Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Sorcerer and Chromatic Orb suggestions

Hello all! This thread is dedicated to several suggestions for Sorcerer in BG3. Most of them are based on tabletop Sorcerer features (however, not only from Player's Handbook), but there are also some that are based on current Larian changes as well.

Metamagic suggestions:

1) Implement Empowered Spell.
"When you roll damage for a spell, you can spend 1 sorcery point to reroll a number of the damage dice up to your Charisma modifier (minimum of one). You must use the new rolls. You can use Empowered Spell even if you have already used a different Metamagic option during the casting of the spell."

If you have trouble with implementing dice number reroll after if was rolled in game, there is another option to consider:
"Empower your next spell, making all of its damage dice rolls that are lower than average (round up) count as this average value. Rolls that are equal to it or higher still use their rolled value".
So, if you use Empowered Spell on Burning Hands (3d6, average of d6 is 3.5, round up is 4) and it rolls 2,1 and 4 on damage dices, it is counted as 4/4/4 = 12, which is slightly more than normal average 10.5 and almost equal to tabletop version of 12.75.
This will keep this Metamagic option's identity as the low damage roll saving belt and allow to implement it without necessity to actually reroll dices or ask the player whether he wants to reroll damage dices after they were thrown.

2) Implement Transmuted Spell.
"When you cast a spell that deals a type of damage from the following list, you can spend 1 sorcery point to change that damage type to one of the other listed types: acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, thunder."

Even though it is not from Player's Handbook, but from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, it is an important option, as it allows to compensate for Sorcerer innate lack of spells with possibility to change their element to suit his / her need - for example, overcome an enemy resistance or blast a vulnerability. While they can have Chromatic Orb for that, it will quickly become obsolete at higher levels.

3) Implement Seeking Spell (another option from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything).
"If you make an attack roll for a spell and miss, you can spend 2 sorcery points to reroll the d20, and you must use the new roll. You can use Seeking Spell even if you have already used a different Metamagic option during the casting of the spell."

If you have trouble with making player use a metamagic option after the attack already occured, it can just instead provide advantage or +5 (which is on average equal to advantage) to attack roll(s) of affected spell. Second option is slighly better as it stacks with advantage from other sources and is roughly equal to rerolling a missed spell, even if it was made with advantage.

Bloodlines suggestions:

1) Draconic Bloodline - Expand the number of bonus bloodline spells to at least 1 spell every spell level up to 5th.

This homebrew from Larian is actually positive as it helps with Sorcerer PHB bloodlines lack of spells problem, however 1 bonus spell is not enough, definitely need more. You can orient on Aberrant Mind / Clockwork Soul, who get 2 bonus spells every spell level up to 5th, but might reduce the number of bonus spells to 1 for Draconic Bloodline, as its other bloodline features are quite strong.

I also suggest to provide speciality spells for different bloodlines, so that they are each unique in their way and provide decent build variety. For example:

Red Draconic Bloodline (Fire) - specializes in Fire offensive spells - provides Burning Hands at level 1, Scorching Rays at level 3, Fireball at level 5 etc.
Brass Draconic Bloodline (Fire) - specializes in CC spells - provides Sleep at level 1, Command or Hold Person at level 3, Hypnotic Pattern at level 5 etc.

2) Wild Magic Bloodline - expand number or Wild Magic surge effects to at least 20 (one for each roll of d20), maybe even more. Full list of effects is here:
http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/sorcerer:wild-magic

Feats:

Implement Metamagic Adept feat from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything:

"You've learned how to exert your will on your spells to alter how they function:

You learn two Metamagic options of your choice from the sorcerer class. You can use only one Metamagic option on a spell when you cast it, unless the option says otherwise. Whenever you reach a level that grants the Ability Score Improvement feature, you can replace one of these Metamagic options with another one from the sorcerer class.
You gain 2 sorcery points to spend on Metamagic (these points are added to any sorcery points you have from another source but can be used only on Metamagic). You regain all spent sorcery points when you finish a long rest."

This is a good additional feat as it allows Sorcerers to get bigger variety of Metamagic effects to utilize Sorcery Points for or other classes to tap a bit of power from Sorcerers like twinning their own spells. Depending on your balance vision, you can permit this feat to Sorcerers only or allow it to be used by all (caster) classes.

Spells:

Chromatic Orb - revert base effect to the tabletop version where it does 3d8 + 1d8 per spell level damage of chosen type to selected target, but provide a toggle named something like "Volatile Orb" that allows to replace one d8 damage dice with current surfaces (for Lightning Orb create an electrified blood surface instead of electrified water though, as this makes more sense) and for Thunder Chromatic Orb add a pushback effect that knocks target back a bit (less than Thunderwave though, so that both spells are competitive and complement each other - Thunderwave is melee range, but can affect multiple targets and knocks back farther and Thunder Chromatic Orb with toggle is ranged and can affect only specific target, but knocks back less than Thunderwave). This is the best compromise for Chromatic Orb - people who like its tabletop effect or it as a single-target spell only can use the basic variant and people who like current implementation with surfaces can use it with the suggested toggle.

There is also a poll for different parts of this suggestion. Vote for multiple poll options (up to 3) is allowed.

Thank you for reading!

How do you like these suggestions? multiple choice, up to 3 choices
	I support Metamagic options and feat suggestions.
	I do not support Metamagic options and feat suggestions.
	I support Bloodlines suggestions.
	I do not support Bloodlines suggestions.
	I support Chromatic Orb suggested changes.
	I do not support Chromatic Orb suggested changes.
Votes accepted starting: 27/05/22 12:04 PM You must vote before you can view the results of this poll.

I dunno ... seems quite powerfull. O_o

I mean in PnP version i know this metamagic is supposed to save your ass if you roll badly ... but nothing prevents you from roll badly again, maybe even worse.
Its (or it was, while Hags hair was still working) nothing hard to get Charisma 20 during EA ... imagine you will allways roll 5 or 6 with spells that use 6 sided dices ...
It just seems quite powerfull ...
There should be some limitation to ballance it back in my opinion, like 1 Sorcery point per 2 dices, or something like that.

They also should concider incerase chance to proc Magic Surge from Tides of Chaos to 100% ... or at least 80%+, or something high ...
The whole point of Wild Magic Sorcerer is that if you want to ... you can bring some SERIOUS chaos to the battlefield. :3

And i say let us!

While suggested Empowered Spell is powerful, do not forget that it just puts total damage done to around average.
For example, average damage of Burning Hands is 3d6 = 10.5, with my suggested Empower spell worst possible roll with 3 bad is 9 (3/3/3) and best with only 1 bad roll is 15 (3/6/6), putting it only slighly higher. While Charisma mod can be increased to +5 at higher levels, many spells deal d8, d10 and even d12 damage, diminishing its effect. As a result, I do not think it is too powerful to be kept even with cost of 1 Sorcery point.

About Wild Magic Bloodline - can be a decent addition as well.

Slightly higher? O_o

Do half more damage than average ... and only 3less than perfect roll is "slightly higher" ? O_o

And if your Sorcerer would have Charisma 20 ... wich is easily achievable and in long run desired i would dare to say for most builds ...
You would only give 15 or 18 damage with spell that have 10.5 average ... meaning either perfect roll, or only 3 (1/6 of that perfect roll) points weaker ...

I dunno, still seems pretty powerfull upgrade. :-/

As Rag mentions, your alternative version of Empowered Spell is similar to RAW Empowered only when your Cha modifier is close to the die's average of the spell (e.g., 3 or 4 for a d6). As your Cha modifier increases, your alternative suggestion becomes much more powerful (essentially Maximizing a spell)

E.g., Burning Hands = 3d6
- Normal average = 3*3.5 = 10.5
- Normal empowered: Each die's average into 4.25 (rerolling 1-3s leads to outcomes of 3.5, 3.5, 3.5, 4, 5, 6) for total damage of 12.75
- Alternative empowered with Cha of +3: Each die's average is 4 (possible outcomes of 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6) for total damage of 12
- Alternative empowered with Cha of +4: Each die's average is 4.5 (possible outcomes of 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6) for total damage of 13.5
- Alternative empowered with Cha of +5: Each die's average is 5.167 (possible outcomes of 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 ,6) for total damage of 15.5
(AoE spell, so all damages are per target)

E.g., Fireball = 8d6
- Normal average = 8*3.5 = 28 damage
- Normal empowered. Each die's average is 4.25 - 34 damage
- Alternative empowered with Cha of +3: 4*8= 32 damage
- Alternative empowered with Cha of +4: 4.5*8= 36 damage
- Alternative empowered with Cha of +5: 5.167*8= 41.3 damage (Remember, this is damage per target for an AoE spell. If you target 6 enemies and half save, you'll actually be dealing 41.3*4.5~186 total points of damage which is ~33 more points of damage compared to "Normal" empowered fireball)

I would suggest that your alternative "no manual rerolling" version of Empowered simply automatically reroll 1s and 2s. (Oh wait, this implementation feels familiar. I feel like I've seen it in some other game...)
You could also make it dependent on the die size: reroll 1s and 2s for d6s, also reroll 3s for d8s, etc...

Slightly higher was meant for average value. 9 for worst roll that is replaced and 15 for best roll that is replaced gives 12 average, which is slightly higher than 10.5.

Though you are both correct that with +5 modifier d6 spells are almost maximized / overchanneled. The simple solution is then to remove Charisma dependancy and make Empowered Spell increase any damage dice value to its dice average (round up) if the rolled value is less than it for the affected spell - to 4 for d6, to 5 for d8, to 6 for d10 and to 7 for d12. Then it fulfills its purpose of making even very bad roll average or slightly better without maximizing any kind of dice spell. So, Empowered Burning Hands does minimum 12 damage out of possible 18 and slightly more than average 10.5. Seems decent, will update starting post.

Fully support with the chromatic orb suggestion. I really hate Larian's homebrew on this one.
Being able to choose between surfaces or direct damages would be very interresting for a lot of spells and it would really increase the players possibilities.