While the Aberrant sorcerer has given it some competition, the Shadow Sorcerer is the OG spooky guy. (Fun fact, both of the subclasses used by Laudna in Campaign 3 of Critical Role are revised in this book).
There are some significant tweaks here from the version found in Xanathar's, but a cursory look makes them largely seem like an improvement. So, let's take a look.
Shadow Spells:
1: Bane, Inflict Wounds
2: Darkness, Pass Without Trace
3: Hunger of Hadar, Nondetection
4: Greater Invisibility, Phantasmal Killer
5: Contagion, Creation
There are some useful spells here, but a few that aren't great - Inflict Wounds is not as good as it used to be as it's now a Con save rather than an attack (especially given Sorcerers love making spell attacks now). Notably, we will get another spell with this subclass, but it'll work differently.
Level 3:
Power of Shadow:
You gain the following:
You have Darkvision out to 120 feet and Blindsight out to 10 feet. If you cast a spell that creates an area of Darkness (like Darkness or I think Hunger of Hadar) you can see normally through the spell's darkness.
The blindsight is new and the old version allowed you to see through the Darkness spell only, and only if you cast it using 2 Sorcery points. So, yeah, this is a buff through and through - except in the rare, rare cases where you don't have 2nd level spell slots to spare but you do have 2 SP to spend.
Strength of the Grave lets you make a Charisma saving throw if you would drop to 0 HP, the DC being 5 plus the damage taken. On a success, your HP becomes a number equal to your Charisma modifier plus your Sorcerer level. After you succeed on this save, you can't use this until you finish a long rest.
Sorcerers be squishy, and this makes you more resilient, though at higher levels those DCs are going to start potentially being far too high to beat, like if you take a Dragon's breath or something. Notably, the old version of this didn't work if you got hit with radiant damage or a critical hit, so it's for sure a buff.
Level 6:
Beasts of Ill Omen:
You can spend 3 Sorcery points to cast Summon Beast as a bonus action and without expending a spell slot and without needing material components. The summoned creature appears as a beast made of shadow, and enemies within 5 feet of it have disadvantage on saving throws against spells you cast. When you cast the spell, you can modify it to not require concentration, but this reduces its duration to 1 minute and ends early if you cast the spell again.
Ah! They wised up and closed the "well, I'll just keep summoning them" strategy like the Great Old One Warlock can with Summon Aberration. This is very much the equivalent of the old Hound of Ill Omen, but a pretty major overhaul.
Notably, we don't actually have Summon Beast prepared, so we can't just spend a spell slot to upcast it at some high, good-scaling level. We're also going to have to spend the equivalent of a 3rd level spell slot worth of SP to cast it but only get it at its base 2nd level. That said, the beast will at least have attack scaling with our spell attack bonus, compared to the old version's flat +5 to hit.
Now, there's a fiddly thing here regarding combat sequence: Summoned creatures from spells like this act on our initiative, but immediately after our turn. Thus, technically speaking, we can't summon, say, an Air beast (a Raven, naturally) and fly them in with 30 feet of fly speed, then cast our spell on the targets, and then fly it out with its remaining 30 feet and avoid opp attacks thanks to Flyby. I think a reasonably generous DM would allow this, but it'd also be reasonable to be a stickler here.
Also of note, the Beast will have fewer HP than the Dire Wolf we got with the old version (especially because the Dire Wolf also got some bonus Temp HP). So, it's a bit more fragile if the monsters decide to target your beast.
Sorcerers are a little less focused on concentration spells, but the option to go concentration-free is certainly a good thing to have.
Level 14:
Shadow Walk:
While in dim light or darkness, you can take a bonus action to teleport up to 120 feet to an unoccupied space that's also in dim light or darkness.
This is unchanged. It's situational, but hopefully (especially if you're in Ravenloft) there will be lots of darkness to use. We can, of course, also cast Darkness to give ourselves at least one end of the teleport.
Level 18:
Umbral Form:
When you use Innate Sorcery, you can adopt a shadowy form to gain additional benefits while it's active. You can use htis feature once per long rest, or expend 6 Sorcery points to restore a use of it. The benefits are:
Incorporeal Movement, allowing you to move through creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain, taking 1d10 force damage if you end your turn within a creature or object.
Shadow Resilience, which gives you resistance to all damage except force or radiant.
Couple changes here: first, that it ties into Innate Sorcery, which wasn't a think in 5.0. Second, you get a free use of it, which is actually great. Also, the old version would end if you got incapacitated. Lastly, insanely subtle difference - the old version did a flat 5 force damage to you if you stopped inside an object, rather than 1d10.
Naturally, the damage resistance is going to be the biggest thing, and is welcome at any level. And again, a free use is very nice.
Overall Thoughts:
Sorcerers are pretty well-off as a class anyway, and I think that this subclass gives us a nice update to the previous version. I'd totally play this.
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