I was building a Sorcerer character I had in mind for high-level campaigns (e.g. starting at 10th) and noticed that while I was planning and selecting his spells known, I seemed to gravitate mostly toward attack spells. Then I started thinking: I can pretty much use any one of these spells as many times as I want within the limits of my spell slots, would it really do me that much good to have this many of my spells be attacks? I've kinda made a point to grab at least one spell per spell level that can deal multiple damage types and/or at least one Magic Missile variant at appropriate spell levels, so should I bother with any more damaging spells with a selection like that or should I look for more utility/support spells, instead?
[RPG] Do Sorcerers need to know a lot of attack spells
dnd-3.5emagicoptimizationspells
Related Solutions
The solution is for the PCs to experiment with each of the spells to get a better feel for how useful they are during an actual game. Once your players have a chance to experiment a bit with the spells they have available to choose from, the task of deciding which ones are worth picking will be significantly easier. Also, as the DM, you may wish to reward good Intelligence or Wisdom checks made by the PCs during research activities by giving them suggestions as to which spells might prove useful over the course of the adventure. For example, if you're running the Lost Mine of Phandelver, you may wish to reward a player who spends time researching dragons that Green Dragons are masters of poison, so a Protection from Poison spell may be worth the Cleric's time to have prepared.
Because many of the 5th Edition mechanics and spell changes will likely be new for many players who did not participate in the playtest, the Adventurer's League Player's Guide also offers a nice solution to this problem. During levels 1-4 (the first major tier of gameplay) you can rebuild your character at the end of an episode or an adventure. This will allow you to try out low-level spell combinations without fear of being stuck with poor choices. Encourage low-level players to pick spells that sound cool and appear useful but not to fret over making bad choices because at the end of the session they can retcon their choices anyway.
It's worth mentioning that this should be significantly less of a problem for the Cleric, Druid, or Paladin because they each automatically have access to their entire class's spell list. If they wish to change the spells they have prepared, they can do so at the end of a long rest.
Lastly, note that some spells (those with the ritual tag) can be cast as rituals. This means the casting time is increased by 10 minutes (to prevent them from being used in combat), but the spell doesn't use up a spell slot. Bards can cast any ritual that they know. Clerics and Druids must prepare their rituals just like any other spell they plan to cast, but Wizards can use their spellbooks to avoid preparing rituals ahead of time. Warlocks who take Pact of the Tome have an invocation option which gives them the ability to learn every class's rituals in the same way as a Wizard. There is also a feat (Ritual Caster) which can grant ritual spellcasting to the other classes. This too will allow your players to try out more utility spells that may or may not be useful without making them sacrifice more pragmatic options like combat spells.
Change how you play your wizard so those are the right spells
With the spells you've listed you can play an effective wizard but it will likely require changing up your play style. Let's look at some tactics that suit your spells.
Blast 'em
This isn't going to be your strong suit but there are plenty of opportunities to contribute with some straight up blasting. You have a variety of damage spells that target different enemy weaknesses.
- Lumbering, low dex save enemy?
- Acid splash, flaming sphere
- Heavily armored tank?
- Magic missile
- Wispy, fey thing?
- Poison Spray
- Average joe?
- Fire bolt
Remember that you can cast the Magic Missile and Flaming Sphere as higher level spells to maximize their damage when it counts.
Lockdown
For the rest of the party to do damage they need to stay alive. The best way to keep them alive is to keep the enemy from being able to attack them. You excel in this area.
A bunch of archers with cover
- Fog Cloud is incredible here. It's 120ft range means you may be able to cast it without getting into the archer's effective range, and once it's on top of them the rest of your team can close safely. Dropping it on top of the enemy cover can also force them to expose themselves to the ranged members of your team. Alternatively you can use Fog Cloud as temporary cover for your team allowing thieves to hide, other casters to buff, or just forcing the enemy to close with you.
Party is out numbered or flanked
- Grease/Web/Stinking Cloud are so good. You pick some part of the battle and say, "That part sucks now". Web/Stinking Cloud can lock groups enemies out of the fight functionally turning one Deadly encounter into two Easy ones. Pick the best spell depending on what saves you think the enemies will fail.
Enemy is really hard to hit
- We already talked about Web but it's worth talking about again. Enemies caught in a Web end up restrained which gives your allies advantage on their attacks. Against high AC enemies this can be crucial. You can also follow up with your Fire Bolt for an interesting combo.
Your remaining spells have solid general utility as well.
- Enemy is hard to get to? Make the Fighter fly.
- Enemy rushing you to try and break your concentration? Misty step to safety, and since it's a bonus action follow up with something.
- You captured a Kobold but he doesn't want to tell you about all the traps upahead? Suggest he talks to save his skin.
Overall you have a wide range of spells and should be able to find a use for them in most situations.
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Best Answer
Common wisdom says that direct-damage blasting is a suboptimal route for high-tier casters. Damage that doesn’t kill leaves an enemy at full capacity for hurting you or your allies, plenty of low-tier classes can only deal damage, and tend to have an easier time dealing it than a caster does, most direct-damage spells are pretty poor, and so on. There are a lot of reasons to avoid blasting altogether as a caster.
However, it’s worth noting that, at the high end, sorcerer blasting is pretty terrifying and extremely reliable, even by the standards of high-tier, high-optimization builds (see the Mailman). Immunity to HP damage or death thereby is extremely rare, after all, and immunity to being dead just doesn’t exist. And the sorcerer is well-placed to do it really well, what with access to the Sor/Wiz list plus arcane spellsurge. At this point, you’re not handing out damage, you’re handing out death.
So good sorcerer blasting is very all-or-nothing: either you kill, or your blasting was a bad idea in the first place. Much better to apply some very-debilitating condition than to deal a bunch of damage that won’t actually kill. Even if an ally mops up the remainder before the enemy gets to go, that’s an entire turn the ally didn’t spend dealing with a different threat.
Now, if you do want to go the blasting route, do you want to know a bunch of attack spells? No. Knowing any at all basically means you’re “specializing” in it, relative to most sorcerers. You build your blasting on one or two key, excellent spells, not on knowing a bunch of different blasts. That would be pointless and redundant.
Because that is something that is always true of every sorcerer: you do not want redundant spells. You get an extremely limited number of spells known. Your total spells known is, in fact, very similar to the spells a wizard gets to prepare every day, but where he’s only got to worry about his spells being useful for the next 24 hours or so, you have to make sure they’re pulling their weight for the rest of your life.
So no, under no circumstances do you want a “lot” of blasting spells. You may want a “few” blasting spells (like literally 1-3), but even if you specialize in blasting, you still shouldn’t know too many direct-damage spells; a few well-chosen spells should be quite sufficient. You need the remaining spells known to ensure your mobility, battlefield control, versatility, defenses, and so forth. And if you’ve chosen your blasting spells well, there should be no reason to use a different one.
Personally, I’d probably get some lesser orb at low level, swap it out at 8th or 6th (or the last even Sorcerer level I took), get a real orb at 8th, and only get another once I hit the orb’s Caster Level cap. That is, if I was actively trying to be a blaster. If not, I’d be fairly likely to not bother with any at all.