Introduction
The Storm Sorcery Sorcerer is an interesting subclass heavily hampered by the lack of decent spells to support it. Playing a Storm Sorcerer is difficult and risky, constantly forcing you to put yourself in harm’s way to apply class features which only work at short range while providing essentially no protection from inevitable counterattacks. This is a hard subclass to build and play.
Throughout this handbook, I’ll repeatedly voice my frustrations with elementsof the subclass. I want to be extremely clear about where the problems lie,and by highlighting those pain points I hope to provide some insight intowhere the subclass falls short and where you as the player will need tocompensate. Knowing your weaknesses will keep you alive.
The introduction of the new Metamagic Transmuted Spell in Tasha’s Cauldron ofEverything is perhaps the single greatest addition to the subclass, allowingyou to expand your spell options beyond the pitifully small number of spellswhich already deal lightning and thunder damage, but it does present afrustrating tax on your sorcery points.
If you want a fix for Storm Sorcery, you need to solve one of two problems:Spells known, and Tempestuous Magic.Giving the Storm Sorcerer some spells knownthat will trigger Heart of the Storm makes the subclass functional at a bareminimum because players can’t accidently negate an entire subclass feature.You could also adjust Tempestuous Magic to work with cantrips which deallightning or thunder damage (currently only Booming Blade, Shocking Grasp, andThunderclap), which allows the Storm Sorcerer to use Tempestuous Magic morefrequently so that they can practice the hit-and-run tactics built into theclass right from level 1.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Disclaimer
- Storm Sorcery Features
- Ability Scores
- Races
- Lineages
- Races of Eberron
- Feats
- Weapons
- Armor
- Multiclassing
- Magic Items
- Common Magic Items
- Uncommon Magic Items
- Rare Magic Items
- Very Rare Magic Items
- Legendary Magic Items
- Spells
- 1st-Level Spells
- 2nd-Level Spells
- 3rd-Level Spells
- 4th-Level Spells
- 6th-Level Spells
- 7th-Level Spells
- Example Build – Aarakocra Storm Sorcerer
- Abilities
- Race
- Skills and Tools
- Background
- Feats
- Levels
- Example Build – Storm Sorcerer/Tempest Cleric
- Abilities
- Race
- Skills and Tools
- Background
- Feats
- Levels
Disclaimer
RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.
- Red: Bad, useless options, or options whichare extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
- Orange: OK options, or useful optionsthat only apply in rare circ*mstances. Useful sometimes.
- Green: Good options. Useful often.
- Blue: Fantastic options, often essentialto the function of your character. Useful very frequently.
We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.
The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows.
Storm Sorcery Features
Storm Sorcery’s features aren’t great, and they ask you to do a lot of thingsthat are both frustrating and dangerous.
- Wind Speaker: Essentially four freelanguages. Especially nice if you are your party’s Face.
- Tempestuous Magic: 10 feet of flightwon’t get you anywhere interesting. The primary function is to remove youfrom melee combat without drawing opportunity attacks. This will quicklystop being exciting once you can pick up Misty Step as a 2nd-level spell.
The fact that it’s free is nice, especially if you like to run into closequarters to deliver spells like Thunder Wave. If this worked with cantripsit would be a defining feature of the subclass, but limiting it to leveledspells makes this a situational novelty.
- Heart of the Storm: Being within 10 feetof foes is rarely a good idea for a Sorcerer. The resistances are great, butit’s hard to bring the bonus damage into play without seriously endangeringyourself.
The damage bonus is pretty good so if you can manage shuffling into meleeor flying just over your targets’ heads you can do quite a bit of damage.Combined with Tempestuous Magic you can rush in, trigger Heart of theStorm, and fly safely out of reach. You’ll still need to do something toprevent enemies from walking over and killing you, but at least you didn’tend your turn within reach.
- Storm Guide: Unless you’re in a seafaringcampaign, this will almost certainly never matter.
- Storm’s Fury: This is very helpful sinceyou’re apparently expected to stand within 10 feet of foes. Of course,knocking them 20 feet away means that you’ll need to follow them to continueapplying Heart of the Storm.
- Wind Soul: Flight for your entire party atEssentially no cost and without Concentration.
Ability Scores
The Storm Sorcerer isn’t much different from other sorcerers, so the abilityscore needs are no different. If you plan to multiclass to get armorproficiencies, you may be able to dump Dexterity.
Str: Dump.
Dex: AC and Dexterity saves.
Con: Hit points.
Int: Dump.
Wis: Wisdom saves are common.
Cha: Your spellcasting stat.
| Point Buy | Standard Array |
|---|---|
| Str: 8 | Str: 8 |
| Dex: 15 | Dex: 14 |
| Con: 14 | Con: 13 |
| Int: 8 | Int: 10 |
| Wis: 10 | Wis: 12 |
| Cha: 15 | Cha: 15 |
Races
Improvements to your durability (AC bonuses, etc.) and improved mobility areessential for the Storm Sorcerer. You need to be able to get in and out ofmelee quickly, and you need to be able to take a few hits when you can’t getfar enough away after using Heart of the Storm.
AarakocraEEPC
Customized Origin: +2/+1 increases andflight. Excellent, but the Winged Tiefling is better.
Default Rules: Permanent nonmagical flightis great, but you’ll lag offensively.
GoblinVGtM
Customized Origin: Nimble Escape makesTempestuous Magic mostly pointless.
Human
Customized Origin:
- Standard: With perfect ability scores onthe table for every race, there is no reason to play the Standard Human.
- Variant: The Customizing Your Origin rulesmake no change to the Variant Human.
Default Rules:
- Standard: Sorcerers really only needCharisma, so most of the bonuses are outright wasted.
- Variant: You still get a crucial bonus toyour Charisma, and you get a feat.
TieflingPHB
The Winged Tiefling can fill the same niche as the Aarakocra, but trades theAarakocra’s speed (which is suprisingly import for the Storm Sorcerer) for theability to wear medium armor. If you plan to multiclass to get armorproficiencies, the Winged Tiefling may be a better choice, but forsingle-class builds the Aarakocra’s speed will help keep you at a safedistance.
Lineages
Races of Eberron
Dragonmarks
While the design intent for Dragonmarks was that they would offer some innate spellcasting for everyone, every dragonmark includes an expanded spell list which is arguably a more significant benefit than most of the provided racial traits. Because the expanded spell options are such an important part of the dragonmarks, if you’re not playing a spellcaster you’re giving up a huge part of your racial traits, which makes it exceptionally difficult to justify playing a dragonmark character who can’t cast spells.
Dragonmarked Half-ElfERLW
Dragonmark traits replace some of your normal racial traits, as described inthe entry for each Dragonmark.
Customized Origin:
- Mark of Storm: The dragonmark spells arealready on the Sorcerer’s spell list and the other benefits are far toosituational. This feels like a great choice for Storm Sorcery, but you stillneed to spend spells known to learn these spells, so the benefits areextremely minor.
Default Rules:
- Mark of Storm: The ability increaseswork, but most of the dragonmark spells are already on the Sorcerer’s spelllist. This feels like a great choice for Storm Sorcery, but you still needto spend spells known to learn these spells, so the benefits are extremelyminor
Feats
- Elemental AdeptPHB: If ever there was a build that could benefit from Elemental Adept, it’sthe Storm Sorcerer, but even the Storm Sorcerer doesn’t need it. For thesame cost you can get Metamagic Adept and learn Transmute Spell, which willsolve the same problem better for the Sorcerer.
- Metamagic AdeptTCoE: The Storm Sorcerer needs to eat a lot of sorcery points to feedTransmuted Spell, so two extra points and two new metamagic options ispretty great.
- MobilePHB: Redundant with Tempestuous Magic, but it does allow you to do hit-and-runstuff without spending a spell slot.
Weapons
Sorcerers rarely need weapons, but since the Storm Sorcerer spends a lot oftime at close range, a weapon might occasionally be useful for opportunityattacks. If possible, a reach weapon like a whip is a good choice.
Armor
Sorcerers don’t get armor proficiency. If you want armor, take a level ofcleric with a domain that gives you heavy armor proficiency. That will get youboth heavy armor and shields, dramatically improving your AC.
Multiclassing
This section briefly details some obvious and enticing multiclass options, but doesn’t fully explore the broad range of multiclassing combinations. For more on multiclassing, see our Practical Guide to Multiclassing.
- ClericPHB: One level and the Tempest domain does a lot for the Storm Sorcerer. Heavyarmor, shields, martial weapons, new cantrips (stick to utility options),and access to staple low-level cleric spells like Bless and Healing Word. Asecond level gets you Channel Divinity: Destructive Wrath, allowing you tomaximize the damage of the spells that define the Storm Sorcerer.
Magic Items
This section only covers items with unique benefits for the Storm Sorcerer.For full coverage on magic items, see mySorcerer Handbook.
Common Magic Items
- :
Uncommon Magic Items
- Broom of FlyingDMG: Already and amazing item, but especially helpful for storm sorcerers whodon’t have racial flight. The broom’s flight doesn’t prevent you from usingTempestuous Magic, and unlike a mount you don’t need to worry about flyingoff of your mount when you use Tempestuous Magic since the broom is anitem.
Rare Magic Items
- Elemental Essence Shard (Air)TCoE: Basically Tempestuous Magic, but 6 times the distance and it doesn’tconsume your Bonus Action.
- Wand of Lightning BoltsDMG: Using this will trigger Heart of the Storm and Tempestuous Magic, but itdoesn’t solve the problems with Lightning Bolt.
Very Rare Magic Items
- :
Legendary Magic Items
- :
Spells
Storm Sorcery’s biggest pain point is the spellcasting, which is immenselyfrustrating because spellcasting is the central function of the Sorcerer. Younot get any suitable spells automatically, and the pitifully small number ofspells which deal lightning or thunder damage means that you’re stuck with thehandful of decent spells available to you.
This section will specifically focus on the spells which trigger Heart of theStorm, limiting us to leveled spells (so no cantrips) which deal lightning orthunder damage. Any leveled spell will suffice to trigger Tempestuous Magic,but to get the full intended effect of Storm Sorcery, you want to triggerHeart of the Storm as often as possible. For full coverage on sorcerer spells,see mySorcerer Spell List Breakdown.
You’ll note that the spell levels stop at 7 in the list below. This isfrustrating, but also accurate. Spells like Dragon’s Breath, True Polymorph,summon spells, etc. don’t deal the suitable damage types as part of thespell’s effects (Dragon’s Breath’s effect is to grant a breath weapon, TruePolymorph’s effect is to change your form, etc.), so they don’t qualify totrigger Heart of the Storm. They’re still great spells, but they don’t meetthe criteria for this list.
1st-Level Spells
- Absorb ElementsEEPC / XGtE: An absolutely essential spell, but I’m not certain if it triggers Heartof the Storm. It doesn’t deal damage, instead giving your melee attack onthe following turn a damage boost. As a DM I would rule that it doesn’ttrigger Heart of the Storm, but Jeremy Crawford has ruled that Dragon’sBreath qualifies, so maybe this qualifies if you use it to resist lightningdamage. Discuss it with your DM. If this is allowed, you could repeatedlyhit yourself with lightning damage to trigger this and trigger Heart of theStorm more frequently.
- Chaos BoltXGtE: A fun spell, but you only have a 50% chance to deal one of the two damagetypes that we want, so it’s not reliable, Use Chromatic Orb instead.
- Chromatic OrbPHB: The cheapest and most reliable way to trigger Heart of the Storm. Even athigh levels, using Sorcery Points to get extra 1st-level spell slots to castthis may be a better choice than casting cantrips like Fire Bolt.
- ThunderwavePHB: Unusually good for the Storm Sorcerer since you’re encourage to dart inand out of close range. The knockback effect makes it easier to move back toa safe position after delivering the spell, and Heart of the Storm reachesmost of Thunderwave’s 15-foot area of effect so you can frequently affectall of your targets with both.
- Witch BoltPHB: Just not a great spell. Twinned Spell might redeem it, but it’s not worththe Action cost to re-trigger the damage every round in the vast majority ofcases.
2nd-Level Spells
- Dragon’s BreathXGtE: Not a great spell for the Sorcerer. Jeremy Crawford has confirmed thatDragon’s Breath can trigger Heart of the Stormif you choose for the breath weapon to deal lightning damage.
- ShatterPHB: Your easiest and often safest AOE damage option, but it’s on aConstitution save so many enemies will frequently pass their save.
3rd-Level Spells
- Lightning BoltPHB: It’s typically very difficult to catch more than two targets in the areaof effect of a 5-foot wide line. Using Transmuted Spell with Fireball isnearly always more effective.
- Thunder StepXGtE: Misty Step is usually a better choice, but Thunder Step has some uniqueinteractions for the Storm Sorcerer. Tempestuous Magic can be usedbefore casting a leveled spell, so you can combine it with yourregular movement to dart into the middle of a crowd of enemies, useTempestuous Magic to avoid Opportunity Attacks if necessary, then castThunder Step and trigger Heart of the Storm. The AOE for both is 10 feet, sothey perfectly overlap, allowing you to deal some decent damage as youteleport away. However, Thunder Step’s 3d10 damage will be dramatically lessthan Fireball, even with the addition of Heart of the Storm. As cool as thiscombo is (and it is astoundingly cool), generally you only want to do thisif you need to rescue an ally who is in trouble.
4th-Level Spells
- Storm SpherePHB: This is a weak spell. Casting Sickening Radiance will be more effective,even with the addition of Heart of the Storm, and Sickening Radiance won’teat your Bonus Action every turn.
6th-Level Spells
- Chain LightningPHB: Probably the Storm Sorcerer’s best spell without considering TransmuteSpell. The damage is decent, you get four targets, and you don’t need toworry about hitting yourself or your allies so you can drop it at closerange to also trigger Heart of the Storm.
7th-Level Spells
- Prismatic SprayPHB: There is a chance that this will deal lightning damage. Against onetarget, it’s a little better than 12.5% (the math is complicated). Againsttwo targets is a little better than 25%. That’s just not enough.
Example Build – Aarakocra Storm Sorcerer
Why isn’t there a storm equivalent for the phoenix? Thunderbird? That’s thebest we’ve got? Oof. Okay, fine, we’re Zapdos now.
This is probably the best that can be done for a single-class storm sorcerer.You’ll spend a lot of time being just like every other sorcerer, but at level6 you’ll develop an addiction to running in and out of melee combat to triggerHeart of the Storm. Expect your party’s healer to be concerned for your safetyat all times.
Abilities
We’ll use the point buy ability scores recommended above, and put our +2/+1into Charisma and Dexterity.Base Increased Str 8 8 Dex 15 16 Con 14 14 Int 8 8 Wis 10 10 Cha 15 17
Race
For a single-class build, racial flight is the easiest way to make the buildwork, so building around the Aarakocra is a good choice. I’m going to use thecustom origin rules here, but if you’re not using them you’ll do just finewith the Winged Tiefling instead.
Skills and Tools
Anything that works for the Sorcerer works fine here.
Background
Anything that works for the Sorcerer works fine here.
Feats
We can hit 20 Charisma by level 8, so there’s plenty of room for feats here.Metamagic Initiate is helpful, but beyond that it’s hard to find an easychoice.
Levels
| Level | Feat(s) and Features | Notes and Tactics |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
| For your starting gear, take a light crossbow, a component pouch orarcane focus, either pack, and two daggers. At this level, you’re little different from any other sorcerer.Tempestuous Magic only functions when you cast a leveled spell, andwith just two spell slots that means Tempestuous Magic only workstwice per day. Your best bet is to stay out of reach using yourracial flight and attack at range. If you do get dragged into meleesomehow, use Tempestuous Magic to get out of reach, cast a leveledspell (remember that Tempestuous Magic must be used immediatelybefore or after casting a leveled spell), then use your movement toget to a safe distance. You’ll note that none of our spells deal lightning or thunderdamage. Until we get Heart of the Storm at 6th level, our damagetype doesn’t matter any more than it does for any other sorcerer.Until you hit level 6, Tempestuous Magic is a “get out of melee(mostly) free” card, but otherwise you just need to be a really goodsorcerer. For cantrips, I’ve suggested two offensive options: Create Bonfireand Mind Sliver. Create Bonfire is good, cheap area control so it’sa good way to use your Concentration. Mind Sliver is excellent, butthe range is short. If you need to hit foes outside of Mind Sliver’srange, use your crossbow or cast Magic Missile. If you can get twoor more foes in a line, use Tasha’s Caustic Brew. Chromatic Orb would be a great spell at this level, but the 50gpmaterial component is frustratingly expensive. Even if you choose totake gold instead of the normal starting equipment, you’ll get anaverage of 75gp, which means that you can afford the gem andbasically nothing else. The ability to choose lightning or thunderdamage also doesn’t much at this level, so Chromatic Orb isn’tessential. We’ll use Magic Missile for now. |
| 2 |
| At this level, Font of Magic is just an extra 1st-level spell slotevery Long Rest. We add Chromatic Orb here, but you might choose something defensivelike Absorb Elements or Shield instead. If you want to, you canretrain Magic Missile into something that we’ll want to keeppermanently. |
| 3 |
| Twinned Spell is our primary metamagic choice. You’re going tospend a lot of time casting twinned Chromatic Orb, and you can startdoing that right away. Transmute Spell won’t be immediately helpful, but it’s crucial forthe Storm Sorcerer. Once you hit level 6, the ability to deallightning and thunder damage whenever you want is essential to thebuild. Shatter is decent, inexpensive AOE thunder damage. The biggestproblem is that it targets Constitution saves, which makes itunreliable. If you find that Shatter isn’t working out, trade it forsomething else like Maximilian’s Earthen Grasp. |
| 4 |
| The ability score increase puts your spells ahead of your crossbow,especially with the damage increase right around the corner et level5, so it’s time to grab Fire Bolt for our long-range damage needs.Enhance Ability isn’t useful in combat, but it’s absolutely amazingeverywhere else. |
| 5 |
| Cantrip damage increases and we get access to 3rd-level spells. Fornow, Fireball is excellent unmodified. It remains a staple damagespell for your whole career, and for now we don’t need to worryabout the damage type unless you’re facing damage resistances. |
| 6 |
| This is where our subclass actually gets interesting. Heart of theStorm is probably the Storm Sorcerer’s most defining feature, andusing it defines the Storm Sorcerer’s signature tactics. This iswhere our damage type finally starts to matter, so this is whereTransmute Spell starts to matter. Use Transmute Spell with Fireballand other such spells to trigger Heart of the Storm for the easydamage. However, the 10-foot range on Heart of the Storm requires rushingin and out of close range, which is why Tempestuous Magic is socrucial. Your go-to tactic for a single turn is to rush into range,trigger Heart of the Storm (casting Chromatic Orb is enough, but anyof your damage spells work thanks to Transmuted Spell), useTempestuous Magic to fly out of reach, then use whatever movementyou have left to retreat. All of that just to trigger Tempestuous Magic, which deals a trulystunning 3 points of damage per target. It’s very excitingconceptually, but you’ll need to live with the reality that thedamage isn’t great. Still, it’s guaranteed damage with no save, andif you can hit multiple targets that will add up quickly. And since someone will ask me: No, twinning a spell does nottrigger Heart of the Storm twice. You’re adding a target, notcasting the spell a second time. We already have Fireball at this level, so consider other spellsdepending on your role in the party. Support and utility spells likeClairvoyance, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, and Haste are all goodchoices. Ashardalon’s Step is a good choice offensively because itboosts your speed, provides another source of damage output, andremoves the need to rely on Tempestuous Magic. If you transmute it,you can even trigger Tempestuous Magic with it, leaving your Actionfor a cantrip. If you go this route, you might pick up Swordburst touse as you fly through crowds of enemies. |
| 7 |
| Any spell will suffice here, but I really like Wall of Fire. It’sgreat area control, and you may be able to use to pen enemies into asmall area so that you can fly just overhead and hit them with Heartof the Storm repeatedly. If you transmute it, you can trigger Heartof the Storm (though only when it’s cast since Heart of the Stormonly triggers when you cast the spell). Alternatively, you might go for improved invisibility so that youcan remain close to enemies mostly undetected. Plus, you cancontinue to cast twinned Chromatic Orb and make the attacks atAdvantage. Under no circ*mstance should you learn Storm Sphere. |
| 8 |
| 20 Charisma feels good. No tactical changes here. |
| 9 |
| There aren’t any spells that 5th level that play into the StormSorcerer’s tactics especially well. Take anything you like. |
| 10 |
| Do whatever you like here. Quickened Spell is the go-to metamagicoption, and that’s likely what I would take here. Once you getAshardalon’s Stride running, you can fly in, cast a quickenedcantrip like Sword Burst (which you might learn at this level if youhadn’t already) and a leveled spell like transmuted Fireball orChromatic Orb to trigger Heart of the Storm, and you’re dealing abig pile of damage very quickly. It’ll eat your Sorcery Points,though, so mind your resources carefully. |
| 11 |
| Chain Lightning is a good spell. Fireball will deal more damage forthe same spell slot, but Chain Lightning doesn’t worry aboutfriendly fire or burning down houses or anything, and if you pickyour target right you can frequently hit targets in a wider areathan you could with Fireball. You can use this at point-blank rangeto trigger Heart of the Storm, then either use Tempestuous Magic orkeep Ashardalon’s Stride running to get safely out of reach. |
| 12 |
| Metamagic Adept will give you two more metamagic options and twomore Sorcery Points. The Sorcery Points are probably more helpful,but you might also enjoy diversifying your metamagic options. IfMetamagic Adept doesn’t appeal to you at this point, take whateveryou like. |
| 13 |
| Jeremy Crawford has ruled the Dragon’s Breath triggers Heart of theStorm, so Draconic Transformation (which also does damageimmediately when you cast it) should trigger it, too. DraconicTransformation gives you a consistent use for your Bonus Actionevery turn, so Tempestuous Magic will once again take a back seat toyour spells. Start Draconic Transformation early in fight, stay justclose enough to trigger Heart of the Storm with your Action bycasting a leveled spell, and spend your Bonus Action to use thebreath weapon every turn. |
| 14 |
| This build works very hard to keep out of melee reach, so hopefullyStorm’s Fury never matters. |
| 15 |
| Again, no great spells for the Storm Sorcerer at this level, so gofor whatever works for any other sorcerer. |
| 16 |
| Take whatever you want. |
| 17 |
| Learn whatever you like here. Wish is always a good choice, or youcan transmute Meteor Swarm if you just want to blow stuff up. |
| 18 |
| Now your friends can fly, too! |
| 19 |
| |
| 20 |
| Recovering sorcery points on a short rest will help fuel yourresource-hungry tactics. |
Example Build – Storm Sorcerer/Tempest Cleric
Look everybody, it’s Thor!
This build is a series of complicated trades. We trade two sorcerer levelsfor two cleric levels, and in that fairly small build change our tactics canchange quite a bit. The addition of heavy armor, shields, and martial weaponsopens some interesting tacical options in addition to dramatically improvingour durability.
Since we’re multiclassing into a full caster class, our spell slots willprogress at the normal rate. However, our spells known will be one levelbehind our highest-level spell slot, so expect to upcast spells to use thosehigh-level slots.
To be clear up front: This build is not significantly better than thesingle-class build. Combining Storm Sorcery and Tempest Domain is thematicallyobvious and feels fun because Destructive Wrath makes lighting and thunderspells more deadly, but I’m not convinced that heavy armor (which comes at thecost of easy flight) and Destructive Wrath (which comes at the cost ofknowledge of higher-level spells) are worth the trades that you make to getthem.
Abilities
Since we’re going for a heavily-armored build that still depends on movement,we need 15 Strength to avoid the speed penalty. We also need 13 Wisdom atminimum to allow us to multiclass into (or out of) cleric. This makes thebuild unusually MAD for a sorcerer, and I don’t like standing in or close tomelee with only 12 Constitution.Base Increased Str 14 15 Dex 8 8 Con 12 12 Int 10 10 Wis 13 13 Cha 15 16
Race
Since we’re building around heavy armor, our race options change. TheAarakocra and the Fairy can only fly in light armor, and even the WingedTiefling can only fly in medium armor.
Instead, we’ll look at options that work on the ground. The Centaur’s speedis tempting, but the Centaur is too strictly focus on melee. The Variant Humanand the Custom Lineage both offer feats, which offers some very enticingoptions. The Half-Elf’s three ability score increases are also tempting,addressing our MAD issues.
We have several good options here, but we’ll go with Variant Human for thefeat in this example.
Skills and Tools
Anything that works for the Sorcerer works fine here.
Background
Anything that works for the Sorcerer works fine here.
Feats
Since this build is more MAD than the single-class build, it’s a bit harderto fit feats into the build unless we get them from our race.
Levels
| Level | Feat(s) and Features | Notes and Tactics |
|---|---|---|
| 1 – Sorcerer 1 |
| For your starting gear, take a light crossbow (which you’ll likelysell almost immediately), a component pouch or arcane focus, eitherpack, and two daggers. At this level, our build is mostly the same as the single-classbuild. We’re starting with Sorcerer for proficiency in Constitutionsaves and because the Sorcerer’s skill options suit the buildbetter. I’ve suggested Metamagic Initiate as our feat at first level. It’snot crucial to the build, but it gets us Metamagic 3 levels early,and offsets the loss of Sorcery Point progression due tomulticlassing. |
| 2 – Cleric 1 |
| Our cleric spellcasting is extremely limited. You cabn prepare just2 leveled cleric spells, and you don’t want to use cleric spellsoffensively, so stick to utility options. I recommend preparingHealing Word and something like Bless or Heroism. Your cantripchoices don’t matter much, but get Guidance. It’s really good. Our first level in cleric also gives us heavy armor, sheilds, andmartial weapons. Grab a shield and some full plate, and your AC goesstraight to 20. You could use a weapon, but juggling weapons tohandle spell components and spell foci can be difficult. If you insist on holding a weapon, consider taking War Caster atfirst level instead of Metamagic Initiate. Tragically, Wrath of the Storm will only work once per Long Rest,and the DC will be bad, but we have to make sacrifices somewhere.It’s still cool, but it’s not going to be a major deterrent. |
| 3 – Cleric 2 |
| Destructive Wrath boosts the damage on our big lightning/thunderdamage spells. Max damage is a little less than double averagedamage, which is great when you’re using your highest-level spellslot. Save this for big AOE damage spells like transmuted Fireball.You can only do this once per Short Rest, but that’s generallyenough to consume all of your highest-level spell slots regardlessof your level. |
| 4 – Sorcerer 2 |
| If you took Metamagic Initiate at first level, Font of Magic ismore useful at this level than for the typical sorcerer. With atotal of 4 sorcery points, you can twin Chromatic Orb 4 times perday. Since we’re built to stand in melee a bit better, considerretraining Magic Missile for Thunderwave. It’s a great choice toupcast and use with Destructive Wrath. Alternatively, you mightretrain it for Absorb Elements or Shield. |
| 5 – Sorcerer 3 |
| Shatter is basically Thunderwave at range. Your tactics don’tchange much, but now you can drop Destructive Wrath on crowds at adistance. |
| 6+ | At 6th level and beyond, our build is very similar to thesingle-class build. Follow the build and tactics above, but expectto spend a lot of time standing 10 feet away from enemies ratherthan flying about 10 feet above their heads. As you gain levels, look forward to using Destructive Wrath inconjunction with transmuted Fireball, Chain Lightning, andeventually transmuted Meteor Swarm. | |
