Hey all,

I'm looking to build a melee sorcerer I'm currently level 2 but still deciding on my second level.

Stats are: Str - 10, Dex - 14, Con - 12, Int - 12, Wis - 10, Cha - 16

Half-elf Draconic bloodline, and I'm also trying to choose decent spells for a melee type.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

which books are allowed? multiclassing allowed?

 At your level up, multiclass into Hexblade warlock.  Don a shield, the best medium armor you can afford, and the most suitable martial one-handed weapon in your budget.  Now you only need CHA to attack in melee.

Take the rest of your levels in sorcerer, bumping CHA to 20 with your first two ability score increases.  Take the Warcaster feat after that.

Spells:

• Booming Blade and/or Green-Flame Blade.  These will be how you attack in melee.
• Shield and Absorb Elements.  Reaction spells to keep you alive.
• Haste and Greater Invisibility.  Spells to buff your melee abilities.

All books except unearthed arcana.

Quote from Jesse_DND >>

 At your level up, multiclass into Hexblade warlock.  Don a shield, the best medium armor you can afford, and the most suitable martial one-handed weapon in your budget.  Now you only need CHA to attack in melee.

Take the rest of your levels in sorcerer, bumping CHA to 20 with your first two ability score increases.  Take the Warcaster feat after that.

Spells:

• Booming Blade and/or Green-Flame Blade.  These will be how you attack in melee.
• Shield and Absorb Elements.  Reaction spells to keep you alive.
• Haste and Greater Invisibility.  Spells to buff your melee abilities.

 So is actual armor better than the natural AC buff of the draconic bloodline?

Depends

dragonic = 13+Dex
best light = 12+Dex
best medium = 15+ Dex(Max. +2) with stealth disadvantage.

Whichever has the highest AC is the best armor. in this case it medium armor with your +2 Dex. Also it possible DM give you magical armor or +x armor making you AC even higher.

Shadow sorcerer maybe more handy it has some feat that doesnt require spell to activate.

The spell jesse mentoined good also mirror image,misty step,Greater invisibility,Counterspell,blink,synaptic static,far step,hex,shocking grasp handy for a melee kit.

Quote from Palfatreos >>

Depends

dragonic = 13+Dex
best light = 12+Dex
best medium = 15+ Dex(Max. +2) with stealth disadvantage.

Whichever has the highest AC is the best armor. in this case it medium armor with your +2 Dex. Also it possible DM give you magical armor or +x armor making you AC even higher.

Shadow sorcerer maybe more handy it has some feat that doesnt require spell to activate.

The spell jesse mentoined good also mirror imagemisty stepGreater invisibilityCounterspellblinksynaptic staticfar stephexshocking grasp handy for a melee kit.

 Thanks I appreciate the help!

for spells don't overlook nova types spells, like thunderwave. You could also go for a 2 level dip into paladin for weapons, shields, armor, and plus their melee focused smite spells. If staying pure sorc, look at shadow blade.

Quote from halfling2099 >>

for spells don't overlook nova types spells, like thunderwave. You could also go for a 2 level dip into paladin for weapons, shields, armor, and plus their melee focused smite spells. If staying pure sorc, look at shadow blade.

 He doesn't have the STR for paladin

I currently have a Divine Soul Sorcerer / Battlemaster Fighter (Dex based) that works quiet nicely.

Warcaster (when you get your ASI) is a must, especially when coupled with Booming Blade. It can force the enemy to have to decide to continue their movement (triggering the secondary damage) or stay put right next to you.

Battlemaster's Manuevers also add some extra damage, often times outside of the action economy (only requiring a hit from a weapon attack). You'll want to pick Manuevers that don't require the Attack Action, since you'll be using Booming Blade or Green-Flame Blade for attacks. Also, because you are a Sorcerer, Rally is a good quick temp HP buff when in a pinch.

For good melee spells, Shield is a great spell, considering you'll probably be either wearing armor, or using your natural armor. Also, your Fighter class grants proficiency in shields, which I would recommend getting. While weilding a shield (with your Natural Armor) your AC is a healthy 17. Emergency Shield can bring that up to 22 for a round.

for you some of the below build can be used for your character. However You are more Dex based which is fine, adding fighter gives medium armor, and shields and fighting style....big boost to you.
for spells I like Mirror image as a non concentration 2nd level spell, but Blur with concentration needs help as yours isn't the greatest unless you add
War Caster". I also like False life for added THP, and a attack cantrip like Booming Blade or Greenflame blade. Defensively Sword Burst is good too.
Anything that can be done ranged is good for you as well. Elven accuracy and archery style might be great for you. Ranged Spells like cloud of daggers can be deadly.

Fighter/sorcerer (shadow or Black Dragon Draconic)
Human Variant, Mercenary background

• Magic initiate (Bonus Feat): Druid; Primal Savagery, Thorn Whip, entangle
• point  buy array: Str14, Dex14 (+1), Con14(+1), int8, Wis13, cha13
• Stealth, Athletics, Acrobatics, intimidation, persuasion
• you were a mercenary who came aupon a Symbiote (Venom), your magic initiate spells come from this, flavor like Venom (Dark tendrills(thorn whip), sharp teeth/claws (Primal Savagery, eventually Alter Self) and entangle with your tendrils instead of vines.

1: fighter1

• Two-weapon fighting (intend to use hands with primal savagery or weapons)
• 2nd Wind

2: Sorcerer1 (Shadow is my preference gain 120' darkvision),

• Eyes of the dark (120'darkvision & darkness spell)
• Strength of the grave(when reduced to 0, at 1hp instead)
• Poison spray, Sword Burst, controll flames, minor illusion
• Absorb elements, Jump

As you level up aim towards Alter Self spell, spider climb, tavern Brawler (good grappling), Web, spider climb, Talk to yourself as if Venom is speaking at times, refer to yourself as "we', Gain the battle master subclass for fighter with the following maneuvers(pushing attack, Sweeping attack, Lunging attack) build up strength and fight hand to hand.

not the most optimal build but flavorful, using the Venom character from comics as a jump off point.

Quote from MadPuppy57 >>

for you some of the below build can be used for your character. However You are more Dex based which is fine, adding fighter gives medium armor, and shields and fighting style....big boost to you.
for spells I like Mirror image as a non concentration 2nd level spell, but Blur with concentration needs help as yours isn't the greatest unless you add
War Caster". I also like False life for added THP, and a attack cantrip like Booming Blade or Greenflame blade. Defensively Sword Burst is good too.
Anything that can be done ranged is good for you as well. Elven accuracy and archery style might be great for you. Ranged Spells like cloud of daggers can be deadly.

 

Fighter/sorcerer (shadow or Black Dragon Draconic)
Human Variant, Mercenary background

• Magic initiate (Bonus Feat): Druid; Primal Savagery, Thorn Whip, entangle
• point  buy array: Str14, Dex14 (+1), Con14(+1), int8, Wis13, cha13
• Stealth, Athletics, Acrobatics, intimidation, persuasion
• you were a mercenary who came aupon a Symbiote (Venom), your magic initiate spells come from this, flavor like Venom (Dark tendrills(thorn whip), sharp teeth/claws (Primal Savagery, eventually Alter Self) and entangle with your tendrils instead of vines.

1: fighter1

• Two-weapon fighting (intend to use hands with primal savagery or weapons)
• 2nd Wind

2: Sorcerer1 (Shadow is my preference gain 120' darkvision),

• Eyes of the dark (120'darkvision & darkness spell)
• Strength of the grave(when reduced to 0, at 1hp instead)
• Poison spray, Sword Burst, controll flames, minor illusion
• Absorb elements, Jump

As you level up aim towards Alter Self spell, spider climb, tavern Brawler (good grappling), Web, spider climb, Talk to yourself as if Venom is speaking at times, refer to yourself as "we', Gain the battle master subclass for fighter with the following maneuvers(pushing attack, Sweeping attack, Lunging attack) build up strength and fight hand to hand.

not the most optimal build but flavorful, using the Venom character from comics as a jump off point.

 Primal savagery will never be a good way to go for a sorcerer.  It uses your wisdom as your attack start.  Sorc users want CHA. If you want primal savagery as a sorc, go warlock 3 for tome and take the two cantrips you mentioned.  

Poison spray is an awful cantrip. Poison is one of the most resisted or immune damage types. Sword burst is ok if you're quickening it, but otherwise awful (and is expensive to use that way) 

A more optimized version of the Venom concept might be a flavored Circle of Spores Druid build- flavor symbiotic entity to be your symbiote emerges on your body, covering you entirely, and fades back away once the temporary hp is gone. Btw, this feature is insane. You get two uses of it per short rest, meaning if your symbiote gets damaged, it can reemerge literally your next turn, and the temp hp is crazy for two uses. You get 4 x your druid level while in this state, so if you're level 5, you get 20 per use. However, if these temp hp get killed, you can just use it again, so at level 5, you really get 40 extra hp. Plus, double your halo of spores damage, and a decent bonus damage to melee hits. The halo of spores could be flavored to be you attack with a tendril, although your DM might want you to change this damage to bludgeoning or piercing instead of Necro if you do so. The animate dead might be you send a part of your symbiote into a just-slain creature and the symbiote temporarily animates that creature at your (or it's) bidding. That could create a very cool dynamic, I think, if the symbiote uses "your" undead servants under it's own control. Spreading spores might be something like extending a tendril to attack 30 feet away whenever something walks into that cube. And Fungal Body doesn't need much flavoring, other than change "your spores" to "your symbiote". In terms of cantrips, I could see a lot of stuff working thematically; primal savagery and thorn whip, like you suggested, could be decent, although I would lean more towards thorn whip, especially if you want to melee someone to death, in which case you would definitely want shillelagh (could be flavored to be your symbiote covering the surface of the club, almost like it's a part of your arm). Plus, shillelagh is a bonus action and doesn't use a spell slot (cantrip). On top of this, the damage would be very good for a low-level character (1d8+WIS modifier bludgeoning+1d6 necrotic if you have temp hp from Symbiotic Entity). Oh, and also, this is a magic weapon, so Stoneskin is not going to resist that bludgeoning. This strategy would be a ton of fun at lower levels, but it might get a little outdated higher up. If this becomes the case, you can always fall back on your druid spell list, which is pretty substantial. It's nice that this doesn't limit your spellcasting abilities, since you don't have to put anything extra into STR, thanks to Shillelagh, which I think is a must have if you want to go the melee druid route. I could get into a bunch of the flavoring options, but this paragraph is crazy long already, and y'all probably want to come up with your own ideas, not just copy them from a stranger on the internet.

The problem with a fighter dip is the loss of spell progression with the dip. Druid maintains the spell slot progression but doesn’t provide much in terms of armor and weapons for melee. An initiate Druid feat gives some of those benefits but as others stated it starts to create a MAD build just as fighter forces it by requiring strength. Warlock also provides armor and weapons but warlock doesn’t work well with the spell slot or level progression (granted no dip helps the spell level progression) . You might want to explore ranger or artificer dips. Granted neither is a full caster but both provide both armor and weapons as well as their own spells and abilities and does provide some help with the spell slot progression. Fey wanderer is a charisma rich ranger build that might work well with sorceror. Ranger also can be done as primarily Dex based making it somewhat less MAD? While rangers are obviously wisdom dependent in their casting a 3-5 level dip doesn’t really give them much in the way of spells or a need for high wisdom leaving it as a Dex + Cha based build. Artificer is a more MAD build as the artificer’s build is strongly Int. Based but it does have the advantage that odd levels round up not down for spell slot progression.

“Melee Sorcerers” are called “Paladins” in this edition. 😜 But seriously, if you are gonna dip, dip Pally. Just swap your Dex & Str and you’re in business.

The big problem with fighter, ranger, Paladin, artificer(armoror) dips is that they aren’t really “dips”. You aren’t taking 1-3 levels to get just the armor and weapons and maybe a fighting style and spells. You are taking at least 5 levels to get the second attack. Paladin and ranger the slot progression rounds down so you really need a 6 level dip - luckily the L6 benefits of both are good). Armorer rounds up so like fighter you only need to go to L5. But that 5-6 level plunge changes what your doing significantly in making a melee sorceror build. You don’t fully come online until L10-12 when you have equal levels in both classes.

Wow this is an in depth convo... very good stuff here!

Thanks, if your going to debate with Sposta you better bring your A game, he is good.

And so are most of the other folks here as well.

A level dip into hexblade for medium armor and shield is neat and all, but to really take it further you'll fight with a quarterstaff as your hex weapon and take polearm master and warcaster. Now enemies provoke an opportunity attack when they approach you, which you can cast a spell with instead of strike with. I'm just not sure if you should prioritize feats first of Cha first but, probably Cha first.

But yeah, single level of hexblade is the ticket, Half plate is a solid 15+dex(2max) so would get you to AC19 with a shield and 14 dex. That's solid enough to be in melee. Hexwarrior lets you attack with cha mod so you're more SAD.

Now, you aren't a "melee damage dealer" still, per se. Just, more capable of fighting in melee. You'll never get Extra Attack, but can still do some cool things while up close to your enemies. So, with by a hypothetical DracoSorc6/Hex1, attacking with a greenflame bladed quarterstaff at a Hexed and Hexcursed enemy, you'd have something like 18 cha, and Have +7 to hit, with 1d6+1d6+1d8+11 damage to primary target and 1d8+4 to a secondary one. Then be casting your leveled spells as bonus actions with Quickened metamagic when not juggling hex around.

That's probably the best you can hope for without more significant investment into other class levels. 5/6 levels deep into alternative classes could get you a build far more melee fightery, but for just a single level dip Hexblade is where it is at. Snag Hex and Armor of Agathys, and you'll be aight.