Sorcerer

Golden eyes flashing, a human stretches out her hand and unleashes the dragonfire that burns in her veins. As an inferno rages around her foes, leathery wings spread from her back and she takes to the air.

Long hair whipped by a conjured wind, a half-elf spreads his arms wide and throws his head back. Lifting him momentarily off the ground, a wave of magic surges up in him, through him, and out from him in a mighty blast of lightning.

Crouching behind a stalagmite, a halfling points a finger at a charging troglodyte. A blast of fire springs from her finger to strike the creature. She ducks back behind the rock formation with a grin, unaware that her wild magic has turned her skin bright blue.

Sorcerers carry a magical birthright conferred upon them by an exotic bloodline, some otherworldly influence, or exposure to unknown cosmic forces. One can't study sorcery as one learns a language, any more than one can learn to live a legendary life. No one chooses sorcery; the power chooses the sorcerer.

Quick Build

You can make a sorcerer quickly by following these suggestions. First, Charisma should be your highest ability score, followed by Constitution. Second, choose the hermit background. Third, choose the light, prestidigitation, ray of frost, and shocking grasp cantrips, along with the 1st-level spells shield and magic missile.

Class Features

As a sorcerer, you gain the following class features.

Cantrips

At 1st level, you know four cantrips of your choice from the sorcerer spell list. You learn additional sorcerer cantrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown in the Cantrips Known column of the Sorcerer table.

Spell Slots

The Sorcerer table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your sorcerer spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these sorcerer spells, you must expend a slot of the spell's level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.

For example, if you know the 1st-level spell burning hands and have a 1st-level and a 2nd-level spell slot available, you can cast burning hands using either slot.

Spells Known of 1st Level and Higher

You know two 1st-level spells of your choice from the sorcerer spell list.

The Spells Known column of the Sorcerer table shows when you learn more sorcerer spells of your choice. Each of these spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots. For instance, when you reach 3rd level in this class, you can learn one new spell of 1st or 2nd level.

Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the sorcerer spells you know and replace it with another spell from the sorcerer spell list, which also must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

Spellcasting Ability

Charisma is your spellcasting ability for your sorcerer spells, since the power of your magic relies on your ability to project your will into the world. You use your Charisma whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Charisma modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a sorcerer spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Extended Spell

When you cast a spell that has a duration of 1 minute or longer, you can spend 1 sorcery point to double its duration, to a maximum duration of 24 hours.

Heightened Spell

When you cast a spell that forces a creature to make a saving throw to resist its effects, you can spend 3 sorcery points to give one target of the spell disadvantage on its first saving throw made against the spell.

Piercing Spell

When you cast a spell that deals damage, you can spend 2 sorcery points to have the spell's damage ignore the damage resistances of one of the spell's targets.

Quickened Spell

When you cast a spell that has a casting time of 1 action, you can spend 2 sorcery points to change the casting time to 1 bonus action for this casting.

Seeking Spell

If you make an attack roll for a spell and miss, you can spend 2 sorcery points to reroll the d20, and you must use the new roll.

You can use Seeking Spell even if you have already used a different Metamagic option during the casting of the spell.

Subtle Spell

When you cast a spell, you can spend 1 sorcery point to cast it without any somatic or verbal components.

Transmuted Spell

When you cast a spell that deals a type of damage from the following list, you can spend 1 sorcery point to change that damage type to one of the other listed types: acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, thunder.

Twinned Spell

When you cast a spell that targets only one creature and doesn't have a range of self, you can spend a number of sorcery points equal to the spell's level to target a second creature in range with the same spell (1 sorcery point if the spell is a cantrip).

To be eligible, a spell must be incapable of targeting more than one creature at the spell's current level. For example, the spells magic missile and scorching ray aren't eligible, but ray of frost and chromatic orb are.

Vast Spell

When you cast a spell that can target multiple creatures only if they are within 30 feet of each other, you can spend 2 sorcery points to increase that distance to 60 feet.

Magical Guidance

At 3rd level, you can tap into your inner wellspring of magic to try to conjure success from failure. When you fail an ability check, you can spend 1 sorcery point to reroll the d20, and you must use the new roll, potentially turning the failure into a success.

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Aberrant Mind

An alien influence has wrapped its tendrils around your mind, giving you psionic power. You can now touch other minds with that power and alter the world around you by using it to control the magical energy of the multiverse. Will this power shine from you as a hopeful beacon to others? Or will you be a source of terror to those who feel the stab of your mind and witness the strange manifestations of your might?

As an Aberrant Mind sorcerer, you decide how you acquired your powers. Were you born with them? Or did an event later in life leave you shining with psionic awareness? Consult the Aberrant Origins table for a possible origin of your power.

Warped Reality

From 18th level, you can unleash your aberrant power as a space-warping anomaly. As an action, you can magically radiate a transparent aura in a 20-foot radius for 1 minute. This aura might take the form of a sphere of rippling energy, a fluctuating amoebic gel, or some other manifestation. Other creatures treat the aura as difficult terrain, and a creature that starts its turn in the aura must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or take 2d10 psychic damage. When you create the aura, you can choose any number of creatures to be unaffected by it.

As a bonus action, you can end the anomalous aura early by causing it to collapse on itself. If you do so, you teleport up to 120 feet to an unoccupied space you can see; when you teleport, you can bring along up to five willing creatures within the aura with you, and these creatures appear in unoccupied spaces within 20 feet of your destination. Immediately after you teleport, each creature within 20 feet of the space you left must make a Strength saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 3d10 force damage and is pulled straight toward the space you left, ending in an unoccupied space as close to your former space as possible. On a successful save, a creature takes half as much damage and isn't pulled.

Once you use this feature, you can't do so again until you finish a long rest, unless you spend 7 sorcery points to use it again.

Clockwork Soul

The cosmic force of order has suffused you with magic. That power arises from Mechanus or a realm like it-a plane of existence shaped entirely by clockwork efficiency. You, or someone from your lineage, might have become entangled in the machinations of the modrons, the orderly beings who inhabit Mechanus. Perhaps your ancestor even took part in the Great Modron March. Whatever its origin within you, the power of order can seem strange to others, but for you, it is part of a vast and glorious system.

Consult the Manifestations of Order table and choose or randomly determine a way your connection to order manifests while you are casting any of your sorcerer spells.

Clockwork Cavalcade

At 18th level, you can summon spirits of order to expunge disorder around you. As an action, you summon the spirits in a 30-foot cube originating from you. The spirits look like modrons or other constructs of your choice. The spirits are intangible and invulnerable, and they create the following effects within the cube before vanishing:

• The spirits restore up to 100 hit points, divided as you choose among any number of creatures of your choice in the cube.
• Any damaged objects entirely in the cube are repaired instantly.
• Every spell of 6th level or lower ends on creatures and objects of your choice in the cube.

Once you use this action, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest, unless you spend 7 sorcery points to use it again.

Divine Soul

Sometimes the spark of magic that fuels a sorcerer comes from a divine source that glimmers within the soul. Having such a blessed soul is a sign that your innate magic might come from a distant but powerful familial connection to a divine being. Perhaps your ancestor was an angel, transformed into a mortal and sent to fight in a god's name. Or your birth might align with an ancient prophecy, marking you as a servant of the gods or a chosen vessel of divine magic.

A divine soul, with a natural magnetism, is seen as a threat by some religious hierarchies. As an outsider who commands sacred power, a Divine Soul can undermine an existing order by claiming a direct tie to the divine. In some cultures, only those who can claim the power of a Divine Soul may command religious power. In these lands, ecclesiastical positions are dominated by a few bloodlines and preserved over generations.

Draconic Bloodline

Your innate magic comes from draconic magic that was mingled with your blood or that of your ancestors. Most often, sorcerers with this origin trace their descent back to a mighty sorcerer of ancient times who made a bargain with a dragon or who might even have claimed a dragon parent. Some of these bloodlines are well established in the world, but most are obscure. Any given sorcerer could be the first of a new bloodline, as a result of a pact or some other exceptional circumstance.

Draconic Ancestry

Dragon Magic

Starting at 1st level, you learn additional spells when you reach certain levels in this class, as shown in the Dragon Spells table. Each of these spells counts as a sorcerer spell for you, but it doesn't count against the number of spells you know.

Whenever you gain a sorcerer level, you can replace one spell you gained from this feature with another spell of the same level. The new spell must be an evocation or transmutation spell from the sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell list.

Draconic Resilience

As magic flows through your body, it causes physical traits of your dragon ancestors to emerge. At 1st level, your hit point maximum increases by 1 and increases by 1 again whenever you gain a level in this class.

Additionally, parts of your skin are covered by a thin sheen of dragon-like scales. When you aren't wearing armor, your AC equals 13 + your Dexterity modifier.

Dragon Sorcery

Starting at 6th level, when you cast any spell of 1st level or higher from your Dragon Magic feature, you can cast it by expending a spell slot as normal or by spending a number of sorcery points equal to the spell's level.

If you cast the spell using sorcery points, and that spell requires concentration to maintain, your concentration on that spell can't be broken as a result of taking damage.

Elemental Affinity

Starting at 6th level, when you cast a spell that deals damage of the type associated with your draconic ancestry, you can add your Charisma modifier to one damage roll of that spell. At the same time, you can spend 1 sorcery point to gain resistance to that damage type for 1 hour.

Paradoxical Origins

Paradox Spells

Starting at 1st level, you learn additional spells when you reach certain levels in this class, as shown in the Paradox Spells table. Each of these spells counts as a sorcerer spell for you, but it doesn't count against the number of sorcerer spells you know.

Whenever you gain a sorcerer level, you can replace one spell you gained from this feature with another spell of the same level. The new spell must be an abjuration spell, and it can come from any class's spell list.

Probability Shift

Starting at 1st level, you can influence reality to tilt the probabilities affecting a creature. When you cast a sorcerer spell of 1st level or higher, you can choose one of the spell's targets or a creature within 30 feet of you (which can be yourself), causing one of the following effects of your choice:

• Negative Shift. The target must make a Charisma saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failed save, the creature must roll a d6 and subtract the number rolled from the next attack roll it makes before the start of your next turn.

• Positive Shift. Once before the start of your next turn, the target can roll a d6 and add the number rolled to an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw of its choice. The target can choose to do so after rolling the d20, but before the DM determines the result of the roll.

Paradox Sorcery

Starting at 6th level, when you cast any spell of 1st level or higher from your Paradox Spells feature, you can cast it by expending a spell slot as normal or by spending a number of sorcery points equal to the spell's level.

If you cast the spell using sorcery points, you can choose one willing creature you can see within 30 feet of you. You and the creature both teleport, swapping places with each other.

Null Logic

At 6th level, you learn to overload your enemies with contradictory events. Immediately after you deal damage to a creature, you can use a bonus action to subject the creature to a paradox. The creature must make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failed save, the creature is stunned until the start of your next turn.

You can use this bonus action a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Existential Schism

Starting at 14th level, you can create spatial anomalies to displace your injuries into an alternate reality. When a creature you can see deals damage to you, you can use your reaction to take no damage instead; any additional effects that accompany the damage still occur, however.

Once you use this reaction, you can't do so again until you finish a long rest, unless you spend 5 sorcery points to use it again.

Twin Paradox

At 18th level, you can reach through the space between realities to pluck yourself from an alternative timeline. As an action, you can summon a perfect duplicate of yourself in an unoccupied space within 5 feet of you. The duplicate is corporeal and uses all your statistics, and it lasts for 1 minute or until either it or you drops to 0 hit points, at which point it vanishes.

The duplicate is friendly to you and your companions and obeys your mental commands, moving in accordance with your wishes and acting on your turn in combat, although the duplicate cannot take any actions of its own. You can perceive through the duplicate's senses as long as you are on the same plane of existence (no action required), and for the duplicate's duration, you can perform any action you take as though you were in the duplicate's space.

Whenever a creature you can see targets you with an attack or a harmful spell or effect while your duplicate is within 120 feet of you, roll a d20. On a roll of 11 or higher, you and the duplicate instantaneously swap places, with no indication of having done so, and the duplicate becomes the target instead of you.

Once you use this feature, you can't do so again until you finish a long rest, unless you spend 7 sorcery points to use it again.

Phoenix Sorcery

Your power draws from the immortal flame that fuels the legendary phoenix. You or your ancestors perhaps rendered a phoenix a great service, or you were born in its presence. Whatever the cause, a shard of the phoenix's power dwells within you.

That power is a mixed blessing. Like the mythical creature, you can invoke fiery energy and gain the ability to cheat death itself. This power comes at a cost, however, as the fire within you seethes and demands release, impassioned with the burning desire to be unleashed. You sometimes find yourself absentmindedly feeding fires. You can't bear to allow a fire to sputter out. You feel most comfortable while holding a lit torch or sitting in front of a campfire.

Such sorcerers are wanderers by necessity. The volatile nature of their magic makes other folk nervous. If a fire breaks out in town, a phoenix sorcerer had best flee, whether guilty or not. Fire is a dangerous force, and phoenix sorcerers have a reputation (deserved or not) for reckless behavior, confident that the essence of the phoenix can save them.

Shadow Magic

You are a creature of shadow, for your innate magic comes from the Shadowfell itself. You might trace your lineage to an entity from that place, or perhaps you were exposed to its fell energy and transformed by it.

The power of shadow magic casts a strange pall over your physical presence. The spark of life that sustains you is muffled, as if it struggles to remain viable against the dark energy that imbues your soul. At your option, you can pick from or roll on the Shadow Sorcerer Quirks table to create a quirk for your character.

Shadow Walk

At 14th level, you gain the ability to step from one shadow into another. When you are in dim light or darkness, as a bonus action, you can magically teleport up to 120 feet to an unoccupied space you can see that is also in dim light or darkness.

Umbral Form

Starting at 18th level, you can spend 6 sorcery points as a bonus action to magically transform yourself into a shadowy form. In this form, you have resistance to all damage except force and radiant damage, and you can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. You take 1d10 force damage if you end your turn inside an object.

You remain in this form for 1 minute. It ends early if you are incapacitated, if you die, or if you dismiss it as a bonus action.

Storm Sorcery

Your innate magic comes from the power of elemental air. Many with this power can trace their magic back to a near-death experience caused by the Great Rain, but perhaps you were born during a howling gale so powerful that folk still tell stories of it, or your lineage might include the influence of potent air creatures such as djinn. Whatever the case, the magic of the storm permeates your being.

Storm sorcerers are invaluable members of a ship's crew. Their magic allows them to exert control over wind and weather in their immediate area. Their abilities also prove useful in repelling attacks by sahuagin, pirates, and other waterborne threats.

Heart of the Storm

At 6th level, you gain resistance to lightning and thunder damage. You also gain the ability to subtly control the weather around you in the following ways:

• Rain. If it is raining, you can use an action to cause the rain to stop falling in a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on you. You can end this effect as a bonus action.

• Wind. If it is windy, you can use a bonus action each round to choose the direction that the wind blows in a 100-foot-radius sphere centered on you. The wind blows in that direction until the end of your next turn. This feature doesn't alter the speed of the wind.

Storm's Fury

At 14th level, you channel the tempests to retaliate against your foes. When a creature you can see hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to launch a bolt of lightning at the attacker, forcing it to make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the attacker takes lightning damage equal to your sorcerer level and is pushed up to 20 feet away from you. On a successful save, it takes half as much damage and isn't pushed away.

Avatar of the Tempest

At 18th level, you gain immunity to lightning and thunder damage.

You also gain a magical flying speed of 60 feet. As an action, you can reduce your flying speed to 30 feet for 1 hour and choose a number of creatures within 30 feet of you equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier. The chosen creatures gain a magical flying speed of 30 feet for 1 hour. Once you reduce your flying speed in this way, you can't do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

Wild Magic

Your innate magic comes from the wild forces of chaos that underlie the order of creation. You might have endured exposure to some form of raw magic, perhaps through a planar portal leading to Limbo, the Elemental Planes, or the mysterious Far Realm. Perhaps you were blessed by a powerful fey creature or marked by a demon. Or your magic could be a fluke of your birth, with no apparent cause or reason. However it came to be, this chaotic magic churns within you, waiting for any outlet.

Sorcerer Spells

The list of sorcerer spells below is presented in alphabetical order, sorted by spell level. Spells not originally included in the sorcerer spell list are written in bold.

Each spell is in the Player's Handbook, unless it has one asterisk (a spell in Xanathar's Guide to Everything) or two asterisks (a spell in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything).

Class Changes

Despite its unique class background and the rich themes of its subclass options, the sorcerer as viewed in 5th edition is plagued by unfavorable comparisons to the wizard, a class with whom the sorcerer shares many similarities but which enjoys greater liberties with regards to spellcasting choices and spell availability. The changes presented in this handbook are intended to bridge this gap and allow the sorcerer to shine on its own merits, taking full advantage of the benefits and flexibility of its Metamagic feature, while also tweaking the balance of several subclass options in order to broaden the individual sorcerer's talents and party roles.

Spellcasting. The sorcerer no longer requires material components to cast a sorcerer spell they know, unless that spell's material component has a cost or is consumed by the spell's casting. This change is designed to reinforce the flavor of a sorcerer as using their own innate power to create spell effects, rather than relying on external components.

Sorcerous Origin. Every sorcerer's choice of subclass now provides the sorcerer with a list of origin-based spells which they automatically learn as they gain levels in the class. This is to bring the origin options in line with the spell list access granted by the Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul origins (see below). Finally, a new subclass, the Paradox Magic origin, has been added.

Metamagic. The sorcerer's number of Metamagic options remains the same at 3rd level, but they gain an additional Metamagic option at 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th level (for a total of six), instead of at 10th and 17th level (for a total of four). In addition, three new Metamagic options — Delayed Spell, Piercing Spell, and Vast Spell — have been added.

Magical Guidance. The sorcerer now gains this feature at 3rd level, instead of 5th level.

Sorcerous Restoration. This is a new feature, unrelated to the previous 20th-level feature of the same name, which is intended to improve the sorcerer's Font of Magic feature.

Greater Sorcery. This is a new feature, which is intended to grant the sorcerer a level of power and versatility on par with the 10th-level subclass features of other full-progression spellcasters.

Metamagic Versatility. This is a new feature, which is designed to afford the sorcerer new flexibilities at the highest tiers of play.

Metamagic Mastery. This is a new feature, which replaces the previous version of Sorcerous Restoration and instead reduces the cost of the sorcerer's Metamagic options.

Storm Sorcery

The following changes have been made to this origin:

Storm Spells. This is a new feature, intended to bring the subclass more in line with the other sorcerer subclasses.

Tempestuous Magic. This feature's effect now allows the sorcerer to fly up to a number of feet equal to 5 times their proficiency bonus, instead of 10 feet.

Tempest Sorcery. This is a new feature, which incorporates the damage-dealing aspects of the previously-existing Heart of the Storm (see below) and applies its benefit to spells cast using the sorcerer's Storm Spells feature. The feature is intended to bring the subclass more in line with the other sorcerer subclasses.

Heart of the Storm. This feature's damage-dealing effect has been relocated to Tempest Sorcery (see above); in exchange, this feature now includes all of the benefits previously gained by Storm Guide (which has been removed).

Storm's Fury. This feature can be triggered in response to any attack, instead of only melee attacks. In exchange, the damage dealt by the feature is dependent upon the result of the creature's saving throw.

Wild Magic

The following changes have been made to this origin:

Chaos Spells. This is a new feature, intended to bring the subclass more in line with the other sorcerer subclasses.

Wild Magic Surge. The d20 roll required to trigger the surge now depends upon the level of the sorcerer spell cast (previously, it required a roll of 1 regardless of spell level). This change is intended to make surges occur more often. In addition, if the surge causes a spell to be cast, it can be cast at a level equal to the sorcerer's proficiency bonus once that bonus is high enough; this is designed to make the spell effects on the Wild Magic Surge table have more impact at higher tiers of play.

Wild Magic Surge: Table. The 99-00 effect has been changed to accommodate the new benefits of Controlled Chaos (see below).

Chaos Sorcery. This is a new feature.

Bend Luck. This feature now expends only 1 sorcery point, instead of 2.

Controlled Chaos. If the sorcerer rolls the same number for both rolls, they regain sorcery points. This is intended to bring the feature more in line with other random roll tables (such as the Path of Wild Magic barbarian).

Spell Bombardment. The extra spell damage die is innately included in the spell's casting, instead of being contingent upon a maximum-result roll of any damage dice.

Open Game License

Version 1.0a

END OF LICENSE