I've been working on this for about 9 months and I've finally gotten it to where I feel the abilities are sufficiently useful and have thematic cohesion. I know this isn't the kind of thing WotC is ever likely to release given the logical racial restrictions, but it's always felt weird to me that intelligent races that spend their entire lives underwater have no innate caster subclass built with their environment in mind.
Overall, my goal was to create a subclass that would be interesting to play, fun to multi-class with, and appropriate to include in water-based and certain rainforest-based campaigns. Please let me know what you think and how you would improve on it.
Aquatic Shock Sorcerer
Your innate magic is intimately linked with the electrical fields of other creatures and of water itself. Sorcerers of this origin were raised in aqueous environments and must be of a water-dwelling race, such as triton, merfolk, sea elf, or sahuagin. By no means common, sorcerers of this predilection are generally either greatly respected or greatly feared by creatures of their ancestral background.
ELECTRO-KINETIC SHOCK
Starting at 1st level, your control of your own body’s electrical energy is acute enough to be used as a weapon. Starting when you choose this origin at 1st level, you can discharge an electrical surge through your body. When you make a melee touch attack with your hands or a melee weapon made entirely of metal, you can do an additional 2d8 electrical damage. A creature dealt damage this way is unable to use their reactions until the beginning of your next round. You must take a short rest before you can release electricity this way again.
Starting at level 6, you can use this ability twice between short rests. Once you reach level 14, you can use this ability up to three times between short rests and add your Constitution modifier to the damage roll.
MANIPULATOR OF WATER
Starting at 6th level, you can energize a volume of water that is at least 40 cubic feet on each side to act as a spring. At the end of a one-minute ritual, you or a creature you can see within 30 feet of you that is of size Large or smaller is propelled upwards up to 40 feet and can use the rest of their movement as if jumping.
You also gain the Shape Water cantrip. You can have up to three of its non-instantaneous effects active at the same time.
HEIGHTENED ELECTRO-SENSITIVITY
When you reach 14th level, while you are in water, you are aware of the location of any hidden or invisible creature also immersed in water within 10 feet of you at all times. The range of this ability is 20 feet in brackish water.
You are resistant to electrical damage. If you take damage from an electrical source, on your next round, you can add 1d8 electrical damage to your Electo-kinetic shock ability.
NEXUS OF THE TEMPEST
At 18th level, the Call Lightning spell is added to your spell list. You can cast Call Lightning a number of times equal to half your Charisma modifier (rounded up) between long rests as a 3rd level spell without expending a spell slot. As long as there is moisture in the surrounding environment, when you have the Call Lightning spell active, a strong current of water or wind envelops you, causing arrows, bolts, and similar projectiles fired from beyond a 10 foot radius of you to be unable to reach you and are instead directed upwards or downwards. (Boulders hurled by giants, siege engines and similar projectiles, are unaffected..) Gases, fog, and smoke are dispersed if they enter within a 10 food radius or if you move into them. Creatures in gaseous form cannot pass through.
I'll look more into this later, but just going to say sorry if I misunderstand what you're going for. I'm assuming that this is basically a water variant of the storm sorcery subclass.
No gained ability swim speed/water breathing. This was the first thing that saw that could be an issue with the subclass. i understand that this subclass is meant to be played with races that already have these features but it would still be nice to have something there for those play this as non semiaquitic races. Plus not all of them have water breathing or might have a limited water breathing.
Electro-kinectic shock scaling. The bonus damage equal to Con mod should have a min of 1 tag added so the buff isn't possibly a nerf.
6th level. I'm going to assume this is a non issue and might just be a personal gripe of mine, but I find it a bit weird that a very thematic cantrip for this subclass is not auto given at level 1. Now with that said, I'm not going to push this as an issue any further because sorcerer's can just learn it at level one and I'm going to assume that you'd allow the player to learn a different cantrip if they already knew it.
Yes, I didn't add anything about a Swim speed or water breathing b/c it's just assumed that it would be an aquatic or semi-aquatic race taking the subclass. Though, hmmm, I guess there are a few of them without water-breathing, like Tortle and Lizardfolk.
Re: min Con damage of 1, I agree. I'll change it at the next pass through.
I put the Shape Water Cantrip at level 6 instead of at Level 1 b/c the emphasis of the subclass is more on electricity and interaction of electricity with water than on water itself. All the damage abilities of the subclass involve electricity, really. It's not meant to an Elementalist in the traditional way.
I like it. At first seems perhaps somewhat niche with the race restrictions and whatnot. But then again thats precisely what you were going for. Also one of the scary things taught to me by Counter Monkey roleplaying videos was never to get on the boat... well with this guy you don't need a boat or to worry about an aquatic mission :)
Sorry can't think of improvement suggestions, but maybe that can be taken as a compliment.
I appreciate the reading and approval of the subclass.
Changes are italicized for ease of comparison. After giving it more consideration, I would modify these aspects:
ELECTRO-KINETIC SHOCK
Starting at level 6, you can use this ability twice between short rests. Once you reach level 14, you can use this ability up to three times between short rests and add your Constitution modifier (minimum 1) plus 1/4 your Sorcerer level (rounded down) to the damage roll. You may add your Constitution modifier (minimum 1) plus 1/4 your Sorcerer level damage whenever you hit another creature with a leveled spell for electricity damage.
MANIPULATOR OF WATER
You also gain the Shape Water cantrip. If you already know this cantrip, you may pick another Sorcerer cantrip. The cantrip doesn't count against your number of cantrips known. You can have up to three of Shape Water's non-instantaneous effects active at the same time.
Your swim speed is increased by 5 feet. If your Sorcerer is of a race without a swim speed, your swim speed is increased by 10 feet.
HEIGHTENED ELECTRO-SENSITIVITY
When you reach 14th level, while you are in water, you may expend a spell slot to gain blindsight to any living creature also immersed in water (minimum 3 foot depth) for 1 hour.The range of his ability extends to within 15 feet of you in fresh water and to within 30 feet in brackish water.
You are resistant to electrical damage. If you take damage from an electrical source, on your next round, you can add 1d8 electrical damage to your Electo-kinetic shock ability or to a leveled spell that does electrical damage.
I've decided not to add Water Breathing to the subclass at all because there exist many examples of aquatic creatures that do not breathe water: dolphins, sea turtles, plesiosaurs, etc. If they got by for millions of years without being to breathe water while living in water 24/7, there is no particular reason to add this to the subclass.
I like this, but you are wrong about there not being any subclasses: storm sorcerer. Otherwise cool.
I created this subclass in large part because I looked at the Storm Sorcerer was kept thinking, "All these flight and air movement abilities would rarely be useful for you if you lived in the water all the time." The person who designed it clearly had not kept this fact in mind.
The themes of air and escape are implicitly associated with the Storm Sorc. In designing an aquatic Sorc, I wanted to go in the opposite direction by creating a subclass that can embrace melee combat, which makes more sense from an underwater perspective because of how much more dense water is compared to air.
I've decided not to add Water Breathing to the subclass at all because there exist many examples of aquatic creatures that do not breathe water: dolphins, sea turtles, plesiosaurs, etc. If they got by for millions of years without being to breathe water while living in water 24/7, there is no particular reason to add this to the subclass.
I've decided not to add Water Breathing to the subclass at all because there exist many examples of aquatic creatures that do not breathe water: dolphins, sea turtles, plesiosaurs, etc. If they got by for millions of years without being to breathe water while living in water 24/7, there is no particular reason to add this to the subclass.
They still have to come up to breathe. They don't have gills. So at least say 15 minutes or something, cause that is accurate.
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'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I would just implement something like 'Amphibious: You can breathe underwater, and hold your breath for an hour. You also gain a swimming speed equal to your walking speed. If you can already breathe underwater or have a swimming speed, then you use whichever is highest'. Just to make it so that you don't have to be a waterborne race.
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'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
Because dolphins turtles etc can't breathe underwater, they can just hold their breath for a long time. That is the example you used. And it shouldn't be just for aquatic races.
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'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
Well, this subclass is just for aquatic races you said. So I would either give it a prerequisite of swimming speed or breathe underwater, or just give it a swimming speed and the ability to breathe underwater, so that it isn't cut off for most races. I used the fiend patron as an example, saying that only races associated with fire should have them as a patron, because you said that the abilities don't match for any non aquatic races for this subclass. I just think it would be a better subclass for it to give a swimming speed and the ability to breathe underwater.
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'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
Hello Song_of_Blues, I read this and i had to think how this would play out. I think it is a neat idea for an Underwater campaign but outside of that this is very limited. i have learned personally that, YES, having an attack that adds a MOD bonus damage is nice (martial classes get it with their weapons) BUT you really have no way to bring up your AC to using levels unless you are DEX primary with Mage Armor. If you don't build this way you are at a disadvantage in any other scenario. Less HP and less AC means you go down faster.
But hey, try it out with some people you know. If it is fun, stick with it. But it will have to be a Campaign/One Shot with a lot of water so your skills can be used efficiently. If not i see this not being very fun.
Oh oh oh, this would be perfect for Underwater enemies to have as their class if you want to buff them against a party. xD
I know that high level most Sorcerer builds include multiclass at some point. The AC issue can be dealt with by starting in Cleric, Warlock, Fighter, or Paladin. Also several semi-aquatic races get automatic boosts to AC already, such as Tortle and Lizardfolk. Combined with the ability to free disengage via the Electro-Kinetic Shock that recharges on short rests, that should be sufficient to give the character greater survivability than the average full caster going into melee.
RE: campaign settings, I'm aware that it feels a bit limited, but that's in large part because so few official published campaign materials are published for aquatic or semi-aquatic settings. The Earth as we know it has about 70% surface area covered by water, though, and many dungeons include bodies of water as well. Conversely, if you think about it, most flying abilities do nothing in an underwater campaign, but flying is such a big deal that quite a few subclasses include flight abilities, which aren't very useful in large segments of dungeons/caves/sewers anyway. So, yeah, it's not really a design that would likely get published but there's no reason why DMs who want to feature D&D versions of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" or "Pirates of the Caribbean" should feel confined by subclasses designed for landlubbers.
Also, yes, having NPC villains with the subclass is definitely part of why I designed the subclass as well. Glad you saw that.
A Shocking Grasp would outpace it very quickly, essentially making this feature redundant. Also, just to remind you, Electric damage doesn't exist. Lightning replaces that.
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I've been working on this for about 9 months and I've finally gotten it to where I feel the abilities are sufficiently useful and have thematic cohesion. I know this isn't the kind of thing WotC is ever likely to release given the logical racial restrictions, but it's always felt weird to me that intelligent races that spend their entire lives underwater have no innate caster subclass built with their environment in mind.
Overall, my goal was to create a subclass that would be interesting to play, fun to multi-class with, and appropriate to include in water-based and certain rainforest-based campaigns. Please let me know what you think and how you would improve on it.
Aquatic Shock Sorcerer
Your innate magic is intimately linked with the electrical fields of other creatures and of water itself. Sorcerers of this origin were raised in aqueous environments and must be of a water-dwelling race, such as triton, merfolk, sea elf, or sahuagin. By no means common, sorcerers of this predilection are generally either greatly respected or greatly feared by creatures of their ancestral background.
ELECTRO-KINETIC SHOCK
Starting at 1st level, your control of your own body’s electrical energy is acute enough to be used as a weapon. Starting when you choose this origin at 1st level, you can discharge an electrical surge through your body. When you make a melee touch attack with your hands or a melee weapon made entirely of metal, you can do an additional 2d8 electrical damage. A creature dealt damage this way is unable to use their reactions until the beginning of your next round. You must take a short rest before you can release electricity this way again.
Starting at level 6, you can use this ability twice between short rests. Once you reach level 14, you can use this ability up to three times between short rests and add your Constitution modifier to the damage roll.
MANIPULATOR OF WATER
Starting at 6th level, you can energize a volume of water that is at least 40 cubic feet on each side to act as a spring. At the end of a one-minute ritual, you or a creature you can see within 30 feet of you that is of size Large or smaller is propelled upwards up to 40 feet and can use the rest of their movement as if jumping.
You also gain the Shape Water cantrip. You can have up to three of its non-instantaneous effects active at the same time.
HEIGHTENED ELECTRO-SENSITIVITY
When you reach 14th level, while you are in water, you are aware of the location of any hidden or invisible creature also immersed in water within 10 feet of you at all times. The range of this ability is 20 feet in brackish water.
You are resistant to electrical damage. If you take damage from an electrical source, on your next round, you can add 1d8 electrical damage to your Electo-kinetic shock ability.
NEXUS OF THE TEMPEST
At 18th level, the Call Lightning spell is added to your spell list. You can cast Call Lightning a number of times equal to half your Charisma modifier (rounded up) between long rests as a 3rd level spell without expending a spell slot. As long as there is moisture in the surrounding environment, when you have the Call Lightning spell active, a strong current of water or wind envelops you, causing arrows, bolts, and similar projectiles fired from beyond a 10 foot radius of you to be unable to reach you and are instead directed upwards or downwards. (Boulders hurled by giants, siege engines and similar projectiles, are unaffected..) Gases, fog, and smoke are dispersed if they enter within a 10 food radius or if you move into them. Creatures in gaseous form cannot pass through.
I'll look more into this later, but just going to say sorry if I misunderstand what you're going for. I'm assuming that this is basically a water variant of the storm sorcery subclass.
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Thanks for the input, Phoenix.
Yes, I didn't add anything about a Swim speed or water breathing b/c it's just assumed that it would be an aquatic or semi-aquatic race taking the subclass. Though, hmmm, I guess there are a few of them without water-breathing, like Tortle and Lizardfolk.
Re: min Con damage of 1, I agree. I'll change it at the next pass through.
I put the Shape Water Cantrip at level 6 instead of at Level 1 b/c the emphasis of the subclass is more on electricity and interaction of electricity with water than on water itself. All the damage abilities of the subclass involve electricity, really. It's not meant to an Elementalist in the traditional way.
I like this, but you are wrong about there not being any subclasses: storm sorcerer. Otherwise cool.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I'll worldbuild for your DnD games!
Just a D&D enjoyer, check out my fiverr page if you need any worldbuilding done for ya!
I like it. At first seems perhaps somewhat niche with the race restrictions and whatnot. But then again thats precisely what you were going for.
Also one of the scary things taught to me by Counter Monkey roleplaying videos was never to get on the boat... well with this guy you don't need
a boat or to worry about an aquatic mission :)
Sorry can't think of improvement suggestions, but maybe that can be taken as a compliment.
Nice work!
I appreciate the reading and approval of the subclass.
Changes are italicized for ease of comparison. After giving it more consideration, I would modify these aspects:
ELECTRO-KINETIC SHOCK
Starting at level 6, you can use this ability twice between short rests. Once you reach level 14, you can use this ability up to three times between short rests and add your Constitution modifier (minimum 1) plus 1/4 your Sorcerer level (rounded down) to the damage roll. You may add your Constitution modifier (minimum 1) plus 1/4 your Sorcerer level damage whenever you hit another creature with a leveled spell for electricity damage.
MANIPULATOR OF WATER
You also gain the Shape Water cantrip. If you already know this cantrip, you may pick another Sorcerer cantrip. The cantrip doesn't count against your number of cantrips known. You can have up to three of Shape Water's non-instantaneous effects active at the same time.
Your swim speed is increased by 5 feet. If your Sorcerer is of a race without a swim speed, your swim speed is increased by 10 feet.
HEIGHTENED ELECTRO-SENSITIVITY
When you reach 14th level, while you are in water, you may expend a spell slot to gain blindsight to any living creature also immersed in water (minimum 3 foot depth) for 1 hour. The range of his ability extends to within 15 feet of you in fresh water and to within 30 feet in brackish water.
You are resistant to electrical damage. If you take damage from an electrical source, on your next round, you can add 1d8 electrical damage to your Electo-kinetic shock ability or to a leveled spell that does electrical damage.
I've decided not to add Water Breathing to the subclass at all because there exist many examples of aquatic creatures that do not breathe water: dolphins, sea turtles, plesiosaurs, etc. If they got by for millions of years without being to breathe water while living in water 24/7, there is no particular reason to add this to the subclass.
I created this subclass in large part because I looked at the Storm Sorcerer was kept thinking, "All these flight and air movement abilities would rarely be useful for you if you lived in the water all the time." The person who designed it clearly had not kept this fact in mind.
The themes of air and escape are implicitly associated with the Storm Sorc. In designing an aquatic Sorc, I wanted to go in the opposite direction by creating a subclass that can embrace melee combat, which makes more sense from an underwater perspective because of how much more dense water is compared to air.
They still have to come up to breathe. They don't have gills. So at least say 15 minutes or something, cause that is accurate.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I'll worldbuild for your DnD games!
Just a D&D enjoyer, check out my fiverr page if you need any worldbuilding done for ya!
Sorry, what do you mean by "so at least 15 minutes or something". Are you suggesting a change to the subclass?
I would just implement something like 'Amphibious: You can breathe underwater, and hold your breath for an hour. You also gain a swimming speed equal to your walking speed. If you can already breathe underwater or have a swimming speed, then you use whichever is highest'. Just to make it so that you don't have to be a waterborne race.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I'll worldbuild for your DnD games!
Just a D&D enjoyer, check out my fiverr page if you need any worldbuilding done for ya!
If you can breathe underwater, why would you need to hold your breath for an hour?
Because dolphins turtles etc can't breathe underwater, they can just hold their breath for a long time. That is the example you used. And it shouldn't be just for aquatic races.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I'll worldbuild for your DnD games!
Just a D&D enjoyer, check out my fiverr page if you need any worldbuilding done for ya!
I leave that to individual DMs to adjust if they want. These Sorc powers don't make much sense for a non-aquatic species/race, anyway.
But then, fiend patron does not make sense for non fire people. Who cares?! Flavour.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I'll worldbuild for your DnD games!
Just a D&D enjoyer, check out my fiverr page if you need any worldbuilding done for ya!
I don't understand what you mean by "fiend patron" and "fire people." You mean Warlocks?
Well, this subclass is just for aquatic races you said. So I would either give it a prerequisite of swimming speed or breathe underwater, or just give it a swimming speed and the ability to breathe underwater, so that it isn't cut off for most races. I used the fiend patron as an example, saying that only races associated with fire should have them as a patron, because you said that the abilities don't match for any non aquatic races for this subclass. I just think it would be a better subclass for it to give a swimming speed and the ability to breathe underwater.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I'll worldbuild for your DnD games!
Just a D&D enjoyer, check out my fiverr page if you need any worldbuilding done for ya!
Hello Song_of_Blues, I read this and i had to think how this would play out. I think it is a neat idea for an Underwater campaign but outside of that this is very limited. i have learned personally that, YES, having an attack that adds a MOD bonus damage is nice (martial classes get it with their weapons) BUT you really have no way to bring up your AC to using levels unless you are DEX primary with Mage Armor. If you don't build this way you are at a disadvantage in any other scenario. Less HP and less AC means you go down faster.
But hey, try it out with some people you know. If it is fun, stick with it. But it will have to be a Campaign/One Shot with a lot of water so your skills can be used efficiently. If not i see this not being very fun.
Oh oh oh, this would be perfect for Underwater enemies to have as their class if you want to buff them against a party. xD
You can find my published homebrew Spells here.
Thanks for the feedback, Josh.
I know that high level most Sorcerer builds include multiclass at some point. The AC issue can be dealt with by starting in Cleric, Warlock, Fighter, or Paladin. Also several semi-aquatic races get automatic boosts to AC already, such as Tortle and Lizardfolk. Combined with the ability to free disengage via the Electro-Kinetic Shock that recharges on short rests, that should be sufficient to give the character greater survivability than the average full caster going into melee.
RE: campaign settings, I'm aware that it feels a bit limited, but that's in large part because so few official published campaign materials are published for aquatic or semi-aquatic settings. The Earth as we know it has about 70% surface area covered by water, though, and many dungeons include bodies of water as well. Conversely, if you think about it, most flying abilities do nothing in an underwater campaign, but flying is such a big deal that quite a few subclasses include flight abilities, which aren't very useful in large segments of dungeons/caves/sewers anyway. So, yeah, it's not really a design that would likely get published but there's no reason why DMs who want to feature D&D versions of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" or "Pirates of the Caribbean" should feel confined by subclasses designed for landlubbers.
Also, yes, having NPC villains with the subclass is definitely part of why I designed the subclass as well. Glad you saw that.
Electro-Kinetic Shock is sorta subpar...
A Shocking Grasp would outpace it very quickly, essentially making this feature redundant. Also, just to remind you, Electric damage doesn't exist. Lightning replaces that.