How To Turn D&D’s Elemental Sorcerer Into Ten Subclasses

There is one subclass in Dungeons & Dragons that can easily be repurposed ten times, as the Pyromancer can have its element switched by just changing a few words. The Sorcerer class got the short end of the stick in the Player’s Handbook, as it only received two subclasses – Draconic Bloodline and Wild Magic.

Sorcerers gain their powers from their bloodline, as a magical being can be found somewhere in their family line. They’re kind of like the X-Men of the D&D world, as they gain their spellcasting abilities naturally, rather than developing them from research and training. All it takes to become a spellcaster in a D&D campaign world is for the character’s ancestor to be a dragon or a Lovecraftian nightmare from beyond the stars.

There have been numerous crossovers between D&D and Magic: The Gathering over the past few years, with the most recent being Mythic Odysseys of Theros, which bring an ancient Greek setting to the D&D multiverse. Game Designer James Wyatt released short supplements for D&D that brought other Magic: The Gathering planes into the game. These were part of a series called Plane Shift, and they included write-ups for Zendikar, Innistrad, Kaladesh, Amonkhet, Ixalan, and Dominaria. The Kaladesh Plane Shift included a new Sorcerous Origin, called the Pyromancer, and it can easily be transformed into ten different subclasses.

How D&D’s Subclass Options Can Be Expanded

The Pyromancer’s special abilities are all tied to fire damage type. As such, it’s easy to transform it into a D&D subclass that matches any of the other elemental types in the game. All the player needs to do is switch the damage types in the description. They would also need to change the ability names, with Heart of Fire becoming Heart of Cold, Fire in the Veins becoming Frost in the Veins, etc.

A cold damage version of this Dungeons & Dragons class could be a Cryomancer, a poison damage caster could be a Venomancer, an acid damage caster could be an Acidmancer, a radiant damage caster could be a Holymancer, a lightning damage caster could be an Electromancer, a thunder damage caster could be a Sonicmancer, a force damage caster could be a Kinetomancer, and a psychic damage caster could be a Psimancer. Players could call the necrotic damage caster a Necromancer, but that name has already been taken, so maybe they could be Necrosismancers? Sorcerers and Wizards already have a frosty relationship, and they don’t need to add “ownership of the Necromancer copyright” to the list.

Playing an elemental caster in Dungeons & Dragons is always risky, as it gives the DM an open invitation to throw creatures immune to that damage at the player. As such, it’s usually better to play a character with access to a wide range of ways of dealing with enemies. The people who want to master one type of damage and become an elemental archmage can find all of the power they’d ever need in the Pyromancer and its possible Dungeons & Dragons variants.

Source: Wizards of the Coast

About The Author

Scott Baird
(2515 Articles Published)

Scott has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016 and regularly contributes to The Gamer. He has previously written articles and video scripts for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz.
A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started out as a film student before moving into journalism. It turned out that wasting a childhood playing video games, reading comic books, and watching movies could be used for finding employment, regardless of what any career advisor might tell you. Scott specializes in gaming and has loved the medium since the early ‘90s when his first console was a ZX Spectrum that used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott now writes game reviews for Screen Rant and The Gamer, as well as news reports, opinion pieces, and game guides. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.

See also  10 Things (Almost) Every Disney Villain Actually Does

More From Scott Baird