Clockwork Sorcery Sorcerer: D&D 2024 Subclass Optimisation Guide

Bring order to the multiverse with clockwork sorcery.

These sorcerers have been infused with the magical influences of order. It’s likely origin is from Mechanus, an outer plane whose denizens seek to order the universe in the way that they see fit, which can often seem strange to mortals.

This means that the magic of clockwork sorcery will enable you to bring balance in combat. This might involve removing conditions, revoking advantages or disadvantages, preventing low rolls and guarding against devastating attacks.

Essentially, this is a strong subclass with a lot of features that can tip the tide of combat back in your favour. If you’re looking for a sorcerer subclass with strong options for buffs and debuffs, then clockwork sorcery is probably the one for you.

You can check out my tactics and optimisations for the 2024 version of the clockwork sorcerer below.

At a glance

Powerful spellcasting class with enhanced spells
Makes a capable party face
Possesses spells that can end nasty conditions and magical effects
Able to tip the tides of combat in your own favour through various buffs and debuffs

What’s changed in D&D 2024?

Almost nothing. The clockwork sorcery subclass is pretty much unchanged from the version in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything other than a few wording tweaks and the changes that come from the core sorcerer class.

Related articles

Clockwork sorcerer features

Sorcerer DND 2024 — Human sorcerer: Wizards of the Coast

Clockwork spells – Lv3

How it works

You get the below spells as prepared spells.

Sorcerer level	Spells
3	Aid, alarm, lesser restoration, protection from evil and good
5	Dispel magic, protection from energy
7	Freedom of movement, summon construct
9	Greater restoration, wall of force

Tactics

There’s a bunch of great buffs in here like aid, protection from evil and good, lesser restoration and greater restoration.
While you’re no healer, you will be able to fill in some clerical duties by tackling conditions.
Aid is a handy preparation for tricky encounters with bonus hit points, that can stack with a source of temporary hit points too.
With these spells, you also become the one to deal with things that go wrong. Between dispel magic, greater and lesser restoration, you should be able to handle most negative effects that can affect a character.

Restore balance – Lv3

How it works

You can use your reaction to prevent a d20 test being made with advantage or disadvantage a few times per long rest.

Tactics

You’ll want to ensure your charisma is bolstered to get the most uses out of this (but this should be the case anyway).
Probably the best use of this feature is against saving throws which tend to have the largest effects. Though attacks are the more likely to be affected by advantage or disadvantage. It’s also worth being aware that a lot of monsters in D&D 2024 can make attacks that when they hit, cause an automatic condition that may be worth protecting against.

Bastion of law – Lv6

How it works

Ward a creature with 1-5 sorcery points to provide 1-5d8 in damage reduction when hit.

Tactics

The main question is whether expending sorcery points on d8 of reduced damage is worthwhile compared to what else you might expend sorcery points on.
If we work by the idea that 1 sorcery points is worth a 1st level spell (as this is the exchange that can be made through the core class), we can compare this to healing word (a 1st level spell). This feature will average 4.5 less damage per sorcery point while healing word will average 5hp healing. However, this feature doesn’t require any kind of action to activate and is capable of preventing becoming incapacitated whereas healing word recovers from being incapacitated. On that basis, I’d consider it a little better than a pretty good 1st level spell and worth the points.
But you will want to balance this against other things you’ll want to be able to do with your sorcery points (like metamagic).
You can also only use this on one creature at a time. As such, it can be worth providing as much protection as you can afford at the same time, especially for a martial character that is likely to take a bruising.
If you’re struggling to expend all your sorcery points in an adventuring day, then this is also a great way to maximise your resources.

Trance of order – LV14

How it works

Use a bonus action to prevent any attack rolls against you from being done with advantage and whenever you make a d20 test, you can treat a roll of 9 or lower as a 10.

Tactics

This is exceptionally powerful. While preventing advantage on attacks is pretty good, being very reliable at d20 tests is even better. You should have a +10 to your spell attacks rolls at this level and innate sorcery means you can also have advantage here. That means a minimum of a 20 to hit which is enough for most creatures, including high CR creatures like the arch-hag and the blob of annihilation.

Of course, it’s more meaningless if you’re mostly invoking saving throw spells on enemies.

However, I’d consider upcasting chromatic orb with this invoked. This will mean almost guaranteed hits on every bounce of the spell. If you upcast to level 5, you have a 98% chance of rolling a double to enable another bounce. At level 7, this becomes 100%! You can check out my chromatic orb guide to see just how deadly this can be combined with trance of order.

Clockwork cavalcade – Lv18

How it works

Create a 30ft cube that will heal, repair and dispel magic within its area.

Tactics

This is one to pull out when situations look a little dire. Removing every spell you choose of 6th level or lower from within the area is strong. The healing is also substantial. Repairing tends not to be particularly useful, but situationally, could be good in rare instances (you could maybe fix a broken segment of a wall in a siege for instance).

Building an optimised clockwork sorcerer

Elf sorcerer casting a spell — Elf sorcerer: Wizards of the Coast

Like all sorcerers, the clockwork sorcery subclass is capable of casting powerful, enhanced spells to either destroy or disrupt enemies. The focus of the clockwork sorcerer though, is to mingle this with buffs and debuffs, making themselves and allies more reliable while reducing the impact of enemies.

Largely, this means that similar attributes remain valuable for a clockwork sorcerer as for other sorcerers. Below is my advice for optimising and building a clockwork sorcerer:

Ability scores

Recommended options

Charisma: Your most important ability score. You’ll need this for casting spells. It also enhances some of your metamagic options and can be used for face skills too. This will also give you more uses of some of your clockwork sorcery features.
Dexterity: You’re light on AC with no armor options available as standard so a decent dexterity will be important for a decent AC. This includes if you take mage armor or the lightly armoured feat.
Constitution: With the lowest hit dice in the game, you’ll need all the hit points you can grab. Constitution will help here. It’ll also help when you need to maintain concentration on spells.

Options to avoid

Strength: Dump, you’ve got no use for strength.
Wisdom: Only useful for some skills and saving throws.
Intelligence: You don’t need intelligence, you cast spells with your charisma.

Ability score	Point Buy	Standard Array
Strength	8	10
Dexterity	15	14
Constitution	15	13
Intelligence	8	8
Wisdom	8	12
Charisma	15	15

Skills

Recommended options

Deception: Important face skill, especially if your party often gets in sticky situations.
Insight: Your intelligence may not be high, but if you’re going to be the party face, you might want this to be decent.
Intimidation: Less important than your other face skills, but still a decent option.
Persuasion: Your most important face skill.

Options to avoid

Arcana: Not a bad option, but you won’t be investing in intelligence. Only go for this if you have another party face and no one else to take this in the party.
Religion: Also a decent option, but not as important as face skills and you don’t have the ability scores to support this so only take if you’re the only option for religion proficiency.

Species/race

As a potent spellcaster but also a fairly vulnerable character, you’ll want a species that helps with the following:

Resilience: This could come in the form of more hit points, but also in being more evasive like through flight or teleportation.
Damage dealing: Often, you’ll be tasked with dealing big damage with enhanced spells. Anything that can aid this will be handy.
Innate spellcasting: More spell options is always handy, and you should get some free uses too.

Recommended options

Aasimar (2024): Damage resistances as well as some light healing for recovering allies are both solid. But you’re mainly here for temporary flight which can keep you out of melee range of most creatures so a handy safety feature.
Elf (2024): An extra skill and darkvision are both helpful. You’re mainly here for the innate spellcasting though. High Elf is a good option for misty step and an extra cantrip (toll the dead is a great choice you don’t get naturally). Drow is good for buffs and debuffs with the likes of faerie fire and darkness. I’d avoid the Wood Elf though, it’s mainly a stealth species which isn’t the clockwork sorcerer’s strength.
Gnome (2024): Extra magic resilience is great as you’ll undoubtedly be the target of some spells. Minor illusion and speak with animals are better options than the Rock Gnome has, especially as a charisma-focused character (you may need to get persuasive with some beasts).
Human (2024): An extra skill can help round out your face skills. You can also pick up another origin feat. Something like tough is handy as it’s available with backgrounds that don’t work well for a sorcerer. The consistent supply of heroic inspiration is helpful as well.
Tiefling (2024): 4 extra spells known is mainly what you’re after here. I’d favour the infernal legacy.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds are much more important now with D&D 2024 with ability score increases, origin feats and skills all now linked to your background.

For a sorcerer, I’d prioritise charisma and then one of dexterity or constitution with the below being your best options:

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Charlatan	Dexterity, constitution, charisma	Skilled	Deception, sleight of hand	Forgery kit
Entertainer	Strength, dexterity, charisma	Musician	Acrobatics, performance	One kind of musical instrument
Merchant	Constitution, intelligence, charisma	Lucky	Animal handling, persuasion	Navigator’s tools
Wayfarer	Dexterity, wisdom, charisma	Lucky	Insight, stealth	Thieves’ tools

Merchant and wayfarer are both good options depending on whether you want to prioritise constitution or dexterity and which skills are most important to you.

Feats

Origin feats

I’d say the below are your best origin feats for a clockwork sorcerer:

Alert: Unless you’re using careful spell, you may find it useful to take your turn early in combat before those pesky martials get in the way of your AoE spells. It also gives you a chance to thin the herd early on and kick in something like trance of order before enemies have a chance to impose saving throws on you.
Lucky: Advantage on d20 tests and disadvantage on your aggressors is universally useful. This is an extremely clockwork sorcery type feat and adds to your repertoire of buffs and debuffs.
Magic initiate: Grab some extra spells known from another spell list.
Musician: A generally excellent origin feat for helping your allies out with some heroic inspiration (kind of like a slightly better lucky, you give to your friends).
Tough: Really valuable extra hit points for a class lacking so much in durability.

General feats

Actor: Can be a good option for a party face if you want to do a lot of impersonations.
Fey touched: Misty step is great for staying safe. Plus you get more spells known. You can read my fey-touched guide for more advice.
Inspiring leader: Temporary hit points after every rest for your whole party is very handy. You can combine this with the aid spell too which increases hit points maximum so can combine with temporary hit points for a hefty hit point boost! Just make sure you’re increasing your charisma for this feat.
Lightly armored: If you don’t want to keep spending spell slots on mage armor, then you could invest in this, especially as studded leather and a shield will give you better AC than mage armor.
Mage slayer: Great for disrupting mages and gives you something similar to legendary resistance.
Ritual caster: If you’re lacking a wizard, you might want to consider this for a bunch of utility spells you often can’t afford to invest in otherwise (like find familiar or detect magic). You can check out my full guide to ritual casting for more tips.
Shadow touched: Invisibility and an illusion spell are great for a caster class.
Skill expert – Get really good at a face skill, scouting skill or any other skills.
Spell sniper: Great for bypassing cover and getting some extra range on your spells.
War caster: Great for better concentration and it stacks with constitution proficiency.

Weapons

Really, the only reason to go with weapons over spells is if you happen to be caught in an anti magic field, a silence spell or something similar. Grab a light crossbow and dagger just in case.

It’s possible at early levels, with a decent dexterity, that a light crossbow might slightly outperform your cantrips. By level 5 though, your cantrips will definitely be outperforming any weapons and with metamagic and innate sorcery, you might hit that point earlier anyway.

Armor

You don’t have any armor proficiency, but if you do want to buff your AC, the mage armor spell is a great option. You can also grab the lightly armoured feat for light armor and shield proficiency.