D&D 5E Brainstorm Sorcerer upgrades. (+)

[FrozenNorth]

Ok, the other threads are full of off-topic and sorcerer hate. So, let's open a thread to brainstorm ideas for sorcerer. This thread is a (+) thread, so no calls for erasure or merger please, and no derailing with whataboutism.

Some venues of discussion I've gathered from the previous threads:

• What are the mechanics you'd think could improve the sorcerer flavor?
• Spell points, spell slots or "free form"?
• The third level subclass problem.(Aka, how important the source should be?)
• Does the class merit a split?
• Should it be the "turn into a monster" class?
• Should the class remain Cha based, or should it be moved to Con?
• Can the spell list be made more different from the wizard?
• Do we need WotC to do it?

Of course, it would be better if we start going into specifics, not just broad statements.

I didn’t want to go full spell points with the sorcerer, because I don’t feel they balance well in 5e. Instead, sorcerers can burn their HD for more spell slots. It really gives the impression of them simply be able to outcast their other classes, but at the cost of their life force. (This only works because other classes also have interesting ways to interact with their HD).

I also have a lot more meta-magics and sorcerers get more of them. I’m trying to avoid the pitfall of you only have 3 metamagics and 5 spells, so you only choose spells that match your meta-magics (or vice versa).

Finally, I stole the Bard’s pick spells from other lists and gave it to the sorcerer. It no longer makes sense for the Bard, and unexpected interactions with magic are a sorcerer thing.

However, I didn’t really increase the spells known. To me, this should remain a point of difference between the wizard and sorcerer. Wizard is the versatile class, sorcerer is the specialist.

 

[Shardstone]

I like the idea of the Sorcerer having a very lean list of 1st - 5th level spells that they all know. Then the subclass gives another 15 spells (two of each level from 1st-5th, one for each level of 6th-9th) and two cantrips. Lastly, each subclass would give an ability that you could freely manipulate by spending Sorc points on it -- a kind of free-form magic that the spells enhance and help give shape to but that ultimately stands on its own.

Sorcerer, IMO, should go all in on being the anime/superhero/arcane mutant/chosen magic-user class.

 

[SkidAce]

I misread the title and was hoping for a "Brainstorm Sorcerer".

/sigh

 

[NotAYakk]

That's just Vancian but worse.

It isn't "just", but yes it is worse than Vancian, in that if you ignore everything else about it you could make it more powerful by adding (can pick any slot to power any spell) and (can pick any spell).

The goal is to make the Sorcerer feel less like "wizard lite" and more like its own class.

So, you get spell like abilities. Each time you use an ability, it has a chance to be expended until the next long rest.

Also, something like: Once per long rest as an action, you can recover a pile of abilities; maybe all of them? That would put an interesting tactical choice on it - you'll want to let your tank run low before using "regain all abilities".

Being concrete...

Sorcery Die: You gain a Sorcery Die. It starts out as 1d4. It increases to 1d6 at level 5, 1d8 at level 11 and 1d10 at level 17.

1) When your sorcery spells and magical abilities deal damage to a target, it deals extra damage equal to a roll of the sorcery die.
2) When you make a save against a spell, you add your Sorcery Die to your saving throw.

Spell Like Abilities: You learn spell like abilities. Select these abilities from the Sorcerer spell list. Your spell like abilities are always cast as if you used a spell slot equal to 1/2 of your sorcerer level, round down, but min 1.

You gain 1 spell like ability per sorcerer level. (Chart) provides the levels of your spell like abilities. If you have a source of spell slots, you can treat your spell like abilities as spells known.

(The chart is a lot like a spell slot progression chart.)

When you use a spell like ability, roll your Sorcerer die; if the die is higher in value than the spell like ability level, you can use that spell like ability again. Each time you succeed at this, subtract 1 from future Sorcery die rolls on this spell like ability.

You also learn some cantrips (as usual).

Sorcerous Rebirth
Once per day you can regain all of your spell like abilities as an action. You also gain a number of temporary HP equal to one sorcery die per regained spell like ability. These temporary HP last for 1 minute.

Sorcery Points
No flexible casting. Sorcery points refresh on a short rest. Sorcery point abilities refer to your Sorcery die sometimes.

Domains
Each spell like ability has a choice of domains it can belong to. When you pick a spell like ability, you assign it to a domain it qualifies for.

Your level in a domain is equal to the highest level spell like ability in the domain, or the number of spell like abilities in the domain.

This encourages you to pick spells with themes.

As a spitballed example:

Fire Domain:
1) You gain a +1 bonus to damage on first spells for each level of this domain you have.
2) You have resistance to fire damage.
3) When a fire damage effect says you would take 1/2 damage, you instead take none.
4) When a creature rolls a natural 1 making a saving throw on your fire spells, they take double damage
5) You have resistance to cold damage
6) Fire damage you do ignores resistance to fire damage.
7) You are immune to fire damage
8) You can expend sorcery points to cast an expended spell like ability in this domain equal to its level. You can do this once per spell like ability before completing a long rest.
9) When someone takes fire damage within 30' of you, you can expend a reaction to reduce that damage to 0 and gain temporary HP equal to 1/2 of the damage prevented until the end of your next turn. If you deal fire damage while you have this temporary HP, you can expend the temporary HP to increase the damage you do by 1/2 of your temporary HP expended.

but that is just a spitball version.

Multiclassing
If you multiclass Sorcerer with another class that grants spellcasting, add your Sorcerer level to the other spellcasting class levels. Then subtract spell slots equal to the spell like abilities the Sorcerer has at each level. So if your combined level is 5, you use the 5th level spell slot table. If the sorcerer grants 2 level 1 spell like abilities and 1 level 2 spell like ability, subtract those from the 5th level spell slot table.

...

 

[DeviousQuail]

Lots of cool ideas in this thread. I've added a few to my attempt at a sorcerer upgrade.

Base Class Changes (stole some ideas from the thread):

• Remove Sorcery Points, Font of Magic, and Sorcerous Restoration: Don't need them anymore.
• Metamagic: Split it into two groups; those that are available at level 1 and those that are available at higher levels.
• Metamagic Spells: Whenever you gain a sorcerer spell you choose a metamagic effect. That spell always has that effect when you cast it. In keeping with 5e you can choose to change the metamagic effect of one spell upon leveling up.
• Higher Level Metamagic Effects: These are the big guns like twinned and heightened. At higher level X you can choose one spell to have an effect from this list instead of the base list. As you level up a few more spells can pull from this list. Most of your spells, even at level 20, will still have effects pulled from the base list.
• Cantrips: Since I haven't tested this I'm unsure if it's overpowered, but I would also give cantrips a metamagic effect.
• Material Components: Get out of here. Any spell with a material component that lacks a gold cost loses the material component. That leaves eight spells by my count with a gold cost associated. I'm honestly okay with leaving the gold cost associated ones alone.
• Hit Die Spells: Burn a number of hit dice equal to a spells level to regain that spell slot. Probably max it at level 5 to avoid any multiple 9th level spell shenanigans.

What I'm going for: No more tracking sorcery points and fiddling over whether you're going to use a metamagic feature each time you cast a spell. The metamagic gets baked into the spell and can be different for each sorcerer. There's also nothing saying you can't choose the same metamagic for every spell as long as it can apply to that spell. Overall this sorcerer effectively gets to use more sorcery points, but can't alter their metamagics to the situation. More powerful metamagics are limited so the weaker ones never lose their use.

Subclass Changes:

• I'm taking a two-pronged approach for each subclass. The first part is an increased spell list for spell levels 1-5. Standard stuff. The second change is the physical manifestation part.
• Manifestation: When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher you manifest a physical aspect of your sorcery. The higher level the spell, the more powerful the manifestation. Like the hit die spells I would cap this benefit at level 5 just to keep everything in a manageable range.
  • Draconic Example: When I think dragons I think scales, claws, breath weapon, fear, and wings. There's other stuff too but I'm trying to keep it simple. When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher you pick one of the options to manifest. Scales would give AC that increases with higher level spells. 13 AC with a level 1 spell. All the way up to 17 AC with a 5+ level spell. Claws gives you a natural weapon with a level 1 spell. But at level 5 they might count as magical and have a larger damage die. Fear and breath weapon might have limited uses while scales, claws, and wings could last until a long and/or short rest.
  • Storm Example: The options are flight, speed, avoidance, lightning/thunder damage, and pushing with air. Flight probably starts as more of a slow fall or glide and work its way up to solo flight and maybe even group flight for short durations. Speed is just your basic +5 up to +25. Avoidance, damage, and pushing are probably short term or single use abilities.
  • Wild Magic Example: wild magic, tides of chaos, bend luck, spell bombardment. Frankly, the wild magic sorcerer already has a huge table of "manifestations". I would just make casting a level 1 spell or higher recharge uses of tides of chaos and bend luck or get an extra reroll on the wild magic table.
• Balance: Some options would be gated by level. Things like dragon wings or a storm sorcerers flight would probably come into play at level 6 at the earliest. It would also be a rule that you don't have to manifest when you cast a spell. Except for wild magic sorcerers. They know what they signed up for.

 

[Corinnguard]

Metamagic: Split it into two groups; those that are available at level 1 and those that are available at higher levels.

The Level Up Sorcerer splits Metamagic into three groups- Minor, Moderate and Major. The earliest you can get metamagics for the Level Up Sorcerer is 3rd level. At this level you gain two Minor Metamagic options and one Moderate option. You can gain a new Minor Metamagic at 5th, 10th, 15th and 19th level, and you can gain a new Moderate Metamagic at 10th and 19th level.

Minor: Delayed Spell, Distant Spell, Persistent Spell, Reliable Spell, Subdual Spell, Subtle Spell and Treacherous Spell.

Moderate: Careful Spell, Heightened Spell, Quickened Spell, Reflexive Spell, Refracting Spell, and Twinned Spell.

You gain access to Major Metamagics at 15th level. You gain one at 15th and another at 20th.

Major: Consumptive Spell, Contingent Spell, Echo Spell, and Intensive Spell

Manifestation: When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher you manifest a physical aspect of your sorcery. The higher level the spell, the more powerful the manifestation. Like the hit die spells I would cap this benefit at level 5 just to keep everything in a manageable range.

In Level Up, Manifestation works a little differently.

MANIFESTATION​

At 2nd level, you also choose one of the following manifestations, which represents a kind of energy you are especially effective at producing. When you cast a spell that deals acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, or thunder damage, you can change the damage type to your manifestation’s damage type.

BLIZZARD (COLD)​

When you cast a spell that deals cold damage, you can spend 1 sorcery point and choose one creature you can see. If that creature takes cold damage from the spell, it is also chilled, reducing its movement speeds by 10 feet for a number of rounds equal to the level of the spell (minimum 1 round).

CORROSION (ACID)​

When you cast a spell that deals acid damage, you can spend 1 sorcery point and choose one creature you can see. If that creature takes acid damage from the spell, its Armor Class is reduced by 2 until the end of your next turn.

HURRICANE (LIGHTNING OR THUNDER)​

You can treat both lightning and thunder as your manifestation’s damage types. When you cast a spell that deals lightning or thunder damage, you can spend 1 sorcery point to produce a thunderous blast around you. Large or smaller creatures within 5 feet of you must succeed on a Strength saving throw against your spell save DC or be pushed back 10 feet and knocked prone .

INFERNO (FIRE)​

When you cast a spell that deals fire damage, you can spend 1 sorcery point and choose one creature you can see. If that creature takes fire damage from the spell, it is also set ablaze, taking 2d4 ongoing fire damage for a number of rounds equal to the spell’s level, or until it uses an action to put itself out.

VENOM (POISON)​

When you cast a spell that deals poison damage, you can spend 1 sorcery point, causing creatures immune to poison damage to take half damage, and creatures resistant to poison damage to take full damage.

At 12th level, these manifestations evolve into something a little more powerful.

Sorcerer | Level Up Here's a link on what the Level Up Sorcerer is capable of.

 

[DeviousQuail]

The Level Up Sorcerer splits Metamagic into three groups- Minor, Moderate and Major. The earliest you can get metamagics for the Level Up Sorcerer is 3rd level. At this level you gain two Minor Metamagic options and one Moderate option. You can gain a new Minor Metamagic at 5th, 10th, 15th and 19th level, and you can gain a new Moderate Metamagic at 10th and 19th level.

Minor: Delayed Spell, Distant Spell, Persistent Spell, Reliable Spell, Subdual Spell, Subtle Spell and Treacherous Spell.

Moderate: Careful Spell, Heightened Spell, Quickened Spell, Reflexive Spell, Refracting Spell, and Twinned Spell.

You gain access to Major Metamagics at 15th level. You gain one at 15th and another at 20th.

Major: Consumptive Spell, Contingent Spell, Echo Spell, and Intensive Spell


In Level Up, Manifestation works a little differently.

MANIFESTATION​

At 2nd level, you also choose one of the following manifestations, which represents a kind of energy you are especially effective at producing. When you cast a spell that deals acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, or thunder damage, you can change the damage type to your manifestation’s damage type.

BLIZZARD (COLD)​

When you cast a spell that deals cold damage, you can spend 1 sorcery point and choose one creature you can see. If that creature takes cold damage from the spell, it is also chilled, reducing its movement speeds by 10 feet for a number of rounds equal to the level of the spell (minimum 1 round).

CORROSION (ACID)​

When you cast a spell that deals acid damage, you can spend 1 sorcery point and choose one creature you can see. If that creature takes acid damage from the spell, its Armor Class is reduced by 2 until the end of your next turn.

HURRICANE (LIGHTNING OR THUNDER)​

You can treat both lightning and thunder as your manifestation’s damage types. When you cast a spell that deals lightning or thunder damage, you can spend 1 sorcery point to produce a thunderous blast around you. Large or smaller creatures within 5 feet of you must succeed on a Strength saving throw against your spell save DC or be pushed back 10 feet and knocked prone .

INFERNO (FIRE)​

When you cast a spell that deals fire damage, you can spend 1 sorcery point and choose one creature you can see. If that creature takes fire damage from the spell, it is also set ablaze, taking 2d4 ongoing fire damage for a number of rounds equal to the spell’s level, or until it uses an action to put itself out.

VENOM (POISON)​

When you cast a spell that deals poison damage, you can spend 1 sorcery point, causing creatures immune to poison damage to take half damage, and creatures resistant to poison damage to take full damage.

At 12th level, these manifestations evolve into something a little more powerful.

Sorcerer | Level Up Here's a link on what the Level Up Sorcerer is capable of.

Shh! Don't tell everyone where I took my inspiration from.

 

[Shardstone]

Lots of cool ideas in this thread. I've added a few to my attempt at a sorcerer upgrade.

Base Class Changes (stole some ideas from the thread):

• Remove Sorcery Points, Font of Magic, and Sorcerous Restoration: Don't need them anymore.
• Metamagic: Split it into two groups; those that are available at level 1 and those that are available at higher levels.
• Metamagic Spells: Whenever you gain a sorcerer spell you choose a metamagic effect. That spell always has that effect when you cast it. In keeping with 5e you can choose to change the metamagic effect of one spell upon leveling up.
• Higher Level Metamagic Effects: These are the big guns like twinned and heightened. At higher level X you can choose one spell to have an effect from this list instead of the base list. As you level up a few more spells can pull from this list. Most of your spells, even at level 20, will still have effects pulled from the base list.
• Cantrips: Since I haven't tested this I'm unsure if it's overpowered, but I would also give cantrips a metamagic effect.
• Material Components: Get out of here. Any spell with a material component that lacks a gold cost loses the material component. That leaves eight spells by my count with a gold cost associated. I'm honestly okay with leaving the gold cost associated ones alone.
• Hit Die Spells: Burn a number of hit dice equal to a spells level to regain that spell slot. Probably max it at level 5 to avoid any multiple 9th level spell shenanigans.

What I'm going for: No more tracking sorcery points and fiddling over whether you're going to use a metamagic feature each time you cast a spell. The metamagic gets baked into the spell and can be different for each sorcerer. There's also nothing saying you can't choose the same metamagic for every spell as long as it can apply to that spell. Overall this sorcerer effectively gets to use more sorcery points, but can't alter their metamagics to the situation. More powerful metamagics are limited so the weaker ones never lose their use.

Subclass Changes:

• I'm taking a two-pronged approach for each subclass. The first part is an increased spell list for spell levels 1-5. Standard stuff. The second change is the physical manifestation part.
• Manifestation: When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher you manifest a physical aspect of your sorcery. The higher level the spell, the more powerful the manifestation. Like the hit die spells I would cap this benefit at level 5 just to keep everything in a manageable range.
  • Draconic Example: When I think dragons I think scales, claws, breath weapon, fear, and wings. There's other stuff too but I'm trying to keep it simple. When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher you pick one of the options to manifest. Scales would give AC that increases with higher level spells. 13 AC with a level 1 spell. All the way up to 17 AC with a 5+ level spell. Claws gives you a natural weapon with a level 1 spell. But at level 5 they might count as magical and have a larger damage die. Fear and breath weapon might have limited uses while scales, claws, and wings could last until a long and/or short rest.
  • Storm Example: The options are flight, speed, avoidance, lightning/thunder damage, and pushing with air. Flight probably starts as more of a slow fall or glide and work its way up to solo flight and maybe even group flight for short durations. Speed is just your basic +5 up to +25. Avoidance, damage, and pushing are probably short term or single use abilities.
  • Wild Magic Example: wild magic, tides of chaos, bend luck, spell bombardment. Frankly, the wild magic sorcerer already has a huge table of "manifestations". I would just make casting a level 1 spell or higher recharge uses of tides of chaos and bend luck or get an extra reroll on the wild magic table.
• Balance: Some options would be gated by level. Things like dragon wings or a storm sorcerers flight would probably come into play at level 6 at the earliest. It would also be a rule that you don't have to manifest when you cast a spell. Except for wild magic sorcerers. They know what they signed up for.

Your metamagic spell idea is genius actually, I'm stealing that, thanks!

 

[FrozenNorth]

It isn't "just", but yes it is worse than Vancian, in that if you ignore everything else about it you could make it more powerful by adding (can pick any slot to power any spell) and (can pick any spell).

The goal is to make the Sorcerer feel less like "wizard lite" and more like its own class.

So, you get spell like abilities. Each time you use an ability, it has a chance to be expended until the next long rest.

Also, something like: Once per long rest as an action, you can recover a pile of abilities; maybe all of them? That would put an interesting tactical choice on it - you'll want to let your tank run low before using "regain all abilities".

Being concrete...

Sorcery Die: You gain a Sorcery Die. It starts out as 1d4. It increases to 1d6 at level 5, 1d8 at level 11 and 1d10 at level 17.

1) When your sorcery spells and magical abilities deal damage to a target, it deals extra damage equal to a roll of the sorcery die.
2) When you make a save against a spell, you add your Sorcery Die to your saving throw.

Spell Like Abilities: You learn spell like abilities. Select these abilities from the Sorcerer spell list. Your spell like abilities are always cast as if you used a spell slot equal to 1/2 of your sorcerer level, round down, but min 1.

You gain 1 spell like ability per sorcerer level. (Chart) provides the levels of your spell like abilities. If you have a source of spell slots, you can treat your spell like abilities as spells known.

(The chart is a lot like a spell slot progression chart.)

I would suggest using the warlock invocation chart for this. This allows you to create spell-like abilities that are roughly as powerful as invocations. Plus 20 spell like abilities is too many for most players to handle or care about, and the PC will end up with a lot of abilities they never use.

Finally, remember that you need to come up with at least twice as many cool, impactful and balanced abilities as the player can choose, so too many abilities is rough on the DM as well.

I’ve adopted “invocations but different” for fighter martial disciplines, rogue tricks, ranger knacks, paladin divine disciplines and monk techniques and it works well (though each individual discipline is weaker than the warlock’s invocation).

 

[Stormonu]

More than anything, I think the base Sorcerer list needs tweaking. There should be some unique sorcerer spells, and they should have access to some spells the Wizard can't get (possibly even removing them from the Wizard). Offhand, I think that some of elemental Druid spells should be pulled into the list - call lightning, flame blade, barkskin come to mind. Probably wouldn't put in cure wounds - I think that would be better saved for a sorcerer subclass such as the Radiant Soul.

<EDIT> I'm also considering some extra Metamagics, some based on spell schools, such as:

#### Delayed Spell
When you cast a known spell with a casting time of one action or bonus action, you can lower the slot level based on how long you delay the spell from activating. You set all parameters of the spell at the time of casting, and it activates using the point of origin where you originally cast the spell. A spell cannot have a negative cost by delaying it, though you can use slots or created slots to cast the delayed spell.

The delay listed below is the minimum time required to delay activating the spell, and can be set longer as desired to a maximum of 24 hours.

A delayed spell can be discerned as a miniscule mote of energy, detectable by an Arcana skill check against your spellcasting DC, or detect magic, and can be counterspelled or affected by dispel magic or other spells or ability that disrupt spells.

##### Delay
|Time|Slot/Sorcery Point|
| | Reduction|
|:---|:---:|
|1-10 minute| 1 |
|1+ hour| 2 |
|2+ hours | gains ritual tag |

#### Dire Charm (Enchantment)
When you cast an enchantment spell that charms a target, you can expend 1 sorcery point to have the charmed victim treat their allies as hostile opponents for the duration of the spell.

#### Shadow Magic (Illusion)
When you cast an illusion spell, you can infuse it with a semblance of reality. You expend 1 sorcery point and can choose to expend extra sorcery points up to a total of the level of the cast spell. The illusion gains an AC of 8 + your spellcasting modifier, hit points equal to twice your level and any attacks it appears to do use your spellcasting modifier to hit and deals 2 points of psychic damage on a hit per sorcery point used. If the base spell deals damage, you add this additional damage to it.

#### Spell Rider
When you cast a spell that targets only one creature and doesn't have a range of self, you can add a second spell with the same parameters, provided the second spell does not require concentration and the target is in the second spell's range. This costs a number of sorcery points equal to the second spell's level, plus 1.

#### Vampiric Spell (Necromancy)
When you cast a spell that deals damage, you can expend a number of sorcery points equal to the spell's level so that half the damage it deals you gain as temporary hit points. If the spell damages more than one target, you only gain temporary hit points based on the most damage one of the targets takes.