Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana Sorcerers: Favored Souls, Phoenix Sorcery, Sea Sorcery, & Stone Sorcery

Favored Soul (again), Phoenix Sorcery, Sea Sorcery, Earth Sorcery.

Could this be the start of Elementalists?

 

[Guest 6801328]

Favoured Soul: Love it. Would be fun to play.

Phoenix: Love it. Would be fun to play.

Sea: Meh. I don't really have a complaint with the powers in terms of balance or utility, but if I try to imagine what a "Sea Sorcerer" would be, those aren't the abilities.

Stone: Double meh. Then again I'm just not a fan of sword-mage classes.

EDIT: I hope that when they are done with these sub-classes they have a poll for our favorites from the whole lot. Mine so far: Phoenix Sorcerer and Tranquility Monk.

 

[cbwjm]

Favoured Soul: Love it. Would be fun to play.

Phoenix: Love it. Would be fun to play.

Sea: Meh. I don't really have a complaint with the powers in terms of balance or utility, but if I try to imagine what a "Sea Sorcerer" would be, those aren't the abilities.

Stone: Double meh. Then again I'm just not a fan of sword-mage classes.

EDIT: I hope that when they are done with these sub-classes they have a poll for our favorites from the whole lot. Mine so far: Phoenix Sorcerer and Tranquility Monk.

I also loved the tranquility monk, brought in some great abilities. I liked all of the sorcerer offerings, Like others, I think that the phoenix sorcerer could use more uses of its mantle, but otherwise, I thought this was one of the better UA releases.

 

[gyor]

I'd name the Stone sorceror Metal Sorceror, it fits the subclasses actual abilities better and it sounds badass.

I really love the Pheonix Sorceror.

Sea Sorcery is cool.

Favoured Soul is awesome, still have few spells known, but you have a ton of choices. I'd personally suggest taking a dip in Rogue, Warlock, Bard, or Fighter for some interesting combos.

With 1 level of Fighter the Favoured Soul becomes a good Holy Warrior gaining access to all weapons, armour, some extra hitpoints, a fighting style, and second wind. You add in the extra 1 HP per level, the 2D4 to a saving throw or attack once per short rest, spells like bless, haste, mirror image, cure wounds, and cantrips like Greenflame Blade and Booming Blade, that massive once a day heal at higher levels, and you have a good magic fighter.

Dip 1 level in Rogue and you can all 4 Charisma Skills, plus Expertise, so by level six you can have 6 skills with expertise, plus sneak attack, the guidance cantrip, invisiblity, major illusion, cure wounds, ect..., allows for a very rogueish healer.

A 1 level dip in Bard has similar advtanges to rogue, plus both Favoured Souls have Charisma as a spell casting stat, and by level six the expertise will apply to any Charisma checks you make with instruments.

Paladin is similar to fighter, but trade second wind for Lay on Hands at 5 hp, and Divine Sense which is a power that has uses = to Charisma. Still if you choose to dip into Paladin, you are better off going for a 2 level dip, which is huge, it nets you Divine Smite, some Paladin Spells (which use Charisma), and a Fighting Style, and 5 more points for lay on hands pool, it might actually be better then the 1 level fighter dip for a Holy Warrior.

With Warlock, if you take enough levels to gain a pact blade you have another Holy Warrior option, along with other Sorceror/Warlock Synergies.

 

[gyor]

I also loved the tranquility monk, brought in some great abilities. I liked all of the sorcerer offerings, Like others, I think that the phoenix sorcerer could use more uses of its mantle, but otherwise, I thought this was one of the better UA releases.

Me too.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I'd name the Stone sorceror Metal Sorceror, it fits the subclasses actual abilities better and it sounds badass.

View attachment 80968

 

[Marandahir]

The bizarre part about associating elemental water with frost damage is that, strictly speaking, frozen water has started the process of becoming elemental earth (because solid = earth, liquid = water). At least, using ancient alchemy...

Sent from my BLU LIFE XL using EN World mobile app

Hence why it's not called Frost Damage or Ice Damage, but Cold Damage. You can get cold from a bitter wind or chilly water, neither of which require ice crystals to form but can still cause your body to be injured from the cold.

 

[gyor]

One thing I like about the new Favoured Soul fluff is it makes it clear that unlike other sorcerors, the Favoured Soul's magic is divine, not arcane.

Still that the Favoured Soul can use a staff, but not a holy symbol as an implement, makes it feel a bit like am Invoker.

 

[JPL]

I am liking the idea that a refluffed stone sorcerer is just a cool riff on the 4e swordmage. Looks like potential MAD given that you need a high Str or Dex to make those basic melee attacks and use those smite spells, but one of your class features relies on Con. I would use this for a sort of Elric meets Jeffrey Mace character ... he has the heart of a champion but not the physical prowess, but through sheer force of will, he develops magic abilities that make him a deadly swordsman.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I've been reading on another forum, and if I hear people talking about the potential uses for the Sea Curse, they tend to focus on the forced movement or mention the extra lightning damage. Both are cool, but I wanted to think more about the cold, and I had a thought.

I know that Ray of Frost activating the curse only reduces by 15 ft, but maintains the curse. I also know from previous discussions that the general consensus is that Quickening Ray of Frost does not stack the movement penalty because it is the same spell offering the same effect.

What about Ray of Frost to lay the curse and Ice Knife to activate it? It is not the same spell giving the same effect, and the only limit on the curse is that if the spell already reduces movement, you use the higher. Ice Knife does not naturally reduce movement.

So, is that a reduction of 25 ft of movement? Possibly to 2 adjacent targets by Twinning the Ray?

If the Ray activated and maintained the curse for 15, and then you quicken Ice Knife and the curse, is that 15 or 30?

I think the 25 ft works, but since Curse would need to stack with Curse the 30 might not.

Still, it'd be really nasty against a melee enemy if you could reduce them to 5 ft of movement a turn, or keep that 15 ft reduction with just a single Ray and if they somehow get close activate Thunderwave to throw them back 25-30 ft

I think the Sea works as a Cold and Tide type sorcerer, really focused on movement and control, and not really all that concerned with getting in melee with their suite of defensive abilities at higher levels.


Also, Stone Sorcerer should be renamed to Metal Sorcerer, or Steel, or something like that. It's clearly the thought direction they had and makes much more sense for the types of abilities they have than Stone does. I don't think we could have an effective "Earth Sorcerer" sense their are so few spells that would make sense without making them an Acid and Poison Sorcerer, which really needs more of a venomous soul origin than stone.

 

[MagicSN]

My thoughts

-Favored Soul is a reliable subclass, but I don't find it to be the most impressive. I know having divine spells opens up a lot of possibilities, but I miss them having wings as their last ability.

-Phoenix Sorcerer, is the worst of the bunch. I don't like mantle being a 1/long rest ability especially when a lot of this class is focused around it. Mantle needs to be 1/short rest, and if that means downplaying some of it's abilities then that needs to be done.

-Sea Sorcerer is the worst of the bunch, unlike the Phoenix Sorcerer they can do their special abilities a lot more often. I like that it does encourage a strategy of cantrip followed by using a spell slot, and their abilities to flow like water when moving, it definitely says a lot for "water sorcery".

-Stone Sorcerer, well I like that they're trying to bring the Swordmage back, I don't think much of the Swordmage ever spelt out "Earth" for me. Even more so when this subclass will probably be using those cantrips in SCAG that were originally Swordmage powers, none of those cantrips use much in the way of Earth. Stone's Durability I feel makes the subclass dependent on 3 abilities to feel effective, with Cha, Con and Str/Dex, normally I feel really only having 2 abilities to keep high is a good thing even though Con is usually the 3rd most important ability for almost every class.

Favored Soul: Many GMs hate winged characters who go "too freaky". In every instance of it where someone "tried this" in our group the next game the character was redone to be without "always-on wings", either the GM or the player himselves found it too extreme.

Phoenix Soul: Agreed. Also I don't like the fact how much his power is tied to the "being reduced to 0 HP". Also I have to admit I like a "Genasi/Elemental-themed" Sorc better than one
tied to the Phoenix (we had a homebrew which got L1: Speak Primordial, no disadvantage on Fire Spells in Melee. L6: Fire Resist and the L6 feature of the Storm-Sorc, just in Fire (that
little AOE-effect). And as a Bonus Action manipulate nonmagical Fires. L14: Attacker hitting him in melee gets fire dmg L18: Pretty much Storm Feature, in Fire. Worked pretty well, and I
like the style better).

Sea Sorcerer: Don't agree it being the worst of the bunch, at least not power-wise, flavor-wise might be a different issue (worst is Phoenix Sorc). The point of the spec is I think to multiclass it with 2 Lvl Warlock. Then you have (at L6) 45 ft. Pushback with Eldritch Blast. Goodbye, Melees... of course has not much to do with "the Sea" anymore thematically, a caster pushing back melees with Eldritch Blast and asides from that your typical sorclock. Can be done even worse, when Quickening the Eldritch Blast, at L6: 10+10+10+15+10+10+10 if
all hit -> 75 ft. Pushback. One might argue of course that the issue here is not the Sea Sorcerer, but the Sorclock ^^

Stone Sorcerer: Agreed, I also did not see the Swordmage as "Earth". On the other hand what sort of powers to give a earth warlock? ^^