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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kinematics" data-source="post: 9015118" data-attributes="member: 6932123">Going to run my own calculations, as there's some other details I want to check on.We want to see both when you first get the spell, and possibly its progression as you level. Levels of interest:9 - Get the spell11 - Cantrips go to 3dX13 - Have a total of 6 metamagics available at a time14 - Dragon Wings17 - Cantrips go to 4dXSo, you cast the spell. You almost certainly will want to use Extended metamagic on it to get advantage on concentration checks. It would be stupid to lose the spell at that point.As such, we need to spend 1 sorcery point when casting it, which means we need to compare it to a 5th level spell + 1 sorcery point.Base damage value of a 5th level spell is 8d6. 1 sorcery point could be used to Empower it (max 5 rerolled dice). That raises the average result from 28 to 33.89. Assuming a 50% resist rate, that's an average of 25.4 damage per affected creature.The DMG page 249 suggests radius ÷ 5 for the number of expected targets within a spherical area, so for a Fireball sized effect, that should be 4 targets. That would mean a total sacrificed value of 101.6 damage.If you stack Quickened + Heightened with big spells in order to free up your main action for another spell, then we're looking at the value that cantrips can provide, compared to just using Heightened on the big spells and forgoing the bonus action. Note that while you can Quicken a cantrip, you still can't cast anything but a cantrip as the main action, so that's not a valid substitute configuration.If you cast 3 big spells, that will take 3 turns after you activate Sorcery Incarnate, which means 4 total rounds of casting.  While 3 rounds is the average, big fights are going to often last longer, so I'm fine with using this. We can cast a cantrip on the round of casting SI, since SI is already a bonus action spell. That gives us 4 cantrips, which means they need to average at least 25.4 damage each to make up for the sacrificed 5th level spell.Each die is worth an average of 5.5. With a 60% hit rate, that becomes 3.3. With advantage, that becomes 4.62. So the totals with advantage:Level 9 Fire Bolt damage: 9.24Level 9 Fire Bolt damage for Draconic: 13.44Level 11 Fire Bolt damage: 13.86Level 11 Fire Bolt damage for Draconic: 18.06Level 17 Fire Bolt damage: 18.48Level 17 Fire Bolt damage for Draconic: 22.68So Fire Bolt won't reach that even at level 17 with the Draconic damage boost plus advantage on the attack roll.However, if we're willing to play close to the front lines, we can bump up the damage, both from cantrips and the wing flaps.With Draconic Exhalation, the expected number of targets hit in a 15' cone is 2.Only the first attack in the Exhalation will get the +5 Cha damage from Elemental Affinity.  Both get advantage on the attack roll.  Since the attack rolls are separate, they get their own calculation on average damage, which will be 4.20 damage per die if we don't use Empower.  So:Level 9 Sorcerous Burst/Exhalation: 11.256 + 7.056 =  18.312Level 11 Sorcerous Burst/Exhalation: 14.784 + 10.584 =  25.368Level 17 Sorcerous Burst/Exhalation: 18.312 + 14.112 =  32.424So we actually break even at level 11.  At level 14, with the wing flap from Dragon Wings, we'd pull into the positive.A 15' square (from above, if we use flight) is expected to hit 3 targets, doing 5 damage each, for a total of 15 additional damage. A 35' square (surrounding the sorcerer if he stays on the ground) is expected to hit 7 targets. I'll stay with the smaller expected result.Since this happens each turn, it adds directly to the cantrip damage for these calculations, putting us at about 40 at level 14, and 47 at level 17.  Well ahead of the break-even point.Summary:Excluding the subclass, and using Fire Bolt, there doesn't appear to be any way for the Sorcery Incarnate tax to be worthwhile.For the Draconic subclass, using Sorcerous Burst + Draconic Exhalation, plus the wing flaps, it pulls well ahead of break-even, doing about 86 more damage over 4 rounds than we're giving up by casting the 5th level spell (assuming we have enough targets to hit with AOE damage).We'd also going to want to be at least 14th level in order to have a high enough damage on the cantrip, enough high level spell slots, and for Dragon Wings to come online in order to make this work. Even then it will be tight. Level 15 will be better for the extra spell slot, and we also get Sorcerous Restoration for more sorcery points.So it's possible for this to be worthwhile, but only with a subclass that specializes in the limited damage-boosting build necessary to work around the limits of the original spell, and only at much higher levels than the spell itself.</blockquote>

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