Spellfire Sorcery Sorcerer: D&D 2024 Subclass Optimisation Guide

Wield spellfire with this defensive sorcerer subclass.

Infused directly with magical powers from the weave itself, spellfire sorcerers wield radiant bursts of raw magic known as spellfire. This form of magic can be used to absorb spells, heal allies and sear enemies.

While not necessarily an exclusive form of sorcery within the Forgotten Realms, it is here that such sorcery has been most harnessed and sought after. Various factions court such sorcerers to bring their powers onto their side including the likes of the Harpers, the Cult of the Dragon and the Red Wizards.

Spellfire sorcery is a brand new sorcerer subclass introduced as part of the Heroes of Faerun supplement for D&D 2024. In this article, I’ve taken a deep dive into the capabilities and tactics of this sorcerer as well as how to create an optimised build.

At a glance

Powerful spellcasting class with enhanced spells
Makes a capable party face
A very defensive spellcaster
Can heal, apply temporary hit points and counterspell effectively

4/5 – Spellfire sorcery is a pretty good option for a partial healer and a defensive sorcerer with a bunch of ways to protect allies. This includes temporary hit points, counterspell and healing and restoration spells. Unfortunately, it falls a little flat offensively with some unbalanced choices between damage and defence.

Spellfire sorcery features

Sorcerer DND 2024 — Human sorcerer: Wizards of the Coast

Spellfire burst (Lv3) – 4/5

This is all a bonus on top of using a sorcery point which means no extra resources or action economy expended. Having said that, 1d4 extra damage hardly feels worth bothering with. At least the temporary hit points add your charisma modifier to make them reasonably impactful (assuming you’ve got a high charisma, which you really should). If you focus on the temporary hit points, then this is a really solid resilience feature, but the damage is just too weak.

Spellfire spells (Lv3) – 4/5

Some healing here makes spellfire sorcery an option as a backup healer if you don’t have a cleric or druid in the party. Dispel magic is important for any party and there’s some good fire/radiant spells like fire shield, wall of fire and guiding bolt in here.

Absorb spells (Lv6) – 3/5

Counterspell is really useful and restoring sorcery points is also a good buff that encourages preventing all sorts of spells. How often you get the chance to use counterspell (or want to considering it’s at least a 3rd level spell slot) is perhaps the main challenge here. It’s technically situational, but not too much so.

Honed spellfire (Lv14) – 4/5

You have the same issue here as with spellfire burst but worse. The temporary hit points are going to be an average of something like 21.5 (which will increase with levels), but the damage will be just 4.5. I just can’t see anyone picking the damage unless they’re maxed out on temporary hit points… Still, that’s a big bunch of temporary hit points so despite the design flaws, this remains a big buff.

Crown of spellfire (Lv18) – 5/5

Flight is great. Reducing damage from saving throw spells is also a great resilience feature and reducing damage taken by expending hit point dice is a good way of expending these dice. It’s limited in usage, but one for your big combat encounters.

Is spellfire sorcery any good?

Yes, it is, despite some design flaws. Fortunately, these flaws only affect your optional extras (damage over temporary hit points) so you always have a good option to choose even if your flexibility is reduced as a result.

Spellfire sorcery sort of fits a kind of defensive spellcaster mould. You grant temporary hit points, gain healing and restoration spells, can dispel magical effects and are particularly good at counterspell. In fact, defending against magic will then in turn, fuel enhanced spellcasting in a more aggressive way (by granting additional sorcery points).

It does these things fairly well which makes it a good subclass with a pretty great capstone feature. It’s just a shame that adding damage to spells feels so underwhelming compared to the more defensive option available to you.

4/5

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Building an optimised spellfire sorcerer

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

Building an optimised spellfire sorcerer isn’t much different from building any other sorcerer. You’ll want to focus a lot on spellcasting acumen, may want to consider some durability features and can hone in on their face skills.

Below I’ve compiled a load of advice for each of your spellfire sorcerer’s character options.

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 enhance the number of temporary hit points you dish out.
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.

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 spellfire 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
Flaming fist mercenary (HoF)	Strength, constitution, charisma	Tough	Intimidation, perception	Smith’s tools
Genie touched (HoF)	Dexterity, wisdom, charisma	Magic initiate (wizard)	Perception, persuasion	Glassblower’s tools
Merchant	Constitution, intelligence, charisma	Lucky	Animal handling, persuasion	Navigator’s tools
Rashemi wanderer (HoF)	Strength, constitution, charisma	Tough	Intimidation, perception	Cartographer’a tools
Spellfire initiate (HoF)	Constitution, intelligence, charisma	Spellfire spark	Arcana, perception	One kind of gaming set
Wayfarer	Dexterity, wisdom, charisma	Lucky	Insight, stealth	Thieves’ tools

Feats

Origin feats

I’d say the below are your best origin feats for a spellfire 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.
Lucky: Advantage on d20 tests and disadvantage on your aggressors is universally useful.
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).
Spellfire spark (HoF): Extra damage through casting a bonus action cantrips. This doesn’t require the use of sorcery points to do and won’t interfere with casting levelled spell with your action.
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 point 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.
Spellfire adept (HoF): You have a few radiant spells in your repertoire so can easily get the extra damage and may want to bypass resistances too.
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. In fact, you may just want to use that light crossbow for the casting of true strike which is one of your better cantrips and deals radiant damage which combines well with spellfire feats.

It’s possible at early levels, with a decent dexterity, that a light crossbow might slightly outperform your cantrips (unless you’ve taken true strike). 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 which is preferable, but takes resource away from ability score improvements and other feats.