Doesn’t matter that you don’t consider picking something and thus giving up other possibilties a sacrifice. It is. You have sacrificed the other possibilites. So multiclassing gives you more spell slots but you lose out on higher level spells and features. That’s a sacrifice as well, no matter how you consider it. I’m not against a Gish Sorcerer. I’m just telling you that you are never going to get one that has smites or a smite like feature because it will simply be far better at it than half casters. They just did a ton of work trying to rebalance the game, why would they throw it away to make a Sorcerer that can just smite better than a Paladin, still has all of its feat choices, and has its full spell progression because it didn’t have to multi class. Oh and let’s not forget that any smite spell that has a saving throw you would likely have a higher DC as a sorcerer. This becomes especially egregious if this gish subclass uses Cha for weapon attacks and damage which is a staple of gish subclasses now a days.
With 6 Paladin/14 Sorcerer you get spellslots up to lvl 9. in fact you have the amount of spell slots like a lvl 17 sorcerer. Yes, less than a lvl 20, but you can not ignore, that a loss somewhere is also a gain somewhere else, no matter what you consider it to be. You mentioned it yourself, Aura of Protection, Extra Attack… And yes, now we have a de facto paladin and sorcerer, who can do smites up to lvl 9. Or you could also sacrifice that 9th level spell slot for a dip in Warlock and Pact of the Blade. There is your SAD Paladin with lvl 8 smites and using CHA for attacks.
And for the record, I never said that a GISH sorcer HAS TO HAVE smites. It was an option. And Wrathful at least is obtainable already.
On a side note, when the new FR campaign setting will be released it will most likely contain the Bladesinger. Than we‘ve got a INT SAD GISH with CME and whatever on top, which might compete with the Valour Bard in that department. Yes, CME is not a smite, but damage-wise especially when upcast it is more than close.
A wizard subclass that competes with a bard subclass is fine. A Sorcerer subclass that would out smite the Paladin class is bad. It would get its smites earlier and they would be stronger. You example of a Paladin/Sorcerers multiclasss is what players should do if they want to smite as a Sorcerer. It is not justification to give a Sorcerer subclass smites. If we get a Sorcerer Subclass that is similar to Bladesinger and Valor Bard that would be fine. That is literally what you said you didn’t want.
A gish Sorcerer Subclass should have a more creative way to improve martial prowess than extra attack at lvl 6. It should be heavily related to his lore and flavour.
smite like attacks would be a good option. A different way to add another weapon attack would be nessesary too. Maybe some kind of Deja Vu attack for a Time Sorcerer. Create illusion which make weapon attacks for an Illusion Sorcery... Idk. Stuff like that.
When you cast Flame Blade you can cast it with a spell slot as normal or cast it with Sorcery points by expending a number equal to the level at which you want to cast the spell. You may only expend Sorcery points up to a number equal to half your level rounded up. When you use Sorcery Points to cast Flame Blade its duration is 1 minute and it has the following benefits.
You may choose the damage type: Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, Necrotic, Poison, or Radiant
You may use the blade as a focus.
The blade counts as a weapon worth 10 gp for your Sorcerer spells that require a material component.
3rd Warrior’s Blood
When you complete a short or long rest you can roll a number of d6 equal to your sorcerer level and gain temporary hit points equal to the result. Additionally when you cast Arcane Vigor you gain a number of temporary hit points equal to the hit points restored by the spell.
6th Swift Blade
When you use a Magic Action to attack with Flame Blade you may make a second attack with the Blade as part of the same Action. If you hit with this second attack you only roll half the damage die rounded down.
14th Arcane Shields
When you cast Shield you gain 1d4+5 to your AC and if you are hit before the start of your next turn you regain the spell slot. Additionally when you cast Fire Shield you can choose the resistance and damage type separately, and can choose from Acid,Cold, Fire, Lightning, Necrotic, Poison, Radiant, or Thunder.
18th Arcane Blade Master
Anytime you hit with Flame Blade you can choose the damage type and you can choose any damage type. Additionally, once on your turn when you hit with Flame Blade you may use your bonus action to expend a spell slot and add 1d6+1d6 per spell slot level additional damage of the same type as Flame Blade.
I am not interested in another "Bladesinger, but for Sorcerer" gish. It just feels like you're duct-taping a weapon attack option onto a caster.wer of a spell into a melee attack. Maybe even just a way to upgrade the existing melee cantrips with spell slots.
Now about your Arcane Warrior subclass. Why can‘t Thunder be chosen for the Flame Blade, but Radiant? Radiant btw. outclasses the damage types regarding reliability, as it is mostly resisted by creatures you will find the least as adversaries. That‘s like the Transmuters ‚Philosopher Stone‘ (or however it was called) and the bonus to CON saves outclassing all other options. If one choice is clearly better than the others, there is no choice.
Since you set no limit on the sorcery points able to spent on an FB per level. a sorcerer of lower level can simply sacrifice spell slots to acquire a 9th level 10d6 (radiant) flame blade via sorcery points. No problem at Tier 2 already.
Your level 18 feature basically is a 2014 smite. Yes, it‘s d6s instead of d8s, but much like the Eldritch Smite it comes without the need to spend a bonus action. And the Warlock has a limited amount of spell slots on top, compared to the Sorcerer. Plus now you have a Flame Blade, which might have been upcast already to 10d6+Cha damage per hit, and you throw your 9th lvl spell slot to add another 10d6 damage to a hit. That‘s 20d6, another 19d6+Cha/2 on the second hit (all radiant), and with the bonus action still available to cast a quickened chromatic orb.
How does this not outshine a Paladin?
Further, why not „Warrior Sorcery“ or similar, as every subclass now is called something with ‚Sorcery‘, like every subclass in 2014 was containing the word „bloodline“.
Scatter wrote his post and then you replied, “ I do very much agree.” I don’t see a reason why I need to copy paste or quote previously stated things. You either very much agree with scatter or you don’t. I really don’t care either way. As for the Arcane Warrior the Arcane Blade feature does state you can only expend Sorcery points up to half your level rounded up. So you couldn’t just cast Flame Blade at a higher level. The highest level a full sorcerer could cast it at. Would be the same as their highest level spell slot. The typo is it’s supposed to read half your level in this class. So as I wrote it you could be a level 9 sorcerer/8 non caster or half caster and still be able to use sorcery points to cast level 9 flame blade. This is a mistake and is fixed by adding “in this class” or “half your sorcerer leve; rounded up.”
Why no thunder, because I think a fire that does thunder damage is stupid. No other reason. I almost left poison off the list also. As far as damage types being better than others it’s objectively false. They don’t matter. Damage type is mostly flavor unless you are playing in prewritten adventures. All that matters is can you do full damage or is it resisted. Occasionally something is vulnerable, but the DM decides all of this. Honestly the way 2024 is written I could have just said you can make force damage and been done with it.
My 18th level ability is just smite, but it offers nothing but more dice rolls at a lower sized dice. You don’t get it til the Paladin has gotten to play with all of their different kind of smites. Also you have to use your bonus action to use this feature just like smite spells so it’s limited to once on your turn. That also means you aren’t using your bonus action to quicken a spell, which in many cases would be the objectively better option. Also you missed that the second attack only allows you to roll half the damage dice. So if your first attack is 10d6+5, your second would only be 5d6+5.
This was made as an example that is not like a bladesinger, but doesn’t poop all over the Paladin or other Martial classes. It’s a melee subclass, but isn’t a Gish. It’s uses the sorcerer resources to stay in melee. It relies on mage armor and shield to remain in the frontline. The flaws I see looking at it now is that I missed noting it should be sorcerer level for Arcane blade. It probably needs wording to stop it from multiclassing to get heavy armor and a shield. Maybe capping the capstone to only 5th level or lower spell slots. Considering I made this up in an hour while half sleep I’m shocked it’s not worse.
Scatter wrote his post and then you replied, “ I do very much agree.” I don’t see a reason why I need to copy paste or quote previously stated things. You either very much agree with scatter or you don’t. I really don’t care either way. As for the Arcane Warrior the Arcane Blade feature does state you can only expend Sorcery points up to half your level rounded up. So you couldn’t just cast Flame Blade at a higher level. The highest level a full sorcerer could cast it at. Would be the same as their highest level spell slot. The typo is it’s supposed to read half your level in this class. So as I wrote it you could be a level 9 sorcerer/8 non caster or half caster and still be able to use sorcery points to cast level 9 flame blade. This is a mistake and is fixed by adding “in this class” or “half your sorcerer leve; rounded up.”
Why no thunder, because I think a fire that does thunder damage is stupid. No other reason. I almost left poison off the list also. As far as damage types being better than others it’s objectively false. They don’t matter. Damage type is mostly flavor unless you are playing in prewritten adventures. All that matters is can you do full damage or is it resisted. Occasionally something is vulnerable, but the DM decides all of this. Honestly the way 2024 is written I could have just said you can make force damage and been done with it.
My 18th level ability is just smite, but it offers nothing but more dice rolls at a lower sized dice. You don’t get it til the Paladin has gotten to play with all of their different kind of smites. Also you have to use your bonus action to use this feature just like smite spells so it’s limited to once on your turn. That also means you aren’t using your bonus action to quicken a spell, which in many cases would be the objectively better option. Also you missed that the second attack only allows you to roll half the damage dice. So if your first attack is 10d6+5, your second would only be 5d6+5.
This was made as an example that is not like a bladesinger, but doesn’t poop all over the Paladin or other Martial classes. It’s a melee subclass, but isn’t a Gish. It’s uses the sorcerer resources to stay in melee. It relies on mage armor and shield to remain in the frontline. The flaws I see looking at it now is that I missed noting it should be sorcerer level for Arcane blade. It probably needs wording to stop it from multiclassing to get heavy armor and a shield. Maybe capping the capstone to only 5th level or lower spell slots. Considering I made this up in an hour while half sleep I’m shocked it’s not worse.
For clarification, I agree that a solution other than a Valour Bard/Bladesinger copy would be very welcome. Neither did I say „It has to be“, nor did I say „I insist on a sorcerer Gish getting smites. I said, I don‘t see a reason why this option is not viable, especially if it‘s only one, or two smite spells, and not the whole arsenal, and of course not the signature spell, Divine Smite. But Thunderous Smite, why not? Hey, Clerics now got some Paladin spells like Aura of Vitality. Does this also count as „pooping all over the paladin“?
Uhuh, fire that does thunder damage is stupid. But fire that does cold/lightning/poison/necrotic damage is fine? Please expand.
Regarding the second attack, I wrote 19d6+CHA/2. ‚/2‘ means ‚divided by 2‘.
Other than that this is a pretty boring subclass, mechanical-wise. No synergies. Just some beefed up spells.
Scatter wrote his post and then you replied, “ I do very much agree.” I don’t see a reason why I need to copy paste or quote previously stated things. You either very much agree with scatter or you don’t. I really don’t care either way. As for the Arcane Warrior the Arcane Blade feature does state you can only expend Sorcery points up to half your level rounded up. So you couldn’t just cast Flame Blade at a higher level. The highest level a full sorcerer could cast it at. Would be the same as their highest level spell slot. The typo is it’s supposed to read half your level in this class. So as I wrote it you could be a level 9 sorcerer/8 non caster or half caster and still be able to use sorcery points to cast level 9 flame blade. This is a mistake and is fixed by adding “in this class” or “half your sorcerer leve; rounded up.”
Why no thunder, because I think a fire that does thunder damage is stupid. No other reason. I almost left poison off the list also. As far as damage types being better than others it’s objectively false. They don’t matter. Damage type is mostly flavor unless you are playing in prewritten adventures. All that matters is can you do full damage or is it resisted. Occasionally something is vulnerable, but the DM decides all of this. Honestly the way 2024 is written I could have just said you can make force damage and been done with it.
My 18th level ability is just smite, but it offers nothing but more dice rolls at a lower sized dice. You don’t get it til the Paladin has gotten to play with all of their different kind of smites. Also you have to use your bonus action to use this feature just like smite spells so it’s limited to once on your turn. That also means you aren’t using your bonus action to quicken a spell, which in many cases would be the objectively better option. Also you missed that the second attack only allows you to roll half the damage dice. So if your first attack is 10d6+5, your second would only be 5d6+5.
This was made as an example that is not like a bladesinger, but doesn’t poop all over the Paladin or other Martial classes. It’s a melee subclass, but isn’t a Gish. It’s uses the sorcerer resources to stay in melee. It relies on mage armor and shield to remain in the frontline. The flaws I see looking at it now is that I missed noting it should be sorcerer level for Arcane blade. It probably needs wording to stop it from multiclassing to get heavy armor and a shield. Maybe capping the capstone to only 5th level or lower spell slots. Considering I made this up in an hour while half sleep I’m shocked it’s not worse.
Uhuh, fire that does thunder damage is stupid. But fire that does cold/lightning/poison/necrotic damage is fine? Please expand.
Well thunder is based on sound, while the others are more open to interpretation - fire that’s actually freezing cold could make sense, fire could realistically be poisonous if the gas for the fire was poisonous, necrotic and lightning make less sense but still could be interpreted as some sort of death fuelled fire or an electric fire
What color is sound. For all the others I can imagine something that looks like fire but isn’t dealing the damage.
Your math is just wrong. Where is the 19d6 coming from? It’s 5d6+Cha max on that second attack. Unless you use one of the synergies you claim this subclass lacks.
This subclass has one of the best synergies a spellcaster could have. It takes a concentration spell and makes that spell not require concentration. If you are saying you don’t see any game breaking combos that makes me happy. I avoid designing game breakers. The point was to make a melee focused Sorcerer that didn’t look Valor or bladesinger. I did it in less than a hour, with only few blatant flaws. Whether or not it’s boring or fun is up to the individual.
Well thunder is based on sound, while the others are more open to interpretation - fire that’s actually freezing cold could make sense, fire could realistically be poisonous if the gas for the fire was poisonous, necrotic and lightning make less sense but still could be interpreted as some sort of death fuelled fire or an electric fire
Thunder is based on…lightning. Too bad WotC got rid of the term Sonic damage after 3rd Ed.
What color is sound. For all the others I can imagine something that looks like fire but isn’t dealing the damage.
Your math is just wrong. Where is the 19d6 coming from? It’s 5d6+Cha max on that second attack. Unless you use one of the synergies you claim this subclass lacks.
This subclass has one of the best synergies a spellcaster could have. It takes a concentration spell and makes that spell not require concentration. If you are saying you don’t see any game breaking combos that makes me happy. I avoid designing game breakers. The point was to make a melee focused Sorcerer that didn’t look Valor or bladesinger. I did it in less than a hour, with only few blatant flaws. Whether or not it’s boring or fun is up to the individual.
What colour is poison? Green? Seriously? Let‘s play by that logic though, why is Green Flame Blade not poisonous then? Flames can also be blue. Why no blue flame blade then? What colour is radiant? White? Could also be yellow, when you look at some video games. Why does that actually matter?
A Thunder Blade could look like a colourless, vibrating blur,, which emits sonic, aka thunder damage upon impact.
Please expand what synergies those subclass abilities have towards each other. And this is not about power level. This is about mechanics.
It could look like anything, but I took an hour to write up a subclass, so it works on whatever logic I choose. Real fire can be any color depending on what is burning and temperature. A magical poisonous mist that looks like fire could be green, orange, or any color you can imagine. A magical frost that looks like fire would be white or blue. A magical sound that has no color is hard for me to imagine it looks like fire, so I left it out of the subclass I wrote. You asked the question that you should answer yourself. Why does it matter? The feature has more than enough damage types. Why are you so fixated on it having thunder damage. This isn’t even a real subclass.
As for synergies the first ability gives you a list of spells you can cast. Most of the other abilities improve those spells in a way allowing you to use them more effectively as a close range combatant. Arcane Blade allows you to use FB as the material component for both Conjure Barrage and Steel Wind Strike. Warrior’s Blood allows you to stay in the front line long enough to use your FB more than once. Swift Blade synergies with FB, Arcane Shield’s allow you to front line a little more, and Arcane Blade Master lets you change the damage type with each hit of FB and lets you do a smite like ability. It all works together to make you a close range fighter-like sorcerer while still letting cast a concentration spell and play with all the other Sorcerer features. I’m not sure what synergies you are looking, but this thing is pretty linear in its progression and a the abilities sync for one purpose. Here are spells including FB, here is a spell improvement for FB and here is a defensive improvement. Next is another improvement for FB, then a Defensive spell improvement. Finally another improvement for flame blade.
It could look like anything, but I took an hour to write up a subclass, so it works on whatever logic I choose. Real fire can be any color depending on what is burning and temperature. A magical poisonous mist that looks like fire could be green, orange, or any color you can imagine. A magical frost that looks like fire would be white or blue. A magical sound that has no color is hard for me to imagine it looks like fire, so I left it out of the subclass I wrote. You asked the question that you should answer yourself. Why does it matter? The feature has more than enough damage types. Why are you so fixated on it having thunder damage. This isn’t even a real subclass.
As for synergies the first ability gives you a list of spells you can cast. Most of the other abilities improve those spells in a way allowing you to use them more effectively as a close range combatant. Arcane Blade allows you to use FB as the material component for both Conjure Barrage and Steel Wind Strike. Warrior’s Blood allows you to stay in the front line long enough to use your FB more than once. Swift Blade synergies with FB, Arcane Shield’s allow you to front line a little more, and Arcane Blade Master lets you change the damage type with each hit of FB and lets you do a smite like ability. It all works together to make you a close range fighter-like sorcerer while still letting cast a concentration spell and play with all the other Sorcerer features. I’m not sure what synergies you are looking, but this thing is pretty linear in its progression and a the abilities sync for one purpose. Here are spells including FB, here is a spell improvement for FB and here is a defensive improvement. Next is another improvement for FB, then a Defensive spell improvement. Finally another improvement for flame blade.
Because if your ability does not feature Thunder damage, which can be considered one of the "elemental" damage types, it should not feature radiant damage either, which is more of a "divine", or "holy" damage type.
Addendum: Chromatic Orb can deal Thunder damage, although it is a Chromatic Orb (chromatic = relating to or produced by colour).
Thus being able to choose between Acid, Fire, Lightning, Cold would suffice already. If at all Thunder makes sense, even with it being considered colourless, or Force, but Force would render all other options almost useless.
On a side note, to me it is a riddle why True Strike features Radiant instead of Force damage, as it is more in line with the Arcane...respectively why True Strike was not given to Clerics and Druids in the first place, and something like "Arcane Strike" to users of arcane magic. One of the many design flaws like tieing ability score bonuses to solely backgrounds, but that's another story.
The Synergies I am looking for is later subclass features improving, or adding to earlier subclass features, plus also banking on possible features of the class itself. Yours pretty much all stand alone, or if at all, are upgradable with Metamagic.
Radiant damage is not only holy or divine damage in 5e DnD. It can be radiation (sickening radiance) and or lasers (futuristic weapons and sun sword) based on official materials. If anything radiant makes the most sense because of sacred flame proving radiant damage officially can look like fire. Also fire shield offers a chill shield that deals cold damage. So if I were to limit this to damage types that officially look like fire it would be cold, fire, psychic, and radiant damage. That is not the limit I chose.
Chromatic orb doesn’t have to look like fire. The color of the orb and the damage type it does aren’t necessarily linked. That is not how I, the writer of this subclass, imagined it at the time of my writing. I was thinking more of Bleach, tenchi muyo, and other anime with magical swords, but wanted to use things already in the game like FB as a basis instead of writing a whole new feature. Again as the writer your logic means nothing to my imagination. It’s weird you are still fixated on this.
True Strike is radiant because they didn’t want just another force damage cantrip. It was also to say divine casters don’t have a monopoly on radiant damage.
I’m not sure what else there is for it to have synergy with. You admit it has synergy within the subclass and with metamagic which is offered by base Sorcerer. It also works with Innate Sorcery. There isn’t much else in the base Sorcerer for it to sync with.
The sun blade is divine. There is even a good aligned sentient sun blade (The Dawnbringer) in the Out of the Abyss campaign. It‘s not a Jedi lightsabre. About Sci-Fi, well Spelljammer is not Star Wars either. And Sickening Radiance is no gamma ray spell.
This is not about Chromatic Orb looking like fire or not. You said you have no idea what a Thunder Blade would look like, and brought colours into play. Somehow the game makes it work with Chromatic Orb, though. Although colour is pretty much in it‘s very name. Also, this is DnD, and the default setting is Forgotten Realms…not Tenchi Muyo. Try to stick to the fundamentals.
Sorcerer spells are mostly tied to elemental damage types, see Sorcerous Burst, Chromatic Orb, etc. And this is not only about flavour, but balancing. Thus giving a spell the ability to do cold, fire, psychic, and radiant damage is pretty futile, as players would pick either radiant, or psychic about 99.9% of the time.
Is it really so hard to understand, what I mean with Synergy. A higher level feat, which is tied to a lower level one. I built a Sorcerer subclass weeks ago. Guess what, it has Blade Singer mechanics…and features 2 smites.
The lvl 14 subclass feature has a synergy tied to the list of expanded spells. The lvl 18 subclass feature is an upgrade to the lvl 6 subclass feature. That‘s what I meant. Yours are just standalone mechanics, not intertwined.
How long have you been in this hobby? Clearly not long enough. The default setting for their books is Forgotten Realms, but I can’t write anything officially for the default setting. I don’t work for WotC. Also everything is suppose to be setting agnostic, so it can work in multiple settings with no or little tweaks. Spelljammer isn’t Star Wars, but laser rifles aren’t divine weapons either. Proving my point. Also don’t lie. I have been playing D&D for two decades now and own enough books to fact check anything. There is nothing inherently Divine about the Sun Blade. Additionally there is nothing Divine about Sickening Radiance. All of these prove my point. Your head canon only matters at your table.
Well the reason I didn’t put Thunder is because I can’t imagine it looking like fire and sound’s lack of color plays into that. CO damage is coming from an orb of colorful light. FB damage is coming from a blade that appears to be fire. Also I wrote the subclass. No matter how much you try to logic your way through this it’s not going to work. I explained my reason, let it go.
You are wrong. My features are definitely tied to one another. I literally explained how they are tied together. Please see previous post, or just look at the subclass again at tell me what the 6th and 18th level features do without the 3rd level features. Tell me how 14th level feature works without the expanded spell list giving you the spell.
If you like your own designs I get it. You should. If you had good criticisms or critiques of my design I would be happy to hear them. In this case you are just wrong and making objectively false claims, or believing your opinions and head cannon somehow supersede my opinions and design choice. Most importantly none of this matters. WotC isn’t going to come on this forum and make this subclass official. It was meant as an example of a possible design. If you like yours, then use yours.
How long have you been in this hobby? Clearly not long enough. The default setting for their books is Forgotten Realms, but I can’t write anything officially for the default setting. I don’t work for WotC. Also everything is suppose to be setting agnostic, so it can work in multiple settings with no or little tweaks. Spelljammer isn’t Star Wars, but laser rifles aren’t divine weapons either. Proving my point. Also don’t lie. I have been playing D&D for two decades now and own enough books to fact check anything. There is nothing inherently Divine about the Sun Blade. Additionally there is nothing Divine about Sickening Radiance. All of these prove my point. Your head canon only matters at your table.
Well the reason I didn’t put Thunder is because I can’t imagine it looking like fire and sound’s lack of color plays into that. CO damage is coming from an orb of colorful light. FB damage is coming from a blade that appears to be fire. Also I wrote the subclass. No matter how much you try to logic your way through this it’s not going to work. I explained my reason, let it go.
You are wrong. My features are definitely tied to one another. I literally explained how they are tied together. Please see previous post, or just look at the subclass again at tell me what the 6th and 18th level features do without the 3rd level features. Tell me how 14th level feature works without the expanded spell list giving you the spell.
If you like your own designs I get it. You should. If you had good criticisms or critiques of my design I would be happy to hear them. In this case you are just wrong and making objectively false claims, or believing your opinions and head cannon somehow supersede my opinions and design choice. Most importantly none of this matters. WotC isn’t going to come on this forum and make this subclass official. It was meant as an example of a possible design. If you like yours, then use yours.
I started playing PnP, or TTRPGs in 1984 (Midgard, The Dark Eye), D&D in particular in 1989. Remember the Red, Blue, Green and Black boxes? That‘s what I started D&D with. And there were plenty other systems. Your accusations are out of place.
Back then and until 5e the default campaign setting was Greyhawk, aka Points of Light. And yes, there always has been a default. Of course, other campaigns emerged over time. Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Mystara, Al‘Qadim, Spelljammer, Planescape… yet, the general rulebooks as such always were based upon the default setting. So much for that. And all those settings had one thing in common. At the end of the day they were all ‚Sword & Sorcery‘, with Dark Sun being a bit of a novelty with Psionics (Yep, you would not find them elsewhere back in the day). Tbh. the introduction of firearms in the PHB is kind of a novelty. Some older blokes like myself would even find this blasphemous.
There were no laser guns in D&D high fantasy settings, at least not as much as I can remember. As far as I can remember not even in Spelljammer. And I am not talking about homebrew. There was no radiant, necrotic, or thunder damage either, before the emergence of the 4th edition in 2008. Radiant basically replaced by Positive Energy (which was usually harmful only to Undead), Necrotic replaced Negative Energy, and Thunder replaced Sonic.
Jesus, now I am even called a liar. Who do you think create sunblades? Take a closer look:
Another mention is Scintilmorn, which is lost within the Undermountain.
Sun blades emit sunlight, yes. And that’s considered a divine in D&D. Guess why Angels and Archons (and many Cleric spells) deal radiant damage, resp. are resistant to it?
Liar…wrong…I could throw the same back at you. Again, your subclass feats have no synergy. You just have not gotten the idea. Look at the lvl 3 Steps of the Fey and lvl 6 Misty Escape subclass feat of the Fey warlock. They got synergy. Your subclass does not have anything like that. Yours is a loose collection of abilities, and beefed up spells.
It’s crazy that you understand that the game has fundamentally moved away from positive and negative energy and has moved away from being strictly sword and sorcery, yet you continue hold fast to radiant and divine/holy being the same thing. They are not. Also stop bringing up the dawnbringer because that is a different thing than the sun blade. If you look up the sun blade it doesn’t mention crap about it being a holy weapon. Again you are using your head cannon or maybe even stuff from editions past that simply is not true in 5e. We are talking about an edition with godless Paladins. Somehow you think in 5e Sunlight is divine. That’s only your head cannon.
As for the subclass I’ve already realized you have no critiques worth listening to, but you are free to whatever opinion you want. Even if your information is objectively wrong.
With 6 Paladin/14 Sorcerer you get spellslots up to lvl 9. in fact you have the amount of spell slots like a lvl 17 sorcerer. Yes, less than a lvl 20, but you can not ignore, that a loss somewhere is also a gain somewhere else, no matter what you consider it to be. You mentioned it yourself, Aura of Protection, Extra Attack… And yes, now we have a de facto paladin and sorcerer, who can do smites up to lvl 9. Or you could also sacrifice that 9th level spell slot for a dip in Warlock and Pact of the Blade. There is your SAD Paladin with lvl 8 smites and using CHA for attacks.
And for the record, I never said that a GISH sorcer HAS TO HAVE smites. It was an option. And Wrathful at least is obtainable already.
On a side note, when the new FR campaign setting will be released it will most likely contain the Bladesinger. Than we‘ve got a INT SAD GISH with CME and whatever on top, which might compete with the Valour Bard in that department. Yes, CME is not a smite, but damage-wise especially when upcast it is more than close.
A wizard subclass that competes with a bard subclass is fine. A Sorcerer subclass that would out smite the Paladin class is bad. It would get its smites earlier and they would be stronger.
You example of a Paladin/Sorcerers multiclasss is what players should do if they want to smite as a Sorcerer. It is not justification to give a Sorcerer subclass smites. If we get a Sorcerer Subclass that is similar to Bladesinger and Valor Bard that would be fine. That is literally what you said you didn’t want.
A gish Sorcerer Subclass should have a more creative way to improve martial prowess than extra attack at lvl 6. It should be heavily related to his lore and flavour.
smite like attacks would be a good option. A different way to add another weapon attack would be nessesary too. Maybe some kind of Deja Vu attack for a Time Sorcerer. Create illusion which make weapon attacks for an Illusion Sorcery... Idk. Stuff like that.
Here a Gish sorcerer that is not a Gish at all really.
Arcane Warrior
3rd Arcane Warrior Spells
3rd Arcane Blade
When you cast Flame Blade you can cast it with a spell slot as normal or cast it with Sorcery points by expending a number equal to the level at which you want to cast the spell. You may only expend Sorcery points up to a number equal to half your level rounded up. When you use Sorcery Points to cast Flame Blade its duration is 1 minute and it has the following benefits.
3rd Warrior’s Blood
When you complete a short or long rest you can roll a number of d6 equal to your sorcerer level and gain temporary hit points equal to the result. Additionally when you cast Arcane Vigor you gain a number of temporary hit points equal to the hit points restored by the spell.
6th Swift Blade
When you use a Magic Action to attack with Flame Blade you may make a second attack with the Blade as part of the same Action. If you hit with this second attack you only roll half the damage die rounded down.
14th Arcane Shields
When you cast Shield you gain 1d4+5 to your AC and if you are hit before the start of your next turn you regain the spell slot. Additionally when you cast Fire Shield you can choose the resistance and damage type separately, and can choose from Acid,Cold, Fire, Lightning, Necrotic, Poison, Radiant, or Thunder.
18th Arcane Blade Master
Anytime you hit with Flame Blade you can choose the damage type and you can choose any damage type. Additionally, once on your turn when you hit with Flame Blade you may use your bonus action to expend a spell slot and add 1d6+1d6 per spell slot level additional damage of the same type as Flame Blade.
No! Scatterbrand said that, not myself. See below:
Now about your Arcane Warrior subclass. Why can‘t Thunder be chosen for the Flame Blade, but Radiant? Radiant btw. outclasses the damage types regarding reliability, as it is mostly resisted by creatures you will find the least as adversaries. That‘s like the Transmuters ‚Philosopher Stone‘ (or however it was called) and the bonus to CON saves outclassing all other options. If one choice is clearly better than the others, there is no choice.
Since you set no limit on the sorcery points able to spent on an FB per level. a sorcerer of lower level can simply sacrifice spell slots to acquire a 9th level 10d6 (radiant) flame blade via sorcery points. No problem at Tier 2 already.
Your level 18 feature basically is a 2014 smite. Yes, it‘s d6s instead of d8s, but much like the Eldritch Smite it comes without the need to spend a bonus action. And the Warlock has a limited amount of spell slots on top, compared to the Sorcerer. Plus now you have a Flame Blade, which might have been upcast already to 10d6+Cha damage per hit, and you throw your 9th lvl spell slot to add another 10d6 damage to a hit. That‘s 20d6, another 19d6+Cha/2 on the second hit (all radiant), and with the bonus action still available to cast a quickened chromatic orb.
How does this not outshine a Paladin?
Further, why not „Warrior Sorcery“ or similar, as every subclass now is called something with ‚Sorcery‘, like every subclass in 2014 was containing the word „bloodline“.
Scatter wrote his post and then you replied, “ I do very much agree.” I don’t see a reason why I need to copy paste or quote previously stated things. You either very much agree with scatter or you don’t. I really don’t care either way.
As for the Arcane Warrior the Arcane Blade feature does state you can only expend Sorcery points up to half your level rounded up. So you couldn’t just cast Flame Blade at a higher level. The highest level a full sorcerer could cast it at. Would be the same as their highest level spell slot. The typo is it’s supposed to read half your level in this class. So as I wrote it you could be a level 9 sorcerer/8 non caster or half caster and still be able to use sorcery points to cast level 9 flame blade. This is a mistake and is fixed by adding “in this class” or “half your sorcerer leve; rounded up.”
Why no thunder, because I think a fire that does thunder damage is stupid. No other reason. I almost left poison off the list also. As far as damage types being better than others it’s objectively false. They don’t matter. Damage type is mostly flavor unless you are playing in prewritten adventures. All that matters is can you do full damage or is it resisted. Occasionally something is vulnerable, but the DM decides all of this. Honestly the way 2024 is written I could have just said you can make force damage and been done with it.
My 18th level ability is just smite, but it offers nothing but more dice rolls at a lower sized dice. You don’t get it til the Paladin has gotten to play with all of their different kind of smites. Also you have to use your bonus action to use this feature just like smite spells so it’s limited to once on your turn. That also means you aren’t using your bonus action to quicken a spell, which in many cases would be the objectively better option. Also you missed that the second attack only allows you to roll half the damage dice. So if your first attack is 10d6+5, your second would only be 5d6+5.
This was made as an example that is not like a bladesinger, but doesn’t poop all over the Paladin or other Martial classes. It’s a melee subclass, but isn’t a Gish. It’s uses the sorcerer resources to stay in melee. It relies on mage armor and shield to remain in the frontline. The flaws I see looking at it now is that I missed noting it should be sorcerer level for Arcane blade. It probably needs wording to stop it from multiclassing to get heavy armor and a shield. Maybe capping the capstone to only 5th level or lower spell slots. Considering I made this up in an hour while half sleep I’m shocked it’s not worse.
For clarification, I agree that a solution other than a Valour Bard/Bladesinger copy would be very welcome. Neither did I say „It has to be“, nor did I say „I insist on a sorcerer Gish getting smites. I said, I don‘t see a reason why this option is not viable, especially if it‘s only one, or two smite spells, and not the whole arsenal, and of course not the signature spell, Divine Smite. But Thunderous Smite, why not? Hey, Clerics now got some Paladin spells like Aura of Vitality. Does this also count as „pooping all over the paladin“?
Uhuh, fire that does thunder damage is stupid. But fire that does cold/lightning/poison/necrotic damage is fine? Please expand.
Regarding the second attack, I wrote 19d6+CHA/2. ‚/2‘ means ‚divided by 2‘.
Other than that this is a pretty boring subclass, mechanical-wise. No synergies. Just some beefed up spells.
Well thunder is based on sound, while the others are more open to interpretation - fire that’s actually freezing cold could make sense, fire could realistically be poisonous if the gas for the fire was poisonous, necrotic and lightning make less sense but still could be interpreted as some sort of death fuelled fire or an electric fire
What color is sound. For all the others I can imagine something that looks like fire but isn’t dealing the damage.
Your math is just wrong. Where is the 19d6 coming from? It’s 5d6+Cha max on that second attack. Unless you use one of the synergies you claim this subclass lacks.
This subclass has one of the best synergies a spellcaster could have. It takes a concentration spell and makes that spell not require concentration. If you are saying you don’t see any game breaking combos that makes me happy. I avoid designing game breakers. The point was to make a melee focused Sorcerer that didn’t look Valor or bladesinger. I did it in less than a hour, with only few blatant flaws. Whether or not it’s boring or fun is up to the individual.
Thunder is based on…lightning. Too bad WotC got rid of the term Sonic damage after 3rd Ed.
What colour is poison? Green? Seriously? Let‘s play by that logic though, why is Green Flame Blade not poisonous then? Flames can also be blue. Why no blue flame blade then? What colour is radiant? White? Could also be yellow, when you look at some video games. Why does that actually matter?
A Thunder Blade could look like a colourless, vibrating blur,, which emits sonic, aka thunder damage upon impact.
Please expand what synergies those subclass abilities have towards each other. And this is not about power level. This is about mechanics.
It could look like anything, but I took an hour to write up a subclass, so it works on whatever logic I choose. Real fire can be any color depending on what is burning and temperature. A magical poisonous mist that looks like fire could be green, orange, or any color you can imagine. A magical frost that looks like fire would be white or blue. A magical sound that has no color is hard for me to imagine it looks like fire, so I left it out of the subclass I wrote. You asked the question that you should answer yourself. Why does it matter? The feature has more than enough damage types. Why are you so fixated on it having thunder damage. This isn’t even a real subclass.
As for synergies the first ability gives you a list of spells you can cast. Most of the other abilities improve those spells in a way allowing you to use them more effectively as a close range combatant. Arcane Blade allows you to use FB as the material component for both Conjure Barrage and Steel Wind Strike. Warrior’s Blood allows you to stay in the front line long enough to use your FB more than once. Swift Blade synergies with FB, Arcane Shield’s allow you to front line a little more, and Arcane Blade Master lets you change the damage type with each hit of FB and lets you do a smite like ability. It all works together to make you a close range fighter-like sorcerer while still letting cast a concentration spell and play with all the other Sorcerer features. I’m not sure what synergies you are looking, but this thing is pretty linear in its progression and a the abilities sync for one purpose. Here are spells including FB, here is a spell improvement for FB and here is a defensive improvement. Next is another improvement for FB, then a Defensive spell improvement. Finally another improvement for flame blade.
Because if your ability does not feature Thunder damage, which can be considered one of the "elemental" damage types, it should not feature radiant damage either, which is more of a "divine", or "holy" damage type.
Addendum: Chromatic Orb can deal Thunder damage, although it is a Chromatic Orb (chromatic = relating to or produced by colour).
Thus being able to choose between Acid, Fire, Lightning, Cold would suffice already. If at all Thunder makes sense, even with it being considered colourless, or Force, but Force would render all other options almost useless.
On a side note, to me it is a riddle why True Strike features Radiant instead of Force damage, as it is more in line with the Arcane...respectively why True Strike was not given to Clerics and Druids in the first place, and something like "Arcane Strike" to users of arcane magic. One of the many design flaws like tieing ability score bonuses to solely backgrounds, but that's another story.
The Synergies I am looking for is later subclass features improving, or adding to earlier subclass features, plus also banking on possible features of the class itself. Yours pretty much all stand alone, or if at all, are upgradable with Metamagic.
Radiant damage is not only holy or divine damage in 5e DnD. It can be radiation (sickening radiance) and or lasers (futuristic weapons and sun sword) based on official materials. If anything radiant makes the most sense because of sacred flame proving radiant damage officially can look like fire. Also fire shield offers a chill shield that deals cold damage. So if I were to limit this to damage types that officially look like fire it would be cold, fire, psychic, and radiant damage. That is not the limit I chose.
Chromatic orb doesn’t have to look like fire. The color of the orb and the damage type it does aren’t necessarily linked. That is not how I, the writer of this subclass, imagined it at the time of my writing. I was thinking more of Bleach, tenchi muyo, and other anime with magical swords, but wanted to use things already in the game like FB as a basis instead of writing a whole new feature. Again as the writer your logic means nothing to my imagination. It’s weird you are still fixated on this.
True Strike is radiant because they didn’t want just another force damage cantrip. It was also to say divine casters don’t have a monopoly on radiant damage.
I’m not sure what else there is for it to have synergy with. You admit it has synergy within the subclass and with metamagic which is offered by base Sorcerer. It also works with Innate Sorcery. There isn’t much else in the base Sorcerer for it to sync with.
The sun blade is divine. There is even a good aligned sentient sun blade (The Dawnbringer) in the Out of the Abyss campaign. It‘s not a Jedi lightsabre. About Sci-Fi, well Spelljammer is not Star Wars either. And Sickening Radiance is no gamma ray spell.
This is not about Chromatic Orb looking like fire or not. You said you have no idea what a Thunder Blade would look like, and brought colours into play. Somehow the game makes it work with Chromatic Orb, though. Although colour is pretty much in it‘s very name. Also, this is DnD, and the default setting is Forgotten Realms…not Tenchi Muyo. Try to stick to the fundamentals.
Sorcerer spells are mostly tied to elemental damage types, see Sorcerous Burst, Chromatic Orb, etc. And this is not only about flavour, but balancing. Thus giving a spell the ability to do cold, fire, psychic, and radiant damage is pretty futile, as players would pick either radiant, or psychic about 99.9% of the time.
Is it really so hard to understand, what I mean with Synergy. A higher level feat, which is tied to a lower level one. I built a Sorcerer subclass weeks ago. Guess what, it has Blade Singer mechanics…and features 2 smites.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/2619524-angelic-sorcery-sorcerer-gish-subclass
The lvl 14 subclass feature has a synergy tied to the list of expanded spells. The lvl 18 subclass feature is an upgrade to the lvl 6 subclass feature. That‘s what I meant. Yours are just standalone mechanics, not intertwined.
How long have you been in this hobby? Clearly not long enough. The default setting for their books is Forgotten Realms, but I can’t write anything officially for the default setting. I don’t work for WotC. Also everything is suppose to be setting agnostic, so it can work in multiple settings with no or little tweaks. Spelljammer isn’t Star Wars, but laser rifles aren’t divine weapons either. Proving my point. Also don’t lie. I have been playing D&D for two decades now and own enough books to fact check anything. There is nothing inherently Divine about the Sun Blade. Additionally there is nothing Divine about Sickening Radiance. All of these prove my point. Your head canon only matters at your table.
Well the reason I didn’t put Thunder is because I can’t imagine it looking like fire and sound’s lack of color plays into that. CO damage is coming from an orb of colorful light. FB damage is coming from a blade that appears to be fire. Also I wrote the subclass. No matter how much you try to logic your way through this it’s not going to work. I explained my reason, let it go.
You are wrong. My features are definitely tied to one another. I literally explained how they are tied together. Please see previous post, or just look at the subclass again at tell me what the 6th and 18th level features do without the 3rd level features. Tell me how 14th level feature works without the expanded spell list giving you the spell.
If you like your own designs I get it. You should. If you had good criticisms or critiques of my design I would be happy to hear them. In this case you are just wrong and making objectively false claims, or believing your opinions and head cannon somehow supersede my opinions and design choice. Most importantly none of this matters. WotC isn’t going to come on this forum and make this subclass official. It was meant as an example of a possible design. If you like yours, then use yours.
I started playing PnP, or TTRPGs in 1984 (Midgard, The Dark Eye), D&D in particular in 1989. Remember the Red, Blue, Green and Black boxes? That‘s what I started D&D with. And there were plenty other systems. Your accusations are out of place.
Back then and until 5e the default campaign setting was Greyhawk, aka Points of Light. And yes, there always has been a default. Of course, other campaigns emerged over time. Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Mystara, Al‘Qadim, Spelljammer, Planescape… yet, the general rulebooks as such always were based upon the default setting. So much for that. And all those settings had one thing in common. At the end of the day they were all ‚Sword & Sorcery‘, with Dark Sun being a bit of a novelty with Psionics (Yep, you would not find them elsewhere back in the day).
Tbh. the introduction of firearms in the PHB is kind of a novelty. Some older blokes like myself would even find this blasphemous.
There were no laser guns in D&D high fantasy settings, at least not as much as I can remember. As far as I can remember not even in Spelljammer. And I am not talking about homebrew. There was no radiant, necrotic, or thunder damage either, before the emergence of the 4th edition in 2008. Radiant basically replaced by Positive Energy (which was usually harmful only to Undead), Necrotic replaced Negative Energy, and Thunder replaced Sonic.
Jesus, now I am even called a liar. Who do you think create sunblades? Take a closer look:
https://dnd5e.*******.com/wondrous-items:dawnbringer
Another mention is Scintilmorn, which is lost within the Undermountain.
Sun blades emit sunlight, yes. And that’s considered a divine in D&D. Guess why Angels and Archons (and many Cleric spells) deal radiant damage, resp. are resistant to it?
Liar…wrong…I could throw the same back at you. Again, your subclass feats have no synergy. You just have not gotten the idea. Look at the lvl 3 Steps of the Fey and lvl 6 Misty Escape subclass feat of the Fey warlock. They got synergy. Your subclass does not have anything like that. Yours is a loose collection of abilities, and beefed up spells.
Anyway, this is getting way too personal.
It’s crazy that you understand that the game has fundamentally moved away from positive and negative energy and has moved away from being strictly sword and sorcery, yet you continue hold fast to radiant and divine/holy being the same thing. They are not. Also stop bringing up the dawnbringer because that is a different thing than the sun blade. If you look up the sun blade it doesn’t mention crap about it being a holy weapon. Again you are using your head cannon or maybe even stuff from editions past that simply is not true in 5e. We are talking about an edition with godless Paladins. Somehow you think in 5e Sunlight is divine. That’s only your head cannon.
As for the subclass I’ve already realized you have no critiques worth listening to, but you are free to whatever opinion you want. Even if your information is objectively wrong.