level, but the Sorcerer has more 5th level spells than the Warlock and better spells to boot. Animate Objects is the most powerful 5th level spell in the game.
The sorcerer can swap out spells too and if the Warlock wants to have that EB/AB effectiveness they are going to need to keep Hex on that list.
Warlock: If it's first or even second level spells you want I can do this all day. It's called Invocations. (Or for that matter Eldritch Blast is going to be at least second level equivalent). And I can do it all day as well as throwing around my fifth and sixth level spells.
The invocations are mostly once a day casts. Mage Armor and False Life being exceptions at early levels. Mage Armor is fine, but having it and 3 other slots for a day is better than being able to do it at will.
False Life 6 extra temp hit points at will is not nothing, but it is not great either
12 fireballs is rare as a use case. Especially as turning in your fourth level slots gets you less than upcasting into them would, and your fifth only get you one fireball each.
I agree, it is an example. You harped on the number of 5th level spells. The Sorcerer is usually going to be able to cast more if they want 5th level spells.
The fundamental issue the sorcerer has playing these games is metamagic conversion is lossy unless you are an Aberrant Mind. You can buy one first level spell out of second level metamagic. You can buy one fifth level spell out of a fourth and a third level slot. And you can buy one third level slot out of a fifth level slot.
Yes but you have those slots, while a Warlock does not. A Sorcerer with 8 5th level spells to cast a day is going to be able to cast more than a Warlock most of the time and cast them just as effectively. Whether that is more powerful than using metamagic to enhance a smaller number is a different discussuion.
In general the only slots that are worth trading in (as ever other than for an Aberrant Mind) are the second ones; as mentioned you use the first level slots for defence. Third level is a huge leap for Fireball or Twinned Haste.
This is not true. Twinned Psycich Lance, Twinned Power Word Stun, Twinned Irresistable Dance are all extremely powerful.
More to the point though you can Twin these spells (or Haste) without losing spell slots at all at the levels you get them.
My example was that if you want to you can twin ALL of your high level slots at 20th level and it is not alot of them. You need 23 levels of slots to do that.
The (pre-Tasha's) sorcerer knows one more spell than the warlock. And the warlock gets to fling around a variety of spells at will if they've avoided the trap invocations. The sorcerer needs to spend far more spells covering its bases than the warlock does. The diversity isn't on the sorcerer's side, and this is a flaw in the 2014 sorcerer.
The at will spells are ok, not game changers in combat though and you only have 5 Invocations at 11th level with one presumably going towards AB and another related to your pact.
They burn that slot before breakfast. They then take a short rest at breakfast and have it back because it lasts 24 hours. This is Warlock 101. When Haste starts lasting 8 hours (at third level) or 24 (at fifth) you cast it before a rest. And you have it running until you lose concentration.
I've never gamed with a group that did a Short Rest immediately following a long rest and yes you can lose concentration pretty easy at 11th level, especially since you are not proficient in saving throws.
More importantly though, your theory relies on the idea that you have a lot of 5th level slots, which if you are casting Haste or Hex for 24 hours, even if you hang on to concentration the whole day you are not getting the most effectiveness out of those slots.
yeah you have 3 5th level slots per short rest, but you are not casting banishment on 2 bad guys, you are not casting Shadow of Moil, you are not casting Hold Monster because you are holding concentration on Hex or Haste. That makes that short rest recharge much less valuable.
