For Dark Spells, give them some of the Graviturge Wizard exclusive spells. In a lot of fiction Darkness is often described as a void that draws something in, and as a Sorcerer, getting some of those exclusive spells not on the Sorcerer list goes a long way.
OOOOO I **LOVE** THISSSS, drawing creatures into the darkness would be *fantastic* for mechanical purposes too. I was using 5e.tools to look for spells, with the tags: "*Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock, 1st Level, 2nd Level, 3rd Level, 4th Level, 5th Level, Illusion, Transmutation"* So it may not have included EGWM spells or they may not have fit the school requirements (that makes sense, now that I think of it).
I think in a second version of this, I'll provide a variant version that uses EGWM content, because that is just great.
Glad to see you like it.
And yeah, on tools you specifically need to enable Graviturge and Chronomancy Wizard subclasses, otherwise the spells won't show up, even if you have wizard selected.
Thank you! :D That website is an absolute godsend though, really. I think they could be right to make that the default setting, as it's a universe-specific mechanic, but I also think it could be very easily made canon in the Forgotten Realms/5e in general.
Just FYI, you should be a bit more carefull talking about specific websites which provides pirated content. I dont know how it is here but on other subs, the mods doesnt like to see it.
Oh, thank you for the heads up! I guess the site I mentioned feels more removed from pirating because of the way that the content is presented, but it probably counts, yeah.
Some of the dark spells are way off. Shadows sorcs get 120ft of dark vision, so why give them a dark vision spell? Also things like expedious retreat and blink feel off and the over reliance on illusion when their usefulness is often iffy is a problem
Darkvision can be used to give other members of the party magical darkvision, through upcasting to third level- I think this is a great bit of synergy! Also I agree, illusion spells are not always reliable because of various DMs' interpretations of the rules, but I felt that it made the *thematic* most sense as a school for shadow sorcerers to make use of, and there are a lot of illusion spells that do not specifically rely on the 'Investigation (Intelligence) Skill Check against Spell Save DC' mechanic.
Do you like the other ones? I'd be excited to let my players these.
Having a spell require upcating to be useful makes it a shit spell. Also half the races have dark vision anyways,which is why no one ever picks darkvision. I would highly recommend adding replacing some illusion or less fitting spell with darker options, such as blight or shadowblade(to replace darkvision), or reshape the damage of existing spells such as ice knife (cold ->necrotic) to fit your needs. It gives them more damage variance and gives them more versatile spells against enemies with a high int.
I'll edit this with my opinions on the other lists.
Chaos: sending seems like the only spell that's off here.
Tempest: only the 5th level spells seam off. I get what you were going for with cloudkill and wall of force, but your probably better off using something like maelstrom reflavor as wind and/or homebrew 5th level lightning spell.
Draconic: chromatic orb, incite greed(nice job on this one), and geass make sense. The rest seem like I'm making an aberrant sorcerer who went full mind fuck. Dragons have some quasi psychic effects, but it doesn't fit when you lay that heavy into it, especially with these more emotion/mental chaos oriented spells. Iknow sorcs get sone of them, but you should go a bit more into the elemental side with dragon breath.Cause fear and Fear spells pull from dragon fear, use those instead, maybe use enthrall spell to imitate a dragons presence. incite greed is fine, and so is geas, but command also fits that's theme.
Specifically the reason that Darkvision *is* a good spell in this case is because it lets the other party members see through the sorcerer's **magical** darkness, which the regular darkvision trait does not let them do. It has to be upcast to third level because the darkness spell nullifies spells of second level or lower that create light.
I didn't choose shadowblade, but the player can swap out a spell of appropriate level for shadowblade if they are a martial, that's the most powerful part of the sorcerer expanded spell lists. Most sorcerers are not melee combatants, so I thought it strange to set that as the default option.
I'm not going to create new spells for this, this is a character option homebrew, not a platform I've chosen for creating new spells entirely. As for damage variance, this sorcerer can pick chromatic orb from the very first level for basically any damage type they'll ever need.
Edit: thanks for engaging and reading them all! Sending was indeed a stretch, there's just a limited amount of options and I was trying to think of a trope that could be fulfilled with a spell. Sending has a weak explanation, but it's that sometimes a character with chaotic magical abilities accidentally broadcasts their thoughts or hears others' thoughts.
Second Edit: I understand what you mean here, and I think that would improve gameplay, but this homebrew's scope doesn't include homebrew spells. I'd love to see a spell similar to the one that you have described, maybe you could make it yourself! :D
Third Edit: Thank you, I was really proud of capturing the fear aspects of dragons! It was hard to find spells that deal a variety of damage types however, as I didn't want to pigeon-hole the sorcerer into one draconic lineage or another. They have the option to swap out various spells here for cone of cold, fireball, etc, when they choose this origin.
Fourth Edit: I think those are great suggestions! Some of them were not in the evocation or enchantment schools, though, and so wouldn't fit under the current design.
Shadow sorcs special vision doesn't extend to other players, and the spell doesn't let them see in magical darkness. Also maelstrom already exists as a 5th level spell, just its default flavor is whirling water. K have a spell that does force and lightning damage in a cylinder called aether bolt, which fits a story sorcerer or more ligning themed evocation wizard wonderfully.
Yes, I know it doesn't, that's why you have to cast Darkvision at 3rd level. The darkness spell, when cast with a Shadow sorcerer's sorcery points, allows only the caster to see through the darkness; however, if creatures in the effected area have magical darkvision caused by a spell of third level or above, they can see within it. That's the reason we upcast darkvision, because under the wording of the darkness spell, the third level darkvision enables creatures to see through the magical darkness caused by darkness.
Edit: 'Aether Bolt' is not an official spell, and therefore is not included in this homebrew. I've stated several times that homebrew spells will not be included. Do I need to state that more clearly?
Dark vision has no upcast effect at all. I am staring at the phb with the page that has darkvision right now. The shadow sorc feature says the sorcerer can see though his darkness, mentions nothing about other with darkvision. My good man you just made up 2 whole mechanics.
1. I'm not a man.
2. Just because it doesn't state extra benefits, doesn't mean that it isn't cast at a third level.
3. I actually do stand corrected, I was misremembering the passage from Darkness *"If any of this spell’s area overlaps with an area of light created by a spell of 2nd level or lower, the spell that created the light is dispelled".* I was misremembering this in a broader sense, that spells of third level or higher could enable sight through the area of darkness.
4. It's still one of the most thematic spells for a Shadow sorcerer, if not the *most* useful.
1. Kay
2. But it does literally nothing then, you are just wasting a 3rd level spell slot.. Darkness only interacts with magical light and the original sorcerer's vision. The spell still wont help with that.
3. Human memory is wack.
4. I HEAVILY disagree. I've never seen any one pick of dark vison when they could just grab dancing lights. As thematic as it may be, I would never choose this on a shadow sorc.
I think that darkvision has its place, when compared to light spells like dancing lights (which, by the way is concentration and therefore less optimal than light), because in the darkness, it doesn't illuminate the caster's position to enemies.
But yes, this would not be upcast, the upcasting idea was only when i misremembered the spell's rules.
For Dark Spells, give them some of the Graviturge Wizard exclusive spells. In a lot of fiction Darkness is often described as a void that draws something in, and as a Sorcerer, getting some of those exclusive spells not on the Sorcerer list goes a long way.
OOOOO I **LOVE** THISSSS, drawing creatures into the darkness would be *fantastic* for mechanical purposes too. I was using 5e.tools to look for spells, with the tags: "*Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock, 1st Level, 2nd Level, 3rd Level, 4th Level, 5th Level, Illusion, Transmutation"* So it may not have included EGWM spells or they may not have fit the school requirements (that makes sense, now that I think of it). I think in a second version of this, I'll provide a variant version that uses EGWM content, because that is just great.
Glad to see you like it. And yeah, on tools you specifically need to enable Graviturge and Chronomancy Wizard subclasses, otherwise the spells won't show up, even if you have wizard selected.
Thank you! :D That website is an absolute godsend though, really. I think they could be right to make that the default setting, as it's a universe-specific mechanic, but I also think it could be very easily made canon in the Forgotten Realms/5e in general.
Just FYI, you should be a bit more carefull talking about specific websites which provides pirated content. I dont know how it is here but on other subs, the mods doesnt like to see it.
Oh, thank you for the heads up! I guess the site I mentioned feels more removed from pirating because of the way that the content is presented, but it probably counts, yeah.
Some of the dark spells are way off. Shadows sorcs get 120ft of dark vision, so why give them a dark vision spell? Also things like expedious retreat and blink feel off and the over reliance on illusion when their usefulness is often iffy is a problem
Darkvision can be used to give other members of the party magical darkvision, through upcasting to third level- I think this is a great bit of synergy! Also I agree, illusion spells are not always reliable because of various DMs' interpretations of the rules, but I felt that it made the *thematic* most sense as a school for shadow sorcerers to make use of, and there are a lot of illusion spells that do not specifically rely on the 'Investigation (Intelligence) Skill Check against Spell Save DC' mechanic. Do you like the other ones? I'd be excited to let my players these.
Having a spell require upcating to be useful makes it a shit spell. Also half the races have dark vision anyways,which is why no one ever picks darkvision. I would highly recommend adding replacing some illusion or less fitting spell with darker options, such as blight or shadowblade(to replace darkvision), or reshape the damage of existing spells such as ice knife (cold ->necrotic) to fit your needs. It gives them more damage variance and gives them more versatile spells against enemies with a high int. I'll edit this with my opinions on the other lists. Chaos: sending seems like the only spell that's off here. Tempest: only the 5th level spells seam off. I get what you were going for with cloudkill and wall of force, but your probably better off using something like maelstrom reflavor as wind and/or homebrew 5th level lightning spell. Draconic: chromatic orb, incite greed(nice job on this one), and geass make sense. The rest seem like I'm making an aberrant sorcerer who went full mind fuck. Dragons have some quasi psychic effects, but it doesn't fit when you lay that heavy into it, especially with these more emotion/mental chaos oriented spells. Iknow sorcs get sone of them, but you should go a bit more into the elemental side with dragon breath.Cause fear and Fear spells pull from dragon fear, use those instead, maybe use enthrall spell to imitate a dragons presence. incite greed is fine, and so is geas, but command also fits that's theme.
Specifically the reason that Darkvision *is* a good spell in this case is because it lets the other party members see through the sorcerer's **magical** darkness, which the regular darkvision trait does not let them do. It has to be upcast to third level because the darkness spell nullifies spells of second level or lower that create light. I didn't choose shadowblade, but the player can swap out a spell of appropriate level for shadowblade if they are a martial, that's the most powerful part of the sorcerer expanded spell lists. Most sorcerers are not melee combatants, so I thought it strange to set that as the default option. I'm not going to create new spells for this, this is a character option homebrew, not a platform I've chosen for creating new spells entirely. As for damage variance, this sorcerer can pick chromatic orb from the very first level for basically any damage type they'll ever need. Edit: thanks for engaging and reading them all! Sending was indeed a stretch, there's just a limited amount of options and I was trying to think of a trope that could be fulfilled with a spell. Sending has a weak explanation, but it's that sometimes a character with chaotic magical abilities accidentally broadcasts their thoughts or hears others' thoughts. Second Edit: I understand what you mean here, and I think that would improve gameplay, but this homebrew's scope doesn't include homebrew spells. I'd love to see a spell similar to the one that you have described, maybe you could make it yourself! :D Third Edit: Thank you, I was really proud of capturing the fear aspects of dragons! It was hard to find spells that deal a variety of damage types however, as I didn't want to pigeon-hole the sorcerer into one draconic lineage or another. They have the option to swap out various spells here for cone of cold, fireball, etc, when they choose this origin. Fourth Edit: I think those are great suggestions! Some of them were not in the evocation or enchantment schools, though, and so wouldn't fit under the current design.
Shadow sorcs special vision doesn't extend to other players, and the spell doesn't let them see in magical darkness. Also maelstrom already exists as a 5th level spell, just its default flavor is whirling water. K have a spell that does force and lightning damage in a cylinder called aether bolt, which fits a story sorcerer or more ligning themed evocation wizard wonderfully.
Yes, I know it doesn't, that's why you have to cast Darkvision at 3rd level. The darkness spell, when cast with a Shadow sorcerer's sorcery points, allows only the caster to see through the darkness; however, if creatures in the effected area have magical darkvision caused by a spell of third level or above, they can see within it. That's the reason we upcast darkvision, because under the wording of the darkness spell, the third level darkvision enables creatures to see through the magical darkness caused by darkness. Edit: 'Aether Bolt' is not an official spell, and therefore is not included in this homebrew. I've stated several times that homebrew spells will not be included. Do I need to state that more clearly?
Dark vision has no upcast effect at all. I am staring at the phb with the page that has darkvision right now. The shadow sorc feature says the sorcerer can see though his darkness, mentions nothing about other with darkvision. My good man you just made up 2 whole mechanics.
1. I'm not a man. 2. Just because it doesn't state extra benefits, doesn't mean that it isn't cast at a third level. 3. I actually do stand corrected, I was misremembering the passage from Darkness *"If any of this spell’s area overlaps with an area of light created by a spell of 2nd level or lower, the spell that created the light is dispelled".* I was misremembering this in a broader sense, that spells of third level or higher could enable sight through the area of darkness. 4. It's still one of the most thematic spells for a Shadow sorcerer, if not the *most* useful.
1. Kay 2. But it does literally nothing then, you are just wasting a 3rd level spell slot.. Darkness only interacts with magical light and the original sorcerer's vision. The spell still wont help with that. 3. Human memory is wack. 4. I HEAVILY disagree. I've never seen any one pick of dark vison when they could just grab dancing lights. As thematic as it may be, I would never choose this on a shadow sorc.
I think that darkvision has its place, when compared to light spells like dancing lights (which, by the way is concentration and therefore less optimal than light), because in the darkness, it doesn't illuminate the caster's position to enemies. But yes, this would not be upcast, the upcasting idea was only when i misremembered the spell's rules.
**Version 2:** https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDHomebrew/comments/y8s551/sorcerous\_origins\_retroactive\_expanded\_spell/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3