How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery

[Ogre Mage]

Yeah, the useful things thread here has linked to the EN World reposts.

Edit: Not that you shouldn't read mine, of course!

Yes, this sorcerer's guide is a very good one. I recently began playing a sorcerer for the first time and both the guide and some of the thread discussion have given me good ideas.

[samcifer]

Yes, this sorcerer's guide is a very good one. I recently began playing a sorcerer for the first time and both the guide and some of the thread discussion have given me good ideas.

I love spellcasters and like the idea of the Sorcerer better than the wizard as sorcerers can use any spell and not need to have it 'prepared' ahead of time. They also seem better in combat as far as attack spells go.

[EvilAnagram]

Unlike Suggestion, CoM doesn't break when the target it's damaged. It also does not charm the target into not attacking you. It's good but CoM is not strictly inferior.

I'm sorry, I believe I missed your post earlier.

CoM does charm the target, and while it does not break when the target is damaged, it allows the target to save each round. Suggestion, on the other hand, only breaks when the conditions of your suggestion are fulfilled or a member a of your party damages the creature. If you tell an ogre to fight its orc allies, the orcs' damage won't break the spell.

This combines with all the other disappointing aspects of the spell (it requires using an action every turn to maintain it, you can't control its movement, it attacks before moving) to make it strictly inferior.

[tsotate]

I agree, and if you can think of specific examples in which a metamagic significantly alters the spell's usefulness, I would be happy to include it. I think I'll include Careful with Web, anyways.

Sure. A couple examples off the top of my head: (minor spoilers for HotDQ, because that's what we happen to be playing)

Spoiler: Hoard of the Demon Queen

Show

Our caravan came across a Harper agent buried up to his neck in the middle of the road. The module has it take two hours to dig him up, during which the caravan is likely attacked by bandit. Six seconds later, and we're on our way.

Later, we get to an (oddly Patrick Swayze-less) Road House, and figure out that the treasure we're trying to follow is being smuggled out through some sort of tunnel. The entrance on our end is inside a guarded and locked room. Druid goes outside, casts Locate Object to find the nearest jewelry, points, and we Mold Earth into the the tunnel.

That's ignoring all the corpses disposed of in not-at-all-shallow graves, the camps fortified in a couple of minutes, the parked enemy wagons which we made sure stayed parked until we were ready to move on, the...

[EvilAnagram]

snip

Well, that's plenty of examples. I'll change it.

[SwordChuck]

Subtle Spell should be Blue at the very least. With subtle spell you can't be counterspelled as the enemies have no clue what spell you are casting or that you are even casting spells.

So while it is niche, it has a lot of niche areas that it excels at.

Defeats silence, defeats mute (gagged etc...), defeats Being tied up, helps being sneaky, prevents counterspell, prevents others from knowing you are actively opposing them... Subtle Spell is fanfrickentastic.

Edit×××

Here is Jeremy Crawford's response to Subtle Spell versus Counterspell.

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/10/30/...-counterspell/

[Rokku]

Can we get some indications on how a melee sorcerer works? I've been hearing about it since SCAG came out but nobody's taken the time to explain it beyond "take greenflame blade".

[SharkForce]

Can we get some indications on how a melee sorcerer works? I've been hearing about it since SCAG came out but nobody's taken the time to explain it beyond "take greenflame blade".

honestly, i'm not sure i would ever make a pure sorcerer melee. i'd pair sorcerer with another class (most likely paladin).

not sure what you need beyond that. paladin 6/sorcerer 14 is i think the typical build as far as classes go, though not the only option. for example, i could also imagine starting off with some combination of sorcerer up to level 3 and tome pact warlock up to 3 for shillelagh so you don't need to have any strength at all, although possibly keep 13 strength so you have the option of bringing some paladin into the mix (for smites), probably devotion if you want to really pile everything into charisma-based melee fighting... if you can make it work fluffwise, that is.

warcaster is an exceptionally good idea so you can use booming blade for your opportunity attack. resilient con if you don't start with sorcerer, possibly heavily armoured if you do. buy as much constitution as you can get, you're going to need the hit points and the con saves are not a bad idea either.

[Corran]

Dont discount a rogue/sorcerer build. Cunning action combines well with greater invisibility and BB (and possibly with shadow sorc when that comes out), and assassinate combines well with quicken and twinned metamagic options. It can make for a good skirmisher build with good social skills and a substancial magic boost to his stealth capabilities. (That does not necessarily prevents you from adding 2 paladin levels for smite and a couple of proficiencies, although you might be stretching your character a bit too thin or too MAD for your taste.)

Imo, the problem with (multiclass) melee heavy-sorcerer builds is the sorcerer's spell list, as not many spells support that idea. For example, for spell levels greater than 4, I cannot see too much synergy, so I tend to think (at least for now), that sorcerer 7 is the ideal place to stop if you aim for a melee build. Please disprove me on this, I want to be proved wrong as I am currently working on such a build and I am stack. Also smites cap with 4th level slots. Greater invisibility is the big prize imo, as it makes it easier for the -5/+10 feats to work, and/or makes you very difficult to hit if you have access to cunning action.

Another thing of note, is that while twinned haste is one of the great tricks a sorcerer can pull, for a melee sorcerer there is a significant danger that he will lose more easily his concentration (compared to a normal sorcerer), and thus the 2 affected by haste allies will be affected by ending haste mid combat, which is very very bad. Still, it is such a good trick (twinned haste), that you will be tempted to use even as a melee sorcerer, but you run a very great risk. Mirror image or blink can help you against losing concentration on haste (via protecting you from being hit), but that does not help your action economy, unless you probably quicken one of those spell on the subsequent round of casting haste on your ally heavy hitters. A good AC and the spell shield can also help you in that respect. (And cunning action from rogue, if multiclassed, helps here too.)

[SharkForce]

the melee sorcerer doesn't need to use every single resource exclusively to melee. if they've got level 7 spell slots, there is no reason they can't use banishment on 4 enemies for their concentration and then wade into melee instead of casting damaging spells (provided, of course, they are built to survive melee). depending on build, you can fairly easily have +16 to con saves and advantage at 20th level. it is going to take one heck of an attack to knock you out of concentration at that point.

[Corran]

Since we are talking a bit about melee sorcerer builds (either pure ones or lightly multiclassed), do you think that magic initiate for armor of agathys is worth spending a feat on it? I mean, you have full caster progression, so it seems to be a very good spell for a gish with high level spell slots to have (bladesinger falls into that category too I guess). Would that make this feat sky-blue for the melee sorc?

[SharkForce]

Since we are talking a bit about melee sorcerer builds (either pure ones or lightly multiclassed), do you think that magic initiate for armor of agathys is worth spending a feat on it? I mean, you have full caster progression, so it seems to be a very good spell for a gish with high level spell slots to have (bladesinger falls into that category too I guess). Would that make this feat sky-blue for the melee sorc?

officially, you need at least one actual warlock level to make that work (otherwise you can only cast it with the magic initiate slot). if you do have a level of warlock, then yes, it is absolutely worth it to take armor of agathys... but obviously you don't need magic initiate.

[Corran]

officially, you need at least one actual warlock level to make that work (otherwise you can only cast it with the magic initiate slot). if you do have a level of warlock, then yes, it is absolutely worth it to take armor of agathys... but obviously you don't need magic initiate.

Hmmm, that makes me think that one level dip in warlock could prove very useful to a melee sorcerer, for the extra survivability it offers. Armor of agathys can act more or less like the song of defense feature of the bladesinger, considering you can quicken it during combat if things are going bad. And if what you are facing is in melee, then it is even better.

So, for heavy sorcerer melee builds (that could act as the equivalent of a bladesinger), I would see something like that: Paladin 2/ Warlock 1/ Sorcerer 17 (perhaps with favored soul origin), or
paladin 2/ Sorcerer 18 (if you really want the last feature of your sorcerous origin, but doing so you lose on armor of agathys), or
replace fighter where paladin in the above builds, or
fighter1/ warlock1/ sorcerer 18.
If you chose favored sould, then GWM pairs well with the extra attack and with haste/greater invisibility (you can twin both of those to help an ally as well). Alterntively, you can pick a shield, in which case warcaster will be very important (helps with OA as it lets you cast BB).
With all the above options, you still have access to 9th level spells, granted, your spell progression is delayed compared to a bladesinger, but between metamagic, armor of agathys and smites (possibly), you get enough tricks to compensate for that.

Another way is to throw in some rogue levels, and act like a skirmisher (your spell selection can support this concept really well). So, rogue2/ warlock 1/ sorcerer 17 still lets you have armor of agathys for extra survivability, but gives you cunning action which you can pair with BB and/or greater invisibility quite well, plus it gives you some extra utility out of combat.

Personally, my favourite atm is the ridiculous paladin2/rogue3/warlock1/sorcerer14, though this way you lose on 8th and 9th level spells (though you have 1 level 8 spell slot available to use with armor of agathys or some other spell that scales well), but I like it because of different possibilities it offers (although paladin 6/ sorcerer 14 is probably strictly better). Anyway, these are just some thoughts... (I guess what I should emphasize is that I tend to think that armor of agathys is too important for a frail melee gish, especially if you can quicken it.)

[Strill]

I strongly disagree with your assessment of Burning Hands vs Thunderwave.

Burning Hands: 6 tile area, 10.5 damage
Thunderwave: 9 tile area, 9 damage, 10' knockback

Thunderwave's damage is only a tiny bit less, but it has a significantly larger area, and a knockback effect

[PoeticDwarf]

While rating the Genasi, you said a dragonborn has +2 charisma, a dragonborn has +1 cha, not +2, that's also why I think you rated it too high.

[grimgold]

So talk me out of the ritual caster feat at 4th level, because right now it seems like a sky blue no brainer. Sorcerers have a very limited number of spells know, and ritual caster can effectively double that number. They all take 10 minutes to cast, but they are utility spells that you generally only use outside of combat anyway. You get access to spells that sorcs would never otherwise take like alarm, detect magic, identify, leomunds tiny hut, awesome spells that are simply too situational to take with a limited spell list. So far as I can tell there are no restrictions on using metamagic on rituals, since the wording of rituals is you cast the ritual as a spell, and metamagics only requirement is that you use the metamagic while casting. So you could extend rituals, twin them, and even heighten them.

The only downsides I see are the 13 int requirement, which might tough for some builds, and loosing out on +2 to your casting stat, which hurts at low levels.

[SharkForce]

So talk me out of the ritual caster feat at 4th level, because right now it seems like a sky blue no brainer. Sorcerers have a very limited number of spells know, and ritual caster can effectively double that number. They all take 10 minutes to cast, but they are utility spells that you generally only use outside of combat anyway. You get access to spells that sorcs would never otherwise take like alarm, detect magic, identify, leomunds tiny hut, awesome spells that are simply too situational to take with a limited spell list. So far as I can tell there are no restrictions on using metamagic on rituals, since the wording of rituals is you cast the ritual as a spell, and metamagics only requirement is that you use the metamagic while casting. So you could extend rituals, twin them, and even heighten them.

The only downsides I see are the 13 int requirement, which might tough for some builds, and loosing out on +2 to your casting stat, which hurts at low levels.

wisdom 13 is also an option (still allows you to choose any list), and much more useful for most builds.

the main thing with ritual caster is that you generally only need one. if you don't have one in your group, then yes, it is probably a good feat to consider.

[SwordChuck]

I strongly disagree with your assessment of Burning Hands vs Thunderwave.

Burning Hands: 6 tile area, 10.5 damage
Thunderwave: 9 tile area, 9 damage, 10' knockback

Thunderwave's damage is only a tiny bit less, but it has a significantly larger area, and a knockback effect

I think thundrwave is the better battle (for the reasons you mention plus a better damage type) choice but it makes a lot of automatic noise. I would say that they are even.

Noise can be a problem a lot of the time in the AL and home games I've played in. Not always mind you, but enough to make me think twice from using it.

×××Edit

That automatic noise can't be reduced due to subtle spell, really only the silence spell would help.

[MaxWilson]

Noise can be a problem a lot of the time in the AL and home games I've played in. Not always mind you, but enough to make me think twice from using it.

I view the noise as a potential positive. If your DM makes monsters always "charge towards the sound of the guns", e.g. exit their defensive terrain and come investigate, then Thunderclap plus some foresight gives you an easy way to draw them out to investigate. Then you kill them from ambush, bury their bodies, and cast a Seeming spell to take their places and re-enter the enemy stronghold. (Or whatever the next phase of your plan is.)

Without a good way to attract attention, you're left instead with your Camouflaged ranger and a bunch of other guys under Pass Without Trace, just waiting around, in the round, hoping that a hostile will eventually come out where you can ambush him.

It depends very much on circumstances under which you are fighting, but the ability to draw an enemy out onto prepared terrain is not to be underestimated--and if the enemy doesn't come out to investigate, then the noise was merely irrelevant.

Obviously if you're sneaking around though you're not going to do this, because in that situation the noise is a negative.

TL;DR being undetected is not the only way to deceive the enemy. Sometimes you want to make noise.

[Dalebert]

Subtle Spell should be Blue at the very least. With subtle spell you can't be counterspelled as the enemies have no clue what spell you are casting or that you are even casting spells.
...
Defeats silence, defeats mute (gagged etc...), defeats Being tied up, helps being sneaky, prevents counterspell, prevents others from knowing you are actively opposing them... Subtle Spell is fanfrickentastic.

I started a thread about how awesome Subtle Spell is. I can't wait to try this diversionary tactic--

Talk to allies ahead of time to set this up. You shout a command to the tank to cast something with concentration on someone, e.g. Polymorph. You intend for enemies to overhear this command but it's also his que. Then you ready an action to cast that spell with Subtle Spell. When his turn comes around, he says a magicky-sounding word and gestures at someone (maybe you) which triggers your casting. Now they're reasonably convinced he cast the spell and are attacking the tank trying to break concentration!

[SharkForce]

sometimes I wish people would just remove the "situational" from the regular colour ranking order and put it in as a separate listing. "situational" is not bad. it is situational. it can be the best thing ever in that situation (which subtle spell often is), but that doesn't make it any less situational.

subtle spell is properly rated as "situational". it's a strong choice when it is useful. but you aren't going to want it all the time. in fact, apart from very specific builds, you are only going to use it quite infrequently.

[Dalebert]

I don't know. Casting powerful concentration spells and convincing enemies that someone else is the caster seems like something that could come up a lot. To an extent, everything is situational. You'll only need Quicken when every moment counts. You'll only need twinned if there is more than one enemy. More situations? Maybe.

[talexsmith]

Saw a few people asking for examples on a melee Sorcerer in this post and others, so going to piggyback on here if that's all right with OP. I don't claim this as the best build, nor do I do formatting very well, but here's what I came up with in the last day or so, and will be playing for the first time in about a month.

Full caveat, there could be something I'm missing that prevents this from working at all.

It actually seems surprisingly fun, with some pretty cool combos. I wouldn't use this as the end all be all, but rather as a starting point. I'm not much of min/maxer but I do tend towards optimization and synergy. One thing to note is that I don't particularly care about capstone abilities. I doubt I'll ever play a campaign past early to mid teens, so when looking at classes I ignore anything past that point.

I would note that the biggest drawback in my opinion, outside of spells known, is how few Spell Points you end up with, and how restrained you feel in using your class features due to the limited pool. Because the riders on the SCAG Cantrips are a lot better than we usually see, you can exert a lot of control through basic cantrips, and since twinning cantrips only costs 1 SP, you actually get a lot of bang for your buck. Melee cantrips also deal a bit more damage than ranged (1d10 [5.5avg] vs. 1d8+3 [7.5avg + rider], which helps a Quickened cantrip not feel like such a waste.

What you are, and what you aren't
What a melee Sorcerer is not is someone who is burning Spell Slots to do massive damage. WotC has done an excellent job of keeping that role restrained to Paladins, and honestly it's a good thing. All the gish builds seem to play a bit differently, with the most similarities being between the Sorcerer and Bladesinger, so let's compare those two mostly.

The Bladesinger gets very little to the class that isn't defensive until 14 Wizard (which is a long way to go to add Int to melee attacks). Additionally, a lot of time people gloss over that Bladesingers only get to Bladesing twice per short rest. It seems a lot of DMs give out ample short rests, but going by the suggested encounters in the DMG, there should be times the Bladesinger is without their boosted AC. Outside of that, non-multiclassed Bladesinger suffers from low hp and low nova capabilities, and don't have Wild Surges, Draconic Resilience, or Heart of the Storm to augment themselves passively. They also have no way of casting and attacking in the same round (outside of Haste's free attack, I suppose).

There's a lot of flexibility with what you can do with Sorcerer simply because there's no real limitations on abilities outside of Twin, and you're only setting yourself back one caster level to gain the proficiencies and fighting style you need. Want more offensive? Swap Dex and Str, put on some Full Plate, drop Dueling and take GWF. You're at 20 AC hasted with the ability to Twin Booming Blade, Quicken GFB, and get a free attack from Haste. At 1F/5S, that's 6d6+12+1d8 Thunder+1d8 Fire (42) to one target, and 2d6+4+3+ 1d8 Thunder (18.5) to an adjacent, and they both have the 2d8 Thunder rider if they move (47.5 and 24)...at character level 6, without mathing out GWF. That's 3 SP and a 3rd level spell. If you twinned Haste you're out of SP...or you can convert your other slots for 10 more SPs (after all, you have 20 AC, what do you need Shield and Mirror Image for?). You're not a Paladin, but it's not bad nova considering you're still holding on to most of your spells.

The build I have below plays out more like a melee controller, but the point is the Sorcerer class features to attack multiple times a round go a long way when you have cantrips with good riders and can apply your ability mods.

My starting point
Start fighter for max d10 hp and proficiencies, still get Con save, no real downsides.

Wild Mage
I'm a big fan. All the negatives turn positives, the less useful positives become incredible, and the incredible positives lose their limiting factors (4d10 on 3 creatures 30' from you...not great when you're 40' from the action, but great in melee). Tides of Chaos is incredible as always, Bend Luck is incredible as always, Controlled Chaos let's you fish for those 1d10 Necrotic bursts and 4d10 lightning strikes. Spell Bombardment isn't great, but who actually plays high level campaigns?

Draconic
Lots to be happy for here, but you can't go Thunder. Tough turns your d6 to a d10, and Draconic Resilience turns your d10 to a d12. 13 base AC is pretty nice, though later on it's really just saving you 1 spell slot per long rest (hey, it's another Shield at least). Elemental Affinity can be pretty hard to proc, since you'll be wanting to use Booming Blade (which is Thunder) or Green-Flame Blade, which you can't Twin and won't deal Fire damage until character 5.

Storm Sorcerer
Nice little package, albeit slightly overrated because the 14th and 18th. Tempestuous Magic adds mobility and keeps you from being Grappled (one of your biggest weaknesses), making Misty Step pretty much unnecessary. Heart of the Storm is pretty freaking great; resistance is never bad and you can get easy procs on the Lightning/Thunder damage from Chromatic Orb (1 sp Twin for 3d8/3d8, + 10' AoE of 3+ damage) and Thunderwaves, though after that Thunder/Lightning gets a little rare. Storm's Fury is just about perfect, as you're already in a position to bait those Opportunity Attacks, and can even want to get hit. Wind Soul is utter insanity.

Favored Soul
It's actually...not that great. I know I know, but hear me out. Sure, you could skip Fighter 1, but you lose out on 4 hp, Heavy Armor Proficiency, Second Wind, a future second level in to Fighter for Action Surge, and by far most importantly Martial Weapon Proficiencies, trading a d8 Rapier for a d4 Dagger. You could go Str over Dex and use a Spear or something, but your AC will cap at out at 15 + dex (probably 0, otherwise you risk MAD), so 17 with a shield, and only 16 until you can afford Half Plate.

So we still need Fighter. But what about the Favored Soul features that don't overlap with Fighter? Chosen of the Gods is pretty fantastic, and honestly might be worth the whole class, but if the class ever goes Official, I fully expect it to get the Storm Sorcerer treatment and have the spells stripped. If your DM allows it, War gets you Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, and Flame Strike. Pretty great, but after that you get...a Second Attack that's not terrible but far from necessary, Divine Wings you could've gotten from Draconic, and Power of the Chosen for a few hp per Domain Spell you cast.

A word on the Second Attack. Let's assume we're 1 Fighter / 8 Sorcerer. We bumped Dex to 20 with our ASIs and we use Booming Blade as our Cantrip, ignoring the rider for the moment.

Favored Soul is:

• Attack Action: 2d8+14
• Quickened Booming Blade: 1d8+7+1d8 Thunder
• Average: 39

Other Sorcerers:

• Booming Blade: 1d8+7+1d8 Thunder
• Quickened Booming Blade: 1d8+7+1d8 Thunder
• Average: 32

At 11, our averages change to 43.5 and 41. Change it to GFB and you end up with more damage to the adjacent target with the double Cantrip. Hell, ignoring the adjacent target and going with Draconic (Fire), you end up with 39 and 38 average at 1F/8S.

My point isn't that Second Attack is bad, but the part of FS that's broken all to hell is Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians, which again I highly doubt will ever make it live if the class does go Official (though I realize it's not really a Favored Soul at that point). If you're wanting to play Favored Soul, just make sure you get your mileage out of it.

Anyways, here's the actual build at level 4, the first level you get Metamagic:

Fighter 1 / Sorcerer 3 (Wild Mage)
Variant Human (Tough at 1st level, turns your d6 in to a d10, War Caster can be good for really holding on to that Concentration spell)

8 Strength
16 Dex
14 Con
10 Int (RP reason)
8 Wis (RP reason)
16 Cha

AC: 18 (Scale mail, shield) - Can bump up to 20 at 20 dex with Mage Armor/Draconic Resilience; or 19 with Half Plate or Studded Armor + 20 dex.
HP: 38 - 10 from fighter, 12 from sorcerer, 8 from con, 8 from Tough feat (Draconic Resilience turns it to 41, swapping Con and Cha gives you 44)

Fighting Style: Dueling
Without multiple attacks, +2 damage isn't much, but Quickened and Twinned will get you decent mileage. Only other viable choice is Defense, but your AC is pretty high as is. Still, 21 AC with Mage/Draconic Resilience and 20 dex is sick, and you only give up 2-6 damage a round. And you can do it more than twice a short rest (looking at you Bladesingers)

Quickened Spell
Flat sorcery point cost is always nice. Melee cantrips hit harder than ranged, and have much better riders, so Quickening cantrips is even better for melee.

Twinned Spell
Just a no brainer really. Can't twin GFB, but you can twin Lightning Lure and Booming Blade. Twin LL to pull 'em in, then Quicken GFB for some decent damage or BB to lock 'em down. Hell, you can Twin LL to pull two in and Quicken a Cloud of Daggers on both of them (Crawford tweeted about putting 5' cube spells on two squares at the beginning of December, but I can't link until 10 posts). Even just Twinning a Booming Blade in melee gets you a pretty gnarly attack for 1 sorcery point.

We still keep all our typical tricks, as well. Obviously you're a little more vulnerable, but 18 AC, with potentially +5 AC from Shield, makes it hard to be hit. Even through that, you'll have a +4 to Concentration saves. Eventually you'll probably want to pick up War Caster, but I'm going to go against the grain and say twinning Haste etc isn't always the best idea. It's a fantastic buff (not just for the damage, but the +2 AC and advantage on Dex saves is amazing as well), and as unlikely as it is with 20-22 AC (+2 from Haste) to be hit much, you'll still have to worry about the occasional Fireball or Dispel magic. Worth saving it for a fight you know you'll get your money's worth, and using Mirror Image afterwards as a buffer. Enhance Ability (Grapplers, Assassin Rogues, also potentially lasts several fights and saves SPs), Enlarge/Reduce (Grapplers, Monks), Stoneskin, Polymorph, etc. are all strong competitors against Haste in certain party set ups.

Wild Magic
All the positives, and those negative rolls suddenly become better than the positive ones. If you're not a fan of Wild Magic, I'm not going to be able to convince you otherwise, but you've taken your biggest weakness (and balancing factor) and turned it in to a major advantage.

Tides of Chaos
Advantage on Attack, Save, or Ability check at your whim. Hopefully your DM is generous with returning it to you.

Spells
These are all personal choices here, and I'm still not locked down on them. Until level 3 spells, you're going to be better off using slots for Defensive buffs or the occasional AoE burst. Many of the spells that were previously unthinkable suddenly become pretty damn good.

Cantrips
Booming Blade - Weapon attack, if they move take 1d8 Thunder. Gets a d8 Thunder attached to the main attack, and another d8 on the rider. Pretty nice lockdown, and twinned gives you a lot of control.
Create Bonfire [c] - See the tweet above. 1d8 on a Dex save. It's a bit convoluted, but Create Bonfire and Twin BB can potential pump out 2d8+8 +1d8 to two targets a round for 1sp. Also your ranged option until later. Honestly I'd probably drop it for something like Ray of Frost to help you close, or even an RP cantrip, but I thought I'd list it here as an example.
Green-Flame Blade - A little overrated tbh, but it's a nice AoE Cantrip. Not eligible for Twinning per Crawford.
Lightning Lure - 15' range, Str save or be pulled 10', then takes 1d8 lightning if it ends up adjacent to you. Strength save hurts it but it's Twinnable and gives you a pretty nice Scorpion pull.

First Level Spells
Burning Hands - Usually a bleh spell, and not totally sold on it myself, but you need something to reset your Tides (or proc EA), and this gives you AoE that you don't cover
Shield - You should probably just never not have this spell honestly

Second Level Spells
Mirror Image - No concentration, your duplicates will have a decent AC from your dex, and they can only be dropped by single target spells. This will probably stay good your entire career.
Pyrotechnics - This is your control. Cast Create Bonfire in the back lines and Quicken a Pyrotechnics for an AoE blind.


That's basically the gist. Your single target isn't Paladin-esque, but it's actually pretty respectable for such low levels. Continue picking up AoE damage spells, in part because most non-Arcane classes suck at it, but also because you can use LL to position. Casting in melee in 5E is a helluva lot more generous than previous editions, to the point if you aren't actually targeting someone, there is no detriment (assuming they don't have Mage Slayer).

Melee Sorcerer seems to fill an interesting niche where they want to constantly be fighting adjacent enemies, to make use of a regular GFB or a Twinned BB. It's a neat, inexpensive playstyle and still allows you nearly full casting progression.

[MaxWilson]

The Bladesinger gets very little to the class that isn't defensive until 14 Wizard (which is a long way to go to add Int to melee attacks). Additionally, a lot of time people gloss over that Bladesingers only get to Bladesing twice per short rest. It seems a lot of DMs give out ample short rests, but going by the suggested encounters in the DMG, there should be times the Bladesinger is without their boosted AC.

How do you figure that? The DMG guidelines would generally result in 5-6 Medium encounters per long rest (depending on how close to Hard they are), and with 2 short rests and a long rest you'll have 6 Bladesongs per day.

For example, daily budget for a 7th level character is 5000 XP worth of difficulty, and a Medium combat ranges from 750 to 1100 XP, averaging 925, so you'd have 5.4 Medium encounters before hitting the daily XP budget. Less if your DM uses Hard or Deadly encounters--3.6 Hard, or between 1 and 2.94 Deadly encounters.

So by DMG rules you can have Bladesong in every non-Easy combat of every day. It really does seem intended to be fairly ubiquitous.

(Note: I'm not claiming that you will have two short rests and a long rest every day, but we're talking DMG guidelines here...)

[Oramac]

[*]Cleric: a couple domains offer enough ancillary benefits that one level might be worth taking, but be sure to pick as few spells that rely on WIS as possible. And why do you have a 13 WIS?

I just want to say, I think you've severely undervalued Cleric as a multiclass option. Specifically, the Tempest Cleric when combined with the Storm Sorcerer.

I'm currently playing a 2 Tempest / 4 Storm character in AL, and quite literally one-shot the BBEG in last nights game. How? The Tempest Cleric's Channel Divinity: Destructive Wrath.

The BBEG was an Mind Flayer. I cast Chromatic Orb at him out of a 3rd level slot, rolled a Nat 20, and used Destructive Wrath to maximize it for 80 Lightning damage.

The Mind Flayer only has 71 hit points.

Fight over.

[EvilAnagram]

I just want to say, I think you've severely undervalued Cleric as a multiclass option. Specifically, the Tempest Cleric when combined with the Storm Sorcerer.

I would argue that you are severely undervaluing the purple rating.

Purple does not mean, "slightly better than red." A purple designation indicates that a choice is not going to be widely applicable to many situations. That build, for example, is very specific. Tempest Cleric levels are only really useful if you happen to specialize in lightning and thunder damage anyways. Otherwise, it's not worth the opportunity cost in delaying your spell progression. Certain domains are useful for certain builds, but a black rating would indicate solid synergy across a wide variety of builds.

Purple is not a bad designation, so no, I am not undervaluing it. Cleric builds are simply not always a good idea, even if sometimes they are a fantastic idea.

[SharkForce]

i'm starting to feel that the rating system might benefit from explicitly placing the "good in the right situation" colour in a completely distinct location.

so for example, you might list sky blue, blue, black, and red (or whichever) all one after the other, then make it absolutely clear that purple is not in that hierarchy at all by spacing it away from the rest of the colours. it might just improve clarity if you demonstrate clearly that it is not a hierarchical ranking of the ability (or whatever) in the same sense that the other colours are; sky blue is better than blue is better than black is better than red, and purple is either (sky) blue or red depending on the situation.

[Oramac]

I would argue that you are severely undervaluing the purple rating.

Purple does not mean, "slightly better than red." A purple designation indicates that a choice is not going to be widely applicable to many situations. That build, for example, is very specific. Tempest Cleric levels are only really useful if you happen to specialize in lightning and thunder damage anyways. Otherwise, it's not worth the opportunity cost in delaying your spell progression. Certain domains are useful for certain builds, but a black rating would indicate solid synergy across a wide variety of builds.

Purple is not a bad designation, so no, I am not undervaluing it. Cleric builds are simply not always a good idea, even if sometimes they are a fantastic idea.

Ahh! Ok, that makes sense. Forgive me.

i'm starting to feel that the rating system might benefit from explicitly placing the "good in the right situation" colour in a completely distinct location.

so for example, you might list sky blue, blue, black, and red (or whichever) all one after the other, then make it absolutely clear that purple is not in that hierarchy at all by spacing it away from the rest of the colours. it might just improve clarity if you demonstrate clearly that it is not a hierarchical ranking of the ability (or whatever) in the same sense that the other colours are; sky blue is better than blue is better than black is better than red, and purple is either (sky) blue or red depending on the situation.

I'll agree with this.

[EvilAnagram]

i'm starting to feel that the rating system might benefit from explicitly placing the "good in the right situation" colour in a completely distinct location.

so for example, you might list sky blue, blue, black, and red (or whichever) all one after the other, then make it absolutely clear that purple is not in that hierarchy at all by spacing it away from the rest of the colours. it might just improve clarity if you demonstrate clearly that it is not a hierarchical ranking of the ability (or whatever) in the same sense that the other colours are; sky blue is better than blue is better than black is better than red, and purple is either (sky) blue or red depending on the situation.

An excellent idea.

Edit: I've employed this suggestion in all of my guides. Hopefully it will cut down on purple complaints.

[Mervold]

Booming Blade (SCAG): If you have a decent melee, this is a perfect cantrip for you. Quicken and Twin, and the way it combines with other spells make this pure awesome.

I do not understand all the love this one gets. If the target does not move (and why would it, a big juicy low HP target is within hitting reach) it is only 3d8 extra damage. Ok, it can be Quickened, but you still have to spend on a good physical stat. I can see someone multiclassing into a few levels of Sorcerer for this, but a full caster should be able to do better.

Green-Flame Blade(SCAG): Similar to Booming Blade, but works with Draconic Sorcerers and can't be Twinned.

The spell has a target, and another creature. I think it can be Twinned.

Sleep: I love this spell. No save, and it puts enemies down faster than anything else.

This gets obsolete pretty fast.

Maximillian's Earthen Grasp (EE): Bigby's little brother. The damage is okay, and it keeps your enemy in check. (Concentration)

I think this spell is very underrated. Subsequent escape attempts are checks, not saves, in this regard this is way more powerful than Blindness or Hold Person. More important, you can grab another target once the previous one is properly executed by your comrades. This is something very few other spells can do.

Hypnotic Pattern: Incapacitate a large number of enemies, completely changing the battlefield. One of very few save-or-suck spells in this edition.

I think this one is Sky Blue for a Bard, but only because of the Insturments, but in the hands of a Sorcerer it is significantly weaker.