Does using Subtle spell mean you can’t be counterspelled? The enemies can still see the cone of cold coming towards them or whatever is the visual part of a spell. Is this a no-counterspell-ticket in ALL cases?
@@christinaelisabethebbesen3976 yes and no. If a spell had a material component, your enemy could still possibly notice you grabbing your arcane focus or reaching into a component pouch. Without a material component, the spells casting would be imperceptible. However, I would definitely have them roll to perceive you grabbing the material component, as well as a sleight of hand check from the sorcerer to disguise your grabbing of the component. I might also forgo the check for something clever, such as slathering honey on a biscuit, and then "accidentally" getting some honey on your finger, which would enable you to cast Suggestion with Subtle.
I'm a bit late to the party but I'd like to bring something up. At about 1:54 you say "They can create spells as high as 5th level, as long as they can cast spells of that level." and this is slightly wrong. They do not need to already have spell slots of that level, a 6th level sorcerer is able to make 4th level slots and a 7th level sorcerer can make 5th level slots. This has been confirmed by Jeremy Crawford on twitter.
Sorry I’m late, but say I took the Warlock initiate or multiclassed and took Eldritch Blast because it’s my favorite spell in the game, lets be real it’s sick. Anyway, could I twinned spell my Eldritch Blast if I’m lower than level 4 (I think that’s when you get the second beam) essentially gaining an early level 4 Eldritch Blast? Not saying it’s efficient for campaigns that go on past level 4 but if I were making a one shot character would it be possible?
I'm surprised they didn't mention Subtle Counterspell! Denying an opponent's spellcasting ability without an apparent cause is an amazing intimidation tactic. Whether it's denying someone else their own charm spell in the middle of a negotiation they expected to easily get the upper hand in, or causing the enemy wizard's opening fireball to simply "not work" while you stare them down with no aggressive action, Subtle Counterspell is an excellent way to get opponents to just *back off* and possibly avoid a confrontation.
Personally my preferred trick is halfway through the cast look them in the eyes and say "no" or something like that and it just go's out for no reason other then you deciding to.
I really wish every sorcerous origin had a unique metamagic, the way clerics get extra channel divinity features based on domain. Guess I'll have to homebrew that.
I like that idea. Might go well with the thought I had for Warlocks and Sorcerers. I think they both deserve expanded spell lists with 3 options per spell level, and one spell from each level is a free pick (if you switch it later it has to be for another from the Expanded list).
Lesser known use of subtle spell: if you are playing a campaign where you’ll spend a lot of time around water, subtle spell can allow you to cast spells underwater if you are completely submerged.
@@anthonynorman7545 I'm pretty sure it does say that but I house rule that out. 1. Because its dumb. Wtf WoTC? 2. Dolphins use echo location, Orca whales use distinct unique noises to communicate with each other and varies pod to pod. 3. Water does not stop sound waves.
@@Jawn15 1. Your opinion 2. They evolved specific mechanisms to create distinct sounds under water 3. Water vastly distorts sound waves (which isn't much of a stretch to conclude the distortion would prevent the incantations of spells to be executed properly)
I have recently created a character completely built around subtle spell. He's a Divine sorcerer And all his spells are based around Battlefield manipulation. He also acts as if he's an old man who doesn't know why he's there so in the combat he's just huddling in the corner. But in actuality he's casting crown of Madness or command on the enemies.
I'm playing a sorcerer like that too. Only he's a trickster, so he likes to throw around Subtle Spell to mess with people. Detect Thoughts, Suggestion, Catapult (for cheating at Shot Put a few times when not just used in fights), Polymorph, Levitate, etc.. So much chaos
I love having old characters use their age to mess with their enemies. Bandit camp? Old man can call his party his bodyguards, asking them to protect him! Then as he sneaks behind another player, the bandits not worried about him, he starts casting Poison Spray. Great way to keep your mage out of the front lines too.
It's great that these guys actually go into the positives and possible uses & synergies for each metamagic, not just the "strongest" choices, rather than just going "lol these suck" like so many other guides do
The most important part about the Subtle Spell metamagic is the fact that it cannot be Counterspelled (unless it also has material components). This is because Counterspell requires the Counter-caster to know that a spell is being cast. Subtle Spell makes it imperceptible.
@@brycemedyn8672 I'd say if they are seeing a red streak it's probably too late, the spell is already happening. Counterspell is an interruption and essentially saying screw you to the player even though they took a niche metamagic and made a smart play leads me to say "bad DMing".
In a game, subtle spell allowed me to detect an ambush during a conversation with detect thoughts...and trigger it before the enemy got to act with a subtle fireball.
On that same note, I run Subtle and Empowered (Running Quickened later) and I have to say, Subtle Counterspell is probably the single most hilarious thing when the enemy cast is looking at themselves like: "Uh.....this doesn't happen all the time, I swear!" And that's not even including the shenanigans subtle casting can bring when being a nuisance. XD
RAW, this isn't supposed to work. The casting time is "1 reaction, which you take when you see a creature within 60 feet of you casting a spell." Distant Spell only affects the range, not the trigger for the spell.
@@CathyLarkinWebSavvyPR Hmm, you may be thinking of something else. Sorcerers do have a more limited spell list than other arcane casters, but they do get Counterspell: www.dndbeyond.com/spells/counterspell
Currently playing a hapless merchant with minor obvious magic abilities; subtle spell plus crossbow plus ray spells equal I HAVE THE BEST CROSSBOW MONEY CAN BUY!
Cast a spell + use an item seems like a pretty cool combo to me. Throw some holy water on those undead while you burn them with magic fire! Use a healer's kit on your downed friend after blasting the orcs on top of him! Chug a potion, then disintegrate someone! Fun for the whole family! Creative use of items is one of the coolest things you can do in D&D in my opinion. I really like the thief archetype's ability to use them as a bonus action, and it seems like quickened spells allow for a similar sort of thing.
You can also multiclass a martial class with the sorcerer to gain the benefit of attacking with a weapon and using a spell. I could see an assassin rogue with some levels in sorcerer take Quickened and Subtle Spells, so you can have a stealthy spellcaster who has additional disguising abilities, and all of it is still conveniently placed in your Dexterity and Charisma scores. Granted, you might not get some of the higher-level spells that a focused caster would get, but it’s kind of like an Arcane Trickster who has the abilities of a low-level sorcerer, and you’re a bit less limited on what schools of Magic you can take if you want more blasting spells to take advantage of Quickened Spell.
Excellent video guys! (Could you please add a timestamp index to the video description, so I can refer players to this vid as a tutorial resource. Thanks!)
@@DungeonDudes I just want to give you gentlemen props, your content is always high quality, and you respond to your viewers much more often than the majority of other D&D channels.
@@aldoushuxley5953 - I mean, they paid for every one of those features, I'd feel a bit cheated if a DM would do that to me, as a player. I would still argue even if they informed me beforehand, although personally I don't see much use for that kind of range anyway, so it's all very hypothetical. Edit: In fact, if a player was really intent on doing this combo thinking it's really cool, I'd try to engineer an encounter here and there where they could make use of that ridiculous range just so they'd have fun with the otherwise inefficient build.
Well you can snipe them from a rooftop and they cant even See you. If you Play sorlock you probably have an invisible familiar, so you dont even have to be in their Line of sight to Hit...
Yeah, in the past 2 month I gained some experience as a DM and I take my statement back. If the player wants to specalise into range, I woud let him do that. Most combats are cc anyway, so its by no means overpowered (apart from maybe the sorlock part, but that too depends on how the player roleplays the character)
@@gamecavalier3230 divine soul with war caster feat - adv on your concentration checks and if you fail you can use ur 2d4 option to up your score into success
@@gamecavalier3230 yes but its a last option cause if yoy have war caster which is great to a musthave for any spell caster anyway you already will probably succeed most of those concentration checks if you play smart and try and avoid the damaging areas and opponents. A twin haste for a barbarian and a fighter can close an encounter even the difficult ones in 2-4 rounds. Just how much damage would a sorcerer would take if he stir clear and avoid in those especially if you use something lime invisibility fly greater invisibility and the likes...
Playing a homebrewed Storm Sorcerer with Twinned and Quickened spell. Use Haste on the fighter and myself to run into battle with a 16 AC, smashing things with my staff and casting spells on the same turn.
@@gamecavalier3230 What the hell kind of sadistic dm are you playing with lol Like I've put my players in a fight with 3 Oni that kept disappearing and reappearing with full health 2 minutes later, and even to me it sounds like the hypothetical DM who's doing this is just pulling some bullshit Most monsters aren't gonna see a screaming mountain of muscles run up to them swinging 3 times with a battleaxe the size of a house and think "hmm, today I'm going to Disengage and try to bite the squishy old man 50 feet away"
@@gamecavalier3230 Ahhh ok, thank you for the context I thought this was some veteran hard mode DND where the DM was pulling some 4d chess shit to counter everything the party did, fighting a bunch of Shadows and a Will-o-Wisp is a much worse situation to be in Your situation sounds much more reasonable and I will take this into account with my future sorcerers
I have homebrewed that each subclass is given a free metamagic option that matches the flavor of that origin. Divine gets careful, Draconic gets empowered, Shadow gets subtle, Storm gets extended, Wild Magic gets quickened (Matt Mercer's Runechild gets Distant). This leaves off Twinned which is probably the best one and Heightened which can't be used until you get 3 points.
One of the backup character I made was a changeling who had grown up in a Dragonborn tribe, and used subtle spell to “copy” the Dragonborn breath weapon.
Personally what I thought might have been cool is to allow sorcerers to change their metamagics on a long rest. Like the idea for me is that while the spells a sorcerer knows cannot change easily, how they're able to manipulate their spells can.
Spell casting rules say "BONUS ACTION A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn. You can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of I action." PHB 203 This means you can quicken a cantrip, but if you wish to cast another spell, then it has to be another cantrip. I'm posting this because it's very efficient and it's important that spell casters know how their classes work. At (pick your melee class) 2/sorcerer 3 you can cast booming blade for weapon damage + 1d8 thunder and then quicken and hit em with it again. That's 2 weapon attacks and 2d8 thunder damage for the equivalent cost of a level 1 spell slot. The neat thing is when the cantrip becomes more potent, quickened spell becomes more efficient because then it becomes 2 weapon attacks + 4d8 or 6d8 thunder damage for the equivalent cost of a level 1 spell slot.
Actually, if you wish to use quicken to cast cantrip plus spell combo, it is irrelevant which of them is a proper action and which is a bonus, because there are no rules limiting order of action/bonus action unlike dual wielding-style attacks
Quickened spell: action- health potion+bonus action- spell Subtle spell: can use if captured and tied up, also can still cast spells under the silence effect
Don't forget other situations where you might not be able to talk or move your hands, like: - Being in a Silence field. - While underwater (depending on your DM this might be valuable, I'd personally rule you can't hold your breath and talk underwater at the same time). - While grappling a target and holding something else, or grappling two targets (unlikely for a spellcaster, but still could come up).
As a suggestion for making it work: if you have a wizard in your party, forcecage or wall of force to trap your enemies while you hold the delayed blast and pray that they don't teleport out
@@maid_of_heart3261 I've actually done the full minute once. I cast it out of sight and then went to parley with some illithids. I actually didn't take the metamagic to do the two minute thing on that character. But yeah I talked to them and deceived them into thinking I was gonna be reasonable, then they got 22d6's to the chin and realized that you don't negotiate with people who've bolted a crown onto their skull.
Divine Soul Sorcerers also get some pretty awesome touch based debuffs like “Bestow Curse” and “Contagion” are viable if you want to ruin someone’s day out of punching and stabbing range.
Honestly, I think sorcerers are just underpowered enough that I don't think it's too out of line to let them choose double the metamagic options, eventually unlocking all eight. The cost of using them is generally high enough, and some of the seemingly really powerful ones have some serious limitations, so giving more options with how to manipulate a relatively small list of known spells seems like a fair trade to me. I'd be comfortable making that homebrew call if someone wanted to play a sorcerer in my game.
Hi dudes, sorcerer main here. Love the video and you hit most of the things I know and some things I didn't know! I have a couple more tips, tricks and comments to add: Careful Spell + Sleep: (edit) as stated in a comment below, this does not actually work. Please disregard this portion of my comment. Distant Spell: Really good point about the ability to use buff touch spells at a distance, I have never put much stock in this but I've probably been overlooking it. I may just have to try this out next time I make a sorcerer! Empowered Spell: Good for blasters of course, but you trade away your ability to add another metamagic to your character sheet in return for reliable damage. I rate this one similar to heightened spell, it is good in general but if you want to get creative with your character it actually hinders that, I only recommend this metamagic for players who dislike the randomness and risk of dice. Also I really wish it worked for spells like Sleep and Color Spray, because they use dice too, but RaW doesn't allow it. Quickened Spell: You guys nailed this one, but I want to emphasize it. Absolutely right, no 2 spells in 1 turn and it's usually not worth the extra damage of a cantrip. But that's not what makes this metamagic cool. It's actually still really useful in lower tiers of play, because of the way it frees up your action to interact with objects, take the disengage, dodge or attack (shove, grapple, etc) actions, escape a grapple, do skill checks and more! It allows you to safely get out of range of an enemy and then still cast a powerful spell with that bonus action. This is actually really powerful in a game like D&D where the action economy can force you to choose between a safe or tactical action and casting a cool spell. Subtle Spell: Here's something really cool... Because it removes the verbal and somatic components, you can still cast spells while bound and gagged, or grappled. I've used this several times in Curse of Strahd to pull off some amazing tricks while the party was captured and restrained. Twinned Spell: Can be used for healing spells as much as buff and debuff spells. This only really applies for Divine Soul sorcerers or players who take Magic Initiate, but it's still worth noting. You mention that mileage may vary with the tradeoff between twinning spells and buying a spellslot, the major tradeoff is action economy again - you can cast the equivalent of 2 heal spells with one action. It's worth it sometimes to give up generating a spell slot in return for twinning a buff, debuff, or heal spell.
I have the same exact thought about Twinned spell. I'm actually playing an experimental paladin/divine soul multiclass (because our party doesn't have a dedicated healer I decided to try this out), and I'm thinking about taking Twinned spell for Haste (from OoV paladin) and Cure Wounds in combat, combined with Extended spell for stuff like Aid (cast it before long rest to get a free 8 hours buff when you wake up) and Aura of Vitality (doubling the healing potential). My other picks would be Quickened spell for that Extra Attack and a full action spell within a single turn, and a distant spell for the ranged Cure Wounds (but I already took Healing Word, so that's not needed I guess). What would you say?
As written, Careful Spell doesn't work with Sleep. Careful Spell specifically states that it only makes it so that select targets automatically succeed on their saving throw against the spell. Sleep, however, does not involve a saving throw at all. The targets just fall asleep if their HP is low enough to be affected.
@@bubbles9829 Subtle Spell explicitly states that "When you cast a spell, you can spend 1 sorcery point to cast it without *any* somatic or verbal components". It has no stipulations about removing only one or the other - a spell with only verbal and somatic components requires no components whatsoever when used with Subtle Spell (RAW, at least).
I wonder if you can cast Mage Armor + Extended Spell before a long rest (if you have a Sorcery Point and Spell Slot left over) so you save a spell slot the next day? (For the first 8 hours anyway.)
I wanna do the very same thing with Aid as a Divine Soul. Have to consult with DM if it feels too cheesy, but so far I haven't run into anything that would prohibit it - it doesn't require concentration so consciousness shouldn't be an issue and it's definitely under 24 hours.
To be fair. Mage armour has overlap with the Draconic Ancestry bloodline, so a lot of sorcerers overlook it. Other than that, RAW mage armour seems to be really nice in a squishy heavy campaign... and when you need to protect the cliche escort quest NPC.
It would work, but it's a waste to use your metamagic choice and a sorcery point to save yourself just a 1st level spell slot. If you were a Divine Soul Sorcerer with access to some much nicer spells with an 8 hour duration (like Aid), it could actually make sense to choose extended spell for your metamagic. But you need it to save you some higher level spell slots, and not just a 1st level spell slot.
Also for subtle spell, you can cast magic from a zone of silence where magic would normally not be able to be cast, for those pesky people who prefer to use silence against enemy spell casters.
about distant spell: although it doesn't do damage, Plane shift is a touch spell. Using the banish effect of the spell, you could be say, 30ft away from a death tyrant or so, but you can still send it to the plane of fire
Subtle spell also allows you to cast spells with verbal components in areas of silence or while underwater. Those situations may not come up often in a lot of campaigns, but when they do subtle spell is a game-changer.
I am tempted on taking the metamagic adept feat for my arcane trickster for extra trickery, but i wonder if it's worth it with only 2 sorcery points.......
@@saparapatepetelittle late but yes it is and since you are a Rogue subtle and empowered sound like good choices since most of what you would want to do with Quicken is given to rogue as a BA option.
One great use of extended spell that you guys might not have mentioned is mage armor. Extending the duration from 8-16 hours on mage armor means that you can cast it when you wake up and pretty much permanently have a boost to your AC without having to worry about if it’s been 8 hours from dawn.
I feel like I'd want more out of my Metamagic than a level 1 spell slot saved, there's more enticing options depending on what you want to play. Also I feel like this probably drops off towards the higher levels, if you have leftover Sorcery Points or Level 1 spell slots at the end of the day.
@@AZDfox I mean what spells would you end up taking? What's your role for your team? And how does Extended Spell play into it? Those are always the tough questions when DS Sorc is involved (and probably changes from campaign to campaign). I can see level 1 slots going up in value (access to Guiding Bolt, Healing Word, Cure Wounds, Bless, etc) but it's probably best used for RP sessions, where breaking the flow of the session by casting a spell would raise suspicion. But there's a lot of spells that look more situational which may be harder to take.
I used extended spell on a support/control type Divine Soul sorcerer to cast a (whatever max level spell slot I had at the time) 16 hour Aid on my party before taking a long rest during a campaign, and it made a huge difference to our survivability
I had Distance and Subtle for my divine soul sorcerer with 1 level of life cleric dip. Distance was really good for mass healing word, counterspell and dimension door. Subtle was mainly used for counterspell while in combat and outside of combat it's pretty nifty to be able to cast spells without people noticing.
You two nailed it, my thoughts and yours are identical. I'll give you my 2 coppers worth of extra tidbits......Distant Meta, if you are on the ocean and doing ship to ship combat, this will provide range for the sorcerer to snipe enemy ships. Twin spell and damage, Dragon's Breath in Xanathar's guide might be one of the best uses...load up them from line types and cross fire the bad guys.....uncommon, but fun. This also brings us to Careful Spell, decent, but situational. It is better, if you are throwing damage around, take two levels of wizard and specialize in Invoker, which gives you Sculpt Spell, which is Careful spell on Steroids for damage, and you get ritual spells of level 1, which is quite a number, so you won't necessarily miss that feat as much by multi-classing.
Interrogation with Detect Thoughts and Heightened spell is one of my favorite things to do. DMs and players alike usually forget how much impact that can have on a session and it's awesome to pull out of your back pocket. By the time they can resist with INT usually you can get what you need or even go again if they fail that contest.
Page 243 of the DMG says on a clear day you can see 2 miles or until your view is obscured by terrain features. In rain it’s 1 mile. In fog it’s 100-300ft. From an elevated position it’s 40 miles of visibility.
One homerule I like is to give sorcerers a couple sorcery points back per short rest, say equal to CHA mod or proficiency bonus. So far as I know, sorcerers are the only full caster which receive 0 resources back on a short rest. Metamagic is pretty much Sorcerers only unique feature, so in my opinion they should be using it all the time.
Yep, well there's warlocks, but they can use their invocations ad infinium so its not like they need to. Plus the thing sorcerer's do eventually get is at level bloody twenty and only four points at which point is barely anything.
This is very helpful, thanks. I’ve recently made a Sorcerer, but haven’t had a chance to play her yet. It’s great to be familiar with meta magic before I have to make any of these decisions.
Just one thing I feel was missed about the twinned spell... it's especially good early game to use with level 1 damage spells! The ability to use just one sorcery point to replicate a level one spell like chromatic orb, is especially good. Especially considering the economy of spell slots vs sorcery points... the math behind conversion simply values spell slots to be more valuable. So for just one sorcery point to be able to not just replicate a level one spell slot spell, but to also cast it as an additional attack on the same turn, is ridiculous to be able to do at level 3! The reason why I felt this was a notable consideration, is because this video only emphasized the benefit of twinning a buff spell like polymorph or haste, or emphasized how bad of a waste it would be to lose 6 sorcery points plus a level 6 spell slot for a spell that may inevitably miss, which I agree would suck, but the video missed the best use of twinned spell... the great economically efficient benefit of twinning level one damage spells as an additional attack at only level 3 Sorcerer!
Groundswell Legit Coffee and Board Games - Even Twin-spelling cantrips is worth it, particularly at 5th level and above. Remember, catrips often increase in damage as you level up! A fire bolt at levels 1-4 is only worth 1d10 damage, but at 5th level this turns into 2d10 damage, at 3d10 damage at 11th level. So twin-spelling a Fire bolt at 11th level can let you do up to 6d10 damage over the two targets, for the cost of just 1 sorcery point!
Subtle Spell is also a perfect way to circumvent the effects of Silence, or to get around what I consider the greatest Achilles heel of spellcasters: being bound and gagged (so long as the spell doesn’t need material components). I’m working on a character right now that is a multiclass of rogue and sorcerer. Think of Corvo or Daud from Dishonored and you’re pretty much there.
Hey guys, I’ve just been listening to this for the second time - long time fan of your videos. So weird today with the UK in lockdown. Went for my ‘one allowed exercise’ with my little girl in the pram to get her to sleep. Loved the video, you fellas have been so integral at reeling me back into D&D - the school that I teach at now has 2 D&D groups and the students love it. Thanks again.
Quickened is also good for putting down a teetering foe or use some kind of damage+control cantrip, such was Shocking Grasp (to let you not get AoOed) or Chill Touch (to prevent a foe healing).
One of the best things to extend is things like Mage Armor. Increasing AC to 13 + dex for _16_ hours! If you cast is just before a long rest, it has the same effect as casting it normally when you wake up, but for free! no spell slots or points needed.
Thank you so much for this video! It was fun, and so informative for me as a sorcerer player :) I took twinned and quickened spell knowing very well I won't be using twinned spell too much until she gets Haste or Polymorph, as she has a high AC so I spend much more time quickening two Green-Flame Blades or a blast spell and going in for Green-Flame Blade.
I just multiclassed into Divine Soul Sorcerer and I think, once I get to the level for Metamagic, I'll get Subtle and Twin Spell as my first pair of options.
Currently playing as a Divine Soul support caster with twin and extend. Extend has been amazing to use on the Aid spell. Every night before my character goes to bed if he has the spell slot and sorcery point he says an extra prayer and and casts an extended Aid to give my party of 3 all bonus hp/max hp for 16 hours. Then he goes to bed, gains that spell slot and point back and there's still roughly 8hrs left on the buff that was essentially free.
One of my first ever characters was a sorcerer, and I took Subtle and Twinned for my metamagics. I like to play support casters, and as such, I found myself almost always using Twinned Invisibility/Enhance Ability/Haste/etc., and we got a ton of good mileage out of it. Subtle Spell also saved our asses on more than one occasion, and even when it’s not a critical part of our interactions, it’s still always good to have around.
Heightened Spell always seemed like a good one to pick up at higher levels. Same with Quicken. Both are most useful once you've gotten higher level either save-or-suck spells for Heightened or concentration spells for Quicken. Though you guys made a good point about Quicken letting you do a lot of different things with your action like for instance run away while also casting a spell to prevent the baddies from chasing after you.
A thing is not often mentioned with quickened spells is that it provides you a far better version of cunning action. A caster action is usually spent for .... well casting. Conversely bonus action options are usually scarse for casters, unless there is something baked in the class (like pet actions). Quickening a spell nets you a free action (dash, dodge, hide, attack, use object, cast cantrip). In this regard, it can be considered a very flexible and worthwile option even without taking into account all the boons already mentioned in the video. Anyway great content guys, keep it up Cheers!
snowene - I’m glad someone has pointed this out! However it does require somebody to be able to keep the enemy spell caster within the zone of Silence as well. It also works well as a defensive tactic if Silence is cast at you.
Currently using Distant and Quickened Spell. Multiclassed into Rogue Inquisitve and have made Shadow Blade my preferred spell. Superior Arcane Trickster achieved.
It’s good that Kelly played through a Sorcerer in your online campaign and can speak to all of this through his own practical experience. I’ve seen too many guides online where people are just theory crafting.
Just found you guys and fell in love with the content. Perhaps a few compliments and critiques? Extremely professional! Very knowledgeable about what you're talking about! A lot of charisma. Incredibly smooth editing! Honestly my only criticism is that your hand movements sometimes become repetitive and can be distracting. Ultimately didn't take away from my enjoyment and learning, but it could be easily improved by varying the way your hands move. Really enjoyed the vid! Subbed!!
A good use for twinned and quickened is to use it in shocking grasp so you can get away from melee enemies ganging upon you withou having to use disengage, or using disengage but still casting a spell.
I mean you could also just Disengage + Quickened Firebolt for a similar result. Twinned in this case would be more used to allow a teammate to get away (puts you in melee range of them though, so maybe not the best overall usage)
I remember when we were waiting for our contact in a room and Bard realized he forgot to buy something. I excused myself for a moment, flipped birds with a Barbarian and came back with a thing after using 2 Distant Dimension Doors. One of my favorite Metamagic combos
David Wilson : I was actually thinking I disagree wit The Dudes on this one. It says the spell cannot target more than one being at the spells "CURRENT level" right? Well even though a spell like Magic Missile has the potential for multiple targets at higher levels, if the low, "current " level of that spell at 1st level, is a single targeting spell; then by strict adherence tothe wording of the rule, it would be (currently) eligible.
Another valuable part of subtle spell is that it can be used to gain the upper hand in mage duels. Disabling the ability of other casters to counterspell you means that if applied to counterspell itself, opponents cannot counter your counterspells.
I think a lot of people misread careful spell’s description to just mean their allies are automatically fine or just homebrew it that way. Cudos for pointing out the real RAW text
I've seen a party that was 4 rogues and a sorcerer. Really odd, because they had to do some funny stuff for some encounters, but the sorc took careful spell, and...well, Evasion is a thing.
Not legal according to Sage Advice but I ran it for awhile twinning it on party members’ Owl and Imp familiar that took turns firing the cone straight down from 15ft in the air to cover 9x9 squares. It was completely broken in the early levels, and even in tier 2 play it was insanely strong and virtually replaced every other AOE options.
I have a Goblin sorcerer Who uses subtle spell frequently because there are a lot of times where somatic and verbal weren't an option (like being tied up,gagged,etc) and it's just so useful and lets me save my self and the party from some situations like me being grappled or us being kidnapped
Honestly, I don’t exactly know what I’m going to choose for my tabaxi stone sorcerer just yet, but I will definitely be taking empowered spell! This guide helped so much and I had moments of “well I think this would fit my character well in this situation”. So thank you so much for this guide!
I’d like to add that even using Twinned Spell for damage dealing cantrips can be an efficient use of Sorcery points, particularly at higher levels. Remember cantrips often increase in damage as you level - I think a *lot* of players forget this. For instance, at 5th level a firebolt deals 2d10 damage; at 11th level a firebolt deals 3d10 damage. If you Twin-Spell a firebolt at 11th level, you can potentially deal an insane 6d10 damage (across the two targets) for the cost only 1 solitary sorcery point! So, for literally half the cost of a First level Spell, you can deal 4d10 damage by 5th level, 6d10 by 11th level and, if you’re really game, 8d10 by 17th level, all in one round. Of course, the down sides are that (1) this damage has to be split across two targets and (2) if an attack misses or the target saves, there is no ‘half-damage on a successful save’ as you often get for true levelled spells.
The meta magic I want is "store spell" allowing an object you touch to hold a spell for x amount of time, and released by a predetermined trigger like when damaged, damaging something, an action like rubbing or twisting, a phrase, etc. Also all effects happen at the location of the triggered object. So a rock with fireball stored in it will go off at the location of the rock. As for cost, I think 1 per spell level would be appropriate or 2 per level if this metamagic seems too effective. I see how it could impose on subtle spell or other meta magics.
What you are wanting here is the cleric spell Glyph of Warding. (I think that is the name). You're not going to get a meta magic that replicates a third level spell that requires a bunch of diamond dust to cast.
Good video; I'm glad to see Subtle Spell getting the love it deserves. There are so many spells Sorcerer spells that have only a Verbal and Somatic component that I find Subtle to be one of the most fun Metamagics. As you mentioned, its great for social situations and also allows the Sorcerer to avoid Counterspell, but it's also great if your party is captured. Bound and gagged? No problem, just cast a Subtle Mage Hand and undo your restraints. Beyond that, I personally see Quickened and Twinned having alternate priority depending on your Sorcerer's main role. Quickened is great for my blaster-type sorcerer. I was already aware that it only allows a cantrip after Quickening a spell, but a blaster's cantrip is already quite powerful by level 6. The most efficient blaster (without multiclassing) is going to be a Red/Brass Dragon Bloodline sorcerer and by level 6, your Firebolt is probable going to be dealing 2d10 +5 damage. That's a significant increase in damage output if you are trying to go nova and more damage than any non-blaster is going to get from even a level 1 spell. For blasters, I like to start with Subtle and Quicken, then pick up Empowered at level 10. Finally, I think there is an argument to be made for Heightened over Twinned at level 17, but either is a good choice. I agree with your commentary on Twinned that it is best used for buff spells rather than damage. One important thing to remember for a blaster is that a Twinned spell forces you to target two different enemies rather than focusing your firepower. I see a few newer players forgetting this despite it being right in the rules description. A Twinned spell is not like a Scorching Ray where you can dump all attacks into the same target. On the other hand, I preferred Twinned spell when I made a Sorcerer that was more of a support-style buffbot. For this, I feel that the Divine Soul origin with a one level dip in Life Cleric makes for a very powerful Sorcerer. Twinned spell is great for this role as you forgot to mention one of my favorite Twinned-eligible spells: Healing Word. The great thing about Healing Word is that it is already a Bonus Action, so Quicken Spell isn't even needed. A Divine Soul can Twin a Healing Word to heal two of his allies for 1d4 + 8 HP thanks to the dip in Life Cleric AND THEN cast a cantrip with his standard action AND twin the cantrip as well. That's a lot of action economy for the cost of a level 1 spell slot and 2 Sorcery Points. Additionally, Divine Soul also get access to Guiding Bolt which is a fantastic level 1 spell to Twin considering it is both a surprisingly strong attack for a level 1 spell (4d6) AND it debuffs the enemy to allow your allies to take advantage. I know I said that Twinning isn't great for damage spells, but due to it's variable cost, it's not terrible to Twin level 1 spells or cantrips if the need arises. Obviously, Twinning Haste at level 5 (or level 6 if you dipped) is your main purpose in life, but every Sorcerer can do that. All in all, Twinned Spell is great for a Divine Soul as gains value due to Healing Word and Guiding Bolt while Quickened loses a little value as it doesn't do anything for Healing Word. For a Divine Soul support Sorcerer, I like taking Subtle Spell and Twinned spell as my first Metamagics while picking up Distant Spell as my third as it can be really handy to deliver an up-casted Cure Wounds from range. You are also pretty close to getting Flight at that level which can really start to stretch the battlefield. Extra range is not a bad idea. Empower seems to lose a little value as you already get a pseudo form of Empower for your healing spells through your bloodline and casting damage spells is way far down your priority list. Quickened is still powerful and I would probably pick that up as a final Metamagic if the campaign gets that far.
Charlie Ross - great discussion. I’d like to add though, that even using Twinned Spell for damage dealing cantrips is an efficient use of Sorcery points, particularly at higher levels. As you pint out; cantrips increase in damage as you level - I think a *lot* of players forget this (including the D-dudes here!) A 5th level firebolt deals 2d10 damage; an 11th level fire bolt deals 3d10 damage. If you Twin-Spell an 11th level firebolt, you can potentially deal an insane 6d10 damage (across the two targets) for the cost only 1 solitary sorcery point! So, for literally half the cost of a First level Spell, you can deal 4d10 damage by 5th level, 6d10 by 11th level and, if you’re really game, 8d10 by 17th level, all in one round.
One of my favorite Metamagics to use is empowered spell combined with Chaos Bolt(my character is a wild magic sorcerer with an extended spell list and it his signature spell). It really increases the chance to get that bounce astronomically, making it my go to when my companions are stuck in and I can’t use area effect spells.
Being able to cast Chill Touch every round to shut down enemy healing or regeneration on a specific target while still being able to cast a levelled spell is pretty nice even at low levels.
distant spell and subtle spell on counterspell makes you the ultimate counter speller. Take 2 levels in bard and Bam; Cha mod + 1/2 prof and they will never be able to counter spell your counterspell.
Correct. I wasn't thinking about the metamagics for some reason when posted this. I was only worried about pointing out that abjurers get better counterpells than bards. Lol.
Infact my current favorite build is a 14 abjurer, 5 divine soul, 1 any warlock for armor of agathys and hellish rebuke. Quicken and subtle for metamagics. Character is awesome.
Posted the same to another one suggesting distant spell and counterspell, but it doesn't work: You need to cast a spell to be able to use the metamagic, and to be able to cast Counterspell, they already have to be within 60 feet.
Guide to metamagic: ask your DM to let you have all of them, otherwise you will just always pigeonhole yourself into the 1 or 2 most useful and never experience the flavor of the class.
@@DungeonDudes Sure, but I guess how I see it, is Sorcerers are kind of the Battlemasters of magic. Imagine if battlemasters only got 3 maneuvers - they'd feel pretty bad, especially if you picked a few maneuvers which were rarely useful.
Dungeon Dudes I feel the very fact that sorcery points are such a limited resource is exactly why giving sorcerers all the meta options is not overpowered. They will still need to make meaningful choices on when to use points.
Having all of the metamagics would make Sorcerers _way_ more powerful, even with the limited sorcery points. But there are other ways to encourage players to try out more than a few metamagics over the course of a campaign without dramatically overpowering the class. Here's one: give them an early taste of the (typically) less useful metamagics and then allow the player to swap each one out if they so choose. To start, grant *Extended Spell* at *2nd level,* to introduce players to the Sorcerer's unique powers. It's so limited that virtually no Sorcerer is going to pick it up as a permanent option if they know what they're doing, even if they are a Divine Soul who can make the best use of it. Then, when the player selects two metamagics at 3rd level as normal, they can choose to either keep Extended Spell as one of their two options or swap it for a different metamagic. (In case I'm failing to anticipate some multiclass abuse, the DM could rule that if a player only took two levels in Sorcerer and then went back to another class, Extended Spell could disappear until the player took a third level in Sorcerer.) If you're not playing a campaign with _lots_ of outdoor battles, where a player could easily choose *Distant Spell,* you might consider granting that metamagic at, say, *9th level* and then allowing the player to swap it for a different metamagic at 10th level. Likewise, at *16th level* you could grant the player *Careful Spell,* and then permit swapping it out for a different metamagic at 17th level. An even more flexible way you could run it: allow the the player to swap out Extended Spell for another metamagic not just at 3rd level but _any time he gains a level_ up to 8th level, but as soon as he makes a swap his choice becomes permanent. And allow the swapping of Distant Spell at 10th level or up to 15th level, and allow the swapping of Careful Spell any time from 17th level up to 20th level. That would allow players to try out a metamagic for longer before making a final choice.
Read the errata on twinned spell late. Was causing 100+ damage (2 crits, had advantage) on twinned agonizing blast + quickened agonizing blast at lv7. Good thing the DM asked me to look it up once more.
![АЛАУДИНОВ у Скабеевой: эти их ВСУ нас НЕ ДОГОНЯТ 😁 [Пародия]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/an0anqU4WGQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Jump ahead to a specific discussion:
4:19 Careful Spell
5:53 Distant Spell
8:55 Empowered Spell
10:45 Extended Spell
14:00 Heightened Spell
16:52 Quickened Spell
22:15 Subtle Spell
26:00 Twinned Spell
ajs1031 You can’t (and don’t need to) cast cantrips using spell slots. They automatically improve as your character gains levels.
Does using Subtle spell mean you can’t be counterspelled? The enemies can still see the cone of cold coming towards them or whatever is the visual part of a spell.
Is this a no-counterspell-ticket in ALL cases?
@@christinaelisabethebbesen3976 yes and no. If a spell had a material component, your enemy could still possibly notice you grabbing your arcane focus or reaching into a component pouch. Without a material component, the spells casting would be imperceptible.
However, I would definitely have them roll to perceive you grabbing the material component, as well as a sleight of hand check from the sorcerer to disguise your grabbing of the component.
I might also forgo the check for something clever, such as slathering honey on a biscuit, and then "accidentally" getting some honey on your finger, which would enable you to cast Suggestion with Subtle.
I'm a bit late to the party but I'd like to bring something up. At about 1:54 you say "They can create spells as high as 5th level, as long as they can cast spells of that level." and this is slightly wrong. They do not need to already have spell slots of that level, a 6th level sorcerer is able to make 4th level slots and a 7th level sorcerer can make 5th level slots. This has been confirmed by Jeremy Crawford on twitter.
Sorry I’m late, but say I took the Warlock initiate or multiclassed and took Eldritch Blast because it’s my favorite spell in the game, lets be real it’s sick. Anyway, could I twinned spell my Eldritch Blast if I’m lower than level 4 (I think that’s when you get the second beam) essentially gaining an early level 4 Eldritch Blast? Not saying it’s efficient for campaigns that go on past level 4 but if I were making a one shot character would it be possible?
I'm surprised they didn't mention Subtle Counterspell! Denying an opponent's spellcasting ability without an apparent cause is an amazing intimidation tactic. Whether it's denying someone else their own charm spell in the middle of a negotiation they expected to easily get the upper hand in, or causing the enemy wizard's opening fireball to simply "not work" while you stare them down with no aggressive action, Subtle Counterspell is an excellent way to get opponents to just *back off* and possibly avoid a confrontation.
I quite like this comment
This and sometimes remembering that Intimidation is a Charisma skill can really be helpful.
Personally my preferred trick is halfway through the cast look them in the eyes and say "no" or something like that and it just go's out for no reason other then you deciding to.
i cant wait to do this!!
Or the fact that subtle spells can’t be counterspelled
I really wish every sorcerous origin had a unique metamagic, the way clerics get extra channel divinity features based on domain. Guess I'll have to homebrew that.
I like that idea. Might go well with the thought I had for Warlocks and Sorcerers. I think they both deserve expanded spell lists with 3 options per spell level, and one spell from each level is a free pick (if you switch it later it has to be for another from the Expanded list).
The failed “college of invention” wizardry school provided a great inspiration for a metamagic type with changing the elemental type of spells
Thanks for the idea
That is an amazing idea and I will be stealing this for my games. Thank you so much.
You could make a really powerful one for level 20 to replace the lame ass ability that is there.
Lesser known use of subtle spell: if you are playing a campaign where you’ll spend a lot of time around water, subtle spell can allow you to cast spells underwater if you are completely submerged.
+
Water doesn't stop sound.
@@Jawn15 the dmg or PHB says that verbal components don't work under water IIRC
@@anthonynorman7545 I'm pretty sure it does say that but I house rule that out.
1. Because its dumb. Wtf WoTC?
2. Dolphins use echo location, Orca whales use distinct unique noises to communicate with each other and varies pod to pod.
3. Water does not stop sound waves.
@@Jawn15
1. Your opinion
2. They evolved specific mechanisms to create distinct sounds under water
3. Water vastly distorts sound waves (which isn't much of a stretch to conclude the distortion would prevent the incantations of spells to be executed properly)
I have recently created a character completely built around subtle spell. He's a Divine sorcerer And all his spells are based around Battlefield manipulation. He also acts as if he's an old man who doesn't know why he's there so in the combat he's just huddling in the corner. But in actuality he's casting crown of Madness or command on the enemies.
I'm playing a sorcerer like that too. Only he's a trickster, so he likes to throw around Subtle Spell to mess with people. Detect Thoughts, Suggestion, Catapult (for cheating at Shot Put a few times when not just used in fights), Polymorph, Levitate, etc.. So much chaos
I love having old characters use their age to mess with their enemies. Bandit camp? Old man can call his party his bodyguards, asking them to protect him! Then as he sneaks behind another player, the bandits not worried about him, he starts casting Poison Spray. Great way to keep your mage out of the front lines too.
It's great that these guys actually go into the positives and possible uses & synergies for each metamagic, not just the "strongest" choices, rather than just going "lol these suck" like so many other guides do
The most important part about the Subtle Spell metamagic is the fact that it cannot be Counterspelled (unless it also has material components).
This is because Counterspell requires the Counter-caster to know that a spell is being cast. Subtle Spell makes it imperceptible.
Situational I think for the fact that if you tried this with say fireball, the red streak would give it away.
@@brycemedyn8672 I'd say if they are seeing a red streak it's probably too late, the spell is already happening. Counterspell is an interruption and essentially saying screw you to the player even though they took a niche metamagic and made a smart play leads me to say "bad DMing".
Bryce Medyn fireball has no red streak, it’s an explosion centered on a point.
In a game, subtle spell allowed me to detect an ambush during a conversation with detect thoughts...and trigger it before the enemy got to act with a subtle fireball.
@@brycemedyn8672 Fireball has material components, so a subtle fireball can still be counterspelled. As can most offensive spells.
On that same note, I run Subtle and Empowered (Running Quickened later) and I have to say, Subtle Counterspell is probably the single most hilarious thing when the enemy cast is looking at themselves like: "Uh.....this doesn't happen all the time, I swear!"
And that's not even including the shenanigans subtle casting can bring when being a nuisance. XD
noobhero7 this should be top comment😂
And I do have a sorcerer with subtle meta and I might have to try this😂
Distant Counterspell has saved my party more than once.
RAW, this isn't supposed to work. The casting time is "1 reaction, which you take when you see a creature within 60 feet of you casting a spell." Distant Spell only affects the range, not the trigger for the spell.
@@DurandalsFate also - I thought Sorcerer didn;t get counterspell
@@CathyLarkinWebSavvyPR Hmm, you may be thinking of something else. Sorcerers do have a more limited spell list than other arcane casters, but they do get Counterspell: www.dndbeyond.com/spells/counterspell
@@CathyLarkinWebSavvyPR based on what? Sorcerers get counterpsell on every spell list ive ever seen
@@DurandalsFate
RAI for the win!
Subtle Spell: The entire reason I would play a Sorcerer.
Imagine if you dual-classed into bard...So much mischief!
Currently playing a hapless merchant with minor obvious magic abilities; subtle spell plus crossbow plus ray spells equal I HAVE THE BEST CROSSBOW MONEY CAN BUY!
It’s the ultimate f$&@ you to counterspell, if they can’t see the spell being cast, they can’t stop it
You'll love Aberrant Mind then, they get free Subtle on their Psionic Spells
Same here, totally must have for a spellcaster.
Subtle Spell also allows the caster to use spells when bound and/or gagged.
Makes the caster way harder to pin down or imprison
Only if those spells don't have a material component. Subtle Spell doesn't let you bypass the need for an arcane focus or material components.
Thank God for Misty Step and Dimension Door XD
@@DungeonDudes Yup. Haven't been yet in a spot where I was stripped of my Arcane Focus, but that could happen.
@@DungeonDudes subtle spell beats silence
Subtle Spell plus Warcaster ftw(just lose a hand or something and use the prosthetic as a focus)
Wish I could *twin* my like. You guys deserve more than one!
well you will have to spend a level 9 spell slot to do it....
I really like quicken especially at lower levels just to be able to dodge or disengage or dash and still cast a spell it's very very handy
Cast a spell + use an item seems like a pretty cool combo to me.
Throw some holy water on those undead while you burn them with magic fire! Use a healer's kit on your downed friend after blasting the orcs on top of him! Chug a potion, then disintegrate someone! Fun for the whole family!
Creative use of items is one of the coolest things you can do in D&D in my opinion. I really like the thief archetype's ability to use them as a bonus action, and it seems like quickened spells allow for a similar sort of thing.
You can also multiclass a martial class with the sorcerer to gain the benefit of attacking with a weapon and using a spell. I could see an assassin rogue with some levels in sorcerer take Quickened and Subtle Spells, so you can have a stealthy spellcaster who has additional disguising abilities, and all of it is still conveniently placed in your Dexterity and Charisma scores.
Granted, you might not get some of the higher-level spells that a focused caster would get, but it’s kind of like an Arcane Trickster who has the abilities of a low-level sorcerer, and you’re a bit less limited on what schools of Magic you can take if you want more blasting spells to take advantage of Quickened Spell.
Excellent video guys! (Could you please add a timestamp index to the video description, so I can refer players to this vid as a tutorial resource. Thanks!)
Done and done!
AJ Pickett hey! I know you! I stole the ideas from you while you were eating cheese! Willow reference haha kinda.
@@DungeonDudes I just want to give you gentlemen props, your content is always high quality, and you respond to your viewers much more often than the majority of other D&D channels.
Spell Sniper & Distant Spell. For when you just don’t want to get out of bed.
And now Play sorlock with for 8x eldrich blast range :) I would let my Players Roll with disadvantages at These distances though.
@@aldoushuxley5953 - I mean, they paid for every one of those features, I'd feel a bit cheated if a DM would do that to me, as a player. I would still argue even if they informed me beforehand, although personally I don't see much use for that kind of range anyway, so it's all very hypothetical.
Edit: In fact, if a player was really intent on doing this combo thinking it's really cool, I'd try to engineer an encounter here and there where they could make use of that ridiculous range just so they'd have fun with the otherwise inefficient build.
Well you can snipe them from a rooftop and they cant even See you. If you Play sorlock you probably have an invisible familiar, so you dont even have to be in their Line of sight to Hit...
@@btCharlie_ I would require them to use some sort of binoculars or spyglass to snipe from that range, but would otherwise allow it.
Yeah, in the past 2 month I gained some experience as a DM and I take my statement back. If the player wants to specalise into range, I woud let him do that.
Most combats are cc anyway, so its by no means overpowered (apart from maybe the sorlock part, but that too depends on how the player roleplays the character)
Twinning Haste is a personal favorite. Sending a Hastened barbarian and fighter into combat is a beautiful thing!
@@gamecavalier3230 divine soul with war caster feat - adv on your concentration checks and if you fail you can use ur 2d4 option to up your score into success
@@gamecavalier3230 yes but its a last option cause if yoy have war caster which is great to a musthave for any spell caster anyway you already will probably succeed most of those concentration checks if you play smart and try and avoid the damaging areas and opponents. A twin haste for a barbarian and a fighter can close an encounter even the difficult ones in 2-4 rounds. Just how much damage would a sorcerer would take if he stir clear and avoid in those especially if you use something lime invisibility fly greater invisibility and the likes...
Playing a homebrewed Storm Sorcerer with Twinned and Quickened spell. Use Haste on the fighter and myself to run into battle with a 16 AC, smashing things with my staff and casting spells on the same turn.
@@gamecavalier3230 What the hell kind of sadistic dm are you playing with lol
Like I've put my players in a fight with 3 Oni that kept disappearing and reappearing with full health 2 minutes later, and even to me it sounds like the hypothetical DM who's doing this is just pulling some bullshit
Most monsters aren't gonna see a screaming mountain of muscles run up to them swinging 3 times with a battleaxe the size of a house and think "hmm, today I'm going to Disengage and try to bite the squishy old man 50 feet away"
@@gamecavalier3230 Ahhh ok, thank you for the context
I thought this was some veteran hard mode DND where the DM was pulling some 4d chess shit to counter everything the party did, fighting a bunch of Shadows and a Will-o-Wisp is a much worse situation to be in
Your situation sounds much more reasonable and I will take this into account with my future sorcerers
I have homebrewed that each subclass is given a free metamagic option that matches the flavor of that origin. Divine gets careful, Draconic gets empowered, Shadow gets subtle, Storm gets extended, Wild Magic gets quickened (Matt Mercer's Runechild gets Distant). This leaves off Twinned which is probably the best one and Heightened which can't be used until you get 3 points.
I really like your idea, it is a very flavorful homemade rule!
Divine Soul already gets a metamagic feature at level 6 with Empowered Healing, which is just Empowered Spell, but for Healing only.
i once used the fact that I was known to cast spells subtlely to deceive a boss to waste reactions and spell slots during a fight by use of deception
Brilliant!!!
One of the backup character I made was a changeling who had grown up in a Dragonborn tribe, and used subtle spell to “copy” the Dragonborn breath weapon.
Personally what I thought might have been cool is to allow sorcerers to change their metamagics on a long rest.
Like the idea for me is that while the spells a sorcerer knows cannot change easily, how they're able to manipulate their spells can.
I can see a dragonborn sorcerer using quickened meta magic to cast a spell as a bonus action, then use his action to use his breath weapon
crodd92
Ooooo, I never thought about it that way!
Some kind of binding skill plus breath attack not fun for the target
Lol this was the way I played before my character tragically died.
Burning hands then breath weapon. Essentially, the 2 for 1 KFC special.
Spell casting rules say "BONUS ACTION A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn. You can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of I action." PHB 203
This means you can quicken a cantrip, but if you wish to cast another spell, then it has to be another cantrip. I'm posting this because it's very efficient and it's important that spell casters know how their classes work. At (pick your melee class) 2/sorcerer 3 you can cast booming blade for weapon damage + 1d8 thunder and then quicken and hit em with it again. That's 2 weapon attacks and 2d8 thunder damage for the equivalent cost of a level 1 spell slot.
The neat thing is when the cantrip becomes more potent, quickened spell becomes more efficient because then it becomes 2 weapon attacks + 4d8 or 6d8 thunder damage for the equivalent cost of a level 1 spell slot.
Actually, if you wish to use quicken to cast cantrip plus spell combo, it is irrelevant which of them is a proper action and which is a bonus, because there are no rules limiting order of action/bonus action unlike dual wielding-style attacks
You also can add action surge in and deal soo much damage for some sorcery points and an action surge.
I don't think you can stack the boom on a single target, right?
@@AllThingsFascinate if the target moves it takes just one of the damages, but the trigger damage is separeted for each atack
Lol, im plaiyng a pal2/sorcerer 5 all build around this combo.
Quickened spell: action- health potion+bonus action- spell
Subtle spell: can use if captured and tied up, also can still cast spells under the silence effect
...does this mean you can Dispel the Silence?
@@Nurk0m0rath RAW, absolutely.
My Favorite Caster class in all of 5e is getting love from the Dungeon Dudes today?
IT WAS MEANT TO BE!!!
subtle spell can save your (and your party's) hide when you are gagged and bound.
Just remember to keep your arcane focus tucked away in your flesh pouch (either end) to be able to cast magic.
Don't forget other situations where you might not be able to talk or move your hands, like:
- Being in a Silence field.
- While underwater (depending on your DM this might be valuable, I'd personally rule you can't hold your breath and talk underwater at the same time).
- While grappling a target and holding something else, or grappling two targets (unlikely for a spellcaster, but still could come up).
Wow I'm early. Must have Quickened my click.
The C and the L came together and made a d.
"Must have quickened my dick" really caught me off guard.
@@IHateNumbersOnNames it doesn't seem to be a viable buff
The Twinned Spell option reminded me, I could never figure out why Sorcerers only get Polymorph but not True-Polymorph.
I really like how you guys really go into detail and give your input based on your experiences. Thanks!
Twinned spell is incredible for a Divine Soul. I often twin Healing Word/Cure Wounds. I regularly save us from a tpk
Quicken spell fireball.
Following up with Eldritch Blast.
I have a dream of one day casting a delayed blast fireball and holding it for 2 minutes.
The draconic dream
As a suggestion for making it work: if you have a wizard in your party, forcecage or wall of force to trap your enemies while you hold the delayed blast and pray that they don't teleport out
@@maid_of_heart3261 I've actually done the full minute once. I cast it out of sight and then went to parley with some illithids. I actually didn't take the metamagic to do the two minute thing on that character. But yeah I talked to them and deceived them into thinking I was gonna be reasonable, then they got 22d6's to the chin and realized that you don't negotiate with people who've bolted a crown onto their skull.
Divine Soul Sorcerers also get some pretty awesome touch based debuffs like “Bestow Curse” and “Contagion” are viable if you want to ruin someone’s day out of punching and stabbing range.
Honestly, I think sorcerers are just underpowered enough that I don't think it's too out of line to let them choose double the metamagic options, eventually unlocking all eight. The cost of using them is generally high enough, and some of the seemingly really powerful ones have some serious limitations, so giving more options with how to manipulate a relatively small list of known spells seems like a fair trade to me. I'd be comfortable making that homebrew call if someone wanted to play a sorcerer in my game.
At least we have metamagic adept now.
Hi dudes, sorcerer main here. Love the video and you hit most of the things I know and some things I didn't know!
I have a couple more tips, tricks and comments to add:
Careful Spell + Sleep: (edit) as stated in a comment below, this does not actually work. Please disregard this portion of my comment.
Distant Spell: Really good point about the ability to use buff touch spells at a distance, I have never put much stock in this but I've probably been overlooking it. I may just have to try this out next time I make a sorcerer!
Empowered Spell: Good for blasters of course, but you trade away your ability to add another metamagic to your character sheet in return for reliable damage. I rate this one similar to heightened spell, it is good in general but if you want to get creative with your character it actually hinders that, I only recommend this metamagic for players who dislike the randomness and risk of dice. Also I really wish it worked for spells like Sleep and Color Spray, because they use dice too, but RaW doesn't allow it.
Quickened Spell: You guys nailed this one, but I want to emphasize it. Absolutely right, no 2 spells in 1 turn and it's usually not worth the extra damage of a cantrip. But that's not what makes this metamagic cool. It's actually still really useful in lower tiers of play, because of the way it frees up your action to interact with objects, take the disengage, dodge or attack (shove, grapple, etc) actions, escape a grapple, do skill checks and more! It allows you to safely get out of range of an enemy and then still cast a powerful spell with that bonus action. This is actually really powerful in a game like D&D where the action economy can force you to choose between a safe or tactical action and casting a cool spell.
Subtle Spell: Here's something really cool... Because it removes the verbal and somatic components, you can still cast spells while bound and gagged, or grappled. I've used this several times in Curse of Strahd to pull off some amazing tricks while the party was captured and restrained.
Twinned Spell: Can be used for healing spells as much as buff and debuff spells. This only really applies for Divine Soul sorcerers or players who take Magic Initiate, but it's still worth noting. You mention that mileage may vary with the tradeoff between twinning spells and buying a spellslot, the major tradeoff is action economy again - you can cast the equivalent of 2 heal spells with one action. It's worth it sometimes to give up generating a spell slot in return for twinning a buff, debuff, or heal spell.
I have the same exact thought about Twinned spell. I'm actually playing an experimental paladin/divine soul multiclass (because our party doesn't have a dedicated healer I decided to try this out), and I'm thinking about taking Twinned spell for Haste (from OoV paladin) and Cure Wounds in combat, combined with Extended spell for stuff like Aid (cast it before long rest to get a free 8 hours buff when you wake up) and Aura of Vitality (doubling the healing potential).
My other picks would be Quickened spell for that Extra Attack and a full action spell within a single turn, and a distant spell for the ranged Cure Wounds (but I already took Healing Word, so that's not needed I guess). What would you say?
As written, Careful Spell doesn't work with Sleep. Careful Spell specifically states that it only makes it so that select targets automatically succeed on their saving throw against the spell. Sleep, however, does not involve a saving throw at all. The targets just fall asleep if their HP is low enough to be affected.
@@Draeckon *facepalm* oh indeed. Welp, I'll go and edit that out. Thanks for catching that for me!
For Subtle Spell it removes verbal or somatic components. If a spell uses both verbal and somatic components, it just removes one of them, not both.
@@bubbles9829 Subtle Spell explicitly states that "When you cast a spell, you can spend 1 sorcery point to cast it without *any* somatic or verbal components". It has no stipulations about removing only one or the other - a spell with only verbal and somatic components requires no components whatsoever when used with Subtle Spell (RAW, at least).
Great work. I love how you broke down such a complex part of the game so simply! Love your work Monty and Kelly
Also,the detect thoughts spell and subtle is a great combo,since basically you can always learn everyone's secret when you want
I wonder if you can cast Mage Armor + Extended Spell before a long rest (if you have a Sorcery Point and Spell Slot left over) so you save a spell slot the next day? (For the first 8 hours anyway.)
I wanna do the very same thing with Aid as a Divine Soul. Have to consult with DM if it feels too cheesy, but so far I haven't run into anything that would prohibit it - it doesn't require concentration so consciousness shouldn't be an issue and it's definitely under 24 hours.
These should work RAW.
To be fair. Mage armour has overlap with the Draconic Ancestry bloodline, so a lot of sorcerers overlook it. Other than that, RAW mage armour seems to be really nice in a squishy heavy campaign... and when you need to protect the cliche escort quest NPC.
@@btCharlie_ Twinned Holy Weapon on your front liners would be useful to.
It would work, but it's a waste to use your metamagic choice and a sorcery point to save yourself just a 1st level spell slot.
If you were a Divine Soul Sorcerer with access to some much nicer spells with an 8 hour duration (like Aid), it could actually make sense to choose extended spell for your metamagic. But you need it to save you some higher level spell slots, and not just a 1st level spell slot.
Also for subtle spell, you can cast magic from a zone of silence where magic would normally not be able to be cast, for those pesky people who prefer to use silence against enemy spell casters.
about distant spell: although it doesn't do damage, Plane shift is a touch spell. Using the banish effect of the spell, you could be say, 30ft away from a death tyrant or so, but you can still send it to the plane of fire
"you deserve to go to hell, so i'm sending you there"
Subtle spell also allows you to cast spells with verbal components in areas of silence or while underwater. Those situations may not come up often in a lot of campaigns, but when they do subtle spell is a game-changer.
I am tempted on taking the metamagic adept feat for my arcane trickster for extra trickery, but i wonder if it's worth it with only 2 sorcery points.......
@@saparapatepetelittle late but yes it is and since you are a Rogue subtle and empowered sound like good choices since most of what you would want to do with Quicken is given to rogue as a BA option.
One great use of extended spell that you guys might not have mentioned is mage armor. Extending the duration from 8-16 hours on mage armor means that you can cast it when you wake up and pretty much permanently have a boost to your AC without having to worry about if it’s been 8 hours from dawn.
Unless you are a draconic bloodline sorcerer in which case Mage Armor is redundant
I feel like I'd want more out of my Metamagic than a level 1 spell slot saved, there's more enticing options depending on what you want to play. Also I feel like this probably drops off towards the higher levels, if you have leftover Sorcery Points or Level 1 spell slots at the end of the day.
@@AbyssArray it's especially good for Divine Souls, because many Cleric spells last an hour, and doubling that could make a huge difference
@@AZDfox I mean what spells would you end up taking? What's your role for your team? And how does Extended Spell play into it?
Those are always the tough questions when DS Sorc is involved (and probably changes from campaign to campaign). I can see level 1 slots going up in value (access to Guiding Bolt, Healing Word, Cure Wounds, Bless, etc) but it's probably best used for RP sessions, where breaking the flow of the session by casting a spell would raise suspicion. But there's a lot of spells that look more situational which may be harder to take.
I used extended spell on a support/control type Divine Soul sorcerer to cast a (whatever max level spell slot I had at the time) 16 hour Aid on my party before taking a long rest during a campaign, and it made a huge difference to our survivability
I had Distance and Subtle for my divine soul sorcerer with 1 level of life cleric dip. Distance was really good for mass healing word, counterspell and dimension door. Subtle was mainly used for counterspell while in combat and outside of combat it's pretty nifty to be able to cast spells without people noticing.
You two nailed it, my thoughts and yours are identical. I'll give you my 2 coppers worth of extra tidbits......Distant Meta, if you are on the ocean and doing ship to ship combat, this will provide range for the sorcerer to snipe enemy ships. Twin spell and damage, Dragon's Breath in Xanathar's guide might be one of the best uses...load up them from line types and cross fire the bad guys.....uncommon, but fun.
This also brings us to Careful Spell, decent, but situational. It is better, if you are throwing damage around, take two levels of wizard and specialize in Invoker, which gives you Sculpt Spell, which is Careful spell on Steroids for damage, and you get ritual spells of level 1, which is quite a number, so you won't necessarily miss that feat as much by multi-classing.
Interrogation with Detect Thoughts and Heightened spell is one of my favorite things to do. DMs and players alike usually forget how much impact that can have on a session and it's awesome to pull out of your back pocket. By the time they can resist with INT usually you can get what you need or even go again if they fail that contest.
6:55 1200 FEET! THAT'S INSANE!
But you would probably never need that much range.
Like at that point, you'd have make perception to even see the thing.
In a campaign with airship battles, or maybe naval battles, it might be useful. But even then, it seems *a bit* overkill
Just be a sorlock with an invisible familiar you can See though. You are basically a Sniper Drone at this Point.
@@aldoushuxley5953 mortar team with fireballs and lightninh
Page 243 of the DMG says on a clear day you can see 2 miles or until your view is obscured by terrain features. In rain it’s 1 mile. In fog it’s 100-300ft. From an elevated position it’s 40 miles of visibility.
Quickened also let's you take other actions to dash or disengage allowing you to get away from a melee attack and still get that spell attack
One homerule I like is to give sorcerers a couple sorcery points back per short rest, say equal to CHA mod or proficiency bonus. So far as I know, sorcerers are the only full caster which receive 0 resources back on a short rest. Metamagic is pretty much Sorcerers only unique feature, so in my opinion they should be using it all the time.
Yep, well there's warlocks, but they can use their invocations ad infinium so its not like they need to. Plus the thing sorcerer's do eventually get is at level bloody twenty and only four points at which point is barely anything.
I like that home rule, but it does make the Sorcerer capstone utter garbage.
@@M0ebius The capstone was already utter garbage for a level 20 thing so no real loss.
Shade Nox I don’t disagree. I’m just saying if you homebrew the point recovery, then you should probably redo the capstone as well.
@@M0ebius Oh for sure. Surprised they haven't done any official changes yet. They have for other classes. Its kinda silly as level a 20.
This is very helpful, thanks. I’ve recently made a Sorcerer, but haven’t had a chance to play her yet. It’s great to be familiar with meta magic before I have to make any of these decisions.
Kinda surprised you guys never mentioned Shadow Sorcerer's Hound, it's the same SP as Heightened spell and has the same effect plus some bonuses
We actually did film a section on the unique powers of each subclass but the video was already running long, so we cut it :(
Great video guys! The strategy breakdown at the end is very helpful. I love that kind of stuff.
Just one thing I feel was missed about the twinned spell... it's especially good early game to use with level 1 damage spells! The ability to use just one sorcery point to replicate a level one spell like chromatic orb, is especially good. Especially considering the economy of spell slots vs sorcery points... the math behind conversion simply values spell slots to be more valuable. So for just one sorcery point to be able to not just replicate a level one spell slot spell, but to also cast it as an additional attack on the same turn, is ridiculous to be able to do at level 3!
The reason why I felt this was a notable consideration, is because this video only emphasized the benefit of twinning a buff spell like polymorph or haste, or emphasized how bad of a waste it would be to lose 6 sorcery points plus a level 6 spell slot for a spell that may inevitably miss, which I agree would suck, but the video missed the best use of twinned spell... the great economically efficient benefit of twinning level one damage spells as an additional attack at only level 3 Sorcerer!
Groundswell Legit Coffee and Board Games - Even Twin-spelling cantrips is worth it, particularly at 5th level and above. Remember, catrips often increase in damage as you level up! A fire bolt at levels 1-4 is only worth 1d10 damage, but at 5th level this turns into 2d10 damage, at 3d10 damage at 11th level. So twin-spelling a Fire bolt at 11th level can let you do up to 6d10 damage over the two targets, for the cost of just 1 sorcery point!
Jonny Grady Wow! That's dope! I never considered that!
And Twinning Chill Touch lets you stop healing for 2 different targets. Which is sometimes better than damage.
Subtle Spell is also a perfect way to circumvent the effects of Silence, or to get around what I consider the greatest Achilles heel of spellcasters: being bound and gagged (so long as the spell doesn’t need material components).
I’m working on a character right now that is a multiclass of rogue and sorcerer. Think of Corvo or Daud from Dishonored and you’re pretty much there.
Hey guys, I’ve just been listening to this for the second time - long time fan of your videos. So weird today with the UK in lockdown. Went for my ‘one allowed exercise’ with my little girl in the pram to get her to sleep. Loved the video, you fellas have been so integral at reeling me back into D&D - the school that I teach at now has 2 D&D groups and the students love it. Thanks again.
Quickened is also good for putting down a teetering foe or use some kind of damage+control cantrip, such was Shocking Grasp (to let you not get AoOed) or Chill Touch (to prevent a foe healing).
For a Sorcadin multiclass, quicken is amazing. Quicken hold person, and if they fail their save then super smite (because crits) them to death
@@johnnyv9024 That's a good example.
@@johnnyv9024 Quickened Greater Invis could also work, get advantage and smack em hard
One of the best things to extend is things like Mage Armor. Increasing AC to 13 + dex for _16_ hours! If you cast is just before a long rest, it has the same effect as casting it normally when you wake up, but for free! no spell slots or points needed.
Planning on playing a sorcerer so this was a very needed video for me since I've never played one before. Thanks guys!
Thank you so much for this video! It was fun, and so informative for me as a sorcerer player :) I took twinned and quickened spell knowing very well I won't be using twinned spell too much until she gets Haste or Polymorph, as she has a high AC so I spend much more time quickening two Green-Flame Blades or a blast spell and going in for Green-Flame Blade.
I just multiclassed into Divine Soul Sorcerer and I think, once I get to the level for Metamagic, I'll get Subtle and Twin Spell as my first pair of options.
Currently playing as a Divine Soul support caster with twin and extend. Extend has been amazing to use on the Aid spell. Every night before my character goes to bed if he has the spell slot and sorcery point he says an extra prayer and and casts an extended Aid to give my party of 3 all bonus hp/max hp for 16 hours. Then he goes to bed, gains that spell slot and point back and there's still roughly 8hrs left on the buff that was essentially free.
If you take the last guard shift, and cast it RIGHT before the long rest ends, you can get 16 hours of use, and still not waste a slot.
One of my first ever characters was a sorcerer, and I took Subtle and Twinned for my metamagics. I like to play support casters, and as such, I found myself almost always using Twinned Invisibility/Enhance Ability/Haste/etc., and we got a ton of good mileage out of it. Subtle Spell also saved our asses on more than one occasion, and even when it’s not a critical part of our interactions, it’s still always good to have around.
Now I see how Overlord’s meta magic was created
Actually I once had a sorcerer twin a disintegrate, one-shoting an entire miniboss encounter of two wraiths.
Heightened Spell always seemed like a good one to pick up at higher levels. Same with Quicken. Both are most useful once you've gotten higher level either save-or-suck spells for Heightened or concentration spells for Quicken. Though you guys made a good point about Quicken letting you do a lot of different things with your action like for instance run away while also casting a spell to prevent the baddies from chasing after you.
A thing is not often mentioned with quickened spells is that it provides you a far better version of cunning action. A caster action is usually spent for .... well casting. Conversely bonus action options are usually scarse for casters, unless there is something baked in the class (like pet actions). Quickening a spell nets you a free action (dash, dodge, hide, attack, use object, cast cantrip). In this regard, it can be considered a very flexible and worthwile option even without taking into account all the boons already mentioned in the video. Anyway great content guys, keep it up Cheers!
There should be a feat option, allowing you to add a metamagic to your list of known, and also use it on a L1-3 spell 1/ long rest.
I’m from the future, And I have news for you, You’re not gonna believe this…
Silence + subtle spell. Knock out the enemy caster ability to cast most things, but still be able to cast yourself.
snowene - I’m glad someone has pointed this out! However it does require somebody to be able to keep the enemy spell caster within the zone of Silence as well.
It also works well as a defensive tactic if Silence is cast at you.
Currently using Distant and Quickened Spell. Multiclassed into Rogue Inquisitve and have made Shadow Blade my preferred spell. Superior Arcane Trickster achieved.
It’s good that Kelly played through a Sorcerer in your online campaign and can speak to all of this through his own practical experience. I’ve seen too many guides online where people are just theory crafting.
Just found you guys and fell in love with the content. Perhaps a few compliments and critiques?
Extremely professional!
Very knowledgeable about what you're talking about!
A lot of charisma.
Incredibly smooth editing!
Honestly my only criticism is that your hand movements sometimes become repetitive and can be distracting. Ultimately didn't take away from my enjoyment and learning, but it could be easily improved by varying the way your hands move.
Really enjoyed the vid! Subbed!!
I killed a troll.
...and I liked it! But his breath smelled like Jerry's backpack. :(
@@Hyperpandas I GOT IT
A good use for twinned and quickened is to use it in shocking grasp so you can get away from melee enemies ganging upon you withou having to use disengage, or using disengage but still casting a spell.
I mean you could also just Disengage + Quickened Firebolt for a similar result. Twinned in this case would be more used to allow a teammate to get away (puts you in melee range of them though, so maybe not the best overall usage)
I remember when we were waiting for our contact in a room and Bard realized he forgot to buy something. I excused myself for a moment, flipped birds with a Barbarian and came back with a thing after using 2 Distant Dimension Doors. One of my favorite Metamagic combos
Interesting Twin Spell - last night I ruled “incorrectly” with a Magic Missile that was only one missile, and I let them do it.
David Wilson : I was actually thinking I disagree wit The Dudes on this one. It says the spell cannot target more than one being at the spells "CURRENT level" right? Well even though a spell like Magic Missile has the potential for multiple targets at higher levels, if the low, "current " level of that spell at 1st level, is a single targeting spell; then by strict adherence tothe wording of the rule, it would be (currently) eligible.
Ronn -Ammon lvl 1 magic missile shoots 3 darts which can all target different creatures
obsolete18 : Thanks.👍🏻👍🏽👍🏿I must'' ve had my head in a previous edition when I wrote that.
Twinned spell's ability to double concentration is tiers above all other metamagic.
Another valuable part of subtle spell is that it can be used to gain the upper hand in mage duels. Disabling the ability of other casters to counterspell you means that if applied to counterspell itself, opponents cannot counter your counterspells.
I think a lot of people misread careful spell’s description to just mean their allies are automatically fine or just homebrew it that way. Cudos for pointing out the real RAW text
23:10 detect thots: my favourite spell
I reccomend banishing to the Shadowrealm anything that happens to give a positive signal to this spells
I've seen a party that was 4 rogues and a sorcerer. Really odd, because they had to do some funny stuff for some encounters, but the sorc took careful spell, and...well, Evasion is a thing.
Divine Soul extending Aid before a long rest though. Then also using Hero’s Feast. Really useful 🥰
That intro causes such a nice endorphin drip. Love your synchronicity.
I feel like I've got so many characters on standby but never get to play any of them :(
Hey, twinned spell. I argue dragons breath works. When you cast the spell it can only ever target one creature similar to haste.
I have a character concept for a kobold dragon blood sorcerer who does exactly this.
Not legal according to Sage Advice but I ran it for awhile twinning it on party members’ Owl and Imp familiar that took turns firing the cone straight down from 15ft in the air to cover 9x9 squares. It was completely broken in the early levels, and even in tier 2 play it was insanely strong and virtually replaced every other AOE options.
@@M0ebius I couldn't find anything in the SA compendium. Which part are you saying is illegal? The twinning or the cone from above?
dxjxc91 Twin.
www.google.com/amp/s/www.sageadvice.eu/2018/12/22/is-is-possible-to-twin-spell-booming-blade/amp/
@@M0ebius interestingly that never made it into sage advice compendium, which now is the officially rulings
I have a Goblin sorcerer Who uses subtle spell frequently because there are a lot of times where somatic and verbal weren't an option (like being tied up,gagged,etc) and it's just so useful and lets me save my self and the party from some situations like me being grappled or us being kidnapped
Honestly, I don’t exactly know what I’m going to choose for my tabaxi stone sorcerer just yet, but I will definitely be taking empowered spell! This guide helped so much and I had moments of “well I think this would fit my character well in this situation”. So thank you so much for this guide!
I’d like to add that even using Twinned Spell for damage dealing cantrips can be an efficient use of Sorcery points, particularly at higher levels. Remember cantrips often increase in damage as you level - I think a *lot* of players forget this. For instance, at 5th level a firebolt deals 2d10 damage; at 11th level a firebolt deals 3d10 damage. If you Twin-Spell a firebolt at 11th level, you can potentially deal an insane 6d10 damage (across the two targets) for the cost only 1 solitary sorcery point!
So, for literally half the cost of a First level Spell, you can deal 4d10 damage by 5th level, 6d10 by 11th level and, if you’re really game, 8d10 by 17th level, all in one round.
Of course, the down sides are that (1) this damage has to be split across two targets and (2) if an attack misses or the target saves, there is no ‘half-damage on a successful save’ as you often get for true levelled spells.
And if you cast Chill Touch, you can stop all healing for 2 targets as well as damage them.
I think I’d prefer to quicken Edritch Blast and hit 1-4 targets up to 8 at 17th level
The meta magic I want is "store spell" allowing an object you touch to hold a spell for x amount of time, and released by a predetermined trigger like when damaged, damaging something, an action like rubbing or twisting, a phrase, etc.
Also all effects happen at the location of the triggered object. So a rock with fireball stored in it will go off at the location of the rock.
As for cost, I think 1 per spell level would be appropriate or 2 per level if this metamagic seems too effective. I see how it could impose on subtle spell or other meta magics.
What you are wanting here is the cleric spell Glyph of Warding. (I think that is the name). You're not going to get a meta magic that replicates a third level spell that requires a bunch of diamond dust to cast.
Oh good! I've been really wanting you to make this one. Sweet!
Good video; I'm glad to see Subtle Spell getting the love it deserves. There are so many spells Sorcerer spells that have only a Verbal and Somatic component that I find Subtle to be one of the most fun Metamagics. As you mentioned, its great for social situations and also allows the Sorcerer to avoid Counterspell, but it's also great if your party is captured. Bound and gagged? No problem, just cast a Subtle Mage Hand and undo your restraints.
Beyond that, I personally see Quickened and Twinned having alternate priority depending on your Sorcerer's main role.
Quickened is great for my blaster-type sorcerer. I was already aware that it only allows a cantrip after Quickening a spell, but a blaster's cantrip is already quite powerful by level 6. The most efficient blaster (without multiclassing) is going to be a Red/Brass Dragon Bloodline sorcerer and by level 6, your Firebolt is probable going to be dealing 2d10 +5 damage. That's a significant increase in damage output if you are trying to go nova and more damage than any non-blaster is going to get from even a level 1 spell.
For blasters, I like to start with Subtle and Quicken, then pick up Empowered at level 10. Finally, I think there is an argument to be made for Heightened over Twinned at level 17, but either is a good choice. I agree with your commentary on Twinned that it is best used for buff spells rather than damage. One important thing to remember for a blaster is that a Twinned spell forces you to target two different enemies rather than focusing your firepower. I see a few newer players forgetting this despite it being right in the rules description. A Twinned spell is not like a Scorching Ray where you can dump all attacks into the same target.
On the other hand, I preferred Twinned spell when I made a Sorcerer that was more of a support-style buffbot. For this, I feel that the Divine Soul origin with a one level dip in Life Cleric makes for a very powerful Sorcerer. Twinned spell is great for this role as you forgot to mention one of my favorite Twinned-eligible spells: Healing Word. The great thing about Healing Word is that it is already a Bonus Action, so Quicken Spell isn't even needed. A Divine Soul can Twin a Healing Word to heal two of his allies for 1d4 + 8 HP thanks to the dip in Life Cleric AND THEN cast a cantrip with his standard action AND twin the cantrip as well. That's a lot of action economy for the cost of a level 1 spell slot and 2 Sorcery Points.
Additionally, Divine Soul also get access to Guiding Bolt which is a fantastic level 1 spell to Twin considering it is both a surprisingly strong attack for a level 1 spell (4d6) AND it debuffs the enemy to allow your allies to take advantage. I know I said that Twinning isn't great for damage spells, but due to it's variable cost, it's not terrible to Twin level 1 spells or cantrips if the need arises.
Obviously, Twinning Haste at level 5 (or level 6 if you dipped) is your main purpose in life, but every Sorcerer can do that. All in all, Twinned Spell is great for a Divine Soul as gains value due to Healing Word and Guiding Bolt while Quickened loses a little value as it doesn't do anything for Healing Word.
For a Divine Soul support Sorcerer, I like taking Subtle Spell and Twinned spell as my first Metamagics while picking up Distant Spell as my third as it can be really handy to deliver an up-casted Cure Wounds from range. You are also pretty close to getting Flight at that level which can really start to stretch the battlefield. Extra range is not a bad idea. Empower seems to lose a little value as you already get a pseudo form of Empower for your healing spells through your bloodline and casting damage spells is way far down your priority list. Quickened is still powerful and I would probably pick that up as a final Metamagic if the campaign gets that far.
Charlie Ross - great discussion. I’d like to add though, that even using Twinned Spell for damage dealing cantrips is an efficient use of Sorcery points, particularly at higher levels. As you pint out; cantrips increase in damage as you level - I think a *lot* of players forget this (including the D-dudes here!) A 5th level firebolt deals 2d10 damage; an 11th level fire bolt deals 3d10 damage. If you Twin-Spell an 11th level firebolt, you can potentially deal an insane 6d10 damage (across the two targets) for the cost only 1 solitary sorcery point! So, for literally half the cost of a First level Spell, you can deal 4d10 damage by 5th level, 6d10 by 11th level and, if you’re really game, 8d10 by 17th level, all in one round.
Sorlock, quickened spell. Witch bolt. Need I say more
So Palpatine?
Just take a familiar.... no need for distant metamagic...my divine soul sorcerer uses his owl familiar to heal the party “on the fly”😆
I do the same.
I have employed that tactic myself. But what are you going to do if someone shoots an arrow and kills your spell delivering Owl?
One of my favorite Metamagics to use is empowered spell combined with Chaos Bolt(my character is a wild magic sorcerer with an extended spell list and it his signature spell). It really increases the chance to get that bounce astronomically, making it my go to when my companions are stuck in and I can’t use area effect spells.
Being able to cast Chill Touch every round to shut down enemy healing or regeneration on a specific target while still being able to cast a levelled spell is pretty nice even at low levels.
distant spell and subtle spell on counterspell makes you the ultimate counter speller. Take 2 levels in bard and Bam; Cha mod + 1/2 prof and they will never be able to counter spell your counterspell.
Abjuration wizard add their whole proficiency bonus and hence would counterspell your bards counterspell.
@@jamesgrant3752 subtle spell is unseen within 60 ft and distant spell makes yours out of range upto 120 ft.
Correct. I wasn't thinking about the metamagics for some reason when posted this. I was only worried about pointing out that abjurers get better counterpells than bards. Lol.
Infact my current favorite build is a 14 abjurer, 5 divine soul, 1 any warlock for armor of agathys and hellish rebuke. Quicken and subtle for metamagics. Character is awesome.
Posted the same to another one suggesting distant spell and counterspell, but it doesn't work: You need to cast a spell to be able to use the metamagic, and to be able to cast Counterspell, they already have to be within 60 feet.
When you realize that you can twin spell Dragon's breath and the errata is in your favor. "time to hand out double breath weapons and cross the beams.
“It would be bad to cross the streams...”
“Define bad, Egon.”
Twin dragon's breath is very useful for hoard clearing
Subtle Spell is also a good way to role-play a psionic character, especially for Aberrant Mind Sorcerers.
Very helpful guys, thanks! Trying to build my first Sorc.
We can all agree that metamagic is the meta
Guide to metamagic: ask your DM to let you have all of them, otherwise you will just always pigeonhole yourself into the 1 or 2 most useful and never experience the flavor of the class.
Even if you can have all of them, sorcery points are an extremely limited resource.
@@DungeonDudes Sure, but I guess how I see it, is Sorcerers are kind of the Battlemasters of magic. Imagine if battlemasters only got 3 maneuvers - they'd feel pretty bad, especially if you picked a few maneuvers which were rarely useful.
Dungeon Dudes I feel the very fact that sorcery points are such a limited resource is exactly why giving sorcerers all the meta options is not overpowered. They will still need to make meaningful choices on when to use points.
Having all of the metamagics would make Sorcerers _way_ more powerful, even with the limited sorcery points. But there are other ways to encourage players to try out more than a few metamagics over the course of a campaign without dramatically overpowering the class. Here's one: give them an early taste of the (typically) less useful metamagics and then allow the player to swap each one out if they so choose.
To start, grant *Extended Spell* at *2nd level,* to introduce players to the Sorcerer's unique powers. It's so limited that virtually no Sorcerer is going to pick it up as a permanent option if they know what they're doing, even if they are a Divine Soul who can make the best use of it. Then, when the player selects two metamagics at 3rd level as normal, they can choose to either keep Extended Spell as one of their two options or swap it for a different metamagic. (In case I'm failing to anticipate some multiclass abuse, the DM could rule that if a player only took two levels in Sorcerer and then went back to another class, Extended Spell could disappear until the player took a third level in Sorcerer.)
If you're not playing a campaign with _lots_ of outdoor battles, where a player could easily choose *Distant Spell,* you might consider granting that metamagic at, say, *9th level* and then allowing the player to swap it for a different metamagic at 10th level.
Likewise, at *16th level* you could grant the player *Careful Spell,* and then permit swapping it out for a different metamagic at 17th level.
An even more flexible way you could run it: allow the the player to swap out Extended Spell for another metamagic not just at 3rd level but _any time he gains a level_ up to 8th level, but as soon as he makes a swap his choice becomes permanent. And allow the swapping of Distant Spell at 10th level or up to 15th level, and allow the swapping of Careful Spell any time from 17th level up to 20th level. That would allow players to try out a metamagic for longer before making a final choice.
@@DungeonDudes I think you made this video before Tasha’s came out, but the Metamagic Adept feat can add some extra options and Sorcery Points. 😊
Read the errata on twinned spell late. Was causing 100+ damage (2 crits, had advantage) on twinned agonizing blast + quickened agonizing blast at lv7. Good thing the DM asked me to look it up once more.
Loophole for quickened spell! Ready a spell for after your turn and use your bonus action for some other spell!