Sith Sorcerer
TR 6Humanoid · Medium·Recommended levels: 10-15
Abilities
Saves
- INT +8
- WIS +9
- CHA +8
Skills
- Use the Force +14
- Intimidation +8
- Knowledge: Galactic Lore +8
- Perception +9
Languages
- Galactic Basic
- Sith
- Massassi
Equipment
Traits
When a creature fails a saving throw against one of the sorcerer's Force powers (save DC 18, including +1 from its Sith Talisman), it has disadvantage on its next saving throw made before the end of the sorcerer's next turn — the sorcerer bears down the instant a mind gives way. (The Force Mystic feature.)
The sorcerer has advantage on saving throws against Force powers and other supernatural effects — layered dark-side wards turn hostile power aside.
When a creature the sorcerer can see within 30 feet drops to 0 hit points, the sorcerer gains 10 temporary hit points, and the save DC of its next Force power before the end of its next turn increases by 1 — it feeds on death.
Years of handling Sith toxins have made the sorcerer's body a laboratory: it has resistance to Chem-Toxic (poison) damage and is immune to being Poisoned.
A creature that starts its turn within 20 feet of the sorcerer and can see it must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or have disadvantage on attack rolls against the sorcerer until the start of its next turn — dread rolls off it in waves.
Once per turn, when the sorcerer takes damage, it can add 1d6 to the damage of its next Force power used before the end of its next turn — pain feeds its sorcery.
The sorcerer can maintain concentration on Summon Smoke Demon at the same time as one other power — its will is split across two dark workings at once.
Force Powers
(Action) Lightning arcs from the sorcerer's fingers at one creature within 60 feet, which makes a DC 18 Dexterity saving throw, taking 22 (4d10) Electric damage on a failure or half as much on a success. A creature that fails is also unable to take Reactions until the start of its next turn.
(Action) The sorcerer hurls a lance of pure dark-side hatred at one creature within 60 feet: DC 18 Constitution save, taking 18 (4d8) Force damage on a failure, or half on a success. The bolt deals an extra 4 (1d8) damage for every 10 hit points the sorcerer is missing — its own pain makes it stronger.
(Action) Grasping tendrils of shadow erupt in a 20-foot radius centered on a point within 60 feet. Each creature there makes a DC 18 Dexterity saving throw or is Restrained for 1 minute, repeating the save at the end of each of its turns to break free.
(Action) The sorcerer clamps down on one creature's mind within 30 feet. The target makes a DC 18 Wisdom saving throw; on a failure it can't take Reactions and must spend its next turn taking no actions or bonus actions as its will is smothered.
(Action) The sorcerer floods one creature within 60 feet with dark-side energy. The target makes a DC 18 Constitution saving throw; on a failure, until the end of the sorcerer's next turn, attack rolls against it have advantage and it has disadvantage on its own saving throws.
(Action, Concentration) The sorcerer conjures a servant of coiling dark-side smoke in an unoccupied space within 30 feet (AC 14, 27 HP, +6 to hit, 10 (2d6+3) necrotic-flavored Force damage on a hit). It acts on the sorcerer's initiative, obeys its will, and radiates Fear (creatures ending their turn within 5 feet make a DC 16 Wisdom save or are Frightened until the end of their next turn). It lasts up to 1 minute.
(Action) The sorcerer projects a wave of terror at one creature within 30 feet, which makes a DC 18 Wisdom saving throw or is Frightened of the sorcerer for 3 rounds. While Frightened this way it can't willingly move closer to the sorcerer and has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks, repeating the save at the end of each of its turns to end the effect.
Actions
Reactions
(Reaction, twice per short rest, when the sorcerer is hit by an attack) The sorcerer wreathes itself in dark energy, gaining a +4 bonus to AC against that attack. If the attack still hits, the attacker takes 9 (2d8) Force damage as the ward lashes back.
Lore
A Sith sorcerer is a scholar of the dark side's oldest and most arcane arts — Sith sorcery, the incantations, talismans, and rituals first developed by the original Sith species to bend the Force into shapes no Jedi would recognize. Where a Sith warrior settles matters with a lightsaber, a sorcerer reaches for something older and stranger: bolts of raw hatred, webs of shadow that bind a whole squad, servants conjured out of smoke and malice. Many are also Sith alchemists, twisting flesh and forging Sithspawn — the Massassi mutations, the war-beasts, the horrors that guard Sith tombs are their handiwork.
The great sorcerers are named in the darkest histories: Naga Sadow, who mutated the Massassi and bred the Sith wyrm; Exar Kun, who made the Terentateks; Sorzus Syn, who forged the first Great Amulets from what she learned of the Heart of Graush. A Sith sorcerer fights from the second rank, ringed by warriors and summoned things, feeding on the deaths around it to fuel ever-deadlier workings. It is the most dangerous kind of Sith to face unprepared, because half its arsenal does something the party has never seen and has no answer for.
In Play
The sorcerer is your artillery and control piece — keep it behind the Massassi and let it dictate the battlefield. Open with Dark Side Web to lock down a clustered party, then punish the restrained with Bolt of Hatred and Force Lightning. Summon Smoke Demon adds a body and, via Bound Servant, doesn't cost the sorcerer its other concentration. Drain Life turns every death — even an ally's — into fuel, so the sorcerer gets stronger as the fight gets bloodier. It's squishier than its TR suggests; a party that punches through the front line and reaches it can end it quickly, which is exactly the tension the encounter is built around. Dark Ward buys it one bad turn; make the party earn the kill.
Adventure Hooks
- The Alchemist's Menagerie — Something is making monsters in the deep levels of an abandoned facility — Sithspawn that shouldn't exist in this era. At the center is a sorcerer-alchemist reproducing Naga Sadow's work, and a cage with the party's name on it.
- The Ritual Half-Finished — The party interrupts a Sith sorcerer mid-incantation. Stopping the ritual is a fight; but the half-cast working is now unstable, and finishing it, unraveling it, or fleeing it are three very different endings.