Ultimate Guide to Sorcerers in D&D 5e
Guide by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
There is something about Sorcerer’s fantasy I find deeply appealing. Your magic isn’t coming from years of training or a bargain with a Demon overlord. You don’t consult a deity for power, nor do you need to draw power from the land. YOU are the source of your magic. Sometimes that magic is uncontrollable, and does wacky and funny stuff like blowing up you and your friends. Other times, it reflects a lineage of magic users going back generations you’re proud (or ashamed) to use.
Mechanically, though, Sorcerers don’t necessarily stick the landing of their fantasy. They tend to play more like practiced specialists firing off the same few empowered spells over and over again. Their modern subclasses address a lot of the issues that break the fantasy and mechanical execution. Most people reaching for this class are probably more focused on figuring out how to break their Font of Magic and Metamagic features, though.
When people reach for an arcane caster, Wizards tend to be way more appealing. You get a ton more spells out the gate, ritual casting, and access to subclasses that encourage specialization. Sorcerers need four or five levels to really come into their own as you build up your repertoire of metamagic paired with various cantrips and spells you unlock as you go.
All this being said, Sorcerer can be a blast to build and play in both munchkin groups looking to maximize your character's power in a given moment as well as at casual tables looking to build a thematically rich character first and foremost.
See Also: Best Races for Sorcerer
Using This Guide
If you want a full breakdown of everything sorcerer, this guide is for you. It covers every inch and option available to you across all twenty levels. I’d recommend checking out sections relevant to your experience first and foremost depending on your familiarity with the class and what it is you’re looking for.
New Player: If you’re new to Sorcerer, I’d spend most of your focus on the first few levels in this guide that go through the various Sorcerous Origins, Metamagic, and how to navigate such a limited spell selection.
Experienced Player: If you’re currently playing a sorcerer and want to juice up the experience, my number one recommendation is to hone in one what spells you know and trim options you can’t regularly cast in the majority of adventures meaningfully. The sorcerer spell recommendations are the best place to look for improvements with my thoughts on what spells are worth your precious few spells known. If you’re looking for some fun Metamagic mix and match, the “Munchkin Nonsense You Can Try” shows off some of the more powerful things you can do with the feature.
Sorcerer Basics
Sorcerers, like Wizards, only have a tiny d6 hit die, and no armor proficiency to speak of. They’re designed to rely on their spells to carry them through the game.
Ability Score Placements
Charisma is the ability score that defines nearly everything you’ll be doing as a sorcerer as the game progresses; having as high a Charisma as possible, then, maximizes your chances of being successful with your class. Dexterity and Constitution make great second or third highest abilities with Dex contributing to AC, Stealth, and Dexterity Saving Throws and Constitution contributing to your concentration Constitution Saving Throws.
Sorcerers alongside artificers are the two classes that both get spellcasting and proficiency in Con saves. This matters for the concentration mechanic, as now your proficiency bonus scales to help you maintain concentration through damaging effects more reliably.
Proficiency and AC
Sorcerers don’t have a robust suite of optional weapons to use, with their best options being limited to light crossbows, daggers, and quarterstaffs. None of the subclasses reward you for taking or interacting with these, though, usually resulting in them being worse, or at least a side-grade, to cantrips.
With a +2 Dex, the crossbow will be a fine addition to your sheet at a pretty low cost that you can use when you need a guarantee of at least 3 damage from an attack. You could save the gold and instead opt for picking up some more adventuring gear, which can be an easy place to improve your character’s utility for the team.
Sorcerers also have no armor or shield proficiencies, making your base AC equal to 10 + your Dexterity modifier (normally 12). This can encourage some players to pick up Mage Armor early: in most cases, don’t. Sorcerers are the most constrained full-caster in the game. Forgoing a known spell for +3 AC isn’t going to be what you want for one of your first few spells known. At 1st level, it literally takes up half of your spells known and spell slots per long rest. It can be something you look to pick up later when you swap out a lesser cast lower-level spell for it.
Starting Equipment
From the given starting equipment options, my recommendations are a light crossbow and 20 bolts, an arcane focus that fits your character’s theme, and the dungeoneer’s pack. The two daggers that come with it will give you some amount of Dexterity attack options, including giving you the option to make off-hand attacks if you wield both.
1st Level: Spellcasting and Sorcerous Origin
Sorcerers have the privilege of receiving their subclass, their Sorcerous Origin, at 1st level alongside their Spellcasting feature. Spellcasting defines the option, so we’ll start there.
Spellcasting
Sorcerers get the shortest stick in terms of the full-casters when it comes to Spellcasting. They aren’t ritual casters, making spells like Detect Magic substantially worse for them. They are known casters, meaning you can’t swap out spells regularly to ones to fit your circumstances. As known casters, they learn pitifully few spells, even less than Bard with a total equal to 1 + their sorcerer level. Their spell list, for the most part, looks like Wizard’s, but smaller.
All of this together adds major restrictions to spells that you can include on your sheet and feel like you’re regularly contributing to the adventure. Prepared casters get to prepare their level + their spellcasting modifier, usually starting them out with four prepared 1st-level spells. Sorcerers get half that, limiting them to literally half as many options for their two slots.
You can comfortably prepare utility effects like Protection from Evil and Good on a cleric alongside Guiding Bolt and Healing Word and still have a spare prepared slot for an out of combat exploration tool like Detect Magic. As a sorcerer, you’re going to have to pick between what kinds of contributions you want to make beyond slinging Firebolts over and over again.
This balances out how potentially powerful their metamagic feature at 3rd level can be. Going into this class and picking your spells, knowing what metamagic options you can use to empower your spells further can help squeeze all the juice out of each spell selected.
Metamagic adds a lot of complexity when it comes to deciding if a spell is worth it. I’ll cover each metamagic selection briefly in the metamagic section at 3rd level, and will note with each spell recommendation which Metamagic options, if any, work well with the recommendation you can consider.
Cantrip Recommendations
Your gameplay at levels one to three can leverage your four known cantrips to engage in and out of combat. Four known cantrips is the most out of any class; taking a diverse spread of options that you can regularly find uses for will help sure up the feeling of lacking stuff to do in the 1st level and higher department.
Mage Hand has to be the best utility cantrip in the game. Telekinetic object manipulation on a cantrip has so many applications when exploring the world. This is my number one recommendation for cantrips- you’ll have no issue finding ways to use it in all manner of fun and interesting ways.
Metamagic: Careful, Distant, Subtle
Create Bonfire/Fire Bolt both fit into the camp of “raw damaging” cantrips. While either can be fine on their own, together, they give you a neat little play pattern to establish in the early game where you set up a Create Bonfire in a path or under a big creature engaged in melee range, then fling Fire Bolts the rest of the time, taking advantage of the persistent damage Create Bonfire offers while also getting the d10 damage from Fire Bolt. With four cantrip options, I can see this being an easy way to give you a lot more to consider in combats early with otherwise limited spell selections.
Metamagic (Create Bonfire): Careful, Distant, Transmuted
Metamagic (Firebolt): Distant, Quickened, Seeking, Twinned, Transmuted
Mind Sliver fits a more supportive role while also dealing 1d6 damage. It can set up save or dies you really need to work like Hideous Laughter or Hold Person, possibly trivializing a fight by removing a single entity for a few rounds. At minimum, it sets up your next Mind Sliver, making it an easy thing to spend action after action on even if nobody else is taking advantage of the save setup.
Metamagic: Distant, Quickened, Twinned
Minor Illusion goes right next to Mage Hand as one of the most powerful utility cantrips in the right hands. Where Mage Hand is going to perform well at basically every table, Minor Illusion being an illusion will have pretty wide variance depending on player creativity, DM engagement with dumb ideas, and how observant NPCs are in this world. Most tables will find its a superb addition to a sheet for a cantrip.
Metamagic: Distant, Subtle
Prestidigitation, Gust, Shape Water, Mold Earth, and Control Flames all fit in a bucket I call the “cosmetic” cantrips. These all provide a minor utility effect that can expand your tools in engaging with the world, but moreso help promote a specific character fantasy. Want to play a fire artist who controls flames through the air like paint on a canvas? Control Flames gives you that. Mold Earth fits great on the earthen species who are looking to shape the ground and get some potential excavation going. If any of these provide you with a tool you’d want your character to be able to do agnostic of its performance in utility or combat, I’d recommend taking it. I wouldn’t take more than one early.
Metamagic (all): Subtle
Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade both get mentions here as they’re an option at 3rd level to play a gish sorcerer who mixes martial attacks in with spellcasting with the Quickened Spell metamagic. The build isn’t great, especially if you want to commit to Sorcerer as your only class, but they do open up a reasonable route to do some sword and sorcery stuff if you are getting Dex-based weapon proficiency from somewhere else. You really want at least a shortsword to go this route, but that’s an achievable bar for many species.
Metamagic: Quickened
Cantrips to Avoid
Metamagic can turn any cantrip from bad into interesting, at least, but some are still so bad I wouldn’t recommend them, specifically on a sorcerer intending to play 20 levels in Sorcerer.
True Strike takes your concentration, empowers weapon attacks next to no sorcerers want to be making, and needs you to wait for a full round to do anything at all. This spell is nearly uncastable on every character. On a character with no meaningful weapon proficiencies, it's a complete joke.
Light’s time has gone by. No longer do groups need to track how many torches they have left, nor does it provide a meaningful upside over its competition, Dancing Lights. If you consider Light a cosmetic cantrip, I’d say it's fine enough at giving you the specific color of lights to emphasize a divine fantasy. Beyond that, it brings nothing to the table a mundane item worth a copper piece brings.
1st Level Spell Recommendations (For 1st and 2nd Level Characters)
Sorcerers only get known spells equal to their level +1. Starting with two known 1st level spells doesn’t leave any room to pick spells you don’t intend to cast; you’re going to end up with more slots than spells known. Where some utility options and defensive spells I highly recommend on similar classes like Wizard, I don’t recommend a lot of the common options as highly here, often pushing them to be obtained in feats or down the road when you can swap out a spell your casting less for it.
Ice Knife comes close to Burning Hands in terms of raw damage output, but has the major upside of having a great range that keeps you out of danger, and is slightly better against a single enemy. I was going to include both on this list, but Ice Knife edges out Burning Hands in terms of just how well it works with all of the Metamagic options. This is great single target damage, great area damage, and will work with most of the metamagic options you could ask for. It working with Twinned Spell makes it particularly appealing in the upper middle tier; Twinning 2nd level Ice Knifes will cause a lot of damage to groups of creatures.
Metamagic: Careful, Distant, Empowered, Quickened, Seeking, Transmuted, Twinned
Fog Cloud stands out to me as something I readily want in and out of combat, making it easy to cast often. It may not be the most potent utility effect, nor the most potent in combat effect, it does both well enough that having it on your sheet can provide you a lot more flexibility in when you can cast spells, especially early on. I’d look to replace this past 5th level, but for the early tiers, it's a great addition.
Metamagic: Distant, Quickened, Subtle
Magic Missile still gets to make an appearance as it does something no other damaging spell does: it gives you absolute certainty you’re getting its full effect every cast. It doesn’t have nearly as many metamagic synergies as Ice Knife, but if you want a spell that will always deal 3d4+3 damage split however you’d like over one to three creatures, Magic Missile provides that.
Metamagic: Distant, Quickened
Charm Person mixes great with Sorcerer’s innate Charisma-based spellcasting, but struggles a bit in dungeons and combat-heavy environments. If you know you’re in an adventure where you can readily use this on humanoids, it's great and can have lots of applications in social and exploration encounters. If you’re going to clean out oozes from a sewer full of giant rats, this has no text, and that’s an issue when you only know two spells total. It can be worth it, but does depend on the low-tier adventures you’re going on.
Metamagic: Distant, Subtle, Twinned (1st level only)
1st Level Spell Recommendations For 3rd Level +
As you get 2nd and 3rd-level slots, you can consider swapping out lower level known spells for other lower-level spells you don’t want to put metamagic on. These tend to have a large impact throughout the game, and are the place you just start putting all of your 1st level slots.
Silvery Barbs probably was a mistake; it is that powerful. It's still not something I’m thrilled about spending half of my spell slots on early, but in the mid to upper tiers, four uses of this can feel backbreaking for DMs to manage on top of the other slots you’re spending. This is the first spell I’d look to get on my sheet once I am comfortable with the number of slots I have for my actions.
Metamagic: Distant, Subtle
Shield gives you +5 AC when you know you need +5 AC, and lasts a full round. Multiclassing or through your race you can get access to a decent AC; stacking a +5 on top of that as a reaction for a 1st-level slot is a huge deal.
Metamagic: Subtle
Mage Armor isn’t something I regularly recommend, but if you’re getting to 5th level and finding you’re not using one of your 1st level known spells, swapping it out for a better AC can be fine. It isn’t something I recommend everyone try, especially if you’re using an origin that lacks other 1st level spells, but a flat AC bump for the day for one of your 1st-level slots is a fine trade-off if the spell known cost isn’t prohibitive.
1st Level Spells to Avoid
False Life doesn’t fit well into the majority of what Sorcerer wants to be doing. It has no major synergies with metamagic. It provides you temporary hit points that are hard to spend, as you’re not usually planning to be the one taking hits and leveraging them for the rest of the squad. It's not usually a great option for any class, but it’s particularly bad on Sorcerer.
Chaos Bolt promises a chaotic experience and ends up being a worse version of Chromatic Orb the majority of the time. When the best case scenario is it hits two targets instead of one, and that only happens about an ⅛ of the time, I’m left disappointed. It can’t even be twinned because it can target multiple creatures in the initial cast. Boo.
Detect Magic rarely makes my worst, and normally is near the top of my list for the other full casters. The difference between Detect Magic on something like cleric and sorcerer is two-pronged: it is a ritual spell, and sorcerers aren’t ritual casters, and it goes alongside easy spells to spend slots on. Sorcerers don’t have the spells known to spares to fit this on their sheet. Even in the upper tiers, there are probably five spells I want on my sheet prior to this, making it a notable spell I’d steer clear of I recommend on many other sheets.
Witch Bolt is a mistake. There isn’t really any other way to put it. It does a cantrip’s worth of damage, for an action and a spell slot, and creatures can just break vision with you to end it or step slightly further away. That’s assuming you wasting actions on this isn’t in their best interest; often, if you weigh 1d10 damage versus a Sorcerer’s action, I’ll take the d10 damage. Let's hope it gets removed or reworked in the next edition!
Sorcerous Origin
1st level subclasses are great at defining different avenues out the gate a single class can explore, leaving plenty of room for a variety of characters to shine across within a single class structure. Most of their eight origins are pretty solid, but they aren’t all made equally.
Some of these origins majorly address your limited spells known with specific bonus spells; these options majorly improve how the class feels at 1st through 3rd level. While expanded spell subclasses aren’t mandatory, if you’re new to Sorcerer and aren’t here specifically to play Wild Magic, I’d consider them over their competitors.
Aberrant Mind comes with two bonus 1st level spells, a bonus cantrip, and Telepathic Speech out the gate, and offers expanded casting and fun eldritch horror fantasy fulfillment as you progress. It is rich in flavor delivered mainly through its spells like the Arms of Hadar, Summon Aberration, and Detect Thoughts while giving you generally useful psionic features you’d expect to see.
Clockwork Soul matches Abberant Mind in expanded spells, but I’m a lot more down on their list and fantasy delivery. They do get some dice modification features like Restore Balance and Trance of Order which can be gamed to do disgustingly powerful things, but without foresight and multiclassing I have a hard time seeing this option be particularly powerful. It’s still fine, just not my favorite.
Divine Soul’s main perk is access to the cleric spell list. What this tends to boil down to is a honed list of the best spells between the two classes, forming a tight list of nuts spells. The single bonus spell that you can swap out for any other cleric spell past 1st level is honestly a huge boon to the option early, and while Empowered Healing is a non-feature, Favored by the Gods and Angelic Form both do a great job empowering the “divine heritage” look while your bonus spells like Spiritual Weapon do the rest of the heavy lifting.
Draconic Bloodline by far is the worst subclass option, with a +1 HP per level and a passive Mage Armor being the only 1st level features you get. You never get a spicy breath weapon, and while Dragon Wings fulfills some elements of the “dragon sorcerer” fantasy, the rest of the option is bland and weak. If you want to do dragon magic stuff, I’d highly recommend taking a different subclass and defining your fantasy through gained spells or reflavoring. This option is that bad.
Lunar Sorcery is a contender for my favorite subclass in the game. It teaches you three new spells at 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th level. It has a great subclass gimmick where you swap between lunar phases. It rewards you for trying out all the spells it offers and makes you care about elements of spells like schools in interesting ways. As you progress, the core mechanic expands bigger and bigger, giving you fresh new things to do with it and ways to swap around between forms to make small optimization choices to squeeze as much juice as you want from it. It's clean, powerful, relatively simple to read, and deeply complex to play. It even offers you opportunities to cast spells normally not quite worth the slot for free, showcasing Ray of Sickness and Color Spray in a new, interesting light. Even with a few stinkers on its expanded spell list, it gives you so much to do. I can’t recommend it enough.
Shadow Magic forgoes improvements to spellcasting, instead opting to give you tools to spend your sorcery points on dark magic. The main power here is tied to Eyes of the Dark and the magical darkness it creates you can see through, as that opens up asymmetrical heavy obscurity which is busted. You’re able to use 2nd level slots for this darkness as well as spend points to fuel it, making it readily accessible past 3rd level as a core gameplay element. It evolves to closely match Monk’s Way of Shadow, but in a bit more of a magical way. If you want to be dark and brooding, while lacking in expanded spells beyond Darkness, Shadow Magic does offer you some goodies.
Storm Sorcery desperately wants just one or two extra known spells; besides that, it’s a blast to play. It empowers your spells to move you around in interesting ways that you can use in and out of fights while rewarding you for casting specific kinds of spells you’d expect a storm-born person to master. It has great flavor, interesting applications and opportunities for builds, and a core that’s genuinely solid. You’re majorly limited by your known spells still in a way that makes these kinds of characters feel fairly linear, which isn’t the end of the world, but something to consider before taking it.
Wild Magic is kind of a mess. Its usability and impact on the game fluctuate wildly, but not in a particularly fun fashion as it's based on your DM’s willingness to get you rolling on the table. When you do roll on the Wild Magic Table, most of the results are frankly boring. When you do get a wild or wacky one, it can be a memorable moment, but a lot of groups aren’t going to enjoy being Fireballed or seeing you removed from a fight in round one when you’re transformed into a potted plant. Some tables will revel in this kind of option, rolling wildly and going for high-variance gameplay as often as possible every session. Others will want nothing to do with it. It also doesn’t receive bonus spells, meaning you’re committing to casting one or two spells over and over again to try to get the high variance moment to occur, making what’s supposed to be an option all about wild randomness feel boring and linear if you’re not getting Tides of Chaos to trigger wild magic surges. This option isn’t for everyone, and for the people that it is for, it still might not be right for their table. Approach with caution.
See Also: Sorcerer Subclasses Ranked
2nd Level: Font of Magic
Font of Magic provides you with your core resource that differentiates Sorcerer from the rest of the full casters, sorcery points, and a mechanic for exchanging them for spell slots.
Sorcery Points
You get a pool of these equal to your sorcerer level, and only have a feat as a way to expand this pool. Next level, you get Metamagic, which is where you typically want to put these. Some subclasses, like Shadow Magic, get other ways to spend these points.
Unlike ki, which share the same quantity of resources, you regain sorcery points when you finish a long rest, meaning they’re incredibly restricted if you also want to use all of your 1st level and higher spell slots.
You also have a cap on the total amount of points you can have at any given time equal to the total sorcery points, usually equal to your level. You can’t regain more points than whatever your total pool size is, which matters for…
Flexible Casting
This portion of the feature lets you spend a bonus action to convert spell slots to and from sorcery points. Slots expended provide sorcery points equal to their level and take normally take an extra point or two to create.
Flexible Casting is broken in combination with Warlock’s Pact Magic feature, as it isn’t limited to spell slots from the Spellcasting feature for some reason.
Using this fairly typically involves pairing it with a metamagic feature you want to reuse over and over again on a specific spell. It quickly will devour all of your resources to do it, though, leaving sorcerers feeling tight on resources if you want to be flinging out twinned Hastes or Ice Knifes regularly.
3rd Level: Metamagic and 2nd Level Spells
3rd level is an enormous boost to sorcerers, giving them Metamagic and 2nd Level Spells.
Metamagic
As already mentioned numerous times, metamagic is a major pillar that defines what sorcerers do. It's how they have any competitive advantage over the other full casters and the biggest reason to stay in the class. You get two to alter your spells at 3rd level, and a bonus option at 10th and 17th level, and a feat to get two extra with some bonus sorcery points, Metamagic Adept.
These all aren’t created equally. Going into sorcerer having a play pattern in mind usually involves figuring out what your metamagic is doing for a specific spell or two and running with that.
An important rule to metamagic is unless otherwise stated, you can add a single metamagic to a spell. It prevents you from having big turns of slinging out four Fire Bolts with two twinned and one quickened in a single round.
Careful Spell lets you shape allies out of area of effect spells you’re casting. Given that you can already aim these effects to regularly sculpt out allies, even if you’re repeatedly casting stuff like Fireball and Burning Hands, I don’t think Careful Spell justifies its cost, nor its space over most of its competition.
Notably, the only save you can opt for creatures to avoid needs to occur when you cast the spell, not on a later turn. Any subsequent saves, such as a save presented at the start of a creature's turn through Web, still apply. Bummer.
Distant Spell normally isn’t an effect I’m thrilled with, but doubling a spell’s range for a single point when you need it is excellent, plus it can make some touch spells have a range of 30 feet. One point, regardless of spell cast, makes it easy to use consistently. It isn’t the main option I’d build around, but if I’ve already taken one I plan to mix in regularly with a spell, this is a great second option that will work on almost every spell you can take.
A quick clarification on rules: this spell only cares about whatever range is listed in the spells range element. Spells with range Self don’t work with Distant Spell rules as written.
Empowered Spell empowers the damage of three to five dice you’re rolling for 1 sorcery point. It works best on higher damage quantity spells and is incredibly cheap to use. It fits in a similar category to Distant Spell to me; this isn’t the first option I want, but if I’m doing area-of-effect damage regularly, this is a cheap addition to bump up the average damage a bit.
Extend Spell doubling the length of an effect isn’t really that valuable. Very few effects reach their full duration in 5th edition, either because concentration drops or the creature the spell is affecting dies. While this can affect a lot of spells, you won’t ever need this on a spell, even in some of the cases where it has months to years-long durations.
Heightened Spell costs 3 sorcery points. That’s a lot of points. Sometimes you need a Polymorph to land, and this can be a way to make that a bit more likely. At 3rd level, I don’t want to spend literally all of my points on this, but at 10th level I can see it being a lot more regularly usable. I wouldn’t take it as either of my first two options, but as a 3rd or 4th selection, I’m into it.
I believe this works differently than Careful spell when considering saves made by persistent effects; because it uses the words “on the first saving throw made against the spell”, the first save a creature would make against a Web or similar area effect when it starts or ends its turn in it would be at disadvantage if you used Heighten Spell on cast. I’d consult with your DM first, just to make sure everyone has the same interpretation.
Quickened Spell is majorly hindered by the spellcasting rules, which state “You can’t cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action” in regard to casting spells with your bonus action. Some builds care about casting a lot of cantrips, and this can easily provide you a tool to cast the same cantrip twice in a round. Beyond that, it’ll feel close to Cunning Action in that you’ll cast a 1st level spell or higher faster, giving you room to Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Hide, or take some other lower-impact action. That floor is fine, and when its ceiling contributes to some cheesy munchkin nonsense, I’m pretty happy with this.
It has a bit more upside if you like casting spells that ask you to spend actions taking an action on subsequent turns like Maximillian’s Earth Grasp or Dragon’s Breath, as you can get the action effect from them alongside a quick cast of other 1st level or higher action spells at once. It’s a neat combo option to think about if you want to bring a Vampiric Touch kind of build together.
Seeking Spell highlights just how few spells make attack rolls. If there were any upper level spells that make attack rolls, this could look similar to Heighten Spell, but the majority of spells you’ll want to be augmenting aren’t making a single attack roll you really need to see hit. You have to be going hard into building around something like Firebolt or Frostbolt to consider this.
Subtle Spell presents the most interesting metamagic effect, giving you a tool to mask your magic by removing the verbal and somatic elements of spells. Jeremy Crawford on Twitter also gave us the ruling that it protects a spell from being Counterspelled, making it a must for tables that are leaning heavily into that minigame. I love it on a charlatan leveraging illusions and charms regularly, and while its power definitely varies depending on how your DM runs spells and how apparent they are, it can be a blast in the right situation.
Transmuted Spell fits onto sheets that care about a specific damage type. Storm Sorcery is the easiest place to showcase this shining, as it lets you consistently use Heart of the Storm on any damaging spell you cast. Multiclass Tempest Domain clerics can use this to maximize damage dealt by spells like Fireball paired with their channel divinity. Basically, if you have a large payoff for changing a damage type, or really want to play a character who uses custom spells that all deal specific kinds of damage, this option is great. Beyond that, changing damage types does very little beyond get around resistance. That can be good enough for a 3rd or 4th metamagic, but isn’t going to be my first or second choice.
Twinned Spell has some of the weirdest rules and use cases in the game, as what does and doesn’t qualify varies even within a single spell. Take Hold Person; at 2nd level, it can target only a single creature and thus can be twinned. If you upcast it, it can target more than one thing, and no longer can be twinned. Eldritch Blast can be twinned prior to 5th level, but not after. Chaos Bolt can hit multiple targets with a 1st level cast and can’t be twinned; Ice Knife only targets one creature at all levels, and thus it can be twinned despite it affecting a bunch of potential creatures. It's messy.
There is a ton of power with it, though. Getting a copy of a spell often doubles its effectiveness. Two Ice Knives at 3rd level with a 2nd level slot are dealing can dish out 2d10+6d6 damage in an area for a 2nd level slot.
On top of that, it's a way to duplicate concentration effects with buff and debuff spells that target a single creature like Haste. Because it doesn’t actually cast two spells, but simply has the effect duplicated, you can get twic the benefits for just one person’s concentration. If it breaks, both effects end. Having multiple concentration effects on the same character genuinely is a massive deal. It always costs you less than it costs to create the slot it's copying simultaneously, making its rate for sorcery point cost-efficient. This is probably the easiest option to get a lot of power out of.
2nd Level Spells
With metamagic unlocked, every spell you pick up from here on out will care even more about what you can do with it relative to your metamagic selections. You’re only learning one 2nd-level spell, or two if you opt to replace a 1st level spell with one. Choose wisely!
2nd Level Recommendations (at 3rd Level)
Invisibility easily gets cast session after session and benefits from Twinned Spell at 2nd level to give it even more utility. Stealth can’t regularly compete with literally being invisible; if you want a tool to explore well and infiltrate like a ninja, Invisibility is the tool for you. I even like Quickened Spell casting this to get a disengage or dash in the same turn for a fast escape.
Metamagic: Quickened, Subtle, Twinned (2nd level only)
Shadow Blade goes alongside the quickened cast Green Flame Blade and Booming Blade cantrips to create a reasonable gish option for the early and mid-tiers. Concentration asks you to build with options like Shield and Absorb Elements in mind as well, but if you want to play a Shadow Magic assassin that sticks with Sorcerer and makes attacks with the darkness, this build will completely come together with this. This build does not scale well if you’re not getting extra attacks through multiclassing, though, so swapping it out for other spells past 8th or 9th level might be a direction to consider.
Suggestion is another twin-able effect that is great on its own in nearly every environment with a creature that can understand you. Its made better when you want to give the same command to two creatures at once. Its great prior to a fight, during world exploration when interacting with NPCs, and at its best in social environments where some sorcerers want to shine brightest.
Metamagic: Distant, Subtle, Twinned
Web makes a 20 ft. area of restraining webbing that eats actions like crazy. You can set this down on a group of melee creatures to buy the entire team multiple free turns to beat the snot out of them. It doesn’t have the best metamagic applications with Heightened being probably the best option for it, but its flexibility of also being able to get lit up for a bonus 2d4 damage is a lot of fun, and regularly useful.
Metamagic: Distant, Heightened
2nd Level Recommendations (past 3rd Level)
For the spells that have a bit more of a niche to fill, I’d recommend taking them in place of a 1st level spell or as a learned spell once you already have a consistent option to fall back on.
Rime’s Binding Ice is an easy option to replace a Burning Hands or Ice Knife if you want damage and a condition in a great area. It doesn’t have the best synergy with most metamagic options but has a potent effect most encounters will care about. At minimum, it's a 30 ft. cone of 3d8 damage, and that’s a great place to start. Losing the area of effect 1st-level damage options as a tradeoff can be tricky, especially if you don’t have three or more slots you can dedicate to damage, making this something I’d consider at 4th level and beyond.
Crown of Madness isn’t a spell normally making my recommendation list, as it has a few issues, but Sorcerer can do something gross: it can Twin it. Twinned Crown of Madness takes often half of an encounter and turns it randomly violent, often to your advantage with its massive range. You can maintain control of both for one action, trading your turn for two enemy turns potentially. It isn’t going to shine in every encounter, but against humanoids, this effect can be backbreaking.
Metamagic: Distant, Heightened, Twinned
Hold Person is in a similar camp to Crown of Madness; debilitating two humanoids for a single 2nd level slot with Twinned Spell takes this save or die from high risk, high reward to lower risk, higher reward. Paralysis can set up your allies to utterly decimate whatever fails. Sorcerers have the best tools in the game to make save or dies land. Hold Person is a great early tier save or die you can make the most out of.
Metamagic: Distant, Heightened, Twinned (2nd level only)
Vortex Warp taking an action is a lot less of an issue for quick movement when Quicken Spell is readily accessible, and it having a range means it qualifies for Distant Spell. A 90 to 180 ft. teleport for a teammate or any other creature can remove a creature from a fight or get you on top of a massive structure with the snap of your fingers. On top of all of that, you can twin it, meaning you can put two creatures wherever you can see within the spell’s massive range. Now, what specifically occurs when two creatures are teleported to a single unoccupied space is murky, as the game rules don’t cover this particularly well. I’d talk to your DM about it prior, but I’d recommend the creatures arrive, and one is pushed to the next nearest unoccupied space.
Metamagic: Distant, Heightened, Twinned
Normally, I rate Misty Step a bit higher for its action efficiency, but in this case I’d typically only recommend it if you’ve got another spell up to spend actions on. Teleporting around while making attacks with Shadow Blade can feel decent at 4th level, but usually, I’m going to prefer Vortex Warp for all of the other upsides it comes with. If you know your action is committed to barrages of Eldritch Blasts or twinned Fire Bolts, I get a lot more excited by the efficiency this offers past 3rd level. If you want to be the person teleporting, you have to go with Misty Step over Vortex Warp.
Spells to Avoid
Alter Self provides you with a Disguise Self-like change in appearance and two nearly useless other abilities you’re not going to regularly find uses for. At 5th level, Water Breathing becomes accessible to basically every spellcaster in the game. If you want to mask your appearance, Disguise Self can be cast for cheaper and gives you the effect you want.
The only thing Magic Weapon has going for it is it can be twinned, but that isn’t a good enough reason to take this mediocre, boring passive buff. +1 to hit and damage on two allied weapons before Extra Attack is even on the table is a waste of a 2nd level spell slot, and a waste of one of your precious few known spells.
Pyrotechnics I’d say is around as powerful as a cosmetic cantrip… and it costs a 2nd level slot. No thanks!
See Invisibility isn’t useful in the vast majority of adventures, let alone encounters. Your known list is too small to consider a silver bullet this niche.
Knock provides a magical solution to a problem that can be solved regularly in a mundane fashion. If you can replace an effect with a tool, I don’t want that effect taking up a competitive slot.
I’m a sucker for line damage spells, but Aganazzar’s Scorcher just doesn’t do enough extra damage to justify using it over Burning Hands or any other of the damaging competition. In a vacuum, I think this spell is entirely reasonable. Sorcerer spells compete with each other across spell levels aggressively, and lower-level casting options wildly out performs this range change, and you can’t typically afford to fit this and another area damage spell on your sheet at once.
4th Level: Feat and Sorcerous Versatility
Like all characters, 4th level offers a choice (should you be playing with feats): Improve one of your ability scores, or take a feat. Additionally, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything added the Sorcerous Versatility mechanic to allow for flexible swapping around your cantrip and metamagic selections you’re unhappy with.
Feat Considerations
Full casters without melee combat options have a much smaller grouping of supporting feats than their competition. Still, there are some unique options to consider that empower you further I’d recommend most Sorcerers consider.
General Recommendations
Metamagic Adept absolutely belongs on Sorcerers who want to mess around more with sorcery points early. 2 extra points at 4th level is a 50% increase in points, and you get two additional metamagic options. If you want everything Sorcerer has to offer, Metamagic Adept gives you it all. You don’t always need four metamagic options, but if you want to dabble in Subtle Spell, and want Distant, Quicken, and Twinned, this is a way to get all four at 4th level with plenty of points to use them.
War Caster is the kind of feat I’d take after maximizing my Charisma. Sorcerers already have a decent time defending their concentration thanks to their proficiency in Con saves. War Caster doubles down on that. If your build is dedicated to twinning powerful save or die concentration effects or buffs like Haste, War Caster is a major boon to have. Otherwise, sorcerers don’t care that much about this compared to most other full-casters.
Telekinetic and Telepathic both come with a bit of extra utility and a +1 Charisma. These are really easy to take if you want any two +1 Charisma feats if you have an even score, or if you have a 17 or 19 in Charisma already, giving the benefits of the +1 modifier alongside a bit more utility. Empowering your Mage Hand can feel great with Telekinetic. Learning Detect Thoughts and getting a free slot for it with Telepathic alongside the telepathic communication is all great, too, making these both easy additions to a sheet looking for more utility.
Ritual Caster gives you access to the Ritual Casting feature, which is a massive boon, especially alongside bonus ritual spells. Now, any spell you learn down the road actually benefits from the ritual tag. Seeing as sorcerers have an easy time chewing through spell slots for extra points for further empowered spells, having other spells that don’t cost slots is a way to stretch your magical utility a bit further, all while getting access to Detect Magic and Find Familiar in their full power. Where I wouldn’t learn Detect Magic on sorcerer normally, getting it through this feat is exceptional.
Shadow Touched and Fey Touched both can give you +1 Charisma, once again making them stellar choices if you’ve got an odd Charisma or want both. Bonus 2nd level slots for Misty Step and Invisibility alongside adding them to your spell list is sweet. On top of that, the bonus 1st level spells also can benefit from your Metamagic options. Cause Fear is an easy cheap twinned save to pick up for crowd control through Shadow Touched, and Fey Touched provides you access to bangers like Charm Person. These two are stellar expansions early.
The other bonus spell options, Magic Initiate, Divinely Favored, and Strixhaven Initiate, offer you a solid list of 1st level spells to consider. Magic Initiate usually is just a way to get Eldritch Blast if you don’t want to dip any levels into Warlock, otherwise being worse than its competitors as it doesn’t teach you the 1st spell to use with your slots normally. Strixhaven Initiate has a more restricted list, but teaches you the spell alongside giving you the free slot, making it a great choice if you have a specific 1st level spell you want from outside the sorcerer spell list. Divinely Favored gives you one fewer cantrip that has to be from the Cleric list, but also gives you one fre cast of Augury and a 1st level slot from a class list depending on your alignment that can be exactly what you’re looking for. It does ask you to find a holy symbol, though.
Feats to Avoid
Eldritch Adept is making an appearance here not because its unusable, but because it doesn’t give you a way to avoid taking levels in Warlock to get Agonizing Blast for Eldritch Blast abuse builds. If you want Misty Visions or another utility option, go for it, but anything that has any prerequisite, even if you meet those conditions outside of warlock, requires you have levels in warlock to take anyway with this feat, making its usability limited to strictly adding extra utility to your sheet.
Spell Sniper works with very few spells in the game and usually isn’t going to provide meaningful benefits. You probably have the cantrips you want to be making attack rolls with, that thing usually as a massive range you can combine with Distant Spell for however long a range you need, and if you don’t know the AC benefits cover provides off the top of your head, it probably isn’t coming up enough at your table to justify this. You need to basically build around cantrips or Scorching Ray to get anything out of this, and what it gives you just isn’t going to be doing much.
Elemental Adept looks like it gives you a tool to build around a damage type alongside Transmute Spell, but in practice, it doesn’t Ignoring resistance is the best effect present, but that doesn’t affect enough encounters to get me using this. Raising damage dice rolled from 1s to 2s is terrible; if you’re rolling a 6d6 damage spell, this is a feat that improves the damage, on average, by 1. Nope. No thank you. That’s not nearly enough for a feat.
Sorcerer Versatility
With 5 cantrips known at this point, needing to swap one out isn’t probably that important. Being able to swap a metamagic you thought you’d get more use out of for a different one, though, can be a meaningful consideration that makes this feature relevant.
5th Level: Magical Guidance, 3rd Level Spells
5th is the next big bump for the game, introducing 3rd-level spells and Extra Attack to the table. For sorcerers, you also get Magical Guidance from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything!
Magical Guidance
Sorcery points are still pretty tight at 5th level. That being said, spending 1 point to reroll a failed ability check can have a massive impact on critical ability checks you make. If you need this Persuasion check to work out, having a 1 sorcery point reroll is a major boon. Dispel Magic notably has you making an ability check that often is crucial to the outcome of a fight; this empowers it further. Don’t sleep on Magical Guidance; it's a major power bump to the class.
3rd-Level Spell Recommendations
At this stage, you have a decent roster of 1st and 2nd-level spells to give you a bit of everything you’ll need, making your need to pick only spells you can cast in a wide range of circumstances a bit less pressing. You still probably want to prioritize spells that are easy to find places to use, but the constraints aren’t as tight from here on out.
Fireball tends to be the first spell damage dealing sorcerers reach for, and for good reason. 8d6 in a massive area is about as much damage as can be done at this level. It plays pretty well with Empowered Spell as well should you want to upgrade a bunch of 1s as you need to for just 1 sorcery point. Want damage? Pick Fireball.
Metamagic: Careful, Distant, Empowered, Transmuted
Haste can be ludicrous at the right tables; giving a fighter, paladin, barbarian, or other melee ally an extra attack, double speed, and +2 AC for a fight can easily justify the slot. On sorcerers, who have access to Twinned Spell, you can have two allies making an extra attack every turn with all of the other upsides. A 3rd level slot for a better Extra Attack like feature is nuts. You do really want a group with two or more weapon attackers to get the most out of this, but most groups of four or more adventurers will meet this condition. Losing concentration on this can be devastating, so play safe!
Metamagic: Twinned
Counterspell and Dispel Magic both fit into a similar category where I’d rather take them later at magic-heavy tables. In that scenario, they’re probably the best spells on your sheet. Interacting with enemy spells of all spell levels for 3rd-level slots is an efficient way to fight more powerful enemies. Counterspell does it proactively, while Dispel Magic works after the ability lands. Both work with Magical Guidance, further pushing sorcerers as the masters of magic. I wouldn’t recommend these at 5th level, as they don’t affect a ton of encounters and you’ll often want proactive spells at your highest spell level, but anytime past that you have room to pick one up, I’d consider it.
Counterspell in particular is stellar on sorcerers because of Distant Spell. Normally, how you mitigate Counterspell is by managing your relative range to the casters that can counter your stuff; if a sorcerer has Counterspell, that range is doubled to 120 feet if they have a sorcery point up, making it much harder to play around.
Metamagic (Counterspell): Distant
Metamagic (Dispel Magic): Distant, Qucikened, Twinned
Thunder Step, like Vortex Warp, has its travel distance affected by Distant Spell while also acting as a 3d10 damaging spell in an area where you left. I like this a lot on the Shadow Blade builds for when you drop concentration and want to get out and start peppering creatures with cantrips.
Metamagic: Distant, Quickened
Spells to Avoid
Clairvoyance has a ten-minute cast time for a 10-minute duration effect you’d use to spy on a space; lining up that with an important event is incredibly difficult, and if you’re using it scope out a space there are dozens of better spells and abilities at a cheaper cost than this.
Intellect Fortress takes your concentration, takes an action to cast, and while advantage on Int, Wis, and Cha saves can be impactful, the odds of it mattering enough to justify this spell over powerhouses like Haste or Counterspell is not high. If you’re going to get Feebleminded, I’d rather have a Counterspell to handle that problem at the ready than a small upgrade to my save with Intellect Fortress, especially seeing as I don’t have to concentrate on Counterspell.
If there is a class to find a way to work with Vampiric Touch, it's probably sorcerer, as you can quick spells alongside doing the melee drain. I still don’t see that coming together in any kind of powerful, or frankly effective, way. 3d6 draining damage for an action and your concentration is a horrible deal.
6th Level and Beyond
Past 5th level, Sorcerers get more points, higher level spells, their subclass features, and Sorcerous Restoration at 20th level.
4th Level Spell Recommendations
Banishment and Polymorph, like the other noted save or dies mentioned prior, can be Twinned to hit two things at once for a 4th level slot and 4 sorcery points. These already break some fights against a few larger creatures; adding in an extra potential hit creature for four sorcery points is a steal. They each have separate upsides, with Banishment having permanence against specific creature types and Polymorph having extra flexibility and a longer duration. Both deserve a mention, though. You probably don’t want both: either is good enough.
Metamagic: Distant, Twinned
Charm Monster acts as a ubiquitous upgrade for Charm Person. Now, not only can you charm humanoids, you can charm ogres, dragons, and beholders. But wait, there’s more, because like most of this list, you can Twin it! Two Charm Monsters for the price of one without upcast can prevent a fight from happening that otherwise would have by not just turning one of the enemies to friend, but two. It happening simultaneously is a major upside as well, as if you’re only facing down a pair of enemies, both becoming charmed simultaneously leaves no room for shenanigans interrupting your plan so long as they’re failing those saves. For the enchanter sorcerer fantasy, I love Charm Monster.
Metamagic: Distant, Heightened, Twinned (4th level only)
Greater Invisibility is another buff spell like Haste that becomes even crazier when you Twin it. You do need to be able to touch the targets at the same time if you’re twinning this on people, but that’s not a particularly high bar. Anyone affected by Greater Invisibility is getting advantage on all of their attack rolls, all attack rolls against them have disadvantage, and they can act without worrying about breaking it. It's yucky good. It also is a rare instance where you may find yourself wanting the increase in range from touch to 30 feet Distant Spell offers.
Metamagic: Distant, Quickened, Twinned
Raulothim’s Psychic Lance abuses Twinned Spell about as well as the prior options; you get two 7d6 damaging brain lances that can temporarily debilitate an enemy. 14d6 damage and taking two turns away from enemy creatures is a massive damage and action swing in a fight for a single one of your turns. When it just hits one creature, I’m not over the moon for this kind of effect. When it's damaging multiple creatures while incapacitating them, you can call me an astronaut because I’m absolutely here for it.
Metamagic: Distant, Empowered, Heightened, Twinned
Dimension Door gets even sillier with Distant Spell; 1,000 feet is over three American football fields in length. It's so far. If plays great with Quicken Spell to give you room to dash to an ally and get them out of harm, has tons of applications in exploring the world, and in a pinch gets you out of trouble in a fight. It definitely isn’t the first 4th level spell I’m putting on my sheet, but it makes a great replacement for a lower-level teleportation option.
Metamagic: Distant, Quickened
4th Level Spells to Avoid
Confusion hasn’t ever been worth a 4th level slot, and spells only are getting better with time. It sometimes does nothing, and doesn’t work well with most Metamagic options. Circumstances where Confusion has a big impact overlap with better spells including damage all-star Fireball and its 3rd level associate Fear. When lower-level effects outperform this spell in the circumstances it’d be at its best, I’d steer clear.
One turn of difficult terrain doesn’t justify learning Ice Storm when it otherwise is a worse Fireball in nearly every way. It technically scales better, as it increases the d8s instead of d6s, but you’d need to cast this with a 9th-level slot for it to only be 5 damage behind a Fireball of equal level. Oof.
Dominate Beast, while utterly ridiculous to Twin, is starting to run thin on targets by 7th level. Most beasts are lower CR, making the stuff you’d want this to help with rare encounters involving Giant Apes or hostile Mammoths. If you’re going questing in a world of dinosaurs, it's one of the best spells in the game for Sorcerer. Most tables aren’t that and will find it has almost no targets in an average adventure.
5th Level Spell Recommendations
Sorcerers don’t get many summon effects; this makes Animate Objects all the more worth mentioning, as it's a superb summoning-style effect that grants you access to a swarm of tiny objects to make a barrage of attacks each round. Carry around a few sets of knives and you’re good to go. With Careful spell (which you can pick up at 10th level with your new metamagic) you can even sculpt some of your own animated creatures out of area of effect damage spells!
Metamagic: Distant
Arcane Hand similarly offers a “summoned” ally you can control with a bonus action for free damage, blocking, conditions, and more. The deeper you read into Arcane Hand, the more useful text you find that works on almost any character that could take it. Its floor as a 4d8 bonus action attack each turn is great, and it can do so many other nifty little things you’ll find value in from encounter to encounter. It doesn’t interact all that much with metamagic; at this point, though, you have plenty of places to put your sorcery points, making some spells that don’t ask you to invest points in them valuable.
Metamagic: Distant
Dominate Person takes advantage of the humanoid creature type being a consistent enemy type in most tiers of most games. Now, if you’re ever against more than one humanoid, you can assert control over two of them with Twinned Spell, and can make them more likely to fail with Heighten. Two Dominate Persons up at once beats a lot of encounters on its own when its hitting mid CR casters or bruisers. With Subtle Spell, their allies won’t even see you dominate their allies, helping protect concentration or lead to moments where you can easily frame them for taking actions you made them take.
Metamagic: Distant, Heightened, Subtle, Twinned
Hold Monster is the 5th level save or die that is amazing to Twin and Heighten. Its everything great about Hold Person, but able to affect anything.
Metamagic: Distant, Heightened, Twinned
Summon Draconic Spirit gives you a dragon buddy you can fly around on and rain terror from the skies with. What’s not to love? Summoning magic is great, and this is the only specifically “summon” spell offered to sorcerers. It’s an obvious inclusion on Draconic Bloodline sorcerers if you’re entirely committed to playing that archetype. Bonus action controllable companions are busted. This is one of the better versions of those effects. Again, it doesn’t work great with metamagic, but it doesn’t need to for how powerful the effect is.
5th Level Spells to Avoid
Creation produces non-magical objects for raw materials. Fun fact: non-magical objects can be mundanely created with raw materials. That’s just crafting. Access to non-magical objects that are 5 ft. cubes or smaller isn’t worth a 5th-level spell slot for most people. I haven’t ever seen this spell do anything meaningful that lower-level spells couldn’t do better.
Control Winds, like Creation, offers you a lot of possibilities, but also like Creation, none of the options offered do something a lower level spell can’t do better. Difficult terrain and removing creatures' flight isn’t worth a 5th-level slot.
Skill Empowerment trades Expertise for a 5th level slot; turns out, that deal isn’t usually going to be worth it. Skill experts like bards and rogues don’t work with this, as they can’t get expertise twice. You’re rarely going to be in a circumstance where you need expertise in a specific skill. A one level dip into rogue can give you two skills with expertise if you want this kind of effect, and those are permanent and come with bonus proficiencies. For how few spells known you have, spending one on Skill Empowerment seems like a mistake.
6th Level Spell Recommendations
Disintegrate deals 10d6+40 damage. That’s so much damage. That’s, like, 22d6 worth of damage with a damage floor of 46. This is doing around 75 damage to something. Not only can you Twin it to nuke two creatures, against one thing, you can Heighten it to add a level of insurance that they’re going to take the hit hard.
Metamagic: Distant, Empowered, Heightened, Twinned
Scatter may be my favorite spell in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything; you pick five creatures to send anywhere you can see within 120 feet of you. It isn’t always going to be massively powerful, but it does get meaningfully improved as a party disengage tool with Distant increasing the range of creatures you can grab up from 30 to 60, and with Quicken, you can often get in range of the creatures you want to Scatter. It probably isn’t my first 6th-level selection, but at 12th level I’ll try to find room for it.
Metamagic: Distant, Quickened
Mass Suggestion takes everything I like about Suggestion and levels it up to affect a lot of people. It really is that simple, and while I probably don’t want both on my sheet, especially with Twinned Spell, if I’ve replaced Suggestion already and want a big, splashy command-style spell, Mass Suggestion is finding a spot.
For the same reasons Raulothim’s Psychic Lance is great, Mental Prison is great. 15d10 damage or something doesn’t move on a failed save when you pair it with Heightened Spell is solid; having the option to fire off two at once with a minimum of 5d10 damage going to each is excellent.
Metamatic: Distant, Empowered, Heightened, Twinned
6th Level Spells to Avoid
Chain Lightning usually plays worse than comparable area of effect damage spells upcast like Fireball. It doesn’t play well with metamagic outside of Empowered and Heightened and maximizes the number of targets it hits to four creatures with 30 feet of one creature. It does slightly more damage to the hit creatures compared to an 11d6 damage up-cast Fireball, but you can always also cast Fireball with a 3rd, 4th, and 5th level slot. I’d take Lightning Bolt over Chain Lightning every day of the week and rarely will want both. The exception to this is Storm Sorcerer dipping Tempest Domain; then the damage difference is a bit more substantial and this effect looks a lot better.
Circle of Death is like Chain Lightning, but with worse damage for a bigger area. I’d rather have all of the other lower-tier damage-dealing effects, including stuff like Cone of Cold.
Flesh to Stone might be the worst save or die in the game. For a 6th level slot, you might poison something. Then, after three to six rounds, it might be petrified, or it might be completely fine. Sure, you could twin this, but I’m not spending a 6th level slot and 6 sorcery points for two poisons with next to no other relevant text. The encounter is usually over before this has any chance of petrifying something.
Eyebite sounds metal, but in practice has difficulty earning its slot. Having to spend actions repeatedly for worse save or die effects than 4th level or lower spells doesn’t really excite me. Its just to action inefficient to justify, and doesn’t really interact in fun ways with metamagic.
7th Level Spell Recommendations
We’re starting to reach a tier where metamagic isn’t crazy powerful, as the spells tend to do most of the heavy lifting by changing how the game is played. 7th level and higher spells tend to reshape reality; some will work with metamagic, but a lot do something so unique there aren’t major reasons to use sorcery points on them.
Crown of Stars gives you a stellar bonus action with no concentration concerns. Its duration makes it an effect you’re happy to throw out at the beginning of a dungeon and get use out of the first two encounters you come across. Also, I believe this works with Seeking Spell! Wild!
Metamagic: Empowered Spell, Seeking Spell
Draconic Transformation, like Crown of Stars, gives you a bonus action for a bunch of damage, but instead of a long duration and no concentration, you get 1 minute and concentration. The upside is Blindsight, Wings, and a 6d8 60 ft. cone breath instead of the single target 4d12 motes. If you’re cool with risking your concentration for these breath attacks, Draconic Transformation is the top end fantasy for the Draconic Bloodline sorcerers out there. This means you don’t have to be in that trash subclass to fulfill its fantasy. Take this, not Draconic Bloodline.
Plane Shift and Teleport both fundamentally change the scope of adventuring. No longer are you restricted by location or even world; these two spells open up adventures to the group that can cross any distance over every plane. I don’t typically want these as my first 7th-level spell, but if the DM and group are on board, picking one up to alter the scope of adventures from here on out is a delight. You probably don’t need both, though, especially with how limited your spells list still is for the tier.
Reverse Gravity is a contender for my favorite spell in the game, but my god is it a headache to DM for. Flipping the world on its head can be a massive amount of mental effort to navigate. What happens to the water? What objects are flying all over the place? What about the spears the baddies that anchored themselves to the ground dropped, are they plunging into their floating allies? It opens up so many wacky opportunities I want it as often as I can get it, even if you probably shouldn’t be casting every time you’re able to.
7th Level Spells to Avoid
Dream of the Blue Veil takes a page out of Astral Projection’s book by offering a tool that makes you and your friends unconscious and helpless while you seek out a different setting your DM wants to switch you to. If you want to swap settings, you shouldn’t need a 7th-level spell for that. If you want to take this without there being value to switching settings, it's a massive headache that either will do nothing or make the DM roll their eyes and sidetrack the main adventure. I’m actually amazed they printed this.
Power Word Pain uses a bad mechanic that does something or nothing relative to the current hit points of the target. If this ever is cast and does nothing, it feels horrendous. If it hits a creature with 50 or fewer hit points, a damaging 7th level or lower spell would probably kill it outright, making it only relevant if you can be sure it's somewhere close to 100 hit points, but not above it. It encourages metagaming, sows discord in groups when players look up stat blocks to try to leverage it effectively, and overall is a net negative experience for everyone involved.
8th Level Spell Recommendations
Dominate Monster not only is a save or die, it's a save or die that gives you control over potentially any enemy. Worried about that CR 15 dragon? Dominate Monster. Now, it's YOUR CR 15 dragon!
Metamagic: Twinned Spell. Yes, you can Twin this, and doing so is completely busted.
Beyond that, Sorcerers don’t have any particularly notable excellent 8th-level spells I’d recommend, but Sunburst, Demiplane, and Abi-Dalzim’s Horrid Wilting aren’t great, but you can have a good time with them.
8th Level Spells to Avoid
Power Word Stun has all the issues Power Word: Pain has, but costs a higher level slot. If this misses, it feels horrendous. It's at its most effective the closer to the hit point threshold the enemy is, making you need to either take a major risk in estimating enemy hit points and firing it when you think it is in range, or learning enemy hit point amounts prior. It's not a great experience to use.
9th Level Spell Recommendations
Sorcerers get a robust list of 9th-level spells to make up for their lackluster 8th-level offerings.
Wish can do anything, and at minimum, can act as any other 8th-level or lower spell in the game. All of its non-creative uses listed are good enough that Wish would still earn a mention, but it also can do anything from ascending you to godhood to create a new planet for you to live on. That scope is limited only by your DMs willingness to say yes, and outside of that use case, it's still a house of an effect.
Metamagic: All of them, technically
Meteor Swarm does the most damage out of any spell in the game. 40d6 damage in three massive areas kills armies. Are you in the market for a bigger, badder damage spell? This is it. It also is another rare instance where you’ll want Careful Spell to sculpt out your teammates from its gargantuan area.
Metamagic: Careful, Distant, Empowered, Heightened
Mass Polymorph takes a busted 4th-level spell, Polymorph, and amplifies it to affect up to ten creatures at once. Removing ten threats at once from a fight is backbreaking. Even if half pass the save, this still trivializes many fights against mid-sized threats in the upper CRs. It's probably the most “fair” of these recommendations, and it's still insanely good.
Metamagic: Distant, Heightened
9th Level Spells to Avoid
Power Word Kill gives us the Power Word trifecta in spells to avoid! Kill is limited to 100 hit points or fewer, and again, the closer to 100 that is the more usable this is. Simultaneously, the closer to 100 this is, the more likely you cast it and nothing happens. Garbage. Disintegrate at 9th level deals 19d6+40, or 106 damage on average. And that doesn’t fail to work if the target has more hit points. You can also cast Disintegrate with a 6th, 7th, and 8th level slots, and don’t have to metagame and puzzle out a creature's hit points for the spell to function.
Sorcerous Restoration
The final feature sorcerers receive is Sorcerous Restoration. At 20th level, you’re rarely going to find you’re able to burn through all of your sorcery points and all of your spell slots to eventually get to a point where you are excited to get back 4 points when an encounter starts. If you’re running a lot of lethal fights at this point, I guess this technically gives you some extra points, but most tables aren’t ever going to get meaningful value out of this feature.
Multiclassing Sorcerer
Multiclassing is a “variant” mechanic in the same way feats tend to be; the vast majority of tables allow it. It adds a level of customization and depth to the mid-tier of play the game desperately lacks, giving you new choices and fun abilities all throughout the game.
Sorcerers tend to pair with other spellcasting classes to break metamagic, but can also mingle with martial classes to pursue different kinds of builds otherwise unavailable to them.
Caster Options
Metamagic is appealing to many other classes; basically, every full-caster class can find value in Twinned and Quickened spells. None more than Warlock. We’ll dive into that mess, though, in Munchkin Nonsense below.
Outside of Warlock, Tempest Domain Cleric loves getting paired with Transmute Spells. As a sorcerer, taking a two-level dip for bonus spells to prepare and a once-per-short rest channel divinity to maximize a spell’s damage will add a lot of power to your sheet.
Bards are Charisma casters, making the dip for their bonus action inspiration, expertise, and subclass over three levels pretty easy. If you’re all in on being the charismatic party face that is packing empowered intrigue and social spells like Charm Person and Suggestion paired with Subtle Spell, I’d consider grabbing some levels here.
Martial Options
Three levels in Fighter provide you defensive proficiencies to shore up your AC, a subclass, and Action Surge. There aren’t many ways to cast two 1st level or higher spells in a round; Action Surge is one of those ways. If you want a tool to explode an enemy with two twinned spells in a single round, this two to three-level dip can be worth it. If you also want to mingle with attacking, two more levels provide you with a feat and Extra Attack.
Paladin is the other major martial option I’d consider because you’ll continue gaining spells, just a bit slower, and should you want to go with an attack-based build, Divine Smite is an easy place to put your 4th level and lower slots for big damage. You do really want five levels here for Extra Attack, though, and want it relatively early. By the mid-tiers, though, sorcerer/paladin hybrids can do monstrous amounts of damage with spells and weapons.
Beyond these two, most other martial options aren’t doing anything that pairs easily with raw full-casting.
Munchkin Nonsense You Can Try
Font of Magic and Metamagic break many rules of spellcasting. The Munchkin stuff you can do with the class revolves almost exclusively around these mechanics being abused with features that weren’t necessarily intended to get paired with it.
Coffee-Locking
I don’t know who coined the term, but the “Coffee-Lock” is used when referring to sorcerers multiclassing with Warlock to specifically abuse two features together: Font of Magic and Pact Magic.
The short of it is instead of taking long rests, you take eight short rests, and because there isn’t technically a limit on how many Spellcasting spell slots you can have at once, you can convert the spells regained with Pact Magic over each short rest into lower-level spell slots.
This results in oodles of Spellcasting spell slots, and can start as early as 3rd level (2 Sorcerer, 1 Warlock) that last until you finish your next long rest..
Mechanically what you do is a simple process. First, you spend all of your sorcery points to create as many spells as you can. Then, you refill your sorcery point pool by converting your Pact Magic spell slots into sorcery points up until they’re full, at which point you convert them over to regular Spellcasting spell slots again.
If you want a further deep-dive into the build, I go deep into detail in my Warlock Guide’s Munchkin Nonsense section.
The Eldritch Blast Gattling Gun
Where Font of Magic is busted with Pact Magic, Metamagic pushes the warlock cantrip, Eldritch Blast, into utterly busted territory. Want to blast enemies with a volley of fifteen blasts in a single round? I sure do!
This option’s goal is to cast as many Eldritch Blasts as possible between rests.
Eldritch Blast is unique in its scaling; it provides you an additional attack 5th, 11th, and 17th level, regardless of your classes, each dealing 1d10 base.
Sorcerer comes into the picture to abuse it with Quickened Spell; for 1 sorcery point, you can cast it twice each turn. This multiplies whatever damage additives you stick on your Eldritch Blast by two.
Similarly to the Coffelock, I did a detailed breakdown of the build in my Warlock Guide’s Munchkin Nonsense section. Head over and take a look if you’re interested!
Twinned Spells Twice Over
Action Surge is a pretty busted mechanic; taking an extra action in combat means you can cast two spells that take one action at once. Twinned Spell has a similar effect, letting you “duplicate” a spell for some sorcery points, acting as if you’d cast it twice for just one action. Combined, you can fire off four spells in a turn for insanely explosive moments.
My favorite to use early on is Ice Knife, namely because it’s cheap. You just need two sorcery points, Twinned Spell, and two levels in Fighter to cast 4 1st level spells in one round, totaling 4d10+8d6 damage split over two to four areas.
You’re not limited to recasting the same spell, though. You can mix and match. Two Hold Persons can lock down major enemy threats while you simultaneously blast two other targets with Raulothim’s Psychic Lance, potentially debilitating four enemies at once while dealing 14d6 damage.
Are you willing to blow all of your resources at once? I am when the payout is four Disintegrates fired off at once, hitting two to four targets for a total of roughly 300 damage. 13 levels in Sorcerer could only ever do 150; 150 bonus damage for a 2 level Fighter dip? What a steal!
Metamagic Makes (and Breaks) Sorcerer
While they don’t often have that robust of a spell selection, metamagic is such a powerful feature with any amount of patience, you can have a superb time with this class. It's really hard to do “fair” builds with it when muticlassing, as its core mechanics are easy to abuse. That being said, there are a lot of great subclasses that make for a great time while covering for your weak spell selections with bonus spells and fun mechanics you can lean into.
If you want a class that breaks all of the rules, Sorcerer gives you that. If you just want to be a lunar witch powered by the phases of the moon slinging a wide range of unique spells, or a conduit for storms raining lightning from the skies, Sorcerer can give you that, too.
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