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Yet Another Arcane Trickster / Bladesinger Thread: The Concentration Problem
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<blockquote data-quote="Esker" data-source="post: 7590140" data-attributes="member: 6966824"><p>Thanks for the feedback, [MENTION=6992717]Irregular_Gnoll[/MENTION]!</p><p></p><p>I think you misunderstood the core of my dilemma, though. The issue isn't so much maintaining concentration on shadow blade as not being able to devote concentration to magical ambush spells and still do decent damage. </p><p></p><p>I've got Resilient (CON) already and so when bladesong is up I've got +10 to concentration checks, meaning I'm immune to losing concentration on anything below 22 damage on a hit. With studded leather, high DEX and INT and the shield spell (and often haste on top of that), attack rolls need to be 25 to hit me (27 if hasted). On top of that, I pretty much automatically cast mirror image if I have an action before the fight starts to do so. And then, if all that fails and I do get hit, I can often use uncanny dodge to get the damage down into a range where I can maintain concentration easily.</p><p></p><p>We recently had a long vampire fight where the vamp charmed two of our party and seemed to attack me every chance she got. That was a case where I actually used a combat turn to cast mirror image. And good thing too as one of my images took a crit for me. She did manage to hit me once with a grapple attack, but misty step solved that problem. But even as our paladin almost went down, I managed not to take a single point of damage.</p><p></p><p>I'm considering war caster, but dual wielding isn't that helpful for me since I so frequently have superadvantage on my first attack from some source or other (typically owl help). I do have a +1 dagger that I can put in my offhand (or use in place of a rapier when not using shadow blade), but since I don't have the TWF fighting style that would only add three or four damage a round, even taking into account another chance to land sneak attack. Just boosting DEX would be worth more to damage than dual wielding. The chance to add booming blade damage to an AoO is nice, but those don't come up much, since I'm usually in melee with at least the barbarian, so creatures don't tend to provoke AoOs from me unless the bard lands a dissonant whispers. And if I do happen to be in solo melee, I only get sneak attack on an AoO if I have some source of advantage (e.g., dim light or faerie fire from the bard). Absent that I usually won't take the attack in the interest of conserving my reaction.</p><p></p><p>I didn't take Blink because I think mainly that would just serve to open up my allies to getting attacked more, and since I'm so much harder to hit than anyone else, that's not usually desirable.</p><p></p><p>A ranged cantrip is a possibility (and definitely would have liked for someone to have had chill touch vs the vamp, though preferably someone else as I was doing a lot of damage with shadow blade there). 3d8 is only 13.5 damage though, vs 1d6+4d6+4 = 21.5 from a single hand crossbow hit. And haste doesn't allow two cantrips in a turn, whereas using a crossbow would be another 1d6+4, for a total of 29. Note also that the range benefit of sharpshooter applies to a thrown shadow blade as well, which is worth even more damage. Unlocking that damage at longer range (and eventually comboing it with crossbow expert for an additional two attacks a turn) seems worth more to me than what war caster buys, though I guess that comes down to how often I make AoOs vs how often I need to attack from more than 20-30'. It feels like the bigger opportunity cost of taking sharpshooter is the DEX boost (or even something like Lucky).</p><p></p><p>Note that I can't get 4th level spells until I have a 7th level in wizard. Spell picks are based on your class level, not your slots available. I tend to think that some kind of exception should be made when you're multiclassed into a class that uses the same list, but there's nothing like that in the rules.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Esker, post: 7590140, member: 6966824"] Thanks for the feedback, [MENTION=6992717]Irregular_Gnoll[/MENTION]! I think you misunderstood the core of my dilemma, though. The issue isn't so much maintaining concentration on shadow blade as not being able to devote concentration to magical ambush spells and still do decent damage. I've got Resilient (CON) already and so when bladesong is up I've got +10 to concentration checks, meaning I'm immune to losing concentration on anything below 22 damage on a hit. With studded leather, high DEX and INT and the shield spell (and often haste on top of that), attack rolls need to be 25 to hit me (27 if hasted). On top of that, I pretty much automatically cast mirror image if I have an action before the fight starts to do so. And then, if all that fails and I do get hit, I can often use uncanny dodge to get the damage down into a range where I can maintain concentration easily. We recently had a long vampire fight where the vamp charmed two of our party and seemed to attack me every chance she got. That was a case where I actually used a combat turn to cast mirror image. And good thing too as one of my images took a crit for me. She did manage to hit me once with a grapple attack, but misty step solved that problem. But even as our paladin almost went down, I managed not to take a single point of damage. I'm considering war caster, but dual wielding isn't that helpful for me since I so frequently have superadvantage on my first attack from some source or other (typically owl help). I do have a +1 dagger that I can put in my offhand (or use in place of a rapier when not using shadow blade), but since I don't have the TWF fighting style that would only add three or four damage a round, even taking into account another chance to land sneak attack. Just boosting DEX would be worth more to damage than dual wielding. The chance to add booming blade damage to an AoO is nice, but those don't come up much, since I'm usually in melee with at least the barbarian, so creatures don't tend to provoke AoOs from me unless the bard lands a dissonant whispers. And if I do happen to be in solo melee, I only get sneak attack on an AoO if I have some source of advantage (e.g., dim light or faerie fire from the bard). Absent that I usually won't take the attack in the interest of conserving my reaction. I didn't take Blink because I think mainly that would just serve to open up my allies to getting attacked more, and since I'm so much harder to hit than anyone else, that's not usually desirable. A ranged cantrip is a possibility (and definitely would have liked for someone to have had chill touch vs the vamp, though preferably someone else as I was doing a lot of damage with shadow blade there). 3d8 is only 13.5 damage though, vs 1d6+4d6+4 = 21.5 from a single hand crossbow hit. And haste doesn't allow two cantrips in a turn, whereas using a crossbow would be another 1d6+4, for a total of 29. Note also that the range benefit of sharpshooter applies to a thrown shadow blade as well, which is worth even more damage. Unlocking that damage at longer range (and eventually comboing it with crossbow expert for an additional two attacks a turn) seems worth more to me than what war caster buys, though I guess that comes down to how often I make AoOs vs how often I need to attack from more than 20-30'. It feels like the bigger opportunity cost of taking sharpshooter is the DEX boost (or even something like Lucky). Note that I can't get 4th level spells until I have a 7th level in wizard. Spell picks are based on your class level, not your slots available. I tend to think that some kind of exception should be made when you're multiclassed into a class that uses the same list, but there's nothing like that in the rules. [/QUOTE]
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