Tony Vargas
Legend
Those bothering to make the comparison, in the first place, presumably.
D&D 5E Bladesinger - a criticism of its design
Rofel Wodring
Explorer
So it seems, but what good are any of their conclusions if no matter which side wins the debate, both sides will inaccurately reflect the state of 5E D&D is as it's actually played?
If 5E D&D games which reflect the original design intent back in 2014 (6-8 encounters a day, no magic items) only represent 5-15% of games that are actually played, what goes does it serve the community at large when a consensus is achieved with these unrepresentative games?
Tony Vargas
Legend
5e's played the way each individual DM runs it - the whole DM Empowerment/'make the game your own' thing. The winner isn't one side of the debate, it's anyone DM who gains useful insight into how to adapt the designs in question to how he runs his campaign.
I see no reason to believe they do, and less reason to believe that the hypothetical 85% are the monolithic majority you seem to be implying. And, who cares how 5, 15, or 85% of games are run, if they don't reflect how you're going to run yours?
Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
Because the comparison isn't to your game, where apparently you can take a staff of the archmage from a respected figure without consequence and 12th level fighters have legendary armor, but to all games, where the core design of the class and not Monty haul shines through.
The point though, is that comparing with magic items means comparing BOTH characters with magic items - and it tends to be a wash.
Also you have to check to see if the items you pick are as useful as initially thought:
The Staff is a good item, but it's a 2 handed one - if the fighter/abjurer is using that it's at a cost of 4-5 AC (per the +2/+3 shield).
The Tome of the Stilled Tongue is also nifty BUT (in addition to being pretty evil) 1) The BS could attune to it too BUT again 2) It has a nasty, nasty side effect of losing 2 CON - that's going to hurt an already HP starved character.
Again, in most campaigns DMs tend to award appropriate magic items - magic item differences are a wash. I suppose, In a strictly "by the modules" approach the BS might have a problem because they (the BS) occupy a fringe niche (Wizard that also fights) that modules don't always provide well for - depends what the DM is running.
Wait, a staff can be wielded in one hand in 5e.
The item description starts: "This staff can be wielded as a magic Quarterstaff..."
Hmm - so a 5e quarterstaff is a versatile weapon meaning it can be wielded 1 handed, guess I learned something new! but that means the BS can wield it too - he'd just have no slots left to attune.
clearstream
(He, Him)
BS chooses Blessing of Protection (given in OOTA, in Blingdenstone) which does not require attunement. And Studded Leather +2 which does not require attunement. They then take whatever two items are stronger than the two Abjurer chose.
Do you see what I mean? This isn't a serious line of debate. Given adds from any two magic items of poster's choice, class X is stronger than class Y. I can concede that without affecting my critique of the BS archetype design.
Pretty much. You can't run tests based on magic items, because even if most games do use them, what consensus could you have on what magic items are actually available? You can say "well this is the test we ran with the best magic items around" but that's only useful for DM's who run games where you can get those items. Most games, even if they use magic items, don't allow you to just pick whatever items you want. Even in previous editions where you were supposed to do exactly that, quite a few DM's refused to allow that, grumbling about "magic marts".
And that's not even going into games with custom items or epic boons. I was watching a series of videos on YouTube about a DM who, in his campaign, hands out custom items and boons that mimic 4e Daily Powers and gave out a magic sword, Wound, that crits on a 19-20. It doesn't affect the balance of his game AFAIK (and actually makes it sound pretty cool), but it's highly doubtful any test in this thread would be of any use to a campaign like that.
And that's not even getting into DM's who let other races besides Elves play Bladesingers...
And that's not even going into games with custom items or epic boons. I was watching a series of videos on YouTube about a DM who, in his campaign, hands out custom items and boons that mimic 4e Daily Powers and gave out a magic sword, Wound, that crits on a 19-20. It doesn't affect the balance of his game AFAIK (and actually makes it sound pretty cool), but it's highly doubtful any test in this thread would be of any use to a campaign like that.
And that's not even getting into DM's who let other races besides Elves play Bladesingers...
Rofel Wodring
Explorer
Because then balance discussions become slanted to become unreprepresentative of the community at large.Tony Vargas said:
If how D&D is played on these forums is unrepresentative how most gamers play, then why should they care about any discussions of balance forged on a forum? Conclusions forged from these discussions that affect game balance at large wouldn't be earnest attempts to improve the quality of D&D, there's arrogant impositions of a minority of gamers who think they know what's best for everyone while living in their own little walled garden.
