Disclaimer: I've recently been working on a series of guides to help players try out playing with mods that upscale the game's difficulty.
In specific, my guides cover building all four members of a party, to tackle the highest possible difficulty level, which I am calling the Nightmare Difficulty modlist. See the FAQ for details.
This is a mini-guide to supplement the Sorcerer guide which I will be posting really soon(Monday). Remember this is in the context of playing on hyper-upscaled difficulty, and this level of optimization and min-maxing is insanely overkill for base Tactician. Of course, feel free to use this info however you like.
The basic principle here is to use the massive reserves of gold that a party accumulates by late game for something useful. For most classes, there is simply no feasible way to spend the gold you make if you actually loot and sell everything you can. Not even mentioning pickpocketing, which is always an option. But not for Sorcerers.
First, let me introduce you to our subject class: the Sorcerer. Sorcerer's defining characteristic is Metamagic. In specific, we are going to be talking about these two:
- Twinned Spell: Allows a Sorcerer to cast a single-target spell on two targets
- Quickened Spell: Allows a Sorcerer to cast a spell that normally requires an Action as a Bonus Action
Now, you'll find lots of talk about the infamous, signature move of Sorcerers, Twinned Haste. And yes, those posts are right, Twinning haste is already really strong, and often makes Sorcerer seem like the best support in the game.
But we are going to take Twinned and Quickened Spells a step further. We are going to use these two insane mechanics to abuse what I consider to be the most ridiculous and utterly broken consumable in the entire game(and it's not even remotely close).
I am talking about Scrolls.
Okay. There are some pretty powerful consumables in BG3. For example, 27 STR elixirs are often considered to be so game-breaking that they are in a class of their own. And sure - they're really strong, and cost efficient.
Scrolls see some discussion in the sense that they are used in combination with 1 wizard to be scribed on any caster in the game. Already pretty good... but...
This is not even close to what makes them as strong as they are. The reason that Scrolls are so stupidly strong is that they are treated like regular spells in the eyes of Metamagic.
This means that a Sorcerer can treat Scrolls as an external "pool" of spell slots to use with Metamagic; suddenly, things start getting completely out of control.
Assuming you have enough scrolls(and you can pretty easily get enough) - you can start completely rethinking late game Sorcerer builds specifically to leverage the fact that you don't even need spell slots to use spells. What used to be a NOVA turn, is now going to become your average turn.
You thought Haste breaking the action economy is busted? What about breaking the spell economy?
Step 1: Secure funding
Loot and sell everything. I mean it literally. If you can pick it up or loot it, do it, send it to camp, and sell it all later. Do not miss anything. You will have more gold than you know what to do with by act 2, and even more than that by act 3. I went into act 3 with about 36000 gold.
You can also pickpocket/knock out traders and get tons of gold - but you really don't need to.
Step 2: Open your portfolio
The second step in Sorconomics starts way back in act 2. This is technically an optional step - but if you're going to do this, you may as well do this the right way.
We need to stockpile a specific item in this act: Potion of Angelic Reprieve
Lann Tarv, the bugbear at the entrance to Moonrise will sell two of these on every inventory refresh. You should either buy both out after each long rest OR cheese it using level ups/long rest spam.
I'll explain why later. Just buy them, leave them in camp, and do not use any yet. Just like investing in real-life, buy it and forget about it.
Personally I left act 2 with 20 of these just by long resting normally. If you want to cover just the big 3 fights in act 3, you need ~15.
Step 3: Invest in Big Magic
Fast forward to act 3. As soon as you reach Baldur's Gate, you can head to Sorcerous Sundries. There, you can talk to Lorroakan's Projection who will sell a massive collection of Scrolls which refresh on long rest or level up.
The Scrolls we care about buying are high damage level 6 scrolls. Since each one costs 1200 gold, we need to be picky. We going to target scrolls that can be twinned, or get extremely high value when quickened.
We want to buy:
- Chain Lightning - this can be twinned and results in up to 8 chains per cast, each dealing an average of 45 damage (90 if wet).
- This also procs riders like like Bolts of Doom and HTS: Lightning. This is the most consistent damage option we can get from scrolls - and by extension the most important to stockpile.
- Chains do not seem to hit the same target twice. Meaning the highest value from twinning this is at 8 total targets. It is still worth twinning it on even 5, though.
- Disintegrate - at an average of 75(150 on vulnerable target) force damage per scroll, this scroll is mostly useful to quicken and burst a priority target. It can be twinned and hit two targets as well.
- Otiluke's Freezing Sphere - this is an often overlooked spell that is unironically one of the strongest AOE spells in the game. This allows you to lob a "frost grenade" that deals 35(70 to wet targets) cold damage on average.
- Unlike Chain Lightning, it is thrown in an arc - so you can use it at some really weird angles, where Chain may not reach.
- It is cold damage, so it also benefits from "Wet" and can make isolated Surface Ice. By this I mean, if you don't want to cover a whole water puddle in ice, and just a specific area.
- This spell does not have an AOE cap - so if you can group like 10+ targets with Black Hole or something, it slaps so hard.
- On 6+ grouped targets, this is usually a better use of a quickened spell than Chain Lightning. If you have actions for twinned spells, Chain Lightning is always better.
Once you have sufficiently accumulated the necessary Potions and Scrolls, and have a good amount of Spell Save DC from gear, the real fun starts.
Step 1: Consider market conditions
You'll want to use these Scrolls in fights where there are a lot of targets, that have a lot of HP to cut through.
Assuming you play with my recommended modlist, these are the fights where you could consider cashing out on your investments: Gortash + Watchers, Firework Shop, House of Hope, House of Grief, Foundry, Vault, Carrion, Orin, Szarr Palace & Final Fight.
If you do not engage in stealing from/pickpocketing traders, your gold will be limited, so you should focus on these fights in specific: House of Hope, House of Grief & Final Fight as they are the hardest.
So, assuming you are at one of those fights, you now meet the conditions to cash out on your investments.
Step 2: Prepare to cash out
First of all, you need to consider the following question: Now that we don't need spell slots to cast spells, and we can still get insane value from twinning/quickening our Scrolls - is there a better Sorcerer build available?
And of course, the answer is undoubtedly yes. My Sorcerer guide will cover a few options, but for the sake of example, I will assume you have switched to the suddenly viable 9 Storm Sorcerer/3 Thief Rogue build.
Assuming you haste your self, you now have enough actions and bonus actions to use Two Twinned Scrolls & Two Quickened Scrolls per turn.
Remember when I mentioned stocking up on that potion in act 2? Well - this is why. If you are doing two Twinned & Quickened Scrolls every turn, you are going to burn through a total of 18 Sorcerer Points per turn. Ouch.
But don't worry! We prepared for this. Follow these simple steps:
- Convert every single one of your Spell Slots(except level 2) into Sorcery Points. Should give you a total of 30 points.
- Convert every Sorcery Point into level 2 spell slots. You should have like 13 total.
- Drink a Potion of Angelic Reprieve(the one we stockpiled in act 2). It restores all of your level 1/2 spell slots.
- Convert every one of your level 2 and 1 spell slots into Sorcery Points.
- Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you have around 110 - 120 Sorcery Points.
- Restore some level 1 spells for Shield, some level 3 spell slots for Counterspell and Haste. Maybe a level 5 slot for a high level Create Water too.
Since the potions are not a long rest, you keep your Sorcery Points when using them. They snapshot your maximum level two spell slots when restoring them, meaning you get around 30 points per potion.
Congratulations. You are ready for the final step!
Step 3: Cash out and profit!
Apply wet to the entire room, and have fun doing potentially over 2000 damage each turn, for like 5+ turns in a row. You can in theory do that damage indefinitely, if you can even find enemies that have enough HP to survive it. Just add more Sorcery Points via potion as needed.
For Twinned(Actions), stick to using only Chain Lightning. If there are under 5 targets, don't bother twinning.
For Quickened(Bonus Actions), use Chain Lightning or Otiluke's Freezing Ball on 6+ targets.
Happy blasting, my fellow Sorcerers.
Can't any class do this?
Of course, just keep in mind, Sorcerer is way better at this because of Metamagic. You get more value per Scroll and per action than any other caster, and can use Scrolls with bonus actions.
Technically, there's an Illithid power that replaces Quickened Spell entirely, but Sorcerer still has Twinned, which is more important anyway.
Storm and Draconic Sorcerer can also get some nice bonuses to lightning damage.
Cant you get infinite Sorcerer points with the potions?
Yes. Kind of like Hamarhraft, I'll leave you to self impose your own limits. Roughly 30 points per potion is what I consider reasonable, and the limit I recommend running with. But of course you can just use them to your hearts content and generate infinite spell slots - skipping scrolls entirely.
I don't see much fun in that - at least Scrolls have a cost to their power, so it's not something you can use on literally every fight in the game - they are a limited resource that you only have so much of. Balancing and theorycrafting where to use them is part of the fun.
Having cleared the entire game with this modlist on max settings, I can confidently say you do not need over 100 points for any fight anyway.
Is the game even fun at this point?
Hell yes. Especially if you use the Nightmare Modlist on max settings.
In-fact, you pretty much need to think of/use strategies like this to clear some of act 3's encounters. For example, there is roughly 14,000 total HP to cut through between every enemy in the House of Grief.
Here is a video of one of my best & cleanest attempts at that exact encounter, where I actually beat it using a 9 Storm Sorc / 3 Thief Rogue, if you want to see what I am talking about.
Does this work in the base game?
Of course!
But then again - I'm not sure there are any fights that have sufficiently healthy targets to actually warrant this. This is really more for blasting through fights with groups of enemies that have like 500-1,000 HP each. But you know, knock yourself out.
If you plan to try solo Tactician as a Sorcerer, this is the way to make act 3 a breeze.
Do I need to pickpocket traders to pay for this?
Nah. If you loot everything, and don't buy useless stuff, I think you can enter act 3 with like 45,000 or so gold. You'll get more scrolls/gold as you work through act 3 to help with upkeep.
It's expensive alright - but what else do you plan to use that gold for? Buying out every tavern's alcohol collection?
Does this work without the potions?
It works in the sense that you have unlimited level 6 spells per fight, but ultimately at 1200 gold each, they are not as worth it without Twinning, and you'll start having useless bonus actions fairly quickly. Still great though.
Nightmare Modlist / Settings?
The descriptions of videos in this playlist have it. Settings are all the highest available. Stronger bosses is the pre-nerf version(before patch 3).
What actual Sorcerer build do I use?
I'll have a detailed Sorcerer guide out soon(Monday) that goes over just that. Link will be here when it's out.
Edit: forgot to mention orin in key fights. lmfao.
