D&D 5E Bladesinger - a criticism of its design

[Ovinomancer]

[MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]





You basically admit the bladeSinger requires 2 hits to down. The fighter on the other hand requires 5.

I find it amazing that the blurred bladeSinger at 22 AC perfectly matches the champion fighter with 20 AC in chance to be downed. Both are at 26% since it takes 2 hits to kill the blade singer but 5 to kill the fighter.

Likewise the 23 AC bladeSinger has about the same chance of surviving as the 21 AC champion. 16% vs 17%.

From where I'm sitting it seems those 2 characters are basically equal at surviving the giants. The bladeSinger does so with a spell slot but less HP loss which could potentially translate cleric or druid or bard spells that were saved from not having to heal as much. Since the bladeSinger can only survive one hit he would definitely shield on the 2nd if possible and that should basically mean he survives the fight no questions asked. The fighter though doesn't really have any tricks up his sleeve other than dodging and not attacking. Though after 3-4 hits that's exactly the tactic he should employ.

All in all I'd say the 2 characters are roughly equal at tanking considering the likely drain on party resources each is causing trying to do so.

Would you agree?

Well, I admitted nothing: I just provided requested data. I haven't even had time to compare. Assuming your comparison jus correct (and I have no reason to doubt it), they are similar. I would say the bladesinger is better at avoiding being hit by a substantial margin, though, because of shield and the ability to negate most hits.

Also, the comparison doesn't look at adventuring day resource burn, so greets that.

Finally, as I said to [MENTION=71699]vonklaude[/MENTION], damage output of the two groups will likely be substantially different, and that may affect total rounds under attack.

In conclusion, I'm not ready to make the call.

 

[clearstream]

Also, the comparison doesn't look at adventuring day resource burn, so greets that.

We start to look at it, but not in enough detail I suspect. Characters can sustain expending half their Hit Dice per day, so at 6th level that is 3 Hit Dice or one per short rest. Champion should have +3 to +4 Con, so call it 9 HP absorbed. BS should have +1 to +2 Con, so call it 5 HP absorbed. Anything more needs to be cured, or represented by increased likelihood of death per successive combat. The Cleric has 4/3/3 spells and 2 Channel Divinity for 30 HP each. They spend at least one spell per combat on buffing BS. Leaving 0/1/3 spells. Does Champion need 8d8+44+60 worth of healing* (assuming Life Cleric)?

• Accepting 33 for now (because Champion can only sustain 1 HD per short rest), times 6 encounters = on average 198 HP to heal over the day. Those casts and channels heal on average 140 HP. Suggesting about 58 points left to cure.
• BS took 18 less 5 = 13 (uses 1 HD) = on average 78 to heal over the day. That's covered by the channels and one 2nd level Cure. In playtests I found that in about every third combat BS had to Shield from losing initiative or being hit twice. So BS used say 2 more 1st level casts.

First glance, after casting the Cure spells that got Champion to 58 remaining, Cleric is down to 0/1/3. Two 3rd level Cure Wounds neatly covers it, leaving Cleric on 0/1/1. With BS they are down to 0/0/3 instead, but BS ended their day with 1/0/3.


*i.e. equal in casting slots to the BS buffs, but cast reactively instead.

 

[Ovinomancer]

We start to look at it, but not in enough detail I suspect. Characters can sustain expending half their Hit Dice per day, so at 6th level that is 3 Hit Dice or one per short rest. Champion should have +3 to +4 Con, so call it 9 HP absorbed. BS should have +1 to +2 Con, so call it 5 HP absorbed. Anything more needs to be cured, or represented by increased likelihood of death per successive combat. The Cleric has 4/3/3 spells and 2 Channel Divinity for 30 HP each. They spend at least one spell per combat on buffing BS. Leaving 0/1/3 spells. Does Champion need 8d8+44+60 worth of healing* (assuming Life Cleric)?

• Accepting 33 for now (because Champion can only sustain 1 HD per short rest), times 6 encounters = on average 198 HP to heal over the day. Those casts and channels heal on average 140 HP. Suggesting about 58 points left to cure.
• BS took 18 less 5 = 13 (uses 1 HD) = on average 78 to heal over the day. That's covered by the channels and one 2nd level Cure. In playtests I found that in about every third combat BS had to Shield from losing initiative or being hit twice. So BS used say 2 more 1st level casts.

First glance, after casting the Cure spells that got Champion to 58 remaining, Cleric is down to 0/1/3. Two 3rd level Cure Wounds neatly covers it, leaving Cleric on 0/1/1. With BS they are down to 0/0/3 instead, but BS ended their day with 1/0/3.


*i.e. equal in casting slots to the BS buffs, but cast reactively instead.

I'm sorry, but are we postulating 6 hard encounters, now? The bladesinger is dead as well if they're burning 1 2nd level blur every fight and 1 1st level shield every other fight (very generous) while the cleric burns 1 2nd level spell every fight and heals afterwards.

At 8 attacks per combat for 6 combats that's 48 attacks. The bladesinger is 90% likely to be hit 5 times and 91% likely to be critted once over that. So, assuming 4 shields and warding bond (else the bladesinger is down), that's 1 crit for ~15 damage and one hit for ~18 damage that needs to be healed on the bladesinger almost every time. The bladesinger is burning 6 2nds level slots and 4 first level slots, which means they've tapped into their 3rd level slots even with Arcane Recovery. The cleric is buring 6 2nd level slots, so that's all but one of their 3rd level spells as well.

If we go with merely likely (50% chance) rather than nearly certain (90% chance), the bladesinger is critted twice (70% chance) and hit 8 times (51% chance, 7 times is 67% or 2:3). That's not sustainable, either.

So, if we're going to discuss [MENTION=762]Mort[/MENTION]'s hard encounter, let's please stick to that. That's 3-4 a day, not 6, at 6th level 4 person party. If you'd like to push out a medium encounter to have 6 times a day, let's look at that. In the meantime, please stop this switching between cases for the best argument -- it's 1) not necessary, the Champ will already consume a lot of healing resources so you don't need to go to 6 encounters a day, and 2) makes for extremely difficult discussion as you keep switching what field we're playing on.

 

[clearstream]

I'm sorry, but are we postulating 6 hard encounters, now? The bladesinger is dead as well if they're burning 1 2nd level blur every fight and 1 1st level shield every other fight (very generous) while the cleric burns 1 2nd level spell every fight and heals afterwards.

At 8 attacks per combat for 6 combats that's 48 attacks. The bladesinger is 90% likely to be hit 5 times and 91% likely to be critted once over that.

So there are three points here to address.

1) Please refer to my thread on Campaign Pacing http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?588855-Campaign-Pacing for why all "hard" is a reasonable baseline.

2) I make the chance to be critted 1-(1-0.0025)^48 = ~11%

3) From the outset, I have ensured that BS resource use is sustainable for 6 hard encounters, divided evenly by 2 short rests. In the slots remaining presented in my post you are responding to, I have deducted the necessary resources: leaving 6th level BS with 1/0/3 casts (or if you think one more Shield, then 0/0/3) and Cleric with 0/0/3 casts. For me, having 6x 3rd level casts surplus is more than adequate.

So, if we're going to discuss @Mort's hard encounter, let's please stick to that. That's 3-4 a day, not 6, at 6th level 4 person party. If you'd like to push out a medium encounter to have 6 times a day, let's look at that. In the meantime, please stop this switching between cases for the best argument -- it's 1) not necessary, the Champ will already consume a lot of healing resources so you don't need to go to 6 encounters a day, and 2) makes for extremely difficult discussion as you keep switching what field we're playing on.

I've only switched where people have asked me to. @Mort's encounter is a "hard" one. So (taking into consideration what I found when looking at Campaign Pacing) I used a hard encounter as my baseline. DMG lists 6-8 medium to hard encounters per day. We know that the Adventuring Day XP table gives lie to that, but then we also know that if we apply the DMG advancement rate guidelines we end up back at on average all hard encounters. I think I have stated this framing several times, but apologies if not.

If we think 3-4 hard encounters is more reasonable, I predict that BS and Champion will cope equally well. BS and Cleric will have more slot levels of casts left over.

 

[Ovinomancer]

So there are three points here to address.

1) Please refer to my thread on Campaign Pacing http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?588855-Campaign-Pacing for why all "hard" is a reasonable baseline.

I referred to the DMG and MM, which lists the expected adjusted XP a 6th level character should see in a day, multiplied by 4, and divided by the adjusted XP of the Hill Giant encounter. The result was between 3 and 4 encounters.

Was it not you that, in this thread, cautioned against using the average case?

2) I make the chance to be critted 1-(1-0.0025)^48 = ~11%

Thanks for the check, XP where due. I had failed to update the chance for crit from the Champion examples and overcalculated it.

You, however, are using the wrong formula. That's the formula for exactly once, not at least once. However, the chance for 2 or more times is so small that the answers aren't very different. You would run into trouble trying to use that formula to determine the at least once chance for a higher probability event, though, so be aware.

3) From the outset, I have ensured that BS resource use is sustainable for 6 hard encounters, divided evenly by 2 short rests. In the slots remaining presented in my post you are responding to, I have deducted the necessary resources: leaving 6th level BS with 1/0/3 casts (or if you think one more Shield, then 0/0/3) and Cleric with 0/0/3 casts. For me, having 6x 3rd level casts surplus is more than adequate.

I don't believe this is accurate given the numbers, though. 2/3rds of the time the bladesinger is struck 7 times. After using 6 2nd slots, that's 1 3rd slot for blur even with arcane recovery, and all of your firsts, even with arcane recovery, leaving 1 shield needed as a 3rd slot or a hit taken. At 50% chance it's 2, for all of your slots in a day. So, sure, the bladesinger can likely never be hit in a given day by burning ALL of their resources to do so. This completely refutes your argument of flexibility, because the bladesinger cannot use ANY slots to do anything buy stay on the front line.

Further, this use case means that the cleric is burning all of their 2nd and 2 of their 3rd slots just to enable Warding Bond and allow the bladesinger to do that well. The bladesinger is draining cleric resources pretty quickly as well.

The Champion drains healing resources pretty heavily, yes, and likely is unsustainable at 6 giant encounters a day, but his party wizard has all of their slots to contribute, and we haven't actually looked at a champion tank case yet. I haven't had the time (honestly, if I hadn't built a sheet that requires minimal input and had the grounding in combinatoric probabilities I have, i couldn't have participated to the level I have already.

I've only switched where people have asked me to. @Mort's encounter is a "hard" one. So (taking into consideration what I found when looking at Campaign Pacing) I used a hard encounter as my baseline. DMG lists 6-8 medium to hard encounters per day. We know that the Adventuring Day XP table gives lie to that, but then we also know that if we apply the DMG advancement rate guidelines we end up back at on average all hard encounters. I think I have stated this framing several times, but apologies if not.

If we think 3-4 hard encounters is more reasonable, I predict that BS and Champion will cope equally well. BS and Cleric will have more slot levels of casts left over.

Again, you used average cases to build that sheet, and I've had reservations about your findings because they did represent my experiences very well, but didn't have time to engage at the level needed. And I find it to be a useful look at the situation, anyway. It tells something useful, if not always accurate.

But, when we have a specific case in front of us, it isn't accurate at all to use an average assumption that doesn't match the case in front of us. In this case, it's expected adjusted XP for a party of 4 6th level characters (which is 4000 x 4) and the actual adjusted XP of the two hill giant fight (which is 4800). The result is between 3 and 4, with 4 exceeding by almost the adjusted single encounter amount. 4 is an above average day, for sure, 3 is slightly below average.

 

[clearstream]

I referred to the DMG and MM, which lists the expected adjusted XP a 6th level character should see in a day, multiplied by 4, and divided by the adjusted XP of the Hill Giant encounter. The result was between 3 and 4 encounters.

Did you check also the number of sessions guideline (DMG 261 I think it is)? When I looked at how many sessions characters are expected to play at each level, that pushes encounters toward "mostly hard".

As we can't lock down resource estimates until we choose this, let's get to agreement on it. Can you check the sessions guideline?

As an aside, are you remembering Arcane Recovery?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Did you check also the number of sessions guideline (DMG 261 I think it is)? When I looked at how many sessions characters are expected to play at each level, that pushes encounters toward "mostly hard".

Okay, I don't see how that pertains to this particular encounter example.

As we can't lock down resource estimates until we choose this, let's get to agreement on it. Can you check the sessions guideline?

Again, are we going to use averages or not? I thought the idea of a specific scenario was to test things that are not well captured by averages, so it seems very odd to both be extremely specific in the encounter but then switch to a different encounter estimating tool to adjust for daily resource usage. The latter doesn't reflect the former and vice versa.

As an aside, are you remembering Arcane Recovery?

Well, I explicitly mentioned it. Did you read what I posted? It's hard to tell as you selectively pull out single arguments to respond to so I can't tell if you're agreeing to or ignoring the rest of them.

 

[clearstream]

But, when we have a specific case in front of us, it isn't accurate at all to use an average assumption that doesn't match the case in front of us. In this case, it's expected adjusted XP for a party of 4 6th level characters (which is 4000 x 4) and the actual adjusted XP of the two hill giant fight (which is 4800). The result is between 3 and 4, with 4 exceeding by almost the adjusted single encounter amount. 4 is an above average day, for sure, 3 is slightly below average.

To advance the discussion, let's go with 4 hard. Will we still have two short rests? That doesn't impact BS much, but it does impact others. An example map of resource use -

BS 6th
Wakes up
Mage Armor
BS = 31 HP + 3/3/3 + AR +2 BS + 6 HD
Cleric = 45 HP + 4/3/3 + 2 Channel + 6 HD

Hard Encounter
Bladesong + Blur + Warding Bond + 18/2 damage + Channel for 30
BS = 31 HP + 3/2/3 + AR + 1 BS + 6 HD
Cleric = 45 HP + 4/2/3 + 1 Channel + 6 HD

Hard Encounter
Bladesong + Blur + Warding Bond + Shield + 18/2 damage + Channel for 30
BS = 31 HP + 2/1/3 + AR + 6 HD
Cleric = 45 HP + 4/1/3 + 6 HD

Short Rest
Arcane Recovery
BS = 31 HP + 3/2/3 + 2 BS + 6 HD
Cleric = 45 HP + 4/1/3 + 2 Channel + 6 HD

Hard Encounter
Bladesong + Blur + Warding Bond + 18/2 damage + Channel for 30
BS = 31 HP + 3/1/3 + 1 BS + 6 HD
Cleric = 45 HP + 4/0/3 + 1 Channel + 6 HD

Hard Encounter
Bladesong + Blur + Warding Bond + Shield + 18/2 damage + Channel for 30
BS = 31 HP + 2/0/3 + AR + 6 HD
Cleric = 45 HP + 4/0/2 + 6 HD

Short Rest?

There is scope here for BS and Cleric to spend 3 HD each, and use the Channel on other characters if wounded. Even if the BS suffers a critical hit, with Warding Bond up they will survive and there is easily scope to recover the HP lost without dipping into the five 3rd level casts left in the tank. It seems to me that Champion will get through a 4 hard encounter day equally well.

Maybe we should add one deadly encounter, and one medium?

 

[Ovinomancer]

To advance the discussion, let's go with 4 hard. Will we still have two short rests? That doesn't impact BS much, but it does impact others. An example map of resource use -

BS 6th
Wakes up
Mage Armor
BS = 31 HP + 3/3/3 + AR +2 BS + 6 HD
Cleric = 45 HP + 4/3/3 + 2 Channel + 6 HD

Hard Encounter
Bladesong + Blur + Warding Bond + 18/2 damage + Channel for 30
BS = 31 HP + 3/2/3 + AR + 1 BS + 6 HD
Cleric = 45 HP + 4/2/3 + 1 Channel + 6 HD

Hard Encounter
Bladesong + Blur + Warding Bond + Shield + 18/2 damage + Channel for 30
BS = 31 HP + 2/1/3 + AR + 6 HD
Cleric = 45 HP + 4/1/3 + 6 HD

Short Rest
Arcane Recovery
BS = 31 HP + 3/2/3 + 2 BS + 6 HD
Cleric = 45 HP + 4/1/3 + 2 Channel + 6 HD

Hard Encounter
Bladesong + Blur + Warding Bond + 18/2 damage + Channel for 30
BS = 31 HP + 3/1/3 + 1 BS + 6 HD
Cleric = 45 HP + 4/0/3 + 1 Channel + 6 HD

Hard Encounter
Bladesong + Blur + Warding Bond + Shield + 18/2 damage + Channel for 30
BS = 31 HP + 2/0/3 + AR + 6 HD
Cleric = 45 HP + 4/0/2 + 6 HD

Short Rest?

There is scope here for BS and Cleric to spend 3 HD each, and use the Channel on other characters if wounded. Even if the BS suffers a critical hit, with Warding Bond up they will survive and there is easily scope to recover the HP lost without dipping into the five 3rd level casts left in the tank. It seems to me that Champion will get through a 4 hard encounter day equally well.

Maybe we should add one deadly encounter, and one medium?

Is the cleric not healing themselves? Warding bond doesn't reduce the damage load to the party, it just spreads it out.

Also, we need to clarify the scenario. This is 1 round of combat prepping and then 2 rounds defeating the giants, or some other setup? How many attacks does the bladesinger take in each combat and of what kind? Further, the bladesinger should be assumed to lose initiative at least once in four combats against giants, so are we going to factor in the initial no-defenses up but mage armor round of damage? Where do you want that one -- best case is the last, worst is the second after choosing to take a hit in the first.

You've set up some of the necessary criteria to resolve these assumptions, but not all of them.

 

[Tony Vargas]

We start to look at it, but not in enough detail I suspect. Characters can sustain expending half their Hit Dice per day, so at 6th level that is 3 Hit Dice or one per short rest.

That's if they're having adventuring days every day for a while. If it goes adventuring day, adventuring day, downtime, they don't need to sustain it, they can blow all their HD in one day, and get by with half-HD the next (or however managing the resource seems most appropriate). I'm not denying that HD are the least-recoverable of all resources. It's just that, as they have no alternate application, parties may well tend to use them in preference to expending vastly more-versatile slots, even though the slots are more readily recovered.