Sword of Spirit
Legend
I'm not closely following the playtest, since I'll likely be adopting relatively little of the revisions.* However, I do want to look at some things to see if I can import them.
I've been curious as to what they were going to do with the Eldritch Knight's War Magic ever since they revised the Bladesinger to let them use a cantrip in place of an attack. And it seems, from the playtest packet 7, that that is exactly what they are planning to do with the fighter.
Well the problem with that is that cantrips scale in a way that a weapon attack doesn't, and this is especially an issue with green-flame blade.
Green-flame blade adds up to 3d8 damage to the target you hit, and 3d8+Int mod to an adjacent target. This is at-will, every turn that you take the Attack action, adding a potential 13.5 extra damage on one of your attacks, and if there is an adjacent target (and you will be trying to make that so if you can!) adding probably at least another 15.5 damage to that secondary target also, which will bring you to around (or above, depending on Intelligence) 30 extra damage on those rounds. Yes, that's at 17th+ level, but you can see the issue even earlier.
Am I missing something that is supposed to balance this? Are there hidden features that Battle Master and Champion get that raise their damage to a similar range? Is it just acknowledged that Eldritch Knight is the king of fighter damage, and the other subclasses have something else to balance it with?
* 2014 core books are probably as close as official D&D will ever get to my vision for it, and I'm just not happy with the mechanical changes over the past few years. Because of this--unlike the D&D Next Playtests that I was heavily involved in giving feedback on--I'm not going to be engaging with official feedback. I just feel like I'd only be telling them what I don't like about changes, and not adding anything productive, since the new edition isn't for me. So if anything I bring up is an issue that those of you who intend to adopt the 2024 changes want addressed, you'll need to provide your own feedback on it.
I've been curious as to what they were going to do with the Eldritch Knight's War Magic ever since they revised the Bladesinger to let them use a cantrip in place of an attack. And it seems, from the playtest packet 7, that that is exactly what they are planning to do with the fighter.
Well the problem with that is that cantrips scale in a way that a weapon attack doesn't, and this is especially an issue with green-flame blade.
Green-flame blade adds up to 3d8 damage to the target you hit, and 3d8+Int mod to an adjacent target. This is at-will, every turn that you take the Attack action, adding a potential 13.5 extra damage on one of your attacks, and if there is an adjacent target (and you will be trying to make that so if you can!) adding probably at least another 15.5 damage to that secondary target also, which will bring you to around (or above, depending on Intelligence) 30 extra damage on those rounds. Yes, that's at 17th+ level, but you can see the issue even earlier.
Am I missing something that is supposed to balance this? Are there hidden features that Battle Master and Champion get that raise their damage to a similar range? Is it just acknowledged that Eldritch Knight is the king of fighter damage, and the other subclasses have something else to balance it with?
* 2014 core books are probably as close as official D&D will ever get to my vision for it, and I'm just not happy with the mechanical changes over the past few years. Because of this--unlike the D&D Next Playtests that I was heavily involved in giving feedback on--I'm not going to be engaging with official feedback. I just feel like I'd only be telling them what I don't like about changes, and not adding anything productive, since the new edition isn't for me. So if anything I bring up is an issue that those of you who intend to adopt the 2024 changes want addressed, you'll need to provide your own feedback on it.