Lunar Sorcerer 5e Guide

Lunar Sorcery 5e Guide Rating Scheme

This guide is meant as a deep dive into the Lunar Sorcery Sorcerer subclass. For a full overview of the Sorcerer class, check out our sorcerer 5e Guide.

For our full class guides, we use the following color rating scheme:

• Red isn’t going to contribute to the effectiveness of your character build at all
• Orange Situationally good, but a below-average option otherwise
• Green is a good option
• Blue is a great option, you should strongly consider this option for your character
• Sky Blue is an amazing option. If you do not take this option your character would not be optimized

For our subclass guides, we focus mainly on the Blue and Sky Blue options, because the other options are discussed in the parent guide or other subclass guides. We also discuss options that normally would be good for a typical build, but underperform when used in a subclass.

What Is the Lunar Sorcerer in 5e?

Lunar sorcerers draw their power from the moon. While the subclass was first introduced in Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen, which is known for its three moons that represent the three gods of magic, Lunar Sorcerers are able to channel their source’s power on any world.

The Lunar Sorcerers abilities fluctuate depending on the phase of the moon they are channeling with their Lunar Embodiment feature—Full Moon, New Moon, or Crescent Moon.

Strengths

Most obviously, Lunar Sorcerers have the largest additional spell list of any sorcerer subclass to date. They receive 15 new spells over the course of their leveling, which trumps the Clockwork Soul and Aberrant Mind sorcerers that were introduced in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.

On top of this, the Lunar Sorcerers features are incredibly economical. Moon Fire allows them to cast sacred flame twice in one turn in the right circumstance, Lunar Boons reduces Metamagic costs, and Waxing and Waning allows them to switch between phases with merely a bonus action and sorcery point. This allows sorcerers to stretch their expendable resources and action economy to extents not seen in previous subclasses.

Weaknesses

Being the strongest sorcercer class to date, the Lunar Sorcerer fixes a number of issues that 5e sorcerers have run into in the past. Namely, its limited spell list and depletable primary class feature, sorcery points.

Because the spells from Lunar Magic can be accessed regardless of what phase your currently in, you have access to a ton of utility and won’t be forced to constantly swap between phases. My main critique of this subclass is, for some reason, it doesn’t learn moonbeam, which seems like a huge missed opportunity.

Best Races for Lunar Sorcerers 5e

As with most sorcerers, CHA is the biggest priority. Beyond that, DEX can be useful to boost your AC and CON is useful for hitpoints and concentration checks.

In a race, you’re looking for synergistic ASIs (which can be mitigated if you’re using the Customize Your Origin optional rule from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything) and racial features that compliment the sorcerer playstyle. Because Lunar Sorcerers get a litany of spells added to their spell list from their Lunar Embodiment class feature, more spells from races aren’t necessarily weighted that highly.

Instead, looking for concentrationless spell effects, like natural flight, increased AC, or other passive spell-like buffs are the top of our priority list.

Standard Races

Non-Standard Races

Best Backgrounds for Lunar Sorcerer

As most backgrounds are setting specific, we’ll cover a couple setting-agnostic backgrounds that can provide some value to your Lunar Sorcerer build.

Urchin: Great way to get Stealth and Sleight of Hand, two proficiencies you normally wouldn’t as a sorcerer. In addition,  with the Lunar Sorcerer’s Lunar Empowerment ability, your sorcerer might actually get up to a bit of stealthing.

Charlatan: A free social skill, Sleight of Hand, and useful tool proficiencies make this background a good start.

Noble: The free proficiency in Persuasion will go well with your sorcerers pumped CHA.

Lunar Sorcerer 5e Ability Scores

You receive Ability Score Increases at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level.

The biggest priority is CHA, as that’s what effects your spellcasting modifier. Next, you’ll want to pump CON to help mitigate your low hit die. Finally, DEX will boost your AC, help with Stealth, and improve your DEX saving throws.

STR: You want no part in STR.

DEX: Pump this after you’ve got your CON to a respectable level.

CON: Important for not only staying alive but also for maintaining concentration on our spells.

INT: Dump. Wizards are the smart ones.

WIS: Beyond Perception, there’s nothing here for our Lunar Sorcerer.

CHA: Your first stat to pump. Get this as high as possible in character creation and use your ASIs to get this to 20 ASAP.

Lunar Sorcerer 5e Class Progression

1st Level

Hit Dice: d6 hit dice, which is the lowest one out there.

Saves: CON saves are excellent because they can boost your concentration checks. CHA save don’t come up particularly often, but when they do they tend to be nasty.

Proficiencies: No armor proficiencies which hurts your dismal survivability. No weapons proficiencies either, but that won’t matter much.

Skills: A couple face skills which go well with your CHA. Don’t bother with the INT skills as that will be your dump stat.

Spellcasting: Sorcerers struggle by only getting 15 spells known of the course of their level ups, luckily your class features will mitigate this.

Lunar Embodiment: 15 extra spells, including some strong options like shield, and hold monster. Plus, a free casting of your phase’s 1st-level spell once a long rest.

• 1st level
• Shield: This is a great spell to have in your pocket when you’re stuck in a sticky situation. Obviously, the most common use for this spell is to cast this spell when you get hit by an attack, and the +5 boost to your AC will cause the attack to miss. If you have a particularly low AC, you might find this spell sits on the sidelines more often than not at higher levels when enemies get higher attack bonuses.
• Ray of Sickness: Damage isn’t great but Poisoned is a nasty condition. Unfortunately, the save targets CON, a common proficient saving throw, and immunity to the Poisoned condition is also fairly common. Don’t try to cast this at Constructs, Fiends, or Undead at the very least.
• Color Spray: On average, this can affect creatures with 10hp more than sleep. Imposing the Blinded condition with no opportunity to save is quite the debuff. Unfortunately, it only lasts until the end of your next turn as opposed to sleep’s full minute. Most of the time, sleep will be the way to go, especially because it has a longer range.

• 3rd level
• Lesser Restoration: Diseases and conditions do come up from time to time, so you’ll be happy to have this when they do.
• Blindness/Deafness: Very effective debuff that doesn’t require concentration. The only downside is that it targets CON.
• Alter Self: Decent utility when infiltrating hostile areas or needing to travel underwater. Unfortunately, disguise self is a 1st-level spell and usually better for infiltration and the combat part of this spell is pretty worthless.

• 5th level
• Dispel Magic: Always make sure at least one of your party members has this.
• Vampiric Touch: Gives you a 3d6 melee weapon with life drain as long as you can concentrate but those concentration checks are going to kill you. You essentially need War Caster to make this worth it.
• Phantom Steed: Situational. If you need to do any serious traveling, this spell means you won’t need to buy a horse but only lasts for one hour.

• 7th level
• Death Ward: Has an 8-hour duration and doesn’t require concentration so it could be a good spell to cast pre-emptively if you have the ability to regain spell slots during a short rest.
• Confusion: Bestow curse is a better targeted debuff and is a full spell slot lower.
• Hallucinatory Terrain: This is more of a DM-spell than a player-focused on. Particularly creative players will be able to find a use, but most of the time this is unnecessary.

• 9th level
• Telepathic Bond: Allows your party to communicate when they normally wouldn’t be able to.
• Hold Monster: Spell that can take a creature out of the fight. Allows for a save after each turn which makes it worse than banishment for consistently keeping a monster out of the fight, but the monster can be attacked with advantage which will make quick work of it after it fails a save or two.
• Mislead: Pretty decent scouting spell or opportunity to plan an ambush. Pretty high spell slot for the meager effect though.

Moon Fire: Sacred flame is an awesome cantrip normally reserved for clerics. It might not normally output as much damage as fire bolt, but it targets DEX saving throws and outputs radiant damage, which makes it better in certain circumstances. Being able to target two creatures with one casting, as long as their within 5 feet of one another, is amazing damage output for a cantrip.

2nd Level

Fonts of Magic: Lunar get ways to cast free spells and reduce the cost of their Metamagic abilities, but they also must spend a point to switch between phases with their Waxing and Waning feature. You’ll find that the Lunar Sorcerers features buy you access to more sorcery points than you spend, especially between 1st and 5th level.

3rd Level

Metamagic: Refer to our sorcerer guide for a full overview of the sorcerer’s Metamagic ability. Below, we discuss some interactions between the base sorcerer’s Metamagic abilities and the Lunar Sorcerer’s subclass features.

The main thing to keep in mind is the Lunar Boons ability decreases the cost of every Metamagic option by 1 sorcery point, as long as you’re manipulating a spell in a certain School of Magic determined by your Lunar Embodiment phase.

• Distant Spell: Even though you can get “free” uses of Distant Spell thanks to Lunar Boons, it’s still rarely worth it. The only times this will really come in handy for Lunar Sorcerers is if they plan to be a pseudo-cleric and throw out lesser restorations or death wards from across the battlefield.
• Heightened Spell: Discounting the ability to inflict disadvantage on your target’s saving throw is always weclome and is even more welcome with your free blindness/deafness or hold monster.
• Quickened Spell: When you cast two spells in one turn, one has to be a cantrip. With the Lunar Sorcerer’s Moon Fire ability, you now have access to one of the strongest cantrip options in the game. Throw on the discount you get from Lunar Boons, and this is an amazing option if you’re in the correct battlefield position.
• Subtle Spell: Being able to circumnavigate counterspell for free a number of times each day is awesome utility when going up against high-level, caster enemies.

You gain another Metamagic option at 10th and 17th level.

4th Level

5th Level

6th Level

Lunar Boons: Reducing the cost of your Metamagic abilities allows you to stretch your main sorcerer ability. The biggest challenge will be to position your Lunar Embodiment phase so you can use the specific schools of magic to your advantage. Unfortunately, you’re unable to use this ability on evocation spells, which are what you’ll be casting in combat most often.

Waxing and Waning: Changing your Lunar Embodiment phase with a sorcerer point and a bonus action doesn’t do much at this point beyond allowing you to position Lunar Boons. You can also cast to each of your 1st-level Lunar Magic spells without a spell slot once per long rest, as long as you’re in the correct phase. Once you get Lunar Embodiment and Lunar Phenomenon, this helps enable a very versatile playstyle.

14th Level

Lunar Embodiment: Three excellent passive abilities that you get whilst in your Lunar Embodiment phases. The Full Moon ability is fairly situational, New Moon is amazing for stealth situations, and Crescent Moon provides two excellent damage resistances.

18th Level

Lunar Phenomenon: Each of these abilities are powerful bonus action options that you can use for free once per lost rest and you can reuse them for the cost of 5 sorcery points. First, the Full Moon option is an AoE that can blind foes and heal your allies. Next, the New Moon ability deals decent AoE damage, causes a potent debuff by reducing enemies speed to 0 for their next turn, and counts as a free casting of invisibility. Finally, the Crescent Moon option functions as a shortened dimension door while also giving you resistance to all damage for the turn.

20th Level

Sorcerous Restoration: While not that impressive, getting extra sorcery points will go a long way because of your economical subclass features.

Best Spells for Lunar Sorcerers 5e

Cantrip

• Fire Bolt: One of the better damage dealing cantrips. Good range and damage dice, fire is one of the most resisted damage types so be careful when casting at unknown enemies.
• Shocking Grasp: Advantage against metal armor and preventing reactions for a turn bundles damage and utility.
• Thunderclap: Good AoE damage but targets a common save and can’t be used while stealthing.

1st level

• Absorb Elements: One of the best defensive spells at this level, especially for protecting against elemental AoE effects.
• Chromatic Orb: Your go-to damage spell. It has a costly material component that might be difficult to procure at early levels. The diamond isn’t consumed when you cast your spell, so once you get it you can use this spell as often as you’d like.
• False Life: Temporary hit points are always useful, especially at very low levels where characters can be taken out in a single hit.
• Mage Armor: Because of its long duration and lack of concentration, this spell is a great solution to low AC issues early in a campaign, especially if you have some DEX.
• Silent Image: This spell offers great utility for a 1st-level spell. Being able to move the image anywhere in 120ft and make it appear like it’s moving makes it quite a bit more effective than minor illusion and will certainly help when you need to bamboozle an enemy (or watch some fantasy TV).
• Silvery Barbs: Probably one of the more broken spells in 5th Edition. Silvery barbs allows you to automatically grant disadvantage to any creature when they succeed on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw. This may seem innocent enough, but when used in higher-level play and when noted that there is no saving throw to resist the effect, it can make short work of a legendary monster’s Legendary Resistances when saving against powerful spell effects. Essentially, silvery barbs acts like a second casting of a high-level spell, for the low price of a 1st-level spell slot and a reaction. Yes, using your reaction means you won’t be able to counterspell. But in most circumstances, especially when fighting a non-caster legendary monster, it can begin to trivialize encounters. The secondary effect, wherein you grant another creature advantage on the next attack roll, ability check, or saving throw is simply icing on top of the extremely powerful cake.
• Thunderwave: A fantastic, low-level way to knock opponents back if you find yourself in a sticky situation. Damage isn’t bad either but it targets CON saves.

2nd level

• Enhance Ability: Decent buff before you go into combat. Also has a fair amount of utility for just about any out-of-combat situation.
• Enlarge/Reduce: A solid shenanigan spell that is really only limited by your imagination. This can do everything from enlarging your barbarian so they can grapple an adult dragon to shrinking a boulder so you can fly with it then drop it on an enemy’s head.
• Hold Person: This can be encounter-breaking against humanoids. Scales well with levels.
• Invisibility: Great infiltration spell.
• Levitate: Can be used to get up high, or completely remove a melee attacker from combat. Levitate can be good at any level.
• Mirror Image: Great way to avoid damage with a low level spell slot. Plus, it doesn’t require concentration. Overall a solid option.
• Misty Step: Misty step is the staple movement spell for those classes lucky enough to have access to it. It can be cast as a bonus action and avoids opportunity attacks.
• Scorching Ray: A potential 6d6 focused damage at a 2nd-level spell slot, can target multiple opponents, and has crit potential.
• Suggestion: Never underestimate the power of suggesting a course of action to an NPC. Yes, Mr. Scary Guard, why don’t you give us the keys to your king’s treasure vault?
• Tasha’s Mind Whip: Mediocre damage, but it can help you break away from a pursuing enemy while still doing damage.

3rd level

• Blink: 50% chance of completely avoiding any damage for a turn is more consistent over a long period than mirror image and better for builds with lower ACs than blur. Plus, it isn’t concentration.
• Counterspell: Always get counterspell. Even if you don’t want to pick it up as soon as it is available to you, come back and get it at a later level. It can literally save lives when facing a powerful spell caster.
• Dispel Magic: Always make sure at least one of your party members has this.
• Fear: Amazing crowd control spell. Particularly good because they don’t get to retry the save until they break line of sight.
• Fireball: The gold standard for damage spells in 5e. This spell was intentionally designed to be overpowered for a 3rd-level slot, making it the most optimal choice when looking to lay the hurt down.
• Fly: Extremely useful movement option. Being able to fly opens up a whole new world and can overcome many obstacles. Be cautious about the concentration component when flying to lofty heights.
• Gaseous Form: This spell can honestly vie for the top “infiltration” spell over invisibility. Being able to fly and move through tiny cracks as an inconspicuous cloud can make getting into any heavily defended fortress a cinch.
• Haste: Lovely buff for non-caster party members, just make sure you don’t immediately have your concentration broken and waste a 3rd level spell and your party member’s next turn.
• Hypnotic Pattern: Good range, good AoE, and its effect are potent. Incapacitating multiple enemies is a fantastic tactic to passively flee from the situation or do massive damage with automatic crits. The effect can be ended by a friendly creature taking an action to wake the affected creature from its stupor, but that will eat up a lot of action economy. Either way you slice it, hypnotic pattern is one of the best crowd control spells at this level.
• Lightning Bolt: Does as much damage as fireball but has a less effective AoE because it’s a line rather than a circle.
• Major Image: Much like silent image, major image is really only limited by your imagination. A 20ft cube is quite the space to play around in and fit just about any creature (within reason).
• Slow: This spell has a great range, good AoE, and imposes and handful of potent debuffs. While it may not be as straightforward and effective, it certainly has its place in combat. This is usually a more effective option that hypnotic pattern when you can’t get all of the enemies in the AoE. That way, you can gain the advantage of the debuff and not have to worry about an enemy shaking his companions out of the stupor before you can react.
• Thunder Step: Great spell in case you are surrounded and need to retreat. You get to damage the enemies and carry a friend with you.

4th level

• Banishment: Get rid of creatures from another plane, or take out a big threat for most of the combat. One of the better save or suck spells out there. Keep in mind that, unless the creature is natively from another plane, they will return after the spell ends.
• Charm Monster: Charm person, just for any creature. Great for avoiding fights with potentially hostile monsters.
• Greater Invisibility: Being able to attack or cast spells while invisible is a huge upgrade from regular invisibility. Give it to a melee party member and watch them get advantage on every attack and disadvantage on attacks against them, bonus points if it’s a paladin or rogue for extra crit + Divine Smite / Sneak Attack potential.
• Polymorph: The best save or suck spell at this level. The hour duration makes transforming a hostile creature and running away a viable option or will give you more time to finish of its friends before it transforms back. This also allows you to shape-shift a friendly party member into a beast for combat or exploration purposes. The sheer utility this spell offers makes it an incredibly effective spell to keep in your arsenal.
• Storm Sphere: Simply an amazing spell. 20ft radius that hits like a greatsword and a bonus action to deal 4d6 every turn.
• Wall of Fire: Amazing battlefield control option to divide enemies and deal massive damage.
• Watery Sphere: Restrain and move around up to four enemies. You can even send them over a cliff to remove them from combat, it won’t kill the creatures in the sphere because they descend at a slow rate.

5th level

• Animate Objects: Turn your trash into treasure. Send an army of pebbles at your opponents for 1d4 + 4 damage with +8 attacks.
• Dominate Person: Amazing spell when fighting humanoids. Taking over the mind of an enemy can completely swing the direction of the encounter. While spells like hold person can take an enemy of the fight, dominate person can make that enemy into an ally essentially creating a two for one. If you are fighting against humanoids a lot in the late game, this is a simply outstanding spell.
• Enervation: What happens when you cross witch bolt with vampiric touch and make them actually good? The increased range is a huge upgrade and being able to damage creatures while healing yourself is twice the value.
• Hold Monster: Spell that can take a creature out of the fight. Allows for a save after each turn which makes it worse than banishment for consistently keeping a monster out of the fight, but the monster can be attacked with advantage which will make quick work of it after it fails a save or two.
• Synaptic Static: Fireball damage and a debuff rolled into one. Be careful using it on beasts as they are likely to have an INT 2 or less.
• Telekinesis: This is a great spell to have perpetually stocked. Toss enemies around the battlefield or crush your enemies with a giant rock.
• Teleportation Circle: Great teleport spell that requires some prep before it can become really effective. That said, it’s nice to not have the ability to fail during your teleport like is possible with teleport. Awesome utility spell to have in your back pocket.
• Wall of Stone: Great tool to manipulate the battlefield to your party’s advantage.

6th level

• Chain Lightning: Great damage and solid control over targets. If you need to do damage to multiple enemies but have friendlies in your fireball radius, this is a good option.
• Mass Suggestion: Amazing charm effect. No saving throws, target up to twelve creatures, and a duration of 24 hours.
• Tasha’s Otherworldly Guise: Bonus action to gain +2 to AC, damage immunities, and flight make this a solid defensive spell. Even though the spell grants the ability to make attacks with spellcasting modifier and allows you to attack twice, you will rarely use these features as a unless your a martial spellcaster.

7th level

• Crown of Stars: Great bonus action damage, long duration, no concentration. Up and down a great spell.
• Delayed Blast Fireball: Seeing as you can end concentration at any time this is essentially a 7th-level fireball with upsides. If you’re able to time enemies entering the radius exactly 1 minute after you cast it, the resulting damage would be massive for a 7th-level spell. Most of the time, you’ll be detonating this with a d6 or two extra damage.
• Plane Shift: Good utility to run away from a fight that has turned south, or force a CHA save to avoid getting banished.
• Reverse Gravity: Super cool and effective. The only way a creature can avoid the effect is by succeeding on a DEX saving throw, but even then they only grab onto a fixed object to avoid falling up. Besides flying creatures, most will have a tough time escaping this.
• Teleport: Instantly transport yourself and up to eight willing creatures. Of course, there is a chance of a mishap, but a full party teleport is nothing to scoff at.
• Whirlwind: Huge range, good AoE, and a very potent battlefield control effect. If you can catch multiple enemies in this, you can get really good turn-over-turn damage as well as an Restrained effect.

8th level

• Dominate Monster: Extremely good option to help swing the tides of battle in your favor. If you manage to dominate one of your enemies, you’re 2-for-1ing the opponent by adding an ally to your side while subtracting an enemy from your enemy’s side.
• Sunburst: Big damage and nice debuff. Great AoE that is somewhat limited by forcing a CON save.

9th level

• Blade of Disaster: This is a solid, bonus action, multiturn damage spell that can pay off big time with a couple of crits.
• Mass Polymorph: Take up to 10 creatures out of the fight or turn your entire party into T-rexes.
• Meteor Swarm: Nuke your enemies from orbit with this one simple trick! 20d6 fire damage and 20d6 bludgeoning damage, or half on a successful DEX save.
• Psychic Scream: Great damage, targets an uncommon save (INT), stuns on a failed save, and explodes your targets head if they die from the damage.
• Wish: Wish is the best 5e spell, hands down. Its regular use allows you to duplicate any other spell at 8th level or lower. However, it can also be used to regain all hit points for your whole party, change the outcome of a roll, or gain immunity to a spell. Some DMs may allow you to wish for basically anything, but at the risk of something going terribly wrong. This can make for some really cool deus ex machina moments.

Best Feats for Lunar Sorcerers 5e

• Fey Touched: It’s never a bad idea to take a free misty step. Paired with our other abilities, it allows us to stay super mobile in combat. This also allows us to pick up potent enchantment school spells, like dissonant whispers, that we can use to get discounts on Metamagic while in the New Moon phase.

• Metamagic Adept: Seeing as you'll likely get more uses out of your Metamagic than the typical sorcerer, it's never a bad idea to pick up another option in addition to some more sorcery points.

• Shadow Touched: A free casting of invisibility is useful, but won't likely be used every long rest. You can use the free spell from the necromancy or illusion schools to take inflict wounds which works particularly well with your free uses of Distant Spell when in your New Moon phase.

• War Caster: You already have proficiency in Constitution, which helps concentration checks, but if you want even better chances of maintaining concentration, getting advantage on your checks is a good way to do it.

Lunar Sorcerer 5e Build Example

For our Lunar Sorcerer, we’re going to be building a versatile caster that has a response in any scenario they’ll face while adventuring. We’ll be looking to combine abilities from the gem dragonborn race, like the breath weapon, damage resistance, telepathic communication, and limited flight with the Lunar Sorcerer’s utility and combat prowess to create a well-rounded, powerful build. Combine this with a high CHA and proficiency in social skills and your Lunar Sorcerer will effective in and out of combat.

Up until 6th level, you’ll want to be in the Full Moon phase as much as possible, as the free casting of shield is your most powerful option. Once you get Lunar Boons and Waxing and Waning, you can navigate your phases more freely and try to predict which schools of magic you’ll be frequenting.

We’re splitting our upgrades between ASIs and feats. This way, we can max CHA and CON, but still pick up Shadow Touched and Metamagic Adept, which will both add a lot of value to our build.