UA: Faerzress Sorcery

 Now, the biggest challenge to playing this subclass is pronouncing it.

The Faerzress is a chaotic, demonic radiation found in the Underdark (at least in the Forgotten Realms) that acts like a weird magical electricity and drives people crazy (in the Acquisitions Incorporated game were I first heard about it, they had to subdue a maddened Drizz't Do'Urden).

Anyway, this is a weird subclass, in part because it also includes a description of what Faerzress does in general, which the subclass then has to refer to.

So, before we get into any subclass features, we need to go into what the radiation does:

Creatures within an area affected by it automatically succeed on saving throws against Divination effects. Magic sensors and invisible eyes (like from Clairvoyance or Arcane Eye) can't enter areas affected by Faerzress.

Creatures teleporting a distance of a mile or more can't teleport into or out of Faerzress (so, Misty Step and Dimension Door are fine, not so much for Teleport.)

An area of Faerzress is illuminated by Dim Light, but creatures with Darkvision within such an area can see in color and have Advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks relying on sight (I thought that you only couldn't see color if it was totally dark and you were relying on darkvision. Hm.)

Ok, got it? Now let's get into the subclass.

Faerzress Spells:

1st level: Faerie Fire, Witch Bolt

2nd level: Magic Weapon, Misty Step

3rd level: Nondetection, Sending

4th level: Arcane Eye, Stone Shape

5th level: Passwall, Scrying

    You might think some of these choices are quite odd given that a lot of them won't work in the environment that this subclass is built around. We'll get to that. But broadly, we have some solid ones here and some that are very situational.

Level 3:

Faerzress Zone:

As a Magic action, you can spend 3 Sorcery Points to fill an area within 120 feet of you and no larger than a 40-foot cube with faerzress, causing the effects described earlier. The area lasts for 24 hours, and if you fill the same area with it every day for 365 days, the effect becomes permanent.

    Now, obviously, this is costly at level 3, but it's a very long persistent effect, and the ability to thwart divination and teleportation into an area could be really powerful if you need a secret place to plan things out with your allies. This could be a really great thing for lengthy periods of downtime if you're in an intrigue-heavy campaign.

Immunity to Faerzress:

You ignore the detrimental effects of Faerzress. Specifically:

Creatures within an area of Faerzress don't automatically succeed on saves against your divination spells, and your magical sensors from spells like Clairvoyance and Arcane Eye can enter areas of Faerzress. When you teleport yourself or other creatures, the teleporting creatures can teleport into or out of an area of Faerzress at any distance.

    Great. That solves that problem. Now, you love Faerzress and are happy to hang out in there as much as you like. Note that if your allies try to do some of this stuff, it won't work. Thus, even if Sorcerers lean a little more into the blasty side of things, we might consider taking some more utility spells to aid the party if we assume the campaign is going to involve areas of Faerzress. And obviously this makes our Faerzress Zone feature much better for us.

Level 6:

We gain resistance to Lightning damage. We also gain Darkvision out to 60 feet, or an extra 30 feet of darkvision if we already have darkvision. We can discern color in areas of Darkness unlike most darkvision.

    One quick note: it's weird that we don't get an extra 60 feet if we already have darkvision. Otherwise this is fine and reasonable.

Also, we have advantage on Perception checks we make to see in Dim Light or Darkness.

    Let's quickly run this down: In dim light, a creature without darkvision has disadvantage on perception checks to see, but with darkvision, it basically gets treated as bright light, so we'll get full advantage. However, darkvision only treats total darkness as dim light, so we'll have disadvantage, but this gets cancelled out. So, there's still some benefit to illuminating an area here, but weirdly only with dim light, as we don't get advantage if the light is bright. Bit weird.

Finally, our immunity to Faerzress feature extends to any allies within 30 feet of us.

    Ok, that's interesting. Guess we can let the Wizard handle the utility teleportation spells and such once we hit level 6.

Level 14:

Faerzress Spell:

When one or more creatures fail a saving throw against a spell we cast, we can spend 1 SP to lace the creature with Faerzress. For 1 minute, they have the following effects on them:

They can't teleport. They can't cast Divination spells. And they have disadvantage on saving throws against Divination spells.

    Anti-teleportation could really shut down a slippery enemy spellcaster. I guess it's a question of how frequently you're casting divination spells.

Faerzress Step:

You always have Teleportation prepared and can cast it once without expending a spell slot per long rest. Also, when you roll on the Teleportation Outcome table, you can choose any outcome available for your familiarity.

    Nevermind! You'll be the teleporter for the party, with effectively a free extra 7th level spell slot! Now, as for the available outcomes, this means you'll always arrive where you want to go as long as the location you're trying to get to is real. If it's a false destination, you can arrive at a similar area, which is the best you can hope for. But yes, this basically makes Teleport foolproof for you. Pretty nice.

Level 18:

Faerzress Form:

When you use Innate Sorcery, you can turn yourself into pure Faerzress energy. You retain your general shape, personality, etc., and while your equipment doesn't transform, you can continue to wear/carry it. You get the following benefits:

You become immune to being Grappled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Poisoned, Prone, or Restrained.

    Pretty good, and again, very good for high-level titan-like monsters that might swallow you.

You gain resistance to every damage type except Force or Psychic.

    Now, you might encounter some psychic damage, especially in the Underdark, but these "every damage type except X and Y" features are going to be pretty great most of the time.

You have a fly speed equal to your speed and can hover. You can also move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain, but take 1d10 force damage if you end your turn inside an object.

    Little late for a Sorcerer to get a fly speed (Storm Sorcerers get an always-on fly with hover equal to 60 feet at level 18, and Aberrant and Draconic Sorcerers get concentration-free flight at level 14). I guess the incorporeal movement is nice? (I think the stipulation that your equipment doesn't transform is there more for flavor, but this could be a sticking point with a very strict DM).

You revert to your true form after 1 minute, if you choose to end it early, or if you die.

You can do this once per long rest, but you can spend 7 Sorcery Points to restore your use of it.

    I think the damage resistance is the best part of this, and the condition immunities are very nice. Is it worth the equivalent of a 7th level spell? Maybe? Innate Sorcery itself is also a somewhat limited resource, and we need to spend more SP to use it more than twice a day. Though that said, by the time you're this high-level, you might be burning a lot of your low level spell slots to just recoup SP. So maybe it's fine.

Overall Thoughts:

    I think this subclass works for very particular kinds of campaigns. It could be great in an intrigue-heavy campaign with lots of enemy spellcasters. But some of these features might have no impact if you're just fighting big burly monsters.

    I think I hold a view that is contrary to some other prominent thinkers when it comes to TTRPG design, which is that I think specificity can sometimes be a detriment: the appeal, as I see it, of TTRPGs is for players to make things their own - their own characters, their own worlds, their own stories. And this is one of those subclasses that feels not only tied to a very specific setting but a very specific part of that setting, which makes me feel far less likely to get excited about making a character with this subclass.

    Anyway, that's the three subclasses for this UA. Next, we'll look at some of the species.