Baldur’s Gate 3: Storm Sorcerer Build Guide

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Human Made

Penned by Sarah Arnold

Sarah loves RPGs, sandboxes, and sims. She's played every expansion of World of Warcraft and WoW Classic and spent hundreds of hours modding and playing Bethesda games.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Hsu

Storm Sorcerers in Baldur’s Gate 3 are spellcasters with a natural affinity for lightning and thunder magic. The Storm Sorcery subclass is one of the strongest in the game, fortifying the sorcerer class where it’s weakest and further reinforcing its strengths. Whether you’re aiming to be a superhero like Storm or Thor, or a cackling villain like Emperor Palpatine, this Baldur’s Gate 3 guide will help you build your Storm Sorcerer into a humanoid hurricane of unlimited power.

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The Storm Sorcery Subclass

With several extra spells to expand your limited spellbook, the ability to fly at level 1, and bonus lightning/thunder damage, the Storm Sorcery subclass has a lot to offer.

Here are the features you’ll gain through the Storm Sorcery subclass:

• Tempestuous Magic at level 1 allows you to fly as a bonus action after casting a spell. You also don’t take any opportunity attacks while doing so.
• Heart of the Storm at level 6 grants you resistance to lightning and thunder damage. It also causes you to deal lightning or thunder damage in a 6m area around your character whenever you cast a spell of that type.
• Storm’s Fury at level 11 causes you to deal lightning damage to anyone who hits you with a melee attack, possibly pushing them away as well.

You’ll also gain five spells at level 6, which we’ll include in our Spells section below.

Race and Subrace

The Dragonborn race is an optimal one for any character who plans to focus on a particular elemental damage type. For a Storm Sorcerer, choose the Bronze or Blue subrace for their additional lightning resistance and their Lightning Breath ability, which can deal lightning damage in a cone without spending a spell slot.

The choice between these two subraces comes down to roleplay and aesthetics. Traditionally, Bronze Dragons in the Forgotten Realms are good-aligned, while Blue Dragons tend toward evil – but don’t let that stop you from making any kind of character you want!

Ability Scores

As a sorcerer, you’ll want to get your Charisma stat as high as possible so you can maximize the effectiveness of your spells and social skills. Afterwards, you’ll want to focus on Constitution to bolster your survivability and likelihood to pass concentration checks to maintain certain spells.

Ultimately, you’ll want to even out your scores so as not to waste points, because you don’t really benefit from odd numbers. A 17 is effectively the same as a 16.

But for this build, we’ll go ahead and put 17 points into Charisma and bump it up later through our feats.

• Strength: 8
• Dexterity: 13
• Constitution: 16
• Intelligence: 10
• Wisdom: 10
• Charisma: 17

Background and Skills

Background and skill choices are mostly about how you want to roleplay, and don’t really have much impact on your spells or sorcerer abilities.

Through your class, you’ll have the option to become proficient in Arcana, Deception, Insight, Intimidation, Persuasion, or Religion. You’ll be able to choose two of these, and at least one should be a social skill – Deception, Intimidation, or Persuasion. As a sorcerer, you’ll definitely want to capitalize on your high Charisma and pass those crucial dialogue checks.

If you want to be proficient in any skills other than those we listed above, you’ll have to get them through your background. One great option is the Urchin, which gives you the Stealth and Sleight of Hand skills. Both of these are useful, and neither one is otherwise available to you.

Metamagic

Sorcerers have the chance to learn four different unique options for their spells through their Metamagic class feature. You can learn two Metamagic options at level 2 and one more at levels 3 and 10. These are the best Metamagic choices in Baldur’s Gate 3 for a Storm Sorcerer build:

• Twinned Spell: With this option, you can double up your single-target spells by spending a number of sorcery points equal to the spell’s level.
• Careful Spell: This option will let you blast your enemies with lightning without having to reposition around your allies, at a cost of only one sorcery point.
• Quickened Spell: You can cast an extra spell on your turn at a cost of 3 sorcery points with this option.
• Heightened Spell: For 3 sorcery points, you can make sure that every enemy in the radius of your spell has a bad time.

Spells

The Storm Sorcery subclass is all about enhancing your lightning and thunder damage, so we’ll want to grab some spells that will take advantage of that core feature, as well as a good variety of utility spells. Although, that variety can be difficult for the sorcerer, who only learns a single spell each level and can’t change them except on the leveling screen.

Luckily, your subclass grants you five additional spells at level 6, giving you some room to branch out a bit more. These spells are marked as (Storm Sorcery) in the list below.

The following are the best spells for a Storm Sorcerer in Baldur’s Gate 3 .

Cantrips

• Shocking Grasp: This cantrip can be a little awkward to use since it requires melee range, but it does lightning damage, which is your jam.
• Fire Bolt: A solid ranged alternative to Shocking Grasp, although it does fire damage instead.
• Light: Avoiding disadvantage in combat is always a good thing, With this cantrip, it won’t matter that you don’t have Darkvision.
• Mage Hand: You get so many cantrips as a sorcerer that you have room for some utility – and this is the ultimate utility cantrip.
• Blade Ward: A defensive cantrip is nice to have, though you won’t be using it often.
• Acid Splash: A damaging cantrip that can hit multiple enemies at once.

Level 1 Spells

• Chromatic Orb: This spell will let you do any kind of elemental damage you want, which is great for taking advantage of enemy vulnerabilities. It’s particularly good for a Storm Sorcerer because the thunder version does an extra d8 of damage.
• Magic Missile: A very situationally useful spell that will let you hit multiple enemies in one turn and is guaranteed to hit each time.
• Witch Bolt: This spell lets you do lightning damage each turn without spending another spell slot, but you’ll definitely have better uses for your concentration and better lightning spells at higher levels. When the time comes, feel free to replace it with whatever spell strikes your fancy.
• Shield: This spell lets you add +5 to your armor class as a reaction when an enemy attacks you, potentially preventing the hit from landing. Even better, it lasts until your next turn.
• Create or Destroy Water: (Storm Sorcery) The Create Water component of this spell is tremendously useful to you, since enemies who are standing in water are vulnerable to lightning damage.
• Thunderwave: (Storm Sorcery) A cone of thunder damage and a knockback to help you escape if you get cornered. That or you can use it to just shove your enemies into an abyss.

Level 2 Spells

• Shatter: A thunder spell that does damage in a wide radius, like a thundery Fireball… a Thunderball?
• Mirror Image: This defensive spell can increase your armor class by up to 9 for 10 turns, which is pretty valuable for a squishy cloth-wearer.
• Enhance Ability: Thanks to the bonus spells from your subclass, you have enough room in your spellbook for few utility spells. This is a great one that will help you succeed in almost any ability check.
• Gust of Wind: (Storm Sorcery) This spell is a little better than Thunderwave for shoving enemies and can also clear clouds from an area, but it doesn’t have a damage component.

Level 3 Spells

• Lightning Bolt: This spell will be your bread and butter for dealing damage. The trickiest part of using it will be lining it up to hit multiple enemies.
• Call Lightning: (Storm Sorcery) This one feels a little redundant with Lightning Bolt, and it requires concentration, which you have better uses for. Still, it’s a freebie, and you can use it to hit enemies who aren’t lined up for Lightning Bolt.
• Sleet Storm: (Storm Sorcery) This spell can disrupt enemy concentration spells, which is pretty handy. But more importantly for you, it creates an icy surface, which halves movement, causes enemies to possibly fall prone, and renders targets vulnerable to lightning damage after it melts.
• Haste: With this spell, you can double your movement speed and actions every turn (or those of an ally). When used with the Twinned Spell Metamagic, you can double them for two people.
• Counterspell: Stop your enemies’ spells as a reaction, forcing them to waste their action and their spell slot.

Level 4 Spells

• Ice Storm: Like Sleet Storm, this spell will make anyone inside it more vulnerable to your lightning spells. But unlike Sleet Storm, this spell also deals its own damage, and it does it over two turns without requiring concentration.

Level 5 Spells

• Hold Monster: A very useful crowd control spell that can completely paralyze any creature for up to 10 turns. With the Twinned Spell Metamagic, you can paralyze two creatures at once.

Level 6 Spells

• Chain Lightning: This is a level 6 spell, so you won’t get it until pretty late in the game, and you’ll only be able to cast it once per Long Rest. Which makes sense, because it’s an incredibly powerful damaging spell.

Feats

As a Storm Sorcerer, you’ll want to max out your Charisma above all else in Baldur’s Gate 3. You can skip the Elemental Adept feat since you have two damage types (lightning and thunder) to choose from, and very few enemies will be resistant to both.

Here are our recommendations for which feats to take as a Storm Sorcerer:

• Ability Improvement at level 4 to even out those Charisma and Dexterity scores.
• Ability Improvement again at level 8 to put two more points in Charisma for a total of 20, which is the maximum.
• Alert at level 12 will all but guarantee that you get to go first in combat, with a +5 to your Initiative rolls. It will also ensure that your party is never surprised by an enemy, robbing them of an initial turn.

Equipment

Early game gear options for pure spell casters are somewhat lacking in Baldur’s Gate 3, but there are a few items that you can keep an eye out for in Act I:

• Silver Pendant can be looted from a skeleton near the Druid Grove, and allows you to cast the very useful Guidance cantrip.
• Bracers of Defence can be found in the necromancer cellar in the Blighted Village, and provides +2 to your armor class.
• The Sparkswall is found in the basement of the Arcane Tower in the Underdark, and makes it so you are resistant to lightning damage and can’t be electrocuted.

You can also look out for any items that provide or use Lightning Charges, which are plentiful.

One of the best robes you can get in Act II is the Potent Robe, obtained from Alfira the bard in Baldur’s Gate as a reward for rescuing the tieflings in Act I. This robe increases your cantrip damage, your armor class, and your hit points.

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Thanks for reading our Storm Sorcery Sorcerer build guide for Baldur’s Gate 3! We hope this guide has helped you build your character into a powerful storm sorcerer. If you have any questions, leave a comment below, and be sure to subscribe to High Ground for more useful guides!

Happy gaming!