I liked doing the somewhat exhaustive review of all the official subclasses published for 5th Edition D&D and giving a brief review of what I thought was the most mechanically powerful, and which had flavors I liked (Hexblade and Great Old One Warlocks, for instance, being both a bit imbalanced, with Hexblades having amazing mechanics and really dubious flavor, while Great Old Ones have fantastic flavor and mechanics that I think scream out for a redesign.)
But I figured I would take a moment to talk about my personal favorites for each class. Rather than getting bogged down in things like the Purple Dragon Knight, I'm going to be looking at only the subclasses that really excite me from a lore and mechanical standpoint. I'm not really making the argument than any of these are the "best" mechanically, as I think that D&D is such a situational game. But I'm going to more or less describe these in the ways that I think make them compelling.
Also, because I have little restraint, I'm probably going to touch on two subclasses for each class, with one focusing on flavor and the other on mechanics, unless they happen to be the same. We'll see how it all turns out.
I decided to start with the Sorcerer. It's actually a class I've played up to level 7, though I think I never quite got the hang of it (I might have underestimated some of the metamagic options like Quickened Spell.) My "pretty prince of parties," the Eladrin Wild Magic Sorcerer, was a great high-concept, low-depth sort of character to play in Adventurer's League, but as fun as the Wild Magic table is, I kind of think it's a bit of a gimmick.
So, let's focus on the ones that I'd actually want to play "for real" at some point.
Mechanics: Aberrant Mind
One thing I sometimes find frustrating in a fantasy setting is when everything is reduced to a good side and an evil side. It's actually something I really like about the way that D&D handles the outer planes, where devils and demons are equally evil (even though I think a lot of people think of demons as the extra-bad ones, I actually think it works best if devils only seem less evil because they rely on tricking us into thinking that's the case). But I also really like having the wildcard that is the entire aberration creature type - here are things that are so alien and so strange that they don't even exist within that planar framework, and are the one thing you could possibly threaten a demon with that would make creep them out.
Still, when connecting with that aberrant space, I think I prefer the warlock angle on it from a flavor perspective. Warlock-like backstories can easily be used to justify Sorcerers, though - the pact is less the "I borrow your power" and more the "you change me into this new thing" nature.
But what really makes the Aberrant Mind stand out to me is that, mechanically, it's actually really, really good.
A big part of this is their Psionic Spells. Just getting more spells is fantastic on the infamously spell-starved Sorcerer, and being able to swap these out for spells of appropriate schools (from other class lists!) makes this an amazingly versatile bonus.
But while the Clockwork Soul has a similar feature, the Aberrant Mind takes it a step further with Psionic Sorcery at level 6. Allowing you to spend Sorcery Points instead of spell slots gives a nice bit of flexibility to the class, but on top of that, casting them this way effectively gives you both the Subtle Spell metamagic effect while also allowing you to ignore any costly material components - such as the 400g one for Summon Aberration (in fact, that's the only spell on this list that has a material component with a cost, at least before you swap any out). I'm always a fan of classes that can function when they're dumped naked into Avernus (ahem) and I think it's pretty amazing that a level 7 Aberrant Mind can, with only a thought, summon a Beholderkin, Star Spawn, or Slaad to help break them out of a jail cell.
What I think some people might not clock about this feature, also, is that if you'd rather have the sorcery points, and would prefer to just expend the spell slot, you can effectively do that by using Flexible Magic to convert the slot into sorcery points right before or right after you've cast the spell, either refunding or paying for the spell that way - which is a viable way to do it unless you need your bonus action for some reason or want to cast it as a quickened spell (though you can always get the points back on a subsequent turn if needs be.) So, really, you'll never have to cast any of these spells the normal way once you get this feature.
This, to me, is the real mechanical advantage to be found within this subclass.
The level 18 feature, Warping Implosion, really makes quickened spell shine - you can warp out and suck your foes to a point before dropping some big AoE spell on top of them as a bonus action.
It's a subclass that I would really love to play, and if I ever return to my original GOO Warlock, I'm tempted to multiclass him as this (though I'm also the sort of player who likes taking a Warlock all the way to higher levels - I'm really hoping that the 5.5 PHB gives us a revision to the class that's worthy of its lore.)
Now, for flavor, what do we think?
Here, I'm defaulting to what I actually think manages to land as the most "quintessential" sorcerer subclass, which is funny because it's actually not one of the PHB options (most classes, I think, have a "quintessential" subclass option in the PHB, which are basically Berserker Barbarians, Life Clerics, Circle of the Moon Druids, Champion Fighters, Open Hand Monks, Devotion Paladins, and Fiend Warlocks, with only Rogues, Rangers, Sorcerers, and Wizards being in a more ambiguous place).
And that, to me, is the Storm Sorcerer.
For whatever reason, I've always kind of liked lightning more than fire as a magical element to throw around at foes. That might be my fierce loyalty to the color blue (I know that lightning is basically white, but it's often depicted as blue) but I also think it's just... cooler. And I also think that living in Southern California for the past 13 years has made me nostalgic for rain and lightning storms.
Storm Sorcerers have a couple cool features that can help them get out of a jam (though might struggle for relevance if you're where a sorcerer should be, which is far away from the action.) The thing that really inspires me, though, is the level 18 feature - at this point, you're fully immune to lightning and thunder damage, and you have a 60-foot fly speed (which you can share with eight friends by reducing it to 30 feet).
I think that if I ever DM a Storm Sorcerer to level 18, I'm contractually obligated as a DM to have them fight an Elder Tempest solo - because they are actually immune to everything that the elemental can do as long as they're high enough up that they can't be knocked into the ground by one of the thing's legendary actions. I'd love this to be a sort of rite of passage.
Given that Sorcerers, unlike Wizards, are unlocking this deep power within them rather than learning their magic academically, the primordial power of a storm feels like such a great theme for a sorcerer's power.
Now, mechanically, I think that there are only two real downsides to the subclass: the first, as I mentioned before is that Tempestuous Magic, Heart of the Storm, and Storm's Fury all sort of rely on the sorcerer getting close to the enemy, which a Sorcerer should generally try to avoid (well, to be fair, Tempestuous Magic is for getting away from the enemy). The other is not really an issue with the subclass but more just the relatively limited number of good lightning/thunder spells. There are, in fact, only 15 on the Sorcerer list (including cantrips) and that's counting Chromatic Orb, Chaos Bolt, Prismatic Spray, and Dragon's Breath, which aren't really built around those damage types. The two lightning damage cantrips are also built around melee, with Shocking Grasp being a melee spell attack and Lightning Lure only damaging the foe if they do get dragged to within melee range of you. And then there's Booming Blade, which uses a melee weapon attack to see if it does anything. And Thunderclap also requires things be within 5 feet of you - there's no ranged lightning or thunder cantrip, which seems almost cruel.
There is a lot that is very cool about this subclass, but I think that when you weigh all the things that, well, weigh it down, it's a bit frustrating.
We're still 2-3 years away from the "5.5" core rulebooks, so I don't think we're likely to see a redesign of this any time super soon - though I think that, thematically, a version of the Storm Sorcerer would be a great thing to include in the Player's Handbook.
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