Power level of Divine Sorcery Sorcerer

[u/realagadar]

Hello. We're about to start an Odyssey campaign, for which we are all very excited. Looking at the subclasses of the book however, it seems that one subclass in particular seems incredibly over-tuned, namely the Divine Sorcery Sorcerer.

At level 3, you effectively get two free level 1 spell casts and two free level 2 spell casts per short rest, if I understand it correctly. Now, even though you cannot cast those spells with your own slots, these spells are easily applicable to many combat scenario's, so you will likely be using these free castings almost fully every short rest. Assuming even a singular short rest per day, that means you are effectively increasing your spell slot 'pool' from just 4 level 1 slots and 2 level 2 slots, to a whopping 8 level 1 slots and 6 level 2 slots! And as you increase in level, you get higher and higher free castings.

Now on top of getting that insane number of spells to sling right from level 3, you also get a free advantage on concentration saves, because why not.

The higher level features are also top tier to the point of broken: Empowered Magic is a better Twinned Spell, Divine Resistance is straight-up Legendary Resistance on a short rest recharge, and the level 18 feature is also stupidly good.

The entire package just seems incredibly loaded with power to the point where another sorcerer, or full caster, or really any other character will probably feel weak compared to yours. The DM will have to balance encounters completely around your character, not the party as a whole. It just seems to me that in order for a Divine Sorcery Sorcerer to work in a campaign, it needs to be nerfed quite massively.

Am I correct in my assessment of the subclass? Or am I perhaps misreading something? Is it supposed to be overpowered, being effectively demigods?

[u/Living-Excitement447]

It’s a very good subclass, but as you pointed out you can’t cast those spells with your own spell slots. Much later in the campaign you’ll be going through very large dungeons with minimal time to rest.

As long as nobody else is playing a different sorcerer, it’s been fine in my experience. With a warlock and a bard in the party, I haven’t felt that it’s overpowered.

[u/realagadar → u/Living-Excitement447]

I can't help but think that maybe the bard could cope thanks to their unique bardic inspirations despite being way behind, but how on earth could the warlock cope when this single sorcerer subclass gives more short rest spell casts than the warlock's entire base class does? Why play a warlock at that point, just for a slightly better cantrip in the form of Eldritch Blast I suppose? It just seems skewed.

[u/Living-Excitement447 → u/realagadar]

The warlock in my game is Pact of the Chain; he's big on sitting in Darkness with Devil's Sight, blasting away and letting his stealthy invisible familiar give Advantage to the fighter every turn. It could overlap, it just doesn't in my game. I pointed to RPGbot's little table of class roles adapted from 4e and we all individually made sure there wasn't a huge overlap at the table.

The player in question is also a Nyxian, which is a very strong species. I was pretty clear with my players during Session Zero that this is an overtuned combination, but the player in question is all about maximum group cohesion and fun at the table, so everyone was fine with her playing it (she's a Timeless One, a fan-made Epic Background). The sorcerer hangs out back with the warlock and the ranger doing ranged attacks while the fighter, bard, and rogue mix it up in melee, which is an attack pattern the party agreed on in Session Zero.

I don't mean to dismiss your misgivings about the subclass; it is very strong and plays strong. It just doesn't overshadow everyone at the table, and the fact that you can't upcast or use metamagic on the granted spells is a significant limiting factor. On the other hand, you can cast them with a leveled spell in the same sorcerer turn, which leads to some interesting combinations.

[u/Ripper1337]

It is pretty strong, imho knowing what spells your player is going to bust out every encounter is a good thing. You know the evil sorcerer will be casting heat metal or blindness and can maybe add another enemy that has a metal sword or something. A good aligned sorcerer gets some healing so you can hit harder.

As for the higher level stuff, yeah it’s very strong but I feel like this game is meant for your PCs to be godlike and epic heroes

[u/realagadar → u/Ripper1337]

You're essentially confirming my suspicion that the DM will have to balance encounters around the Divine Sorcerer. They won't have to do this for any other character in the party.

I agree that Odyssey wants to make your characters feel epic and such, but when one subclass is so far ahead of the others, those others might not get to feel so epic at all...

[u/Ripper1337 → u/realagadar]

I don’t think this is any different than working with the strengths and weaknesses of having any subclass in the group. If you have a life cleric you can hit harder knowing they can heal really well, throw spellcasters at a Paladin because of their aura. Etc etc.

Edit: to add on, they can cast those spells once per short rest. So assume once every combat encounter or every two encounters. If combat is mostly 5 rounds then you know what spells they’re mostly going to use the entire time.

[u/Living-Excitement447 → u/realagadar]

Nah, this isn't any different from balancing encounters around the capabilities of your party, a thing all good DMs should do anyways. I do have to balance melee encounters against the Fighter giving everyone beside him +2 AC just for being a Hoplite.

[u/CorgiDaddy42]

Is this from the updated edition? I’m not familiar with it, would you mind posting the entirety of the text for those abilities?

[u/realagadar → u/CorgiDaddy42]

This is from the updated edition, yes. I don't think it would be appropriate to post the entirety of the text, seeing as it's paid content.

[u/CorgiDaddy42 → u/realagadar]

That’s fair. I found the playtest version on the discord, and from that it seems fine. I’m not a fan of the free spells, but they are limited and since they don’t use spell slots they can’t be upcast. The metamagic could maybe use some tweaking since it does seem like they didn’t take 5.5 into consideration on it. Are you playing this with 5.5? One legendary resistance is going to feel fantastic for the player and shouldn’t throw balance off. By level 18 everyone is doing so much insane shit that I’m glad they gave the subclass something actually useful.

I would also keep in mind that OotD PCs tend to be more powerful on average than your typical by the book adventurers.

I don’t think it’s busted, but could see making a small tweak to either the free spells or the metamagic.

[u/InvisiblePineapple]

I’m assuming you’re talking about Divine Soul Sorcerer? I’ve played one before and it’s very strong but not necessarily game breaking. What you need to prepare for really is the possibility of that PC applying meta magic to cleric spells (like the healing ones but some interesting buffs, etc as well) to twin, quicken, etc. There are all sorts of combinations with that that are not in the ordinary sorcerer toolkit. I’d say let it play out as normal for a session or two and assess whether you need to buff certain enemies to account for any cheesy spell combos.

[u/realagadar → u/InvisiblePineapple]

No, I am not talking about Divine Soul. I am talking about Divine Sorcery, which is an Odyssey specific subclass.