Last Updated on January 22, 2023
Sorcerers are one of the most interesting classes to play in Dungeons & Dragons 5e.
While they have access to a much smaller pool of spells than a wizard, sorcerers still have a wide array of spellcasting options to choose from and can use their metamagic ability to alter or empower their spells to suit any situation.
Sorcerers also make use of feats better than pretty much any other class in D&D 5e — in the right circumstances, which we’ll get into in a minute.
Whether you want to boost the capabilities that already make sorcerers one of the most devastating magical-damage dealers in the game or increase your versatility or chances of survival (you’re almost as bad at staying alive as a wizard), a feat can be the answer to taking your sorcerer to the next level.
What Are Feats?
Feats are an optional rule for Dungeons & Dragons 5e that let you forgo an ability score increase in favor of giving your character new abilities.
Feats can let you learn new spells, tweak your ability scores, and give you access to unique abilities that range from a photographic memory to new fighting styles.
In this guide, we’re going to break down the best feats for the sorcerer class.
When Can Sorcerers Take Feats?
If you’re playing a Custom Lineage character or a Variant Human, you’ll have the choice of a feat at character creation. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait until an Ability Score Increase rolls around.
Sorcerers get an Ability Score Improvement (ASI) at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th levels.
Should I Even Take a Feat?
Picking up a feat at any level (other than 1st) is always going to be a matter of cost-benefit analysis.
You’re forgoing a +2 bonus (or two +1s) to any of your ability scores, so if you’re choosing between one or two of your ability-score modifiers increasing and a feat, then the cost can be pretty steep.
Still, there are plenty of feats that strike a balance between ASI and new stuff to do with a +1 bonus.
Also, as a sorcerer, as long as your Charisma (and ideally Constitution) are high enough, you’re kind of okay to let the rest of your stats slide.
Sorcerers are best suited to spellcasting and being the Face of the party — both of which rely on your Charisma modifier.
A good Constitution score is definitely helpful as a way to maintain concentration and give yourself a bit more survivability.
However, if you’re happy with your Charisma and Constitution, then there’s no reason you shouldn’t grab a feat when they become available.
If you’re interested in feats, many of the best options pack an especially powerful punch at early levels, meaning picking Variant Human or Custom Lineage as your character’s race can be a really good move as they give you a feat at 1st level.
Some feats stay relevant at higher levels better than others.
What Are the Best Feats for Sorcerers in DnD 5e?
The two biggest issues that sorcerers experience are a relatively small pool of known spells and the classic full-caster survivability issue.
Putting aside the fact that sorcerers are total weenies for a second, let’s look at how the three best sorcerer feats can seriously elevate your spellcasting.
Elemental Adept
If you want to maximize your chances of absolutely ruining your enemies’ day with a well-placed fireball, the Elemental Adept feat is definitely the way to go.
Prerequisite: The ability to cast at least one spell
When you gain this feat, you choose between the acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage types.
Any spells you cast now ignore resistance to that damage type. Also, you get a slight buff to damage by treating any 1 on a damage die as a 2.
You can select this feat multiple times. Each time you do so, you must choose a different damage type.
Damage-focused sorcerers make excellent candidates for this feat as it’s very easy to populate the entirety of your short spell list with spells that deal one type of damage (usually fire as it’s both the most common damage type and one of the more common damage types that enemies can resist — poison excepted), ensuring that you’re very rarely going to waste a spell slot hitting a monster for half damage.
Be careful, however: overcoming resistance doesn’t mean you overcome immunity. So this feat can fall off dramatically once you start encountering stronger monsters.
Also, if you choose an option that doesn’t suit your campaign (cold in a desert campaign, for example), this feat runs the risk of feeling dangerously underwhelming.
Eldritch Adept
This feat adds a potentially huge amount of variety to the sorcerer, especially at lower levels.
Prerequisite: Spellcasting or Pact Magic feature
Choose one Eldritch Invocation to learn from the warlock class. Your spellcasting ability for the invocation is Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma (choose when you select this feat).
If the invocation has a prerequisite of any kind, you can choose that invocation only if you’re a warlock who meets the prerequisite.
Whenever you gain a level, you can replace the invocation with another one from the warlock class.
Eldritch Invocations are special abilities that warlocks can learn — usually as a way of enhancing, reflavoring, or broadening their spellcasting abilities.
While you don’t have access to the full suite of invocations (and it’s a shame that the level prerequisite invocations are only available to warlocks of that level), you can still find some great options on the list, many of which let you cast some great 1st-level spells as will, which can really change the feel of your character.
Some of these options include…
Armor of Shadows: Cast Mage Armor on yourself at will.
Devil’s Sight: See normally in darkness, both magical and nonmagical, to a distance of 120 feet.
Eldritch Sight: Cast Detect Magic at will.
Fiendish Vigor: Cast False Life on yourself at will as a 1st-level spell.
Mask of Many Faces: Cast Disguise Self at will.
Misty Visions: Cast Silent Image at will.
Metamagic Adept
Sorcerers don’t get access to their class-defining Metamagic abilities until they reach 3rd level.
If you don’t want to wait that long to start messing around with mysterious arcane forces, playing a race that can pick up the Metamagic Adept feat at first level gives you a jump-start on sorcery.
Or, if you want to grab this feat later on, it’s still a nice boost to your reserve of sorcery points.
Prerequisite: Spellcasting or Pact Magic feature
Choose two Metamagic options from the sorcerer class, which work according to the sorcerer metamagic rules.
Whenever you reach a level that grants the Ability Score Improvement feature, you can replace one of these Metamagic options with another one from the sorcerer class.
You also get 2 sorcery points to spend on Metamagic (these points are added to any sorcery points you have from another source but can be used only on Metamagic and can’t be converted into spell slots like regular Metamagic points can using Font of Magic), and they replenish when you finish a long rest.
Being able to let loose with an empowered or twinned spell at 1st level — even if it’s just once per day — can be an early boss-fight winner.
The other way to maximize your uses of Metamagic early on is to choose two options that only cost one sorcery point each.
- Careful Spell: Select a number of creatures up to your Charisma modifier to automatically save on a spell you cast that requires a saving throw.
- Distant Spell: Double the range of a spell with 5 feet or greater, or you can make a spell with the range of touch have a range of 30 feet.
- Empowered Spell: Reroll a number of damage dice up to your Charisma modifier when you roll damage for a spell; you must use the new rolls. You may use this option if you have already used another Metamagic Option on a spell.
- Extended Spell: Double the duration of a spell with a duration of 1 minute or longer to a maximum of 24 hours.
- Subtle Spell: You can cast a spell without using any verbal or somatic components.
- Transmuted Spell: When you cast a spell that deals a type of damage from the following list, you can change that damage type to one of the other listed types: acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, thunder.
Other Sorcerer Feats To Consider
Usually when we write these feat guides, there are a few great options to stick up at the top and then a great big swathe of feats that might be thematically interesting but mechanically are just okay.
And then there are sorcerers.
Honestly, I’m genuinely sad that sorcerers get such a small amount of ASIs, and I’d go so far as saying that playing a custom-lineage character (or a variant human) is the best (certainly the most fun) way to build a sorcerer.
So, in no particular order, here are 10 feats that are guaranteed to give your sorcerer a significant boost to their abilities.
Magic Initiate
Easily one of the best feats in the game, Magic Initiate gives you a couple of cantrips and a 1st-level spell from any spell list.
That means you can grab something like Goodberry or Healing Word to solve your party’s lack of a cleric without having to choose the Radiant Soul.
It means you can pick up Eldritch Blast (followed by the Eldritch Initiate feat at 4th level and the Agonizing Blast cantrip for, well, 80% of the stuff people play warlocks for without having to multiclass) or Guidance.
Basically, you get to look at your party’s composition and fix any shortcoming you see. Also, two extra cantrips is a whole load of diversity in a class that sometimes struggles with variety and versatility.
Ritual Caster
The lack of ritual casting (taking more time to cast a spell to avoid expending a spell slot) can be a pretty glaring hole in the sorcerer’s toolkit. Fix that problem with the Ritual Caster feat.
You get two 1st-level ritual spells from the bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell lists, which means that useful stuff like Find Familiar is now on the table.
Telekinetic
A great feat on just about any caster, Telekinetic gives you a bump to one mental-ability score, an invisible mage hand, and the ability to shove people with it using your bonus action (which sorcerers rarely have a use for).
It’s the perfect way to get enemies out of your face while you run away without wasting an action disengaging.
Also, if anyone’s standing near a window or a ledge, it’s basically free license to collect the easiest kill of your campaign.
War Caster
The War Caster feat gives you advantage on concentration saving throws and lets you cast cantrips as opportunity attacks.
The real joy of this is that you can apply metamagic to those cantrips, meaning you can fire off twinned spells and catch another enemy entirely.
Spell Sniper
Double the range of your spells, ignore half and three-quarter cover when making a spell attack, and it lets you pick a new cantrip that requires an attack roll (for which the only correct answer is Eldritch Blast).
Perfect for sorcerers who like to keep their enemies at a distance. It’s a little situational, but under the right circumstances, it can be a very powerful feat.
Drow High Magic
Prerequisite: Elf (drow)
You learn the detect magic spell, which you can cast at will without expending a spell slot. You also learn levitate and dispel magic, each of which you can cast once without expending a spell slot.
If you’re playing a Drow, then this feat is a great way to expand your spell list with a mixture of utility and defensive options.
Fey Touched
The Fey Touched feat gives you a +1 bonus to a mental stat. You also learn both the Misty Step spell and another 1st-level spell of your choice from the divination or enchantment school of magic.
Misty Step’s short-range teleportation is perfect for a quick escape, and you have access to a whole suite of useful options, some of which are otherwise unavailable to sorcerers.
- Bless: With the bounded accuracy system of D&D 5e, every bonus to a d20 roll goes a long way in increasing your odds of success.
- Command: This spell is one of the few 1st-level spells to disrupt a foe’s turn without requiring concentration.
- Dissonant Whispers: A great way to trigger lots of opportunity attacks; basically use your frontliners as weapons.
- Hex/Hunter’s Mark: Two good options for boosting the damage output of your spell attacks.
- Sleep: A super powerful way to get one (or even two) weaker enemies out of the fight or to just silently knock out a guard.
- Tasha’s Hideous Laughter: One of the few 1st-level spells that can take an enemy out of the fight completely.
Shadow Touched
The Shadow Touched feat is very similar to Fey Touched, but it infects you with the powers of the Shadowfell rather than the Feywild.
Increase your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma score by 1, and learn both Misty Step and a 1st-level spell from the illusion or necromancy school of magic.
Gift of the Gem Dragon
The draconic gifts, introduced as part of Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons, can potentially bestow powerful abilities on player characters, depending on the type of dragon that bestows them.
This Feat infuses you with some of a gem dragon’s psionic power, which gives you a +1 bonus to your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma score. You also gain theTelekinetic Reprisal feature.
When a creature within 10 feet deals damage to you, it must succeed on a Strength saving throw with a DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + the ability modifier of the score increased by this feat.
On a failed save, the creature takes 2d8 force damage and is pushed up to 10 feet away from you. On a successful saving throw, the creature takes half damage and isn’t pushed.
You can use this feature a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency bonus.
This is a super-powerful defensive ability that can keep you alive while blowing your enemies to bits.
Resilient
The Resilient feat grants you a +1 ability score increase and proficiency in saving throws with that ability.
Constitution is a great fit here, making it easier to maintain concentration on spells as well as resist the effects of poison and exhaustion.
Consider this as an alternative to War Caster, depending on whether you like to dish out damage with cantrips or use them more for utility spellcasting.Â
I played my first tabletop RPG (Pathfinder 1e, specifically) in college. I rocked up late to the first session with an unread rulebook and a human bard called Nick Jugger. It was a rocky start but I had a blast and now, the better part of a decade later, I play, write, and write about tabletop RPGs (mostly 5e, but also PBtA, Forged in the Dark and OSR) games for a living, which is wild.
