The Sorcerer of My (and Everyone Else's) Dreams
Dreamwalker is an archetype that I’ve had in the back of my mind for a long time. A large part of why is that my inspiration for the concepts were very difficult to convert into 5E; Wheel of Time’s Tel'aran'rhiod is isn’t exactly a character trait (it’s basically a ‘plane of dreams’ that only special mages and also wolves can enter), and Gaiman’s Morpheus is too much of a kinda-sorta-not-really god to be anything so limited as a PC. The power of dreams has inspired a huge variety of fascinating media, but that much content and variety is very difficult to boil down to something playable.
As the project actually settled into the start of an archetype, it was clear pretty early that this would be a Sorcerous Origin, since sorcerer is uniquely immediate in its ability to present a particular sort of magic. Other casters are always somehow flavorfully mediated; clerics are worshippers of some force or god, wizards are all scholars or one type or another, and so on. This is not to say these classes are any worse at enabling good character building (scholars and worshippers come in all sorts), but sorcerer isn’t specific in the same way. Magic is in a sorcerer’s nature, and the kind of magic they do is just as essential to them. While every other caster has to do something to get magic, sorcerers simply are magic. And, since there are no more specific rules to sorcerer flavor than that, sorcerers have the potential to embody a form of magic more directly than any other caster.
With sorcerer as the class, I settled into designing the actual features. To give some consistency to the subclass, I settled on using the Astral plane as a thematic backbone to the features. Lore varies on where dreams reside in the planar ecosystem, but I always preferred to treat the Astral as the ‘plane of the mind’, and thus as the home of dreams, among other things. From this start, I moved on to find ways to incorporate the dream aspect of the Astral plane into the Dreamwalker’s toolkit. This Astral bend is mostly reflected in the bonus spells and Lesser Projection feature, both of which are designed to push the sorcerer toward a more adaptable role than just ‘Fireball Dispensary’. In addition to these Astral features, other features are designed to reshape the sorcerer’s approach to sleep, with Somnomancer, Gift of Dreams, and Dream Shephard all intended to give the player more ways, flavorfully and mechanically, to work with sleep. Two of these augment the use of existing spells, making sleep more consistent, and giving dream extra effects and utility, so that these niche-but-perfectly-on-flavor spells can be useful to the sorcerer more often.
The last part of the archetype I want to talk about is Lesser Projection, as it is the feature in this piece I’m most excited by. When I look at new homebrew, my favorite features are the ones with open-ended use. Rather than just boosting an existing power or spell, or producing a discreet effect, they open up whole new avenues of play, and give players room to be creative with a versatile tool. My goal with Lesser Projection was to create such a feature, and I’m very happy with the results. The mist body has been limited for balance, but notably, most of the limits are resource based, not capability based. The projection has now spell slots, but it has all of your spells known, including cantrips, and while it has only 1 hit point, it has you full statistics, and therefore the same max hp as your normal material body. In addition, the body can receive spell buffs and perform normal actions just like your normal character. Perhaps you could render them invisible, and send them to infiltrate a dangerous area? If they’re discovered, no harm done, you just wake up. Perhaps you can send them out with a scroll or two, to dispense some magic while you stay hidden away? The possibilities are massive, and intentionally so; I want more features to let players 4D chess their way to victory, and this is my way of being the change I want to see.
One more tip, before we wrap up; this archetype is very good with the Subtle Spell metamagic. Why? Because, Somnomancer’s demi-sleep makes it so that you can’t move or speak, but it doesn’t say you can’t take actions. Perhaps you can surprise an off-guard enemy with an in-your-sleep dissonant whispers, or lure them away with Lesser Projection before annihilating them from afar with a drowsily-cast fireball. As I said, I made this subclass with creative players in mind. Get weird with it.
Overall, I’m pleased with how the archetype turned out, even if the wall of text might be off-putting to some. It’s not an obviously powerful archetype, but I believe in the right campaign, with the right sort of crazy player, this subclass will do some truly off the wall things. I hope you enjoy it, and let us know what you think of it!
-James the Snickering Ghoul