Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything has a really big soft spot for psychics. A ton of classes got something to do with the power of the mind. The Sorcerer was no different! The Aberrant Mind sorcerer has a brain that goes far beyond simple mortal understanding. They might be related to (or infected by) a Mind Flayer, or simply have unlocked more aspects of their mind. No matter what, you have a strange brain, and are connected to others in new and exciting ways. How to flex your mental prowess… Maybe in a dungeon! Try it out, with our Aberrant Mind 5E guide!
Table of Contents
Unlock Your Mind: Aberrant Mind Sorcerer 5E
The Aberrant Sorcerer is a psychic. They have amazing problem-solving skills and gain some abilities that make them good against creatures with minds. As such, you’ll be playing a utility-driven version of the 5E Sorcerer class with the ability to really impact the battlefield when necessary, with more than just flames or the elements.
Psionic Spells
You gain spells known as you gain levels. These don’t count against your spells known. In addition, whenever you gain a level, you can replace a spell from this feature with another from the same level. Those spells can be any divination or enchantment spell from the sorcerer, warlock, or wizard lists.
| Psionic Spells | |
| Sorcerer Level | Spells |
| 1st | Arms of Hadar, Dissonant Whispers, Mind Sliver (Cantrip) |
| 3rd | Calm Emotions, Detect Thoughts |
| 5th | Hunger of Hadar, Sending |
| 7th | Evard’s Black Tentacles, Summon Aberration |
| 9th | Rary’s Telepathic Bond, Telekinesis |
Wow, this is a really intense class feature! Let’s go over your spells quickly.
Arms of Hadar is a fine area of effect spell that lets you escape attacks of opportunity. Realistically not too useful; sorcerers shouldn’t be surrounded by enemies in the first place. Dissonant Whispers is great combat control, but only makes them move away on a failed save. You’re relying a lot on that, but it burns the reaction which is always nice. Mind Sliver is a cool cantrip that lets you set up for a strong spell coming up… and is honestly one of the best cantrips in the game. At least, against thinking creatures.
Calm Emotions can deflate really tense social situations, and can counter Barbarians quite easily. However, it’s far from the most commonly effective spell, so you’ll probably want to swap this out. Detect Thoughts is a great tool to fight invisibility, and figure out information at the same time. This one’s a keeper!
Hunger of Hadar is an intense darkness spell that also does additional damage. 2d6 guaranteed, 2d6 otherwise. It’s good battlefield control and is actually a darkness spell that really does something. Sending just delivers a message, which is nice to have, but probably better on a Cleric or Wizard that doesn’t have a limit to spells known.
Evard’s Black Tentacles is fantastic combat control that can lock down a huge swath of enemies for you. This is a really useful fireball replacement! Summon Aberration is a fine summoning spell with a tanky creature, though spending 400 gold on it might not be too good for your wallet.
Rary’s Telepathic Bond is a really high level source of messaging… but you get an ability that essentially does the same thing. It’s a bit too situational just because of your class abilities. Telekinesis has a ton of different options attached to it, and thus you can mess with the battlefield in a ton of different ways. It’s fun, can do a ton, and is useful on non-intelligent enemies. That’s really good!
And if you don’t like any of them, you can replace them with spells. Not only is that useful, it’s the best spell list in the game! You can mix and match as much as you like… Well, given you have some levels. Choose the spells that help you the most.
Telepathic Speech
Also at level one, you gain the ability to telepathically link with your fellow party members… Or anyone else!
As a bonus action, choose one creature you can see within 30 feet of you. You and the chosen creature can speak telepathically with each other while the two of you are within a number of miles of each other equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1 mile). To understand each other, you each must speak mentally in a language the other knows.
The telepathic connection lasts for a number of minutes equal to your sorcerer level. It ends early if you are incapacitated or die or if you use this ability to form a connection with a different creature.
This telepathy has one major disadvantage; you can’t automatically understand your conversation partner. Otherwise, this is about as good as any other telepathy in the game… And you get it at level one… As a bonus action.
This allows you to make on-the-fly plays without needing to alert your enemies. You can also hold hidden conversations with others without alerting anyone else. The mile range is kinda unnecessary, but does allow you to do random teleports and eventually find each other again.
There is no limit to the number of times per day you can do this, either. Just keep telepathically talking to your friends… and maybe even your enemies. It says nothing about the creature being willing!
Psionic Sorcery
At level 6, you gain some interesting spell savings.
When you cast any spell of 1st level or higher from your Psionic Spells feature, you can cast it by expending a spell slot as normal or by spending a number of sorcery points equal to the spell’s level.
If you cast the spell using sorcery points, it requires no verbal or somatic components, and it requires no material components, unless they are consumed by the spell.
That’s pretty stellar! You can spend sorcery points instead of spell slots, and at a premium! Normally, spell slots cost a lot more in sorcery points. Sure, you won’t be able to use Metamagic if you spam this ability. But, you also get free summon spells, or get to use a 5th level spell much more often than you’re normally allowed!
Try to make sure your Psionic Spells list is full of spells you like to spam. This ability will really make them more useful, since your sorcery points are more common than your spell slots.
Psychic Defenses
Also at level 6, you get some damage reduction.
You gain resistance to psychic damage, and you have advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened.
Cool! Psychic damage is admittedly not too common. It’s usually only available through spells or specific enemies… And even then, not in high quantities. You’ll be lucky if this comes up often, if at all.
When it does come up, any damage resistance is good damage resistance! And some psychic spells can really hurt you, like Phantasmal Killer. You’re at least not going to notice your brain getting stabbed nearly as much.
Charmed and frightened advantage is a nice addition. You’ll be more useful against psychic enemies if you’re able to attack them, and aren’t just running away all the time. Now you get two chances to save!
Revelation in Flesh
At level 14, you gain the ability to transform your body into… A lot of things. Spend 1 sorcery point, and then spend up to 3 more to gain one benefit for each point spent;
- You can see any invisible creature within 60 feet of you, provided it isn’t behind total cover. Your eyes also turn black or become writhing sensory tendrils.
- You gain a flying speed equal to your walking speed, and you can hover. As you fly, your skin glistens with mucus or shines with an otherworldly light.
- You gain a swimming speed equal to twice your walking speed, and you can breathe underwater. Moreover, gills grow from your neck or fan out from behind your ears, your fingers become webbed, or you grow writhing cilia that extend through your clothing.
- Your body, along with any equipment you are wearing or carrying, becomes slimy and pliable. You can move through any space as narrow as 1 inch without squeezing, and you can spend 5 feet of movement to escape from nonmagical restraints or being grappled.
You retain these benefits for 10 minutes.
I want to see the situation where you need all four of these. Usually, you’ll probably take the fly speed and be more than happy with this ability. One sorcery point for a mini-Fly spell is fantastic! In addition, you can get See Invisibility… Admittedly, a lower level spell, but against invisible creatures it’s invaluable.
Your other options are a little bit situational, but when the situation pops up, 60 ft swim speed with the ability to breath underwater is actually stellar. And being able to wiggle through one inch grasps can be absolutely essential for escaping prisons or whatnot.
Honestly, this is a pretty amazing toolkit. Spend your Sorcery on Fly, and then save the rest for spellcasting. Just remember your options, because you can really get out of awful situations with most of these.
Warping Implosion
The final ability that your origin grants you is quite unique… In a really good way! At level 18, you can do this;
As an action, you can teleport to an unoccupied space you can see within 120 feet of you. Immediately after you disappear, each creature within 30 feet of the space you left must make a Strength saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 3d10 force damage and is pulled straight toward the space you left, ending in an unoccupied space as close to your former space as possible. On a successful save, the creature takes half as much damage and isn’t pulled.
Once you use this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest, unless you spend 5 sorcery points to use it again.
This is a great get-out-of-jail free card, letting you get a pretty explosive teleport and sets your party up to deal with the scraps you left behind.
However… After the first time you use Warping Implosion, it costs 5 sorcery points. Five! That’s expensive for a 120 foot teleport. And the damage isn’t exactly impressive; 3d10 is only about 17 average damage. That’s not worth what you could alternatively spend 5 points on.
Use this once per day to get yourself out of danger. Then, consider using Misty Step or other teleportation options, and saving your points for metamagic or stronger spells.
Best Races for Aberrant Mind Sorcerers
Like most sorcerers, Charisma is the key to winning for an Aberrant Mind. Afterwards, tank up with Dexterity and Constitution. You might want to find a skilled race to make use of your ability to talk to people easily…
Half-Elf
This is admittedly boring, but Half-Elves make fantastic Aberrant Mind Sorcerers. The standard Half-Elf gains +2 Charisma, +1 to two other stats. That’s great! You can get high Charisma, Dexterity, and Constitution! Darkvision is a lifesaver in most dungeons, and Skill Versatility will let you become proficient in all of the Charisma skills, if you really want to! Your Fey Ancestry is sadly a little wasted, but at least you have something to protect you from Charms until level 6!
Glasya Tiefling
Tieflings got bloodlines in Mordekainnen’s Tome of Foes! By being a descendant of Glasya, you gain +2 Charisma and +1 Dexterity. You also gain Darkvision, resistance to Fire Damage, and some awesome illusion spells. This can really be useful if you want to expand your utility!
Best Feats for Aberrant Mind Sorcerer
The Aberrant Mind Sorcerer has a ton of different aggressive and crowd-control options. However, even with this huge number of options compared to the average origin, we still want some versatility.
Alert
While Alert is a generally underwhelming feat, a +5 to initiative is nothing to sneeze at. A high initiative roll can win you the fight quickly and effectively. The other two benefits are relatively low power; only some DMs will jump you in the surprise round, and you’re probably gonna be getting hit by everyone whether or not you know they’re there. But that’s just a testament to how impressive that +5 initiative is. You can lock someone out of the fight before they have a chance to move! And with how many options an Aberrant Mind has to do so, you can’t really go wrong here.
Fey Touched/Shadow Touched
Fey Touched and Shadow Touched both fulfill a similar goal. Each improve your Charisma by 1 and supplement your spell list with some options. Fey Touched gives you Misty Step – an insane spell – and an enchantment or divination option. Shadow Touched gives Invisibility – a fine spell – and some necromancy or illusion options. Each of these feats give the equivalent of a 1st and 2nd level spell slot that must use those spells.
Of the two, Fey Touched is likely the better, due to the power of the Misty Step and the introduction of Silvery Barbs. Silvery Barbs is such a good support spell and a great use of a 1st level spell slot that it usually overcomes whatever Shadow Touched can provide. If you need to round out your Charisma, that’s worth it!
Inspiring Leader
Once you reach 20 Charisma, you might want to consider turning that Charisma into something else. Inspiring Leader lets you, after a short rest, transfer your Level and Charisma to temporary HP. At the endgame, in a party of 4, this is 100 HP per short rest. That’s… Pretty amazing. Short rests aren’t super important for a Sorcerer, so getting something to do during them isn’t a bad idea.
Metamagic Adept
For the Aberrant Mind Sorcerer, Sorcery points are a very important resource. However, metamagic is the strongest spell-altering ability in the game. What a conundrum! By picking up Metamagic Adept, you’re giving yourself 2 more points for Quickened or Twinned spells. You can also take two more options. If you like the Hex + Scorching Ray combo, Seeking or Extended might be worth considering! You can also never go wrong with Heightened or Distant as you approach the midgame levels.
War Caster
War Caster is here for one reason and one reason alone: Concentration checks. While the Sorcerer is proficient with Constitution saving throws, ensuring that you can reroll poor checks can save you a ton on spell slots. Ensure that you keep these strong spells active and you’ll go for miles!
And hey, getting the opportunity to Opportunity Attack on enemies with spells like Banishment or Finger of Death is extremely funny.
Best Multiclass Options for Aberrant Mind Sorcerer
There aren’t too many reasons to step away from the Sorcerer, given it’s impressive spell list and great options for the endgame. However, armor and shield proficiency is quite enticing…
Fighter
The Fighter offers some great armor proficiencies, shield proficiency, and even weapon stuff. But that’s not all! You will get a Fighting Style to boost your defense even further, Second Wind for emergency healing, and Action Surge if you dip to level 2. Action Surge is an intensely powerful burst option. By level 7, you could theoretically chain 2 Fireballs into a room for 16d6 damage! That’s worth considering.
If you want to choose this path, consider getting a level in Fighter first. That’ll give you Heavy Armor Proficiency as well!
Paladin
Paladins serve a similar purpose to Fighter. Once again, consider taking Paladin first and then multiclassing into Sorcerer. 2 levels in Paladin gets you armor and shield proficiencies, Lay on Hands, Divine Smite, a Fighting Style, and 1 level of magic. You’ll lose less spells than a Fighter and be a theoretically more competent melee combatant. But, you’ll lose Action Surge… Dang!
Best Backgrounds for Aberrant Mind Sorcerer
Backgrounds should supplement your Skills for out-of-combat scenarios while also providing features and equipment that you’re interested in. Skills are our highest priority, though.
Criminal/Spy
Criminal, or more likely Spy, provides an interesting angle for a psychic. Easy to cheat at gambling or spy on someone with psychic powers! It’s also a great choice for you mechanically. Deception, Stealth, and Thieves’ Tools are all exceptionally handy. Gaming sets aren’t that important, and your default gear is rather pathetic.
However, unlike many backgrounds, your Feature is quite potent! Contact is a great option for getting an NPC to be always helpful for you. With a creative DM and remembering you have this feature, you can get miles and miles of use out of your background!
Faction Agent
Faction Agent is a very unique background from Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, and is immensely flexible. Usually, you should take the default Insight and Perception as your choice. You also get two languages which, as your party’s talker, is quite good. Your equipment is a lot of gold and some good clothes.
Your Feature is not great. Safe Havens must be reasonably found, making it up to the mercy of your DM. A good DM will make sure this comes up at least once.
Investigator
Investigator, from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, is a really strong background. You’ll basically always take Insight and Perception from this as the party’s talker. Disguise Kits are very fun but not particularly strong… Which is the exact opposite of Thieves’ Tools! Your equipment is solid, and your background feature is fantastic for almost any campaign. However, this is a feature that has some… Potential backlash.
FAQ for the Aberrant Mind Sorcerer
Is the Aberrant Mind Sorcerer Any Good?
The Aberrant Mind Sorcerer might be the best Sorcerous Origin. With an incredible spell list, various ways to spend Sorcery Points, and generically strong magic access, you’ll be an impressive font of versatility. Its only weakness is its expensive Flight access compared to other origins and weaker defenses.
What Skills should an Aberrant Mind Sorcerer Have?
Aberrant Mind sorcerers are best served as the party’s talkers. Deception, Intimidation, or Persuasion are all critical to making conversations go your way. Outside of the Sorcerer class, consider taking things like Perception or Insight to make you more aware of your environment.
What Does the Aberrant Mind Origin Come From?
Aberrant Mind sorcerers are psychics whose abilities are most often unlocked accidentally. Like many Duergar, you could have had an encounter with a Mind Flayer or other psychic entity that opened your mind to the unseen. Or, you could have been gifted this energy from a strange source, like a flumph or a psychic wind.
Example Aberrant Mind Sorcerer Build
With the new Tasha’s Cauldron rules making character building much more flexible, our Aberrant Mind build has to have some ground rules. Our DM is a stickler for old rules. So, we can only use pre-established racial bonuses, we must use Standard Array for point buy, and we need to use standard starting equipment rules. However, our DM was kind enough to let us use any book we’d like, making our options for Background much better.
Even with a bunch of books for options, we’re still going to go with ol’ reliable: Half-Elf. Those stats don’t lie, and neither does the Skill Versatility! We’ll be taking Perception and Insight to make us more useful in out-of-combat and social situations. Our background is now free to take on a ton of different options, so we’ll take a social skill and a useful one: Spy!
Our free racial language should be campaign-oriented. So, because we don’t know exactly what campaign we’re in, we’ll ask our DM. They say that we might want to know Orcish, so let’s listen to their advice.
Our ability scores should prioritize Charisma, and then either Dexterity or Constitution. Both defensive stats are good, but Constitution works a bit better against spells and lets us keep Concentration a bit better. Let’s lean on that.
Our other ability scores should be prioritizing our Wisdom saving throw. Our Int save being at -1 will get us in trouble someday, but we probably want more carrying capacity. Intelligence is just way too situational!
If your DM allows you to take the 3d4 x 10 gp option, do it! We want Thieves’ Tools bright and early – unless our party has a Rogue or another character who can handle lockpicking.
| 5E Aberrant Mind Sorcerer Build |
| Race: Half-ElfAbility Scores: STR 10, DEX 14 (13 + 1), CON 15 (14 + 1), INT 8, WIS 12, CHA 17 (15 + 2)Proficiencies: Intimidation, Persuasion, Insight, Perception, Deception, Stealth, Dice Set, Thieves’ ToolsStarting Equipment: Light Crossbow, 20 Bolts, Component Pouch, Explorer’s Pack, Two DaggersLanguages: Common, Elven, Orcish |
| Level | Class Benefits | Choices |
| 1 | -1st Level Spells-Psionic Spells-Telepathic Speech | We just made a lot of choices early on. Good job! But now we still have a few to go.Cantrips. We want at least 1 offensive cantrip. While Mind Sliver is legitimately strong and we automatically learn it, it lacks the range that we’re looking for. Fire Bolt will do fine. After that, we’ll want Prestidigitation and Mage Hand for useful out-of-combat reasons. Then, we can either take Light if our party lacks darkvision or Message if we can see in the dark well. Our party has good darkvision so Message is the take.Spells. Psionic Spells is going to do wonders on our spell list, giving us a ton of useful utility magics. Right now, we have two aggressive options. But, we still have 2 Spells Known to take on. We’ll go with Sleep to help move early fights along with good HP rolls and Mage Armor to keep ourselves safe. |
| 2 | -Font of Magic | Excellent, keep Font of Magic in mind, as regenerating spell slots mid-combat is very handy. We’re already thinking about trading spells along. Assuming our party is decent at keeping us safe, replacing Arms of Hadar with Hex is actually fairly enticing. While we don’t hit as often as a Warlock, we can with future spells. Let’s actually do that.We’re also going to learn Silvery Barbs with our generic spell slot. That’s a spell that we can take to the endgame! |
| 3 | -2nd Level Spells-Metamagic | We’re at 2nd level spells. Calm Emotions and Detect Thoughts are two solid defensive spells that we can carry to the endgame. Sleep is starting to fall off, so let’s replace it with Shield.We’ll just learn a 2nd level spell, Scorching Ray, for this level. The Hex + Scorching Ray combo will let us hit for 9d6 on a target.Metamagic. We’re going to take Distant Spell and Quickened Spell. Distant lets us land our magic from farther, which’ll be useful soon. Quickened is always incredibly powerful, allowing for huge damage turns and big emergency outputs. |
| 4 | -Ability Score Improvements | Fey Touched and it’s not particularly close. We want to even out our odd Charisma and Misty Step is a damn good way to do it. We’ll learn Silvery Barbs as our free 1st level spell from the feat and up our Charisma to 18. Be ready to spam Silvery Barbs at every occasion.Though… We obviously don’t need Silvery Barbs for our Spells Known anymore! Let’s swap it for Grease, a good option for our melee fellas.For our new spell, we’ll take Hold Person. We’ve been fighting a lot of Orcs, so it’s crucial to deal with deadly ones plainly.Cantrip. New cantrip! We’ll take Minor Illusion. It fits the theme and can help us in out-of-combat situations. The rest of our spell list is very aggressive, after all. |
| 5 | -3rd Level Spells | Hunger of Hadar is an okay use of concentration and Sending is a bit situational. We’ll trade Sending for Clairvoyance, since there’s typically easier ways to get Sending on items and such.Sadly, we’re going to take Fireball here. Yeah, boring, but 8d6 damage in a massive AoE is way too efficient to ignore. |
| 6 | -Psionic Sorcery-Psychic Defenses | It’s almost always worth it to spend Sorcery Points on Psionic spells. It’s so efficient! That being said, we’re gonna keep all of our Psionic spells.Let’s learn Hypnotic Pattern. Works well for the flavor of our class, but also can absolutely nuke an encounter of low-Wisdom opponents. |
| 7 | -4th Level Spells | Evard’s Black Tentacles is a great spell, while Summon Aberration is also solid. Both are Concentration, which stings a bit. Because they’re both Concentration, we’re gonna drop Summon Aberration for Raulothim’s Psychic Lance, since the chance to incapacitate on an Intelligence Saving Throw is a boss devourer.Our level 4 spell is a bit unconventional: Storm Sphere. This thing gives us a decently damaging attack while serving as area control. We have a lot of more conventional damaging options, so having some area control on top of that is nice! |
| 8 | -Ability Score Improvement | We need to get our Charisma higher. We need more power! A +2 to Charisma might sound boring, but a +5 to our attack rolls and DCs will be so critical for the endgame.We’ll pick up Polymorph this level. It’s a fun spell and provides some gigantic restrictions. It even has uses out of combat!Let’s do a quick spell recap:Cantrips: Mind Sliver, Fire Bolt, Prestidigitation, Mage Hand, MessageSpells Known: Grease, Mage Armor, Shield, Silvery Barbs, Scorching Ray, Hold Person, Misty Step, Fireball, Hypnotic Pattern, Storm Sphere, PolymorphPsionic Spells Known: Hex, Dissonant Whispers, Calm Emotions, Detect Magic, Hunger of Hadar, Clairvoyance, Evard’s Black Tentacles, Raulothim’s Psychic Lance The only outlier in this list is Grease, whose usage might be falling a bit behind our other spells. Let’s replace it with Fly. We can do this at any point, really, but it is nice to sit down with your spell list and identify any that aren’t bringing you joy. |
| 9 | -5th Level Spells | Rary’s Telepathic Bond keeps the party in-the-know while Telekinesis is a hugely versatile spell. We’ll keep both of them, for now. Our 5th level options are solid, but nothing crucial to gather up. If you think Rary’s is a bit too situational, then Scrying might be good to know.As for spells, I don’t think we should replace anything quite yet. Mage Armor should always be replaced once we find better armor, but we might not have done so yet. Instead, we’ll just learn Hold Monster. While expensive, being able to force any creature into a Save-or-Die situation is a common courtesy. |
| 10 | -New Metamagic | Got a few things to do this level!Cantrip. Cantrips are basically fully regulated for out-of-combat at this point. Which is good! Let’s pick up Mending for basic repairs.Spells. We don’t need to replace anything in our list in particular, I feel. Let’s instead just grab another fifth level spell. Synaptic Static both works in-theme and as a devastating boss shredder for if we think that it has too much Wisdom. -d6 to each attack can ruin a melee boss’s career. It’s an Area of Effect as well!Metamagic. Heightened Spell is our choice for metamagic this level. It’s more important than ever to have targets fail their saves against our magic. |
| 11 | -6th Level Spells | We no longer get any Psionic Spells, meaning we’re on our own for spells now!Let’s go with Disintegrate. We’re a sorcerer, so we’re often on the hook for dealing with big problems. Well, let’s deal with a big problem!We’ll also drop Mage Armor. Hopefully by now, we’ve found some other means of generating defense. So, we’ll generate defense with Mirror Image instead! We spend most of our 1st levels on Hex and Silvery Barbs, anyway. We shouldn’t be in danger for long enough for Mage Armor to matter! |
| 12 | -Ability Score Improvement | Chef is our choice, here. We round out our Constitution to a solid 16 and get some rather specific, but fun, temp HP buffs! The extra health will be useful, and the temp HP, while small, might be exactly what you need.This is the first time we don’t learn a new spell. But, we can always replace them. I’m very comfortable with our Psionic Spells, so let’s consider our regular spells. And, aha! Hold Person isn’t going to be as useful to us, since our campaign is beginning to focus on fighting dragons and aberrations. Let’s swap it for Web, an excellent way to lock down an encounter. |
| 13 | -7th Level Spells | 7th level magic is a bit weird. We never get many spell slots for this stuff. But, we’ll grab Crown of Stars, a really cool setup spell that stays on your head for an hour. That’s right, we’re still considering Hex synergies! That’s how good Hex is! With this spell and Scorching Ray, we can output 10d6 + 4d12 a turn for seven turns. 61 damage is nothing to sneeze at for the low cost of a 2nd level spell every round.Our spell list is really tight, so I want to keep it around. Hypnotic Pattern might be on thin ice, depending on your campaign. |
| 14 | -Revelation in Flesh | We have a bunch of weird utility here at the cost of 1 sorcery point… And a fly speed, which is admittedly great. Fly is still worth having, since our party does include at least 1 melee character.We will consider swapping spells here, and land on nothing. Everything here has a purpose! Heck, as campaigns get more and more grand, even the situational Rary’s Telepathic Bond continues to come in handy. |
| 15 | -8th Level Spells | Power Word Stun is our spell to learn this level. As long as you have a good guess about a target’s health, a no-save Stun can even negate a Legendary monster’s turn.We’ll drop Hypnotic Pattern here. It has been underperforming for a little bit. It’s saluted for its work, and graciously traded for Mass Suggestion. That’s a spell that can end an encounter and also serves out-of-combat purposes. As out-of-combat scenarios get more and more insane, having something like this can be very handy! |
| 16 | -Ability Score Improvement | What to spend this feat slot on… We have a few really good options. HP is always nice, as is being able to consistently cast. We already have quite a bit of damage from spellcasting…We’re going to go with Metamagic Adept. 2 sorcery points can translate to another Quickened Spell, or any other metamagic. We can also learn some extra metamagic. We’ll choose Seeking Spell since we have high-impact spell attack rolls and Twinned Spell, since we have the points to do it sometimes. And doubling up a spell like Psychic Lance can devastate specific encounters. |
| 17 | -9th Level Spells-New Metamagic | This is it, the last spell we learn naturally! We’ll take Wish, obviously. It’s almost every spell in the game, after all!Metamagic. Let’s take one last look at our spell list to make sure we have what we want.Cantrips: Mind Sliver, Fire Bolt, Prestidigitation, Mage Hand, Message, Minor Illusion, MendingSpells Known: Shield, Silvery Barbs, Scorching Ray, Misty Step, Mirror Image, Web, Fireball, Fly, Storm Sphere, Polymorph, Hold Monster, Synaptic Stasis, Disintegrate, Mass Suggestion, Crown of Stars, Power Word Stun, WishPsionic Spells Known: Hex, Dissonant Whispers, Calm Emotions, Detect Magic, Hunger of Hadar, Clairvoyance, Evard’s Black Tentacles, Raulothim’s Psychic Lance, Rary’s Telepathic Bond, Telekinesis I like this list overall. We’ll use the heck out of Crown of Stars, Power Word Stun, and Wish. Our endgame is more than covered, and our other spells each have a strong use in combat even now. Feel free to swap for spells that might have better use in countering endgame enemies that your campaign throws at you. But, our list is very strong, handles many situations, gets us information, and deals a ton of damage with minimal investment. Really, really solid! |
| 18 | -Warping Implosion | 5 points for a teleport isn’t actually all that bad. And the damage is superb! Just remember you could use those points on something like Raulothim’s Psychic Lance or Telekinesis. But, this into Quickened Fireball is a lot of damage, with your allies to follow it up. |
| 19 | -Ability Score Improvement | Our last feat will go into War Caster. While armoring up might be a fine idea, we’ll just hope that we found a Robe of the Archmagi by now. War Caster lets us cast more effectively. And, since we do have quite a few Concentration options, we’ll want to keep those online as often as possible. |
| 20 | -Sorcerous Restoration | You better be spending more than 4 Sorcery Points per fight. |
Conclusion – Our Take on the Aberrant Mind Sorcerer 5E
As far as sorcerer 5e subclasses go, this one is fun. The Aberrant Mind has great utility against enemies that can be fooled by illusions and other tricks. If that wasn’t enough, they’re also fairly good at dealing damage, since psychic spells tend to at least do some damage on the target. Check this out if you’re looking for a new flavor of Sorcerer, and especially if you want a sorcerer with Wizard divination spells!
Thanks for the thoughts. Why do you think Psionic Sorcerery can’t be enhanced with metamagic? You’re casting the spells, and that is the trigger condition for metamagic. As far as I can tell, you can metamagic these spells. At 6th level, you can make Enemies Abound a Psionic Spell and then twin it with metamagic while casting it with your 6 sorcerery points. You should also likely reference that Psionic Spells cast in this fashion can’t be countered – there is no trigger to target. Spell substitution – enchantments and illusions to sub in for your psionic spells, would also be something to cover in a guide.
Thanks for the reply! It’s not that you can’t use metamagic with Psionic Sorcery. The author said you can’t use metamagic if you spam Psionic Sorcery, since you’d use up your sorcery points.
Don’t forget about Changelings as a race to use! CHA +2 and the ability to shapechange makes for some great RP and intimidation outside of spell slots!
Very good suggestion.
I’m making a changling AM sorcerer for my next game. The crazy part is for this campaign, the DM had the idea for me to be a double agent. So I’m picking up expertise in deception via a feat, then I can use subtle hex to impose disadvantage on their insight checks… They’re never going to see this coming.
That’s awesome.
I think AM Sorceror is the master of disguise, sub out level 1 psychic spells for Hex & Silvery Barbs, twin hex to disadvantage enemy Intelligence (investigation) to notice your disguise self or voice (minor) illusion, if they succeed then Silvery Barbs to make them reroll & advantage your next deception check to allay their concerns (all cast psychically to avoid suspicion).
Good replacement Psychic spells are; Gift of Gab, Enemies Abound, Fast Friends, Clairvoyance, Arcane Eye, Locate Creature. Modify Memory.
Good Races are; Changeling, Hexblood, Firbolg, Tieflings(Dispatter, Fierna, Glasya), Kenku, Reborn.
Good Backgrounds are; Charlatain, Merchant, Faceless, secret-identity, Astral Drifter, Strixhaven (Quandra, Silverquill)