Sorcerer - Goldblooded Origin

by somanyrobots

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Sorcerous Origin

Goldblooded

A noble scion may be born to great wealth, but a goldblooded sorcerer has money woven into their very essence. Perhaps they are descended from generations of fantastic wealth. Perhaps their bloodline contains a draconic ancestor, but one whose influence manifests through treasure hoards rather than scaled skin. Or perhaps they're simply born with a knack for money and the ability to channel magic through it.

Goldblooded sorcerers do not always come from wealth (though they usually do), but always have some sort of connection to it. They can be particularly vulnerable to its corrupting effects; many goldbloods fall into a reflexive selfishnes and a habitual disregard for others. But some sorcerers can overcome the pernicious influence of easy coin, using their powers to aid others and share the blessings of their bloodline.

Goldblooded Origin Features

Sorcerer Level Feature
1st Origin Spells, Eye for the Prize, Golden Touch
6th Financial Forecasting, Expensive Tastes
14th Treasure Seeker
18th Power of Gold

Goldblooded Origin Spells

You learn additional spells when you reach certain levels in this class, as shown on the Origin Spells table. Each of these spells counts as a sorcerer spell for you, but it doesn’t count against the number of sorcerer spells you know.

Sorcerer Level Spells
1st alarm, detect treasureS
3rd detect thoughts, knock
5th clairvoyance, lead to goldSBS
7th rain of coinsS, secret chest
9th auric lanceSBS, cursed coinS

Spells marked with S are by somanyrobots and featured in So Many Spells. Spells marked with SBS are from Songs of the Spellbound Sea. All are included below.

Eye for the Prize

From 1st level, you have an instinctive knack for understanding wealth. When you make a check to assess an object's wealth or haggle over a price, you do so with advantage.

Golden Touch

Also at 1st level, you can call upon your innate connection to coin to empower your magic. When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher, you can expend an amount of gold up to to your sorcerer level + the spell's level, which disappears forever. If you do so, you can enhance the spell in one of the following ways:

  • One target of the spell takes additional damage equal to half the gold spent.
  • You can immediately move a distance up to doauable the amount of gold spent, rounding up to the nearest 5 feet. This movement doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity.
  • The first time you roll a saving throw to maintain concentration on the spell, you can add the amount of gold spent to the roll.

After your Golden Touch has spent an amount of gold equal to five times your sorcerer level, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

Financial Forecasting

At 6th level, you gain a certain nous for opportunities. When you cast divination spells to assess financial opportunities, the material component cost is halved, and the GM must roll twice and take the more favorable result when assessing failure chances or random results.

Expensive Tastes

Also at 6th level, you can search out valuables wherever they might be. You can cast detect treasureS as a bonus action by spending 1 sorcery point in addition to expending a spell slot. While you are concentrating on the spell, a creature holding a valuable object within range can't be hidden from you or invisible to you.

Treasure Seeker

At 14th level, you can home inerrantly on any treasure you seek. If you can see a valuable object within 60 feet, you can use a bonus action to teleport to a space next to it.

You can teleport in this way once, regaining the ability after finishing a long rest.

Note that this makes it very easy to teleport to allies or to any location you can toss a coin to.

Power of Gold

At 18th level, you develop new and powerful techniques to transmute treasure into arcane might. When you use your Golden Touch, you can spend additional gold up to your sorcerer level, which you distribute among any number of creatures of your choice within 30 feet. A creature receiving coins in this way gains the following benefits:

  • It gains temporary hit points equal to the gold value received.
  • It gains a bonus equal to the gold value received to its next saving throw within 1 minute.
  • Its next attack that hits within 1 minute deals bonus damage equal to the gold value received.

Once you enrich your allies in this way, you can't do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

Goldblooded Origin quirks

The following are some optional quirks for a player of this subclass to choose from.

d6 Quirk
1 Your eyes have a metallic sparkle to them in the light.
2 The same bad coin has dogged you your whole life, always coming to hand when you reach into your purse.
3 Your coin purse always jangles and bulges — even when it's empty.
4 You refuse to wear any clothes but the most expensively tailored.
5 When you cast your origin spells, your pupils literally take the shape of currency symbols.
6 You wear the most extravagant jewelry you can find.

Appendix 1: Wealth & Game Balance

The major challenge with incorporating wealth into a character's features is that different D&D campaigns have different levels of wealth. A generous GM might let low-level characters accrue thousands of gold (enough to buy plate mail), while a harsher one might make players wait until level 10 or higher to receive that much wealth.

While the Goldblooded Sorcerer spends gold to fuel their subclass abilities, the amounts are relatively small compared to an adventuring party's typical wealth. The subclass is balanced assuming that gold limitations never prevent it from using its features, and instead relies on other usage limits. If you are finding that your sorcerer is having trouble earning enough gold, consider the following optional feature, which increases their income by 50%. If it feels too generous, you can also try a reduced-strength version — 10% or 25% might work better for your game.

Optional Feature: Spare Change

This replaces the Eye for the Prize feature at level 1

At 1st level, gold somehow always makes its way to you. When you obtain gold or other currency, you gain extra gold equal to 50% of its value. This only applies once to any given piece of treasure.

It's easy to understand the intent but tricky to phrase a strict RAW. Basically, you get 50% extra gold, but you can't exploit it to try and get more. You can't repeatedly "receive" the same treasure to keep re-triggering this. It doesn't apply to useful treasure like magic items, but only coinage, art objects, and other non-usable stores of value. It only applies to gold you personally earn, not the entire party's income.

Appendix 2: Spells

Cursed Coinage

5th-level transmutation

  • Classes: Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard
  • Casting Time: 1 action
  • Range: 60 feet
  • Components: V, S, M (1 gp per target, which is transferred to the target)
  • Duration: Permanent

You place a dire curse upon a number of gold pieces, and attempt to magically transport them into the purses and pockets of any number of creatures you can see within range. Roll a d20 for each target. Conscious creatures know they have received a coin but do not immediately know the outcome of the d20 roll. A creature with legendary resistance can use it to force a result of 20 on the roll.

On a roll of 1-10, the target is cursed. It must roll a d6 anytime it makes an attack roll or saving throw, subtract it from the result, and suffer necrotic damage equal to double the d6 roll. The target can end the effect by using its action to locate the coin and discard it, after which it disappears.

On a roll of 11-20, the target suffers no ill effects and can keep the gold piece without issue.

Detect Treasure

1st-level divination (ritual)

  • Classes: Sorcerer, Wizard
  • Casting Time: 1 action
  • Range: Self (30 feet)
  • Components: V, S, M (1 gp, which is consumed)
  • Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes

For the duration, you can sense the presence of valuable objects within 30 feet of you. Items worth 1 sp or more gleam to your eyes, and you see a brilliant shine on items worth 100 gp or more. The spell only detects items with no practical use except as a store of value, and doesn't reveal invisible items.

The spell can penetrate most barriers, but it is blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt. When you cast the spell as a ritual, the material component cost increases to 5 gp.

Auric Lance

5th-level transmutation (ferromancy)

  • Classes: Bloodrager, Cleric, Sorcerer, Spellblade, Wizard
  • Casting Time: 1 action
  • Range: 60 feet
  • Components: V, S, M (a golden needle)
  • Duration: Instantaneous

You fling a golden needle at a target within range, which expands into a deadly spear. Make a ranged spell attack. On a hit, the target takes 10d8 piercing damage and gleams with a golden aura, granting advantage on all attacks against it until the start of your next turn.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, the damage increases by 1d8 for each slot level above 5th.

Lead to Gold

3rd-level transmutation (ferromancy)

  • Classes: Inventor, Wizard
  • Casting Time: 1 action
  • Range: Touch
  • Components: V, S, M (a quantity of base metal worth up to 10gp)
  • Duration: 1 hour

You reshape a quantity of base metal, transforming it into valuable gold. You can transform up to 10 gp worth of base metal into a quantity of gold worth ten times as much. The metal’s general form does not change. After the spell ends, the metal returns to its original material.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level or higher, the spell’s duration increases by 1 hour per level above 3rd. If cast with a 9th-level spell slot, the duration is permanent.

Rain of Coins

4th-level conjuration

  • Classes: Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard
  • Casting Time: 1 action
  • Range: 120 feet
  • Components: V, S, M (10 gp, which are consumed)
  • Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

You conjure a veritable storm of coinage, assailing your foes with a rain of painful treasure. As an action, you summon a rain of coins in a cylinder you can see, 30 feet across and 100 feet high. The cylinder is difficult terrain, and any creature starting its turn in the area immediately takes 4d8 bludgeoning damage and must make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failure, it must spend its action attempting to frantically scoop up coins as they fall down. Creatures that can't be charmed automatically succeed on the saving throw.

After the spell ends, 4d4 gold coins remain in the area, and all the rest vanish.

Change Log

v0.2

  • Fixed a small typo

v0.1

  • Rough Draft
Credits & References:

Goldblooded Origin created by somanyrobots
Discord | Patreon
Inspired by Will Savino / Borough Bound

Spells

Auric Lance, Cursed Coinage, Detect Treasure, Lead to Gold, Rain of Coins by somanyrobots

Art

Revel in Riches, by Eric Deschamps © Wizards of the Coast LLC

Background Image Stains

Jared Ondricek

License
Fan Content Policy

This work is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.

5E SRD Content

  • This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 (“SRD 5.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available here.

  • The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available here.