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?

 

[cbwjm]

I'm thinking that if I use the stone sorcerer that I will rename it ironwrought after the elemental theme from 4e. It has a nice ring to it.

 

[Thurmas]

I don't think that adding some bonus spells over powers the class, as long as the rest of the class features aren't also really powerful. I look at the FS as being one of the Chosen. Whichever god or goddess is bestowing a few additional spells on their chosen to cast. Not the ability to learn a different spell, but given that ability to cast it. Other sub-classes get some nifty new abilities. None of the first UA Favored Soul abilities were that powerful. Aside from the bonus spells, they got some armor, simple weapons, 2 attacks at 6 and some wings. None of those break the game. The two attacks isn't even as beneficial now with the SCAG cantrips.

 

[gyor]

I have actually played a Favored Soul in 3.5 from level 1 to 20 (Shackled City Campaign) and this new version does't work for me. Here is what I would do instead...

Favored Soul
1st level:
- Supernatural Resilience is unchanged.
- Lose "Favored by the Gods".
- Move Blessed Countenance to 1st level.
- Add light and medium armor proficiency, shield proficiency and proficiency with one weapon of the player's choice.
- Instead of adding access to the Cleric list the Cleric list replaces the Sorcerer list. The original Favored Soul used Cleric spells.
- Holy symbol is used as a spell casting focus, obviously.

6th level:
- Extra Attack

14th level*:
- Gain wings. Feathered or Bat-like depending on alignment.
- Divine Purity is unchanged.

18th level*:
- Damage Resistance vs. bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from non-magical attacks.
- Unearthly Recovery is unchanged.

* The loss of Sorcerer spells is a big hit in my opinion, so this allows for extra power to be added to the subclass at 14th and 18th level.

Edit: Forgot to add shield proficiency.

I like being able to chose from Cleric and Sorceror spells, so I disagree there, I'd keep the Divine Magic feature as is.

I agree with you on adding holy symbols as an implements and trading divine purity for the wings back.

I'm okay with moving Blessed Countence to first level, but I'd merge supernatural resilience and favour of the gods into opinions within it. Like it already gives options like Imposing, Youthful, Kind Beautiful, so I'd make that a more imporant choice. In addition to the basic Blessed Counterance benifit, depending on the type of feature chosen, it has an added bonus. Youthful adds +1hp per level, Imposing grants you simple weapons and light armour, Beautiful is like Favoured of the Gods, Kind is reroll 1's on healing spells and add Charisma to the heal spell, scary is reroll 1's on a sorceror's cantrip damage. This allows a character to represent both a particular God or that God's purpose for them.

6th level I'd give them their choice of a energy or physical damage type resistance.

14th I'd give them a choice of wings.

18th I allow them to pick a second resistance type and I'd heal them 1d4 damage every time a sorcery point is spent on anything (example twinning Holy Word costs 1 sorcery point so it would heal 1d4 of the casters hps, next turn Quickening a fireball would cost 2 sorcery points, so the caster would heal 2d4 hps, then the turn after that the caster spends 2 sorcery points as a bonus action to create a first level spell slot, heal 2d4 hps).

This gives a level of customization to the Subclass that reflects different gods you could be descended from or blessed by and the possible plans they have for you.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Problem is, subclasses cannot remove or replace, only add.

True, but it might add alternatives, like the Sorcerer who can use sorcery points for something other than metamagic, for instance. Since sorcerers know relatively few spells, a sorcerer sub-class with many alternate spells added to it's list could conceivably choose from among just those spells, in essence removing the usual sorcerer list.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Are there any obvious cleric spells that combine well with metamagic?

Animate Dead with the sorlock trick. Use warlock slots to get sorcery points to get sorcerer slots until you accumulate 999 3rd (or even 5th) level slots, then create a giant undead army all in one day. Could even do warlock 2/necromancer 6/favored soul 5 to have a gigantic, super-buffed undead army by level 13.

 

[MoonSong]

True, but it might add alternatives, like the Sorcerer who can use sorcery points for something other than metamagic, for instance. Since sorcerers know relatively few spells, a sorcerer sub-class with many alternate spells added to it's list could conceivably choose from among just those spells, in essence removing the usual sorcerer list.

Well, but why remove the option to pick sorcerer spells? (To put it into context, Sorcerers and clerics share 17-20% of their spell lists. And that is before clerics add domain spells that include many spells from the sorcerer list anyway ) The chances to get a broken combo of spells are quite low already with so few spells known. A 9th level sorcerer knows at most 11 spells -with a feat-, a 4th level cleric can prepare 12, mix and match from the entire list at will. Even at 20th level, A sorcerer is capped at 16 spells (7.5x10^35 unique combos with the combined lists), while a cleric with Wis 10 has 20 spells (2.9x10^40 unique combinations, 38 thousand times bigger) and that is before domain spells and without taking into account that 26 is possible with the feat and max wisdom (2.4x10^52 that is 32 quadrillion times bigger). And more combinations are possible with the same character in the cleric case.

Also exchanging lists would leave the favored soul sorcerer worse off with only a max 1.2x10^32 unique combos as opposed to the 3.3x10^31 of the regular one. (That is only a little over a fourth of the options). Not to mention unable to contribute to combat, as she would lose cantrips too having only sacred flame as an option, without the benefit of weapons and armor a cleric has. (I'm ignoring SCAG cantrips, Volo and EE because of the two-book rule)

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well, but why remove the option to pick sorcerer spells?

IDK, I thought you were wishing sub-classes could remove things from the parent class?

 

[gweinel]

As I think it of it over and over, I think Wizards of the Coast didn't wanted primary to test if Earth Sorcerer has good/bad mechanics but mostly if we want such a specific subclass.

 

[Thurmas]

This goes a bit beyond the scope of the UA, but I was thinking I'd even be more accepting of the FS if the Sorcerer just got a little more spells in general. Similar to a Wizard would be great, Sorcerer level + Char Mod spells known. That's a discussion for other threads, but that brings me to my actual point.

Going along those lines, maybe you could tie the Favored Soul to that a little bit. Add something like this to the new Favored Soul: When you choose this origin, you learn a number of bonus spells equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of 1). These must be selected from the Cleric Spell list. Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the cleric spells you know and replace it with another spell from the Cleric spell list, which must also be of a level for which you have spell slots.

And bring back weapons and armor.

And give back the wings!

 

[gyor]

The Sorceror having limited amount of spells known helps balance out the sorceror's raw power and the ability to twist their magic compared to other spellcasting classes. So to limit their power they only know so many spells.