My impressions on adding expanded spell lists to older sorcerer subclasses.

*I'm going to post this in the DM’s only forum and the Sorcerers forum.

 

My play-test group decided to try adding expanded spell lists to the Draconic and Shadow sorcerers.

The group consisted of 6 player and a DM, all players have been playing dnd since at least the mid 2000’s.

The other characters: Fallen Aasimar Vengeance Paladin, a Dhampir arcane trickster rogue, a mountain dwarf battle master fighter, half-elf circle of the moon druid and a Goliath zealot barbarian. So its a pretty well rounded party over all.

We played 3 one shots, one for 3rd level characters, one for 6th level character and one for 10th level characters.

We played through the one shots with the 6th character being an aberrant mind sorcerer and vanilla draconic and shadow sorcerers.

Also note that we homebrew sorcerers as to not require any material spell components unless they are consumable or cost over 100gp.

 

Round 1

The draconic sorcerer was built primarily as a striker and the shadow sorcerer was built for utility and support.

The impressions were just about as anyone would expect, the aberrant mind outpaced the other 2 in social situations, combat utility and exploration and at the end tied the draconic in sheer damage output overall. The damage output of the aberrant mind ramped up through the one shots. At lower levels the aberrant mind could not keep up in damage output but made up for this in its utility. The aberrant minds ability to do that was tired directly to its expended spell list. Aberrant minds psionic sorcerer feature at level 6 is by far its greatest boon. Using sorcery points to one for one per level of spell is VERY powerful, especially when looking at the possible spells that can be traded out. The older sorcerer subclasses were by no means bad or couldn’t keep up with the rest of the party wishing their built roles however.

 

Round 2

We added expanded spell lists to the draconic and shadow sorcerers at this point. Now we didn’t do swapping in game of course so the we picked the spells within the schools that seemed most thematic to each front he get-go and played them out across all 3 one-shots

The lists we added were:

 

Draconic: abjuration and evocation

chromatic orb, shield

Gust of wind, levitate

fear, fly

elemental bane, freedom of movement

arcane hand, control winds

Shadow: illusion and necromancy

False life, inflict wounds

Pass without a trace, shadow blade

Animate dead, summon shadowspawn

Blight, shadow of moil

Negative energy flood, seeming

Some spells outside of the schools chosen but that were used as they were thematic to the subclass.

After all 3 one shots the general impressions were that with the expanded spell lists the older sorcerer subclasses were able to meet and actually exceed the aberrant mind. In the built areas, striker for draconic and utility for shadow, the subclasses actually exceeded the abilities of the aberrant mind and equaled it in other areas.

Overall the reason for this seems to be that the aberrant mind is definitely a power creep over the older subclasses but not by the leaps and bounds some are saying.

 

Round 3

 

We reduced the number of expanded spells for the older subclasses from 2 per spell level to 1 per spell level.

Draconic:

chromatic orb

gust of wind

fear

banishment

arcane hand

Shadow:

false life

pass without a trace

summon shadowspawn

shadow of moil

negative energy flood

We stuck mostly with spells that were available in the previous round.

This time around things where much more balanced within the rolls chosen for each type of sorcerer. The aberrant mind still would come ahead in social interactions, the area it really seems built for. The draconic sorcerer still access in combat and damage dealing but has some ability for utility and support. The shadow sorcerer by comparison has some better combat abilities but pulls ahead of the others in utility and support actions.

Overall the older subclasses are better balanced than I think people give them credit for, they are specialists not universalists, we all know this. The issue is that aberrant mind allowed for more of a feeling of being closes to a universalist, at least allowing it to better touch other aspects of beyond the role they are really built for. The overall class abilities of the older sorcerer are very good in within their roles, an extra hp for draconic sorcerer and basically permanent mage armor, added damage for their elemental type, etc makes them great in combat. Shadow sorcerer extra darkness spell, darkvision, strength of the grave, hound of ill omen, etc all are great and thematic in their purposes so adding too many extra spells makes them to universalistic and stepping not the toes of the wizard. There are a couple overall solutions to keep the power creep down and maintain the niche of the sorcerer: First, don’t all the Tasha’s sorcerer subclasses and play the older subclasses vanilla, the older sorcerer are great in their role as specialists with the spells added in Tasha’s to the overall spell list. Second, you can do as so many have been and add extended spell lists to the older subclasses to add a bit more versatility but not so much that sorcerers lose their feeling of specialization. If you do add extended spell lists I do recommend adding 1 spell per spell level not 2.