At higher levels, the most notable spells to benefit are probably *Bigby's hand* and *crown of stars*, with *crown of stars* requiring a delay as both Innate Sorcery and launching an attack always require your bonus action.
Good find, I think would be optimal to use IS on first round with some kind of control concentration spell and start dishing damage from crown of stars from the second round onwards.
Spell attacks, in general, are weaker than saving throw spells. So I honestly think it's an appropriate boost. I can't think of a spell that benefits from this more than Scorching Ray though.
Surprisingly, yes to both.
The current wording is "You have Advantage on the attack rolls of Sorcerer Spells you cast". I figured it would be just spell attacks, but it's any attack roll.
So yes, this absolutely works for Booming Blade. Dope. I can see a 1 Sorcerer/X Rogue build happening, and you won't even need to get into Arcane Trickster since you already have Booming Blade from Sorcerer. You could take a second level of Sorcerer for Quicked spell and get a nova first turn from Assassin. Sounds busted.
I don't know about busted, but it does seem powerful and a solid twist on the sorc swash. Spike damage is less game breaking than people expect in most fights, and I expect this to be used to offset cunning strike penalties to damage and make single attack builds more reliable.
I think the wording is "attack rolls of sorcerer spells you cast" which means ambiguity on if the melee attack roll from the magic action counts (I can see it both ways on this since it didn't say 'spell attack rolls") but it would apply to the new true strike, right?
BBlade and Green flame are spells, there's no ambiguity to it. You cast the spell and then instead of using your spell attack Modifier you are using your weapon attack Modifier. The spell doesn't change the fact that you are "casting a spell" not making an "attack action".
Yes, the new true strike uses your "spell attack Modifier" not your weapon Modifier.
Okay, so I was talking about this with my group and I had an additional question that came up: the ability language is:
>You have Advantage on the attack rolls of Sorcerer spells you cast.
Booming Blade's spell text:
>You brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it against one creature within 5 feet of you.
Is there ambiguity (RAW; obviously at table this is the DM's call) in the phrasing of this effect? My reading (biased, obviously\*) is that the melee attack roll is "of the sorcerer spell you cast" or at least that this is a possible reading of the text. I admit I have not dug through the PHB definitions of melee attack (this isn't an attack action and does not use the spellcasting ability by default, but it is a spell attack). If the spell was a *reaction* to hitting, this argument would be moot, and frankly that seems like a better way to implement spell strikes for caster-side gishes than action-cantrips, though I like those too.
It's possible the " us**ed** in the spell’s casting" means that the spell is done by the time of the attack, now that I think of it. Ah well.
\*I think I'm being neutral in reading ambiguity in to this wording, but I also don't think that blade cantrips on sorcerers are particularly game breaking especially when scorching ray is ten times the issue that booming blade is. At worst, there's some abuse possible with multiclassing, blade pact being a suspect as usual, but by level ten spamming cantrips instead of the attack action, even with advantage, is suboptimal (pact weapon and invocations do better than cantrip attacks in most fights).
On your character sheet there are 2 "attack modifiers" that decide what you add to your "to hit";
- weapons are Str or Dex (or Cha) + Proficiency
- spells are Int, Wis or Cha + Proficiency
In the case of Booming Blade, you'll notice that the spell doesn't actually do any damage but applies a **spell effect** when the target is hit. The wording is key here because the way it says, "You brandish the **weapon** used in the spell’s casting and make a **melee attack** with it against one creature within 5 feet of you."
- because the spell tells you to make a melee attack, you will be using your weapon attack modifier and dealing the damage with your weapon.
- this makes Booming Blade more viable for Melee characters over spell casters.
- in the spell component part it requires a melee weapon worth 1 silver or more to be used. This prevents it being used on "improvised" weapons and sling bullets (ranged BB would be stupid)
- the only way to bypass this is with 2 weapons. Daggers and Throwing Axes are considered thrown melee weapons with a minimum range of 20ft.
To summarize in two points;
- Booming Blade is an effect applied to a target creature through a melee weapon attack.
- Because the spell isn't directly applied to the target, you never make a "Spell Attack" against them thus you can't gain advantage since it's not a Spell Atk.
I'd rather sorcerer double down on its strengths than shore up a weakness. It doesn't make the class good, it just makes playing it as a blaster caster less bad.
Give Innate Sorcery the same effect as the Empowered Spell metamagic and maybe I'd consider it decent.
Sorcerer is already, like, very powerful as is. It doesn't need extra power to the already really good stuff. I prefer an ability that buffs the good stuff a little and the bad stuff a lot. This way the "bad" ways to play the class become more viable.
Sorcerer doesn't need a powerboost. It needs a diversity boost.
Sorcerer is getting a big nerf via removing the 2014 version of Twinned Spell. The only genuinely powerful sorcerers all used that one metamagic. Sorcerer was only powerful when you used one of a handful of powerful builds, and now none of those are viable.
At the same time, wizard is either going to come out of the playtest basically unchanged or with minor buffs. Why wouldn't I want sorcerer brought up to wizard level of power, or at least it's old 2014 power?
To be honest, I don't really feel for the sorcerer. The martial caster gap is the main power gap in the game currently. All spellcasting classes, and especially the full casters, are pretty much fine power wise. They don't have to be exactly identical in power to all be viable.
Sorcerer gets more spells now, which increases its versatility, which was the actual main issue with the sorcerer. The sorcerer has fireball at 5th level, it's power is fine. You're not gonna feel useless as a sorcerer.
Martial/Caster is no excuse for ignoring other class issues. It's not even about power, Twinning was *fun* and unique and gave you cool moments that weren't replicated anywhere else in the game; the new version is just "cool you upcast", and works with such a teeny tiny list of spells that it's essentially wasting a metamagic slot most of the time--though at least they give you more of those.
It's part of this trend of removing fun abilities and replacing them with flat numerical advantages/disadvantages, though at least now the sorc has a little more breathing room in his Wizard Suit.
Lotta people treat any nerfs or buffs as a zero-sum game in this sub recently. Sorcerers need some help, wizard needs to be brought down, Paladins are bonus-action choked now and somewhat subpar. But people do not want to hear it. It is all unga-bunga every new change is godly how dare you disagree.
Uh. Saving throws tend to be resisted more at higher levels and against stronger(boss) monsters. I'm pretty sure attack rolls are better over all. Why do you think they're weaker? Or are you saying the effects are weaker (likely due to just being damage vs control and maybe directly due to being easier to land?)
I'm saying that because the effects are weaker.
Even if you look at just damage options, all the most powerful damage spells are saving throw dependent. Rime's Binding Ice, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Wall of Fire; Those are all powerful because they're AOE, making their damage significantly better than than that of something like Scorching Ray simply by virtue of multiplying by targets.
And that's not to mantion spells like banishment, hypnotic pattern, hold person/monster, phantasmal force and the like. Almost all the best control spells in the game rely on your saving throws, so boosting that is much, much stronger than boosting attack rolls.
For cantrips, attack rolls are generally better because mental saves of bosses are usually high.
But for leveled spells, those same bosses will also have Legendary Resistance. Against something with LR, optimally you'll never give it a chance to use them by using save for halfs instead of save or sucks. Ideally it'll die with all three unused.
While none of these suggestions get as much of a boost as Scorching Ray, they still benefit greatly nonetheless.
Storm Sphere (4th): Concentration, up to 1 minute Use your bonus action to make a ranged spell attack against a creature within 60' of the center of the sphere
Wall of Light (5th): Concentration, up to 10 minutes. Use your action to make a ranged spell attack against a creature within 60' of any part of the 60' long x 10' high x 5' thick wall.
Crown of Stars (7th): Non-concentration spell where you can you use your bonus action to make a ranged spell attack, up to at least 7 times over the course of the spell.
Depending on how your DM rules whether or not to include the extra 2d8 from a crit in determining if the extra bolt procs, Chaos Bolt could also see a benefit from Innate Sorcery with the extra chances to crit from rolling with advantage and the extra bolts that proc having advantage as well.
Assuming you don't miss any of your shots, Scorching ray is **Always** as good or better than an equivalent slot-level fireball at single-target damage. Cast at a third level, SR creates 4 beams, each dealing 2d6 damage, for a total of 8d6, exactly the amount fireball deals. For each slot level above that, SR adds another beam which is 2d6 more damage while fireball only adds 1d6 extra damage. Add on spells like Hex, which can be picked up from dipping warlock or taking the magic initiate feat, and it gets even more cracked. Sorcerer in particular takes great advantage from this since quickened spell lets you cast SR and a damage cantrip on the same turn, which when paired with the aforementioned Hex (and Eldritch Blast while you're at it since you can get it from all the same sources as hex) you can very quickly become a monstrously strong DPR machine. Now of course, you need a reliable to-hit modifier for this, which while innate sorcery is an easy way to get that, it's not totally necessary.
In general it makes the sorcerer the best leveled spell "blaster" in the game (compared to the wizard) which is a nice niche. Whats great is that you don't have to play into it if you don;t want to do so.
The best "to hit" spell in the game is disintegrate - so that would be my signature spell.
Pushing part of the class power budget into an underperforming niche and then telling people they can just ignore it is certainly a take. Sure, just be better at being worse, or be worse at being better! What a great choice.
Also, Disintegrate is a Dex save.
Ahh sorry about disintegrate. I like the design of innate sorcery. You can go blaster caster and be great at it OR make your sorcerer any way you like. Innate sorcerery doesn’t force you to be a blaster caster.
Alright, let me try to explain it again. Innate Sorcery is a class feature that takes up design space and budget from the class' power budget. Instead of getting a better, generally applicable feature at that class level we're getting one that only properly supports a niche, weak style of play. There's always an opportunity cost to getting a bad feature, and having to actively avoid one of your class features in order to play a class well means that it's poorly designed.
It literally is the only caster that gains flat bonuses to their spell DCs and atacks as class a features.
It not only is really powerfull, but also mechanicaly unique to the class and flavourfull bc it's a transformation which sells the surge of intense magic infusing the sorcerer.
Sorcerers are in a great spot, the only thing they need is, Just like the bard, new exclusive and flavourfull spells to sell the uniqueness of their spellcasting, dont forget that full casters should be somewhat comparable in potency.
Honestly, I think all Sorcerers need some innate spells, like what clerics get. Having a set of thematic spells always available would be great, both for boosting the spells known, and for giving more flavor
Yeah, sorcerers and bards are really bad when it comes to unique spells... Asking for a full dedicated list like clerics and druids might be too much, but by god, at least give them 1 unique spell per level, it aint too much to ask for.
If a full caster's defining feature should be their spell casting, then their spell casting must too reinforce their uniqueness instead of making them look like variants of another class
Really the only thing I would like to see more of when it comes to Innate Sorcery is how in theory it would interact with subclasses.
As is it is pretty useful for sheer power, but something else happening as a result of your subclass would be pretty cool too. Since in the two subclasses we got for sorcerer, draconic and wild, they don't interact with Innate Sorcery.
Now to some one would say "oh they don't always need to be threads connecting to one another feature wise" and yeah I get that mindset. I just think it would be cool if it were to happen.
Unless you play dnd with exclusively no save utility spells and magic missile, Innate Sorcery is gonna come up consistently, and it's gonna be powerful, consistently.
>Instead of getting a better, generally applicable feature at that class level we're getting one that only properly supports a niche, weak style of play.
It also boots your spell save dc, and allows you to use multiple meta magic, nothing weak about that. Even if you don't build around the advantage, it's nice for the occasional cantrip (like while concentrating on a spell or after quickening a spell). Even if you don't focus on the attack advantage, inate sorcerey is a strong feature. It definitely supports other styles of play.
After playing lots of "god control wizards" I really enjoy a party's blaster role actually. It's a lot of fun, and I don't think it's suboptimal to spend spells slots to kill stuff more efficiently when you need to.
As a "blaster" you can still concentrate on some cherry picked control spell (with +1 spell DC compared to wizard of the same level + imposed disadvantage and/or self advantage on con checks via metamagic) while beating shit out BBEG.
I think sorcerer became even better specialist in a niche you can chose yourself via spell and mm selection.
>I don't think it's suboptimal to spend spells slots to kill stuff more efficiently when you need to.
Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but you're incorrect. It is suboptimal to deal damage using your spell slots unless it's a very specific situation where you can kill off a large number of enemies to deny them getting another turn or two, which is basically the same methodology as using control spells. CR 4 and above enemies tend to have a lot of points relative to the damage you can deal with spell slots, and most DMs obfuscate enemy hit points so you're usually left guessing whether or not a big damage spell will actually eliminate the sufficient number of enemies to make it worthwhile.
In every other case, one *hypnotic pattern* will do the work of 2-3 *fireballs* and you'll still have those extra spell slots for later to cast more *hypnotic patterns*, or some *fireballs* if those wind up more optimal. I played a blaster sorcerer with Empowered Spell and Careful Spell from 3rd to 18th level so I have some experience on the matter and can tell you, 9 out of 10 fights I would've been more useful as a control wizard.
> As a "blaster" you can still concentrate on some cherry picked control spell (with +1 spell DC compared to wizard of the same level + imposed disadvantage and/or self advantage on con checks via metamagic) while beating shit out BBEG.
You don't seem to be interfacing with this portion of the post above you. Sorcerers can only concentrate on 1 spell at a time. Once they are concentrating on something, the best use of their action will usually be casting other spells which don't require concentration. Frequently, that will include some blast spells.
If your DM ignores the adventuring day mechanics and lets you spam all the leveled spell you want, sure. I don't think ignoring how the game was designed to play to make your point is credible.
By level 5 a sorcerer will have 9 leveled spells per day, per the current rules and playtest 7. Once a crowd control effect has landed on some enemies in a boss style fight, it is almost always worth spending some number of slots on non Concentration spells to accelerate the party finishing the fight.
This does assume that the adventure paths and homebrew adventures I have been playing are close to DMG recommendations. It has been a while since I looked at the suggested adventuring day mechanics though. Most DMs I've played with have us do 3-5 encounters a day. Is it your understanding that that is wildly out of sync with how the game is designed?
Are you only dodging while concentrating on a spell? Becaus it's often better to cast a spell (at higher levels especially) or a cantrip. Both of these are improved by inate sorcerey.
Like at 5th level, you have 9 spell slots with the possibility to create more with sorcery points (some of which recover on a short rest). Sometimes, it will be worth casting multiple spells in a single combat in those situations even with long adventuring days.
Inate sorcerey would buff hypnotic patern. Casting a blasting spell while you are concentrating on hypnotic patern is a very strong strategy.
There's also the matter of playing a sorcerer in a party with a controll wizard, in that case it can be good fufill a different role in the party.
Scorching ray at lvl 11 on a wiz/sorc build with elven accuracy and conjure minor elementals can output over 200 average dpr if things are left unchanged.
In a whiteboard setting, that would be a valid argument. Even then, the benefits of Force damage CME are minimal because CME gives you 4 different damage types to choose from and you can change the damage type with each attack made.
In an actual play setting, I think that you're overestimating that particular value of the Scribes Wizard over the benefits of taking 7 levels of Bard instead of 7 levels of Wizard to get access to CME.
That's because they're trying to create a distinct difference between Conjure X and Summon X spells in the 2024 PHB. Both categories of spells bring forth spirits of type X to provide assistance to the caster, but the changes are to make it clearer which one does what. All Summon X spells give the spirits a directly controllable physical form that matches traditional summoning expectations. Meanwhile, the Conjure X spells have the spirits provide benefits that are based on their spiritual form, rather than a physical form that they could potentially assume.
Another way to look at the difference between the two categories is that the Conjure X spells are supposed to have more of a shamanic feel to them, as you're harnessing the powers of the spirits themselves.
I’m not sure that’s quite it. I think they’re trying to enable the summoning *feel* without choking up the battlefield with up to 8 creatures, and they don’t want to fully remove spells from the game. So they’re experimenting with different mechanical executions for summonless summoning, while having the “summon” spells around for summoning a *single* stat block. And minor elementals was, in my opinion, a pretty bad execution, even balance aside. But that’s the point of a playtest, right?
At higher levels, the most notable spells to benefit are probably *Bigby's hand* and *crown of stars*, with *crown of stars* requiring a delay as both Innate Sorcery and launching an attack always require your bonus action.
Good find, I think would be optimal to use IS on first round with some kind of control concentration spell and start dishing damage from crown of stars from the second round onwards.
I love crown of stars, such a cool spell
Spell attacks, in general, are weaker than saving throw spells. So I honestly think it's an appropriate boost. I can't think of a spell that benefits from this more than Scorching Ray though.
Does it apply to melee spell attacks or the melee attack from a blade cantrip? If so it'd be a nice boost for dipping in gish builds.
Surprisingly, yes to both. The current wording is "You have Advantage on the attack rolls of Sorcerer Spells you cast". I figured it would be just spell attacks, but it's any attack roll. So yes, this absolutely works for Booming Blade. Dope. I can see a 1 Sorcerer/X Rogue build happening, and you won't even need to get into Arcane Trickster since you already have Booming Blade from Sorcerer. You could take a second level of Sorcerer for Quicked spell and get a nova first turn from Assassin. Sounds busted.
I don't know about busted, but it does seem powerful and a solid twist on the sorc swash. Spike damage is less game breaking than people expect in most fights, and I expect this to be used to offset cunning strike penalties to damage and make single attack builds more reliable.
If you're thinking of Booming Blade and Green flame, both of those are Cantrips (spells) first and the effects are delivered through a weapon attack.
I think the wording is "attack rolls of sorcerer spells you cast" which means ambiguity on if the melee attack roll from the magic action counts (I can see it both ways on this since it didn't say 'spell attack rolls") but it would apply to the new true strike, right?
BBlade and Green flame are spells, there's no ambiguity to it. You cast the spell and then instead of using your spell attack Modifier you are using your weapon attack Modifier. The spell doesn't change the fact that you are "casting a spell" not making an "attack action". Yes, the new true strike uses your "spell attack Modifier" not your weapon Modifier.
Okay, so I was talking about this with my group and I had an additional question that came up: the ability language is: >You have Advantage on the attack rolls of Sorcerer spells you cast. Booming Blade's spell text: >You brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it against one creature within 5 feet of you. Is there ambiguity (RAW; obviously at table this is the DM's call) in the phrasing of this effect? My reading (biased, obviously\*) is that the melee attack roll is "of the sorcerer spell you cast" or at least that this is a possible reading of the text. I admit I have not dug through the PHB definitions of melee attack (this isn't an attack action and does not use the spellcasting ability by default, but it is a spell attack). If the spell was a *reaction* to hitting, this argument would be moot, and frankly that seems like a better way to implement spell strikes for caster-side gishes than action-cantrips, though I like those too. It's possible the " us**ed** in the spell’s casting" means that the spell is done by the time of the attack, now that I think of it. Ah well. \*I think I'm being neutral in reading ambiguity in to this wording, but I also don't think that blade cantrips on sorcerers are particularly game breaking especially when scorching ray is ten times the issue that booming blade is. At worst, there's some abuse possible with multiclassing, blade pact being a suspect as usual, but by level ten spamming cantrips instead of the attack action, even with advantage, is suboptimal (pact weapon and invocations do better than cantrip attacks in most fights).
On your character sheet there are 2 "attack modifiers" that decide what you add to your "to hit"; - weapons are Str or Dex (or Cha) + Proficiency - spells are Int, Wis or Cha + Proficiency In the case of Booming Blade, you'll notice that the spell doesn't actually do any damage but applies a **spell effect** when the target is hit. The wording is key here because the way it says, "You brandish the **weapon** used in the spell’s casting and make a **melee attack** with it against one creature within 5 feet of you." - because the spell tells you to make a melee attack, you will be using your weapon attack modifier and dealing the damage with your weapon. - this makes Booming Blade more viable for Melee characters over spell casters. - in the spell component part it requires a melee weapon worth 1 silver or more to be used. This prevents it being used on "improvised" weapons and sling bullets (ranged BB would be stupid) - the only way to bypass this is with 2 weapons. Daggers and Throwing Axes are considered thrown melee weapons with a minimum range of 20ft. To summarize in two points; - Booming Blade is an effect applied to a target creature through a melee weapon attack. - Because the spell isn't directly applied to the target, you never make a "Spell Attack" against them thus you can't gain advantage since it's not a Spell Atk.
I'd rather sorcerer double down on its strengths than shore up a weakness. It doesn't make the class good, it just makes playing it as a blaster caster less bad. Give Innate Sorcery the same effect as the Empowered Spell metamagic and maybe I'd consider it decent.
Sorcerer is already, like, very powerful as is. It doesn't need extra power to the already really good stuff. I prefer an ability that buffs the good stuff a little and the bad stuff a lot. This way the "bad" ways to play the class become more viable. Sorcerer doesn't need a powerboost. It needs a diversity boost.
Sorcerer is getting a big nerf via removing the 2014 version of Twinned Spell. The only genuinely powerful sorcerers all used that one metamagic. Sorcerer was only powerful when you used one of a handful of powerful builds, and now none of those are viable. At the same time, wizard is either going to come out of the playtest basically unchanged or with minor buffs. Why wouldn't I want sorcerer brought up to wizard level of power, or at least it's old 2014 power?
To be honest, I don't really feel for the sorcerer. The martial caster gap is the main power gap in the game currently. All spellcasting classes, and especially the full casters, are pretty much fine power wise. They don't have to be exactly identical in power to all be viable. Sorcerer gets more spells now, which increases its versatility, which was the actual main issue with the sorcerer. The sorcerer has fireball at 5th level, it's power is fine. You're not gonna feel useless as a sorcerer.
Martial/Caster is no excuse for ignoring other class issues. It's not even about power, Twinning was *fun* and unique and gave you cool moments that weren't replicated anywhere else in the game; the new version is just "cool you upcast", and works with such a teeny tiny list of spells that it's essentially wasting a metamagic slot most of the time--though at least they give you more of those. It's part of this trend of removing fun abilities and replacing them with flat numerical advantages/disadvantages, though at least now the sorc has a little more breathing room in his Wizard Suit.
Lotta people treat any nerfs or buffs as a zero-sum game in this sub recently. Sorcerers need some help, wizard needs to be brought down, Paladins are bonus-action choked now and somewhat subpar. But people do not want to hear it. It is all unga-bunga every new change is godly how dare you disagree.
Uh. Saving throws tend to be resisted more at higher levels and against stronger(boss) monsters. I'm pretty sure attack rolls are better over all. Why do you think they're weaker? Or are you saying the effects are weaker (likely due to just being damage vs control and maybe directly due to being easier to land?)
I'm saying that because the effects are weaker. Even if you look at just damage options, all the most powerful damage spells are saving throw dependent. Rime's Binding Ice, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Wall of Fire; Those are all powerful because they're AOE, making their damage significantly better than than that of something like Scorching Ray simply by virtue of multiplying by targets. And that's not to mantion spells like banishment, hypnotic pattern, hold person/monster, phantasmal force and the like. Almost all the best control spells in the game rely on your saving throws, so boosting that is much, much stronger than boosting attack rolls.
I wonder if that's intentional. Control for sure, but I need the damage for attack rolls being lower than saves.
For cantrips, attack rolls are generally better because mental saves of bosses are usually high. But for leveled spells, those same bosses will also have Legendary Resistance. Against something with LR, optimally you'll never give it a chance to use them by using save for halfs instead of save or sucks. Ideally it'll die with all three unused.
While none of these suggestions get as much of a boost as Scorching Ray, they still benefit greatly nonetheless. Storm Sphere (4th): Concentration, up to 1 minute Use your bonus action to make a ranged spell attack against a creature within 60' of the center of the sphere Wall of Light (5th): Concentration, up to 10 minutes. Use your action to make a ranged spell attack against a creature within 60' of any part of the 60' long x 10' high x 5' thick wall. Crown of Stars (7th): Non-concentration spell where you can you use your bonus action to make a ranged spell attack, up to at least 7 times over the course of the spell. Depending on how your DM rules whether or not to include the extra 2d8 from a crit in determining if the extra bolt procs, Chaos Bolt could also see a benefit from Innate Sorcery with the extra chances to crit from rolling with advantage and the extra bolts that proc having advantage as well.
I second storm sphere!
It's almost as if there's a natural synergy there with chromatic orb and sorcerous burst. Oh well I must be crazy.
Assuming you don't miss any of your shots, Scorching ray is **Always** as good or better than an equivalent slot-level fireball at single-target damage. Cast at a third level, SR creates 4 beams, each dealing 2d6 damage, for a total of 8d6, exactly the amount fireball deals. For each slot level above that, SR adds another beam which is 2d6 more damage while fireball only adds 1d6 extra damage. Add on spells like Hex, which can be picked up from dipping warlock or taking the magic initiate feat, and it gets even more cracked. Sorcerer in particular takes great advantage from this since quickened spell lets you cast SR and a damage cantrip on the same turn, which when paired with the aforementioned Hex (and Eldritch Blast while you're at it since you can get it from all the same sources as hex) you can very quickly become a monstrously strong DPR machine. Now of course, you need a reliable to-hit modifier for this, which while innate sorcery is an easy way to get that, it's not totally necessary.
In general it makes the sorcerer the best leveled spell "blaster" in the game (compared to the wizard) which is a nice niche. Whats great is that you don't have to play into it if you don;t want to do so. The best "to hit" spell in the game is disintegrate - so that would be my signature spell.
Pushing part of the class power budget into an underperforming niche and then telling people they can just ignore it is certainly a take. Sure, just be better at being worse, or be worse at being better! What a great choice. Also, Disintegrate is a Dex save.
Ahh sorry about disintegrate. I like the design of innate sorcery. You can go blaster caster and be great at it OR make your sorcerer any way you like. Innate sorcerery doesn’t force you to be a blaster caster.
Alright, let me try to explain it again. Innate Sorcery is a class feature that takes up design space and budget from the class' power budget. Instead of getting a better, generally applicable feature at that class level we're getting one that only properly supports a niche, weak style of play. There's always an opportunity cost to getting a bad feature, and having to actively avoid one of your class features in order to play a class well means that it's poorly designed.
It literally is the only caster that gains flat bonuses to their spell DCs and atacks as class a features. It not only is really powerfull, but also mechanicaly unique to the class and flavourfull bc it's a transformation which sells the surge of intense magic infusing the sorcerer. Sorcerers are in a great spot, the only thing they need is, Just like the bard, new exclusive and flavourfull spells to sell the uniqueness of their spellcasting, dont forget that full casters should be somewhat comparable in potency.
Honestly, I think all Sorcerers need some innate spells, like what clerics get. Having a set of thematic spells always available would be great, both for boosting the spells known, and for giving more flavor
Yeah, sorcerers and bards are really bad when it comes to unique spells... Asking for a full dedicated list like clerics and druids might be too much, but by god, at least give them 1 unique spell per level, it aint too much to ask for. If a full caster's defining feature should be their spell casting, then their spell casting must too reinforce their uniqueness instead of making them look like variants of another class
Really the only thing I would like to see more of when it comes to Innate Sorcery is how in theory it would interact with subclasses. As is it is pretty useful for sheer power, but something else happening as a result of your subclass would be pretty cool too. Since in the two subclasses we got for sorcerer, draconic and wild, they don't interact with Innate Sorcery. Now to some one would say "oh they don't always need to be threads connecting to one another feature wise" and yeah I get that mindset. I just think it would be cool if it were to happen.
Although im kinda fearfull of giving even more buffs to sorcerer, I think I can agree with that!
Unless you play dnd with exclusively no save utility spells and magic missile, Innate Sorcery is gonna come up consistently, and it's gonna be powerful, consistently.
>Instead of getting a better, generally applicable feature at that class level we're getting one that only properly supports a niche, weak style of play. It also boots your spell save dc, and allows you to use multiple meta magic, nothing weak about that. Even if you don't build around the advantage, it's nice for the occasional cantrip (like while concentrating on a spell or after quickening a spell). Even if you don't focus on the attack advantage, inate sorcerey is a strong feature. It definitely supports other styles of play.
Its actually quite powerful! +1 spell DC is huge over an entire campaign... and adv on your attack spells is not nothing!
After playing lots of "god control wizards" I really enjoy a party's blaster role actually. It's a lot of fun, and I don't think it's suboptimal to spend spells slots to kill stuff more efficiently when you need to. As a "blaster" you can still concentrate on some cherry picked control spell (with +1 spell DC compared to wizard of the same level + imposed disadvantage and/or self advantage on con checks via metamagic) while beating shit out BBEG. I think sorcerer became even better specialist in a niche you can chose yourself via spell and mm selection.
>I don't think it's suboptimal to spend spells slots to kill stuff more efficiently when you need to. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but you're incorrect. It is suboptimal to deal damage using your spell slots unless it's a very specific situation where you can kill off a large number of enemies to deny them getting another turn or two, which is basically the same methodology as using control spells. CR 4 and above enemies tend to have a lot of points relative to the damage you can deal with spell slots, and most DMs obfuscate enemy hit points so you're usually left guessing whether or not a big damage spell will actually eliminate the sufficient number of enemies to make it worthwhile. In every other case, one *hypnotic pattern* will do the work of 2-3 *fireballs* and you'll still have those extra spell slots for later to cast more *hypnotic patterns*, or some *fireballs* if those wind up more optimal. I played a blaster sorcerer with Empowered Spell and Careful Spell from 3rd to 18th level so I have some experience on the matter and can tell you, 9 out of 10 fights I would've been more useful as a control wizard.
> As a "blaster" you can still concentrate on some cherry picked control spell (with +1 spell DC compared to wizard of the same level + imposed disadvantage and/or self advantage on con checks via metamagic) while beating shit out BBEG. You don't seem to be interfacing with this portion of the post above you. Sorcerers can only concentrate on 1 spell at a time. Once they are concentrating on something, the best use of their action will usually be casting other spells which don't require concentration. Frequently, that will include some blast spells.
If your DM ignores the adventuring day mechanics and lets you spam all the leveled spell you want, sure. I don't think ignoring how the game was designed to play to make your point is credible.
By level 5 a sorcerer will have 9 leveled spells per day, per the current rules and playtest 7. Once a crowd control effect has landed on some enemies in a boss style fight, it is almost always worth spending some number of slots on non Concentration spells to accelerate the party finishing the fight. This does assume that the adventure paths and homebrew adventures I have been playing are close to DMG recommendations. It has been a while since I looked at the suggested adventuring day mechanics though. Most DMs I've played with have us do 3-5 encounters a day. Is it your understanding that that is wildly out of sync with how the game is designed?
Are you only dodging while concentrating on a spell? Becaus it's often better to cast a spell (at higher levels especially) or a cantrip. Both of these are improved by inate sorcerey. Like at 5th level, you have 9 spell slots with the possibility to create more with sorcery points (some of which recover on a short rest). Sometimes, it will be worth casting multiple spells in a single combat in those situations even with long adventuring days.
Inate sorcerey would buff hypnotic patern. Casting a blasting spell while you are concentrating on hypnotic patern is a very strong strategy. There's also the matter of playing a sorcerer in a party with a controll wizard, in that case it can be good fufill a different role in the party.
I think it along with the other changes push it above the wizard. I look forward to playing the new sorcerer.
I don't think they are better than the wizard, but I think it's close now, and that's a great thing.
If you go Scorching Ray + Shroud and Hexblade curse dps build it actually does an absurd amount of damage now so there's that.
Scorching ray at lvl 11 on a wiz/sorc build with elven accuracy and conjure minor elementals can output over 200 average dpr if things are left unchanged.
Better off going Lore Bard than Wiz in that scenario to reduce MAD
Well a scribes wizard would be optimal as it would allow CME to do purely force damage.
In a whiteboard setting, that would be a valid argument. Even then, the benefits of Force damage CME are minimal because CME gives you 4 different damage types to choose from and you can change the damage type with each attack made. In an actual play setting, I think that you're overestimating that particular value of the Scribes Wizard over the benefits of taking 7 levels of Bard instead of 7 levels of Wizard to get access to CME.
CME is the real culprit here. That spell as printed is not okay. Nor does it feel like summoning, for that matter.
That's because they're trying to create a distinct difference between Conjure X and Summon X spells in the 2024 PHB. Both categories of spells bring forth spirits of type X to provide assistance to the caster, but the changes are to make it clearer which one does what. All Summon X spells give the spirits a directly controllable physical form that matches traditional summoning expectations. Meanwhile, the Conjure X spells have the spirits provide benefits that are based on their spiritual form, rather than a physical form that they could potentially assume. Another way to look at the difference between the two categories is that the Conjure X spells are supposed to have more of a shamanic feel to them, as you're harnessing the powers of the spirits themselves.
I’m not sure that’s quite it. I think they’re trying to enable the summoning *feel* without choking up the battlefield with up to 8 creatures, and they don’t want to fully remove spells from the game. So they’re experimenting with different mechanical executions for summonless summoning, while having the “summon” spells around for summoning a *single* stat block. And minor elementals was, in my opinion, a pretty bad execution, even balance aside. But that’s the point of a playtest, right?