Zardnaar
Legend
So this is more or less a pure final form Sorcerer build for 5.5. I'm assuming that no 5.0 material is allowed but I will include the "best" feats. This build I believe is the best blaster in the game but isnt a pure blaster. One coulddouble down on the blaster part but its a bit DM dependent and the main difference is a few spells and metamagic options. It is designed to do well at combat regardless of how the DM designs encounters or if you are doing a 5MWD or 1-10 encounters or whatever.
1. Don't get hit. 5.5 monsters hit a lot harder than 5.0 and generally theres more of them in RAW encouters. Or they;'re a lot bigger if you use few monsters. Eg CR 5 can turn up lvl 3, I have seen CR 3's in lvl 2 adventures priinted by WotC and by level 12/13 you can be looking at CR 19 or so or any variation. Racing damage is not the best play unlike 5.0. Even barbarians are not immune due to changes in damage reduction and monster damage types.
2. Monster hit point inflation combined with poor saving throws especially mental. Monster misses its action feeds into part 1 don't get hit.
3. Worst to best saves to target. Constitution, strength, dexterity, wisdom, charisma, intelligence.
4. The wisdom save bottleneck. A huge portion of A and S tier spells in 5.5 target wisdom. The golden 6. Command, Tashas Hideous Laughter, Sleep, Fear, Hypnotic Pattern and Slow. Note these all disable foes or debuff them drastically. Additional mentions to hold person and monster, Confusion, Conjure Woodland beings, Spirit Guardians. This is only a partial list. At higher level Conjure Celestial is ball breaking.
5. Changes to the Sorcerer vs Wizard. Wizards generally have an advantage at summoning and rituals. I regard summoning as somewhat weak vs a emanations for example. Sorcerers got a drastic overhaul, a new spell in Sorcerous Burst and chromatic orb was overhauled.
Chromatic Orb
Basic explanation. Basically CO bounces 92% of the time in a level 4 slot, 30 odd to 70% chance level 1-3. On a critical hit. double damage a level 1 CO in effect gets upcast to 4th level in bounce while a level 2 one in effect is a level 6 CO. A real upcast one can bounce more and a level 6 one generally out performs chain lightning. Anyone within 30 feet can be hit by a bounce. Vs fireball and lightning bolt those spells generally are not worth upcasting IMHO. CO excels at being upcast. In any even we can use them as well best of both worlds as the situation demands it.
To hit a lot with Chromatic Orb we will want to ramp accuracy up. This build will do that independently of what the DM is doing. We can also target saves if AC is to high, cover is used or the DM likes the shield spell a lot.
Automatic critical hits. 2 conditions make critical hits automatic and grant advantage to hit close up. Paralyzed and unconscious. For the most part this means hold spells and sleep effects. Ramp that damage up. Those conditions also inflict incapacitated which negates the disadvantage at firing point blank range. You gain advantage to hit instead.
Build Guide.
Unfortunately the Sorcerer is one of the weakest classes if not the weakest at level 1 and 2. Even the wizard is probably marginally better depending on player skill. Race depends on if DM allow 5.0 material into the game or not and if they have not house ruled out custom origins or 5.0 back grounds. Halfling or Elf is recommended for the lucky trait and 5.0 elven accuracy. If you have to use 5.5 as is no custom origins human it is and the guide will assume that choice. In any even you want to pick up the magic initiate: cleric feat. This is to acquire the bless spell and guidance cantrips. Last cantrip is pick your favorite. Sorcerer cantrips I recommend true strike and sorcerous burst and pick your favorites for what is left over. If DM allows custom its take whatever you lick perhaps magic initiate :wizard (take tashas hideous laughter)otherwise you have to pick any that buffs charisma and dexterity/constitution. Mind sliver also offers several benefits and doesn't target wisdom saves.
Starting out Level 1&2.
Basic point buy spread after adjustments.
Charisma 17
Con 14
Dexterity 14 or 16 (trade off best scores vs multiple good ones.)
Rest assign how you like.
Bless is the secret tech for this build. At low levels its one of the most efficient spells you can use. At higher levels you can combine your free 1/day slot with another bonus action spell. You are proficient in constitution saves I generally bless myself and the two hardest hitting beat sticks or warlocks you have. Its good all by itself and easy to keep up vs everyone else in the party eg if a cleric cast it. Simple ranged weapon, spear or javelin and true strikes your best bet for damage after this. The other key spell to pick is sleep then its pick your favorites. You can pick chromatic orb now if you like and retrain out later. Level 1 also gives you Innate Sorcery twice per long rest you can bonus action gain advantage to hit with spells and +1 spell DC. Innate sorcery cast bless......
At level 2 you get another 2 spells to pick from. Its really choose your favorites. More importantly you can pick metamagic. For this build you take empower spell and twin spell. Empower is just good for a blaster and in effect it can function as an arcane smite effect as you can do it with critical hits. Twin got "nerfed: but now its so cheap you can tin all of your level 2 spells +. You don't have a huge selecetion to pick from true but you have some power houses. You can twin bless hitting 4 people with a level 1 bless. Other spells you can twin and are interested in are command, tashas hideous laughter, hold person and hold monster. If 5.0 material is allowed you can also twin tasha's mind whip. Mostly bless at this point boring but super effective and Mr popular in a low level party. If you took magic initiate wizard: tashas hideous laugher you can twin that.
Level 4. One more spell and a feat. Any feat that boosts charisma. I would consider warcaster or spell sniper or potentially fey touched to pick up hex. Hex+ scorching ray is a 9d6 damage and can boost your truestrike or sorcerous burst. Warcaster isn't as critical due to proficiency in constitution saves. For AoEs you have Dragon breath, chromatic orb and scorching ray potentially with hex. You also have hold person and if you paralyze or render someone unconscious via sleep we are potentially looking at 12d6 scorching ray or an 8d6 chromatic orb with around a 99% bounce chance that can be empowered as well. If someone else paralyzes someone 18d6 damage single target with hex just saying. For control you have sleep, hold person, command and anything else you have picked while retaining bless as an option. If your DM runs a close to 5 minute workday you're covered if they run longer you have bless and potentially hex to use. Fae touched also lets you pick tashas hideous laughter.
Level 5. Another important level. You get fear and fly for free and can pick two more spells. I recommend fireball or lightning bolt and normally 1 out of fear, slow and hypnotic pattern. You already get fear so you can skip one of these. 5.5 has a bit more immunity to fear and charm effects and I like slow a lot. Fear and slow both avoid friendly fire and slow also debuffs them two AC. You're a hybrid of blaster and controller and can swtch between the two now. If the DM throws single to few enemies at you command, hold person and sleep can do a lot of hard carry. Goups effects you have AoEs and if you're doing an unknown number of encounters or like conserving slots bless everyone else and sit back spamming cantrips. For damage and control you've got all the bases covered. The best blast spells and control the game has and you can metamagic them. Nothing is immune to the slow spell.
Level 6. Subclass ability. Probably pick a fire or lightning dragon subtype based on what spell you picked or like the most. Fireball generally hits the most targets but 20% of the MM is immune or resistant to fire. Lightning is a lot safer and lightning bolt is a more tactical/safer option in terms of friendly fire. Pick your favorite. Charisma to damage is generally better with AoE spells vs chromatic orb/scorching ray. Spell selection pick your favorite.
Level 7 Sorcery Incarnate. You can recharge innate sorcery via spell slot. Spells you aquire arcane eye and charm monster. Confusion has its appeal most its mostly pick your favorites. By now you can hit 3 or 4 targets with hold person, up to 5 with command and chromatic orb bounce chance in a 4th level slot is 92% base.
Level 8. Feat+ spell. Pick your favorite spell. if you think the campaing will hit 12rth level you can take whatever you missed at 4th level or a plan ol +2 charisma taking it to20. Pick your favorite.
Level 9. You gain legend lore and summon dragon. Sorcerers generally lack summon spells. Summon dragon sounds cool but its one of the weaker summon spells. It has its uses though its another body with 2 attacks. Eats your concentration slot however. Spell I like picking here is hold monster as you can twin it. hitting two or 3 opponents at lvl 11 via twin is chiefs kiss espicially followed up with those level 4+ chromatic orbs. I also like Synaptic Static and if you have taken mind sliver and tashas mind whip that is 3 spells that target intellignece the best save in the game to target IMHO. By now you have the best control spells in the ame, your spell DC is 16 minimum and can be as high as 18 without magic items. Flick to a random page in the MM and check out the wisdom and/or intelligence scores of whatever creature you landed on.
Level 10. You get two more metamagics. THis is when I take quicken as its rather expensive to use. You can quicken a bless spell for example then cast a chromatic orb or cast a successful hold monster spell then cast a quickened empowered point blank sorcerous burst ( advantage to hit, 4d8+charsisma mod+exploding dice reroll up to 4 or 5 dice, 6d8 lvl 11). Remember spells via magic initiate and fae touched do not count vs spell slots.
That is the build. Its essentially complete at level 6 and playable from level 1. A pure blasting build would probably dump twin spell for energy substitution for acid/frost fire ball and lightning bolts or add seeking spell into the mix. You could also take the lucky feat for more dice manipulation. Acid Sorcerer is the best at avoiding resistances.
Basically the build wants to avoid getting screwed over regardless of how the DM runs the game or picks what monsters to use. A very high AC game combined with very good wisdom saves kind of counters it to some extent but that type of game would counter a lot of builds and entire classes so there is that. You have AoEs and can take other spells in those situations there is a lot of lleft over versatility in the spell selection.
5.5 Meta
The 5.5 Meta. After runnning encounters RAW and playing a 5.5 campaign to lvl 13, playtests at 7,10,12 and 3 sorcerers seen in game are my thoughts on the 5.5 Meta. We have also done a 5.5 mod to BG3 and use further mods to crank up the difficulty on honour mode. Sorcerer tested more or less as is (minimal BG3isms) to level 12 using Chromatic Orb a lot.1. Don't get hit. 5.5 monsters hit a lot harder than 5.0 and generally theres more of them in RAW encouters. Or they;'re a lot bigger if you use few monsters. Eg CR 5 can turn up lvl 3, I have seen CR 3's in lvl 2 adventures priinted by WotC and by level 12/13 you can be looking at CR 19 or so or any variation. Racing damage is not the best play unlike 5.0. Even barbarians are not immune due to changes in damage reduction and monster damage types.
2. Monster hit point inflation combined with poor saving throws especially mental. Monster misses its action feeds into part 1 don't get hit.
3. Worst to best saves to target. Constitution, strength, dexterity, wisdom, charisma, intelligence.
4. The wisdom save bottleneck. A huge portion of A and S tier spells in 5.5 target wisdom. The golden 6. Command, Tashas Hideous Laughter, Sleep, Fear, Hypnotic Pattern and Slow. Note these all disable foes or debuff them drastically. Additional mentions to hold person and monster, Confusion, Conjure Woodland beings, Spirit Guardians. This is only a partial list. At higher level Conjure Celestial is ball breaking.
5. Changes to the Sorcerer vs Wizard. Wizards generally have an advantage at summoning and rituals. I regard summoning as somewhat weak vs a emanations for example. Sorcerers got a drastic overhaul, a new spell in Sorcerous Burst and chromatic orb was overhauled.
Chromatic Orb
Basic explanation. Basically CO bounces 92% of the time in a level 4 slot, 30 odd to 70% chance level 1-3. On a critical hit. double damage a level 1 CO in effect gets upcast to 4th level in bounce while a level 2 one in effect is a level 6 CO. A real upcast one can bounce more and a level 6 one generally out performs chain lightning. Anyone within 30 feet can be hit by a bounce. Vs fireball and lightning bolt those spells generally are not worth upcasting IMHO. CO excels at being upcast. In any even we can use them as well best of both worlds as the situation demands it.
To hit a lot with Chromatic Orb we will want to ramp accuracy up. This build will do that independently of what the DM is doing. We can also target saves if AC is to high, cover is used or the DM likes the shield spell a lot.
Automatic critical hits. 2 conditions make critical hits automatic and grant advantage to hit close up. Paralyzed and unconscious. For the most part this means hold spells and sleep effects. Ramp that damage up. Those conditions also inflict incapacitated which negates the disadvantage at firing point blank range. You gain advantage to hit instead.
Build Guide.
Unfortunately the Sorcerer is one of the weakest classes if not the weakest at level 1 and 2. Even the wizard is probably marginally better depending on player skill. Race depends on if DM allow 5.0 material into the game or not and if they have not house ruled out custom origins or 5.0 back grounds. Halfling or Elf is recommended for the lucky trait and 5.0 elven accuracy. If you have to use 5.5 as is no custom origins human it is and the guide will assume that choice. In any even you want to pick up the magic initiate: cleric feat. This is to acquire the bless spell and guidance cantrips. Last cantrip is pick your favorite. Sorcerer cantrips I recommend true strike and sorcerous burst and pick your favorites for what is left over. If DM allows custom its take whatever you lick perhaps magic initiate :wizard (take tashas hideous laughter)otherwise you have to pick any that buffs charisma and dexterity/constitution. Mind sliver also offers several benefits and doesn't target wisdom saves.
Starting out Level 1&2.
Basic point buy spread after adjustments.
Charisma 17
Con 14
Dexterity 14 or 16 (trade off best scores vs multiple good ones.)
Rest assign how you like.
Bless is the secret tech for this build. At low levels its one of the most efficient spells you can use. At higher levels you can combine your free 1/day slot with another bonus action spell. You are proficient in constitution saves I generally bless myself and the two hardest hitting beat sticks or warlocks you have. Its good all by itself and easy to keep up vs everyone else in the party eg if a cleric cast it. Simple ranged weapon, spear or javelin and true strikes your best bet for damage after this. The other key spell to pick is sleep then its pick your favorites. You can pick chromatic orb now if you like and retrain out later. Level 1 also gives you Innate Sorcery twice per long rest you can bonus action gain advantage to hit with spells and +1 spell DC. Innate sorcery cast bless......
At level 2 you get another 2 spells to pick from. Its really choose your favorites. More importantly you can pick metamagic. For this build you take empower spell and twin spell. Empower is just good for a blaster and in effect it can function as an arcane smite effect as you can do it with critical hits. Twin got "nerfed: but now its so cheap you can tin all of your level 2 spells +. You don't have a huge selecetion to pick from true but you have some power houses. You can twin bless hitting 4 people with a level 1 bless. Other spells you can twin and are interested in are command, tashas hideous laughter, hold person and hold monster. If 5.0 material is allowed you can also twin tasha's mind whip. Mostly bless at this point boring but super effective and Mr popular in a low level party. If you took magic initiate wizard: tashas hideous laugher you can twin that.
Level 3.
Important level pick your subclass. This is going to be the Dragon Sorcerer mostly because its spell list. You get Command and Chromatic Orb. This is your bread and butter of the build. Command can be twinned for the low low cost of 1 sorcery point. Chromatic Orb will become you main blasting spell. You also get alter self and Dragon Breath but the other key part is Draconic Resilience. You also gain two more spells I recommend hold person and a pick you favorite. Scorching ray taken now or in +1 level. Picking shield by now or retraining it is a good idea IMHO. Level 4. One more spell and a feat. Any feat that boosts charisma. I would consider warcaster or spell sniper or potentially fey touched to pick up hex. Hex+ scorching ray is a 9d6 damage and can boost your truestrike or sorcerous burst. Warcaster isn't as critical due to proficiency in constitution saves. For AoEs you have Dragon breath, chromatic orb and scorching ray potentially with hex. You also have hold person and if you paralyze or render someone unconscious via sleep we are potentially looking at 12d6 scorching ray or an 8d6 chromatic orb with around a 99% bounce chance that can be empowered as well. If someone else paralyzes someone 18d6 damage single target with hex just saying. For control you have sleep, hold person, command and anything else you have picked while retaining bless as an option. If your DM runs a close to 5 minute workday you're covered if they run longer you have bless and potentially hex to use. Fae touched also lets you pick tashas hideous laughter.
Level 5. Another important level. You get fear and fly for free and can pick two more spells. I recommend fireball or lightning bolt and normally 1 out of fear, slow and hypnotic pattern. You already get fear so you can skip one of these. 5.5 has a bit more immunity to fear and charm effects and I like slow a lot. Fear and slow both avoid friendly fire and slow also debuffs them two AC. You're a hybrid of blaster and controller and can swtch between the two now. If the DM throws single to few enemies at you command, hold person and sleep can do a lot of hard carry. Goups effects you have AoEs and if you're doing an unknown number of encounters or like conserving slots bless everyone else and sit back spamming cantrips. For damage and control you've got all the bases covered. The best blast spells and control the game has and you can metamagic them. Nothing is immune to the slow spell.
Level 6. Subclass ability. Probably pick a fire or lightning dragon subtype based on what spell you picked or like the most. Fireball generally hits the most targets but 20% of the MM is immune or resistant to fire. Lightning is a lot safer and lightning bolt is a more tactical/safer option in terms of friendly fire. Pick your favorite. Charisma to damage is generally better with AoE spells vs chromatic orb/scorching ray. Spell selection pick your favorite.
Level 7 Sorcery Incarnate. You can recharge innate sorcery via spell slot. Spells you aquire arcane eye and charm monster. Confusion has its appeal most its mostly pick your favorites. By now you can hit 3 or 4 targets with hold person, up to 5 with command and chromatic orb bounce chance in a 4th level slot is 92% base.
Level 8. Feat+ spell. Pick your favorite spell. if you think the campaing will hit 12rth level you can take whatever you missed at 4th level or a plan ol +2 charisma taking it to20. Pick your favorite.
Level 9. You gain legend lore and summon dragon. Sorcerers generally lack summon spells. Summon dragon sounds cool but its one of the weaker summon spells. It has its uses though its another body with 2 attacks. Eats your concentration slot however. Spell I like picking here is hold monster as you can twin it. hitting two or 3 opponents at lvl 11 via twin is chiefs kiss espicially followed up with those level 4+ chromatic orbs. I also like Synaptic Static and if you have taken mind sliver and tashas mind whip that is 3 spells that target intellignece the best save in the game to target IMHO. By now you have the best control spells in the ame, your spell DC is 16 minimum and can be as high as 18 without magic items. Flick to a random page in the MM and check out the wisdom and/or intelligence scores of whatever creature you landed on.
Level 10. You get two more metamagics. THis is when I take quicken as its rather expensive to use. You can quicken a bless spell for example then cast a chromatic orb or cast a successful hold monster spell then cast a quickened empowered point blank sorcerous burst ( advantage to hit, 4d8+charsisma mod+exploding dice reroll up to 4 or 5 dice, 6d8 lvl 11). Remember spells via magic initiate and fae touched do not count vs spell slots.
That is the build. Its essentially complete at level 6 and playable from level 1. A pure blasting build would probably dump twin spell for energy substitution for acid/frost fire ball and lightning bolts or add seeking spell into the mix. You could also take the lucky feat for more dice manipulation. Acid Sorcerer is the best at avoiding resistances.
Basically the build wants to avoid getting screwed over regardless of how the DM runs the game or picks what monsters to use. A very high AC game combined with very good wisdom saves kind of counters it to some extent but that type of game would counter a lot of builds and entire classes so there is that. You have AoEs and can take other spells in those situations there is a lot of lleft over versatility in the spell selection.
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