Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Tovenar Feb 01, 2015 7:12:09	Im hitting level 3 in our current campaign with my dragon sorcerer and I'm realising Im going to have to start giving my permanent spell selection a lot of thought as I level up.   I currently know 1- Magic Missle, Shield, Sleep   Considering learning Darkness and Schorching ray for my eventual level 4-5 into warlock.   Is now a good time to retrain sleep into a level 2 spell?  We are moving onto the raiders camp in HotDQ in our next session and I can't help but feel its usefullness is going to be pretty low now.  I was thinking suggestion because it works well with the great old one telepathic ability from warlock.   Anyhooooo, anyone feel like posting their spell lists (for w/e type of sorcerer they are making) with a brief description of how it jives and what utility and damage they get out of it without overlapping effects or spells combating each other?   Thanks! Cheers All!
#2 Imaculata Feb 01, 2015 7:52:11	In my experience Sleep is very useful at low levels, but loses a lot of its effectiveness as the monsters become more challenging, and their saves go up. Generally I try to have a good balance of defensive and offensive spells. Spells like Mage Armor and Blur are usually a must. Not just for yourself, but also for your party. I feel a lot of sorcerer-players tend to be very focused on keeping themselves alive, and less so about buffing the rest of the party. But they really become useful once they also buff party members. For offense, I tend to always include a bunch of single target spells that can easily be spammed. Magic Missile is really good, because it scales with your level. If possible it's also good to have some different elements in your spell selection. Fireball is very tempting, but it's not exactly a spell that you can spam a lot. So I'd say, have a good balance of damage spells that scale well with your level, and defensive spells that also benefit your party. And of course bring a dispel magic spell, and/or Knock-spell (if you are lacking a good rogue in your party).
#3 Yunru Feb 01, 2015 8:03:14	You'll want Haste if you've two weapon wielders. You'll want Scorching Ray if you're a Fire Dragon origin.
#4 AaronOfBarbaria Feb 01, 2015 9:26:53	Sleep has a staying power that varies more greatly than most spells, depending on what kind of encounters your DM sets up at higher levels.   If your DM is like me and enjoys using goblins, orcs, ogres, and other CR 5 and under monsters even in high-level encounters, then the sleep spell is a good spell to have on hand throughout the entire campaign.   If your DM doesn't use low CR monsters at all after a particular character level, then sleep becomes of very little use past that point.
#5 Pandaemonius Feb 01, 2015 11:38:37	At level 3, Sleep retains a lot of utility in battles where there are multiple targets.  For a sorcerer, spell selection is hard because you need to know what kind of game you are playing, or at least whtether it's combat oriented or not.  Playing a sorc in a game where combat is relatively rare, but RP/social interaction common, you wouldn't want to have all combat/defense spells (and you likely don't anyway so that when combat ends you are still relevant for more than your high charisma).  Also, it matters whether you are the party's primary arcane caster or not, as there are some "utility" spells you may want if you are the party magic-user.   Even though another recent thread that shall not be named has convinced me that no two people will ever agree fully on what it can do, Suggestion is a very good general purpose spell, with both combat and non-combat applications, as is Phantasmal Force (another spell people debate), if you are clever about how you use them.  Levitate is good as crowd control against targets without significant ranged attacks and a pretty good general utility spell.     On combat spells:  Scorching Ray is the king of the targeted direct damage spells (until you get Disintegrate), so in a combat heavy game, I'd think you'd want that.  Hold Person is a "save every round" spell, *but* while its working everyone autocrits the target, so if your party is organized and knows to focus their fire, it's incredible when it works (and Hold Person scales up, which is nioce to have in any spell).  I am not a big fan of Blur.  It's a concentration spell, and you have better uses for your concentration.  Mirror Image is a fantastic defensive spell.  Misty Step certainly has some general utility, but it's main use in practice is as a way to escape the combat zone (and especially grapples) and it's great at that.   Third level spells are significantly harder to choose when you don't get many.  If combat is common, Fireball and Hypnotic Pattern are obviously good choices. Clairvoyance is often a good spell in many parties (though if you have a wizard and he or she wil be taking Arcane Eye at 7th level, pass), as information about upcoming challenges can be priceless.  Dispel Magic is a pretty good choice if you face a lot of magical traps and alarms and buffed opponents (if you routinely face casters, then Counterspell might also be good, but it is a bit m,ore specialized than I'd prefer if I were a sorcerer)  Fly and Major Image have both combat and non-combat uses, if you are clever, though taking Fly without Featherfall is risky, since Fly is a concentration spell and the target plummets tothe ground if concentration is broken.  Blink is the best defensive spell at this level.
#6 Undrhil Feb 01, 2015 23:03:05	Sleep is a good spell for wrapping up a combat.  All of the enemies are low on health?  Sleep (highest spell slot available) since Sleep goes by hit points, not hit dice.  Also, it's not a saving throw.  Just throw it out there, roll your d8s and see how many hit points of creatures you affect.  If you're lucky, you just knocked out the entire rest of the combat.  Feel free to start KOing enemies.   Darkness is nice in niche situations.  Just remember that there are *few* options for PCs to see in magical darkness.  Of note: only the Warlock Invocation Devil's Sight allows this.  So, if you drop Darkness, all of the PCs are going to have problems.  The enemies will too, of course, but that is just going to slow the combat down, unless you are planning on making the enemies think you guys are still in the Darkness while you all actually sneak away.....
#7 Imaculata Feb 02, 2015 4:12:32	I'm not a big fan of the Fly spell. A good DM will remember that it requires concentration, and use that against the wizard. But in many other games it can radically affect the gameplay, and not in a good way. You'll constantly have wizards flying over everything, and thats just not that much fun. I wouldn't want to be that player.   Like I said, Sleep can be very powerful at low levels, but Aaron is also right, that it really depends on the DM. If the campaign features a lot of undead, or other creatures that are not affected by Sleep, then it might not be such a good choice.   I'm not sure how Hold Person works in 5e edition. Does it still only work against "persons", like in third edition?
#8 QwertyAzerty Feb 02, 2015 5:46:09	here the list of build:   http://community.wizards.com/forum/player-help/threads/4138726   in there you will find 2 good sorcerer builds.   Basically Sleep stay usefull untill you get fireball (at level 5) and some people will argu that even there you could keep sleep for when you need to NOT kill the ennemies.   Then you have teh basic idea:   Try to take spell that have: - various uses (minor illusion for example can be used to distract the ennemy, hide something small, appear more powerfull (my sorcerer love to use it to make energy swirling around him kind of like you can see in Dragon Ball when they go super sayan2 for example) etc... - various battle effect (scorchiing ray for single target, fireball for AoE, Disintegrate for fire immune creature, Dominate Monster for WIsdom weak monster, Haste to support your party against monster with magic resistance etc... - Be carefull with concentration, since you can only have 1 concentration spell active at a time you better choose a limited variety of concentration spell (so don't take enlarge/reduce AND haste aND greater invisibility, choose 1 of those 3. BUt you can have invisibility and greater invisibility, since invisibility is for out of combat utility, while greater invisibility doesn't last long enought for out of combat uses, so you keep that one for combat only.   Then you can change 1 spell per level, so you can make your spell list adaptative to your level. Sorxores (http://community.wizards.com/forum/player-help/threads/4135031) made a good job at showing when to change his spell and even explain why.