Subclass Sorcerer Shadow Magic

What Is the Shadow Magic?

The Shadow Magic Sorcerer is a Sorcerer subclass whose powers were born in the Shadowfell. Shadow Spells at Level 3 provides a dark-themed spell list including Bane, Darkness, and Hunger of Hadar. Power of Shadow grants Eyes of the Dark (120ft Darkvision + Darkness spell) and Strength of the Grave (survive lethal hits with a Charisma save). Beasts of Ill Omen at Level 6 summons a Hound of Ill Omen that imposes Disadvantage on saving throws against your spells.

Class Features

Progression Overview

LEVEL	FEATURE
3	Shadow Spells, Power of Shadow
6	Beasts of Ill Omen

Level 3

Shadow Spells:

When you reach certain Sorcerer levels, you always have the listed spells prepared.

LEVEL	SPELL
3	Bane, Darkness, Inflict Wounds, Pass Without Trace
5	Hunger of Hadar, Fear
7	Greater Invisibility, Phantasmal Killer
9	Contagion, Cloudkill

Power of Shadow

You gain the following two abilities:

Eyes of the Dark: You have Darkvision with a range of 120 feet.

You can also cast Darkness by spending 2 Sorcery Points, without expending a spell slot.

Strength of the Grave: When damage reduces you to 0 Hit Points, you can make a Charisma saving throw (DC 5 + the damage taken). On a success, you instead drop to 1 Hit Point.

You can't use this feature if you are reduced to 0 Hit Points by radiant damage or by a critical hit. Once this feature is used successfully, you can't use it again until you finish a Long Rest.

Level 6

Beasts of Ill Omen: You can use your Bonus Action and expend 1 Sorcery Point to magically summon a Hound of Ill Omen to target one creature you can see within 120 feet of you.

The hound uses the Dire Wolf stat block with the following changes: it is Undead, immune to the Frightened condition, and it can, without an action, teleport to an unoccupied space within 30 feet of the target.

While the hound is within 5 feet of the target, the target has Disadvantage on saving throws against your spells.

Playstyle Notes

The Shadow Magic Sorcerer is the save-or-suck amplifier Sorcerer subclass.

Beasts of Ill Omen at Level 6 is the defining feature: while the Hound is adjacent to a target, that target has Disadvantage on saving throws against your spells.

Combined with Heightened Metamagic (target already saves with Disadvantage), the target is rolling three dice and taking the lowest against your spell. This makes Save DC 15 spells function as if the DC were much higher.

Shadow Spells List

SPELL	DESCRIPTION
Bane	Reducing enemy saves for your whole party.
Hunger of Hadar	Darkness Area + 2d6 cold + 2d6 acid AoE.
Fear	Wisdom Save or Frightened, fleeing
Greater Invisibility	Advantage on all attacks + Disadvantage on attacks against you for 1 minute.
Cloudkill	5d8 Poison per turn AoE.

Strength of the Grave provides a functional "second life" once per Long Rest — making the Shadow Sorcerer harder to kill outright than any other Sorcerer subclass. The Charisma save (your primary stat) makes success likely except on very high damage spikes.

Eyes of the Dark's 2-Sorcery-Point Darkness spell creates obscured zones that the Shadow Sorcerer (with Darkvision 120ft) can operate inside freely. Casting spells from within Darkness zones creates Advantage on attack rolls against blinded creatures.