Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Chaosmancer Sep 06, 2015 21:58:54	So I just started a game as a player, playing Merric Silverhorn, a Tiefling Storm Sorcerer who spends most of his time as a Jewelry merchant.   Was bored one day and started planing out my spell selection over the rest of my career. I'm trying to stay thematic, and my DM had me altered by my origin (an elemental shard which embedded itself in my hand and granted me my powers) switching my hellish rebuke to lightning and my resistance to cold. So went through looking for lightning, thunder, and cold spells.   Did decent until levels 7, 8, 9 where I found nothing that was thematically appropriate.   Talked to my DM and he will allow some homebrew spells, and I wondered what might work.   I'm thinking of turning Incendiary Cloud into a lightning spell, visually it works nicely and there will be little alteration needed.   For level 7 I've got an idea of some sort of Lightning Whip, but I've got no idea how to balance something like that, since most "create a weapon to fight with" spells are much lower level and it still needs to be worth the slot.   9th I've got no clue. Thought about taking Time Stop (moving super fast is lightning themed), but reading through it I don't get what the general plan is with Time Stop, moving somewhere quickly is easier to do with teleport and if I damage or affect anything the spell seems to end, so what use could it be? Not niche use, but general use. Hmm, maybe a giant hurricane spell of some sort   Anyways, advice and opinions invited. Getting an effective spell arsenal together is proving a bigger challenge than I first though, since a lot of awesome stuff is necrotic and fire based.
#2 Macv12 Sep 06, 2015 22:39:05	I, who stand in the full light of the heavens, Command thee, who opens the gates of hell, Call forth Divine Lightning!   This ends now...   Meteor Sw-- I mean Indignation!     I would cut down on the size though, both for thematics and because it's as much a curse as it is a blessing. Foresight also works as a kind of "move at lightning speed" effect. Were you hoping for more blasty damage spells, or anything that might be appropriate for a lightning theme?
#3 pdegan2814 Sep 07, 2015 7:51:07	Fire Storm seems like one that you should be able to create a Lightning version of without too much trouble. The damage amount could be the same, possibly a smidge lower to balance the fact that fewer creatures resist lightning than fire damage, and maybe instead of the "set things on fire" effect, introduce some kind of stun effect for a short duration since the targets are getting electrocuted. If you do have a stun effect, I definitely wouldn't keep the full damage of Fire Storm or it could get over-powered(maybe drop it to 7d8 instead of 7d10?). I'd have the stun apply only to targets that failed the Dex save & took full damage, and perhaps they'd have to make a Con save of some kind to avoid being stunned.
#4 Chaosmancer Sep 07, 2015 8:27:07	Macv12 wrote:
#5 Tempest_Stormwind Sep 07, 2015 11:22:50	Chaosmancer wrote:
#6 Chaosmancer Sep 07, 2015 11:49:25	Tempest_Stormwind wrote:
#7 daspian Sep 07, 2015 13:20:38	have you checked the Elemental Evil Spells?
#8 Mad_Jack Sep 07, 2015 18:32:01	As far as Time Stop goes, the standard use is to take your extra turns to fire off extra multiple-turn-duration spells that don't damage others or do things you wouldn't want to waste a real turn on - rearrange the battlefield by putting up walls, digging pits, etc, summon (multiple) reinforcements, place yourself somewhere more advantageous or get gone completely, heal yourself, things like that... As far as combat tactics, traditionally you use it to set up things around an enemy, and then use your last turn to do something that effects them directly, which hopefully causes them to be immediately affected by all the other stuff...  (One of the classic examples of this used to be the 7th-level spell Delayed Blast Fireball, although the fact that it requires concentration in 5E disallows stacking multiple castings of it around an area all set to go off at the same time.) If you have movable spells or an ally with at-will or multiple-use capability of moving enemies around, you can cast area spells so that opponents are just outside them and then let the Time Stop go so your allies can knock opponents into your multiple spells (or you can do it yourself on your next turn), or just use your final turn to hit them with something that knocks them into your other spells. Depending on how many turns the TS lasts, things commonly done in previous editions include completely walling off an opponent with multiple walls, surrounding an opponent with as many big nasty creatures as you could fit around them, creating a pit full of ropers or other immobilizing creatures before knocking someone in, creating a pit full of walls that do damage or a pit with a multi-turn area spell in it....  (Although I'm not sure if you can pull it off in this edition, I knew a guy who was fond of summoning the largest thing he could, polymorphing it into something even larger like a whale and then levitating it over an area so he could drop it as his final act of the Time Stop.)
(Reply to #7) Chaosmancer	daspian wrote:
#10 daspian Sep 07, 2015 22:55:19	i wouldn't go far, remember you only get 15 known spells, and you want to balance offense/defense/ and utility spells   not to mention you want the classic wish spell, greater invis, haste, and magic shield/ mage armor, there's a few other realllllly nice (practically mandatory) spells you want to add   so essentially you might only want 5-8 offensive spells known, and i'm sure there are plenty of lightning and thunder spells enough to fill that number, if not, you could simply reflavor existing spells to do that.    not to mention you could ask your DM to add some druid Lightning spells to Sorcerer (like Call Lightning)
#11 Chaosmancer Sep 08, 2015 4:04:44	I don't feel I need too much utility (we also have a bard and a cleric) and storm origin gives me a handful of extra spells.   As for mandatory spells, not looking to any of the ones you mentioned except haste. I'm low AC, but we've got a heavy fromtline for me to hide behind and I grabbed mirror image for a pinch so I feel okay defensively and the others don't really match the theme, though I might take wish anyways when I get to that point.