The following are ideas for two homebrew spells exclusive to a sorcerer with a Brass Dragon background. I was looking for a alternative to Fire Ball or Lightning Bolt as the sorcerer's boomstick. My DM says she thinks they look balanced so I thought I'd also share them here. I liked the idea that most of the sorcerer's spell slots would emulate the dragon's abilities. Polymorph and Fly are also two spells I want on the list, but can only grab two out of the third level spells at 5th level.
Any feed back positive or negative and thoughts on translating dragon abilities into appropriate Sorcerer spell slots are welcome.
Fire Breath (3rd level)
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self (90 x10 foot line)
Components: V S M (A tiny ball of bat guano and sulfur)
Duration: Instantaneous
Effect: A 60-foot line that is 10 feet wide. Each creature in that line must make a Dexterity saving throw, taking 8d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
Sleep Cloud (3rd level)
Casting Time: 1 action
Range 90 feet
Components: V S M (A pinch of fine sand, rose petals, or a cricket)
Duration: 1 minute
Effect: A cloud of sleep gas in a 20-foot radius sphere. Creatures within the cloud must make a Constitution saving throw or fall unconscious. This effect ends for a creature if the creature takes damage or someone uses an action to wake it. Undead and creatures immune to being charmed aren’t affected by this spell.
So you already have Dragon's Breath, Aganazzar's Scorcher, and Sleep, which you could reflavor or use directly as these dragon abilities. If you're not down for doing that, I would recommend reflavoring Lightning Bolt and Hypnotic Pattern. That seems to be close to what you have done, but I think you can get it closer and more balanced. For instance, making the fire breath 10 feet wide is much, much more useful than 5 feet wide like Lightning Bolt.
So for me personally, I would take Lighting Bolt, change the name to Fire Breath, swap the components, and replace the word "lightning" with "fire" in the spell description. And you're done!
I'd make the sleep effect higher. The main Sleep spell is level 1 and scales up: but you'll find even upscaling you will have a hard time using it successfully in most encounters at higher level. This is why it works off HP instead of a saving throw.
The thing about sleep is: the creature remains unconscious as long as you do not deliberately wake it or cause it damage. This means you can stack all sorts of things. Bestow Curse and Contagion do not cause damage but you can stack their effects. Bestow Curse at 5th or higher doesn't use Concentration: so you can stack multiple curses. Contagion is not concentration and you can stack this on top. These two combined are powerful. And you can still stack another spell, and another - as many as you want as long as it doesn't cause damage and factoring concentration. Now realise the first attack against it is advantage auto-crit then when your paladin/rogue/warlock-with-eldritch-smite dumps their nova/sneakattack upon it. All with Slimy Doom effect meaning it is auto-stun, and disadvantage on con saves plus a curse effect of extra 1d8 damage combined with your cloak of daggers or bonfire (it auto-fails dex due to the stun from slimy doom/contagion).
Basically it is an auto-win. They could be CR 3000, if they can be put to sleep and fail that con save you've won, guaranteed. Even if you don't have anything to use against the enemy you can take the 9 rounds to buff yourselves up, set up traps, and so on.
This is why Sleep doesn't scale very well for higher enemies and why if you're going to use it then it needs to be high-level. Being able to do this against a whole group at once (20 ft radius is a big area) is very, very, powerful. Far more powerful than a level 3.
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SO, not a fan of Dragon's Breath or Sleep ... for a 5th level Sorcerer. With so few choices available they each need to either be game changing or part of a strategic plan. If I were a Wizard Dragon Breath would be on the menu with a familiar ... as part of a strategic plan. Sorcerers don't have that kind of flexibility, and Sleep scales horribly, just yuk.
I understand what you're saying about reskinning Lightning Bolt and Hypnotic Pattern. Matter of fact that was my starting point after looking at the Brass Dragon entry. My Sleep Cloud is very much a reskin of Hypnotic Pattern even using the same shape. I'd like to use a cone but I can't find a size yet that seems equivilant to Hypnotic Pattern. The real difference between the two is Sleep Cloud is not a Concentration Spell. That makes it better than Hypnotic Pattern, but the balance is that Sleep is contested by the much more popular Constitution Saving throw. More monsters have good Constitution saving throws than any other in the game.
Similarly with Fire Breath. There are more monsters in the game that have fire immunity and resistance than any of the other energies a spell caster can bring to the table. Fireballs advantage is in it's volume of space that is impacted. Lightning Bolt has a lesser opposed number of monsters who have lightning resistance or immunity. It will be more effective against a wider range of creatures at the cost of affecting a lesser volume. I was trying to emulate a Brass Dragon's breath as a 3rd level spell and felt splitting the difference between the two created balance. 1,250 feet versus 900 keeps Fire Breath in second place and tactically the sphere is a better choice.
Fireball is still a clear winner but I appreciate the responses because now I want to check and see if Lightning Bolt's advantage in the Saving Throw arena is enough to justify the length of my Fire Breath. Practically, I think so but even with my DM's okay but backing it down to 60 x10 ft might be worth another look
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Not a fan of Dragon's breath?
So you already have Dragon's Breath, Aganazzar's Scorcher, and Sleep, which you could reflavor or use directly as these dragon abilities. If you're not down for doing that, I would recommend reflavoring Lightning Bolt and Hypnotic Pattern. That seems to be close to what you have done, but I think you can get it closer and more balanced. For instance, making the fire breath 10 feet wide is much, much more useful than 5 feet wide like Lightning Bolt.
So for me personally, I would take Lighting Bolt, change the name to Fire Breath, swap the components, and replace the word "lightning" with "fire" in the spell description. And you're done!
I'd make the sleep effect higher. The main Sleep spell is level 1 and scales up: but you'll find even upscaling you will have a hard time using it successfully in most encounters at higher level. This is why it works off HP instead of a saving throw.
The thing about sleep is: the creature remains unconscious as long as you do not deliberately wake it or cause it damage. This means you can stack all sorts of things. Bestow Curse and Contagion do not cause damage but you can stack their effects. Bestow Curse at 5th or higher doesn't use Concentration: so you can stack multiple curses. Contagion is not concentration and you can stack this on top. These two combined are powerful. And you can still stack another spell, and another - as many as you want as long as it doesn't cause damage and factoring concentration. Now realise the first attack against it is advantage auto-crit then when your paladin/rogue/warlock-with-eldritch-smite dumps their nova/sneakattack upon it. All with Slimy Doom effect meaning it is auto-stun, and disadvantage on con saves plus a curse effect of extra 1d8 damage combined with your cloak of daggers or bonfire (it auto-fails dex due to the stun from slimy doom/contagion).
Basically it is an auto-win. They could be CR 3000, if they can be put to sleep and fail that con save you've won, guaranteed. Even if you don't have anything to use against the enemy you can take the 9 rounds to buff yourselves up, set up traps, and so on.
This is why Sleep doesn't scale very well for higher enemies and why if you're going to use it then it needs to be high-level. Being able to do this against a whole group at once (20 ft radius is a big area) is very, very, powerful. Far more powerful than a level 3.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
You can easily reflavor things that already exist. Making Burning Hands into Fire Breath is as simple as changing the name, f'rex.
Ok fair responses :-)
SO, not a fan of Dragon's Breath or Sleep ... for a 5th level Sorcerer. With so few choices available they each need to either be game changing or part of a strategic plan. If I were a Wizard Dragon Breath would be on the menu with a familiar ... as part of a strategic plan. Sorcerers don't have that kind of flexibility, and Sleep scales horribly, just yuk.
I understand what you're saying about reskinning Lightning Bolt and Hypnotic Pattern. Matter of fact that was my starting point after looking at the Brass Dragon entry. My Sleep Cloud is very much a reskin of Hypnotic Pattern even using the same shape. I'd like to use a cone but I can't find a size yet that seems equivilant to Hypnotic Pattern. The real difference between the two is Sleep Cloud is not a Concentration Spell. That makes it better than Hypnotic Pattern, but the balance is that Sleep is contested by the much more popular Constitution Saving throw. More monsters have good Constitution saving throws than any other in the game.
Similarly with Fire Breath. There are more monsters in the game that have fire immunity and resistance than any of the other energies a spell caster can bring to the table. Fireballs advantage is in it's volume of space that is impacted. Lightning Bolt has a lesser opposed number of monsters who have lightning resistance or immunity. It will be more effective against a wider range of creatures at the cost of affecting a lesser volume. I was trying to emulate a Brass Dragon's breath as a 3rd level spell and felt splitting the difference between the two created balance. 1,250 feet versus 900 keeps Fire Breath in second place and tactically the sphere is a better choice.
Fireball is still a clear winner but I appreciate the responses because now I want to check and see if Lightning Bolt's advantage in the Saving Throw arena is enough to justify the length of my Fire Breath. Practically, I think so but even with my DM's okay but backing it down to 60 x10 ft might be worth another look