Sorcerer - Beastsouled Origin

Sorcerous Origin

Beastsouled

Sometimes a mortal is born with their spirit powerfully entwined with the animal kingdom. Perhaps they are descended from a mighty druid, or even have an animal god's blood in their veins. Or maybe a distant ancestor's lycanthropy handed down a special affinity for the animal kingdom. Regardless, the Beastsouled find themselves able to commune with beasts in a way few others can match.

Beastsouled sorcerers have no set traits. Some may be gentle caretakers, serving alongside druids to establish harmony between nature and civilization. Others may be savage, nearly beasts themselves, using their power to prey on the weak. They are perhaps more common in cultures or professions with strong ties to the natural world, but may come from any background or geography.

Beastsouled Origin Features

Sorcerer Level	Feature
1st	Origin Spells, Animal Companion
6th	Sorcerous Shepherd, Primal Smite
14th	Natural Senses
18th	One With the Wild

Origin Spells

You learn additional spells when you reach certain levels in this class, as shown on the Origin 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.

Sorcerer Level	Spells
1st	befriend beast^SDS, find familiar, speak with nature^SDS
3rd	adaptation^SDS, summon animal spirit^SDS
5th	command beast^SDS, conjure beast pack^SDS
7th	animal transformation^SDS, lion's roar^S
9th	commune with nature, eagle's wings^S

Spells marked with ^SDS were created as part of the Spells That Don't Suck project. Spells marked with ^S were created by somanyrobots.

What's With All These Weird Spells?

A number of the game's beast-themed spells are deeply underwhelming, so it's essentially mandatory to incorporate Spells That Don't Suck in order to have a halfway decent list of origin spells. The only one that's a direct nerf is changing polymorph into animal transformation. If you hate that, you can grant polymorph instead.

Animal Companion

At 1st level, you gain a special bond with your summoned familiar, increasing its abilities. When you cast find familiar, your familiar gains the following benefits:

Its creature type is beast.
Its maximum hit points are increased by an amount equal to your Charisma modifier + your sorcerer level.
When you finish a short rest, you can expend any number of Hit Dice to heal your familiar, as if you were healing yourself.
Your familiar gains gains a new natural weapon, which uses your spellcasting attack modifier to hit and deals 1d6 + your Charisma modifier damage.

In addition, as an action, you can command one of your summoned beasts to move up to half its speed and take the Attack action on your turn. Once you gain access to sorcery points, you can spend sorcery points equal to the beast's challenge rating (or spell level, if it does not have a challenge rating) to do so as a bonus action.

What About My Snake?

If your familiar has a CR of 1/8 or 1/4, you can round it down to 0 for this feature. CR 1/2 should round up to 1 in this instance.

Sorcerous Shepherd

At 6th level, you can use your powers to protect and enable your animal allies. You gain the following benefits:

Attacks by your summoned beasts count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.
When you and an allied beast are both within 5 feet of a hostile creature, the friendly beast gains advantage on its attacks against that creature.
When an allied beast fails a Strength or Dexterity saving throw against a damaging effect, you can spend 1 sorcery point to reduce the damage by half. You take the same amount of damage, but this damage doesn't interfere with concentrating on a spell.

Natural Senses

At 14th level, your kinship with beasts starts to bleed over into your own form. As an action, you may touch a willing beast and grant yourself one of its senses or skills. If it has darkvision, blindsight, tremorsense, any skill proficiency, or a Keen Senses or Keen Hearing feature, you gain one of those abilities or skill proficiencies until you finish a long rest. If you use this feature again, you lose any senses you've already gained with it.

One With the Wild

At 18th level, you and your beast companions are bonded at a primal level. When you create a beast through a spell or anytime as a bonus action, you can imbue the beast and yourself with a primal boon. You and the beast both gain the following benefits:

Your AC increases by 2, and your speed increases by half.
You gain resistance to one type of damage of your choice.
You deal one additional die of damage with all your attacks with natural weapons.

When you or the beast is reduced to 0 hit points, this boon ends for both creatures. Once you've granted this boon, you can't do so again until after a long rest, unless you spend sorcery points equal to 2 + the beast's challenge rating or spell level to do so again.

Beastsouled Origin quirks

The following are some optional quirks for a player of this subclass to choose from.

d6	Quirk
1	Your hair naturally grows in the shape of a mane.
2	You have always had an exquisite sense of smell.
3	You tend to snarl when angered and yelp when surprised.
4	You walk up stairs and steep slopes on all fours.
5	You dream every night of living as an animal.
6	You and your familiar resemble one another.

Appendix 1: New Spells

Lion's Roar

4st-level evocation

Classes: Druid, Ranger
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self (30 feet)
Components: V
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

You utter a ferocious roar, intimidating your foes with supernatural ferocity. Each creature of your choice within 30 feet must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, it becomes frightened of you. While frightened in this way, your attacks against them have advantage, and it takes 1d6 psychic damage at the start of each of its turns if it can see you. A target can reattempt the saving throw at the end of each of its turns to end the effect on itself.

Eagle's Wings

5th-level transmutation

Classes: Druid
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 60 feet
Components: V, S, M (an eagle's feather)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour

You cause a pair of massive wings to emerge from the shoulders of a willing creature you can see within range. For the duration, the target gains the following benefits:

It gains a flying speed of 60 feet.
If it flies 30 feet or more in a straight line on its turn, its next melee attack deals an additional 4d6 damage of the same type.
As an action, it can beat its wings to produce a powerful gust of wind. All Huge or smaller creatures in a line 30 feet long and 10 feet wide must make a Strength saving throw or be knocked prone and pushed back 15 feet.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, you can target one additional creatures for every slot levels above 5th.

Change Log

v0.2

Fixed a couple typos
Changed Lion's Roar to enchantment and concentration
Cleaned up interactions on Animal Companion

v0.1

Rough Draft

Credits & References:

Beastsouled Origin created by somanyrobots
Discord | Patreon

Art

Jolrael, Voice of Zhalfir, by Lorenzo Mastroianni © Wizards of the Coast LLC

5E SRD Content

This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 (“SRD 5.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available here.

The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available here.

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This work is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. © Wizards of the Coast LLC.