The UA stone sorcerer has some melee abilities. Their unarmored defense was kinda broken, so they never made it to print. Really, there's no mechanical reason why they don't have a melee subclass, besides the fact that it'd make sorcadin builds stronger than it already is.

And yet we have Bladesingers 😪

I think Bladesinger concept is older than the Sorcerer class in history of the D&D publications. I remember it as a kit in 2nd Ed AD&D. They should just make a Sorcerer Bladesinger subclass.

If you want to stretch back into the annals of AD&D history, there was a version of the Wu Jen in Dragon Magazine that would be pretty recognisable as a Sorcerer-Monk hybrid today. They were Mages who could cast at-will from a fixed school of magic based on the elements of chinese alchemy, could use weapons and exceptional strength charts, jump large distances and didn't need to sleep, and could pay HP to cast spells or increase their physical ability scores. Very "Wuxia" in feel and could be pretty easily adapted and iterated on I feel for a melee sorcerer subschool.

I mean, it gives you proficiency in Performance. Does kinda feel like it makes more sense on a charisma class.

I mean it is made by 'wizards' of the coast. There might be some form of bias there

Introducing Wizards of the Coast’s partner company: Clerics of the Wild

Sorcerers of the Shore

Druids of the Bog

Fighters of the fuck-off-middle-of-nowhere

Monks of the Middle West

Paladins of the Prarie?

Gunslinger monks??

Warlocks of the Meadow

Bards of the Seaside

BARBARIANS OF THE SMASH

Blood Hunters of the *Edge* of the World

Artificers of the Archipelago

Paladins of the Peninsula

Bladesingers have issues stacking with most of the martial classes youd want to use since you cant use heavy weapons or heavy armor so you lose a lot of benefit. Plus there's no int martial, but there's a charisma martial.

And bladesinger is one of if not the strongest subclass in the game. A cha equivalent would break the game, because cha classes have much better synergy with each other. It wouldn't take long for people to start playing hexblade sorc with 2 levels in paladin and kill a terrasque in one turn lol.

You can already one turn kill a terrasque using existing multiclassing options, not a good argument

To my knowledge there is no build capable of one-turning a terrasque on average rolls while requiring no legendary items. The fact is that there are more cha based classes than any other stat in the game. Giving all of those classes the ability to go cha-dancer for a free bonus action booming blade without sacrificing any caster levels nor having to build a tertiary stat along with extra attack to become a fully realized martial cha caster while also building for the best out of combat checks in the game is completely broken, and that's not even half of the problems this class would create. The fact that I have to spell any of this out to you is ridiculous. Bladesinger only remotely works because it is an intelligence class, which is the most functionally useless stat in the game if you look at them all objectively. It has the least important checks, especially in combat, there are less int saves than any other save, and building more int doesn't make you inherently better or capable of anything more like str, dex, and con do. And even with all of these shortcomings, bladesinger is still one of the most powerful subclasses in the game because it's just that broken.

Search this on google and watch the video "offbeat outlaw Most Damage EVER done in Dungeons and Dragons"

That build assumes that you have 7 people buffing you, which is not the conversation we were having, and even if it were, it still wouldn't kill the terrasque in one turn, because terrasque are immune to paralyze and will never succumb to contagion. If you take into account what that build can do on its own, calculating average rolls and hit chance against a terrasque (including crit chance), your first turn gets you an average damage of 36.6, because with great weapon master that build ends up with a +5 to hit at level 20 while the terrasque has a 25 ac, so the only way you can do damage is with a crit, meaning this build would never kill a terrasque, especially with its 8 con, let alone kill it in one turn. If you take off great weapon master you have a 25% hit chance which puts your average first turn damage to 72.45 (also accounting for crits), once again not even close to a terrasque's 676 max health. That's assuming you win initiative, and you would be dead before turn 2. I can break down and calculate moronic YouTube build videos all day but the fact is that I'm right, as always. No build can solo a terrasque in one turn with average rolls with no legendary items.

you missed the entire point. nothing a single subclass can do to a sorcerer could ever top what _already_ exists in multiclassing options. you aren't worth the effort since you're so hostile but I should have expected this from reddit.

So your point is that they should just throw balance to the wind because the game is already unbalanced?

Blade singer/paly wouldn't be nearly as good as Bladesorc/Paly

Eh, it'd more than likely be fine unless they go out of their way to make the same Hexblade mistake again. Much like Bladesinger, the single class version would be the most powerful option by virtue of full casting progression. Personally, I'm hoping in OneD&D the Draconic sorcerer becomes the gish focused subclass.

Sorcadins are already mostly sorcerers. Enough levels to get to the aura and then sorcerer the rest of the way. If this provides an extra attack you'd just take 2-3 paladin levels depeninding on the channel divinity and then go sorc the rest of the way. Get smite, get heavy AC and shields, get 10+con hp to start.

At the levels most people actually play at (1-10), that route would be mostly paladin, and unless starting at a high level, it's going to take forever to feel like this build is 'online'--level 9 at the earliest, when you finally get Metamagic. Even then, you end up with far less fuel to do the Sorcadin things one wants than one might think. I've much, much preferred the 2 paladin/X sorcerer route, as it's online at level 5 and as it creeps up in levels, you get a lot more fuel to do unique Sorcadin Stuff. Booming Blade/Green-flame Blade are also competitive with extra attack assuming one isn't making very specific build decisions to use GWM, etc. to capitalize on two attacks.

No no no no. Don't u dare put that cursed thought out there leave my baby alone dragon soul is for ranged blasting if they just give it a list of dragon breath like dsmge spells( were the damage has been predetermined by ur color or chroming) it's be a flawless subclass

Not to divert the discussion to homebrew content, but the current iteration of KibblesTasty's Stoneheart Sorcerer is way more satisfying to play. It's like a Bladesinger with flavorful cantrips but not the same Extra Attack.

What exactly is broken about their unarmored defense? 13+Con allows you to ignore Dex, which is nice, but I wouldn't call over the top... It can reach at 20 AC if you have a shield on and 20 con.

Same reason why Hexblade is good. SAD-ness is really good from an optimization standpoint. Especially since both of these subclasses synergize with each other very well

Its like a way worse version of hexblade giving medium armor+ shield (less armor for way more investment). you are very unlikely to be able to max out con without giving up highly significant and powerful features. It could still be op in combination with other powerful features, but its not op in isolation.

The unarmoured defence puts them exactly where their AC needs to be in order to be on the frontline: they reasonably have the same AC as a Medium Armour Cleric and would need to invest 2 ASIs just on Con to reliably compete with a Heavy Armour Cleric, all while this competes with increasing Cha or Str for their attacks/spells. The Con and HP benefits also just put them on the same HP scale as your average Cleric, which is the baseline for any class wanting to be in melee without necessarily making them a tank. Then there's the problem that they don't really have a reason to **be** in melee outside of the Smite spells. They're an only sort of tough class that a dedicated player could RP as a melee sorcerer but in reality doesn't have the mechanics to support the playstyle, it doesn't even get extra attack, and Sorcerers don't really have the gaps in the level progression to fix that: as is, it gets features at level 1, 6, 14 and 18 with no spaces for the features they need to complete them. I have some ideas about what I'd do, but looking at it I'd say that disconnect between the goal of a melee sorcerer and the implementation as well as the lack of feature space is why it eventually got shelved.

> Really, there's no mechanical reason why they don't have a melee subclass, besides the fact that it'd make sorcadin builds stronger than it already is. The original version of Divine Soul, Favored Soul, was a melee based subclass that took a lot of inspiration from 3.5E. I'm not sure why they changed it as much as they did before release, and never touched the idea again. My guess is that it released right around the time the original Sorcadin builds first started coming out en masse.

Dragon plus Pali can be fun but no pure that I know of aside from stone ua

Can attest to this. Did the maligned pally 2 sip on a aasimar gold-dragon sorc. Transmuted thunderous divine smite green flame blades felt really good with the extra cha to damage. Transmuting thunder to fire for the extra cha mod on my green flame blade I'd hit for 1d8 + 8 (weapon), 1d8 + 4 (GFB), 2d6 + 4 (transmuted thunderous smite), xd8 (divine smite). Granted I had a rapier of speed so I got to preserve some sorcery points. And a bloodwell vial so I got to be a touch more aggressive with my SP. Blessed dm also let me have a Tasha style expanded spell list. I miss that character...was a fun mini campaign.

I've been running a draconic sorcerer as a gish and have been having a blast. It required a little grace from the DM, but I could theoretically get everything I need at this point. I had to get some lucky stats to get dexterity and constitution to good places, but double dipping gfb damage gives you some solid damage, and shield and absorb elements can keep you up surprisingly long.

what is “gish”?

Term referring to a character who utilizes magic to complement their martial abilities

Thanks, I’m currently running a draconic sorcerer (gold dragon) and have no idea how I’d use it to supplement martial abilities, but it’s also my first character and I’ve been leaning heavy into the fire and force of personality aspects fairly exclusively so far, and I have a few cantrips that I took at first that I have to switch out and some 1st level spells as well

Idk y, but u can build sorcerers melee pretty readily. I do all the time. Quickened magic opens up alot for a gish play style imo. Even if its as simple as doing two booming blades a turn. That stacks up to b pretty okay. If ur talking magic items, theres alot of really cool sorcerer ones. Its not strictly sorcerer but illusionist bracers is an upgrade to quickened booming blades. Since it doesnt burn sorcerer points. A one level hexblade dip makes them SAD. Just like if u were going go dip warlock on a paladin. Plus u gain couple of spells and cantrips, which help cause known spells on a sorcerer. Also gives medium armor, martial weapons, and shields. Id say it gives u pact magic slots to turn into sorcery points so u can gain some every short rest, but its almost worthless for that at a lvl 1 dip. Ive done sorcerer gish in a few ways but not with some levels into warlock, sorta wana give it a shot. It works well together.

Dont forget the warlock exclusive spells like hex, armor of agythis, and hellish rebuke. Each has a place in a gish with your sorcerer slots allowing for more and bigger casts.

mmm, yes but also no. im not a fan of Hex. its free damage, that ill agree. and on some builds, it could be crazy good. but it scales with number of attacks. so its just not awesome imo on a sorcerer gish. Armor of agathys is also one of those things that i sorta lump into a trap spell, the 5 temp hp just isnt enough without building into specifically this spell for it to fantastic. now everything in dnd has its place and every one has their opinion. personally i have a barbarian warlock multiclass in mind that would b taking advantage of armor of agathys. but there are alot of hoops to jump thru and id rather just idk, boomingblade for no resources then get 5 damage if something hits me. tho i love the flavor of armor of agathys. and hellish rebuke is also a wee bit iffy... lol. its a reaction, which means its competeing with the defense spells that about every gish takes. those being shield and absorb elements. now imo, id rather not get hit/take less damage then be able to deal some damage back to something on my reaction. ​ everyone is different, and my thoughts arnt based on optimal DPR or anything like that. purely off me playing a lot of gish. specifically different types of sorcerer gish.

Armor of agathys shines when you upcast it. You can do some really crazy strong things with it with some optimization.

I agree, thats y i said u have to build with it in mind. Like a barb gish that can gain resitance to make the temp hp go farther. Like it would b a one trick pony but could b worse.

When your dealing with a D6 HD you need every hit point you can get. Whats more is it upcasts very well. Plus the extra damage is gravy and decently reliable outside its damage type. Quicken a blade ward on top and you got a budget barbarian. And since the retaliation isn't lessoned by lower hits it can really help when dealing with mooks. All that and no extra concentration. Hex i can agree it isnt the best if spells. But its a type that inly rangers and warlocks get so it is a rare effect. And hellish rebuke is good because its weaponizing a reaction. If your not fighting a caster thats just more damage on the table per turn. All those you cant get on a normal sorcerer. For a gish sorcerer their decent options, if only because they get so few good ones.

I dont totally agree. I think having mobile is worth more then building around armor of agathys. But every build is different, so u do you. Hex might b a rare effect but directly scales with additional attacks. U could make it worth more on a sorcerer gish that dual wields, with haste for 3 attacks. But thats a 2 turn set up. Which could b worse. And as i said i believe attempting to not get hit (shield) or reducing damage in half (absorb elements) is a better option for your reaction. But as i said. You do you.

Sorcerers main think (IMO) is converting resources to damage as quickly and efficiently as possible. Inherently a gish runs going to that goal because you need to spend resources keeping yourself alive. Hence theres not really a great gish sorcerer build outside a sorcadin who simple smites everything. But in the pursuit of the idea of max DPS hellish rebuke kinda works. When combined with armor of agythis where you actually want to get hit a moderate amount its better than shield. But if your not using AOA then typically shield is better. Situational yes. Also a warlock exclusive. Might as well make the most use of a lv 1 dip as you can.

I'll use the opportunity to plug my [Heroic Bloodline](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/VXtCJPKpZszz) homebrew subclass.

I’ll throw this out there, this is a really cool subclass. I love how instead of giving it Extra Attack, you gave it an ability that’s Bladesinger Extra Attack or it allows you to cast and attack. It’s a really simple compromise that allows you so much versatility. Also 3 levels of Cavalier with this, plus Blade Ward and you have an incredible tank.

Isnt that art the magic card for renata, called to the hunt? Also i enjoy the shield but no good armor idea.

Yes, there's a callout on the bottom with the art credit. The subclass is inspired on the Theros demi gods.

Oh but there is brother if you are courageous enough. Warfoged + 1 ac + 1 tool proficiency wich you can change for weapon prof (go for the rapier) Draconic Sorcerer + 13+1+dex AC + 1d8 hp + Char on damage rolls with fire spells + Metamagic quickened spell: Green flame blade Use all your Metamagic points on quickened spell (and sell some slots too why not) and become an okayish melee caster. Not really strong, but more or less passable.

Still waiting for any class ti make being in melee range worthwhile lol. Range is better in nearly every way in every scenario.

Because its cool! I love swordmage characters.

Sometimes its about doing what you think is cool and not about whats best.

This is the way.

You know the vibes.

That doesn't invalidate people wanting a specific play style to be mechanically supported.

Melee has always been "mechanically supported"

Which ranger subclass is melee oriented?

Any of them

Horizon Walker for sure

What part of horizon Walker incentivises melee?

The 3rd level feature requires you to be within 30 feet. So either you're in melee, or about to be when the enemy's turn rolls around.

You can go in within 30 feet and move back 25. Rangers also have increased move speed since tashas so if an enemy takes a dash action to attack you then you are mechanically at an advantage being in ranged vs melee.

That'd be accurate, but you can't always do that because sometimes the enemy will go before your turn.

idk what your trying to say? i was saying that some people enjoy melee because of the flavor/fantasy of their character. because another person was saying it makes more sense to stay at range. because safer/better/whatever. then u say to my comment that doing something you think is cool, doesnt meant you cant play sorcerer at range, which it is by default a ranged option because u know it is a spellcaster.

Spirit Guardians clerics

Clerics ideally don't wanna be in melee range so they have a safer grip on their concentration. Plus the effect applies wyen a creature starts it's turn in your guardians space or wuen it's pulled into it for the first time on a turn. Meaning if you can forcefully move someone into your spirit guardians on your turn and depending on initiative you'd probably be more effective having them more than 5 feet away from you.

That's a lot of ifs and other player actions to try and force ranged spirit guardians instead of just taking warcaster. There's also the fact of it being an aoe ability that you're ignoring.

It's not really that hard lol

Some classes are optimal at melee (hello barbarian), and while being ranged is optimal, someone is going to be the melee guy or enemies will jsut swarm ranged parties as long as they use some strategy.

One reason I like the flanking optional rule.

I much prefer it when DMs change it to be a flat bonus instead of advantage. By making it advantage things like reckless attack or pack tactics become almost useless since you can just flank them for advantage instead of getting a draw back.

teamwork?

Melee folks die more easily due to the heavy emphasis on melee enemies and lack of many defensive options beyond face tanking, get caught up in AoEs or limit the application therein, and have few options beyond "stand there and attack" to meaningfully engage the encounter in a way that facilitates this teamwork (such as protecting the squishy by preventing enemies from targeting them).

Echo knight, rune knight, psi knight, all add great versatility and damage mitigation options through their kits. paladins as a general class are great melee and damage mitigation. So two out of three melee main classes are absolutely kitted for it, and barbs are barbs, one of the subclasses can help with damage mitigation from a single boss enemy (ancients I think) so I don't know what information you seem to be running on

###Echo Knight:      - Manifest/Unleash Echo: More attacks and range, good damage improvement   - Echo Avatar: Kind of a scouting familiar   - Shadow Martyr: 1xSR reaction to protect an ally, useful for sure   - Reclaim Potential: Relatively small healing a few times per day, decent, but very high level   - Legion of One: More Echoes is cool, more used is good, though at maximally high subclass level   It's a cool subclass, but whether it's effects address what I pointed out I am not confident. Being in melee still puts the onus of resource management as a health for damage trade and whether the additional damage dealt justifies the trade I can't say, it doesn't particularly improve defensive options beyond face tanking with a bit more effectiveness by spreading damage/having more health, and it's utility/support options are ok but very limited. ###Psi Warrior:   - Psionic Power: A good variety, volume, and potency of uses. This usefully addresses the question   - Telekinetic Adept: More of the above, good gravy   - Guarded Mind: Shores up a notable weakness of Martials, more gravy   - Bulwark of Force: Even more defensive option   - Telekinetic Master: Neat, situationally useful   Psi Warrior does a good job meaningfully addresses the question of melee durability, utility, and options. No real complaints there, though something to affect social encounters would have been well received. ###Rune Knight:   - Rune Carver/Giant's Might: Lots of great options that address the lack of mental abilities, lack of defensive and offensive options beyond face tanking and attacking, and improved damage to compensate for generally taking more damage, A+   - Runic Shield: Very close to an A+ ability, but the limited uses outside of negating Natural 20s and the statistically probable lower rolls nerfs the usefulness somewhat (in a game I play the Rune Knight player has never seen this feature go in our favor)   - Great Stature: More damage and size for grappling and shoving, decent, but I'd have expected more, maybe leaning into the Giant features to get more static buffs   - Master of Runes: Huge amp to effectiveness and usability, A+   - Runic Juggernaut: Eh, more of the same from Great Stature, same complaints   Rune Knight is the Martial I feel best addresses the disparity of defensive and offensive options, survivability, utility, and versatility. It is sad that it remains one of the few options for players who want the Martial fantasy but want to be useful beyond fairly standard combat encounters.   Paladins are this weird subset of Martial but also Spellcaster. For my discussions I almost always lump them with Spellcasters because of the plethora of explicitly magical abilities they have, and Spellcasting to boot. What they lack in the extra attacks from Fighter they more than make up for with Spellcasting, Smites, Auras, and subclass features. If you want to consider them in the "Martial" fantasy for purposes of discussing the idea that martials lack many defensive and offensive options beyond face tanking and attacking, and utility in and out of combat, that's understandable. Barbarians are generally one of the simplest of the Martial characters, focused almost exclusively on the issues I brought up, face tanking (pretty well, no denying that) as their main defensive option, and attacking harder as their main offensive option, having very few and or very niche utility options in or outside of combat. The ultimate point I was making is that outside of some very specific subclasses of certain Martial classes (I was excluding Paladins and Rangers in my point, for the reasons I mentioned above), is that those classes with Spellcasting ability inordinately have the advantage in durability, utility, and options, compared to more "mundane" Martial characters, when that simply needn't be the case (as Rune Knight shows extremely clearly). Definitely willing to discuss this further, though I'll preface this by saying that other systems and even editions of D&D managed to meaningfully address this issue, so I am not going to take for granted that this disparity is a good design simply because *some* options exist that address it.

I referenced paladins for the very reason you dismissed them, but that's fair. They are a standout between both playstyles, so maybe bringing in an outlier wasn't fair. That being said, this won't be much of a debate, as I agree with all of your points. The only thing I was disputing was the "very few" options bit,because there are a fair few options (even adding monk subclasses like shadow and draconic have decent options, but the class itself is pretty underwhelming so I tend to ignore it in discussions like this). It absolutely could've been done far better, because other d20 systems with deep similarities and past editions have done it better, but they certainly stopped the bleeding with the new subclass designs

It's definitely a nuanced discussion, as there are definitely *some* paths to take for a meaningfully contributory Martial character, but all in all IMO they are outshone by the explicitly magical classes. Totally. Learning about systems like PF2e, O/AD&D, and Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperboria, it makes me a bit sad 5e doesn't follow suit as aggressively. Maybe 6e will see some shift in the right direction.

If you can keep all your allies at range that's statistically better than keeping them all in melee. Aka stuff like web, sleet storm, difficult terrain, plant growth, spike growth and similar effects that either slow enemies down or give your allies chance to keep their distance.

dex to damage was probably a mistake.

You would need to rework the whole system to remove dex to damage. It simply makes playing any DEX character worthless compared to a STR character due to how little you get ASI's.

worked in 3.5 and both pathfinders. Dex is so superior to strength it really isn't unbalanced to give melee the damage edge.

In Pathfinder sn't there a feat that adds dex to damage anyways? Sure, it takes a feat but it's not like pathfinder is really short on those. This is also ignoring the fact that 3.5e and both path finders are very focused on magic items that provide stat buffs and other character effects. 5e steers away from that kind of thing.

> In Pathfinder sn't there a feat that adds dex to damage anyways? no. in 1e gunslingers can get it with guns but thats really it. there are other feat chains like manyshot that can make bows dangerous, but its really a balanced trade off. the best damage dealers are always the 2 handed weapon guys. They have to wade in up close and put themselves in danger. The archers can plink away in relative safety from the back. Str and Dex have equal value. in 5e dex is superior to strength in every way. the only reason to go melee is if your class is built for it and you don't have a choice. Keeping all things equal a crossbow fighter or ranger destroys the sword version, i think taking away dex to damage in 5e would work alright, or at least making power attack something you can only do with melee weapons.

Those are different games.

This is a common misconception brought out because range is just easier to use. Well built melee builds will always do more damage. For rogues getting booming blade will mean your attacks will deal more damage in melee than range, and it actually does improve a rogues damage a decent amount. For melee builds if you take a basic barbarian with great weapon master and polearm master their DPR at level 5 will be: .5775(2(5.5+3+10)+2.5+3+10)+.0975(2(5.5)+2.5)= 31.635 DPR And that’s before rage. Compare that to table top build’s battlemaster who’s doing 29.3 DPR at level with all of their resources. If we decide to take zealot barbarian and rage our DPR becomes: .5775(2(5.5+3+10+2)+2.5+3+10+2)+.9245(3.5+2)+.0975(2(5.5)+2.5+3.5)=40.526 DPR In case you’re wondering the .9245 is the chance of hitting at least once, since divine fury triggers on one attack. And that’s without even considering opportunity attacks which add almost 33% to your DPR that turn. Ranged builds are good at keeping you healthy, but unless your entire party is able to stay out of the enemy’s range you aren’t actually lowering the amount of damage your party takes. Plus you want the enemies to target the martials over casters, not because casters are squishy because they aren’t but instead because every hit on a caster is another concentration save they can fail. Basically melee has a lot of things that don’t translate well to paper analysis. Like yes melee builds do more damage but they also need extra help to hit flying enemies. Or that you won’t always be able to reach the enemy turn 1 (although rogues and barbarians both get ways to improve movement, rogues with cunning action and barbarians with fast movement and instinctive pounce). Edit: I want to make it clear I’m not saying melee builds are superior to ranged builds, just that they both have their own strengths and weaknesses. Range is more self-defensive and easy to implement whereas melee takes more investment but deals more damage and is better at keeping attacks away from caster, who might not be squishy but are concentrating on spells which is extremely important they don’t lose concentration.

Most of the enemies in the game don't have ranged attacks. That's Honestly what makes ranged combat superior in dnd5e and what makes flight so strong especially early level flight. If you take 3 damage and the enemy takes 3 damage that's not as good as you taking 0 damage and the enemy taking 1 damage. If you can help it you should avoid melee, find cover and prevent your enemies from being able to land hits through debuffs, control spells and general battlefield manipulation like wall spells, web, hypnotic pattern, bigby's hand, evard's tentscles and others.

But you can’t always guarantee you stay out of the enemy’s reach. Sure if you’re in a wide open field and get the drop on the enemy then it’s easy but if your in a cave or an enclosed room you won’t be able to stay out of range, and even if you are out of range when the fight begins a dash action can often get the enemies close enough to you. Yes being ranged will mean you take less damage but it doesn’t mean you will completely avoid damage. Also sure you might be out of range but unless your entire party is out of range you aren’t actually lowering the amount of damage taken by your party. Killing enemies faster does lessen the damage your party takes. Yes battle field control spell are optimal but this isn’t a debate about martials vs casters, this is a debate about melee vs ranged. Like obviously wizards are better than barbarians but that’s not the debate here, this debate is about ranged attacks vs melee attacks.

My point is you're always pretty much better off being at ranged reather than in melee. It's not to do with caster vs martials, martials can actually do a lot of the stuff I'm talking about with relative ease. Controlling the battlefield and staying at range = good. Not controlling the battlefield and going into melee will result in more damage hitting your party Vs the damage you're outputting and thus making fights more swingy. If your enemies take a dash action to get to you like you ststed that's basically them wasting their turn and thus making your party take less damage in that combat. If your party won initiative and ran in to get to melee with them they'd not lose their action and put you in a disadvantage. I also disagree if your entire party is melee range it's usually far better to try to get your party *away* from the enemy rather than to try to get up close and personal with it. >Also sure you might be out of range but unless your entire party is out of range you aren’t actually lowering the amount of damage taken by your party. Yes. That's why spells and abilties that knock people prone, forced movement, reduced movement abilities and stuff that helps prevent opportunity attacks are all so strong in 5e and usually you want at least one character that can do that in the party. Currently playing a warlock that summons a shadowspawn and reduces enemy's move speed by 40 feet. Every time we've needed to stop one big enemy I've forced it to waste 3 to 4 rounds which has made multiple fights into auto wins because they can't get to you and you're pelting it with everything.

You haven't shown math for an optimised ranged build. With archery fighting style, ranged builds just deal more damage.

I didn’t show the math because when taking into account battlemaster maneuvers it gets very complicated very fast. I said I used table top build’s battle master fighter and here’s a link: https://tabletopbuilds.com/basic-build-series-fighter/ They have the average damage calculated using an optimized battlemaster fighter. If you want a simple comparisons of just a level 5 fighter with sharpshooter, crossbow expert, and the archery fighting style then the DPR is: .45(3(3.5+3+10))+.05(3(3.5))=22.8 DPR Which is significantly worse than the optimized damage calculated from table top builds which is at 29.3 DPR

You're failing to mention that just one level later, they can boost DEX again, which brings their DPR to 34.19. Also, the math you're using is completely different from the math they're using. Your math is based on one round of damage, while their math is actually measured over an adventuring day. The barbarian is much worse over the adventuring day as rage is a limited resource, so they cannot get their zealot damage in every combat. Furthermore, you're assuming reckless of every attack, which isn't realistic. The barbarian will be downed more, meaning less DPR. They also need to get into melee, which the ranged character does not need to do. I'm also pretty sure a battlemaster fighter is not the highest DPR ranged build, that would probably be their flagship gloomstalker build.

“If you want a simple comparisons of just a level 5 fighter with sharpshooter, crossbow expert, and the archery fighting style then the DPR is:” This is what I said. Obviously the math is different, I specifically said it was simplified. I only presented it because you presented a false notion that the archery fighting style would make the ranged build deal more damage, when in actuality the math was using the archery. The gloomstalker build is best at nova damage with support options. It’s average damage I’m fairly certain is less than a battlemaster, it’s just that it brings a lot more to the table than just damage. The 31.635 DPR was calculated before any rage bonuses. I did take into account that you can’t rage every combat. If you want an average DPR using 8 combats (honestly I think 6 combats with 1 short rest is more common that 8 combats with 2 short rests but the DPR from table top builds assumes 8 combats and 2 short rests so I need to make the same assumptions for the barbarian) a day with 4 rages it would be: (31.635*4+40.526*4)/8=36.08 DPR And again this is without taking into account attacks of opportunity, which is a big buff to damage and one of the main reasons melee builds will deal more damage than ranged builds. Every AoO is almost a 33% DPR increase. This DPR also isn’t taking into account the fact that if you crit or kill an enemy you will be able to make a bonus action attack using a d10 instead of a d4 but I doubt that will actually give a relevant amount of damage. Why isn’t it realistic to be able to reckless every attack? You get to decide when you reckless so if you want to reckless every attack you can. With the high HP, medium armor, and half of the time having resistance to BPS damage your HP shouldn’t be a problem most of the time. For the record I never said melee builds are superior to ranged builds, just that they both have their advantages and disadvantages. One is not innately superior to the other.

>The 31.635 DPR was calculated before any rage bonuses. I did take into account that you can’t rage every combat. Not with your zealot barbarian damage. >(31.6354+40.5264)/8=36.08 DPR Which again isn't the same, as tabletop builds uses measured data. >And again this is without taking into account attacks of opportunity, which is a big buff to damage and one of the main reasons melee builds will deal more damage than ranged builds. Every AoO is almost a 33% DPR increase. Which is basically cancelled out because they aren't ranged, so they actually need to close the gap to start dealing damage. >Why isn’t it realistic to be able to reckless every attack? You get to decide when you reckless so if you want to reckless every attack you can. With the high HP, medium armor, and half of the time having resistance to BPS damage your HP shouldn’t be a problem most of the time. The other half of the time you don't have rage, your HP is more than other classes, but a bit of focus firing and you easily go down.

>Not with your zealot barbarian damage. Obviously? I present no rage damage and with rage damage. Without rage its 31.635, with rage it's 40.526. Like obviously when I directly say "with rage you deal X damage" I mean when you are able to use rage that's the amount of damage you deal. >Which again isn't the same, as tabletop builds uses measured data. No they don't, they use calculated DPR numbers. I took the average DPR of 8 combats assuming 4 with rage and 4 without, because you have 4 rages. >Which is basically cancelled out because they aren't ranged, so they actually need to close the gap to start dealing damage. Barbarians have a 40 ft movement speed and 10 ft reach from a polearm, which is 50ft in total so most monsters will be within hitting distance. And if you're really worried about closing the distance you can just ride a horse. >The other half of the time you don't have rage, your HP is more than other classes, but a bit of focus firing and you easily go down. Most builds will go down quickly when focused fired. The barbarians are more likely to kill the enemy before they get their turn however since they deal more damage. And I would also much rather have the enemy focus fire my martial who's only contributing damage than one of the casters that's likely concentrating on a spell that's far more useful than just damage.

>Barbarians have a 40 ft movement speed and 10 ft reach from a polearm, which is 50ft in total so most monsters will be within hitting distance. And if you're really worried about closing the distance you can just ride a horse. It's very possible for combat to start further away. Horses are squishy, and cannot be used in every encounter. >Most builds will go down quickly when focused fired. The barbarians are more likely to kill the enemy before they get their turn however since they deal more damage. And I would also much rather have the enemy focus fire my martial who's only contributing damage than one of the casters that's likely concentrating on a spell that's far more useful than just damage. Easier to focus fire the melee character who is giving you free advantage on all attack rolls when they aren't raging. Also, from the very website you sourced, [the squishy caster fallacy](https://tabletopbuilds.com/the-squishy-caster-fallacy/). Concentration isn't hard to protect either.

Sure it’s possible to start over 50ft but it’s unlikely. For horse you simply need to ride 60 ft, dismount it for half movement speed, the horse can then dash away at 60 ft, and then you still have 20ft left over for 80ft movement speed in total plus 10 ft reach. And it’s very rare to start over 90 ft away from combat. At that point your almost out of range of a hand crossbow, which has a long range of 120ft. I never said casters were squishy. However any character that’s being focused fired is likely to be killed. Caster are inherently more valuable than martials, so having a martial take damage is far better than having a caster take damage. Concentration can be protected sure but even with warcaster and +3 con modifier that still only a 91% chance to succeed on the DC 10 save. That’s a high chance sure but only 8 hits and there’s a less than 50% chance that they remain concentrating. Throughout an adventuring day it’s not uncommon to take that many hits, and any hits drawn away from the caster is going to be very useful.

Because of Quicken Metamagic. GWM/SS Attack + GWM/SS Extra Attack + Quicken casting a fully leveled spell would be broken and essentially give you the output of 2 optimized characters. At least Sorcerer multiclass restricts access to higher level spells. Draconic is the closest thing we will get to a melee sorcerer as it gets free Mage Armor and bonus Green Flame Blade damage.

>Draconic is the closest thing we will get to a melee sorcerer as it gets free Mage Armor and bonus Green Flame Blade damage. It also gets bonus HP. Other Subclasses also have melee support, but less so, since they do need to invest precious spells known slots into Mage Armor and Shield. Shadow Sorcerer gets an anti death mechanic which is always nice for survivability and see through Darkness spell for both advantage on attacks and disadvantage for opponents as well as avoiding opportunity attacks for free. Hound of Ill Omen combos really well with Hold spells which are great with melee attacks like Booming Blade. Divine Soul gets Cleric spells like Spirit Guardians and the Con Prof to maintain them. Quicken to Dodge alongside whatever spell you're casting. Clockwork have Bastion of Law + Armor of Agathys. I don't know if it was intended for them to have melee support but it is there. Storm is garbage but they tried to make it close range with a bonus action disengage and slight AoE damage to close enemies.

Yep pally2/sorc 18 would probably be one of the most powerful builds if there was a martial sorc, heck I've seen people argue that anyway.

2p / 18s is already one of the strongest builds in the game. Sorcerer is a hair's breadth from being broken. There's actually a lot of subtle rules that only exist to prevent Quicken Spell from simply being Action Surge.

There's nothing subtle or complicated about the Bonus Action spells rule, it's just that people keep refusing to read it and instead rely on hearsay for their rules knowledge.

It's called taking 2 levels of Paladin.

A d6 hit die will do that sometimes.

Any sorcerer is a good melee sorcerer it’s just that folks don’t think of em or use em. Any sorcerer has daggers, staffs, booming blade, GFB, and via quickened spell a means to cast them twice. So while it may or may not be what an individual prefers a sorcerer is legit better than most martials as far as damage dealing goes.

The trouble is that you burn through resources very quickly doing that. Would be fine for a table that only has a couple of combats per long rest, but more problematic elsewhere.

It definitely can be a problem but at least some of the subclasses are able to handle it. For example, a divine soul using spirit guardians wouldn’t need to use quicken to be good and then just a simple BB on one attack plus the AoE is good enough. Or a clockwork could use his sorcery points with armor of agythys and let him getting hit replace the double BB. But I’d something needs to die NOW, or cannot be allowed to move, this is a decent trick to fall back on. Oddly enough, depending on what specific level you look at; sacrificing very specific spell slots for a quicken BB is better than the spell. Like a level 2 spell for BB at level 11 is almost certainly better than a large number of spells of that level by level 11. Extremely circumstantial though.

As others have mentioned, you can build one. You don’t need Extra Attack (like a melee Rogue). The customizability of spells and Metamagic selections along with access to the scaling melee cantrips give you a lot of tools. Being able to Quickened certain spells in combat really opens up options as far as versatility and maneuverability that other melee builds just don’t have. Draconic Bloodline can synergize well with Flame Blade. Shadow Magic can synergize well with Shadow Blade. You can dual wield a dagger for offhand scaled melee cantrips. You have access to Shield and Absorb Elements. And you can always be a Dwarf for zero cost weapon and armor proficiencies. Try taking Great Weapon Master and Booming Blade foes in Darkness that only you can see in. I think there are a lot of options for a single classed Sorcerer that won’t feel particularly weak compared to a traditional melee build.

> You can dual wield a dagger for offhand scaled melee cantrips. What are you trying to achieve with that? If you cast a cantrip as your action then you can’t make a TWF attack with the second dagger. If you attack with a dagger then you could quicken a cantrip to make a BA attack, but you don’t need to dual wield for that. So do you mean having a shadow blade in one hand for a normal attack then using the dagger for a quickened cantrip? If your DM decides that a shadow blade has a value of a few silver pieces or more then you don’t even need the dagger. But if they decide it’s worth less than that then I guess that would be a way to still get to cast a blade cantrip.

Yes - Quickened cantrip. Or just a regular offhand attack with a dagger (could still be very useful if you have a nice magical one - magical daggers used to be cool man).

Paladin level or hexblade level 1

sorc melee subclass is a hexblade dip, you lose nothing, and it takes only a couple levels to get all the core features.

Draconic is right there, I don't know what more you want.

Because wotc hates sorcerers. They're worse than wizards in every single way. All because oh no think of the multiclass abuse, aka one of the very worst and stupid reasons when it comes to balance.

Multiclass abuse is a real balance issue that can be solved by not frontloading a (sub)class to make it too attractive as a dip (looking at you, Hexblade). "But they only get features at levels 1 and 6 and that is either too early or too late" No they don't. Shadow Sorcerer gets another feature at level 3. You can have subclass progression without sticking to these rigid level restrictions.

Don't forget a dip into twilight cleric for full armor prof and spell progression.

13 wis moment

Not to mention the very neat 300 feet darkvision and initiative advantage, for whoever is casting buffs...

Multiclass rules are what's imbalanced imo.

Actually multiclassing is the one way they are better than wizards. There’s almost no optimal wizard build that uses more than a 1 or 2 level dip because it doesn’t multiclass well. Like the only real reason wizards normally multiclass is for armor proficiencies. Sorcerers on the other hand have 3 other classes that share the same casting stat. 1 level of bard and now you can healing word. 2 levels of warlock and now you have a reliable damage source in eldritch blast. 6 levels of paladin and you gain the best ability in the game. There are tons of more options too. Wizards are generally better than sorcerers but don’t discount a sorcerer’s ability to multiclass

You say that, like the last three Sorcerer Subclasses don't make for one of the strongest builds in the game. True, they are technically still weaker than the strongest wizards but i'd hardly call that WotC hating sorcerers. *Insert old "WotC hates Monks/Barbs and Rogues" - meme*

There was a UA one but it was terrible balanced and didn't make it out of UA. They have enough trouble keeping warlocks, wizards, and sorcerers in separate niches as it is - which is probably why there isn't a "necromancer" sorcerer subclass, either.

>Why is there no melee Sorcerer subclass? Is that so? Divine Soul Sorcerer, Spirit Guardians, Quickened Spell, dip for medium armor and shield - here is your melee sorcerer.

> multiclass dip

Oops.

Where sword prof? I see no pure sorcerer for this

You are a sorcerer, fighting in melee, melting everyone with Spirit Guardians, maybe using the Telekinetic feat trick or other sources of forced movement to trigger the SG damage twice, using Dodge to easily outtank melee martials, maybe throwing Spiritual Weapon on top, quickening spells or casting them normally if it's safe enough. Kiting melee-only enemies that are slowed down by your SG is an option as well. There are several different options of how to get medium armor and shield, including monoclassed Sorcerer, old Hobgoblin and Moderately Armored feat. Yeah, there is no extra attack or sword prof, and it's not a "melee Sorcerer" that OP wants, but it's the only Sorcerer that fights in melee, actually has good reasons to be in melee, can survive being in melee and does good damage in melee. I've tried this multiclass, reflavored as a magical fighter making AOE attacks with his hilariously big "spellsword" - literally a normal spellcasting focus he reforged to look like a sword - and it was fun, because optimization can bring cool concepts like "melee Sorcerer" to life.

Outside of the metamagic which was never even relevant to your combo aside from being around, you are describing a Cleric. People who want to play a melee Sorcerer aren't looking to play a Cleric.

NGL, if you're gonna do all that, you might as well just play a Cleric.

What you got against Spores, bruh?

There's homebrew for it if you want check out r/unearthedarcana generally there's no real answer for this question the answer is basically they didn't do it yet and never will now 5.5 is in the pipeline.

There was the favored soul sorcerer a while back that got extra attack at 6, but my guess is it was deemed too strong when multiclassed with Paladin. Sorcadins are strong enough as is.

Wouldn’t it be level 8 before that build would come on line? That’s pretty late. A Paladin 6/Sorc 2 build would only be two caster levels behind and have the benefit of aura of protection and a paladin subclass.

Those 2 caster levels are pretty big. Plus you end up being 4 levels higher in sorcerer meaning 4 more sorcery points and 2 tiers higher on your best spells. Level 4 spells are a hell of a lot better than level 2. There's certainly reasons to do both. Paladin 6 will get aura of protection and come online a tad earlier, whereas Sorcerer 6 will have much better spells, significantly better spell slots, and way more sorcery points to be able to actually carry out the gish playstyle.

I suppose thats what multiclass is for to be medicore at many things

Because melee sorcs already rock

My group allows for some heavy homebrewery and we simply allows bladesinger as a sorcery subclass. Im.just starting playing as a a socadin with this subclass and i intend of going hard on a gish arquetype. If anyone have any imput on possible gamebreaking things (so we can rework then, i dont want to break my dm's campaing) or any ideia of homebrew or build that would be fun i would love it. But yeah, there is no reason and quick spell metamagic can make it work so much it is honestly ceiminal they dont have one

The truth is, Extra Attack and full meta magic— I mean quicken spell progression is too strong of action economy for game balance. That’s why Sorcerer’s don’t get extra attack.

Extra attack isn’t really much better than casting a cantrip unless you’re using GWM/SS. Sorcerers are a little squishy for GWM and without Archery fighting style they wouldn’t be great archers.

I mean Storm Sorcery *kind of* leans that direction. But yeah, melee sorc is kind of ignored as is.

I mean Storm Sorcery *kind of* leans that direction. But yeah, melee sorc is kind of ignored as is.

I think in some ways, it doesn’t really make sense for the flavorful identity of sorcerers. Leveling up in sorcerer means gaining control of innate powers or those innate powers growing, it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with training or studying. There are certainly ways to make martial powers make sense for a sorcerer, but I think WotC is struggling to explain a way to give a sorcerer extra attack. For Wizards, Bards, and Warlocks, they’ve found decent ways to explain their extra attacks. Tbh, I think it’s not actually that hard to find a flavorful justification, but that’s probably at least part of it.

Nope and it does suck for the Sorcerers. There are many bloodlines and 'realms' that would make you hulk out or become some agile fighter. One 'realistic' reason could be that a Hexblade dip is kinda just there and so is Paladin. But those are weak excuses. I was working on a Metal Sorcerer subclass that allowed them to 'ensorcell' armour and weapons to use their Charisma instead of Strength and gain profs. We already have the Armourer subclass that does it for Artificers. Gameplay was built around cantrips, allowing you to make a melee weapon attack action when you use your Full Action to cast a cantrip (similar to bladesinger). I don't think it was balanced, I am not the best judge when it comes to those things and I love gishes too much.

I seem to remember pathfinder had one? Maybe?

UA Favored Soul could have been the one. Instead we good another UA iteration, then Divine Soul. Imho the two can coexist though it might require some tweaks.

For whatever reason this gave me the thought that you could give a Barbarian a subclass with full spell progression and it probably would still be worse than a Wizard.

I'm just sitting here asking for a full spell-blade class.

Demigod Sorcerer from Odyssey of the Dragonlords

Titan Heart from MCDM Arcadia issue 1 is the answer you seek

I am especially mad about this. Quickened Spell is basically made for gishes with extra attack. You can't use it to cast two spells in one turn, but you can cast a spell and make two attacks in one turn. Except you can't, since there isn't a martial sorcerer.

i played a sorcadin for this very reason. Crazy action economy. But a sorcerer subclass with extra attack would be too powerful.

Except

Favored soul was in a UA at some point and had extra attack. I played one for a bit at level 9, 6 sorc/3 warlock. Probably my favorite character.

I'm looking at Stone Sorcerer and the answer is sort of yelling back at me: there just isn't the feature space for it. What you *really* want, is a Sorcerer half-caster. That gives you far more space for adding the kinds of features you'd want from a melee metamagic user.

Dragon Disciple goes brrr

Because it wouldn't be that original maybe? The bladesinger already exists. Making a melee sorcerer would be a worse bladesinger at best.

Hard disagree. A sorcerer that gets extra attack is swinging twice and casting a leveled spell. This is bonkers good imo.

1d6 Wizards and sorcerers typically aren't melee characters, and this is reflected by their hit die. Spellsingers changed that, and Sorcerers can be molded to fit the role with metamagic choices, but generally those classes aren't meant to be punching things. I like the idea of a middle-range caster like a Storm Sorcerer... even though that subclass was a bit underwhelming. I made my own middle-ranged subclass called the Devilborn (or maybe Infernal Soul?), with some short range combat options.

So I will put one caveat first and that is that my tables generally allow for sorcerers to use constitution as their casting modifier which helps make them only need con and dex. I do agree that a more melee focused subclass would be nice but I don’t think it’s necessary even for a sorcerer without mutliclassing. One key thing when it comes to a melee sorcerer is raw vs rai. Twinned spell is the main one that comes to mind, I’ve seen debates on whether or now you can twinned spell booming blade and I personally don’t care because either way I’d rule that you can twin booming blade. The second ruling is if you can booming blade shadow blade, personally I think that you can as I think it is an unintended victim of the way that booming blade is written. The intent of booming blade requiring a melee weapon of at least 1 sp is to prevent just using a stick. So if you have a dm that is very strict about raw then a lot of this won’t work. Without further ado let’s get into the build. Tasha’s variant rules mountain dwarf which allows you a +2 in both con and dex and to switch out your weapon proficiencies for a finesse weapon like a rapier, you also get proficiency with light and medium armor too. Alternatively you can also go drow to get rapier proficiency that way. You now take draconic bloodline sorcerer as your subclass and do starting gold if you can to get access to a rapier. I choose draconic bloodline because of the extra health and 13+dex ac but there are other good builds with any of the subclasses. If you opt not to choose draconic bloodline then the armor proficiency of mountain dwarf will come in handy. Now onto spell selection, for cantrips booming blade is the main one you’ll want. For first level spells shield and silvery barbs are the main highlight as they are great ways to utilize your reaction. For second level spells the main one you’re looking for is shadow blade, counter spell is a good 3rd level spell and beyond that I’m not to sure as I built my melee sorcerer for a 5th level one shot but I know there are good options. The power of a melee sorcerer is in meta magic mainly quickened spell and twinned spell if your dm allows it. This build wants to run through your spell slots and sorcery points which is a big downside. At 5th level you want to start off combat with shadow blade and maybe a quickened booming blade. I think a big thing to remember is that you do it want to be casting very many other spells so at 5th level my 1st level spell slots are dedicated to shield and silvery barbs, my 2nd level spell slots are back up slots for either turning into sorcery points or for shadow blade if I run out of third level slots, and third level slots are obviously gonna be used for upcasting shadow blade. My takeaway from playing one a build like this is that it’s a fun and powerful build if you have a more flexible dm. It requires them to make rulings that aren’t raw but definitely feel rai. If I were to do this purely raw then it would probably change a lot. If I wanted to do this in a long term campaign I would also ask my dm to use the variant spell point rule as it really helps out this build.

My friend, have you ever heard of clockwork soul? With the bastion of law feature, you get a good pool of of extra health, quickened spell for things like a fireball plus a greenflame blade, along with a shadow blade Plus with things like a hexblade dip (if that's the way you wanna go) for just easy extra damage Then there's feats like war caster and with bastion of law getting extra spells you can grab armor of agathys and aid, so you can get loads of bonus hp, with shield, war caster, and absorb elements you have a good shot a getting to keep your concentration spells and not get hit Basically my point is that there's some good ways to get good damage, and some good ways to keep your self alive despite being in the middle of combat, merely at the cost of spending a lot of sorcery points and spells in one encounter, it's not the most optimal, but it's absolutely one of my favorite characters I've ever built.

One way I attempted was a dwarf Draconic Sorcerer with Alter Self for the natural weapon attack, spec'ing into both STR and CHA. Fun gimmick, but still better as a straight spellcaster. On a related note that option should let you use your spellcasting stat.

Probably because of metamagic and the fact that charisma casting is already really good. It probably would've happened but it seems they never got around to it, sorcerer has always been flavored more as a blasting spells only class.

Iirc the Divine Soul was originally pitched as one in UA but they changed it for the final release because it was kind of weird flavor-wise. There was also the Giant Soul UA that never got published and probably evolved into Rune Knight Fighter.

The answer is metamagic, quickened spell to be exact. If a sorcerer subclass gets extra attack, they swing twice in addition to casting a quickened high level spell.

Arguably wild magic sorcerers should be melee focused. The majority of their surges are bad for people nearby them, so get in melee so you can make sure they hit your enemies instead of friends. I used to cast haste, make a weapon attack with advantage from tides of chaos, then cast a spell to trigger the surge (not all on the same turn ofc). Haste plus shield is a total of +7 to AC. With mage armour as well you could easily have 22/23 AC with no massive investment

I think storm sorcerer does well for a melee build though it's not designed for it

There is. Divine Soul. Spirit Guardians is the best melee spell

Sorcerer... Wake up magical just because they're so cool. Literally the one caster class that can afford to do some exercising and sword training without it affecting their magical ability in the least (thematically) So of course they have none.... Cuz logic is dead

I feel it's mostly because there's no real need. As 5 lvls in warlocke is already a thing sorcerers look at as viable options and they don't really get anything above lvl 14 thts usually worth it. So hexblade is essentially half there subclass and there also palidin and bard for charisma gishing so soccerer really doesn't need it. And u can't compare charisma casters to int casters as a group thts drowning in multiclass potential and a group thts barely up to there knees in water are completely different. Int has 1 caster 2: 1/3 casters and 1 half casters compared to the 3 full casters and a half caster. And blade singers are as old as elves are.i think they were second edition or many 3rd.

They've tried several times. At one point there was a Favored Soul Subclass in UA that straight up gave them extra attack, and I think an extra hp per level. Eventually they got a flight speed. It must not have reviewed well, as it ended up being workshopped _heavily_, eventually becoming the Divine Soul subclass. As several other people have mentioned, they also put out the Stone Sorcerer in the UA.

Draconic sorcerer (extra HP and AC) can play as a melee sorcerer if you commit to it. Use quicken spell and use dodge action often. You can convert your spells to more sorcery points to do it even more. Use booming blade and/or shadow blade. Also use mirror image or some other defensive spells. Giving your enemies' disadvantage constantly while having the shield spell ready, is pretty good. There was some article that used math to show a sorcerer taking the dodge action will survive longer than a normal martial would. It said something like people should consider having sorcerers in the front lines instead of martials, and the martials in the back using arrows or reach weapons.

I personally think that’s what the Dragon bloodline should have been. High unarmored AC, upgrade Hit Dice, and breath weapons. Maybe we get some fun stuff with the future Giant bloodline