I’m making a Divine Soul 18 /Hexblade 2 Complete with Bless, Silvery Barbs, Protection from Evil and Good and Hex, but I would still like to use Fey Touched. The top two spells I found were Gift of Alacrity and Dissonant Whispers. I’m not sure how well a +1-8 initiative order will really do, but finding time to use a level 1 spell in battle for free seems unlikely as the campaign progresses. Are there any others that you all can think of that are good ideas? Which spell from Fey Touched should I pick? Or is there another spell I should be picking instead of Bless, Silvery Barbs, Protection from Evil and Good and Hex?
With regards to initiative (and perception) I generally find that one boost is not enough. If you go hard on them, getting multiple boosts (i.e. a feat and a spell or a class ability), then they become worthwhile. Your question about 'finding time' is silly, Gift is an 8 hour spell, you cast it in the morning and it waits for you. If you are doing initiative bonus, and already have a feat or class ability, then get Gift of Alacrity. Otherwise do not bother.
Dissonant Whispers is, like many of the 1st level spells, not worth the damage by the tim e you get to level 20, instead you use it for the OTHER effect. In this case, the running away. That is a far more powerful thing, at least for a 1st level spell.
At high levels, the following first level spells will still be very useful (especially if no one else in your party has them):
There's no spell that you can't already get by being a Divine Soul that is worth it other than Gift of Alacrity (which effectively double's the target's intiative bonus). But you might want to use it just to free up a spell known so you can pick up something else higher level.
Alternatively these are by go-to spells for Fey Touched:
Silvery Barbs, Gift of Alacrity, Command, Bless, Bane.
Your question about 'finding time' is silly, Gift is an 8 hour spell, you cast it in the morning and it waits for you.
I meant time for Dissonant Whispers in battle. Guess I should have clarified.
Either way, thank you both for replying. I think I will stick with Gift of Alacrity and focus on someone with a good bonus already to double it. As long as I remember it, this spell is something i can and should use for free once everyday.
With regards to initiative (and perception) I generally find that one boost is not enough. If you go hard on them, getting multiple boosts (i.e. a feat and a spell or a class ability), then they become worthwhile. Your question about 'finding time' is silly, Gift is an 8 hour spell, you cast it in the morning and it waits for you. If you are doing initiative bonus, and already have a feat or class ability, then get Gift of Alacrity. Otherwise do not bother.
Dissonant Whispers is, like many of the 1st level spells, not worth the damage by the tim e you get to level 20, instead you use it for the OTHER effect. In this case, the running away. That is a far more powerful thing, at least for a 1st level spell.
At high levels, the following first level spells will still be very useful (especially if no one else in your party has them):
Your advice about initiative is directly contrary to objective reality. Each +1 is worth LESS, not more, than the previous. That is because going before the enemy is all that matter, it doesn't matter how far ahead you go.
A +1 is more likely to help than going from +1 to +2. Because some enemies won't have a bonus at all, so if they roll a 20, you do too, your 21 beats their 20 and that extra of the +2 would have been wasted.
This gets more, and more, and more likely to higher the bonus to initiative you have gets. If you roll a 15 but already have a +8 to initiative, your 23 is likely to go well before anyone else does, and adding another +5 from a feat would kinda be silly, because it doesn't matter if you go first at 23 or you go first at 28... you go first.
So, the takeaway here is that the closer you are to no bonus at all, the harder you should be looking for something that gives you a boost.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Gift of alacrity every time! As a spellcaster, going early in the order can help you control the battlefield or take enemies of the field before they can act. I go for that spell whenever I can. Dissonant whispers is nice (I like it) but not as important.
BTW, you have a lot of spells and abilities competing for your bonus action: quickened metamagic, hex, misty step, spiritual weapon, healing word. So, you would routinely cast hex and then spiritual weapon? I had hex on a stars druid and had starry form archer for bonus action, so I used hex all of once becaus ei went right to bonus action attacks. If you're going to use Hex routinely, it's fine.
Do you expect to fight the creatures listed in Protection from Evil and Good often? I was in a spelljammer campaign where in one year (11 levels) we encountered aberrations only twice, celestials never, elementals in one area only and we didn't fight any of them (one joined our crew), no fey, 3 fiends (night hag, something the drow use that I forget the name of, and also a succubus but that one didn't fight us), and a few weak undead in one area, so really we actually fought very few. If you know you are in a campaign with a lot of even one of those, it makes sense to take it -- it is a good spell. I took it in a witchlight campaign because I figured we'd fight fey.
Keep Silvery Barbs for sure; it is useful offensively (make them reroll a save) and defensively (9save someone form a crit) plus the advantage.
i think I see your logic on initiative. Rather than pumping Gift Alacrity into someone with an already high initiative bonus (overkill), you would recommend giving it to someone with leas of one, correct?
As for my other spells (thank you for taking the time to look), I’m mostly relying on spells highly rated on other sites (specifically Arcane Eye). I must also confess that I don’t have much experience playing to know these kind of things about specific adventures. I’m still trying to grasp things like prioritizing bonus actions. (Any advice on which ones to keep/drop would be welcome!)
I will say this; my Hexblade portion is more of an “extra.” I’m questioning whether or not I would take it until I reach level 18 on my Divine Soul. Thus, I probably wouldn’t be taking Hex or Protection over Evil and Good until much later. Grant it, by then they may be useless, but again they were the highest rated spells on Arcane Eye, so I went for it.
”Sadly,” I ended up dropping Fey Touched altogether since i had access to Bless, Silvery Barbs, Hex and Misty Step already. This was in favor of… another feature of circumstance: Actor. I know it’s not ranked high for Sorcerers like it is for Warlocks and Bards, but seeing as i have a disguise kit and access to disguise self/alter self, I thought I could really pull off a Master of Disguise. Unfortunately, I can’t decide what spell to sacrifice for disguise self/alter self, and I worry about passing off as someone just with a wig and such! Again, I lack experience playing to know how thorough a disguise kit can be as far as resembling a specific person. I suppose it’s up to the DM whether we’re talking theatre or Mission Impossible.
Anyway, I’ve rambled on enough. Thanks again to everyone who took the time to read through. Any advice is always welcome!
Oh, you gave up gift of alacrity with fey touched. got it. I always go for it because I wanted really good initiative. I guess you plan on impersonation people a lot.
BTW, if you have a bloodwell vial and use wither and bloom, you get sorcery points back.
If you take Actor on a sorcerer be sure to pick up the sending spell. I know some people don't think ofbit very highly but I personally never regret having it. Contact anyone. Anywhere. Yes please sign me up!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
yeah, I was inspired by Joe Gormath from Dungeon Dudes campaign which led to a Celestial Warlock which led to multiclassing down the middle which led to my predominantly Divine Sorcerer. Like I said, if I didn’t already have access to bless, silvery barbs, protection over good and evil and hex (like in other side characters I’m working on), I’d take it. I just feel like Actor offers mire or a certainty to it than Gift of Alacrity’s dice roll.
This relies on the combination of Actor and my Disguise Kit without Disguise Self/Alter Self, so while I don’t want to sound like a broken record I must ask again if this is a good idea or whether i should go back to Fey Touched?
The Actor Sending combo would be cool on an Aberrant Mind Sorcerer, but I’m not sure if it’s worth sacrificing Fireball, Spirit Guardians, Hypnotic Pattern or Revivify/Counterspell for. Literally; i lack the game experience to know for sure. Don’t misunderstand; I LOVE the idea, but I worry about sacrificing firepower for a scheme that has a chance of being seen through. Grant it, perhaps that is meant to come with the territory, but still…
Anyway, I read briefly about Wither and Bloom and don’t see anywhere about this combo you speak of. I’ll keep looking, but again similarly to the paragraph above, I’m not sure it should take precedence over my other level 2 spells Misty Step and Spiritual Weapon, especially if this revolves around a particular item in game my DM may not give us access to. Plus, I’m already sacrificing Levitate due to my actor feat requiring me to select Misty Step manually.
You have to read the description of the item too. Wither and bloom let's you regain HPs with a HD and a Bloodwell vial lets you can regain 5 sorcery points when you roll any Hit Dice to recover hit points while you are carrying the vial (this can't be done again till dawn).
Dissonant whisper is best used if you got a single hit high damage dealer in your party. Dissonant whisper can be used to trigger a Attack of Oportunity. If you got a Rough, Barbarian or Paladin that can benefit from it, go for it.
also you can ditch Silvery Barbs on your normal spell list (for absorb element or shield) and take it with the feat.
I’m making a Divine Soul 18 /Hexblade 2 Complete with Bless, Silvery Barbs, Protection from Evil and Good and Hex, but I would still like to use Fey Touched. The top two spells I found were Gift of Alacrity and Dissonant Whispers. I’m not sure how well a +1-8 initiative order will really do, but finding time to use a level 1 spell in battle for free seems unlikely as the campaign progresses. Are there any others that you all can think of that are good ideas? Which spell from Fey Touched should I pick? Or is there another spell I should be picking instead of Bless, Silvery Barbs, Protection from Evil and Good and Hex?
www.dndbeyond.com/sheet-pdfs/Actionsparda_123787807.pdf
With regards to initiative (and perception) I generally find that one boost is not enough. If you go hard on them, getting multiple boosts (i.e. a feat and a spell or a class ability), then they become worthwhile. Your question about 'finding time' is silly, Gift is an 8 hour spell, you cast it in the morning and it waits for you. If you are doing initiative bonus, and already have a feat or class ability, then get Gift of Alacrity. Otherwise do not bother.
Dissonant Whispers is, like many of the 1st level spells, not worth the damage by the tim e you get to level 20, instead you use it for the OTHER effect. In this case, the running away. That is a far more powerful thing, at least for a 1st level spell.
At high levels, the following first level spells will still be very useful (especially if no one else in your party has them):
Bless, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Identify, and Silvery Barbs (if allowed).
There's no spell that you can't already get by being a Divine Soul that is worth it other than Gift of Alacrity (which effectively double's the target's intiative bonus). But you might want to use it just to free up a spell known so you can pick up something else higher level.
Alternatively these are by go-to spells for Fey Touched:
Silvery Barbs, Gift of Alacrity, Command, Bless, Bane.
I meant time for Dissonant Whispers in battle. Guess I should have clarified.
Either way, thank you both for replying. I think I will stick with Gift of Alacrity and focus on someone with a good bonus already to double it. As long as I remember it, this spell is something i can and should use for free once everyday.
Your advice about initiative is directly contrary to objective reality. Each +1 is worth LESS, not more, than the previous. That is because going before the enemy is all that matter, it doesn't matter how far ahead you go.
A +1 is more likely to help than going from +1 to +2. Because some enemies won't have a bonus at all, so if they roll a 20, you do too, your 21 beats their 20 and that extra of the +2 would have been wasted.
This gets more, and more, and more likely to higher the bonus to initiative you have gets. If you roll a 15 but already have a +8 to initiative, your 23 is likely to go well before anyone else does, and adding another +5 from a feat would kinda be silly, because it doesn't matter if you go first at 23 or you go first at 28... you go first.
So, the takeaway here is that the closer you are to no bonus at all, the harder you should be looking for something that gives you a boost.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Gift of alacrity every time! As a spellcaster, going early in the order can help you control the battlefield or take enemies of the field before they can act. I go for that spell whenever I can. Dissonant whispers is nice (I like it) but not as important.
BTW, you have a lot of spells and abilities competing for your bonus action: quickened metamagic, hex, misty step, spiritual weapon, healing word. So, you would routinely cast hex and then spiritual weapon? I had hex on a stars druid and had starry form archer for bonus action, so I used hex all of once becaus ei went right to bonus action attacks. If you're going to use Hex routinely, it's fine.
Do you expect to fight the creatures listed in Protection from Evil and Good often? I was in a spelljammer campaign where in one year (11 levels) we encountered aberrations only twice, celestials never, elementals in one area only and we didn't fight any of them (one joined our crew), no fey, 3 fiends (night hag, something the drow use that I forget the name of, and also a succubus but that one didn't fight us), and a few weak undead in one area, so really we actually fought very few. If you know you are in a campaign with a lot of even one of those, it makes sense to take it -- it is a good spell. I took it in a witchlight campaign because I figured we'd fight fey.
Keep Silvery Barbs for sure; it is useful offensively (make them reroll a save) and defensively (9save someone form a crit) plus the advantage.
Food, Scifi/fantasy, anime, DND 5E and OSR geek.
Thank you both for your reply!
i think I see your logic on initiative. Rather than pumping Gift Alacrity into someone with an already high initiative bonus (overkill), you would recommend giving it to someone with leas of one, correct?
As for my other spells (thank you for taking the time to look), I’m mostly relying on spells highly rated on other sites (specifically Arcane Eye). I must also confess that I don’t have much experience playing to know these kind of things about specific adventures. I’m still trying to grasp things like prioritizing bonus actions. (Any advice on which ones to keep/drop would be welcome!)
I will say this; my Hexblade portion is more of an “extra.” I’m questioning whether or not I would take it until I reach level 18 on my Divine Soul. Thus, I probably wouldn’t be taking Hex or Protection over Evil and Good until much later. Grant it, by then they may be useless, but again they were the highest rated spells on Arcane Eye, so I went for it.
”Sadly,” I ended up dropping Fey Touched altogether since i had access to Bless, Silvery Barbs, Hex and Misty Step already. This was in favor of… another feature of circumstance: Actor. I know it’s not ranked high for Sorcerers like it is for Warlocks and Bards, but seeing as i have a disguise kit and access to disguise self/alter self, I thought I could really pull off a Master of Disguise. Unfortunately, I can’t decide what spell to sacrifice for disguise self/alter self, and I worry about passing off as someone just with a wig and such! Again, I lack experience playing to know how thorough a disguise kit can be as far as resembling a specific person. I suppose it’s up to the DM whether we’re talking theatre or Mission Impossible.
Anyway, I’ve rambled on enough. Thanks again to everyone who took the time to read through. Any advice is always welcome!
Oh, you gave up gift of alacrity with fey touched. got it. I always go for it because I wanted really good initiative. I guess you plan on impersonation people a lot.
BTW, if you have a bloodwell vial and use wither and bloom, you get sorcery points back.
Food, Scifi/fantasy, anime, DND 5E and OSR geek.
If you take Actor on a sorcerer be sure to pick up the sending spell. I know some people don't think ofbit very highly but I personally never regret having it. Contact anyone. Anywhere. Yes please sign me up!
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
yeah, I was inspired by Joe Gormath from Dungeon Dudes campaign which led to a Celestial Warlock which led to multiclassing down the middle which led to my predominantly Divine Sorcerer. Like I said, if I didn’t already have access to bless, silvery barbs, protection over good and evil and hex (like in other side characters I’m working on), I’d take it. I just feel like Actor offers mire or a certainty to it than Gift of Alacrity’s dice roll.
This relies on the combination of Actor and my Disguise Kit without Disguise Self/Alter Self, so while I don’t want to sound like a broken record I must ask again if this is a good idea or whether i should go back to Fey Touched?
The Actor Sending combo would be cool on an Aberrant Mind Sorcerer, but I’m not sure if it’s worth sacrificing Fireball, Spirit Guardians, Hypnotic Pattern or Revivify/Counterspell for. Literally; i lack the game experience to know for sure. Don’t misunderstand; I LOVE the idea, but I worry about sacrificing firepower for a scheme that has a chance of being seen through. Grant it, perhaps that is meant to come with the territory, but still…
Anyway, I read briefly about Wither and Bloom and don’t see anywhere about this combo you speak of. I’ll keep looking, but again similarly to the paragraph above, I’m not sure it should take precedence over my other level 2 spells Misty Step and Spiritual Weapon, especially if this revolves around a particular item in game my DM may not give us access to. Plus, I’m already sacrificing Levitate due to my actor feat requiring me to select Misty Step manually.
Thank you both for your replies!
You have to read the description of the item too. Wither and bloom let's you regain HPs with a HD and a Bloodwell vial lets you can regain 5 sorcery points when you roll any Hit Dice to recover hit points while you are carrying the vial (this can't be done again till dawn).
Food, Scifi/fantasy, anime, DND 5E and OSR geek.
Oh, I see. Alright thanks, I’ll try working that in.
Dissonant whisper is best used if you got a single hit high damage dealer in your party. Dissonant whisper can be used to trigger a Attack of Oportunity. If you got a Rough, Barbarian or Paladin that can benefit from it, go for it.
also you can ditch Silvery Barbs on your normal spell list (for absorb element or shield) and take it with the feat.
Attack: [roll]3d20dl2+6[/roll] Damage: [roll](if([roll:-1:critical], =0, 1d8, 2{1d8}.expand()))+4[/roll] Sneakattack: [roll](if([roll:-2:critical], =0, 2d6, 2{2d6}.expand()))[/roll]