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Nerdarchy > Dungeons & Dragons  > Character Builds  > A Sorcerous Legacy | New Metamagic options & Feats for the Sorcerer 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons
D&D sorcerer

A Sorcerous Legacy | New Metamagic options & Feats for the Sorcerer 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons

D&Dizing Star Wars for 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Part 2
D&Dizing Star Wars for 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Part 3

Sorcerer_PHB5e (1)I have a love/hate relationship with the Sorcerer- thematically, I think they’re fantastic, but in this edition of Dungeons & Dragons, I think they’re a second-tier spellcaster and that makes me sad.

Next to the Wizard, with their full array of ritual tag spells, Wizard’s literally have as many more spells as that character can acquire provided they have the time to ritual cast it, arcane recovery to regain half of your spell levels, 2 3rd level spells become spells that recharge after a short rest at higher levels, and many great school of magic abilities.

Then one could make the case for the Warlock as being on equal footing as the Sorcerer, surely the Warlock has a comparably limited scope of spellcasting. The Warlock has a higher hit die, access to light armor, and simple weapons. So, dismissing that a main feature of the Warlock is it’s use of Eldritch Blast (an always useful Force effect) and let’s decide that we want to make a more caster-y Warlock.

The Pact of the Tome’s the most obvious Pact choice for the expanded cantrip list from any class and you would likely take The Book of Shadows invocation for access to all the ritual spells you can afford and acquire.

You then use your remaining seven invocations to select a mix of spells that are usable at will without expending a spell slot or spells you can do once a day while expending a spell slot, the Fey Pact gives you a short rest recharging limited charm or fear ability. Is the Warlock limited in it’s amount of castings per encounter?

Sure, but unless you’re GM’s running attrition encounters or a sadist, you’re generally going to be able to get a short rest between encounters. In contrast, the Sorcerer has limited options spell, not much other perks for the class with it’s Wizard’s hit die and weapon selection, and it’s mostly too little and a little too late Metamagic options, the Sorcerer’s out-shined in the early levels and barely keeps up the mid to high levels.

How to Fix the Sorcerer?

The Sorcerer is the “super model” of the arcane spellcasting world- they’re just charmed in that they’ve been “born this way”. They may work to learn to harness their abilities, but Sorcerer’s were innately born with eldritch power. So this begs the question:  if they didn’t have to work all that hard to obtain their “limited” power, why do they have the exact same proficiencies as a Wizard? At the Nerdarchy table, we’ve already House Ruled that the Sorcerer gains an additional A. skill or tool proficiency and B. light armor and simple weapons, a language, or a martial weapon proficiency.

This represents the fact that the Sorcerer was off doing other things while the Wizard was cloistered in a must study. We’ve also made the ruling that the Wild Magic bloodline’s Bend Luck ability costs 1 sorcery point rather than 2. The other problem is:  What’s the defining feature of the Sorcerer class? I’d argue it’s Metamagic options and sorcery points, but as written, the Sorcerer will only have access to 4 Metamagic options throughout the entire course of their adventuring career, the fourth not occuring until 17th level! The big fix that I propose is that the Sorcerer should gain 2 Metamagic options whenever they gain access to the feature, so they would have 6 Metamagic options to choose from to enhance spells rather than 4.

We’ve compared and contrasted the Wizard & Sorcerer previously in this video:

New Metamagic Options & Feats

New Metamagic Options for the Sorcerer Class

Innate Spell: When you are concentrating on a spell, you can spend a number of sorcery points equal to the spell’s level each round to concentrate on an additional spell. You pay the sorcery point cost of the highest level concentration spell active.
Energy Substitution: When you cast a spell with a designated energy damage type, you can spend a number of sorcery points equal to the spell’s level to change the energy damage type to any other energy damage type (1 sorcery point if the spell is a cantrip). You can use Energy Substitution even if you have already used a different Metamagic option during the casting of the spell.

 

New Feat for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons

Sorcerous Legacy: Your bloodline has traces of sorcerous might within. You gain one Sorcerer Metamagic options from those available to the Sorcerer, 1 sorcery point, and you choose one 1st-level spell from the Sorcerer spell list. When a Sorcerer selects this feat, the Metamagic option is added to your list, the sorcery point permanently increases you sorcery point maximum pool by 1, and the extra 1st-level spell known provided by this feat may not be replaced by a higher level spell upon gaining levels, but may be replaced for another 1st-level spell.
Eldritch Imbued:  Raw eldritch power courses through your veins. You gain a +1 to Int or Cha and gain a pool of 3 sorcery points. If you already have a sorcery point pool, your sorcery point pool maximum increases by 3.

I’d like to hear your thoughts and feedback if you end-up running any of these new options at your game table, so if you do, please leave your feedback in the comments below. Stay Nerdy!

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Ryan Friant

Ryan is one of the founding members of Nerdarchy. He enjoys all things genre related: art, RPGs, indie tabletop games, novels, film & television. When he is not creating art, brainstorming ideas for games, or tabletop games, Ryan enjoys the nightlife that his native Philadelphia, PA has to offer.

7 Comments

  • Andreas Starrsjö
    December 4, 2015 at 11:17 am

    Neat ideas. Innate Spell feels expensive, but two conecntration spells could be pretty broken, idk.

    I dont like that Eldritch Imbued does nothing if you aren't a sorc and dont take Sorcerous Legacy.

      • Drykon Veistul
        May 30, 2018 at 7:33 pm

        Eldritch Imbued should be altered to make it available to anyone. WotC has made it a point to not create class specific feats.

        • Doug Vehovec
          May 30, 2018 at 10:28 pm

          Necro! 🙂 Just teasing; this is an old post from when 5E was shiny and new. Nevertheless, thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts!

        • Ryan Friant
          September 3, 2018 at 11:21 am

          @Drykon Veistul There’s plenty of prior instances of feats requiring some kind of prerequisite- spellcasting, wearing a certain type of armor, or later, being a certain race. While there aren’t really feat trees any more, if you take a feat to gain proficiency in heavy armor and then later take the Heavy Armor Master feat, that feels an awful lot like a feat tree, does it not? @Doug Necro, necro.

  • palorin
    December 8, 2015 at 8:40 pm

    I also feel that Eldritch Imbued might be a bit too powerful (essentially granting 3 extra levels worth of Sorcery Points) but I’d be very interested in testing it out.

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