Ah, I see you want to roll dice as much as I do, eh? Well, so did the writers of The Player’s Handbook, since they released the Wild Magic origin. Harbingers of Wild Magic were born into chaos. Perhaps you were tossed in a planar portal while young. Maybe you were cursed by a demon or fey creature. Potentially, one of your ancestors may have been a Slaadi, those who embody chaos. Or… Maybe it was just a fluke, and your magic just doesn’t work quite right. In any case, your luck is going to be crucial for figuring out how you can perform with this archetype and just survive, let alone find use of it. So, let’s get crazy, and explore Wild Magic with our Wild Magic Sorcerer 5E Guide.
Table of Contents
Manipulate the Odds: Wild Magic Sorcerer 5E
The Wild Magic Sorcerer is a competent damage-based Sorcerous Origin with some awesome utility. Your goal is to use your magic to fuel your reroll effects or try and find sudden, powerful effects to randomly win a losing battle. You have a single ability that can be defined as a not-random effect, and even that relies on dice. This is an archetype you use to have fun, but you can randomly become the most powerful asset of an adventuring party.
Wild Magic Surge
This is your main mechanic for your new life, ruled by chaos.
Starting when you choose this origin at 1st level, your spellcasting can unleash surges of untamed magic. Immediately after you cast a sorcerer spell of 1st level or higher, the DM can have you roll a d20. If you roll a 1, roll on the Wild Magic Surge table to create a random magical effect.
Okay, let’s drop the charade here. This ability alone makes this archetype super cool and also extremely tedious.
This is not the first iteration of Wild Magic in Dungeons & Dragons. Ever since Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition, there’s been Wild Mages. However, this is the first time that the player doesn’t get to control where Wild Magic procs; the DM decides it. This makes this already random ability even more random, since you can’t trigger it yourself.
Just because of this, I would suggest knowing your DM and your group before taking this archetype. You probably want a DM who’s willing to have fun with a campaign, and one who wants to have fun moments. If they have you roll this on every spell cast, especially early on, you could be in danger. But, every other spell cast will be nice, right? And then maybe increase it to every spell cast once your party can survive one member turning into a potted plant every now and then.
Since this archetype relies around a Wild Magic table, let’s look at it, shall we? The Player’s Handbook’s default Wild Magic table has 50 different outcomes. If you want to see the table yourself, check out page 104 or see our Wild Magic Table Guide! We provide the official table but also link to some interesting homebrew options.
I’ve organized the effects into four categories; strictly good, strictly bad, hard to define, and non-mechanical. Here are the results:
- Beneficial: 23
- Negative: 11
- Impossible to Rate: 7
- Roleplay/Non-Mechanical: 9
These are far from definitive; this is based on the idea that, in normal combat situations, these rolls would go off while you’re standing in the backlines. For example, I put the “Cast Confusion on yourself” in the Negative column because, in most cases, you’ll be with your fellow casters and archers and the confusion will hit your party. If you’re surrounded by enemies, suddenly it becomes Beneficial.
The “Impossible to Rate” column is a bit of a cop-out, but it mostly depends on your DM. Summoning a Unicorn controlled by your DM could mean you just received a potent ally or a deadly foe. Same with the random effects; casting fly on your Barbarian is great! Casting fly on a bow-wielding enemy is bad.
The Roleplay mechanics almost never matter… Key word “almost.” I put the aging effect in here, but if you get that too many times, your character could just straight-up keel over. Or become so young he Benjamin-Buttons out of existence. If luck goes your way, then it should balance itself out, and then it’s a purely roleplay effect.
If you go by my interpretations, and your DM isn’t too cruel with the randomly summoned creatures, then there’s only a 22% chance for something bad to happen. A 78% chance of something either good or neutral isn’t bad when your DM can spring it on you whenever you spend a spell slot. We have it a tiny bit better than Wild Mages of the past, trust me!
If you’re using the default table, then you probably are going to enjoy Wild Mage, since they have a nearly 50% chance of something good happening to them; if you wade into Melee Combat, that becomes significantly higher! Just… Make sure someone can cast Healing Word in your party. There’s the “Cast a 3rd Level Fireball on Yourself” roll in there and, at level 1… I think that’ll knock you out. Even if the fireball rolls all 1s.
Tides of Chaos
As you become more attuned to the forces that be, you get a pretty awesome ability.
Starting at 1st level, you can manipulate the forces of chance and chaos to gain advantage on one attack roll, ability check, or saving throw. Once you do so, you must finish a long rest before you can use this feature again.
Any time before you regain the use of this feature, the DM can have you roll on the Wild Magic Surge table immediately after you cast a sorcerer spell of 1st level or higher. You then regain the use of this feature.
Getting advantage for free is absolutely insane. You don’t even need to spend a reaction or bonus action or anything. You just… Get it. This can mean you can guarantee that you land a spell attack, or that you can get a much better chance at saving against something bad, like Hold Person. You should probably just use it on Saving Throws, unless you’re sure that the Disintegration will keep you alive. Do remember that you have to say you use Tides of Chaos before you roll!
This ability refreshes on long rests, but… Your DM can make it happen earlier. Instead of rolling a d20 for a 5% chance to proc this ability, your DM can make it happen by default. As we mentioned earlier, there’s a 78% chance that nothing bad happens to you, so that’s pretty fine by you! Just try to avoid the Fireball effect.
If you’re a DM wondering about when you should let this happen, this effect is probably fair enough on every short rest. That means you should probably let the Wild Magic Surge happen once, and then let it happen again after the party takes a nap. If you’d like to be zany about it, you could have your Sorcerer proc this every time they cast, giving them a lot of Advantage but a lot of Wild Surges. It’s a wonderful tug of war!
Bend Luck
You’re just the luckiest fella around, huh?
Starting at 6th level, you have the ability to twist fate using your wild magic. When another creature you can see makes an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can use your reaction and spend 2 sorcery points to roll 1d4 and apply the number rolled as a bonus or penalty (your choice) to the creature’s roll. You can do so after the creature rolls but before any effects of the roll occur.
2 sorcery points is a pretty high cost for a 5-20% chance at success. So, when does this work best?
Well, have you ever been playing a game, and your friend goes unconscious? And then they just keep failing the death saves before the Cleric can get there? And on the final death save, they fail by 1?
Yeah… You’ve been there.
This ability can quite literally save lives, allowing your allies to succeed at saving throws they just barely failed. If you’re wondering when you should use this, consider checking your own spell DCs and comparing it to what your ally rolled. If they could’ve saved against you if they just rolled 1 or 2 higher, and it’s a dangerous spell, it’s probably worthwhile. You can still Hail Mary for the 4 if you really need to save a life.
The attack roll option can be good, but only if you’re trying to save a Disintegrate or something. Same thing for the ability check; if someone fails the Athletics to drop across the bottomless pit, maybe 1d4 can keep them alive. So you can laugh at them for not using a spell or something.
Your sorcery points are precious, though. Try to keep these to save your allies from barely failing saving throws. You’ll be everyone’s biggest fan if you do, and you can keep using Metamagic while just saving 2 points for a sticky situation.
Controlled Chaos
You continue to just be the luckiest buggar around. But now, your luck is going to be useful for saving you from excitable DMs.
At 14th level, you gain a modicum of control over the surges of your wild magic. Whenever you roll on the Wild Magic Surge table, you can roll twice and use either number.
Remember when there was just a 78% chance of being a happy guy? Now it’s a 95% chance. And a 71% chance of just being a beneficial buff.
Wild Magic Surge always had the chance of being completely devastating to you; a Potted Plant roll can mean the end of your character, as could self-Fireball. Rolling twice and choosing means that, in almost all but the 2% chance you roll the same number, you can choose the lesser of two evils.
In most cases, however, you can choose the non-mechanical change or strictly beneficial buff. This will reduce the number of times that Wild Surge is tragic, and instead make you the random buff maestro or hilarious character that you chose this archetype for.
Spell Bombardment
This is your first ability with reasonable percentage numbers. And it’s still super random!
Beginning at 18th level, the harmful energy of your spells intensifies. When you roll damage for a spell and roll the highest number possible on any of the dice, choose one of those dice, roll it again and add that roll to the damage. You can use the feature only once per turn.
At least you don’t need to spend a spell slot for this. Spells are a bit small in dice; D&D 5e didn’t use d12s for too much, so you’re stuck with a d10 as your largest possible die. That limits this ability to being a 5.5 average increase to spell damage. Because you roll so many dice with your spells at this point, you’re nearly guaranteed to get the proc of this ability.
5.5 doesn’t seem like much compared to what spellpower you have, but that’s more than adding your Charisma to them. That’s pretty great! It’s also overly optimistic; Usually, you’ll be adding a d8 instead (4.5 average, slightly less than Charisma), and that’s what you’ll add to cantrips, too. And only if you roll max on at least one dice. Youch.
Your blasting spells will be super likely to land this effect, especially if you spend 9th level spell slots to deal damage. This’ll increase your efficiency for the blasting spells you’ve already picked up, making you much more efficient.
Best Race for Wild Magic Sorcerers
Your new career is Charisma-based; casting magic is hard, yo! Since you’re likely a damage caster, you want the highest chance to land hits and end the fight early before your Wild Surges consume you. Constitution is probably going to be really important for you, so you can tank the self-casted Fireball at low levels. Dexterity keeps you from eating too many ranged attack rolls… And lets you dodge that Fireball easier!
Lightfoot Halfling
This subclass doesn’t have a strictly defensive ability, so your only hope of survival is to be able to avoid damage entirely. And what better to avoid damage than a small, quick creature! Lightfoot Halflings aren’t awful statwise; +2 Dexterity and +1 Charisma is a fine split, though you’ll need to invest level 4 and 8 into raising your stats. Since you’ll be saving against your own sorcerer spells sometimes, Lucky gives you a great method of avoiding the 1s on saves… From your own spells. Brave and Nimbleness are fine, but not exactly impressive. Because you’re a Lightfoot, you can also attempt to hide behind the Barbarian; both cute, and efficient. Stealth is one of your best methods to avoid attacks from enemies, and get into range so effects that are centered on you affects your opponents.
Warforged
This one might be a bit of a weird pick, but stick with me here.
Eberron: Rising from the Last War is a wonderful book with a lot of powerful races. The Warforged’s +2 Constitution, +1 Floating is perfect for you, and will do great for keeping you alive. You gain +1 AC by default – allowing you to invest less in Dexterity – some great defensive utility options in Constructed Resilience, and even some skill proficiencies. You’ll also be immune to Aging effects, meaning that the horrifying scenario I listed in the Wild Magic Surge section can’t happen to you. See our Warforged 5E Guide for a complete rundown on this player option.
Though the bubble effect would be hilarious on a giant killer robot.
Best Feats for Wild Magic Sorcerer
Like many early Sorcerous Origins, the Wild Magic Sorcerer suffers quite a bit from not having an expanded spell list. So, feats that can compensate for that, as well as rewarding the Sorcerer for taking a Short Rest, are well-liked.
Chef
Chef provides quite a few things we love for our Sorcerer. One of those things is not the Cook’s Utensils proficiency, though it can be funny in the right situations.
What we like is everything else. First off, there’s the +1 to Constitution or Charisma. Both of those stats are critical for a Sorcerer, so rounding out odd numbers in those two is always a good idea. It also gives you quite a few reasons to take short rests. The extra d8 of healing averages out to another 18 HP during each nap, which is reasonably strong. The treats aren’t very strong early on, but in the endgame, 36 total temp HP is nothing to sneeze at.
We don’t think this feat reaches the grand heights of Inspiring Leader, but it can help with odd stat numbers. Something more than Leader can say.
Fey Touched
Fey Touched is a fantastic choice for a Wild Magic sorcerer who is looking for extra early game spells to learn. It provides three strong benefits. The first is a +1 to Charisma. That rounds out any odd numbers in your casting stat, so… useful enough. Hard to fit into every build, but certainly possible.
Then, you learn Misty Step, and can cast it for free once per day. Misty Step is one of the strong 2nd level spells in 5E, so getting it learned and getting to cast it for free? Sign me up.
The other aspect of the feat is more interesting. We get to choose a level 1 feat from any spell list, but limited to the divination or enchantment schools of magic, and can cast it for free once. While that might seem to narrow our spell list significantly from a glance, it actually gives us quite a few aggressive spells. Hex and Hunter’s Mark, for example, are Enchantment and Divination spells. We recommend either of those spells, depending on your multiclass. Alternatively, you could take Silvery Barbs, a sorcerer spell but with a very high-value ability to screw with dice rolls and then buff your party.
The mixture of these two abilities, plus the rounding-out of Charisma, is fantastic. We earnestly recommend this, if your build needs some Charisma buffer.
Inspiring Leader
One of the best late-game feats a Charisma caster can acquire, Inspiring Leader offers a fantastic reason to ask your party for a Short Rest. By taking an additional 10 minutes, you give a temporary HP buffer of your level plus your Charisma to up to six people. That’s gigantic by level 20! 25 HP as an overshield easily soaks at least one hit, if not more. Giving the Sorcerer a powerful reward for taking a short rest is great, since they otherwise only want to take common short rests at level 20. Keeping your party alive is a stellar idea, since they save your bacon for a living.
Metamagic Adept
Metamagic Adept is often taken by non-sorcerers to gain access to good options like Distant Spell or Twinned Spell. Taking it on a Sorcerer unlocks quite a bit of potential. The Wild Sorcerer likes to burn Sorcery Points on the d4 bonus/penalty you get at level 6. So, by taking Metamagic Adept, you open up, your metamagic pool to slightly better access to that buff. You have to spend those two points on Metamagic, after all! That’s almost a free Heightened Spell.
The lack of ability score improvement is a little sad and usually locks this out as an option until the lategame.
Telekinetic
Telekinetic is an option for Sorcerers who want a +1 to Charisma but don’t really want to get additional spells known. The +1 to Charisma is always nice, and you get two small benefits for taking it.
The first is the impactful cantrip Mage Hand. This version of Mage Hand is psychic, and is thus invisible and silent. If you learn it and normal Mage Hand, it also increases in range. That’s pretty cool, turning one of the best utility cantrips imaginable into a significantly stronger one.
Then, as a bonus action, you can push or pull someone within 30 feet of you. This is useful for getting melee guys off of you or setting up for an area-of-effect combo. It also works if you want to push or pull an ally towards combat. Forced movement never provokes attacks, so you can actually maneuver allies a little bit with this feat. Handy!
Best Multiclass Options for Wild Magic Sorcerer
The Wild Magic sorcerer benefits from similar things to all sorcerers. Armor proficiency, great ways to use spell slots, and other spell opportunities to improve your poor cantrip options.
Fighter
The Fighter class in 5e offers the sorcerer quite a few things with just one level of dedication. Medium Armor (Heavy, if you start Fighter and then go into Sorcerer), shields, and a Fighting Style with Defense is great for your otherwise pitiful AC. Second wind isn’t gonna be fantastic for very long, but that’s okay! Even a d10 is reasonable.
However, you might as well get a second level. Action Surge is so strong for a caster that it isn’t even funny. You’ll be losing out on another level of spellcasting, but the potential to cast two spells in a turn can wreak havoc on an encounter.
Paladin
Paladins are slightly more suited for the Sorcerer lifestyle. Take 2 levels in them. The first level provides minor healing benefits and good armor. The 2nd level gives you Divine Smite, turning magic into damage, and the Defense Fighting style to improve your AC. This can make the Sorcerer burst down enemies that dare walk into melee, which is nice.
The Paladin loses fewer spell slots than our other recommendations. So, you can invest more into it without losing endgame magic. 6 levels, for example, gives Charisma to all saves. Which isn’t just nice. It’s really nice!
Warlock
The Warlock provides a fantastic Cantrip in Eldritch Blast, as well as a patron immediately. We recommend either Hexblade for the armor or Fiend for the extra health. Celestial can be nice if you want to be an emergency backup healer, as well.
Two levels are once again recommended here for the Agonizing Blast Invocation. That’s a really strong cantrip for you. A breath of fresh air from Fire Bolt, that’s for sure.
Best Backgrounds for Wild Magic Sorcerer
While flavor is far-and-away the most important consideration for any character, we’ll only really concern ourselves with mechanical benefits. Good skill proficiencies, tool proficiencies, and background features are very important to us. Thanks to a plethora of magical items available, languages are not as important.
Criminal/Spy
The Criminal is one of our favorite backgrounds for any Charisma-based class. Deception is available for most of them, but Stealth is hard to get access to for some Charisma classes. In addition, you get thieves’ tools and a gaming set. One of them is slightly more effective than the other (it’s the one that lets you pick locks!), but we appreciate them both.
Your equipment isn’t exactly great, but 15 loose starting gold is far from terrible. That feature, though, is really good! Guaranteeing an NPC as a friend is something that many backgrounds can’t live up to. Work with your DM to make this NPC important to the storyline and you can have a really cool story on your hands.
Investigator
The Investigator, from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, offers any character access to incredibly strong out-of-combat abilities. They get a spread of strong skills to start. We recommend Perception (so you can sometimes see anything) and Insight (so you can read people during conversations). You’ll also get proficiency in Thieves’ Tools, allowing you to pick locks when you need to. If that wasn’t quite enough, you get the frankly hilarious proficiency in Disguise Kits, which can let you do some wacky stuff with a creative mind and DM.
The starting gear isn’t anything to write home about, and neither is the feature. Vague interpretations of how law enforcement sees you will likely reward you with little more than a smile or a frown during specific conversations. Still, leverage this right, and you could make some fast friends.
Urban Bounty Hunter
Similar to the Investigator, the Urban Bounty Hunter is a background with a ton of choices. We suggest taking Deception and Stealth to round up your Charisma-based skills while giving you the ability to hide. We also recommend taking Thieves’ Tools and a Musical Instrument – one for picking locks and the other for picking up distractions.
The equipment is actually quite nice, with 20 gold to your name. You also get a decent contact in each city, a la the Criminal. This is honestly quite the good background, with its only flaw being a lack of Perception proficiency. And that’s not exactly the end of the world!
FAQ for the Wild Magic Sorcerer
Is Wild Magic Sorcerer fun to play?
The Wild Magic Sorcerer will add some sparks of chaos into a party, but that doesn’t mean it is necessarily for everyone. It can be improved significantly with a good DM that knows how to fudge rolls or results, turning seemingly random situations into cool moments with more intrigue. However, the base rules can easily lead to frustration, such as a fireball centered on the caster killing the entire party at low levels.
What book is Wild Magic Sorcerer in?
The Wild Magic Sorcerer, as weird as it is, is actually in the Player’s Handbook. It is just after the Draconic Sorcerer, on Page 103.
What is the rule for Wild Magic Surge?
Wild Magic Surges activate after a spellcast when the Wild Magic Sorcerer rolls a 1, or whenever the DM feels like it if they use their powerful Tides of Chaos ability. The DM has a lot of control over this system if you allow them to, so be careful with your Tides of Chaos… Unless you trust your DM to make things a lot of fun.
Example Wild Magic Sorcerer Build
Before we can even craft a build, we do need to put some guidelines in place. We are going to make the following things true:
- No multiclassing. Our DM doesn’t want us to do it. Maybe it’s a new group.
- Races cannot use lineage rules. We have to use the default stats for each race. This does lock us out of a few races, sadly, unless our DM agrees with some stat numbers.
- We can use any book for races or backgrounds, including campaign books. They want to give us some options, since they aren’t using the fun lineage rule.
- We are using Standard Array for ability scores. Standard array is 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 without any boosts.
- The classes’ default gear is the gear we use, not rolled gold. That means we’ll have to wait on our thieves’ tools or any other weird gear until afterwards.
These rules are a bit restrictive. We love Lineage rules! But, this does make our race choice a little more relevant.
We’ll play as an Investigator Changeling, hoping to solve the problem of their strange lives. Changelings get access to Insight and Persuasion, so Investigator will have to be Investigation and Perception. We’ve got quite a few skills, admittedly, which is good. We have a lot of options for out-of-combat, then.
For languages, talk with your DM. There are quite a few options for languages, but some might be more relevant than others. For us, Orcish and Elven is a good idea. We’ll follow our DM’s lead.
Thankfully, the rest is basically done for us. We need to consider what ability scores we want, of course. But those ability scores are fairly simple. We can either go for a 16-16 setup, or a 17-14-14 setup. For Sorcerers without extra spells, a 17-14-14 setup tends to be better. We really like our Fey Touched or Shadow Touched to give our early game spells some breathing room.
| 5E Wild Magic Sorcerer Build |
| Race: ChangelingAbility Scores: STR 8, DEX 14, CON 14 (13 + 1), INT 10, WIS 12, CHA 17 (15 + 2)Proficiencies: Insight, Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, Investigation, Perception, Thieves’ Tools, Disguise KitStarting Equipment: Light Crossbow, 20 Bolts, Component Pouch, Dungeoneer’s Pack, Two Daggers, Magnifying Glass, Rabbit’s Foot, Set of Common Clothes, 10 gpLanguages: Common, Orcish, Elven |
Cantrips. Fire Bolt, Chill Touch, Light, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, Message
Spells Known. Silvery Barbs, Shield, Blindness/Deafness, Misty Step, Scorching Ray, Web, Fireball, Haste, Counterspell, Polymorph, Raulothim’s Psychic Lance, Synaptic Static, Hold Monster, Chain Lightning, Draconic Transformation, Power Word Stun, Wish
| Level | Class Benefits | Choices |
| 1 | -1st Level Spells-Wild Magic Surge-Tides of Chaos | We’re so close to being able to unlock our inner chaos. A few final points of busywork. Cantrips. We want a handful of cantrips that let us deal consistent damage and solve a few problems. Because we don’t have too much Dexterity, we can rock with Fire Bolt so we have accurate damage. Then, we can grab Light since our changeling doesn’t have Darkvision, Mage Hand for long-distance interactions, and Prestidigitation for shenanigans. Spells. For magic, we want Sleep early on to allow for setup and isolation. For our damaging spell option, we like Chromatic Orb. We can Tides of Chaos it to make it more likely to hit, and then 3d8 damage is… kinda a lot. |
| 2 | -Font of Magic | We can now cycle an extra spell per day. Not exactly the most exciting thing in the world…Our next spell is almost certainly Mage Armor. After a level of being smacked around, it’ll be good to spend our first slot of the day on not dying quite so hard.We don’t need to tag out spells yet. Everything here has a purpose. |
| 3 | -2nd Level Spells -Metamagic | Quite a few choices once again. Spells. We get a spell known. Because of how our campaign is turning out, Hold Person is our choice. We want to keep important targets from moving so our party can deal damage to them.Sleep still hits some targets at this point, but it’s starting to whiff on targets. Let’s make sure it doesn’t stick around too much longer. Metamagic. We’ll start our metamagic career with Quickened and Twinned. These are really expensive, but allow for gigantic turns and safe executions that will be important later on. |
| 4 | -Ability Score Improvements | Our first ability score improvement! We actually get a few things to choose this level. Feat. Fey Touched gives us a great escape option in Misty Step and good defense with Silvery Barbs. It also rounds out our Charisma to 18, setting us up for the 20 at level 8. Cantrip. Let’s get Message so we can communicate messages in code to allies. It’s not quite silent, but it’ll help a lot. Spells. We’ll get Scorching Ray for damage. Sleep is starting to miss a lot, so we can move it aside for Web. |
| 5 | -3rd Level Spells | 3rd level spells are here! We can’t miss out on Fireball. It does way too much damage for a spell of its level. Otherwise, I think the spell list is fine, though Chromatic Orb is starting to be unnecessary in most encounters. |
| 6 | -Bend Luck | Keep Bend Luck in mind, it’s a really good use of 2 Sorcery points. Even a +2 or -2 can be the difference between life and death.Let’s get Haste for extra damage and mobility on our frontliners. We’ll also tag out Chromatic Orb, since we tend to use 1st level spell slots on a lot of Silvery Barbs. I want to learn Counterspell before casters become a massive problem. |
| 7 | -4th Level Spells | 4th level spells are very weird for Sorcerer. We’d recommend either Banishment or Polymorph, which takes enemies out of the fight as long as you ignore them. Let’s go with Poly here, since we have some very minor synergies with Bend Luck.Happy with the rest of the list. As long as we are consistently using Hold Person, it’s a good spell. |
| 8 | -Ability Score Improvement | This is a boring feat level for us. We just want to get to 20 Charisma. It’s too useful for a Sorcerer to have that on lock.Let’s take a look at our spell list. Cantrips. Fire Bolt, Light, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, Message Spells Known. Silvery Barbs, Mage Armor, Hold Person, Misty Step, Scorching Ray, Web, Fireball, Haste, Counterspell, Polymorph Okay, not bad. Hold Person is the only thing here that isn’t useful in a bunch of different situations. In our campaign, we are starting to run out of targets for it. But, as long as we still cast it every now and then, it’s worth a spell slot.Let’s add another strong spell for our Level 4 slots in Raulothim’s Psychic Lance, for good single-target damage and the chance to wipe them out for a turn. |
| 9 | -5th Level Spells | Level 5 is around the point where our spell list pivots from damage to damage and utility. Synaptic Static is a great example, dealing around a Fireball of damage while also debuffing all enemies in that pile. It’s an Intelligence save, too, which basically no enemy has.Enemies are starting to pivot away from being humanoids, more often being fiends or abominations. To compensate, let’s swap Hold Person for Blindness/Deafness. While much less powerful, it can still target most creatures and at least hinder them in combat. |
| 10 | -New Metamagic | Three things here? Aww man… Cantrips. As enemies are more and more likely to heal, Chill Touch becomes more and more enticing. There’s surprisingly few ways to prevent healing, so having a cantrip option is good enough for me. Spells. Let’s get Hold Monster. Since we’ve just lost Hold Person, I wanna get our source of paralysis back. I like the rest of the list for now, so no more spell-switching for the time being. Metamagic. Distant Spell lets you send spells out quite a ways away. For those awkward moments where you just can’t quite reach a target, let’s grab it. |
| 11 | -6th Level Spells | From now on, we only get spells on odd levels. So, make them count! For our 6th level spell, we like Chain Lightning as one of the few definite ways to outpace a Fireball. As long as there are only three targets, that is. Our spell list continues to support us well, though this Mage Armor is gone the moment we get better armor. The Robe of the Archmagi is approaching… Let’s say level 15 is where we’ll get one. |
| 12 | -Ability Score Improvement | Our first ability score improvement where I’m super comfy taking a feat over adjusting ability scores. Inspiring Leader provides us with a big temporary HP shield after a short rest. Since most classes have some ability that refreshes on a short, we can join our allies in enjoying an hour-long nap.No free spells, so if we want new magic, we need to trade for it. And I do still like our list. |
| 13 | -7th Level Spells | 7th level spells are strong, but kinda all over the place. You basically have to choose between big damage or devastating crowd control. However, we like to go right down the middle. Draconic Transformation lets us spit a Force damage Cone of Cold (lite) every round, as well as gives us Blindsight and Flight. All around great.Our list remains good. Even Web still is annoying to enemies at this point, requiring an action to deal with. Otherwise, our level two slots aren’t the strongest in the world. Level 2 spells aren’t incredible, sadly, but even Scorching Ray will always hit harder than a Cantrip. |
| 14 | -Controlled Chaos | No choices here, unless we want to tag out a spell. And, once again, the only weak link in terms of spell slots is the 2nd level. Web is fine, but in some situations, it might not be worth casting. That’s not the end of the world, since we can always convert those 2nd level spell slots into Sorcery points. |
| 15 | -8th Level Spells | Another weird level for us, with either great damage or good crowd control. We like Power Word Stun here, one of the few ways to guarantee crowd control on a target. Especially useful with all of those legendary actions flying around! Combine this with Twinned Spell to put two targets out for the count.We got our Robe of the Archmagi, meaning this Mage Armor has to go! We’ll replace it with Shield for emergency situations, though we’re still probably spamming Silvery Barbs like it’s nobody’s business. |
| 16 | -Ability Score Improvement | Another point where we can take a pretty impactful feat. Metamagic Adept will let us get all of the metamagic we’ve ever wanted. We can scoop up Empowered Spell and Careful Spell since Draconic Transformation is a tiny bit mean to our party members. The extra two points for that is always nice.Still happy with our spell list. It might be worth considering swapping Shield for a more campaign-specific buff, like Protection from Energy. |
| 17 | -9th Level Spells-New Metamagic | Sorcerer can’t get away with not taking Wish most of the time. The ability to replicate any spell with a spell list that is so restricted is nice to have.Let’s look at our completed spell list now. Cantrips. Fire Bolt, Chill Touch, Light, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, Message Spells Known. Silvery Barbs, Shield, Blindness/Deafness, Misty Step, Scorching Ray, Web, Fireball, Haste, Counterspell, Polymorph, Raulothim’s Psychic Lance, Synaptic Static, Hold Monster, Chain Lightning, Draconic Transformation, Power Word Stun, Wish I’m overall quite pleased with how our list turned out. Our 2nd level spells have a good spread of options, 3rd and 4th are pretty solid, and 1st has the great Silvery Barbs that we can spam 5 times per day. I would feel happy riding this list into the endgame for most campaigns.Oh, wait. We have a Metamagic option to fulfill. Extended Spell doesn’t do too much with our list, but it can keep something like Haste or Draconic Transformation online for a bit longer. |
| 18 | -Spell Bombardment | Since we’re cool with our spell list, no options to pick here. |
| 19 | -Ability Score Improvement | Our final feat. We have a few options at the endgame, but we just like to grab Tough usually. The extra health can be the difference between a conscious and unconscious spellcaster. The endgame can be brutal to casters! Combine this and Inspiring Leader and we’re getting 65 health from our feats. |
| 20 | -Sorcerous Restoration | You’ve made it, congrats! No real changes on the spell list, even at this point. Monsters are immune to every status under the sun, after all. |
Conclusion – Our Take on the Wild Magic Sorcerer
That wraps up our Wild Magic Sorcerer 5E Guide. The Wild Magic Sorcerer is a hilarious archetype. It has so many options to make fights more exciting, since they can introduce so many random elements. However, your friends may not find it very funny to have a Fireball dumped on them, or see their only damage dealer turn into a potted plant. If you want to deal damage, have awesome effects happen during combat, or your party is already pretty well-built before you joined it, Wild Magic might be a good choice. Otherwise (especially if you’ll frustrate your friends by your random explosions), consider only using this sorcerer in campaigns that start you at level 14 to minimize the effect. It’s great fun, but if you’re gonna make your friends pissed due to one bad roll on the d100, it’s not worthwhile.
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