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]

Most AC determining methods state what you can use. This seems to be clear to me as 13+con mod+shield. Even armours spell out if dexterity mod is included so if it isn't mentioned, it isn't included.

 

[Leatherhead]

It occurs to me that the Stone Sorcerer could easily be renamed into the Steel or Iron Sorcerer.

Or, you know, Swordmage.

 

[gweinel]

Some thoughts/questions:
I see in many recent UA subclasses a trend of over-complication. Probably this is intented in order to test our attitute on more complicated options. I am negative. One good example is Favored Soul's "Favored By The Gods". Why has 2d4 mechanic and not the usual "advantage"? Why there is this different kind of expression of a bonus since these two have much or less the same benefit?

Another example of a complicated mechanic the water sorcerer's "Curse of the Sea". For what reason one has to meet so many requirements in order to do something while this can be expressed with a more straight forward and probably delicate way? The concept behind Curse is good but the implementation is not.

However, my biggest negative remark of this UA has to do with the Earth Sorcerer or the Swordmage. The problem that i have with this subclass is purely conceptual. They try to fill a gap with two roles. When someone hears about an Earth Sorcerer understands someone who is good with earth magic and not someone who spams aegis to his allies. The mechanics reminds me more a prestige class and not a general subclass. If the name was "The Guardians of the Sacred Stones" I could understand it. I would not like to see it in a general supplement, but probably I wouldn't mind if there was in a campaign setting describing an earth elemental cult. Something like the Phoenix sorcerer which the concept behind it is so specialized that I can not see it as a stand alone subclass but probably more as a prestige class. And in order to like it I have to know the context, the fluff behind these Phoenix sorcerers.

On the good side of this UA, I really enjoyed the fluff and the implementation of Favored Soul "Blessed Countenance". Also pretty neat are the Watery Defense & Shifting Form of Water Sorcerer.

 

[Dualazi]

Not really a fan of this offering as much as I was the Artificer. For one, I find it weird as others have mentioned how they seem to be nudging the sorcerer towards a pseudo melee role, which it still can't fill effectively with their minor HP bumps and such. Also strange is how none of these really interface with metamagic in any way.

Favored Soul is alright, I actually like that they lost the winged nonsense. Cherrypicking from the cleric list is dangerous though, I hope that gets curtailed somewhat. The save/hit bonus is generic as hell but still useful, while the skill bump at 6 doesn't do much other than make the party face even face-ier. I do, however, think some have undervalued the poison immunity, as that's a super common damage type and condition.

Phoenix straight up needs to be able to rock the mantle more often. If it has to lose the damage buff initially and regain it later so be it, but I think this is one of those things that shows the cracks in the subclass system, much like the Arcane Archer, in that it's too restrictive with what should be the iconic ability of the character. Phoenix Spark is pretty good, free damage and you stay on your feet, which is always preferable to the alternative. Possible risk of friendly fire, though. Nourishing Fire is potentially a problem, given how many HPs that could restore on a chassis already designed for blasting. That said, its effect is wasted if the sorc is at full health, so we'll see.

Sea is the best of the bunch imo, if I'm reading the curse right it seems designed to facilitate switching between cantrips and full spells, which is a neat playstyle that's not unduly complicated. Most of the other perks are thematically appropriate and mechanically useful, so not much else to say here.\

Stone sorc is amazingly bad. Firstly, and most importantly, because its existence lessens the chance of a full swordmage class being released. Second, because I highly doubt it can do what wizards seems to want it to do.

First off, it forces you to heavily prioritize Con if you want a usable AC, which also falls off if you get incapacitated, and takes an action to restore. Second, despite essentially being given a d8 HD (which it actually doesn't for recovery purposes), it receives even fewer fail-safes against damage than Sea sorcs do. Third, the Aegis requires an ally to be hit by a melee attack, and then you also have to make a melee attack as a sorcerer and hit to benefit from it...which actually means you need a decent score in strength or dex to make decent melee attacks, or find some way of adding your charisma to it with spells like Shillelagh. Fourth, Stone's Edge is just an incredibly generic damage amp, only loosely thematically appropriate with stone and has a complete lack of synergy with the swordmage element of the subclass. Even the last perk at level 18 is generic, if likely effective.

Stone really irks me. It doesn't live up to the swordmage from 4e by any means, and I have very significant doubts that it ever can when shackled to the sorcerer chassis, a class that really doesn't want to be locked up in the thick of it. Phoenix and Favored soul could use some minor tweaks, and I'm pretty pleased with Sea.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I imagine the favored soul like a divine sorcerer, a spontaneus divine spellcasters, but with armor. The background may be used to create stories about conflicts and love-hate relations with clerics, ardents and other divine spellcasters.

I imagine the elementalist bloodlines to be used by the genasi races.

* What about mixing the favored sould and the psionic ardent classes?

 

[pukunui]

My thoughts:

Favored Soul: I liked the original favored soul class from 3.5, and while in 5e, the sorcerer chassis makes the most sense for that kind of theme, the original class didn't get arcane spells. I thought it could work to just substitute the cleric spell list for the sorcerer spell list. This new version of the favored soul is very different. It's OK, but I think I'd prefer it to be called something else, as it's not what I think of when I see "favored soul".

Sea Sorcerer: This one is thematically quite cool but yes, some of its features seem overly-complicated. I was surprised to see that it allows you to reduce the damage by your sorcerer level + your Charisma score! Unless that's a typo, and it's meant to be Charisma modifier, then that's quite powerful.

Stone Sorcerer: I feel like this would work better as a fighter subclass. Like an eldritch knight that uses Charisma instead of Intelligence and draws on the sorcerer spell list instead of the wizard's. Otherwise, it's kind of lacking since you don't get Extra Attack or any Fighting Styles or anything like that.

 

[Wepwawet]

I'm very happy that the new subclasses don't get any free spells.

Sorcerer's limited spell list is a feature, not a bug. They're dabblers or channellers of magic. You you want loads of spells, you study magic all your life, and you become a Wizard. Sorcerers know a few good explosive tricks but they can manipulate them. Plus, they know more cantrips.

Also, I'm glad that none of these uses sorcery points to power their abilities. They already have too few points for their metamagic to have to spread them around.
(I hadn't noticed, the Wild Sorc. at 6th level can spend 2 SP for -1d4 on an enemy's check!!! What's up with that?!)

 

[Baumi]

I love the Favored Soul. This is finally a great Version to play a non-armored and non-armed Priest! He completely relies on Miracles and his Charisma. And the Spell Selection and Metamagic makes finding a Thematic-Focus extremely easy.

 

[Aldarc]

They reprinted the Goliath in multiple books. I see no reason why they wouldn't reprint the SCAG cantrips or EEPG spells in a different book containing these.

This concern should, however, be something that I hope people address in their feedback of the UA sorcerer.

Overall, I'm actually disappointed with these sorcerer subclasses. One is another iteration of the Favored Soul, and the other three are basically just further extensions of elemental bloodlines. As if we didn't already have the Draconic and Tempest bloodlines. I was hoping for something more different: e.g. aberrant, fey, fiend, or even primal/plant. I also agree with some of the comments that none of these new archetypes really address a number of the weaknesses, shortcomings, or other issues people have raised about the sorcerer.

Based upon all these boosts to the sorcerer's melee and HP capabilities by these subclasses, a part of me wonders whether the sorcerer should just get boosted to a d8 HD for the sake of more interesting class features?

 

[TwoSix]

Overall, I'm actually disappointed with these sorcerer subclasses. One is another iteration of the Favored Soul, and the other three are basically just further extensions of elemental bloodlines. As if we didn't already have the Draconic and Tempest bloodlines. I was hoping for something more different: e.g. aberrant, fey, fiend, or even primal/plant. I also agree with some of the comments that none of these new archetypes really address a number of the weaknesses, shortcomings, or other issues people have raised about the sorcerer.

I feel like this might be a little intentional. You can see echoes of some of recent setting tropes in these recent UA choices; druids get classes associated with Feywild and Shadowfell, cleric domains are all associated with civilization, and sorcerers have all elemental/chaotic themes. I'm curious to see what direction warlocks go.