Your magic is a monument to order amidst chaos, a testament to the power of planning over the randomness of chance. Your magic is predictable and reliable, a stabilizing and balancing force in the universe. As a Clockwork Soul sorcerer, you protect the world from being pulled apart by fortune’s whims.
Below, we’ll take a look at the Clockwork Soul’s subclass features, compare them to other sorcerer subclasses, then review some character creation suggestions.
- Clockwork Soul Origin Features
- Clockwork Soul Sorcerer Compared to Other Subclasses
- Things to Keep in Mind
- Building a Clockwork Soul Sorcerer
- Sample Build
Clockwork Soul Origin Features
A Clockwork Soul sorcerer’s magic helps them restore order to the battlefield. They are experts at protecting their allies, tearing down enemy spells, and removing negative effects from the party.
- Clockwork Magic (1st level): The Clockwork Soul sorcerer adds ten extra spells to their repertoire as they level up. These spells lean into the Clockwork Soul sorcerer’s affinity for defensive magic, helping you protect your allies from harmful effects. But, they can also be replaced with any abjuration or transmutation spell from the sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell list. I recommend perusing the wizard’s spell list for gems like glyph of warding and remove curse.
- Restore Balance (1st level): Your connection to order allows you to correct cosmic imbalances as you see them. When a nearby creature is about to roll a d20 with advantage or disadvantage, you can use your reaction to prevent the roll from being affected by either, causing it to be rolled normally instead. This powerful ability isn’t a one off, either! You can use it a number of times equal to your proficiency modifier per long rest, so save it for when an enemy is attacking your downed ally or when your prone ally is attacking the beast pinning them to the ground.
- Bastion of Law (6th level): You can spend up to 5 sorcery points to imbue a creature with a magical ward that allows them to reduce damage by rolling a number of d8s equal to the sorcery points spent. This ability does not use concentration, so if keeping someone safe is of the utmost importance then you can combine this ability with an abjuration spell like protection from evil and good or protection from energy. Furthermore, this ward could reduce incoming damage to zero, sparing you a Constitution saving throw if you are concentrating on a spell.
- Trance of Order (14th level): When you’ve reached 14th level, you no longer need to fear fate. As a bonus action, you can enter a state of heightened consciousness for 1 minute. During this time, attack rolls against you can’t benefit from advantage, and whenever you make an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can treat a roll of 9 or lower on the d20 as a 10. This is one of the strongest abilities out there; even cantrips become potent once they’re guaranteed to hit. Unfortunately, this can only be used once per long rest, unless you spend 5 sorcery points to reactivate it.
- Clockwork Cavalcade (18th level): As an action, you summon spirits of order to fix the world around you in a 30-foot cube. In a flash, you can restore up to 100 hit points distributed among any number of creatures of your choice within the area and every spell of 6th level or lower ends on creatures and objects of your choice within the area. Use this to casually dismantle most magic, from the bane affecting your party to an eyebite wielded by your opponent.
Clockwork Soul Sorcerer Compared to Other Subclasses
Sorcerers have garnered a reputation for evocative bursts of power. They can Quicken two damage-dealing spells in one turn, Twin spells like immolation or disintegrate, and Empower spells like chain lightning. Draconic Bloodline, Storm Sorcery, and even Wild Magic sorcerers would all use their powers to crank that dial even higher for truly catastrophic demonstrations of arcane might. In a sharp but refreshing contrast, the Clockwork Soul weaves protective wards to defend their allies from harm.
As a Clockwork Soul, you’re much better suited to defending the party than other sorcerer subclasses. Bastion of Law protects from damage, Restore Balance negates disadvantage, and Clockwork Magic offers plenty of abjuration spells. (Clockwork Magic would also allow you to snag some rare protective spells such as arcane lock and nondetection.)
Though the Clockwork Soul sorcerer doesn’t cast healing spells, arcane shields that protect against incoming damage is the next best thing. Bastion of Law is only limited by your sorcery points, and thankfully the rest of your features aren’t competing much for that resource. You could feasibly use all of your sorcery points defending and protecting your party: Twinned protection from evil and good for the fighter and paladin, a Distant freedom of movement for the grappled barbarian 30 feet away, and wards from Bastion of Law for the ranger trying to stay hidden in the trees. Only Divine Soul sorcerers demonstrate a comparable aptitude for defense.
Things to Keep in Mind
Though the Clockwork Soul’s magic grants you the rare ability to cancel out advantage or disadvantage, you may find yourself outgrowing this feature rather quickly. Once you have a repertoire of reaction spells such as absorb elements, shield, and counterspell, you’ll be less likely to use your reaction on Restore Balance. Similarly, while I think Bastion of Law is a strong and thematic feature, higher-level parties are on the receiving end of so much damage that I suspect the mileage on "1d8 per sorcery point" starts to lose its luster somewhere in Tier 3 gameplay.
Specialization comes at a cost, too. Few of this subclass’ features are designed for offensive use. The Clockwork Soul excels at protecting their allies, removing status conditions, and maintaining concentration on area of effect spells such as hypnotic pattern. But being that good at defense does mean that if you’re looking to deal massive damage, this probably won’t be the ideal subclass for you.
Building a Clockwork Soul Sorcerer
Ability Scores
A Clockwork Soul can focus on the same ability scores as any other sorcerer: Charisma first to fuel your magic, then Constitution to maintain concentration and stay alive. I recommend making Dexterity your tertiary priority, as it will boost your AC and you’ll appreciate its bonus to initiative and Stealth. A higher initiative score could allow you to deploy spells like slow or freedom of movement before enemies have a chance to act.
If your sorcerer’s Clockwork Magic has increased their understanding of mechanics and engineering and you want to reflect that in their ability scores, invest in Intelligence.
Character Creation
Though anybody can be a sorcerer, some species in fifth edition have a knack for tinkering or a cultural connection to mechanics, architecture, or engineering.
- Autognome: Put a Clockwork Soul into a clockwork body. Playing as an autognome comes with a litany of benefits. Notably, you are immune to disease and resistant to poison damage, have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned and paralyzed, gain two tool proficiencies, and have a base Armor Class equal to 13 + your Dexterity modifier. After you’ve used the Clockwork Soul sorcerer’s Restore Balance feature to ignore disadvantage on a roll, use your autognome’s Built for Success feature to add a d4 to it.
- Mountain Dwarf: The mountain dwarf can wear light or medium armor, giving your sorcerer better defenses than most arcane casters. Unless you’re planning to be stealthy, you’ll definitely prefer half plate over mage armor. In addition, mountain dwarves boast a total of +4 innate ability score bonuses, giving them a measurable leg up on most other species.
- Owlin: If you want to focus on control spells, especially area of effect spells, it might help to stay out of range of enemies while you’re concentrating. The owlin can fly as long as they aren’t wearing medium or heavy armor, so fire off your favorite spell and fly somewhere your enemy can’t get into melee range. (You may also check out the aarakocra and the fairy.)
- Reborn (Lineage): Perhaps your reborn character was brought back to life by a machine. The reborn’s Deathless Nature could be depicted as a type of mechanically-reinforced homeostasis. If you are asked to make an ability check with disadvantage, you can combine your Restore Balance class feature with the reborn's Knowledge from a Past Life to remove disadvantage and add a d6 to the roll. Frankenstein's monster, but make him magic.
- Rock Gnome: Rock gnomes are proficient tinkerers, experts in History checks related to magic items, alchemical objects, and technological devices. Perhaps your rock gnome’s experiences with engineering caused them to develop an innate arcane connection to machinery, manifesting as a Clockwork Soul sorcerer. I like this pick for the flavor alone, but if you’re looking for mechanical bonuses during combat, Gnome Cunning grants advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws against magic.
Feats
The Clockwork Soul’s uniquely industrial flavor doesn’t necessarily invite many feat choices (not every subclass will match to a feat as neatly as Draconic Bloodline does to Elemental Adept, for example), so I encourage you to creatively match feats to your character’s goals or personality.
- Eldritch Adept: Eldritch Adept allows you to select from a limited number of Eldritch Invocations, something normally only available to the warlock. If your Clockwork Soul sorcerer frequently investigates machinery, devices, or structures, you may want to select Eyes of the Rune Keeper, which allows you to read all writing, or Eldritch Sight, which allows you to cast detect magic at will.
- Inspiring Leader: If your sorcerer uses their magic supportively, such as by casting haste or greater invisibility on allies, they might be in a good position to offer the party some encouragement in trying times. With the Inspiring Leader feat, you can deliver a 10 minute speech to motivate your allies, granting them temporary hit points equal to your level + your Charisma modifier.
- Skilled: A Clockwork Soul sorcerer’s connection to mechanical workings and engineering can manifest as proficiency in various tools. If your sorcerer was an architect, mason, or tinkerer before their magic manifested, perhaps they continue to rapidly learn new tools as their magic develops. Pick up the Skilled feat to become proficient in three skills or tools of your choice as your clockwork magic strengthens.
- Spell Sniper: If you prefer to deal damage rather than control the battlefield, Spell Sniper is a powerful boon. This feat allows you to ignore half- and three-quarters cover, double the range of your attack rolls, and learn an extra cantrip. But it will truly shine for the Clockwork Soul sorcerer at higher levels, when Trance of Order can guarantee a minimum 10 on the die for any attack roll. Fly above the battlefield and use Spell Sniper to rain cantrips upon your enemies from far out of their range.
- War Caster: Many of your favorite spells—including several from the Clockwork Magic feature—require concentration. With War Caster, you’ll roll most of your Constitution saving throws made to maintain concentration with advantage, helping ensure that your slow or wall of force isn’t knocked down at an inopportune moment. (The ability to cast a spell like mind sliver or frostbite as an opportunity attack is pretty cool, too.)
Clockwork Soul Sorcerer Sample Build
I’ve built and shared a 14th-level Clockwork Soul sorcerer, linked below. I leaned into the concept of an engineer who develops an arcane connection to their work. I started with proficiency in mason’s tools. As the character’s clockwork magic developed, so did their understanding of different types of machinery, engineering, and construction. I added the Skilled feat to further stack tool proficiencies.
In combat, the character takes a classic control caster tactic: Pick the best concentration spell to affect the battlefield—such as slow, hold person, or wall of force—then try to stay out of direct danger. While concentrating, they try to stay available to "restore order" by way of lesser restoration, greater restoration, dispel magic, or even scatter. Though the character doesn’t focus on dealing damage, the Clockwork Soul’s Trance of Order feature allows them to treat a 9 or lower on the d20 as a 10 on an attack roll, so they’ve learned the crown of stars spell for those moments of intense need.
Making Your Own Clockwork Soul Sorcerer
Now that you’ve got a sense of the Clockwork Soul’s features and how to build your character, consider how they received their magic. Do they descend from a creature of Mechanus? Did they invent a new type of automaton and become infused with a unique arcane energy as a result? Perhaps they’ve discovered new mathematical equations, and the profound knowledge infused them with arithmancy.
Whatever you decide, once you’ve got your character concept ready, jump into D&D Beyond’s character builder to get started!
Damen Cook (@damen_joseph) is a lifelong fantasy reader, writer, and gamer. If he woke up tomorrow in Faerun, he would bolt through the nearest fey crossing and drink from every stream and eat fruit from every tree in the Feywild until he found that sweet, sweet wild magic.
You essentially have to make a home-brew subclass for this since for whatever reason its not supported.
hmmm yes what a cool homebrew hmmm yes it will definitely distract me from the OGL hmmm yes
It's going to be sad, but it's time for a new character/spell managing website. I spent a lot of money on digital books here, too.
DnD Beyond was convenient, but since Hasbro screwed WotC, and flocks of people are leaving and will continue to leave D&D for RPG companies who will more likely keep their promises, it's time to say farewell to my favorite RPG...
The worst part is that the people at WotC are probably very upset with this development. It was probably never THEIR intention to go back on the OGL, but their new owners are greedy ****s and said, "We're a business, we make money," not realizing you can't make money if you piss everyone off and have no customers. This facepalm is for you, Hasbro, you failed business 101.
May the good people that worked on D&D find new employment working on Pathfinder or other OPEN RPGs. Good luck.
But, they can also be replaced with any abjuration or transmutation spell from the sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell list.
It is crazy that this still isn't implemented on DNDBeyond after it being talked about on the forums for years.
Still looking for a conversation that is "working" about the ogl? How would a conversation work when only one side is allowed to talk Kyle?
Incase you haven't noticed, this is not, in fact, a thread to discuss the OGL. This is an article containing a guide for the Clockwork Soul Sorcerer subclass. Please find your way to the relevant threads to discuss the OGL.
How To Be A Successful Company.
1. Be Hasbro.
2. Buy WOTC.
3. Never Play The Game Yourself.
4. Make a lot of money, and create an OGL that your fans love and appreciated.
5. Skip step 4.
6. **** off all your fans.
7. Lose your fanbase.
8. Make a fake apology.
9. Lose all your money.
*crying Hasbro emoji*
Hi The Great Papyrus's cat! xD
kiosk wmwososomww
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/159740-the-future-of-the-open-gaming-license-ogl-and-d-d
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/160992-boycotting-wotc-not-renewing-next-year-unless-ogl
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/162093-bye-bye-dnd-craze
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/162006-youre-taking-it-too-far
There most certainly are.
I remember when this class was released, and the DNDBeyond team said they were "working on" making this subclass's (and Aberrant Mind's) most appealing feature work. And then WotC bought them, and WotC said "we're definitely working on it." And yet, here we are, and I've played a mini-campaign as one, and am mid-campaign with the other subclass, and have yet to have any actual results.
And now, to rub salt in the wound, they're actually featuring this class in an article on the front page.
OGL news almost made me forget that I have a character I actively play that still doesn't work.
Exactly and these are the people who want to control the VTT market when they are two years behind themselves on a web site
yup, they never worked shit out.
I love this subclass. However as many others have pointed out, featuring this subclass with a build guide on this website is dumb. When the primary subclass feature is notoriously still not working on the creator is kinda just reminding people you don't even support your own official content properly. And given how ppl are feeling about your support for 3PP right now as well, it might be wise to not draw attention to that.
Or, you know, you could FIX THE SUBCLASS.
I am very glad that many of you are enjoying the article. I think I see an opportunity to kindly change some perspectives here, so I am going to try.
I understand the frustration that this subclass is not fully supported on the technical side. For folks drawing a connection between the article's publication and the lack of full technical functionality and becoming even further frustrated, I would respectfully ask that you consider three things:
(1) The people who write these articles are not the same people who work on the website's technical back end. As the writer of this subclass guide, I have zero influence over or knowledge of DDB's technical priorities, schedule, or capacity. As somebody who mains the sorcerer class and has the forum post for this technical issue bookmarked, I share your desire to have that piece working. All I can offer here is my sincere belief that DDB's folks are doing the absolute best they can with the resources and priorities that they have. Remember that they play the game, too -- they're not "refusing" to implement a feature that would directly benefit them.
(2) Not to get too "Clockwork" about it, but this just struck me as a math problem: we as players had 0 of 2 remaining things that the subclass might normally expect to have (no subclass guide, no technical functionality for swapping spells) and I had the opportunity to provide 1 of those 2. I didn't think of this as "highlighting broken content" -- rather, the opposite: I thought that the technical setback shouldn't prevent the subclass from getting the rest of what it could normally expect. (If any approach might have struck me as rubbing salt in a wound, it would have been that.) Perhaps I'm too much of a "glass half full" kinda guy, but it simply did not occur to me that working to increase 0 ---> 1 could be perceived as passive-aggressively highlighting that we don't yet have 2.
(3) Simple explanations are, by and large, more likely than complex ones. There simply is not enough room in something as innocuous as a subclass guide for anything nefarious. Which is more probable: that the people who work on these articles and love this game and play as these subclasses and have no power over the site's technical functionality are out to rub your nose in the dirt, or that some nerds thought you'd enjoy reading a subclass guide? The answer should be reassuring!
I am glad folks are reading and sharing their thoughts. I think it will make your experience here more enjoyable if you remember that the editors and writers are fellow geeks who love playing DnD and talking about DnD with the community. We're trying to create content that sparks your creativity, encourages you to share your own ideas, and makes your gameplay experience more fun.
Thanks for your time responding to these comments. I know they don't technically have anything to do with your work here, which must be frustrating.
I'd like to say that personally (I can't speak for others) I think your guide was well written and a really solid start for players looking to get into this subclass. Thanks for your time and efforts here, and I'm sure it will help many players.
Perhaps I should give some more perspective to my earlier comments. As you know, the last few weeks has been (and let's put this mildly) a mess of OGL leaks, accusations, community anger, and intermittent silence and poor official communicationfrom WoTC. On this background I was keen to hear from WoTC and DnD Beyond, because I'm concerned for the future of this game that I have loved for years and digital is clearly important to that future. My emails from WoTC since the start of the year have consisted of two things; firstly a boring digital dice set subscription perk, and the recent newsletter which featured your article. I clicked on it because I love the clockwork sorcerer, and also whether it mentioned the known DnDBeyond issues had been fixed.
Sadly they have not. So while I realise you, your team, and almost all employees of WoTC cannot fix this feature integration issue, it remains frustrating. Knowing that this issue has been known for so long, and also knowing that WoTC has been piling resources into future products and implementation of corporate goals, makes it all the more frustrating. Trust is low given the revelations, and it feels like resources are being prioritised towards those goals rather than fixing important problems for paying subscribers.
I will take a minor issue with point 2 you made. Build guides are great; but to me and I think most people they aren't as important as having a functional primary subclass feature on the builder. Imo this isn't a 0-->1 out of 2, this is more like a 0 --> 0.1 out of 2, while incidentally reminding us of the remaining 1.9. I don't mean to belittle your work, it's good, but the builder is just used by so many people I can't believe this is equivalent to that feature.
TLDR; I know this isn't your fault personally, sorry if it felt like a personal attack, that wasn't the intent. But when you write this article you write under the brand; unfortunately you represent it. That brand has kinda burned a lot of bridges lately, and being reminded of an extra (unrelated technical) failure kinda rubs salt into the wound. I'm just really sad about this month and wish we could go back.
Hey, thanks for taking the time to reply. I appreciate the effort it takes to articulate all of this and get where you're coming from.
(Deleted a longer reply from earlier that was well-intentioned but probably too pedantic. I understand your frustration and am glad you enjoyed the content of the piece.)
Hey Damen, I'm sorry for the disrespect. I was definitely using your article's comment section to vent my frustration I have in regards to how dndbeyond has failed to finish the tech side for a subclass more than 2 years old. Your article was well-written, thoughtful, and something I'll definitely share with fellow players interested in using the subclass. If anyone reading this hasn't seen it yet, Treantmonk has a great video about this subclass too!
I definitely prefer getting this kind of content and attention to my personal favorite subclass of my favorite class to not getting any love at all, but I hope you can understand the frustration that people like me experience, as eloquently described by Ablation above. Clockwork Soul Sorcerer is so far my favorite class in the game, but with that love comes disappointment in dndbeyond, as you say, "doing the absolute best they can with the resources and priorities that they have," which unfortunately only reinforces my assumption that the subclass has fallen away from any priority at all and with the work being done on new content and the new edition, will never be finished.
Keep doing the good work! And please share these comments and discussion with any of those you know who have the power to put resources into getting these fixes made!
Thanks a ton,
Purplejacket
Absolutely incredible. Pair that with a warforged or autognome wild magic sorcerer and you have the ultimate middle finger from the universe.
The funny thing is, my concept for a CSS is almost the exact opposite, lol. He's basically the god of clocks and law and he's stuck in his human avatar form (this was inspired mostly by my sister.) I think an order-obsessed clock guy is gonna be massive fun for this, once I iron out a few things.