I wanted to try to make a subclass for personal use, so I decided to remake the Storm Sorcerer into more of a elusive battlefield controller than in and out of melee blaster. Because this is my first time making homebrew, I'm looking for some help and suggestions for balancing and making features more intuitive/better (not necessarily stronger). I've taken inspiration from the base subclass and a few other reworks I've found online.
Weather sorcery
Level 1 Storm Spells
You learn additional spells when you reach certain levels in this class, as shown on the Storm Spells table. Each of these spells counts as a sorcerer spell for you, but it doesn't count against the number of sorcerer spells you know.
Whenever you gain a sorcerer level, you can replace one spell you gained from this feature with another spell of the same level. The new spell must be an evocation or conjuration spell from the sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell list.
Sorcerer Level ----- Spells
1st ----- Fog Cloud, Thunderwave, Gust
3rd ----- Gust of Wind, Warding Wind
5th ----- Call Lightning, Sleet Storm
7th ----- Storm Sphere, Control Water
9th ----- Control Winds, Maelstrom
15th ---- Control Weather
Additionally, the following spells are count as sorcerer spells for you, and can be taken when reaching the appropriate level as any other sorcerer spell: Wall of Ice (6th), Whirlwind (7th), Tsunami (8th), Storm of Vengeance (9th).
- I added the 15th level access to control weather because it felt like a spell that the subclass should have, yet I'm not sure if granting an extra 8th level spell known is too much, when you would normally only get about 1.
- The four spells added to the sorcerer spell list were ones that felt thematically appropriate, and their access doesn’t seem to step on the toes of other classes.
Wind Speaker The arcane magic you command is infused with elemental air. You can speak, read, and write Primordial. Knowing this language allows you to understand and be understood by those who speak its dialects: Aquan, Auran, Ignan, and Terran.
Tempestuous Magic V2 You can cause whirling gusts of elemental air to briefly surround you, immediately before or after you cast a spell of 1st level or higher. Doing so allows you to fly a distance equal to twice your proficiency bonus in feet, without provoking opportunity attacks. At 5th level, a cantrip can also trigger this ability, but the movement is limited to 10ft.
- This ability was unique and had potential in the initial build but seemed just a bit weak. It no longer has a bonus action cost, letting it work better with quicken and other bonus actions (subclass has a few new ones), and scales with level, somewhat similar to the monk’s extra speed. The cantrip movement lets it be used in utility situations when using a spell slot would be costly or annoying, but restricted to slightly higher to keep it weaker.
Level 6
Outdoors Person
You gain resistance to lightning and thunder damage, and are not as adversely affected by severe weather conditions, detailed in the following:
You have learned to feel patterns in air currents around you letting you see in even the most blinding storms. You have blindsight out to 10 ft.
Extreme Heat and Cold cannot cause you to take levels of exhaustion, and you can remain normally clothed.
Strong Winds or Precipitation do not impose disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks.
You are not forced to land due to strong wind, and it does not hinder your movement.
Snow and ice do not cause difficult terrain for you.
(See P.110 of the DMG for information on extreme weather conditions.)
Eye of the storm
At 6th level, you gain the ability to subtly control the weather around you. (Many sections refer to weather stages as seen in the spell Control Weather from P.228 of the PHB)
You can use your bonus action to control the weather in the area around you, in the following ways:
You can control the level of precipitation a 20ft radius sphere centered on you, changing it to stage 1,2,3, or 4. You can end this effect as a bonus action, after which the precipitation level returns to the environmental norm.
You can change the direction of the wind and speed stage of the wind by 1 from the environmental current within up to a 100ft sphere. This effect lasts for 1 minute, after which the speed and direction return to normal.
You can cause the temperature within 10ft of you to be 1 stage warmer or colder.
You may spend 2 sorcery points with the bonus action to be able to access Stage 5 of precipitation, and the ability to change the speed of the wind through all stages.
If another magical effect is attempting to controlling these aspects, such as a an opposing Gust of Wind or Control Weather Spell, a spellcasting ability contest will determine which magic takes effect, or stays in effect.
-These two abilities were the main thing I felt was missing from the original storm sorcerer, proper weather control.
- I haven’t seen much weather in games I’ve been in, so I’m not sure how powerful this is. Perhaps a more limited, but faster version of control weather would be better.
Level 14
Wind Walk
You gain a flying speed equal to double your base speed, and you can hover.
Level 18
Fury of the Storm
You gain immunity to lightning and thunder damage.
As a bonus action, you can cause the following benefits to be applied to a number of creatures equal to 1+your Charisma modifier for 1 minute:
The benefits from your Outdoors Person Feature
A flying speed of 30ft.
All damage dealt deals an extra 2 dice of lightning damage. The size of the dice is determined by whatever action, bonus action, or reaction caused the initial damage to be dealt.
In addition, your control weather feature can access all stages of weather for wind, temperature and precipitation, changing the conditions at either the beginning or end of your turn, once per turn, requiring no action. All radii are increased by 30ft.
Once you use this bonus action, you cannot do so again until you complete a long rest or spend 7 sorcery points.
-This was somewhat inspired by the paladin abilities at 18th level, and the bursts of Clockwork and Aberrant sorcerers.
- No idea if it’s balanced, other ideas included an electricity and paralysis burst, or a personal supercharge ability, perhaps add in a reduction to enemy defenses against lightning damage?
Another global question I had was whether to still include the damage resistances and immunities. Options I thought of were:
None
Resistance to 2/3 of lightning, cold and thunder, and immunity later, perhaps with the ability to change when you gain a level.
Resistance to all 3 listed above, but immunity to none
Whenever you gain a sorcerer level, you can replace one spell you gained from this feature with another spell of the same level. The new spell must be an evocation or conjuration spell from the sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell list.
I would get rid of these clause in the storm spells, because it just means people will swap out the thematic storm spells and replace them with more powerful but more boring ordinary sorcerer spells.
For bonus spells, you should stick to 2 per spell level from 1st-5th to be consistent with all the other classes that get bonus spells. If you want to give access to Control Weather make it part of a class feature - I'd also recommend allowing them to shift the weather much faster than is allowed by the baseline Control Weather spell so it is more viable to use. You might even want to give them a free casting 1/day or 1/week because otherwise it is such a niche spell and such an expensive spell they would probably never cast it.
I'd also swap Control Water for Ice Storm or something more thematic. Control Water is more of a hydromancer / druid-y type spell it doesn't really have anything to do with weather or storms.
Doing so allows you to fly a distance equal to twice your proficiency bonus in feet, without provoking opportunity attacks. At 5th level, a cantrip can also trigger this ability, but the movement is limited to 10ft.
Sorry I'm confused by this, at 5th level your proficiency bonus is 3, 2x prof bonus feet is only 6 ft, whereas the cantrip allows you to move 10 ft? In general, you should always make movement be in units of 5ft. Allowing cantrips to trigger it at a higher level is a good improvement though, same with getting rid of the BA cost, but removing the BA cost means it now might have a weird interaction with spells that are cast as a reaction -> e.g. if I cast Shield and use this ability to fly away, does the triggering attack still hit me? You might want to specify casting a spell with an Action or Bonus action to avoid this complication.
Outdoors Person
You gain resistance to lightning and thunder damage, and are not as adversely affected by severe weather conditions, detailed in the following:
You have learned to feel patterns in air currents around you letting you see in even the most blinding storms. You have blindsight out to 10 ft.
Extreme Heat and Cold cannot cause you to take levels of exhaustion, and you can remain normally clothed.
Strong Winds or Precipitation do not impose disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks.
You are not forced to land due to strong wind, and it does not hinder your movement.
Snow and ice do not cause difficult terrain for you.
This is a neat idea but poorly implemented. A player should never need to refer to the GM Guide to understand how their class works, so I think this needs simplification. I also don't understand why storm magic would make you immune to heat in a desert. Something like:
You have learned to feel patterns in air currents around you letting you see in even the most blinding storms. You have blindsight out to 10 ft.
You are immune to exhaustion and difficult terrain caused by wind, rain, snow, or other non-magical precipitation.
Eye of the storm
At 6th level, you gain the ability to subtly control the weather around you. (Many sections refer to weather stages as seen in the spell Control Weather from P.228 of the PHB) You can use your bonus action to control the weather in the area around you, in the following ways:
You can control the level of precipitation a 20ft radius sphere centered on you, changing it to stage 1,2,3, or 4. You can end this effect as a bonus action, after which the precipitation level returns to the environmental norm.
You can change the direction of the wind and speed stage of the wind by 1 from the environmental current within up to a 100ft sphere. This effect lasts for 1 minute, after which the speed and direction return to normal.
You can cause the temperature within 10ft of you to be 1 stage warmer or colder.
You may spend 2 sorcery points with the bonus action to be able to access Stage 5 of precipitation, and the ability to change the speed of the wind through all stages.
If another magical effect is attempting to controlling these aspects, such as a an opposing Gust of Wind or Control Weather Spell, a spellcasting ability contest will determine which magic takes effect, or stays in effect.
While this is very thematic, it's pretty problematic in games. A lot of the time, campaigns take place in locations where there isn't any weather - inside forts, mines, houses, temples, dungeons, or tunnels or weird planes like the Plane of Fire, or inside ships, or inside volcanos etc.. etc... - It's also really complicated and in many times doesn't really make a difference, one stage difference in wind speed doesn't really affect 99% of what people & characters are doing, same for temperature, making it a little nippy just means the bandits put on a coat.
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I wanted to try to make a subclass for personal use, so I decided to remake the Storm Sorcerer into more of a elusive battlefield controller than in and out of melee blaster. Because this is my first time making homebrew, I'm looking for some help and suggestions for balancing and making features more intuitive/better (not necessarily stronger). I've taken inspiration from the base subclass and a few other reworks I've found online.
Weather sorcery
Level 1
Storm Spells
You learn additional spells when you reach certain levels in this class, as shown on the Storm Spells table. Each of these spells counts as a sorcerer spell for you, but it doesn't count against the number of sorcerer spells you know.
Whenever you gain a sorcerer level, you can replace one spell you gained from this feature with another spell of the same level. The new spell must be an evocation or conjuration spell from the sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell list.
Sorcerer Level ----- Spells
1st ----- Fog Cloud, Thunderwave, Gust
3rd ----- Gust of Wind, Warding Wind
5th ----- Call Lightning, Sleet Storm
7th ----- Storm Sphere, Control Water
9th ----- Control Winds, Maelstrom
15th ---- Control Weather
Additionally, the following spells are count as sorcerer spells for you, and can be taken when reaching the appropriate level as any other sorcerer spell:
Wall of Ice (6th), Whirlwind (7th), Tsunami (8th), Storm of Vengeance (9th).
- I added the 15th level access to control weather because it felt like a spell that the subclass should have, yet I'm not sure if granting an extra 8th level spell known is too much, when you would normally only get about 1.
- The four spells added to the sorcerer spell list were ones that felt thematically appropriate, and their access doesn’t seem to step on the toes of other classes.
Wind Speaker
The arcane magic you command is infused with elemental air. You can speak, read, and write Primordial. Knowing this language allows you to understand and be understood by those who speak its dialects: Aquan, Auran, Ignan, and Terran.
Tempestuous Magic V2
You can cause whirling gusts of elemental air to briefly surround you, immediately before or after you cast a spell of 1st level or higher. Doing so allows you to fly a distance equal to twice your proficiency bonus in feet, without provoking opportunity attacks. At 5th level, a cantrip can also trigger this ability, but the movement is limited to 10ft.
- This ability was unique and had potential in the initial build but seemed just a bit weak. It no longer has a bonus action cost, letting it work better with quicken and other bonus actions (subclass has a few new ones), and scales with level, somewhat similar to the monk’s extra speed. The cantrip movement lets it be used in utility situations when using a spell slot would be costly or annoying, but restricted to slightly higher to keep it weaker.
Level 6
Outdoors Person
You gain resistance to lightning and thunder damage, and are not as adversely affected by severe weather conditions, detailed in the following:
(See P.110 of the DMG for information on extreme weather conditions.)
Eye of the storm
At 6th level, you gain the ability to subtly control the weather around you. (Many sections refer to weather stages as seen in the spell Control Weather from P.228 of the PHB)
You can use your bonus action to control the weather in the area around you, in the following ways:
You may spend 2 sorcery points with the bonus action to be able to access Stage 5 of precipitation, and the ability to change the speed of the wind through all stages.
If another magical effect is attempting to controlling these aspects, such as a an opposing Gust of Wind or Control Weather Spell, a spellcasting ability contest will determine which magic takes effect, or stays in effect.
-These two abilities were the main thing I felt was missing from the original storm sorcerer, proper weather control.
- I haven’t seen much weather in games I’ve been in, so I’m not sure how powerful this is. Perhaps a more limited, but faster version of control weather would be better.
Level 14
Wind Walk
You gain a flying speed equal to double your base speed, and you can hover.
Level 18
Fury of the Storm
You gain immunity to lightning and thunder damage.
As a bonus action, you can cause the following benefits to be applied to a number of creatures equal to 1+your Charisma modifier for 1 minute:
In addition, your control weather feature can access all stages of weather for wind, temperature and precipitation, changing the conditions at either the beginning or end of your turn, once per turn, requiring no action. All radii are increased by 30ft.
Once you use this bonus action, you cannot do so again until you complete a long rest or spend 7 sorcery points.
-This was somewhat inspired by the paladin abilities at 18th level, and the bursts of Clockwork and Aberrant sorcerers.
- No idea if it’s balanced, other ideas included an electricity and paralysis burst, or a personal supercharge ability, perhaps add in a reduction to enemy defenses against lightning damage?
Another global question I had was whether to still include the damage resistances and immunities. Options I thought of were:
Thank you for any feedback, it all helps!
I would get rid of these clause in the storm spells, because it just means people will swap out the thematic storm spells and replace them with more powerful but more boring ordinary sorcerer spells.
For bonus spells, you should stick to 2 per spell level from 1st-5th to be consistent with all the other classes that get bonus spells. If you want to give access to Control Weather make it part of a class feature - I'd also recommend allowing them to shift the weather much faster than is allowed by the baseline Control Weather spell so it is more viable to use. You might even want to give them a free casting 1/day or 1/week because otherwise it is such a niche spell and such an expensive spell they would probably never cast it.
I'd also swap Control Water for Ice Storm or something more thematic. Control Water is more of a hydromancer / druid-y type spell it doesn't really have anything to do with weather or storms.
Sorry I'm confused by this, at 5th level your proficiency bonus is 3, 2x prof bonus feet is only 6 ft, whereas the cantrip allows you to move 10 ft? In general, you should always make movement be in units of 5ft. Allowing cantrips to trigger it at a higher level is a good improvement though, same with getting rid of the BA cost, but removing the BA cost means it now might have a weird interaction with spells that are cast as a reaction -> e.g. if I cast Shield and use this ability to fly away, does the triggering attack still hit me? You might want to specify casting a spell with an Action or Bonus action to avoid this complication.
This is a neat idea but poorly implemented. A player should never need to refer to the GM Guide to understand how their class works, so I think this needs simplification. I also don't understand why storm magic would make you immune to heat in a desert. Something like:
While this is very thematic, it's pretty problematic in games. A lot of the time, campaigns take place in locations where there isn't any weather - inside forts, mines, houses, temples, dungeons, or tunnels or weird planes like the Plane of Fire, or inside ships, or inside volcanos etc.. etc... - It's also really complicated and in many times doesn't really make a difference, one stage difference in wind speed doesn't really affect 99% of what people & characters are doing, same for temperature, making it a little nippy just means the bandits put on a coat.