D&D 5E How Is This Balanced?

[Zardnaar]

This comment was made by a Dragon Sorcerer in regards to a Light Cleric and Sorc1/Twilight Cleric. All PCs are level 8.

We only have 1 dedicated front line type in the party a paladin with a Ranged rogue rounding out the party.

To be fair I regard a Dragon Sorcerer as B tier Sorcerer and those two clerics as S tier.

Anyway the twilight cleric tends to wade into melee combat and the light cleric started as a ranged PC but has kind of copied the twilight clerics spells.

Both clerics are wisdom based and use spiritual weapon/guardians, guiding Bolt, toll the dead and inflict woubds.The MC one uses booming blade.

Not much is resistant to necrotic/radiant/force.

The fire Sorcerer is exactly that and has encounteed fire resistant critters and isn't good in melee.

One of the clerics players is also not the best skill wise the Dragon Sorcerer not so much.

Anyway ideas? I'm thinking of tweaking some of the encounters so the fire Sorcerer won't be so screwed but the big bad is still a fire giant. He can also cast haste or twin it.

Normally a you broke it you buy it type DM but getting soft in old age.

 

[tetrasodium]

This comment was made by a Dragon Sorcerer in regards to a Light Cleric and Sorc1/Twilight Cleric. All PCs are level 8.

We only have 1 dedicated front line type in the party a paladin with a Ranged rogue rounding out the party.

To be fair I regard a Dragon Sorcerer as B tier Sorcerer and those two clerics as S tier.

Anyway the twilight cleric tends to wade into melee combat and the light cleric started as a ranged PC but has kind of copied the twilight clerics spells.

Both clerics are wisdom based and use spiritual weapon/guardians, guiding Bolt, toll the dead and inflict woubds.The MC one uses booming blade.

Not much is resistant to necrotic/radiant/force.

The fire Sorcerer is exactly that and has encounteed fire resistant critters and isn't good in melee.

It's only going to get worse & that goes double if you are playing descent into avernus.

 

[J-H]

Add the missing subclass spells to the pre-Tasha's subclasses and let the sorc re-pick afterwards. That fixes quite a bit.

Also, I as a DM am not going to allow Twilight or Peace clerics in my games, or at least not without some nerfs.

 

[Zardnaar]

It's only going to get worse & that goes double if you are playing descent into avernus.

Not it's a update of City of the Spider Queen. Kind of a sequel.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

When the Fire Sorceror first posited their character, did the DM warn them that the adventure was written so as to negate a lot of their capabilities?

Do they just play as a ranged blaster, or do they also cover some of the utilities that the clerics can't?
There is the feat that allows you to ignore resistance. Granting that capability in an item or divine blessing could be an option. Or speaking of divine blessings, one that converts some fire damage to radiant or similar could work.

Or just adjust some of the monsters. If the demons are from a plane of darkness and death rather than hellfire, maybe give them resistance/immunity to poison and necrotic damage rather than fire.

 

[Zardnaar]

When the Fire Sorceror first posited their character, did the DM warn them that the adventure was written so as to negate a lot of their capabilities?

Do they just play as a ranged blaster, or do they also cover some of the utilities that the clerics can't?
There is the feat that allows you to ignore resistance. Granting that capability in an item or divine blessing could be an option. Or speaking of divine blessings, one that converts some fire damage to radiant or similar could work.

Or just adjust some of the monsters. If the demons are from a plane of darkness and death rather than hellfire, maybe give them resistance/immunity to poison and necrotic damage rather than fire.

I'm the DM. He wanted to play an illusionist which I suggested would be bad.

Last minute change to Sorcerer.


I think I listed fire giants on the players guide.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I'm the DM. He wanted to play an illusionist which I suggested would be bad.

Last minute change to Sorcerer.


I think I listed fire giants on the players guide.

Why did you suggest, that an illusionist is bad?

That aside, a fire dragon sorcerer with twinned haste and so on can actually still be decent just by hasting the paladin and tge rogue while making sure that they can keep concentration up.
It is just psychologically necessary to credit all that damage to them instead of the paladin and rogue.
While keeping haste up, the sorcerer can still blast enemies with non fire spells (chromatic orb set to ice damage should help) and the built in fire resistance for the sorcerer might also come in handy.

So what you might want to do is making sure the sorcerer uses their full arsenal, and make sure, they are credited for what they are doing.
Con saving throw proficiency also helps keeping up haste. Usually the clerics do struggle although the sorc1/clericX might have thought about that.

Edit: do you play spirit guardians right?
I. e. only damaging once at the start of someone's turn, not when the cleric goes into melee.

 

[Zardnaar]

Why did you suggest, that an illusionist is bad?

That aside, a fire dragon sorcerer with twinned haste and so on can actually still be decent just by hasting the paladin and tge rogue while making sure that they can keep concentration up.
It is just psychologically necessary to credit all that damage to them instead of the paladin and rogue.
While keeping haste up, the sorcerer can still blast enemies with non fire spells (chromatic orb set to ice damage should help) and the built in fire resistance for the sorcerer might also come in handy.

So what you might want to do is making sure the sorcerer uses their full arsenal, and make sure, they are credited for what they are doing.
Con saving throw proficiency also helps keeping up haste. Usually the clerics do struggle although the sorc1/clericX might have thought about that.

Edit: do you play spirit guardians right?
I. e. only damaging once at the start of someone's turn, not when the cleric goes into melee.

Yes we play it right. Both clerics have warcaster, the Sorcerer/Cleric is proficient in con saves.

I suggested the illusionist will be bad due to things like mind flayers and Drow, exploration themed less social stuff etc.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Yes we play it right. Both clerics have warcaster, the Sorcerer/Cleric is proficient in con saves.

I suggested the illusionist will be bad due to things like mind flayers and Drow, exploration themed less social stuff etc.

Ok... so both cleric players know what they are doing. It is always difficult to compete with such people

Regarding the illusionist, I guess you are underestimating the utility. We are playing an exploration absed campaign and my bard is getting a lot of mileage out of his major image and his ritual caster feat. A specialized illusionist should be able to get even more mileage out of that spell.
Drow don´t have special defenses vs. illusions as it is not a saving throw. My bard used the spell vs drows.
Also you shouldnever forget, that in 5e an illusionis is still a wizard with an endless array of spells and utility.

But that ship has sailed. So you might present my solution to the sorcerer in question. You might allow him to swap one or the other spell. What I said for the wizard above is also true for the sorcerer. Even though you specialize in fire, how many different spells do you need?
Chromatic orb is a good utility spell, that even can be twinned. Usually it is set on fire damage, but it is adaptable.
Look for twinnable buffs or debuffs. Twin spell can circumvent the concentration restriction which is a great tool. (I mentioned haste above, but there are other spells which can shake up the action economy (leviate is a very nasty debuff, especially in combination with zone spells.
Lift 2 people 1 ft above the ground and you have set them up for hurt, it doubles as a nice utility spell).
Generally a sorcerer should look for spells, that are generally useful in many situations.

 

[Zardnaar]

Ok... so both cleric players know what they are doing. It is always difficult to compete with such people

Regarding the illusionist, I guess you are underestimating the utility. We are playing an exploration absed campaign and my bard is getting a lot of mileage out of his major image and his ritual caster feat. A specialized illusionist should be able to get even more mileage out of that spell.
Drow don´t have special defenses vs. illusions as it is not a saving throw. My bard used the spell vs drows.
Also you shouldnever forget, that in 5e an illusionis is still a wizard with an endless array of spells and utility.

But that ship has sailed. So you might present my solution to the sorcerer in question. You might allow him to swap one or the other spell. What I said for the wizard above is also true for the sorcerer. Even though you specialize in fire, how many different spells do you need?
Chromatic orb is a good utility spell, that even can be twinned. Usually it is set on fire damage, but it is adaptable.
Look for twinnable buffs or debuffs. Twin spell can circumvent the concentration restriction which is a great tool. (I mentioned haste above, but there are other spells which can shake up the action economy (leviate is a very nasty debuff, especially in combination with zone spells.
Lift 2 people 1 ft above the ground and you have set them up for hurt, it doubles as a nice utility spell).
Generally a sorcerer should look for spells, that are generally useful in many situations.

Preaching to the choir Sorcerer player not as experienced. He does have chromatic orb and haste.

Light cleric kinda similar but smart enough to copy the other cleric at least with basic spells.

 

[Moorcrys]

Transmuted Spell metamagic from Tasha’s might help with the fire issue. Maybe a bloodwell vial to give them a few extra SPs as well.

Also - if you don’t want to add some spells known to the dragon sorcerer to bring them in line with the design of the newer bloodlines, you might want to consider having their sorcerer find some kind of a staff. That will give them some extra spell versatility (heck you can design the staff to give them access to a few spells you think would really help them if you want) that’s thematically in line with their class choice. Staffs are awesome for sorcerers imho.

 

[aco175]

I have no problems with giving items out that have cool powers. For the sorcerer, I may have something that changers the type of damage from fire to cold or radiant. Also, just a staff of lightning with several charged powers goes a long way. I do like the ability to overcome fire resistance to some extent.

Is the bigger problem that some of the players are newer and not used to casters or good at picking spells.

 

[Krachek]

Tasha book Got some new helping features for a sorcerer.
transmuted spell can help against resistance and imunity.
Sorcerous versatility can help to become more skill wise.

The later should already be available to the pc, the metamagic can be allowed through retrain, or by a magic item. there is no reasons to let a player on the B team.

 

[auburn2]

This comment was made by a Dragon Sorcerer in regards to a Light Cleric and Sorc1/Twilight Cleric. All PCs are level 8.

We only have 1 dedicated front line type in the party a paladin with a Ranged rogue rounding out the party.

To be fair I regard a Dragon Sorcerer as B tier Sorcerer and those two clerics as S tier.

Anyway the twilight cleric tends to wade into melee combat and the light cleric started as a ranged PC but has kind of copied the twilight clerics spells.

Both clerics are wisdom based and use spiritual weapon/guardians, guiding Bolt, toll the dead and inflict woubds.The MC one uses booming blade.

Not much is resistant to necrotic/radiant/force.

The fire Sorcerer is exactly that and has encounteed fire resistant critters and isn't good in melee.

One of the clerics players is also not the best skill wise the Dragon Sorcerer not so much.

Anyway ideas? I'm thinking of tweaking some of the encounters so the fire Sorcerer won't be so screwed but the big bad is still a fire giant. He can also cast haste or twin it.

Normally a you broke it you buy it type DM but getting soft in old age.

If the sorc invested in charisma skills put in some conversational role playing he can excell in. Use ranged enemies.

 

[Shiroiken]

Cleric - I'm currently playing a Spirit Guardians focused cleric, so I know their weaknesses. Are you using 6-8 encounters per long rest, and what level are you working with? Until you start to get into the 10+ level range, you just can't do it every combat, so you have to pick your fights (I normally use Bless on those other fights). Concentration is also a real pain, and without Warcaster or Resilient it's very easy to lose the spell when you wade into melee (especially since you should immediately aggro every enemy). If built towards, this is a pretty powerful build for most types of fights, for as long as you have the spell slots.

Fire Dragon Sorcerer - My first 5E campaign had one of these. It was fairly strong at the time, but she didn't face many monsters that were fire resistant/immune until about level 10. She took the feat that allowed her to bypass resistance, leaving only fire immune creatures as an issue. Knowing we were going to be facing giants, and expecting fire giants, she picked a handful of spells, plus one cantrip, that did non-fire damage (although she adamantly refused to ever deal cold damage). When they faced the Hall of the Fire Giant King, she was woefully under-powered compared to the rest of the party, but until then she'd been the DPR star of the show. Afterwards she was somewhat outpaced by the Eldritch Knight Archer, but that was largely due to him picking up a 3rd attack, sharpshooter, and a badass magic bow (based on the Hank's bow from the D&D cartoon). IMO it's still the strongest sorcerer build outside of Divine Soul, but the DM should work with the player before starting to campaign if one element is going to be heavily resisted/ignored.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

There's the spell shards in Tasha's that can be a powerful and thematic boost to the sorcerer.

Apart from that, if they want to keep the dragon theme, I'd go for fear/charm spells instead of just damage ones.

 

[Maxperson]

You could always introduce a magic item that will allow an extra spell known or spell swap for sorcerers.

 

[Zardnaar]

Cleric - I'm currently playing a Spirit Guardians focused cleric, so I know their weaknesses. Are you using 6-8 encounters per long rest, and what level are you working with? Until you start to get into the 10+ level range, you just can't do it every combat, so you have to pick your fights (I normally use Bless on those other fights). Concentration is also a real pain, and without Warcaster or Resilient it's very easy to lose the spell when you wade into melee (especially since you should immediately aggro every enemy). If built towards, this is a pretty powerful build for most types of fights, for as long as you have the spell slots.

Fire Dragon Sorcerer - My first 5E campaign had one of these. It was fairly strong at the time, but she didn't face many monsters that were fire resistant/immune until about level 10. She took the feat that allowed her to bypass resistance, leaving only fire immune creatures as an issue. Knowing we were going to be facing giants, and expecting fire giants, she picked a handful of spells, plus one cantrip, that did non-fire damage (although she adamantly refused to ever deal cold damage). When they faced the Hall of the Fire Giant King, she was woefully under-powered compared to the rest of the party, but until then she'd been the DPR star of the show. Afterwards she was somewhat outpaced by the Eldritch Knight Archer, but that was largely due to him picking up a 3rd attack, sharpshooter, and a badass magic bow (based on the Hank's bow from the D&D cartoon). IMO it's still the strongest sorcerer build outside of Divine Soul, but the DM should work with the player before starting to campaign if one element is going to be heavily resisted/ignored.

No haven't been doing the 6-8 encounters thing as it's been mostly exploration. RL pacing also interferes as I have to run that over 3 sessions or so.

 

[tetrasodium]

Cleric - I'm currently playing a Spirit Guardians focused cleric, so I know their weaknesses. Are you using 6-8 encounters per long rest, and what level are you working with? Until you start to get into the 10+ level range, you just can't do it every combat, so you have to pick your fights (I normally use Bless on those other fights). Concentration is also a real pain, and without Warcaster or Resilient it's very easy to lose the spell when you wade into melee (especially since you should immediately aggro every enemy). If built towards, this is a pretty powerful build for most types of fights, for as long as you have the spell slots.

Fire Dragon Sorcerer - My first 5E campaign had one of these. It was fairly strong at the time, but she didn't face many monsters that were fire resistant/immune until about level 10. She took the feat that allowed her to bypass resistance, leaving only fire immune creatures as an issue. Knowing we were going to be facing giants, and expecting fire giants, she picked a handful of spells, plus one cantrip, that did non-fire damage (although she adamantly refused to ever deal cold damage). When they faced the Hall of the Fire Giant King, she was woefully under-powered compared to the rest of the party, but until then she'd been the DPR star of the show. Afterwards she was somewhat outpaced by the Eldritch Knight Archer, but that was largely due to him picking up a 3rd attack, sharpshooter, and a badass magic bow (based on the Hank's bow from the D&D cartoon). IMO it's still the strongest sorcerer build outside of Divine Soul, but the DM should work with the player before starting to campaign if one element is going to be heavily resisted/ignored.

To a degree wotc strongly pushes this in 5e. With few exceptions (almost all of which are )"iconic" spells like lightning bolt the majority of damage spells that aren't fire are lower damage or much lower damage with a debuff that may or may not & rarely will rise above being questionably useful in some contrived situation. The exceptions that exist are often spread around randomly with no meaningful progression even if you include the lemons.

A lot of the spells in tasha's are better but still mechanically function as if 5e is heavy LFQW rather than gross lwqf for damage output so often wind up feeling like they fall short in petty ways for damage nondamage & specially hybrid spells. Take mindsliver for example
it has a blisteringly short duration debuff that might be mildly useful in a caster heavy party thick on save or x attacks and damage that look like

Spoiler: this

The damage is so bad the only purpose it serves is keeping it from being a good debuff that doesn't deal damage & the debuff so minor on top of short lived the inverse is true for the damage. You can see this kind of thing play out again & again even in leveled spells. It's not a case of advanced math is hard, it's a case of "someone quit doing the trivial simple math long ago & wotc has been perpetuating a myth carried over from past editions where it was true"

 

[UngeheuerLich]

To a degree wotc strongly pushes this in 5e. With few exceptions (almost all of which are )"iconic" spells like lightning bolt the majority of damage spells that aren't fire are lower damage or much lower damage with a debuff that may or may not & rarely will rise above being questionably useful in some contrived situation. The exceptions that exist are often spread around randomly with no meaningful progression even if you include the lemons.

A lot of the spells in tasha's are better but still mechanically function as if 5e is heavy LFQW rather than gross lwqf for damage output so often wind up feeling like they fall short in petty ways for damage nondamage & specially hybrid spells. Take mindsliver for example
it has a blisteringly short duration debuff that might be mildly useful in a caster heavy party thick on save or x attacks and damage that look like

Spoiler: this

View attachment 135752

View attachment 135753

The damage is so bad the only purpose it serves is keeping it from being a good debuff that doesn't deal damage & the debuff so minor on top of short lived the inverse is true for the damage. You can see this kind of thing play out again & again even in leveled spells. It's not a case of advanced math is hard, it's a case of "someone quit doing the trivial simple math long ago & wotc has been perpetuating a myth carried over from past editions where it was true"

I think you are underestimating the utility of such a debuff. If you are a sorcerer with heightened spell and you want to be sure your single slot level X spell sticks, this spell is exactly what you want: first, quickened mind sliver for -d4 on your next spell and if it works, cast your heightened spell. If you only have one chance, you better prepare it well.
If you are looking for damage, don't look at wizard cantrips.