Among 5th Edition’s spellcasters who learn their spells, Sorcerers know the fewest:
One fun way to supplement Sorcerer spell progression is to add spell lists to its subclasses, as some other classes do. The D&D design team has also tinkered with adding subclass spell lists to Sorcerers in various Unearthed Arcana installments, including:
- Giant Soul (abandoned)
- Storm (list removed from print version)
- Aberrant Mind (reworked without list)
- Clockwork Soul (still in testing, fate unknown)
For whatever reason, Wizards of the Coast has not yet printed an official Sorcerer with an expanded spell list, but that doesn’t stop us!
As for the Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer, this is also a great opportunity to drive home more draconic flavor. With so many different dragons, we can assign them each different spells based on their color:
Note: If you don’t have access to Acid Stream (currently in Unearthed Arcana), consider Arms of Hadar or Inflict Wounds as substitutes for the black and copper dragon’s 1st level spell. In fact, feel free to swap out any spells to mold this chart for your table!
Keeping these spells in your back pocket really supports the dragon’s innate magical abilities, from their breath weapon to their lair actions. This pushes the Draconic Bloodline’s elemental nature to the narrative forefront. Mechanically, having more elemental spells allows the Sorcerer more reliable use of the Elemental Affinity class feature without compromising their overall utility in spell selection. Having different spell sets for different dragon types makes the subclass itself more replayable, since a different flavor is evoked each time.
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Hello, I think this is very interesting. While it makes draconic sorcerers more in line with other spellcasters, are you worried that it makes the draconic bloodline sorcerer now more powerful than the other sorcerer subclasses? Would two sorcerers in a same party- one with draconic and one let’s say is a storm sorcerer- would you think the non-draconic one would feel they drew the short stick?
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I wouldn’t be against giving expanded spell lists to other sorcerer classes. It’s worth noting that some of the later publications (such as Storm Sorcerer) did experiment with expanded spell lists in playtesting, which were removed. So that might indicate that they were balanced to be a little stronger without the supplementary spells. If you decide you want to put them back in, maybe go pull the list from that UA.
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I personally think they should just get the Dragon Breath spell. That’s a great spell that’s scalable and versatile for all dragon breath damage types.
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