A fun thing one of my friends done running a game with a Wild Magic Sorcerer (who loved the chaos) was whenever they cast a spell the player rolls d20s = to the level of the spell. If any rolled a one it triggered a roll on the Wild Magic Table.
dude no, abberant mind is OBJECTIVELY the worst subclass for sorcerer (and that is a hard achievement to reach since all sorcerer subclass are SOOO bad in 2024) TLDR: True in 2014 it was probably the BEST sorcerer subclass. True they barely chance anything in the class, but they did change something. 1 sentence that disappear. The ability to CHANGE the spell from the subclass spell list. and that single change destroyed both feature why the Abberant sorcerr was the best subclass. Yes ruining the Psionic spells feature, also ruin spionic sorcery since they are both link together. The original spell list have bad spell and spell that have the same effect, and none of those spell are particularly useful to be cast subtely (especially with the new counterspell) SO even if Psionic sorcery was a great feature in 2014 and hasn't change in 2024, the fact that it now apply to a list of bad spell instead of applying to a list of carefully chosen spell, ruined those 2 features. here why: The subclass spell list: 7 good spells: Mind Sliver, Detect thought, Dissonant Whisper, Hunger of hadar (OR Evard black tentacle), summon aberration and Rary telepathic bound telekenisis. Arm of Hadar is a bad "normal" sorcerer spell. Arm of hadar is good if you are often in melee range, but sorry at level 3 if my sorcerer get surrounded by enemies, I will misty step out of there, no arm of hadar them hoping I can run without provoking attack of opportunities. Calm emotion: Bad spell.... concentration 1 minute so you cannot pre-cast it to protect yourself when entering the mindflayer lair, and require an action, so once you are charmed and under the mindflayer control, it's to late to cast it. Sending is situational at best and useless most of the time. I mean if it's really necessary the DM will give you a sending stone (since it's bad design to assume someone will have sending available to cast) Hunger of Hadar and Evard black tentacle: yes they are both great spell, but in all practicality they are the SAME spell. Both are a concentration spell creating a 20ft AoE difficult terrain dealing damage every rounds and granting advantage to your allies to attack the target while they have disadvantage to attack back. So I consider them as 1 good spell, since they are so redundant. Now our level 6 features applies ONLY to those 7 good spells (ignoring the 4 bad one since... they are bad and will rarely be used.) So we can cast those spell using a discounter sorcerer point price. Awesome that is great... except for Rary telepathic bound, it's a ritual, that you cast out of combat and consume no spell slot and no sorcerer point from the start making it pointless to cast using a reduce number of sorcerer point. Then the other part of the feature is basically cast those spell subtlety. Subtle spell are useful for 2 reasons: RP: when you want to cast a spell without the people around you noticing. So for example casting charm person on the town guard so he let you pass even if it's past curfew. If your sorcerer start to "ABRA CADABRA you are now my friend" while wildly waving your arms, the guard might fail at his saving throw and become your friend and would let you pass, but the other guards around will have heard the abra cadabra, recognize it to be a spell (might not know witch spell, but they know you casted a spell) and they will start initiative. While if you subtely cast charm person in the same scenario, the other guard won't notice a thing and bingo you are inside the town pass curfew without a problem. Counterspell: Counterspell require the caster to SEE you cast the spell. Well if their is nothing to see (since you have no verbal, no somatic and no material component) he cannot see "nothing happening" there for cannot counterspell. But with the new counterspell now being a constitution saving throw, and sorcerer being the only full spell caster with innate constitution proficiency, you should be able to pass that saving throw fairly easily. And CounterSpell is something you should worry about mainly during combat. Very rare that a mage was hiding my camp site and counterspelled my mage armor when I completed my long rest. Further more, since CounterSpell no longer make you loose that spell slot, out of combat, it just mean you can retry 6 second later (unless the fight begin) So trading a 3rd level spell (for CounterSpell) for casting my mage armor 6 second later... might be worth it. Even if the fight begin without me having mage armor, that mage already used up a 3rd level slot... So let's see those 7 spell to see how useful psyonic spell really are. Detect thought: Out of combat spell, so rarely the target of CounterSpell. But situationally useful depending on the situation. If you are talking to the guard and he's asking for a passphrase to enter the town after curfew, subtle detect thought to read that passphrase can avoid a combat. But if you are interogating a goblin and you cast detect thought to read his surface thought and determine if he's lying or not (since when you are lying you are thinking about the truth in your head in order to twist it into a lie) well I don't really care if the goblin know I
A real good listen, you’ve helped my 12 hour shifts go a little faster
A fun thing one of my friends done running a game with a Wild Magic Sorcerer (who loved the chaos) was whenever they cast a spell the player rolls d20s = to the level of the spell. If any rolled a one it triggered a roll on the Wild Magic Table.
dude no, abberant mind is OBJECTIVELY the worst subclass for sorcerer (and that is a hard achievement to reach since all sorcerer subclass are SOOO bad in 2024)
TLDR: True in 2014 it was probably the BEST sorcerer subclass. True they barely chance anything in the class, but they did change something. 1 sentence that disappear. The ability to CHANGE the spell from the subclass spell list. and that single change destroyed both feature why the Abberant sorcerr was the best subclass. Yes ruining the Psionic spells feature, also ruin spionic sorcery since they are both link together. The original spell list have bad spell and spell that have the same effect, and none of those spell are particularly useful to be cast subtely (especially with the new counterspell) SO even if Psionic sorcery was a great feature in 2014 and hasn't change in 2024, the fact that it now apply to a list of bad spell instead of applying to a list of carefully chosen spell, ruined those 2 features.
here why:
The subclass spell list:
7 good spells: Mind Sliver, Detect thought, Dissonant Whisper, Hunger of hadar (OR Evard black tentacle), summon aberration and Rary telepathic bound telekenisis.
Arm of Hadar is a bad "normal" sorcerer spell. Arm of hadar is good if you are often in melee range, but sorry at level 3 if my sorcerer get surrounded by enemies, I will misty step out of there, no arm of hadar them hoping I can run without provoking attack of opportunities.
Calm emotion: Bad spell.... concentration 1 minute so you cannot pre-cast it to protect yourself when entering the mindflayer lair, and require an action, so once you are charmed and under the mindflayer control, it's to late to cast it.
Sending is situational at best and useless most of the time. I mean if it's really necessary the DM will give you a sending stone (since it's bad design to assume someone will have sending available to cast)
Hunger of Hadar and Evard black tentacle: yes they are both great spell, but in all practicality they are the SAME spell. Both are a concentration spell creating a 20ft AoE difficult terrain dealing damage every rounds and granting advantage to your allies to attack the target while they have disadvantage to attack back. So I consider them as 1 good spell, since they are so redundant.
Now our level 6 features applies ONLY to those 7 good spells (ignoring the 4 bad one since... they are bad and will rarely be used.)
So we can cast those spell using a discounter sorcerer point price. Awesome that is great... except for Rary telepathic bound, it's a ritual, that you cast out of combat and consume no spell slot and no sorcerer point from the start making it pointless to cast using a reduce number of sorcerer point.
Then the other part of the feature is basically cast those spell subtlety.
Subtle spell are useful for 2 reasons:
RP: when you want to cast a spell without the people around you noticing. So for example casting charm person on the town guard so he let you pass even if it's past curfew. If your sorcerer start to "ABRA CADABRA you are now my friend" while wildly waving your arms, the guard might fail at his saving throw and become your friend and would let you pass, but the other guards around will have heard the abra cadabra, recognize it to be a spell (might not know witch spell, but they know you casted a spell) and they will start initiative.
While if you subtely cast charm person in the same scenario, the other guard won't notice a thing and bingo you are inside the town pass curfew without a problem.
Counterspell: Counterspell require the caster to SEE you cast the spell. Well if their is nothing to see (since you have no verbal, no somatic and no material component) he cannot see "nothing happening" there for cannot counterspell. But with the new counterspell now being a constitution saving throw, and sorcerer being the only full spell caster with innate constitution proficiency, you should be able to pass that saving throw fairly easily. And CounterSpell is something you should worry about mainly during combat. Very rare that a mage was hiding my camp site and counterspelled my mage armor when I completed my long rest. Further more, since CounterSpell no longer make you loose that spell slot, out of combat, it just mean you can retry 6 second later (unless the fight begin) So trading a 3rd level spell (for CounterSpell) for casting my mage armor 6 second later... might be worth it. Even if the fight begin without me having mage armor, that mage already used up a 3rd level slot...
So let's see those 7 spell to see how useful psyonic spell really are.
Detect thought: Out of combat spell, so rarely the target of CounterSpell. But situationally useful depending on the situation. If you are talking to the guard and he's asking for a passphrase to enter the town after curfew, subtle detect thought to read that passphrase can avoid a combat. But if you are interogating a goblin and you cast detect thought to read his surface thought and determine if he's lying or not (since when you are lying you are thinking about the truth in your head in order to twist it into a lie) well I don't really care if the goblin know I