hmmm. I am well versed in gishes (its all I play lol) but I have never tried to do a single class sorcerer Gish. I would say a draconic or storm sorcerer with a fighter dip would be ok. pick up heavy armour and martial weapons.
if you have SCAG I would probably just do a blade singer.
an arcana cleric could be a good choice. get magic initiate druid for shilleighly and whatever else, pick up GFB and BB as your wizard cantrips. you get your extra cantrip damage at 8th level.at level 9 assuming +5 wis you will be doing something like this (by RAW you add the damage to the regular and rider damage)
(shilleighly on quarterstaff) 2d8 + 5 + 5 and 1d8 + 5 + 5 to another person. throw in spiritual weapon as a lvl 4 slot and you get 2d8 + 5 averaging around 45 dpr which is ok. not great but ok. if you are me and throw in some paladin, the smites bump it up a lot higher
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“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
Kinda looking for a dex based draconic Meele sorc so no heavy armor, though, one or two levels in fighter later on could mean more weapon proficiency and second wind
well same deal then. dip fighter grab dueling and action surge (possibly battle master as well for maneuvers) use shadow blade as your weapon. use Green Flame Blade main attack. get the fire draconic effect for a damage buff, quicken for a pseudo extra attack. use shield, mirror image and absorb elements (works with the draconic riders and is pretty good for Melee) to up your defence. your gonna be a bit squishy, but holy heck having full casting makes up for it.
on a nova (action surge) at level 11 (2 fighter 9 sorcerer) assuming 18 char and 18 dex (5th level shadow blade)
14d8 + 16 and 4d8 + 22 to a different target. average of 166 damage which is absolutely amazing.
Sense it’s a AL character, I need to use a plus one and I’m using SCAG, so no shadow blade, sadly but I still feels like the damage output will still be insane
oooooor you could quicken a fireball then gfb then action surge quicken a fireball and gfb
If this is how action surge is ruled at your table, that is fine, but this is not how action surge or spellcasting is ruled RAW.
1) If you cast a bonus action spell, the only other spells you can cast with your action (including other actions gained from Action Surge) are cantrips. You might point out that your example has a second bonus action fireball, but...
2) Action Surge does not grant you an additional bonus action. It specifically states: "Starting at 2nd level, you can push yourself beyond your normal limits for a moment. On your turn, you can take one additional action." The wording about "any potential bonus actions" was removed in errata because of confused interpretations like you have presented.
In the old printing, Action Surge still did not grant additional bonus actions, but rather specifically called out that if you took an action with your second "action surge action" that would allow you to make a conditioned bonus action, that you may use that bonus action. It was included so that a fighter could do something like: doff their shield as an action, draw a second sword, action surge to attack and use their bonus action to make an attack with two weapon fighting. Or: use their action to fire a siege weapon (or lower a gate) and then attack and use two weapon fighting.
What COULD be done, if they had access to booming blade (as this is AL and they are using SCAG it doesnt apply to the author's character. EDIT: my bad, Booming Blade is SCAG, you can do this), would be to quicken Fireball, use their action to twin a booming blade, action surge, use the action to twin booming blade again. OR they could use action surge to cast Fireball twice.
GFB is not able to be twinned as it targets more than one creature innately.
oooooor you could quicken a fireball then gfb then action surge quicken a fireball and gfb
If this is how action surge is ruled at your table, that is fine, but this is not how action surge or spellcasting is ruled RAW.
1) If you cast a bonus action spell, the only other spells you can cast with your action (including other actions gained from Action Surge) are cantrips. You might point out that your example has a second bonus action fireball, but...
2) Action Surge does not grant you an additional bonus action. It specifically states: "Starting at 2nd level, you can push yourself beyond your normal limits for a moment. On your turn, you can take one additional action." The wording about "any potential bonus actions" was removed in errata because of confused interpretations like you have presented.
In the old printing, Action Surge still did not grant additional bonus actions, but rather specifically called out that if you took an action with your second "action surge action" that would allow you to make a conditioned bonus action, that you may use that bonus action. It was included so that a fighter could do something like: doff their shield as an action, draw a second sword, action surge to attack and use their bonus action to make an attack with two weapon fighting. Or: use their action to fire a siege weapon (or lower a gate) and then attack and use two weapon fighting.
What COULD be done, if they had access to booming blade (as this is AL and they are using SCAG it doesnt apply to the author's character. EDIT: my bad, Booming Blade is SCAG, you can do this), would be to quicken Fireball, use their action to twin a booming blade, action surge, use the action to twin booming blade again. OR they could use action surge to cast Fireball twice.
GFB is not able to be twinned as it targets more than one creature innately.
right this makes sense
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“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
I’ll just have to hope a party member when I’m at lvl 1 will have lightning lure or booming blade, the combos will be fun. Booming blade then lightning lure, repeat
Again, individual tables may have a ruling, but RAW Lightning Lure will not automatically detonate Booming Blade.
Forced movement (movement that does not use the creature's speed), such as being shoved or being yanked by Lightning Lure, does not satisfy the written description of Booming Blade, which specifically calls out if the target *willingly* moves.
That said, Lightning Lure can make it more likely that the target will use its movement because the place you reposition it in may not be useful to the creature.
At level one, neither of those cantrips have guaranteed additional damage. Before level 5, both cantrips only have their secondary effect. This means that the only extra damage from booming blade is the explosion and the only extra damage from GFB is the charisma damage on a second target. This makes both situational.
If you follow amgonnayeet's advice and take magic initiate as a variant human bonus feat, Hex WILL improve your damage, but hex is a concentration spell -- you will soon have more important things to concentrate on and you cannot replace a Magic Initiate spell choice. The number of attacks you can make against one target with booming blade or a melee weapon is generally stuck at 2 if you cannot concentrate on something like haste. Eldritch blast is a solid attack cantrip, and would allow you to make better use of hex as you level, but that is a ranged spell attack which doesnt fit with your melee concept.
What I would personally suggest would be to go variant human and take the Mobile feat. This will allow you to walk up, hit a target with booming blade, and then move away. This provides you with more defense and offense -- if they move to follow you they will trigger booming blade explosion, and if they don't then most low level enemies will not be able to hit you as the majority are melee oriented. Having more than 30ft speed can also come in handy for repositioning or running away -- a lot of low level monsters have 30ft speed, and the ones that dont generally have 40 (a couple, like wolves, have 50).
Be careful at low levels because your defenses and health are quite low. It might be wise to wait to change to melee until you have are level 3 and have access to more spells, but if you want to do the melee sorc from the start then I think mobile+booming blade is the best option. Shocking grasp is also an option if you do not want to be a vhuman, but if you are going to want to use booming blade then shocking grasp largely overlaps with shocking grasp.
I am already a variant human and I have the weapon master feat, so to get those I would have to get rid of my weapon proficiency or take that feat instead of an ASI
hmmm. I am well versed in gishes (its all I play lol) but I have never tried to do a single class sorcerer Gish. I would say a draconic or storm sorcerer with a fighter dip would be ok. pick up heavy armour and martial weapons.
if you have SCAG I would probably just do a blade singer.
an arcana cleric could be a good choice. get magic initiate druid for shilleighly and whatever else, pick up GFB and BB as your wizard cantrips. you get your extra cantrip damage at 8th level.at level 9 assuming +5 wis you will be doing something like this (by RAW you add the damage to the regular and rider damage)
(shilleighly on quarterstaff) 2d8 + 5 + 5 and 1d8 + 5 + 5 to another person. throw in spiritual weapon as a lvl 4 slot and you get 2d8 + 5 averaging around 45 dpr which is ok. not great but ok. if you are me and throw in some paladin, the smites bump it up a lot higher
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
Kinda looking for a dex based draconic Meele sorc so no heavy armor, though, one or two levels in fighter later on could mean more weapon proficiency and second wind
well same deal then. dip fighter grab dueling and action surge (possibly battle master as well for maneuvers) use shadow blade as your weapon. use Green Flame Blade main attack. get the fire draconic effect for a damage buff, quicken for a pseudo extra attack. use shield, mirror image and absorb elements (works with the draconic riders and is pretty good for Melee) to up your defence. your gonna be a bit squishy, but holy heck having full casting makes up for it.
on a nova (action surge) at level 11 (2 fighter 9 sorcerer) assuming 18 char and 18 dex (5th level shadow blade)
14d8 + 16 and 4d8 + 22 to a different target. average of 166 damage which is absolutely amazing.
go wild
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
Sense it’s a AL character, I need to use a plus one and I’m using SCAG, so no shadow blade, sadly but I still feels like the damage output will still be insane
aww. I forgot. yeah it will still be good
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
I mean you can always cast fireball
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
Only fireball, just fire ball. JUST.FIREBALL
Horde? fireball
BBEG? fireball
annoying PC? fireball
got a problem? fireball
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
Well I can cast fireball into a group of enemies and then go into with GFB and the damage will stack like the dead goblins
oooooor you could quicken a fireball then gfb then action surge quicken a fireball and gfb
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
If this is how action surge is ruled at your table, that is fine, but this is not how action surge or spellcasting is ruled RAW.
1) If you cast a bonus action spell, the only other spells you can cast with your action (including other actions gained from Action Surge) are cantrips. You might point out that your example has a second bonus action fireball, but...
2) Action Surge does not grant you an additional bonus action. It specifically states: "Starting at 2nd level, you can push yourself beyond your normal limits for a moment. On your turn, you can take one additional action." The wording about "any potential bonus actions" was removed in errata because of confused interpretations like you have presented.
In the old printing, Action Surge still did not grant additional bonus actions, but rather specifically called out that if you took an action with your second "action surge action" that would allow you to make a conditioned bonus action, that you may use that bonus action. It was included so that a fighter could do something like: doff their shield as an action, draw a second sword, action surge to attack and use their bonus action to make an attack with two weapon fighting. Or: use their action to fire a siege weapon (or lower a gate) and then attack and use two weapon fighting.
What COULD be done, if they had access to booming blade (as this is AL and they are using SCAG it doesnt apply to the author's character. EDIT: my bad, Booming Blade is SCAG, you can do this), would be to quicken Fireball, use their action to twin a booming blade, action surge, use the action to twin booming blade again. OR they could use action surge to cast Fireball twice.
GFB is not able to be twinned as it targets more than one creature innately.
right this makes sense
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
I’ll just have to hope a party member when I’m at lvl 1 will have lightning lure or booming blade, the combos will be fun. Booming blade then lightning lure, repeat
Again, individual tables may have a ruling, but RAW Lightning Lure will not automatically detonate Booming Blade.
Forced movement (movement that does not use the creature's speed), such as being shoved or being yanked by Lightning Lure, does not satisfy the written description of Booming Blade, which specifically calls out if the target *willingly* moves.
That said, Lightning Lure can make it more likely that the target will use its movement because the place you reposition it in may not be useful to the creature.
In combat at lvl one what should I do? Spam booming Blade or GFB
I would take Vhuman and get magic intitiate warlock. pick up hex and Eldritch blast. hex should increase your dpr
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
At level one, neither of those cantrips have guaranteed additional damage. Before level 5, both cantrips only have their secondary effect. This means that the only extra damage from booming blade is the explosion and the only extra damage from GFB is the charisma damage on a second target. This makes both situational.
If you follow amgonnayeet's advice and take magic initiate as a variant human bonus feat, Hex WILL improve your damage, but hex is a concentration spell -- you will soon have more important things to concentrate on and you cannot replace a Magic Initiate spell choice. The number of attacks you can make against one target with booming blade or a melee weapon is generally stuck at 2 if you cannot concentrate on something like haste. Eldritch blast is a solid attack cantrip, and would allow you to make better use of hex as you level, but that is a ranged spell attack which doesnt fit with your melee concept.
What I would personally suggest would be to go variant human and take the Mobile feat. This will allow you to walk up, hit a target with booming blade, and then move away. This provides you with more defense and offense -- if they move to follow you they will trigger booming blade explosion, and if they don't then most low level enemies will not be able to hit you as the majority are melee oriented. Having more than 30ft speed can also come in handy for repositioning or running away -- a lot of low level monsters have 30ft speed, and the ones that dont generally have 40 (a couple, like wolves, have 50).
Be careful at low levels because your defenses and health are quite low. It might be wise to wait to change to melee until you have are level 3 and have access to more spells, but if you want to do the melee sorc from the start then I think mobile+booming blade is the best option. Shocking grasp is also an option if you do not want to be a vhuman, but if you are going to want to use booming blade then shocking grasp largely overlaps with shocking grasp.
I am already a variant human and I have the weapon master feat, so to get those I would have to get rid of my weapon proficiency or take that feat instead of an ASI
I take mobile at 4th level though
So at 4th level I will either bump dex, or get mobile or tough feat