This archetype is one of the weirdest ones we’ve ever had the honor to have released to us… Almost entirely because it was scribed within Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide. And it was the exact same both times. Weird. Our Storm Sorcerer 5E investigates!
The Storm Sorcerer, as may be expected, has the power of elemental air in their blood. You may have had ancestors who nearly died in the Great Rain, or were born on a ship in the eye of a storm. Maybe your ancestors were powerful djinn… In any case, you are invaluable on any waterborne ship, or for defending coast communities against the effects of hurricanes. You’re likely well known as being tumultuous and quick to anger, and then becoming as calm as a sunny day. There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s set up our sails and look towards the horizons of your future levels.
Table of Contents
Harness the Tempest: Storm Sorcerer 5E
Mechanically, the Storm Sorcerer suffers from a few potent issues. Firstly, a lot of its effects are focused around being in close-ranged combat without any additional defense to keep you afloat. Secondly, the rewards for being in close-ranged combat don’t scale very well. The only immensely powerful feature of this sorcerer subclass is attained is at level 18, and that’s problematic for a few reasons.
That’s not to say this archetype is completely unsalvageable, because it’s not. It has useful utility and it’s by far the most aggressive subtype that the Sorcerer has to offer (by pure class abilities). Weave in and out of combat, and you’ll be surprised by the damage you can output.
Wind Speaker
The Storm Sorcerer immediately gains access to Primordial. You actually gain access to 4 languages here; Aquan, Auran, Ignan, and Terran. You can’t write in those four languages, but you can write Primordial, which is understood by those who can read those four languages… It’s kinda weird.
Language abilities are always a little… Whatever. The ability to talk and write to other creatures can let you avoid conflicts or get information. It also lets your language-based spells land easier, so… I guess if you plan on multiclassing into Bard or Cleric, that can be helpful.
Notably, these 4 languages all belong to Elementals. If you’re going into a campaign where you must communicate with elementals often – for example, if your GM really wants to Plane-Hop – then this is a really potent ability. It’ll save a lot of headache when communicating with Djinn, since they usually have one of those four languages in their pockets.
So, surprisingly good, with some interesting versatility; 4 languages in a single class feature is rare.
Tempestuous Magic
Your first class ability is a wonderful hop, skip, and jump.
Starting at 1st level, you can use a bonus action on your turn to cause whirling gusts of elemental air to briefly surround you, immediately before or after you cast a spell of 1st level or higher. Doing so allows you to fly up to 10 feet without provoking opportunity attacks.
Actually just a hop.
10 feet of movement is pathetically small, not letting you get anywhere important on just a spellcast. At this level, you don’t have consistent fly speed (unless you’re an Aaracokra), so you can’t hover in the air. If you’re worried about 10 feet gaps, you’ll probably have a way to get across them without spending a precious spell slot… Usually, in the arms of your friendly party Barbarian.
So instead, you want to use this for the “without provoking opportunity attacks” clause. The 10 feet float is usually enough to let you get barely out of range of most melee combatants – and sometimes, if you’re near a ledge, you can get frustratingly out of range.
And since you can do it before or after, you can also float into range of a spellcast before you cast it. Ever been exactly 5 ft away of being able to cast that life-saving Hold Person? Bam, you’re now right in range. Or, if you’re really in the mood to be creative with your tactics, you can float 10 ft back and then use a spell with pull to put your enemy between your melee party members.
10 feet of movement is usually insignificant, but you get a way to spend your Bonus Actions to get some alright mobility. It’s not bad, but if it could only activate on casting a cantrip… Oh well.
Heart of the Storm
Now we’re starting to get into the “heart” of the class! Eh? Eh?
At 6th level, you gain resistance to lightning and thunder damage. In addition, whenever you start casting a spell of 1st level or higher that deals lightning or thunder damage, stormy magic erupts from you. This eruption causes creatures of your choice that you can see within 10 feet of you to take lightning or thunder damage (choose each time this ability activates) equal to half your sorcerer level.
Ugh, sorry.
This ability is split into two categories. Resistance to lightning and thunder is solid. According to this fantastic summary of the default 5e Monster Manual, Lightning is a fairly common damage type. You’ll resist any air elementals or blue and bronze dragons. Lightning doesn’t have too many spells in it’s damage type, but you’ll resist Druids quite effectively.
Thunder damage… Well, uh… There’s 4 creatures in the default monster manual that deal Thunder damage. In pirate campaigns, you might have a few casts of Thunderwave thrown at you. And there are a few Thunder spells that might hit you real hard. Remember you have this, but don’t expect this half of your resistances to get much mileage.
The other part of this ability is why your Tempestuous Magic doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity. You do a burst of damage that scales poorly with your level. Half sorcerer level starts at 3 and maxes out at 10.
Don’t get me wrong; guaranteed damage is still damage. That means that your opponents are going to have lower health and get downed faster, therefore reducing damage to your party. However, this damage is really pitiful. And the range of the damage comes from you, meaning you need to cast this spell with 10 feet of yourself.
And then we talk about what options you have.
You have 11 spells that cost a spell slot and could possibly deal Lightning or Thunder. Of those options, only 9 of them are guaranteed. The other two are random. The options you do have are solid spells, but none of them really scream “I wanna be 10 ft away from enemies”… Although Thunder Step could be really cool!
Adding a small guaranteed area of effect to any spell will be nice, but make sure you aren’t going to become a bloodstain on the wall due to being so close. I’d recommend doing this strategy if your ally is trying a Sentinel build, since that’ll work wonders for keeping you safe.
Storm Guide
Storm Guide is the flavorful feature of this class, and your second level 6 ability. That’s super unique amongst Sorcerer archetypes!
If it is raining, you can use an action to cause the rain to stop falling in a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on you. You can end this effect as a bonus action.
If it is windy, you can use a bonus action each round to choose the direction that the wind blows in a 100-foot-radius sphere centered on you. The wind blows in that direction until the end of your next turn. This feature doesn’t alter the speed of the wind.
While neither of these are strictly useless in combat scenarios, you’ll probably want a bit more with your actions.
The first feature is hilarious. You’re an umbrella. This doesn’t have an explicit end to it, so you can constantly have this up as long as you pop an action in the morning. Then, you don’t get wet… Hmm. It’s theoretically useful if you need to ensure a small area stays on fire, or if you’re escorting a baby Fire Elemental, but… In most cases, rain just doesn’t matter. In fact, depending on how hard the rain is falling, this could make you an easier target to hit; if your GM is the type that really likes making environmental obstacles, you might want to consider turning this ability off. Otherwise… Whatever. Go crazy!
The wind effect is actually extremely useful for seafaring campaigns. If you can always ensure that the wind blows in the direction you want to move, you’ll get places so much faster. It can also prevent hurricanes from destroying your ship; you can simply direct your ship into the eye of the storm, or get it all the way out of the storm without it getting sucked in.
This can also hard-counter any tornados or whatnot by simply telling the tornado “no” and cancelling the wind-speed. Theoretically, you could really make Storm of Vengeance less effective… At least from rounds 5-10.
Unfortunately, this wind effect is supposed to explicitly be anti-weather. So, no dispelling Wind Wall or Gust of Wind, since those aren’t a windy weather effect. If your GM wants to push the power level of this subclass, then they might let you get away with it.
In most cases, though, this is a small benefit that could be great in a seafaring campaign.
Storm’s Fury
Back to strictly mechanical benefits! And… Oh boy.
Starting at 14th level, when you are hit by a melee attack, you can use your reaction to deal lightning damage to the attacker. The damage equals your sorcerer level. The attacker must also make a Strength saving throw against your sorcerer spell save DC. On a failed save, the attacker is pushed in a straight line up to 20 feet away from you.
Okay… This isn’t bad. Not at all!
This is a reaction, something most sorcerers would save for Counterspell. This doesn’t cost a resource, though, so if you’re not worried about casters, you can just spam this on every melee attacker… Well, once a round, that is.
The damage of this ability is, once again, based on your Sorcerer level. That means that this reaction does a maximum of 20 damage. At level 20. That’s not nothing, but it’s not too much of a threat; enemy combatants will still want your face on the end of their spear.
That’s why it’s nice that the damage is only the free bonus! Knocking the enemy 20 feet away from you is wonderful. That keeps you safe from Extra Attacks or opportunity attacks in the future. A Strength save is probably not going to be too hard for most melee combatants to overcome… But against finesse attackers or those not proficient in Strength saves, you’ll be just fine. Knocking them 20 feet away does have a bit of anti-synergy with Heart of the Storm, however.
Considering you’re being asked to be within 10-20 feet of enemies, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind for a defensive ability…
Wind Soul
This is, by far, the best ability that Sorcerers can get from their subclass.
At 18th level, you gain immunity to lightning and thunder damage.
You also gain a magical flying speed of 60 feet. As an action, you can reduce your flying speed to 30 feet for 1 hour and choose a number of creatures within 30 feet of you equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier. The chosen creatures gain a magical flying speed of 30 feet for 1 hour. Once you reduce your flying speed in this way, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest.
Yeah.
Let’s go over the least impactful effect (which is saying something!); immunity to damage. Immunity to Lightning is huge, since there’s some decent 9th level spells that can absolutely destroy you with lightning damage. The Thunder immunity, once again, exists. That’s better for anti-magic than fighting creatures. There’s still some good thunder spells, like Shatter, that scale well into the late game. Not bad, but not impactful, due to shallow spell lists.
Let’s talk about this flight, though. 60 ft of flight means that, at last, you can get your Tempestuous Magic to float slightly above enemies without needing magic or magic items. Thank goodness! That’s a huge boost to your survivability, since you can avoid being in range of any non-flying, Medium combatants. Flight is super critical for combat… And you probably should have had a way to fly by now. Just saying.
Flight lets you chase enemies, escape from combat, stay consistently out of range of area of effect spells, and position yourself out of range of melee. Just… Check for bows before you stay in the air for too long. You don’t wanna become a pincushion!
But, you can finally take Fly off of your spells known, because you can spend an action to give flight to 8 people. That’s incredible! Most Dungeons & Dragons parties are just 4, including yourself. That means you can give Flight to the party, an Animal companion, your escort mission, the Wizard’s Summoned creature, and a random scorpion crawling up a wall. And this flight lasts for an hour. And doesn’t use Concentration!
Whenever you crack that action out, you’ll be the life of the party. Everyone will love you! And then you can finally attune to something other than Winged Boots.
Best Race for Storm Sorcerers
Storm sorcerers don’t break any rules here; Charisma is king. You need to have enemies be affected by your magic. However, you’re going to be within 10 ft of enemies in a lot of fights… You need defensive stats. Consider boosting Dexterity or Constitution to almost the same level as your Charisma. Dexterity lets you avoid areas of effect and normal weapon swings. Constitution lets high rolls matter less, since you can shake off a hit or two more.
Tabaxi
This Volo’s Guide to Monsters race are jungle cats that have a lot of great options for you. +2 Dexterity, +1 Charisma is super good for you; better AC, Reflex saves, and spell saves. In addition, Tabaxi have loads of good racial features. You get a free skill proficiency, Darkvision, better movement options (so you can get in range of your Heart faster!), and climb speed. It’s a super potent race, that’s perfect for mastering the storm. I guess kitty’s not afraid of water anymore.
Swiftstride Shifter
Shifters – from Eberron: Rising from the Last War – are a pretty good race. The Swiftstride shifters get that Darkvision back but gain access to the Shifting feature. The Shifting feature is a bonus action that gives you a big pool of temporary hit points. Because you’re a Swiftstride, you gain +2 Dexterity and +1 Charisma, just like the Tabaxi. You also gain that single skill proficiency, but during the 1 minute that you’re shifted, you gain 10 ft of movement and can move 5 ft whenever someone gets close. That’s pretty great utility early on! And unlike the Tabaxi, you get both better AC, Reflex saves, and extra health. A good pick, if you want to trade utility for options.
Best Feats for Storm Sorcerer
The Storm Sorcerer, like many Sorcerous Origins, suffers hugely from a big gap in spells known. They also want a bit of defense and a good reason to take short rests.
Chef
The Chef offers the Storm Sorcerer a small amount of utility and a great reason to rest. First, you get a +1 to Charisma or Constitution, a good start in either category. Then, you get proficiency in a Chef’s Kit, which is nice enough.
What’s nicer is that if you use that tool to cook, you can create some food! This food heals more when you are resting, similar to a Bard’s Song of Rest, and can be turned into some treats. These treats give a temporary HP shield based on your Proficiency modifier, which can be shared or shoveled down the throat of your frontliner. Overall, a great way to round out an odd Constitution score for a Sorcerer.
Fey Touched
Fey Touched is a fantastic feat for any Sorcerer, since it lets you learn two spells! Misty Step isn’t a spell that the Storm Sorcerer desperately needs, but is a good option for emergencies and problem solving. The 1st level spell is extremely powerful, ranging from extremely aggressive spells like Hex to very defensive spells like Silvery Barbs. We recommend the latter, if you are struggling to choose.
You also get two spell slots, one for Misty Step and one for your 1st level spell. That’s pretty nice, but you have to make sure to remember to use those every day.
Oh, you also get a +1 to Charisma. Which I hear Sorcerers tend to like.
Inspiring Leader
Inspiring Leader is a simple feat from the Player’s Handbook with a gigantic impact on your Sorcerer’s short rest. Whenever you do so, you can give a six-person party temporary hitpoints equal to your level plus your Charisma. By level 20, this is a minimum of 25 HP per person. That’s really strong! It can easily let them soak a melee hit and might soak something as impactful as a Fireball. If you’re giving that to a party of four people, that’s 100 hitpoints every shot rest. Really worth considering once your stats are rounded out.
Shadow Touched
Very similar to Misty Step, Shadow Touched gives you a +1 to Charisma, a few spells known, and some bonus spell slots to use them. However, unlike Misty Step, Shadow Touched is significantly more restricted.
Invisibility is a good spell, and worth having a spell slot dedicated for. However, the 1st level spell options that you get are really, really restricted. Ray of Sickness is fine, since it applies a pretty good debuff with Poisoned. Otherwise, False Life can let someone take a hit early on.
Tough
The Storm Sorcerer has a few options to counter taking hits, so being able to take a hit isn’t a bad idea. 2 HP per level might not sound like too much, but it adds up. 40 HP by level 20 means you can eat a Disintegrate without too much problem, while a normal Sorcerer might even get one-shot by it. A simple feat, but one that will literally keep you alive.
Best Multiclass Options for Storm Sorcerer
Alright, so… Two of these are fairly typical considerations for a Sorcerer and one of them might be a bit… Strange.
Cleric
Okay, hear me out.
Two levels in Cleric gives you the Tempest Domain and Channel Divinity. Tempest Domain can provide heavy armor and shield proficiency, while its Channel Divinity lets you max-roll spells like Shatter and Lightning Bolt. It also gives you impactful spells like Bless and Shield of Faith to hold your concentration early.
This is a bit of a meme, but it’s a pretty funny one.
Fighter
A more traditional multiclass is Fighter. Starting Fighter gives you a fighting style (probably Defense) as well as some basic healing. Then, at level 2, you can Action Surge spells. That’s pretty stellar, though a bit cliché this late into 5E’s lifespan. Double Fireball is a classic multiclass move, but it’s classic because 16d6 damage into a room is pretty okay.
Paladin
A Paladin multiclass, if investing two levels, improves your durability while adding unique spell utility. Never invest 1 level into Pally. Divine Sense and Lay on Hands aren’t worth it by themselves. Instead, put two levels in for Divine Smite, Spellcasting, and the Defense fighting style. You can actually waddle into melee fairly effectively, depending on how many levels you invest in Paladin.
Best Backgrounds for Storm Sorcerer
Backgrounds for the Storm Sorcerer are fairly simple. You want some good skills so that you don’t have to invest spells in out-of-combat situations. There are a few methods of doing so.
Criminal/Spy
The Criminal, or the Spy, are reskins of the same extremely powerful Player’s Handbook background. They get Deception and Stealth, which are two solid skills to have in your back pocket. Your proficiency in thieves’ tools is extremely nice, and the gaming set is… well, it’s there. You could make money off of it!
The equipment is mediocre, but your feature is one of the best in the game! Guaranteeing an ally in integral cities tends to be pretty fantastic. Work with your DM to make them a consistent, recurring NPC and you’ve got yourself covered.
Investigator
The Investigator, from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, provides a ton of choices for your character. They give extremely powerful skills, though we recommend Insight and Perception. Insight provides some good utility for conversations – good for us as the face – and Perception is the most used skill in the game. Proficiency with Thieves’ Tools tends to be a good idea, and Disguise Kits are at least funny.
However, there’s a minor tradeoff in getting better skills than Criminal, and that’s your feature. While your equipment is fine, your feature is very easily turned into a negative thing. You want to be careful to make friends in big cities.
Urban Bounty Hunter
Similar to the Investigator, the Urban Bounty Hunter is a big choice-based background from Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide. Insight and a Charisma-based skill (a la Persuasion) tends to be our favorite, though Stealth is a reasonable pick if you don’t wanna get all three talking skills. A musical instrument is great to have and there’s our friend Thieves’ Tools again.
Your equipment and feature are passable. You get a lot of starting money with very few actual items, which works fine for our purposes. Ear to the Ground is very useful, though a pain in the butt for the DM. Try to make use of it.
FAQ for the Storm Sorcerer
How do Storm Sorcerers get their powers?
The Storm Sorcerer gets their power from the element of air. This might mean your ancestors were close to the Elemental Plane of Air, were left barely alive by a huge storm, or were born from Air Genies – Djinn.
How does Tempestuous Magic work?
You must spend a Bonus Action to activate Tempestuous Magic for your current turn. Then, you can fly 10 feet before you declare that you cast a spell or after the spell has resolved during that turn. This does mean that, by this reading, you can fly 10 feet for your first spell, Action Surge, and then fly 10 additional feet for that second spell.
What book is the Storm Sorcerer in?
The Storm Sorcerer is located on page 51 of Xanathar’s Guide to Everything.
The Best Storm Sorcerer Build
Before we can even begin building our Storm Sorcerer, we need to ask our DM what our limits are going to be. Our DM, for example, likes the legacy Racial Stat rules, so no Lineages for us. However, they’ll let us use any book for race or backgrounds, which is nice. They also want us to use Standard Array for ability scores and the standard equipment setups. That means we can’t start with stuff like Thieves’ Tools, which is a bit annoying. But far from the end of the world.
For our race, we’re going to shuffle past the Tabaxi and Shifter, since we’re gonna be one of the few casters in our group. We love our utility, but we love our Misty step better! Because of that, we’ll go Satyr, which provides us some great skill proficiencies, magic resistance, and several ways to get out of dodge. We’ll still rock with Criminal to get even more useful skills. And, hey, maybe our criminal contact is another fey! That’s fun.
For ability scores, our focus will be on Charisma, then either Constitution or Dexterity. Because we get a +1 to it, Dexterity and Constitution can both be safe at 14. That’s not stellar, but it’ll certainly work for the early game. Standard Array can be troublesome like that. But, I won’t say no to 12 Wisdom.
For our class skills, we want to round out our Charisma skills by nabbing Intimidation. Then, Insight’ll work so that we’re okay at reading people during talks.
| 5E Storm Sorcerer Build |
| Race: SatyrAbility Scores: STR 10, DEX 14 (13 + 1), CON 14, INT 8, WIS 12, CHA 17 (15 + 2)Proficiencies: Performance, Persuasion, Intimidation, Insight, Deception, Stealth, Thieves’ Tools, Dice SetStarting Equipment: Light Crossbow, 20 Bolts, Component Pouch, Dungeoneer’s Pack, Two Daggers, Crowbar, Criminal Common Clothes, 15 gpLanguages: Common, Sylvan |
| Level | Class Benefits | Choices |
| 1 | -1st Level Spells-Wind Speaker-Tempestuous Magic | Hope you weren’t quite done with choices, because the Sorcerer needs to learn a few spells first.Cantrips. Since we have okay Dexterity, we can use the Light Crossbow as our source of consistent damage. However, just in case the target is hard to hit, let’s grab Fire Bolt now. Then, a bunch of utility cantrips: Mage Hand for the environment, Prestidigitation for a bunch of small things, and Light for… light. Spells. A Sorcerer is nothing without some spells. We’ll take Ice Knife to deal a bunch of damage and Sleep to knock out an enemy or two. We’ll likely be using Sleep more often, since the chance to end an encounter in a single spellcast is too good to ignore. |
| 2 | -Font of Magic | Do not be afraid to spam your poor Sorcery Points to gain level 1 spells immediately. There’s nothing else to use them for yet, after all.That being said, our Spell will likely be a defensive one. Mage Armor should suffice, and we can take it with us until near the endgame.This is also the point where we can start swapping out spells. I really like our pool right now, but we’re gonna be making use of that swap-out mechanic very soon. |
| 3 | -2nd Level Spells-Metamagic | Got a few more choices at this level. Spells. We have to get a 2nd level spell. Hold Person is our choice for now, though that will change campaign to campaign. In the campaign we made this character for, we fight enough humanoids to make that matter. No other spell swapping shenanigans, though Sleep is on thin ice.Metamagic. We’re going to choose Distant Spell and Quickened Spell, both to allow us to safely cast magic before escaping. |
| 4 | -Ability Score Improvements | Quite a few things to consider here!Feat. We’re gonna take a feat at this level. Fey Touched gives us two spells – Misty Step and Silvery Barbs – that will be useful from level 4 to 20. The extra spell slots will be nice eventually as well.Spell. We’ll finally learn a level 2 damaging spell in Scorching Ray, improving our damage by quite a bit. We’ll also tag out Sleep for another spell, Shatter. Area of effect is important, even this early, and Ice Knife is starting to fall off.Cantrip. Let’s grab Message. That’ll let us communicate with our party quietly, something that’s becoming somewhat hard to do. |
| 5 | -3rd Level Spells | As the Storm Sorcerer, we are interested in dealing area of effect damage. Because of that, we’ll grab Lightning Bolt. The extra value coming up for dealing Lightning damage is just a tiny, tiny bit more useful than the advantageous area of effect for Fireball. Just make sure to draw your lines properly.No tag-outs for spells known. Not quite yet. |
| 6 | -Heart of the Storm-Storm Guide | Another level 3 spell. This one depends a lot on your party. Realistically, Haste is the most useful 3rd level buff for 90% of party compositions, as the extra attack is quite strong. Fly can be handy, but nothing that can’t be compensated for by magic items. For now, the rest of our spells known are strong enough to keep. |
| 7 | -4th Level Spells | At 4th level, we get some slightly weirder spells that don’t quite upgrade in damage over Lightning Bolt. However, when it comes to crowd control, they’re very solid. Storm Sphere gives us damage and something to do with our bonus action if we don’t want to concentrate on Haste. It also provides some area control.We’ll also toss out Ice Knife for Banishment. Ice Knife doesn’t really do much damage anymore, and Banishment can win a fight by removing the right guy from it. |
| 8 | -Ability Score Improvement | Nice and boring, +2 Charisma. Get to 20 in it so your spell saves are as large as possible.Before we decide on our spell, let’s take another look at our spell list. Cantrips. Fire Bolt, Mage Hand, Light, Prestidigitation, MessageSpells Known. Silvery Barbs, Mage Armor, Hold Person, Misty Step, Scorching Ray, Shatter, Lightning Bolt, Haste, Storm Sphere, Banishment Looking fine. The only thing I’m concerned about here is that we don’t have any damaging level 1 spells. Those are all reactive. Sure, if we have a day that we don’t use Silvery Barbs, it’s not a day we need magic. But, still. We otherwise have good spells at each level that fulfill a need.Counterspell at level 3 is my choice. We really want a way to prevent gigantic spells from ruining the party. There’s no better way to stop it than at the source!Hold Person is starting to look less and less powerful. During many campaigns, Humanoids start to lose prevalence over time. We’ll keep it around, but keep Hold Person on the chopping block for when humanoids start to phase out. |
| 9 | -5th Level Spells | Hold Monster is our pick for this level. Even the chance to paralyze a monster for a turn is far too enticing to lose sight of. As long as your party has any melee characters, you are losing out by not picking this.Hold Person is starting to waver. We don’t encounter too many humanoids anymore, and the ones we do run into tend to have anti-paralysis of some kind. Let’s strike it and get Blindness/Deafness instead. That’s a weaker debuff but it matters more often. |
| 10 | -New Metamagic | Jeez, another place where we have three points of interaction.Metamagic. Heightened is our choice here. The ability to give disadvantage to a saving throw is one of the top reasons to choose Sorcerer over Wizard. Spend that cash on hard crowd control like Hold Monster and let your melee boys crit a boss to death.Spells. Another level 5 spell. We’d like to consider Synaptic Stasis, an area of effect spell that targets Intelligence instead of any other saving throw. The d6 debuff dropping everyone’s attack rolls and saving throws by an average of 3.5 is a lot!Cantrip. Ugh, weird choices here. Chill Touch is our choice, as it locks enemies out of healing. Level 6 spells are the point where healing becomes absurdly strong, so keeping enemies off of that is a good idea. |
| 11 | -6th Level Spells | We’re just about at the point where we only get spells every other level. So, our next few spell picks must be made carefully. 6th level spells are either high single target damage or weird situational stuff. Disintegrate is our choice, simply because it is good value for the action. Point at a guy, big chance to kill them.A spell that we will tag out, somewhat reluctantly, is Shatter. It’s a little behind on the damage side by now. Let’s instead get Web. |
| 12 | -Ability Score Improvement | We’ve got max Charisma, so we would legitimately recommend Inspiring Leader for the extra temporary HP. Short rests have just gotten really good for us! At this point, without any other magical item, we’ve just gotten 17 HP per party member. And it’s only gonna climb.Still happy with the spell list for now. Once we get a Robe of the Archmagi, we can tag out Mage Armor. So, that’s not too bad. Hopefully we’ve been able to get a Monk’s hand-me-downs or something. |
| 13 | -7th Level Spells | 7th level spells… We definitely want one of them. Let’s grab Draconic Transformation for the Cone of Cold every round, flight, and blindsight. We don’t mind getting hit too much, either, so we can shotgun encounters pretty liberally.That being said, the rest of our spell list is still fine. We’ll assume we get a Robe of the Archmagi by level 15, so we can keep Mage Armor until that point. But the millisecond you get something better than Mage Armor, it should go right into the trash. |
| 14 | -Storm’s Fury | No spells or anything to choose here. Our repertoire continues to be relatively superb, engaging with each spell slot well. As long as you find yourself consistently casting spells from each spell level, you’ve done well. |
| 15 | -8th Level Spells | We’ve historically been fans of Power Word Stun, and little has changed here. As long as you correctly guess health, or the DM helps you out by letting you roll a Skill check of some kind, this is a stun without a saving throw for the first round. Really strong against bosses, consistently great way to spend a 8th level slot, just because it can dodge Legendary Resistance when done right.The time has come. We’ve gotten a Robe of the Archmagi, so we’ll tag Mage Armor out for Shield. Similar idea, but Mage Armor no longer works. Just a flat +5 to AC is sometimes better than Silvery Barbs. |
| 16 | -Ability Score Improvement | No spell to learn at this level, but we do have to stare yet another feat in the face. We are going to invest in a pseudo-defensive choice here: Either Tough or War Caster. Because we have such high-investment concentration spells on our list, we’ll go with the option that lets us take a hit and roll advantage to keep our high-level spells. Since we have some stuff for melee, we can also wade into the frontlines for our area of effect Electricity damage and then use our opportunity attack on Banishment or Hold Monster. We’re still going to take Tough at level 19, since surviving at that point is basically a DPS check. |
| 17 | -9th Level Spells-New Metamagic | Wish is our choice for a 9th level spell. The Sorcerer doesn’t really have many other options. They can finally replicate any spell on the list, just like their Wizard counterparts!One final spell check. Cantrips. Chill Touch, Fire Bolt, Mage Hand, Light, Prestidigitation, MessageSpells Known. Silvery Barbs, Shield, Blindness/Deafness, Misty Step, Scorching Ray, Web, Lightning Bolt, Haste, Counterspell, Storm Sphere, Banishment, Hold Monster, Synaptic Stasis, Disintegrate, Draconic Transformation, Power Word: Stun, Wish Overall, this is a good list with a solid mixture of offense, defense, and utility. We’ll be okay at dealing damage, great at clearing rooms, and have access to good ways to lock down larger enemies. I’m comfortable taking this to the endgame. Metamagic. Let’s take Twinned Spell for magic like Power Word: Stun. Doubling up on that stuff can be a game changer, since it costs basically half the spell points as recasting the spell and does it on the same turn. |
| 18 | -Wind Soul | Our spell list is in a good spot, so there isn’t too much to say here. Perhaps consider swapping out some spells for situational ones that apply more thoroughly to your campaign, like Protection from Good and Evil. Otherwise, this list handles a lot of different situations. |
| 19 | -Ability Score Improvement | Our last feat is going to be Tough. We could consider taking Elemental Adept for Lightning, but we actually do a wide range of damage with our current spell list. Not really our fault – sorcerers aren’t exactly getting a million different options for Lightning damage here. We do have some non-spell sources of elemental damage to consider, but none of them really bridge the gap in our opinion. 40 HP is worth a little bit more to our fragile behinds than dealing some extra damage with specific spells to some targets. |
| 20 | -Sorcerous Restoration | Welcome to level 20! Nothing left to do but pray we can save the world, or whatever your campaign runs off to. |
Conclusion – Our Storm Sorcerer 5E Guide
The Storm sorcerer is the most aggressive Sorcerer subtype; if your party is lacking damage, you can get a lot out of this! However, your d6 hit dice are problematically small for how close you have to get to be effective. If you want a Sorcerer who can pull the most out of Lightning spells – and maybe have a few frontliners to keep you safe – then the Storm Sorcerer will work just fine.
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