Sorcerous Origin:
Primordial
The power of the elements resides in you, and at times you can hardly control its fury. This influence comes from an elemental outsider in your family history or a time when you or a relative was exposed to a raw elemental energies. You could be the descendant of a Dawn Titan, touched by a Prince of Elemental Evil, or merely had the luck to be conceived while an elemental plane briefly touched the Prime Material.
Scion of Flame / Frost / Sky / Terra
At first level when you choose this origin, select the element that infuses your being and powers your magic: air, earth, fire, or water. This choice cannot be changed.
A number of your abilities grant powers based on your element, using the damage type listed below.
| Element | Damage Type |
|---|---|
| Air | Lightning |
| Earth | Bludgeoning |
| Element | Damage Type |
|---|---|
| Fire | Fire |
| Water | Cold |
You can speak, read, and write Primordial, including the dialects of Auran, Aquan, Ignan and Terran.
Primordial Blast
At 1st level, you can use an action to expend a spell slot and create a devastating explosion of elemental force. The blast deals damage in your elemental type equal to 1d12 per level of the spell slot, to a maximum of 5d12, plus your sorcerer level. A creature takes half damage if it succeeds on a Dexterity saving throw against your spell save DC.
Choose one of the following blast shapes each time you use this ability:
- Eruption: Choose a point within 30 feet of you that you can see. Each creature in a 5 foot radius takes blast damage.
- Wave: Each creature in a 15 foot cone emanating from you takes blast damage.
- Line: Each creature in a 30 foot line emanating from you takes blast damage.
If you cast a spell and use a blast in the same turn, their combined level cannot exceed your highest level spell slot.
Type Casting
Also at 1st level, you can imbue a spell with your own inner energy, changing the spell's damage type from acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder to your elemental damage type.
When you do so, secondary effects of the spell (such as a fireball igniting flammable objects) occur only if relevant, or new such effects may occur at your DM's discretion.
You can use this ability a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier, and regain all uses when you finish a long rest.
Elemental Conduit
Starting at 6th level, your personal elemental engine absorbs similar energies into your own. As a reaction when you take magical damage of your elemental type, you can expend 2 sorcery points to gain resistance to the triggering damage and immunity to your elemental type for one minute.
If you use a Primordial Blast during this minute, you can choose to end the effect and add 1d12 plus your Charisma modifier to the blast damage roll.
Elemental Domination
At 14th level, you learn the spell conjure elemental, which counts as a sorcerer spell for you, but not against the number of sorcerer spells you know. When you cast conjure elemental, the casting time is 1 action instead of 1 minute.
As an action, you can spend 2 sorcery points to assert control over an elemental you can see, even wresting control from another summoner, if it is of a plane aligned with your element. Make a Charisma (Intimidation) check against the spell save DC of the creature controlling it, if any, or 10 + the CR of an uncontrolled elemental.
On a success, you begin to concentrate and control the elemental for the remainder of the spell's duration (if any) or for one hour, as if you had summoned it with conjure elemental. An existing summoner, if any, loses concentration at this time.
Aura of the Primal Lords
Starting at 18th level, you can use your action to spend 5 sorcery points, charging the area around you with manifest energy that you instinctively control. Depending on your element, small rocks may rumble or sparks flash around you, or the air may grow heated or crackle with cold.
For one minute, you can use your primordial blast as a bonus action on each of your turns. In addition, creatures of your choice add 1d8 elemental damage to their weapon damage rolls while within 30 feet of you.
Variant Rules and Considerations
Sorcerer Bonus Spells
Some groups play with additional, bonus spells known for sorcerers based upon their bloodline. This table provides those spells for each level. You gain the general Primordial bonus spell and the specific spell for your elemental type.
You gain access to these spells at the levels specified. Once you gain access to an Origin spell, you always have it known. Origin spells don’t count against the number of spells you know. If you gain a Origin spell that doesn’t appear on the Sorcerer spell list, the spell is nonetheless a Sorcerer spell for you.
Primordial Bonus Spells
| Sorcerer Level |
General | Air | Earth | Fire | Water |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | absorb elements | thunderwave | earth tremor | burning hands | ice knife |
| 3rd | dragon's breath | misty step | acid arrow | scorching ray | blur |
| 5th | protection from energy | call lightning | erupting earth | minute meteors | tidal wave |
| 7th | conjure minor elementals | storm sphere | vitriolic sphere | fire shield | ice storm |
| 9th | conjure elemental* | control winds | passwall | immolation | cone of cold |
* if you are using this variant, you instead learn planar binding at 14th level.
Primordial Quirks
Like the Genasi, many Primordial sorcerers manifest their elemental gift in their physical form. The following table provides examples of ways that your sorcerous magics might have warped your body to match your gift.
| d6 | Plane-touched Quirk |
|---|---|
| 1 | Your eyes sparkle and shine with the appropriate elemental energies. |
| 2 | Your hair shimmers with shifting color and seems to move on its own accord. |
| 3 | Tiny sparks or splashes burst from your fingertips when you snap them |
| 4 | Your skin glows faintly, resonating with your emotions |
| 5 | When you walk with bare feet, you leave a harmless trail of flame/water/dust/sparks |
| 6 | When your skin is broken, your blood takes on the appearance of your element |
Math: How Does Primodrial Blast Balance?
Primordial Blast sounds strong, doesn't it? It should be. Sorcerer deserves nice things.
The math can be seen here, comparing to the DMG guidelines for multi-target spells (and fireball for 3rd-5th, because it's better than everything else), as well as a 1st level blast compared to a draconic sorcerer's firebolt (a roughly analogous subclass feature). The blast scales slightly better at "maximum" than a standard spell that a sorcerer can cast at each level (though it loses to fireball at level 5/6), until level 10, when it begins to scale rather impressively. This is mitigated in that multi-target spells get progressively HUGE in area of effect and range, while the blast remains a targeted weapon - a short range, small AOE. A fireball hits more than sixteen times the size of a blast, and a circle of death even more so! In addition, damage is often not the most efficient use for a high-level slot that can create demiplanes or feeblemind an enemy forever.
Quickened spell + blast is mitigated by the caveat that the blast + spell level cannot exceed the highest slot of the sorcerer, which keeps the nova potential down - a 3rd-slot fireball + 3rd-slot blast deals roughly equal damage to a chain lightning + firebolt, in much smaller radius. Even so, at higher levels, a 1st level spell slot blast deals damage equivalent to a 2nd level spell, making for a potent use of those slots rather than reaction spells such as shield or absorb elements (first slots are rarely useful for damage in tier 2+).
It should be noted that blast is better than 1st and 2nd level spells even at low levels, because they often do not cause guaranteed damage, but the blast options do damage with save for half.