An Eclectic Collection of Fun and Effective Builds

[Ritorix]

The Passive Soul
Passive combat support to boost your party from 1 to 20

The passive soul focuses on stacking hitpoints, redistributing damage, and healing the desperate. It maximizes action economy by keeping the party up and fighting longer, by making their actions more effective, and by getting the most out of your spells.

The passive soul gets going straight from level 1 and plays through 20. Spell selection is the most important part of building a sorcerer and the build's spell selections are optimal right from the start. I'll go into excessive detail on which spells make the cut. Other aspects of the character, like background and skills, are largely irrelevant to the build.


Tactics

Prior to combat, buff your party. Explain to your DM and your party that this will be a regular thing, and not to skip past it. Don't forget. Every day, and whenever you need to during the day, use Inspiring Leader. As you gain levels, your morning routine may include Extended Mage Armor, Extended Aid, and Extended Death Ward. Eventually you may also prepare a daily Heroes' Feast.

During combat, the default first turn is spent on Bless. It needs to happen early in a fight for maximum effect. The range is only 30 feet and turn 1 has the best chance of your allies being close to you. Make sure you always Bless yourself for the concentration bonus, especially prior to gaining War Caster. If you move this round, make sure to stay near your future Warding Bond target.

Turn 2 tends to be a Warding Bond. Have a chat with your default Bond target before the game, explaining what is going to happen and emphasizing the 60' distance limit. The trickiest part is getting close enough to touch the target without putting yourself at risk of melee. Bond is not always required and sometimes it's a really bad idea (if facing AOE damage, swarms or environmental effects that might damage you too). Once Bond is up, your default action on other turns is Blade Ward to reduce incoming damage to yourself from the Bond. If you need instant protection, you can cast both Bond and a Quickened Blade Ward.

The remainder of your spell list is reactionary in nature. Healing spells, Sanctuary, Absorb Elements, Counterspell, Revivify, Polymorph, etc. For these you have to weigh the situation and your remaining resources. Many are good candidates to Twin.

Sanctuary has the highest learning curve for effective use. It can really save yourself or an ally if they are focused. If you are casting Sanc on yourself and can Twin it to an ally, do it, even if just to disrupt an enemy turn or two. You'll also have to learn how your DM reacts to Sanc. Do they attack anyway and possibly lose the action? Do they use metagame knowledge for their monsters and move on to another target?


Level by Level

+ is a gained spell
- is a discarded spell
HP and THP are your maximum buffed values at a given level.


Versatile Human Divine Soul
16 Charisma, 16 Dexterity, 14 Constitution
Feat: Inspiring Leader

1) +Healing Word, +Sanctuary, +Bless (law option)
HP: 8
THP: 4
Cantrips: Take Blade Ward for synergy with Warding Bond. Otherwise, cantrip choice isn't key to the build. Guidance and Frostbite are solid choices.

Inspiring Leader is a huge buffer at this level for your entire party. Apply it every morning and during every short rest. It might keep instant-death crits from taking a young life.

Bless comes from the Law option. Bless is such a good spell that we won't ever discard it. It will occupy our concentration slot most of the time.

With an unarmored AC of 13, Sanctuary is a defensive pick. It's a bonus action to cast. Sanc doesn't take concentration and scales with your save DC. It can be twinned on yourself and someone under fire. Pay attention to the initiative order; you can disrupt many enemy actions with a properly-timed sanc. Or you can just open a fight with fire bolt followed by sanc. You won't need to sanc every fight, depending on enemy types and positioning, but it's an amazing little spell when you do need it. And you won't have to worry about it dropping due to offensive action on your part - you don't take any!

If you aren't a fan of Sanctuary, the alternative is Mage Armor. That boosts your AC to 16, and you will cast with Extended metamagic every morning. It will save spell slots over Sanctuary use, but a 16AC is only average. That means you need Shield in the build too, which is already tight on spell slots.

2) +Cure Wounds
HP: 14
THP: 5

Cure Wounds is a stopover until your build comes fully online next level. Between it and Healing Word, for one level you'll have flexibility in action economy and in ranges. Cure is more potent, benefits more from Empowered Healing (if you keep it) which has a close range, and Cure is touch. That all lines up. But sometimes you need to heal at range and 1HP is enough. Other times you need your action or bonus action for something else. Quickening a Cure Wounds would be grossly inefficient. So we'll keep both on the roster, at least until...

3) -Cure Wounds, +Aid, +Warding Bond
Metamagic: Twinned, Extended
HP: 20
Aid buffer: 5
THP: 6

Twin metamagic is key to the build and will be how most of your sorcery points are spent. Extend doubles your Aid and Death Ward to fill an entire adventuring day for a single sorcery point. That matters if your DM tries to say "Aid is 8 hours? Sorry, it's gone now, you cast it this morning but now it's the evening."

Aid can be used either in combat or before. In combat, it becomes a nice 3-target heal and buff in one, but you need an action to do it. Casting before combat saves you in action economy, but you lose Aid as a 3-target heal. Finally, you could cast Aid after your first combat of the day. That gets you both a healing effect and the buff.

With an 8 (16 Extended) hour duration and no concentration requirement, Aid should usually be cast at your highest spell level available. Target yourself, the tank and a front-line DPS. Aid adds "real" hit points which can be healed when lost. On top of Inspiring Leader, you're adding a sizable buffer to the party.

To put these HP totals into perspective, a 3rd-level fighter with 16CON would have 31HP. So do you, fully buffed with Aid and Inspire. But you aren't tanking on the front lines. At least I hope not. What to do with all those HP?

That's where Warding Bond comes in. One hour duration, no concentration, +1AC and +1 saves to your new best friend. That's your tank, by the way. Oh, and they get resistance to everything, but you take all damage they do take (after their newly-acquired resistance).

The result is damage smoothed out among the party instead of stacked on a single person. Bless (and soon, War Caster) will boost all of the concentration checks you will be making. Sanctuary will help ensure you only take Bond damage. Empowered Healing, Twinned cures can keep you both up and running. Bond is also why we'll take Absorb Elements, but not Shield. If you take bond damage from a Fireball, you can then Absorb your half of that damage.

Warding doesn't always have to go on a tank. It's a bit pointless if your tank is a barbarian (they already resist nearly everything). Rogues are another good option. They can evade blasts and Uncanny Dodge to halve incoming damage (taking 1/4 damage after resists), reducing what you take as well. Placing it on a fellow caster could let them decide when to Shield or when to simply take half damage.

The component for Warding Bond is a set of platinum rings (100gp total). If you want the potential for full party coverage you can give these out ahead of time, one ring per party member, and wear all of the other paired rings yourself.

Note that the Bond breaks past 60 feet of distance between the pair. Your ally needs to pay attention to that. Also, you can use distance to intentionally break a bond, simply walking away; otherwise it takes a full action to break. You might want to unbond if a friend in a clearly fatal situation (lava, etc) could drag you down too.

4) +Absorb Elements
ASI: War Caster
HP: 26
Aid buffer: 5
THP: 7

War Caster is required to keep concentration spells up while taking Warding Bond damage. We don't want it at level 1, THP are too important at low level, so it has to come at 4. Bless, War Caster and the sorc's Con save proficiency really stack concentration checks in your favor. Each check is at 1d20+1d4(bless)+2(Con bonus)+2(save proficiency), with advantage. That's an average roll of 17 per die before advantage, and that will increase with your Con and proficiency bonus.

Math time! For a Ward-caused concentration DC to exceed the base value of DC10, the initial incoming damage to your ally would have to exceed 40. That's 20 damage to them, 20 to you. In my experience, such high damage from a single blow primarily comes from things like magic spells and dragon breath. We can mitigate those with Absorb Elements. Besides keeping you alive, it can make a concentration DC more reasonable. A whopping 80 incoming elemental damage could go to your Ward, causing you to take 40, then be halved to 20 for a simple DC10 concentration check.

5) +Counterspell
HP: 32
Aid buffer: 10
THP: 8
Spell snapshot: Absorb Elements, Bless, Healing Word, Sanctuary, Aid, Warding Bond, Counterspell

Remember that generic fighter? Now they have 45 hit points. Buffed with Aid and Inspire, you have 50. If that fighter joins your party, he rockets up to 63. If Warded, he has resist all for 126EHP (that's Effective HP).

Thus far we've been concentrating on Bless. It's that good. We could Twin haste now, but I would instead keep up with Bless and upcast as necessary to get everyone. Target anyone that just unlocked Extra Attack. It really helps mitigate the hit penalty on GWM or Sharpshooter. Meanwhile, Twin haste is expensive in both spell slots and sorcery points and doesn't really give enough in exchange. Bless also doesn't have the nasty pseudo-stun that happens when Haste expires. You have a fantastic concentration but I still don't like to risk it.

Instead we'll take Counterspell. It can prevent a huge amount of incoming damage, or even counter a counter to let your metamagic heals get through.

If you want a comedy option, take Gaseous Form. Sure it's concentration, but you'll be a puff of wind with damage resistance floating next to your Warded buddy, taking half of the half damage they take. You can't do much, but you can still take the Help action. If you need to cast you can drop concentration at a whim.

6) +Revivify
Empowered Healing gained
HP: 38
Aid buffer: 10
THP: 9

In addition to saving your allies, Revivify can help out if a party member gets too murderous and kills someone they shouldn't have, or if rocks fall on a low-HP NPC. That 'oops' will cost 300GP per cast.

If you have the gold and DM approval, you may want to simply buy a few Revivify scrolls and save this spell slot for something else. Discuss it with your party and they might chip in. Instead, you could take Cure Wounds for use with Empowered Healing, or Mass Healing Word.

7) +Polymorph
HP: 44
Aid buffer: 15
THP: 10

Poly is a powerful, Twinnable heal of sorts, to use when things are looking grim. Just remember no one can spellcast in the new form.

An entire guide could be written on Poly. For you it means a giant pile of free HP for Warding Bond. The only downside is you lose Bless and can't cast further spells, but can still concentrate on the Poly.

8) +Death Ward
ASI: +Charisma
HP: 50
Aid buffer: 15
THP: 12

Another fire-and-forget buff. Think of it as Concentration Insurance. Twin on yourself and a spellcaster buddy. If a sudden burst takes you down it won't be a knockout and you won't lose concentration, saving that spell slot. If you are buffing in the morning and aren't sure when combat may occur, it can be more efficient to cast a pair of Extended Death Wards. That gives you 16 hours (essentially all day) and avoids the risk of an expiring Death Ward that also cost you 4 sorcery points. Extending twice comes out to 2 points and 2 slots, instead of 8 points and 2 slots for twinning twice.

9) +Greater Restoration
HP: 56
Aid buffer: 20
THP: 13
Spell snapshot: Absorb Elements, Bless, Healing Word, Sanctuary, Aid, Warding Bond, Counterspell, Revivify, Death Ward, Polymorph, Greater Restoration

GR gets rid of a laundry list of nasty effects. 100 gold is burned each cast.

Now that you have access to 5th-level spells, there is an optional spell swap available: Revivify for Raise Dead. There are pros and cons for each, and the choice is yours. I prefer to keep Revivify. If you can buy scrolls of either spell, stock up.

10) +Mass Cure Wounds
Metamagic: Quickened
HP: 62
Aid buffer: 20
THP: 14

Quicken metamagic twists the action economy in your favor and adds options for combat tactics. Quicken a spell and disengage with your action. Quicken a spell and also cast Blade Ward to tank bond damage. By now you may have some magic items that work well with Quicken, too.

Mass Cure Wounds is like spending a 3rd level slot on Cure Wounds, except it hits 6 people. That's not something we could do with Twin Cure Wounds or Healing Word. If your whole party got nuked, this is the solution. At least until we get Mass Heal.

11) +Heroes' Feast
HP: 68
Aid buffer: 20 (5th level slot)
Feast buffer: 2d10 to party members without Aid
THP: 15

Heroes' Feast is broken. Advantage on Wisdom saves and immunity to poison and frighten for the entire party for the entire day. Oh, it also gives 2d10 max HP (which don't stack with Aid). You should still cast an up-leveled Aid on your 3 'important' party members, but Feast HP will help the others out. In exchange it costs 1000gp per cast. Make the party help out with expenses. It's not like they have anything better to spend that gold on, right?

12) ASI: +Charisma
HP: 74
Aid buffer: 20 (5th level slot)
Feast buffer: 2d10 to party members without Aid
THP: 17

13) +Feather Fall
HP: 80
Aid buffer: 30 (7th level slot)
Feast buffer: 2d10 to party members without Aid
THP: 18

Generally, at this level I take Feather Fall out of pure paranoia, in anticipation of getting wings. Our 6th-level slot is eternally consumed by Heroes Feast and there's nothing we want to ditch for Feather Fall later on. Just get it now. It's gravity insurance.

If you think you'll stay airborne with no problem (after all, Otherworldly Wings aren't dispellable and only fade away if you fall unconscious, which also means you can't cast Feather Fall), your options open up a bit. Wall of Stone is an interesting, non-hostile control spell. If Heroes' Feast isn't being cast daily, you could also take Heal.

14) Otherworldly Wings gained, a flying speed of 30. Hover above the battle like the angel you are.
HP: 86
Aid buffer: 30 (7th level slot)
Feast buffer: 2d10 to party members without Aid
THP: 19

15) +Holy Aura
HP: 92
Aid buffer: 30 (7th level slot)
Feast buffer: 2d10 to party members without Aid
THP: 20

Advantage on all saves and disadvantage on all incoming attacks for your entire party? Yes, please! Extend this one.

16) ASI: +2 Con
HP: 114
Aid buffer: 30 (7th level slot)
Feast buffer: 2d10 to party members without Aid
THP: 21

17) -Mass Cure Wounds, +Mass Heal, +Wish
Metamagic: Subtle
HP: 122
Aid buffer: 30 (7th level slot)
Feast buffer: 2d10 to party members without Aid
THP: 22

18) Unearthly Recovery gained
HP: 130
Aid buffer: 30 (7th level slot)
Feast buffer: 2d10 to party members without Aid
THP: 23

You gain a bonus heal of 70HP at this level, though it's only usable if you drop below 70HP. Not bad, but it can't exactly compete with Mass Heal.

19) ASI: +2 Con
HP: 153
Aid buffer: 30 (7th level slot)
Feast buffer: 2d10 to party members without Aid
THP: 24

20) Sorcerous Restoration gained.
HP: 161
Aid buffer: 30 (7th level slot)
Feast buffer: 2d10 to party members without Aid
THP: 25

So what do we have? A typical party of 5 has about 250HP of buffer to lose before the group is even taking real damage. That damage is split more evenly to everyone, and they have great saves and tons of healing at the ready. If you drop them to 0 they get back up at 1, or they turn into giant apes with a ton of fresh HP, or they can't even be attacked thanks to Sanc. I wouldn't want to fight those guys.

Final spell snapshot: Absorb Elements, Bless, Healing Word, Sanctuary, Aid, Warding Bond, Counterspell, Revivify, Death Ward, Polymorph, Greater Restoration, Heroes Feast, Feather Fall, Holy Aura, Mass Heal, Wish