Sorcerer is a popular class choice inBaldur’s Gate 3, partially because itis the default class of the origin character known as “The Dark Urge.“But aside from being the favorite choice for a bloodthirsty dragonborn,the sorcerer has a lot going for it. The class uses charisma as its stat for spellcasting, which pertains to many of the most important ability checks in the game. It also gets proficiency in constitution saving throws, which is great for a primary caster, and the ability to modify its spells using metamagic.
The sorcerer is also one of the four classes that chooses its subclass at level one, making it a popular option for multiclassing, and making its subclass features pretty important in determining its strength. The sorcerer inBG3hasthree options for its subclass: wild magic, draconic ancestry, and storm. Each comes with unique powers at levels one, six, and eleven, all themed around their particular brand of magic. While the question of"best subclass"is debatable, it is possible to rank these options on the power level they bring to the party.
Starting Features Of The Sorcerer Are Most Important
Level One Abilities Get The Most Use
Thefirst-level features that sorcerers get are the most importantto look at for determining character strength, since players will have them for the longest portion of the game, and since players who multiclass will likely only ever get that far in subclass advancement. One important thing to point out about sorcerer immediately is that none of the subclass options grant expanded spell lists at each level. This differs from many of the game’s other casters, and leaves the sorcerer with fewer spell options.
Regardless,starting with the storm sorcerer, their first-level feature is tempestuous magic, which allows them to fly after casting a spell. Specifically, they may use a bonus action to take off after using a spell of first level or higher, going up to thirty feet without taking opportunity attacks. This is much better than theDungeons & Dragonsstorm sorcerer ability, with a larger distance it can cover, and with movement mattering a lot more inBG3than manyD&Dgames. This effectively functions like a free use ofMisty Stepafter each spell, and is quite useful.
Next is the draconic ancestry sorcerer, which gets two abilities. The first, draconic resilience, grants them a boost to armor class while not wearing armor. It is the same boost offered byMage Armour, so essentially, these sorcerers don’t need to worry about taking that spell or spending a slot on it each day.They also get one extra hit point per level from this ability, giving these sorcerers a bit more health to work with. The other ability they get simply determines what kind of dragon their ancestor is, which doesn’t affect anything mechanically until later levels.
Wild Magic Sorcerers Are A Bit Harder To Quantify
Risk Is The Name Of This Subclass’s Game
While the other subclasses get fairly simple abilities at first level, the wild magic subclass immediately gets chaotic.Their starting feature, tides of chaos, allows them to gain advantage on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw once per short rest. Which sounds not great, until one considers how it affects the wild magic subclasses' other level one ability: wild magic surge.
Wild magic surges are the core part of wild magic sorcerer. Essentially, whenever one of these sorcerers casts a leveled spell, it has a 5% chance of triggering a surge. These “surges” cause a random magical effect to occur, which can be good or bad for the party. However,this chance rises immensely to 50% after a sorcerer uses tides of chaos, and tides of chaos recharges after each surge.
InDungeons & Dragons, the wild magic surge feature includes fifty different options, which tend to be more impactful (and dangerous) than theBG3options. However, this feature has rules that allow the DM to determine how often wild magic triggers, meaning that wild magic could happen more or less often in the TTRPG.
This means that wild magic sorcerers can get advantage for a lot of rolls throughout the day by constantly recharging this ability. And that is really useful, but the problem is that wild magic surges are unpredictable. There are 23 known effects that a surge can have, and of those, about 9 can be pretty negative for the player and their party. Some can be really helpful, providing an action surge or extra sorcery points, butthis subclass is much riskier than the others, making it difficult to compare.
Mid-Level Sorcerers Get More Comparable Features
Comparing Sorcery Point Consumption Is A Good Way To Gauge Usefulness
The sixth-level options for these subclasses are much easier to rank. The worst is by far the ability granted by the draconic ancestry subclass, called elemental affinity. Thisability adds damage equal to the sorcerer’s charisma modifier to spells that are of the same elemental type that they chosefor their ancestry at level one. This is alright, and definitely better for some elements than others. It also allows sorcerers to gain resistance to that same kind of damage type when they cast a spell that deals it, for one sorcery point.
This sounds somewhat useful, but is often not. Usually, enemies that deal a type of elemental damage, such as fire, have resistance or immunity to that same type. Sorcerers wouldn’t want to cast that damage type against them, meaning thattimes when it is good to deal fire damage and be resistant to it are scarce. Plus, for players that choose a dragonborn, there is a high likelihood they already have permanent resistance to that same damage type, making this useless.
What Is The Strongest Baldur’s Gate 3 Paladin Subclass?
Paladins can take one of four Oath in Baldur’s Gate 3, defining their subclass, but they are not created equally in terms of abilities and spells.
Wild Magic sorcerers get a better ability, albeit one that burns through sorcery points fast.Bend Luck allows these sorcerers to modify the result of any attack roll, ability check, or saving throwmade within 60 feet. They can add or subtract 1d4 from the result, at the cost of two sorcery points. This can be excellent for forcing enemies to fail spell saves or miss attacks, but its cost is too high to use all the time.
Heart Of The Storm Provides A Major Bonus To Storm Sorcerers
This Feature Fixes A Major Problem For Sorcerers
The storm sorcerer, on the other hand, gets an amazing group of abilities and features at this level with virtually no downside.Heart of the Storm allows them to deal extra damage equal to half their sorcerer levelwhen they deal lightning or thunder damage. This can reach up to six points, eventually overshadowing the elemental affinity feature draconic sorcerers get, and can apply to multiple creatures at once when casting AOEs.
Storm sorcerers get to add five new spells to their list at this level.
Not only that, butHeart of the Storm also grants two damage resistances: lightning and thunder. Granted, these damage types aren’t super common, but they tend to hit pretty hard when they show up (especially in act 3), and having these resistances permanently is nice. Finally, if all of that wasn’t enough,storm sorcerers get to add five new spells to their listat this level. Most of them are pretty good and not available on the typical sorcerer’s spell list. Sorcerers typically don’t get many spells, so this is huge.
High Level Sorcerer Abilities Range From Great To Almost Useless
Capstone Features Need To Do Something Exciting
When it comes to eleventh-level features, some of these subclasses have great options, while others fall terribly short. Starting with the latter, draconic ancestry sorcerers now have a 60-foot flying speed.Flightis really useful inBG3, and on the surface, a permanent flying speed is great. However, there are many ways for characters to get flight in the game, from potions to spells to a free illithid ability available to all characters, which meansplayers almost always have a better way to get flightthan through this.
This gives them much more control over their chaotic features and makes the subclass more viable.
The wild magic sorcerer gets a more useful feature that pertains to their surge ability. Controlled chaos allows these sorcerers to choose when their surge happens based on when an enemy casts a spell within range. This gives them much more control over their chaotic features and makes the subclass more viable, and when combined with an act 3 item called theRing of Feywild Sparks,this subclass can get very powerful in the endgame.
Finally, the storm sorcerer gets storm’s fury, a reaction they can use when hit by a melee attack. This deals lightning damage to the attacker and knocks them away. This is alright, but the damage is fairly low (equal to the sorcerers level), and it relies on the sorcerer getting hit. Obviously, in a best-case scenario, that doesn’t happen in the first place.Players shouldn’t have to put their sorcerer in harm’s way just to get this ability to trigger. It acts more as an emergency tool to get enemies away, but will likely not come up often.
Conclusions: Which Sorcerer Is Strongest?
Risky Power Versus Consistency
All three options here can be fun, and the sorcerer is already a strong class, so any of them are viable. However,the draconic ancestry sorcerer is clearly the weakest, with abilities that clash with racial and illithid features and generally don’t need to be used. Its early level features are nice for a multiclass, with extra health and armor, but it doesn’t hold up at higher levels.
1st Level
6th Level
11th Level
Heart of the Storm, Storm Spells
Storm’s Fury
Conversely, the wild magic sorcerer really only gets good at higher levels of play. Players will really want that eleventh-level feature to make the wild magic more manageable, and while the fun ofthis class does come from its unpredictability, that very same element makes it less consistently strong. That being said, once they get bend luck and controlled chaos, this is probably the strongest subclass available to sorcerers; it just takes a while to get there.
That leaves thestorm sorcerer as the most consistently powerful option, largely due to their sixth-level features. Five additional spells are hard to beat, they have great maneuverability, and can deal great damage with lightning and thunder AOEs. Their high-level feature isn’t very good, but for the majority of the game, they will have the most powerful abilities at their disposal. Especially whenmulticlassed with tempest cleric or fiend warlock, this sorcerer is a powerhouse.
