I'm retiring my Tempest Cleric because her thing was that she took the Spell Sniper feat at level 1 so that she could use Booming Blade with a whip. That strategy no longer works with Booming Blade, so I'm retiring her. But she's not actually retiring, I'm rerolling her into a Psionic Shadow Sorcerer. Before, she used the powers of the elements from her God Talos to kill people. But now she's opened herself up to the darkness within her, and she uses the power of the shadows to mess with people's minds. She no longer needs a God to give her power. She has realized how much power she has within her.
She's still a variant human, but this time I'm taking the Fey touched feat with Charisma at level 1, which bumps her up to 16 Charisma (which becomes 20 Charisma by level 8, which is her current level). I'm choosing Bane as her first level spell from the feat, and I also get access to Misty Step from the feat. I can cast those once a day without using a spell slot, and I can also cast them using spell slots. From being a Shadow Sorcerer, I know Darkness, and I can cast it with two sorcery points, but I don't plan on using that spell very often. Most of the time I will be concentrating on Bane or a higher level spell. I also got the Bloodwell Vial which increases my spell save DC, and I got the Staff of Defense which lets me cast Mage Armor and gives me 3-4 castings of Shield per day, so I don't need to include those among my 9 spells known.
So I need some help choosing the 9 spells known that I start with.
For cantrips, I'm choosing Chill Touch and Mind Sliver for a pair of damaging cantrips. I'm also learning Message, Minor Illusion, and Prestidigitation. I'm set on learning these cantrips. I'm choosing Subtle Spell and Quickened Spell for my metamagics - no Twinned spell. I don't need help with these decisions, but knowing these choices might be useful in helping me choose my spells known.
But that leaves me with 5 more spells that I can learn. I'm trying to stay thematic and stick with the Psionic type spells. There's also an Aasimar Divine Soul Sorcerer in the party, and he uses Fireball, Fire Bolt, Sacred Flame, Spiritual Weapon, Counterspell, Revivify, Twinned Haste, Twinned Polymorph, Twinned Greater Invisibility, that type of thing. We're both sorcerers, but I'm going to leave the buffs and fire/radiant stuff to him, and I don't want to encroach on his play style. We also have a Rune Knight, an Arcane Trickster, and an Assassin Rogue/Battlemaster Fighter multiclass in the party, so I'm not worried about trying to deal a lot of damage. My thing will be Psionic debuffs.
Two spells are on my "Almost definitely" list: Absorb Elements and Catapult. Absorb Elements helps keep my low HP Sorcerer alive, and it's still somewhat thematic. Catapult is extremely thematic, and it gives me a non-concentration spell that I can cast with a first level spell slot. I'm trying to be careful to not overload my list of spells known with powerful higher level spells that all compete with each other for my small number of high level spell slots and for my concentration.
Spells that are on my short list for spells that I am giving serious thought to are: Hold Person, Suggestion, Counterspell, Hypnotic Pattern, and Slow. I don't think I would be encroaching too much on the other Sorcerer if I also know Counterspell, right? The other four are concentration spells and are second level or higher, so they're already beginning to compete for my concentration and for a more limited number of spell slots. But they're thematic, powerful, and they're spells that the Aasimar Divine Soul Sorcerer in the party doesn't know. Hold Person goes very well with boosting the damage of the three melee people in the party, and it boosts the damage of my Hound of Ill Omen from 2D6+3 to 4D6+3, which is nothing to sneeze at, and with +5 to hit and advantage, he'll land most of his attacks.
Other spells that I have given a slight amount of thought to are: Charm Person, Disguise Self, Detect Thoughts, Levitate, Dispel Magic, Fear, Banishment, Confusion. I'm open to suggestions for spells that I haven't listed, as long as they're both thematic and useful. I'm not taking Fireball, Haste, or Polymorph. Yes, they're extremely powerful, but the other Sorcerer knows them, and they're not thematic.
Am I penalizing spells too much for being concentration and/or being a higher level spell that competes for a more limited number of spell slots? Please let me know what you think my last five spells known should be.
I talked to the guy that plays the Fighter in our party (because he played a Wizard from level 2 to level 14 in another campaign that we did), and he made the excellent point that I'll run out of spell slots very quickly if I'm using spell slots every round. That's an excellent reason to not use Counterspell - that's a great way to use up your spell slots really quickly because you're not casting it during your turn. I'm also beginning to second guess choosing Blink. I'm not sure if I would rather use an action during combat to cast Blink on myself instead of casting something on the enemy. It's also a good reason to learn a spell like Suggestion that's got uses out of combat, too, and is probably not the best use of my concentration during combat.
I really do like Tasha's Mind Whip - it's effect is especially brutal when combined with a Hound of Ill Omen that can knock enemies prone.
Right now I'm leaning towards choosing Hold Person, Suggestion, and Slow. And I'm considering dropping Blink for Charm Person. Then I'd be a bit thin on 3rd and 4th level spells known and pretty heavy on 1st and 2nd level spells known.
But I'm thinking that upcasting Blindness/Deafness or Hold Person would be a decent use of my 3rd and 4th level spell slots, so maybe that won't be a problem.
Sorcerers are known for how few spells they know, but it feels to me like I'll have plenty of spells known. I'm more worried about not having enough spell slots than I am about not knowing enough spells.
Def hold person then hold monster at 9. Bonus action hound of ill omen, action hold person/monster. They get disadvantage on the save vs hold, second round they still get disadvantage and the hound gets advantage and auto crit damage.
Def hold person then hold monster at 9. Bonus action hound of ill omen, action hold person/monster. They get disadvantage on the save vs hold, second round they still get disadvantage and the hound gets advantage and auto crit damage.
Yeah, the more I've thought about it, the more I like Hold Person. Especially because it upcasts so well. It does also combo quite nice with the Hound of Ill Omen. The Hound of Ill Omen is so awesome. It's somewhat like Spiritual Weapon (a non-concentration source of extra damage), but it's so so much more powerful. And at 3 Sorcery Points, the cost is the same as a 2nd level spell.
It's not the way people normally play spell casters, but I think that I'm going to mostly be upcasting Hold Person and Blindness/Deafness with my 3rd and 4th level slots instead of actually using 3rd and 4th level spells with those slots. Compared to using the Twinned spell metamagic, I think it's actually cheaper to just upcast these spells. Especially since I want to use a lot of sorcery points for the Hound of Ill Omen. It also lets me not choose the Twinned spell metamagic and choose two different metamagics instead.
I'm leaning towards replacing Blink with Counterspell (instead of Charm Person as mentioned in my 2nd post). I talked to the Wizard that used the spell quite a bit in one of our campaigns (which is why I figured it was a nice spell), and it turns out that a lot of the time he was using it with Contingency. I just don't think I would use Blink very often, so I've decided to replace it on my spells known.
I do think it'd be a bit too extreme to only know one 3rd level spell (Slow) and one 4th level spell (Blight), which is partly why I'm leaning towards Counterspell. Does my logic there make sense?
I agree, i'd use Hypnotic pattern over slow. And polymorph over blight.
I was considering Hypnotic Pattern. It sucks that it won't work in combination with my Hound of Ill Omen, though. And it won't apply a debuff that lasts on the enemy when you're attacking the enemy (unlike Slow, Blindness/Deafness, Hold Person, and Bane). But I suppose that just makes it a very situational spell, but one that's quite powerful when the situation calls for it. Which makes it a good choice. I'll definitely give some more consideration to dropping Counterspell for Hypnotic Pattern.
As for Polymorph, the Divine Soul Sorcerer has made twinned Polymorph a core of his strategy, so I'm not going to step on his toes and learn that spell.
If I select Hypnotic Pattern, that makes it tempting to select the Careful Spell metamagic. It's a fairly cheap metamagic, which is good, because I plan on using a lot of Sorcery Points for the Hound of Ill Omen. Without choosing the Careful Spell metamagic, Hypnotic Pattern is more difficult to use with there being three melee people in my party.
If I had to choose between giving up Subtle Spell or Quickened Spell in order to replace it with Careful Spell to make Hypnotic Pattern easier to use, I think I would ditch Quickened Spell. I like the idea of casting Mind Sliver and then quickening another spell for my Bonus Action to take advantage of the debuff I just put on them. But it is rather expensive to use two Sorcery Points just to be able to cast a cantrip as well as a leveled spell on my turn instead of just a leveled spell.
I'm expecting to take Empowered Spell at level 10, which is 1 level after I get Synaptic Static, and I'm only getting to cast Synaptic Static once per day at level 9 anyways. It would also help with Blight when we really need to nuke a single target down quickly and there aren't enough dangerous targets for upcasting Hold Person or Blindness/Deafness to make sense. But that means that I wouldn't be able to choose Careful Spell or Quickened Spell at level 10 for my 3rd metamagic. Synaptic Static would also benefit from Careful Spell because it has the potential to debuff allies, too. Careful spell would not prevent my allies from taking damage, but it would prevent my three melee allies from subtracting a D6 from all of their attacks until they can beat my extremely high spell save DC on an Intelligence Saving throw. Two of the three are Rogues, so they've got pretty good Intelligence Saving Throws - the Arcane Trickster even has a +8 to Intelligence Saving throws and advantage against being charmed for Hypnotic Pattern because she's a Wood Elf. Also, it looks like the guy playing the Fighter is retiring his Fighter and playing an Oath of Vengeance Paladin, which would buff up the saving throws of him and everyone within 10ft of him (which would quite often include the two Rogues). And he's likely to do a Half Elf, which would give him advantage on his saving throw against Hypnotic Pattern, too.
While Empowered Spell would be great for Blight and Synaptic Static, I can't see using it when upcasting Tasha's Mind Whip, so it's really just for those two spells. Although Careful Spell would also just be for two spells - Synaptic Static and Hypnotic Pattern. And I would expect to not use Hypnotic Pattern very often because I can't pair it with my Hound of Ill Omen too well, and because I think I would prefer using Bane, Hold Person, or Slow most of the time. And I'd be fine with using Synaptic Static on a single target (and therefore placing the radius such that it only hits that one target), but I would not be using Hypnotic Pattern on anything less than 3 targets which makes it much harder to avoid hitting my allies if I'm trying to include a bunch of enemies in the radius.
So can you make a good argument that I should ditch Quickened Spell and select Careful Spell instead? I'm on the fence about switching to Careful Spell and Hypnotic Pattern, I could use a good push. If I expect to use my Hound of Ill Omen a few times per day, and I've also got access to the subtle spell metamagic for social situations and for combat when I want to avoid being counterspelled, but I've also got the Bloodwell Vial to replenish Sorcery Points once per day, should I go for a more powerful but rarely useful metamagic like Careful Spell and Empowered Spell? Or for a metamagic that isn't nearly as powerful and is twice as expensive, but is useful much more often with Quickened Spell?
Edit: Actually, with the 30ft range on Bane, Blindness/Deafness, and Blight, maybe Distant Spell is the best choice for my 2nd metamagic?
I use a lot more AoE CCs, so Careful makes a lot of since for me. I have Careful and Quicken and use both a lot. But i also have a different spell load out. I abore single damage levelled spells on a sorc, so i'm taking debuffs and CCs with a few out of combat spells for RP and exploration.
I use Careful with Web, HP and soon to be Evard's Black Tenticles.
I'm leaning towards Distant Spell now actually, and choosing Hypnotic Pattern, with the knowledge that I would rarely use it over the alternatives. But I think it's better for my last spell known to be a more niche spell than to be a spell that I want to use frequently.
I just won't use Hypnotic Pattern often enough for Careful Spell to be useful, and I don't have any other spells in my loadout that would take advantage of it.
How do you go about using Quicken spell? It's a pretty heavy price to pay for being able to cast a cantrip with your action. Do you do something else with your action, like maybe Dodge? 2 Sorcery Points for an extra 2D6 of damage and a minus D4 on their next saving throw seems a bit expensive. I was initially going to use Quicken Spell, but I'm having second thoughts on it now...
Cast Mind Sliver, then Quicken a single target dissable on the same mob. I like Dissonant Whisper, or Blindness/Deafness.
When I can summon a Hound of Ill Omen with a Bonus Action for 3 Sorcery Points and still cast a spell with a spell slot that turn, I can't see it being useful to quicken a cantrip for 2 Sorcery Points instead. That´s why I'm having second thoughts about Quickened Spell. It's just far too similar in its effect to summoning a Hound of Ill Omen, but so much weaker as well.
Yes, but you asked me how i use it. I agree, you're better off without.
The Divine Soul Sorcerer in my party has come to the same conclusion. He took that metamagic along with twinned spell, and he's rarely used it because casting a cantrip isn't really worth 2 sorcery points. He's actually going to take 2 levels in Hexblade Warlock now to get access to Medium Armor and Shields, as well as Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast because he wants to actually be tempted to use his sorcery points for it (I'm disappointed that he won't be learning Synaptic Static next level, but it's his character to play). But we agreed that Quickened Spell didn't really make sense for me. It's useful hearing that you agree that I'm better off without it.
So right now it looks like I'm going to use the rather rarely used Distant Spell metamagic.
And I hope to be using a few Hounds of Ill Omen each day and using most of my Sorcery Points for that.
Tbh, using hoio with a control, i'd take subtle spell. It's great making your spells immune to counterspell. It's also good in social encounters.
Yes, I expect to take Subtle Spell and Distant Spell as my first two metamagics. And then at level 10 Empowered Spell to boost Blight and Synaptic Static. They're all cheap metamagics (1 Sorcery Point), which is good, because I want to use my Sorcery Points to summon Hounds a few times per day. Heightened Spell, Quickened Spell, and Twinned Spell are the expensive metamagics, which makes them harder to take when you're hoping to spend a lot of Sorcery Points on summoning Hounds of Ill Omen.
Have you thought about a couple levels of warlock? 2 lock levels will bolster your SPs every short rest. 3 is almost over the top. Either way it may help a lot with the summoning of hounds.
Have you thought about a couple levels of warlock? 2 lock levels will bolster your SPs every short rest. 3 is almost over the top. Either way it may help a lot with the summoning of hounds.
I definitely want to go out to level 10 as Sorcerer. Level 9 gives me access to Synaptic Static, which is exactly the type of thing my character is designed to do - psychic damage debuffs. Level 10 gives me another 5th level spell slot (doubling my 5th level spell slots from 1 to 2) and a good cheap metamagic (Empowered Spell) to use with Synaptic Static and with Blight. But then after that, it really slows down.
Level 11 does give new spells and 1 more spell slot and 1 more spell known. But then levels 12, 14, and 16 literally give zero more spells known and zero more spell slots. I haven't looked too closely at level 6 spells, but I know that Eyebite is both powerful and thematic. I definitely would consider multiclassing after level 10.
I think Synaptic Static with Empowered spell is good enough to go out to level 10 to get to cast it twice per day and to boost its damage for 1 sorcery point if I roll poorly. Especially with how Synaptic Static would stack with Bane to give a huge decrease to attack rolls (an average of minus 6 from a D4 + a D6), and a Hound of Ill Omen + Bane + 20 charisma + a rare Bloodwell Vial will make it extremely difficult to get rid of the debuff from Synaptic Static.
I just finished a campaign where I played a melee focused Pact of the Chain Celestial Warlock, and I did enjoy it, so I could see doing a Warlock again. I don't think I would want to multiclass in and take Eldritch Blast with the Agonizing Blast invocation. It'd be powerful, but I'd be copying what the Divine Soul Sorcerer in my party is doing. I would be fine with taking the Eldritch Mind invocation that he's also taking - that's a good reason to go Warlock, it would give me almost all of the features that I would get from one of the most likely feats that I could be taking if I went straight to level 12 in Sorcerer. I guess that's one thing I'll have to think about once I get to level 10 is what feat I would be interested in taking at level 12 that would inspire me to stay the course with Sorcerer instead of multiclassing into Warlock and not getting a feat when my character reaches level 12.
I haven't looked into it too much about what feat I would want at level 12, but you've got a good idea about multiclassing into Warlock. Doing a Pact of the Tome Warlock with the Eldritch Mind invocation and Book of Ancient Secrets invocation would basically give me all three of the Magic Initiate, Ritual Caster, and War Caster feats. And after level 11, the spell slots come in very slowly for the full casters, so multiclassing into Warlock definitely could make sense. So maybe in a month or two I'll be posting on the Sorcerer or Warlock forum asking for advice about multiclassing into Warlock after reaching level 10 as a Shadow Sorcerer.
Chain would also be good. I've gotten a lot of use from my imp in RotFM. An invisible flying scout has been great. I even used it to steal a powerful magic item from an NPC making a potential TPK into a nonfight.
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I'm retiring my Tempest Cleric because her thing was that she took the Spell Sniper feat at level 1 so that she could use Booming Blade with a whip. That strategy no longer works with Booming Blade, so I'm retiring her. But she's not actually retiring, I'm rerolling her into a Psionic Shadow Sorcerer. Before, she used the powers of the elements from her God Talos to kill people. But now she's opened herself up to the darkness within her, and she uses the power of the shadows to mess with people's minds. She no longer needs a God to give her power. She has realized how much power she has within her.
She's still a variant human, but this time I'm taking the Fey touched feat with Charisma at level 1, which bumps her up to 16 Charisma (which becomes 20 Charisma by level 8, which is her current level). I'm choosing Bane as her first level spell from the feat, and I also get access to Misty Step from the feat. I can cast those once a day without using a spell slot, and I can also cast them using spell slots. From being a Shadow Sorcerer, I know Darkness, and I can cast it with two sorcery points, but I don't plan on using that spell very often. Most of the time I will be concentrating on Bane or a higher level spell. I also got the Bloodwell Vial which increases my spell save DC, and I got the Staff of Defense which lets me cast Mage Armor and gives me 3-4 castings of Shield per day, so I don't need to include those among my 9 spells known.
So I need some help choosing the 9 spells known that I start with.
For cantrips, I'm choosing Chill Touch and Mind Sliver for a pair of damaging cantrips. I'm also learning Message, Minor Illusion, and Prestidigitation. I'm set on learning these cantrips. I'm choosing Subtle Spell and Quickened Spell for my metamagics - no Twinned spell. I don't need help with these decisions, but knowing these choices might be useful in helping me choose my spells known.
I've decided on 4 spells for my 9 spells known. These are Blindness/Deafness, Tasha's Mind Whip, Blink, and Blight.
But that leaves me with 5 more spells that I can learn. I'm trying to stay thematic and stick with the Psionic type spells. There's also an Aasimar Divine Soul Sorcerer in the party, and he uses Fireball, Fire Bolt, Sacred Flame, Spiritual Weapon, Counterspell, Revivify, Twinned Haste, Twinned Polymorph, Twinned Greater Invisibility, that type of thing. We're both sorcerers, but I'm going to leave the buffs and fire/radiant stuff to him, and I don't want to encroach on his play style. We also have a Rune Knight, an Arcane Trickster, and an Assassin Rogue/Battlemaster Fighter multiclass in the party, so I'm not worried about trying to deal a lot of damage. My thing will be Psionic debuffs.
Two spells are on my "Almost definitely" list: Absorb Elements and Catapult. Absorb Elements helps keep my low HP Sorcerer alive, and it's still somewhat thematic. Catapult is extremely thematic, and it gives me a non-concentration spell that I can cast with a first level spell slot. I'm trying to be careful to not overload my list of spells known with powerful higher level spells that all compete with each other for my small number of high level spell slots and for my concentration.
Spells that are on my short list for spells that I am giving serious thought to are: Hold Person, Suggestion, Counterspell, Hypnotic Pattern, and Slow. I don't think I would be encroaching too much on the other Sorcerer if I also know Counterspell, right? The other four are concentration spells and are second level or higher, so they're already beginning to compete for my concentration and for a more limited number of spell slots. But they're thematic, powerful, and they're spells that the Aasimar Divine Soul Sorcerer in the party doesn't know. Hold Person goes very well with boosting the damage of the three melee people in the party, and it boosts the damage of my Hound of Ill Omen from 2D6+3 to 4D6+3, which is nothing to sneeze at, and with +5 to hit and advantage, he'll land most of his attacks.
Other spells that I have given a slight amount of thought to are: Charm Person, Disguise Self, Detect Thoughts, Levitate, Dispel Magic, Fear, Banishment, Confusion. I'm open to suggestions for spells that I haven't listed, as long as they're both thematic and useful. I'm not taking Fireball, Haste, or Polymorph. Yes, they're extremely powerful, but the other Sorcerer knows them, and they're not thematic.
Am I penalizing spells too much for being concentration and/or being a higher level spell that competes for a more limited number of spell slots? Please let me know what you think my last five spells known should be.
I talked to the guy that plays the Fighter in our party (because he played a Wizard from level 2 to level 14 in another campaign that we did), and he made the excellent point that I'll run out of spell slots very quickly if I'm using spell slots every round. That's an excellent reason to not use Counterspell - that's a great way to use up your spell slots really quickly because you're not casting it during your turn. I'm also beginning to second guess choosing Blink. I'm not sure if I would rather use an action during combat to cast Blink on myself instead of casting something on the enemy. It's also a good reason to learn a spell like Suggestion that's got uses out of combat, too, and is probably not the best use of my concentration during combat.
I really do like Tasha's Mind Whip - it's effect is especially brutal when combined with a Hound of Ill Omen that can knock enemies prone.
Right now I'm leaning towards choosing Hold Person, Suggestion, and Slow. And I'm considering dropping Blink for Charm Person. Then I'd be a bit thin on 3rd and 4th level spells known and pretty heavy on 1st and 2nd level spells known.
But I'm thinking that upcasting Blindness/Deafness or Hold Person would be a decent use of my 3rd and 4th level spell slots, so maybe that won't be a problem.
Sorcerers are known for how few spells they know, but it feels to me like I'll have plenty of spells known. I'm more worried about not having enough spell slots than I am about not knowing enough spells.
Def hold person then hold monster at 9. Bonus action hound of ill omen, action hold person/monster. They get disadvantage on the save vs hold, second round they still get disadvantage and the hound gets advantage and auto crit damage.
Yeah, the more I've thought about it, the more I like Hold Person. Especially because it upcasts so well. It does also combo quite nice with the Hound of Ill Omen. The Hound of Ill Omen is so awesome. It's somewhat like Spiritual Weapon (a non-concentration source of extra damage), but it's so so much more powerful. And at 3 Sorcery Points, the cost is the same as a 2nd level spell.
It's not the way people normally play spell casters, but I think that I'm going to mostly be upcasting Hold Person and Blindness/Deafness with my 3rd and 4th level slots instead of actually using 3rd and 4th level spells with those slots. Compared to using the Twinned spell metamagic, I think it's actually cheaper to just upcast these spells. Especially since I want to use a lot of sorcery points for the Hound of Ill Omen. It also lets me not choose the Twinned spell metamagic and choose two different metamagics instead.
I'm leaning towards replacing Blink with Counterspell (instead of Charm Person as mentioned in my 2nd post). I talked to the Wizard that used the spell quite a bit in one of our campaigns (which is why I figured it was a nice spell), and it turns out that a lot of the time he was using it with Contingency. I just don't think I would use Blink very often, so I've decided to replace it on my spells known.
I do think it'd be a bit too extreme to only know one 3rd level spell (Slow) and one 4th level spell (Blight), which is partly why I'm leaning towards Counterspell. Does my logic there make sense?
I agree, i'd use Hypnotic pattern over slow. And polymorph over blight.
I was considering Hypnotic Pattern. It sucks that it won't work in combination with my Hound of Ill Omen, though. And it won't apply a debuff that lasts on the enemy when you're attacking the enemy (unlike Slow, Blindness/Deafness, Hold Person, and Bane). But I suppose that just makes it a very situational spell, but one that's quite powerful when the situation calls for it. Which makes it a good choice. I'll definitely give some more consideration to dropping Counterspell for Hypnotic Pattern.
As for Polymorph, the Divine Soul Sorcerer has made twinned Polymorph a core of his strategy, so I'm not going to step on his toes and learn that spell.
A careful HP is encounter breaking. Just saying.
If I select Hypnotic Pattern, that makes it tempting to select the Careful Spell metamagic. It's a fairly cheap metamagic, which is good, because I plan on using a lot of Sorcery Points for the Hound of Ill Omen. Without choosing the Careful Spell metamagic, Hypnotic Pattern is more difficult to use with there being three melee people in my party.
If I had to choose between giving up Subtle Spell or Quickened Spell in order to replace it with Careful Spell to make Hypnotic Pattern easier to use, I think I would ditch Quickened Spell. I like the idea of casting Mind Sliver and then quickening another spell for my Bonus Action to take advantage of the debuff I just put on them. But it is rather expensive to use two Sorcery Points just to be able to cast a cantrip as well as a leveled spell on my turn instead of just a leveled spell.
I'm expecting to take Empowered Spell at level 10, which is 1 level after I get Synaptic Static, and I'm only getting to cast Synaptic Static once per day at level 9 anyways. It would also help with Blight when we really need to nuke a single target down quickly and there aren't enough dangerous targets for upcasting Hold Person or Blindness/Deafness to make sense. But that means that I wouldn't be able to choose Careful Spell or Quickened Spell at level 10 for my 3rd metamagic. Synaptic Static would also benefit from Careful Spell because it has the potential to debuff allies, too. Careful spell would not prevent my allies from taking damage, but it would prevent my three melee allies from subtracting a D6 from all of their attacks until they can beat my extremely high spell save DC on an Intelligence Saving throw. Two of the three are Rogues, so they've got pretty good Intelligence Saving Throws - the Arcane Trickster even has a +8 to Intelligence Saving throws and advantage against being charmed for Hypnotic Pattern because she's a Wood Elf. Also, it looks like the guy playing the Fighter is retiring his Fighter and playing an Oath of Vengeance Paladin, which would buff up the saving throws of him and everyone within 10ft of him (which would quite often include the two Rogues). And he's likely to do a Half Elf, which would give him advantage on his saving throw against Hypnotic Pattern, too.
While Empowered Spell would be great for Blight and Synaptic Static, I can't see using it when upcasting Tasha's Mind Whip, so it's really just for those two spells. Although Careful Spell would also just be for two spells - Synaptic Static and Hypnotic Pattern. And I would expect to not use Hypnotic Pattern very often because I can't pair it with my Hound of Ill Omen too well, and because I think I would prefer using Bane, Hold Person, or Slow most of the time. And I'd be fine with using Synaptic Static on a single target (and therefore placing the radius such that it only hits that one target), but I would not be using Hypnotic Pattern on anything less than 3 targets which makes it much harder to avoid hitting my allies if I'm trying to include a bunch of enemies in the radius.
So can you make a good argument that I should ditch Quickened Spell and select Careful Spell instead? I'm on the fence about switching to Careful Spell and Hypnotic Pattern, I could use a good push. If I expect to use my Hound of Ill Omen a few times per day, and I've also got access to the subtle spell metamagic for social situations and for combat when I want to avoid being counterspelled, but I've also got the Bloodwell Vial to replenish Sorcery Points once per day, should I go for a more powerful but rarely useful metamagic like Careful Spell and Empowered Spell? Or for a metamagic that isn't nearly as powerful and is twice as expensive, but is useful much more often with Quickened Spell?
Edit: Actually, with the 30ft range on Bane, Blindness/Deafness, and Blight, maybe Distant Spell is the best choice for my 2nd metamagic?
I use a lot more AoE CCs, so Careful makes a lot of since for me. I have Careful and Quicken and use both a lot. But i also have a different spell load out. I abore single damage levelled spells on a sorc, so i'm taking debuffs and CCs with a few out of combat spells for RP and exploration.
I use Careful with Web, HP and soon to be Evard's Black Tenticles.
I'm leaning towards Distant Spell now actually, and choosing Hypnotic Pattern, with the knowledge that I would rarely use it over the alternatives. But I think it's better for my last spell known to be a more niche spell than to be a spell that I want to use frequently.
I just won't use Hypnotic Pattern often enough for Careful Spell to be useful, and I don't have any other spells in my loadout that would take advantage of it.
How do you go about using Quicken spell? It's a pretty heavy price to pay for being able to cast a cantrip with your action. Do you do something else with your action, like maybe Dodge? 2 Sorcery Points for an extra 2D6 of damage and a minus D4 on their next saving throw seems a bit expensive. I was initially going to use Quicken Spell, but I'm having second thoughts on it now...
Cast Mind Sliver, then Quicken a single target dissable on the same mob. I like Dissonant Whisper, or Blindness/Deafness.
When I can summon a Hound of Ill Omen with a Bonus Action for 3 Sorcery Points and still cast a spell with a spell slot that turn, I can't see it being useful to quicken a cantrip for 2 Sorcery Points instead. That´s why I'm having second thoughts about Quickened Spell. It's just far too similar in its effect to summoning a Hound of Ill Omen, but so much weaker as well.
Yes, but you asked me how i use it. I agree, you're better off without.
The Divine Soul Sorcerer in my party has come to the same conclusion. He took that metamagic along with twinned spell, and he's rarely used it because casting a cantrip isn't really worth 2 sorcery points. He's actually going to take 2 levels in Hexblade Warlock now to get access to Medium Armor and Shields, as well as Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast because he wants to actually be tempted to use his sorcery points for it (I'm disappointed that he won't be learning Synaptic Static next level, but it's his character to play). But we agreed that Quickened Spell didn't really make sense for me. It's useful hearing that you agree that I'm better off without it.
So right now it looks like I'm going to use the rather rarely used Distant Spell metamagic.
And I hope to be using a few Hounds of Ill Omen each day and using most of my Sorcery Points for that.
Tbh, using hoio with a control, i'd take subtle spell. It's great making your spells immune to counterspell. It's also good in social encounters.
Yes, I expect to take Subtle Spell and Distant Spell as my first two metamagics. And then at level 10 Empowered Spell to boost Blight and Synaptic Static. They're all cheap metamagics (1 Sorcery Point), which is good, because I want to use my Sorcery Points to summon Hounds a few times per day. Heightened Spell, Quickened Spell, and Twinned Spell are the expensive metamagics, which makes them harder to take when you're hoping to spend a lot of Sorcery Points on summoning Hounds of Ill Omen.
Have you thought about a couple levels of warlock? 2 lock levels will bolster your SPs every short rest. 3 is almost over the top. Either way it may help a lot with the summoning of hounds.
I definitely want to go out to level 10 as Sorcerer. Level 9 gives me access to Synaptic Static, which is exactly the type of thing my character is designed to do - psychic damage debuffs. Level 10 gives me another 5th level spell slot (doubling my 5th level spell slots from 1 to 2) and a good cheap metamagic (Empowered Spell) to use with Synaptic Static and with Blight. But then after that, it really slows down.
Level 11 does give new spells and 1 more spell slot and 1 more spell known. But then levels 12, 14, and 16 literally give zero more spells known and zero more spell slots. I haven't looked too closely at level 6 spells, but I know that Eyebite is both powerful and thematic. I definitely would consider multiclassing after level 10.
I think Synaptic Static with Empowered spell is good enough to go out to level 10 to get to cast it twice per day and to boost its damage for 1 sorcery point if I roll poorly. Especially with how Synaptic Static would stack with Bane to give a huge decrease to attack rolls (an average of minus 6 from a D4 + a D6), and a Hound of Ill Omen + Bane + 20 charisma + a rare Bloodwell Vial will make it extremely difficult to get rid of the debuff from Synaptic Static.
I just finished a campaign where I played a melee focused Pact of the Chain Celestial Warlock, and I did enjoy it, so I could see doing a Warlock again. I don't think I would want to multiclass in and take Eldritch Blast with the Agonizing Blast invocation. It'd be powerful, but I'd be copying what the Divine Soul Sorcerer in my party is doing. I would be fine with taking the Eldritch Mind invocation that he's also taking - that's a good reason to go Warlock, it would give me almost all of the features that I would get from one of the most likely feats that I could be taking if I went straight to level 12 in Sorcerer. I guess that's one thing I'll have to think about once I get to level 10 is what feat I would be interested in taking at level 12 that would inspire me to stay the course with Sorcerer instead of multiclassing into Warlock and not getting a feat when my character reaches level 12.
I haven't looked into it too much about what feat I would want at level 12, but you've got a good idea about multiclassing into Warlock. Doing a Pact of the Tome Warlock with the Eldritch Mind invocation and Book of Ancient Secrets invocation would basically give me all three of the Magic Initiate, Ritual Caster, and War Caster feats. And after level 11, the spell slots come in very slowly for the full casters, so multiclassing into Warlock definitely could make sense. So maybe in a month or two I'll be posting on the Sorcerer or Warlock forum asking for advice about multiclassing into Warlock after reaching level 10 as a Shadow Sorcerer.
Chain would also be good. I've gotten a lot of use from my imp in RotFM. An invisible flying scout has been great. I even used it to steal a powerful magic item from an NPC making a potential TPK into a nonfight.