Clockwork Soul Sorcerer 5E Guide | Tasha’s Cauldron Subclass

To say that the Sorcerer is a being of chaos is to miss the point a bit… Though admittedly, sorcerers are fairly volatile and chaotic beings. However, thanks to Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, you can fight against that oppressive stereotype. The Clockwork Soul is built off of calculations. You may be infused by Mechanus, or simply have a mind that works like a computer. Your body is suffused with the power of order, and thus you’re a natural choice for a lawful demigod. Are you too predictable to be useful in a dungeon? Find out, in our Clockwork Soul Sorcerer 5E guide!

Restore the Balance: Clockwork Soul Sorcerer 5E

The Clockwork Soul is a support sorcerer origin focusing on bringing some Cleric utility to the Sorcerer. It succeeds on a few aspects of this; you gain the Restoration spells, pretty great access to dice rolls of enemies and allies, and even some healing… eventually.

Clockwork Magic

To start, you gain some spells known. These spells can be swapped anytime you gain a level. The swapped spells must be abjuration or transmutation spells from sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell lists.

Alarm is going to want to be replaced quickly. It’s just way too specific to be on your permanent Spells Known. You’re better off with an early-game option like Mage Armor. Protection from Evil and Good is… nice? But it’s fairly specific, only useful against the specific types that it protects against. If you know that your campaign is going to focus on either blasting through undead or crushing angels, you’ve got a good spell.

Aid is a cleric spell that… I just don’t like. 5 HP is so pathetically low in my opinion that it’s not worth the investment. Lesser Restoration is super rare for a Sorcerer to get access to, so keep that around! You’ll be super helpful for helping a paralyzed cleric.

Dispel Magic can be a lifesaver, and you are a full caster. You’ll destroy the check to dispel! This is a good spell for any caster to have. Speaking of, Protection from Energy can be a lifesaver against specific enemy types, like dragons or elementals. While it can’t stop physical damage, you’ll be glad to have it in almost every single fight.

Freedom of Movement is niche, but against those niches it’s literally unstoppable. Keep it around if you’re worried about being trapped, since it’s quite literally a win button in specific scenarios. Summon Construct is decent; it creates a potent tank with good damage. But 400 gold is a lot to ask for, when all you get is a pretty basic summon. This should probably be replaced, unless you’re willing to cough up some money.

Greater Restoration is an absolute lifesaver and can absolutely save a campaign. And it’s thankfully only 100 gold! Wall of Force is a brutally efficient defensive spell, and thus you should really consider keeping it around for it’s pure utility.

A great list of spells, and you can replace them with a ton of good options! Just play, and see if you use all of the spells that you have on your list. As you level, you can replace them pretty freely!

In addition to spells, you also gain a little cosmetic manifestation while you cast. That’s not really too important; just figure out what clockwork or balance-themed manifestation occurs. You’ll be fairly obviously magical in fights, though, so be careful!

Restore Balance

Also at level 1, you gain a pretty particular counter ability.

When a creature you can see within 60 feet of you is about to roll a d20 with advantage or disadvantage, you can use your reaction to prevent the roll from being affected by advantage and disadvantage.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

So… this is not overly particular, admittedly. Advantage and disadvantage comes up all the time; cover, “flanking,” spells, special effects, positionals… There’s a ton of options for advantage or disadvantage to come up. 

With a flick, you can negate it. Obviously, you’ll want to negate advantage for enemies and disadvantage for allies. And the only restriction is that they’re within 60 feet of you. That’s actually crazy; no save or anything. You just flick a d20 out of their hand! 

Sorcerers don’t have many great reactions outside of spells, so giving “advantage” or “disadvantage” is a pretty great use of a reaction. Just remember that you can only use it once per turn… And only a small amount of times per day, sadly. But you’ll be shocked at how often you’ll be able to benefit from this!

Bastion of Law

At level 6, you gain a defensive ability that expends your sorcery points… And unfortunately, this is a theme that’s going to stick around.

As an action, you can expend 1 to 5 sorcery points to create a magical ward around yourself or another creature you can see within 30 feet of you. The ward lasts until you finish a long rest or until you use this feature again.

The ward is represented by a number of d8s equal to the number of sorcery points spent to create it. When the warded creature takes damage, it can expend a number of those dice, roll them, and reduce the damage taken by the total rolled on those dice.

So, you spend sorcery points. For each one you spend, you can expect to block about 4-5 damage. The question then becomes… Is a sorcery point worth about 5 health in savings?

Probably not.

This is a pretty good ability, if only it didn’t cost sorcery points! It’s just so expensive. If you don’t spend sorcery points on metamagic very much, or you don’t need them to refresh spells, then hey, this isn’t too bad! It’s a pretty good defensive spell.

And if you value this ability compared to the False Life spell, this defends for a ton more than False Life. So if you like tanking up and want to spend your sorcery points on defense, rather than boosting spells, then this is great, even! You can throw it on at the start of the day and be quite well off. And this stacks with temporary hitpoints, which can legitimately be useful!

Trance of Order

At level 14, you get a little bit more control of dice rolls.

As a bonus action, you can enter this state for 1 minute. For the duration, attack rolls against you can’t benefit from advantage, and whenever you make an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can treat a roll of 9 or lower on the d20 as a 10.

Once you use this bonus action, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest, unless you spend 5 sorcery points to use it again.

Neat!

Once per day, you get 10 rounds of rolling minimum 10 and not getting destroyed by attack rolls. That’s… nice?

If you’re wanting to guarantee damage, this will usually guarantee that you get hits on spell attack rolls. It’ll also make you very likely to pass on saving throws or skill checks that you need to make. That’s wonderful, right?

Well… There’s a problem. Your number of attack roll spells are pretty limited. Guaranteeing Disintegrate is pretty good but… That requires you to learn Disintegrate. Is that bad? Not really, but there’s not many spell attack rolls for you, so popping this in combat is mostly defensive.

Still, this is a stellar ability for boss fights, and can still let you guarantee damage on your best spells. Just remember that it might be mostly defensive, rather than aggressive.

Clockwork Cavalcade

At level 18, you gain the ability to construct a 30 ft cube around yourself. Within this cube, clockwork spirits fly around and do a few things;

• The spirits restore up to 100 hit points, divided as you choose among any number of creatures of your choice in the cube.
• Any damaged objects entirely in the cube are repaired instantly.
• Every spell of 6th level or lower ends on creatures and objects of your choice in the cube.

Once you use this action, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest, unless you spend 7 sorcery points to use it again.

How fun! This is a cool burst ability.

You get 100 health. Healing for 100 is a ton, even at level 18! That’s probably going to be on yourself, but you can still heal a nearby ally for a ton. As a Sorcerer, you normally don’t get access to any healing, so this massive burst of health is quite worthwhile. That alone would be arguably worth the 7 points!

But, there’s more. You repair any objects nearby. That’s pretty niche, but if the fighter’s sword got shattered then it might be a good idea to fix it quickly. However, most of the time enemies don’t really target your equipment or items of importance.

Finally, you cast a 6th level Dispel Magic that affects every spell on multiple creatures. Dang! If your enemy has a massive series of buffs on themselves then this is guaranteed to pop them. However, normally you’d just need to cast Dispel Magic, since most enemies just have one buff on them. If you don’t want to spend the spell slots, however, here this is!

This is a pretty alright ability. If you can, try to get the Healing and Dispel Magic simultaneously. That’d make this very worthwhile, and make your Cleric pretty jealous!

You might also want to know Misty Step, so you can quickly get out of danger after you use this ability near enemies. This takes your action, so it’s basically all your turn.

Best Races for Clockwork Soul Sorcerers

Clockwork Souls sorcerers are pretty much the same as every sorcerer; Charisma, Constitution, Dexterity. You’re fairly tanky with your class abilities if you want to be, but you still don’t want to be on the frontlines. You’re better off using those defensive buffs on your actual frontline classes.

Satyr

Satyrs are high Charisma classes from Mythic Odysseys of Theros. They have +2 Charisma, +1 Dexterity, which is perfect! Ram is not exactly what you’re looking for, and Mirthful Leaps is rather mundane for a wizard. However, you gain free proficiency in Performance and Persuasion, in addition to advantage against magic. They’re pretty fantastic… And it’s pretty ironic to be a being of pure partying and chaos that has embraced law and order!

Verdan

You’d be forgiven for not knowing about the Verdan from Acquisitions Incorporated. These guys are great, though! +2 Charisma, +1 Constitution is great. Black Blood healing allows you to heal a ton during short rests. Limited Telepathy is effective but not exactly powerful. You still get free Persuasion proficiency, which is always nice. Finally, Telepathic Insight helps you not get mind-controlled… Which is always nice! These guys are great, and make a little more sense thematically than Satyr!

Conclusion – Our Take on the Clockwork Soul Sorcerer

The Clockwork Soul is a pretty decent support archetype, though some of it’s later game abilities don’t do quite enough to make them high-tier. You’ll want to try this out if you want to do some roll control on a Sorcerer! You’ll have a ton of fun trying out some spells that Sorcerers can only dream of!