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As a counterpart to theAbberant Mind Sorcerer, the Clockwork Soul Sorcerer represents a spellcaster suffused with the structures of order and law found in theDungeons & Dragonsmultiverse. The subclass entry mentions that a Clockwork Soul’s magic might be derived from Mechanus: the plane of absolute order primarily inhabited by the robotic modrons.
However, the genesis of law and order inherent in your Sorcerer’s magic could come from a variety of places. Whatever backstory you choose, the Clockwork Soul is one of the best Sorcerer subclasses in the game thanks to its powerful features and impressive expanded spell list. The clock’s ticking, so let’s dive in.
Best Clockwork Soul Sorcerer Features
At first level, you gainClockwork Magic. This feature gives you access to additional spells that don’t count against the total number of spells you know effectivelyincreasing the number of spells your Sorcerer can cast. One of the best parts of the Wizard class is their variety of spells, sothis feature is quite powerful as the additional spells you know happen to be very good.
1st
Alarm, Protection From Evil And Good
3rd
5th
7th
9th
Greater Restoration, Wall Of Force
Alarm is a great spell for preventing your party from being surprised. Cast it at the beginning of every short or long rest and the chances that your party is snuck up on by an unwelcome intruder are greatly lessened. Protection From Evil And Good is a situational defensive spell that can protect you or a party member from Celestials, Fey, Fiends, Undead, Aberrations, and Elementals.
Aid is arguably one of the best spells in the game as it increases the hit point pool of three members of your party for the entirety of an adventuring day.Meanwhile, Lesser Restoration allows you to cure diseases and status conditions including deafened, paralyzed, poisoned, and blinded.
You should cast Aid at the beginning of every adventuring day to provide your party with extra hit points. It might just save someone’s life.
Dispel Magic is a necessary inclusion in any spellcaster’s kitas it allows you to disable magical traps and enemy spells that you might have no way of interacting with otherwise. Protection From Energy might be the least useful spell on this list, but it can certainly come in handy when faced with a creature who favors an elemental damage type.
Freedom Of Movement makes it so that yourself or a fellow party member need not worry about movement restricting status effects as well as difficult terrain for a whole hour. Summon Construct provides you with a powerful ally who is immune to most conditions and can serve as a reliable tank for your party.
Finally, Greater Restoration solves just about every status effect that Lesser Restoration fails to cure.Wall Of Force is the cherry on topas this spell allows you to shape the battlefield to your whim and can even serve as a magical prison for creatures up to Huge size who are incapable of teleporation magic and abilities.
Even in the unlikely event that you don’t find some of these spells useful, you can swap it with another spell of the abjuration or transmutation school from the Warlock, Wizard, or Sorcerer spell list any time you gain a Sorcerer level.
Restore Balance
Also at first level, you gain the ability tonullify advantage or disadvantage applied to a roll as a reaction. The creature making the roll must be in your sight and within 60 feet of you. You can use this reaction a number of times per day equal to your proficiency bonus. This is an extremely powerful reaction as all dice manipulation abilities gear the game’s results towards your party’s favor.
Spells like Shield and Absorb Elements will also be competing for your reaction in combat. Be certain that you won’t need your reaction to cast one of these spells before using Restore Balance during a fight.
Bastion Of Law
At sixth level, you can spend one to five sorcery points as an action to give a creature within 30 feet of you a magical barrier shield.The warded creature can roll a number of d8s equal to the sorcery points you expended and reduce an instance of damage by the number rolled.
This feature amounts to additional hit points that you’re able to give to another creature simply by expending sorcery points. An additional 5d8 of hit points is a huge boon for any character, however, you’ll want to make sure you leave yourself some sorcery points so that you can still use your metamagic feature.
A creatured warded with Bastion of Law can use the damage reduction multiple times if it still has dice left over. For example, it might want to use a single d8 after suffering a small amount of damage. If you spent three sorcery points when you used this feature, it can still use the other two d8s to reduce the damage of a future instance of damage.
Trance Of Order
At 14th level, you can use a bonus action to make it so that attacks against you can’t benefit from advantage for a minute. Furthermore,any d20 roll of nine or lower you make during this time is automatically treated as a ten. You can spend 5 sorcery points to regain this feature before finishing a long rest.
While this can save your Sorcerer’s skin in a pinch, it’s especially notable because it makes all of your rolls a minimum of ten for one minute.It will usually be best to use this feature offensively any time your party finds themselves facing a powerful opponent such as a boss monster.
Clockwork Cavalcade
At 18th level, you canuse an action to summon spirits of order in a 30-foot cube around you. These spirits cannot be harmed and they do the following within the cube before disappearing.
Additionally, you can regain the use of this feature by spending seven sorcery points. This is a massive area of effect heal that also has the added benefit of repairing structures and ending harmful spells in the immediate vicinity. As far as capstone abilities go, it’s hard to ask for more: especially because you can use this feature again by spending sorcery points.
Best Species For A Clockwork Soul Sorcerer
As the Sorcerer is a Charisma based spellcaster, any species from the Player’s Handbook that provides a +2 bonus to Charisma is a solid choice. This includes thehalf-elfandtiefling. However, if you’re using thecustomizing your origin character optionsfrom Tasha’s Guide to Everything,choose to increase your Charisma score by two.
As always, thevariant humanandcustom lineagespecies are the strongest in the game as they provide access to a free feat at first level.If you’re playing in a game with house rules that allow all species a free feat at first level,consider the following options:astral elf, eladrin, shadar-kai, githyanki, satyr,andyuan-ti.
Astral elf
Yuan-Ti
These species are allnotable for theiraccess to additional spellcasting, superior movement through teleportation abilities,andpowerful skill proficiencies. Spellcasters are known for their low hit points pools, so the ability toteleport out of a hairy situationis irreplaceable: especially when you can do so a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus.
Best Ability Scores For A Clockwork Soul Sorcerer
Sorcerers are Charisma based spellcasters, somaxing out your Charisma should be your primary goal. This ability score affects your spell save DC (Difficulty Class) and spell attack rolls, and you will be casting a spell that uses one of these modifiers nine times out of ten during combat.
Beyond that, as Charisma based casters,Sorcerers also benefit from high persuasion, deception, performance,andintimidation ability checks. These are all super useful skills to use during social interaction with non-player characters (NPCs) and you should gain proficiency in as many of them as possible.
Yoursecond most important ability scoreisConstitution. This is an important ability score for all characters as it provides you with more hit points with every level, however, it’s especially big for Sorcerers thanks to your proficiency in Constitution saving throws. Many enemies will force you to make Constitution saving throws, so getting your modifier as high as possible is huge.
A high Constitution will also help you maintain concentration on your spells.
Dexterityis the next score you should typically focus on as it will increase your Armor Class (AC). However, if you’re playingin a party without an Intelligence based character,there’s a strong case forfocusing on Intelligence over Dexterity.This is so that at least one character in the party has a good chance at succeeding on Intelligence based skill checks.
Arcana, History, Investigation, and Religion are all important skills that will reveal important details about the world to your party. A party without a character who has a decent Intelligence score and proficiency in some of these skills is at a massive disadvantage as far as gathering information is concerned. This is often much more costly for your team than a lower AC.
Unfortunately, Wisdom and Strength are not the Sorcerer’s strong suit.Wisdom is more important than Strengthas failing Wisdom saving throws can be devastating, and the Perception skill is the most important skill in the game. In other words, dump both of these scores, but try and have a higher Wisdom if possible.
Best Feats For A Clockwork Soul Sorcerer
As with all characters, your selection of feats will greatly customize what your character’s capabilities and is among the most important decisons you’ll make in your character’s career. The Sorcerer benefits greatly from any feat that’s good for a spellcaster or Charisma based character, butthe metamagic adept feat in particular is a standout pickfor the Clockwork Soul.
As we saw in the Clockwork Soul’s feature section, many of its features can be used againby expending an appropriate number of sorcery pointstoregain the ability. The metamagic adept feat gives youan additional two sorcery pointsto spend towards refueling these features: an invaluable boon that can’t be matched by any other feat.
Below is a table of all the feats to consider for your Clockwork Soul Sorcerer’s career.
Aberrant dragonmark
Fey touched
Inspiring leader
War caster
Ritual caster
Skill expert
Shadow touched
Metamagic adept
The Best Spells For A Clockwork Soul Sorcerer
The best spells for a Sorcerer are a bit different from other spellcasting classes owing to their Metamagic abilities.Twin spell, heightened spell,anddistant spellin particular all have the ability to make spell selections that would normally be overlooked into clear cut choices for a Sorcerer who wields these Metamagics.
Other Metamagic options are also good choices: it just depends on the kind of Sorcerer you’re trying to build. Careful spell is great for area of effect spells, subtle spell can make your character into a shrewd negotiator, and so forth. However, the options mentioned above are more generically useful for the incredibly common situation of combat.
Of course,generically good spellslikeShield, Absorb Elements, Detect Magic, Suggestion, Misty Step, Invisibility, Web, Fireball, Hypnotic Pattern,andDispel Magicare always worthy candidates. However, you may also want to consider the following spells if you have the related Metamagic at hand.
Twinned spell
Distant spell
2nd
Twinned spell or Heightened spell
Twinned spell or Distant spell
4th
6th
No
Ultimately, the Clockwork Soul Sorcerer is an interesting take on the Sorcerer class asit attempts to bind the chaos of the Sorcerer’s inherentandoften somewhat unexplained inherent magical ability with the order of law. The sky is the limit as far as where you take your Sorcerer’s story, but the juxtaposition of these two very dissimilar origins is a great starting point.
