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

clearstream · Oct 22, 2017

Okay I'll try to summarise where we are. My fundamental criticism is that a design that allows Wizards to seriously compete with or overshadow martials at melee is egregious.

Assertion 1: BS is a problem because it melee tanks better than martials. Issue: martials, not Wizards, should be the best tanks.
Assertion 2: BS is a problem because using the standard character generation method, the needed stats aren't rare... they're common. Issue: the game should be balanced around the standard rules, not optional rules.
Assertion 3: BS is a problem because they're still doing all the wizardry they might desire - no lost wizard levels, all or most of their higher level slots open. Issue: BS is so efficient that their party ends up with more spell-slots free, not less.
Assertion 4: Straight levels in Wizard continues to be the bar for power in 5th edition so it is egregious to give them the means to also melee! Issue: overshadowing is bad, overshadowing by moving your most powerful class into another classes role is egregious.
Assertion 5: BS is a problem because GFB and BB - not overpowered in themselves - scale with level so push BS to equal melee martials for melee damage. Issue: if BS tanking better than martials is egregious, doing that while dealing solid damage would be ludicrous.

Assertion 1 - tanking test case

6th level characters
4x hard encounter + at least 1 short rest = an adventuring day
BS ability scores 16, 15, 13, 12, 10, 9 becoming 9, 18, 13, 18, 12, 10 at level 4. HP 32 (7+5*5)
BS preps for day with Mage Armor
BS preps in first round of combat with Bladesong (bonus action) and Blur (2nd level)
Competing tank is a Champion with plate, shield and Defense fighting style*
Both parties have a Cleric
@Mort proposed 2 Hill Giants - these are a good stress test because they have higher than typical attack bonuses and enough damage to kill BS with a critical
For some reason people rejected casting defensive buffs in round one of combat, so we only did that on team-BS (I believe team-Champion might do better by using round one to buff, too); Cleric casts Warding Bond on BS in this encounter, so that even (the rare) critical hits can't kill BS

After considering factors like initiative, damage dealing, damage taken and using probability distribution functions and playtests, we found that giants don't see their fifth turn. Dying in successive rounds. We used playtests in Fantasy Grounds and probability distribution functions in Excel to analyse the scenario. Regarding the PDFs, we must keep in mind elements that diverged from the playtests - 1) PDFs assume giants spend their whole time pounding the tank, every encounter, 2) PDFs assume the giants never attempt to move away, so things like BB extra damage and Sentinel never trigger. Finally, note that each giant wins initiative on about 1:4 occasions.

I feel the case to consider is the >50% point in the PDF, where on half of their adventuring days they take at least this many hits. We could consider the >90% point representing nearly every adventuring day, but from experience the 50/50 case is often telling. For BS that = 9 hits for 170 damage (includes 1 rock that hits prior to buffing). They can Shield 5 of these leaving 3 hits for 55 damage, easily managed by two Channel Divinity casts (which may as well be used since they recover per short rest). For Champion = 26 hits dealing 484 damage (includes 1 rock). Again choosing the >50% point, it is likely BS loses one Blur per day to a hit. If that is on round 4 it won't need to be recast, if on round 2 or 3 it will be.

A 6th Cleric can Cure perhaps 220 damage to a single character per day so Champion typically dies, while BS typically lives. Further, BS' Cleric usually ends the day with their 3rd level casts still available, while usually BS ends the day with all, or all bar one, of their 3rd level casts still available.

So far, Assertion 1 is sustained. @Ovinomancer suggests looking at EK, but we can see that EK won't beat BS until at least level 13, when they can maintain Blur all day. They can never cast enough Shields for that spell alone to matter.

For me, the reasonable next step is to lodge Assertion 1 as sustained for the time being, and move onto Assertion 3 i.e. create a scenario where BS needs to out-Wizard another Wizard. (Assertion 2 is sustained by maths: parties using the standard method typically will have one or more PCs with the needed arrays.)

@Mort can you propose a scenario for testing BS versus another Wizard? So that no one accuses me of cherry-picking down the line!

clearstream · Oct 23, 2017

[MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] playtesting with a Diviner Wizard taking the place of the Bladesinger, I can't yet find a way for Wizard to avoid using more casts than BS does each combat. So far, a claim that other Wizards are able to reserve more for wizardry doesn't stand up. To out-wizard BS they need to end the day with more than 9 levels of spell slots remaining. Meaning they must sustainably use 3 or fewer levels of spell slots per encounter.

What spells are they casting?

Ovinomancer · Oct 23, 2017

vonklaude said:
[MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] playtesting with a Diviner Wizard taking the place of the Bladesinger, I can't yet find a way for Wizard to avoid using more casts than BS does each combat. So far, a claim that other Wizards are able to reserve more for wizardry doesn't stand up. To out-wizard BS they need to end the day with more than 9 levels of spell slots remaining. Meaning they must sustainably use 3 or fewer levels of spell slots per encounter.

What spells are they casting?

Weird. I never once claimed a diviner could stand in as tank. Why would you ask me?

clearstream · Oct 23, 2017

Ovinomancer said:
Weird. I never once claimed a diviner could stand in as tank. Why would you ask me?

I asserted that BS out-tanks Champion while also doing as much wizardry as other Arcane Traditions. I've shown the former, so I am now moving on to demonstrate the latter.

You repeatedly claimed that BS isn't doing as much wizardry as other casters, but in my playtests I have yet to get Diviner expending fewer casts per encounter than BS. Maybe I'm picking the wrong spells? If so, what are the right spells? What is Diviner casting in each encounter, that allows it to do more wizardry than BS?

If we don't know what those spells could be, what is the substance of the claim?

CapnZapp · Oct 23, 2017

vonklaude said:
Wizards are already the strongest class: they don't need this.

That you feel strongly about this is a given. That you remain completely unwilling to acknowledge why this isn't such a big deal for everyone else hasn't changed either, I take it.

What I am amazed with you is how you've managed to keep the thread alive for so long.

Normally when somebody enters to say "OMG Feature X is totally OP" that tends to die down fairly quickly, unless there is legitimate concern forum-wide (for instance GWM/SS feats), with the reasonable advice "if you don't like it, then don't use it" (or "then go ahead and make up a five-man Bladesinger party, if you're so convinced of the build's superiority").

But here? It's still just one poster (you) getting massively hung up on something few others bother to put on their top lists of 5E misgivings.

And yet, the thread has 300+ posts. I simply don't understand it. Can people not just give you the last word and move on?

Ovinomancer · Oct 23, 2017

vonklaude said:
Okay I'll try to summarise where we are. My fundamental criticism is that a design that allows Wizards to seriously compete with or overshadow martials at melee is egregious.

Assertion 1: BS is a problem because it melee tanks better than martials. Issue: martials, not Wizards, should be the best tanks.
Assertion 2: BS is a problem because using the standard character generation method, the needed stats aren't rare... they're common. Issue: the game should be balanced around the standard rules, not optional rules.
Assertion 3: BS is a problem because they're still doing all the wizardry they might desire - no lost wizard levels, all or most of their higher level slots open. Issue: BS is so efficient that their party ends up with more spell-slots free, not less.
Assertion 4: Straight levels in Wizard continues to be the bar for power in 5th edition so it is egregious to give them the means to also melee! Issue: overshadowing is bad, overshadowing by moving your most powerful class into another classes role is egregious.
Assertion 5: BS is a problem because GFB and BB - not overpowered in themselves - scale with level so push BS to equal melee martials for melee damage. Issue: if BS tanking better than martials is egregious, doing that while dealing solid damage would be ludicrous.

Assertion 1 - tanking test case

6th level characters

4x hard encounter + at least 1 short rest = an adventuring day

BS ability scores 16, 15, 13, 12, 10, 9 becoming 9, 18, 13, 18, 12, 10 at level 4. HP 32 (7+5*5)

BS preps for day with Mage Armor

BS preps in first round of combat with Bladesong (bonus action) and Blur (2nd level)

Competing tank is a Champion with plate, shield and Defense fighting style*

Both parties have a Cleric

@Mort proposed 2 Hill Giants - these are a good stress test because they have higher than typical attack bonuses and enough damage to kill BS with a critical

For some reason people rejected casting defensive buffs in round one of combat, so we only did that on team-BS (I believe team-Champion might do better by using round one to buff, too); Cleric casts Warding Bond on BS in this encounter, so that even (the rare) critical hits can't kill BS

After considering factors like initiative, damage dealing, damage taken and using probability distribution functions and playtests, we found that giants don't see their fifth turn. Dying in successive rounds. We used playtests in Fantasy Grounds and probability distribution functions in Excel to analyse the scenario. Regarding the PDFs, we must keep in mind elements that diverged from the playtests - 1) PDFs assume giants spend their whole time pounding the tank, every encounter, 2) PDFs assume the giants never attempt to move away, so things like BB extra damage and Sentinel never trigger. Finally, note that each giant wins initiative on about 1:4 occasions.

I feel the case to consider is the >50% point in the PDF, where on half of their adventuring days they take at least this many hits. We could consider the >90% point representing nearly every adventuring day, but from experience the 50/50 case is often telling. For BS that = 9 hits for 170 damage (includes 1 rock that hits prior to buffing). They can Shield 5 of these leaving 3 hits for 55 damage, easily managed by two Channel Divinity casts (which may as well be used since they recover per short rest). For Champion = 26 hits dealing 484 damage (includes 1 rock). Again choosing the >50% point, it is likely BS loses one Blur per day to a hit. If that is on round 4 it won't need to be recast, if on round 2 or 3 it will be.

A 6th Cleric can Cure perhaps 220 damage to a single character per day so Champion typically dies, while BS typically lives. Further, BS' Cleric usually ends the day with their 3rd level casts still available, while usually BS ends the day with all, or all bar one, of their 3rd level casts still available.

So far, Assertion 1 is sustained. @Ovinomancer suggests looking at EK, but we can see that EK won't beat BS until at least level 13, when they can maintain Blur all day. They can never cast enough Shields for that spell alone to matter.

For me, the reasonable next step is to lodge Assertion 1 as sustained for the time being, and move onto Assertion 3 i.e. create a scenario where BS needs to out-Wizard another Wizard. (Assertion 2 is sustained by maths: parties using the standard method typically will have one or more PCs with the needed arrays.)

@Mort can you propose a scenario for testing BS versus another Wizard? So that no one accuses me of cherry-picking down the line!

1. you use only Champion plate+shield, defensive style as your stand in for all martial, and that's not warranted as the champion is the absolute worst of the martial classes in tanking ability. They have no abilities that improve defense except defensive style as part of their class design. However, this isn't the thread to litigate the failings of the Champion, still, comparing only to the champion is a poor choice if you wish to make this comparison.

Secondary to this point is the issue of what 'tanking' means. The tank holds the line and prevents the attackers from getting to squishier targets. Not being hit is a part of this, but also, as others have noted, being an attractive target is also part of it. And a large part of that is being a threat. So, when looking at tanking, you have to consider that the Champion can do the job much better if considered offensively, and this is born out by the example that shows a modestly built Champion is roughly on par with the bladesinger in party resources expended in the test case.

2. To get at 1 at least 16 and 1 at least 15 on 4d6DL is 15% of all 6 roll sets. That's not common at 1:7, but it's not rare, either. That's counting all cases of 1 16 or better and 1 15 or better. The test case bladesinger had 20I, 18D, 14C and so had starting scores of either 16, 17, 14 or 18,15,14. Those sets are rare, at less than 5% for the first and about 1.5% for the second.

And, again, high stats improve many cases, not just bladesinger.

And, finally, calling a very common stat generation not standard because it's offered as an option is misleading.

3. This is highly misleading. Yes, in 1:2 days the bladesinger with 20I, 18D is more efficient, but in 1:4 days they burn all of their slots or cost the same in party resources. If you only plan for the median, you'll end up with a dead bladesinger.

Further, since you've change from the 20I, 18D bladesinger as your case for common to the 18 INT, 18 DEX in the example above, the math changes and the 1:2 day for that bladesinger is 8 hits with the 1:4 being 10 hits. You can't hold one case forth and then change your parameters for a related argument so that argument holds. Either we're examining the corner 5% case or the more common 15% case, but you can't flip between them on different points.

4. no argument with the summation, but the issue doesn't hold. Only if the moving entails doing both jobs simultaneously does that hold. Again, Mystic Theurge - a class that could do both the wizard and cleric roles -- both Tier I roles, mind -- but, in practice could only do one or the other due to action economy. Forcing the bladesinger to choose between being effective in melee or effective as a caster, but not both, means that it doesn't rise to egregious.

5.I fundamentally disagree that BB and GFB aren't horribly written and broken cantrips. They scale better than any other cantrip by an order of magnitude, and that's a serious problem. At 17th level, a BB does [W]+stat+3d8 on primary and 4d8 on movement proc. GFB does [W]+3d6+stat on primary and 3d8+stat on secondary. That's insanely broken compared to 4d12 for poison spray and much better than 4d8 and loss of reaction for shocking grasp (the other melee cantrips). It's these spell and their functionality that render the bladesinger even remotely close to other melee classes in damage output, and the riders are highly effective at recreating feat level abilities (booming blade vs sentinel, for instance) in 'stickiness'. Absent these cantrips, this entire discussion about bladesingers is effectively moot, because doing 2d8+8 max out for the example bladesinger with no stickiness at all is obviously a bad trade for a normal wizard.

It's the existence of these two cantrips and their broken nature that allows the concept at all, honestly.

Now, they aren't broken except in narrow cases where you build around the cantrip, but, come on, isn't that exactly the kind of player that's going to make these cantrips a pain in the butt? They're so good that you want to build around them. Melee clerics, for instance, benefit strongly from taking magic initiate and one of these cantrips.

As for the comparison, the giants do see a 5th round for the bladesinger party in 1:2 encounters if you have the archer as a champion instead of a battlemaster, using the precision strike offset for the sharpshooter feat. The DPR drop is significant enough that the giants can often last into the 5th round. I pointed this out earlier, and it seems to have been ignored.

Secondly, using the numbers for the new bladesinger baseline (18I, 18D), you've increased the number of hits the bladesinger takes significantly (the math of disadvantage has big swings for even a 1 point change when high rolls are needed). Further, you've introduced a confound that the giants hit outright on a 19 even with shield (3 mage armor, 4 dex, 4 int, 1 warding bond is 22 AC, 27 with shield, and giants hit 27 on 19+8). That increases hits taken (a 'hit' that can't be obviated with shield goes from 1:400 to 1:100, or 4 times greater). On a probable day that doesn't add much, but over time it does, plus we have to consider the first 4 levels of only AC 20 max, same as the fighter, with much lower hit point pool and much lower blur usage.

Overall, your choice of the 50% break is useful as a comparison point, but you're not planning your bladesinger days and necessary resources on hand on the 1:2 chance, are you? If you aren't working off of 1:4 at least, you have an issue.

So, in the bladesinger party, the bladesinger has to plan on using all of their resources (especially the 18I bladesinger) on any given day. That severely limits using spells for anything other than role assumption. Meanwhile, if you take the restrictions off of the mage in the champion party to not match the bladesinger in resource expenditure and only on direct damage spells, the use of hypnotic pattern or fireball in 3 fights strongly reduces the number of attacks the champion faces, or, for second and first level, use of tasha's, fog cloud, darkness, and the like to carve up the battlefield and control the pacing of the fight so that the champion receives fewer hits is wide open. The bladesinger can do similar things, though, but then isn't tanking and adding damage that round (not tanking as many of the better area denial spells are concentration, and she has blur to maintain else she's in trouble).

Bladesinger requires the wizard's concentration slot. Further, they require the cleric to buff the bladesinger so that the bladesinger can do her job as tank (the numbers for 21 AC with blur are rough on the bladesinger's hit point pool, especially without half damage, and then there's the now 1:50 chance you can't shield out and the static chance of a crit dropping you outright). Essentially, your designed bladesinger MUST have high stats (20I, 18D at 6th), MUST have blur running, and MUST have a cleric cast warding bond or shield of faith (although this latter is the worse choice because of crits). That's a lot of resource stacking to get to where you're exceeding not being hit on a subclass that offers zero extra benefit for defense outside of defensive style.

I mean, if your goal is to say, "I can beat out a sword and board champion at not getting hit if I only roll great stats and have a cleric as my personal buffer!", then, I guess, you win. Assertion 1 (amended to sword and board champion only) sustained.

Ovinomancer · Oct 23, 2017

vonklaude said:
I asserted that BS out-tanks Champion while also doing as much wizardry as other Arcane Traditions. I've shown the former, so I am now moving on to demonstrate the latter.

You repeatedly claimed that BS isn't doing as much wizardry as other casters, but in my playtests I have yet to get Diviner expending fewer casts per encounter than BS. Maybe I'm picking the wrong spells? If so, what are the right spells? What is Diviner casting in each encounter, that allows it to do more wizardry than BS?

If we don't know what those spells could be, what is the substance of the claim?

Weird. When did 'doing more wizardry' become 'uses fewer spell slots?' I never, not once, claimed that another wizard would use more or less spell slots than the bladesinger, I said that the bladesinger has to use so many of her spell slots to power her shtick that she has fewer (to none) left to do wizardry. Wizardry defined loosely here as everything NOT aimed at enabling tanking.

If you want to cast fewer spells per encounter, omit a magic missile usage from my champion build above (which doesn't consider any tradition benefits), it doesn't change anything. In fact, you can omit ALL of the MM casting in that toy example and it doesn't change the math (it's about 10 damage less at the end of the day). THAT example, the one I provided with clear explanation, expends far fewer slots than the bladesinger and comes out okay (greatsword champion example, sword and board champion the wizard doesn't change the outcome). That wizard ends with 4/0/2 just casting 1 scorching ray (a poor spell, generally) a combat.

Now, if you want recommendations on spells, see the above post. Some of that should be fairly obvious, though -- look for spells that render a foe incapable or at a disadvantage for a round or 2. Tasha's (wisdom save), web (dex save followed by a STR ability check), hypnotic pattern (wis save), etc. There's one from each level to get you started.

Ovinomancer · Oct 23, 2017

CapnZapp said:
That you feel strongly about this is a given. That you remain completely unwilling to acknowledge why this isn't such a big deal for everyone else hasn't changed either, I take it.

What I am amazed with you is how you've managed to keep the thread alive for so long.

Normally when somebody enters to say "OMG Feature X is totally OP" that tends to die down fairly quickly, unless there is legitimate concern forum-wide (for instance GWM/SS feats), with the reasonable advice "if you don't like it, then don't use it" (or "then go ahead and make up a five-man Bladesinger party, if you're so convinced of the build's superiority").

But here? It's still just one poster (you) getting massively hung up on something few others bother to put on their top lists of 5E misgivings.

And yet, the thread has 300+ posts. I simply don't understand it. Can people not just give you the last word and move on?

Physician heal thyself.

clearstream · Oct 23, 2017

Ovinomancer said:
Secondary to this point is the issue of what 'tanking' means. The tank holds the line and prevents the attackers from getting to squishier targets. Not being hit is a part of this, but also, as others have noted, being an attractive target is also part of it. And a large part of that is being a threat. So, when looking at tanking, you have to consider that the Champion can do the job much better if considered offensively, and this is born out by the example that shows a modestly built Champion is roughly on par with the bladesinger in party resources expended in the test case.

I know what you mean about being a threat. Remember that we are having the giants refuse to move in order to avoid the BB damage. If they move, they'll quickly find they can't afford to ignore the BS. I playtested an offensive Champion and the problem is that they get taken out too easily by the giants. Can you identify what build offers parity (also noting the irony of searching for a martial Champion build that has tanking parity with a Wizard!)

Ovinomancer said:
2. To get at 1 at least 16 and 1 at least 15 on 4d6DL is 15% of all 6 roll sets. That's not common at 1:7, but it's not rare, either. That's counting all cases of 1 16 or better and 1 15 or better. The test case bladesinger had 20I, 18D, 14C and so had starting scores of either 16, 17, 14 or 18,15,14. Those sets are rare, at less than 5% for the first and about 1.5% for the second.

Okay, there seems to be some miscommunication. The test case for my playtests (and now, PDFs) is 16, 15, 13, 12, 10, 9. (The only really relevant values are the 16, 15 and 12 of course.)

Ovinomancer said:
And, finally, calling a very common stat generation not standard because it's offered as an option is misleading.

Neither of the campaigns I'm in are using the option. Or rather, they're both offering the option as an option and players are without exception going with the standard method.

Ovinomancer said:
3. This is highly misleading. Yes, in 1:2 days the bladesinger with 20I, 18D is more efficient, but in 1:4 days they burn all of their slots or cost the same in party resources. If you only plan for the median, you'll end up with a dead bladesinger.

The comparison is a relative one. The argument isn't that BS is never pressed for resources, but that relative to the other options, BS is ahead. Being stronger doesn't mean being invincible, and BS is stronger.

Ovinomancer said:
Further, since you've change from the 20I, 18D bladesinger as your case for common to the 18 INT, 18 DEX in the example above, the math changes and the 1:2 day for that bladesinger is 8 hits with the 1:4 being 10 hits. You can't hold one case forth and then change your parameters for a related argument so that argument holds. Either we're examining the corner 5% case or the more common 15% case, but you can't flip between them on different points.

In my summary, I used the numbers for the test case. So the conclusions hold.

Ovinomancer said:
4. no argument with the summation, but the issue doesn't hold. Only if the moving entails doing both jobs simultaneously does that hold. Again, Mystic Theurge - a class that could do both the wizard and cleric roles -- both Tier I roles, mind -- but, in practice could only do one or the other due to action economy. Forcing the bladesinger to choose between being effective in melee or effective as a caster, but not both, means that it doesn't rise to egregious.

You know, this makes me realise we have different ideas of what wizardry means. I think it means having spells left over for utility after dealing with the day's encounters, which so far BS seems to do a better job of than Diviner. Do you have a different definition?

I guess you can't mean that wizardry is simply using spells to safely resolve encounters, because BS does that. So what do you mean by wizardry?

Ovinomancer said:
5.I fundamentally disagree that BB and GFB aren't horribly written and broken cantrips. They scale better than any other cantrip by an order of magnitude, and that's a serious problem. At 17th level, a BB does [W]+stat+3d8 on primary and 4d8 on movement proc. GFB does [W]+3d6+stat on primary and 3d8+stat on secondary. That's insanely broken compared to 4d12 for poison spray and much better than 4d8 and loss of reaction for shocking grasp (the other melee cantrips). It's these spell and their functionality that render the bladesinger even remotely close to other melee classes in damage output, and the riders are highly effective at recreating feat level abilities (booming blade vs sentinel, for instance) in 'stickiness'. Absent these cantrips, this entire discussion about bladesingers is effectively moot, because doing 2d8+8 max out for the example bladesinger with no stickiness at all is obviously a bad trade for a normal wizard.

I agree with you and retract my suggestion that they are okay. They're both thoroughly broken. I didn't realise how much by until I did these tests. Yes, absent these cantrips the picture changes, and it might be that fixing BS involves taking away these cantrips. But that is moving the goal posts, because these cantrips are part of the game and BS can use them.

Ovinomancer said:
As for the comparison, the giants do see a 5th round for the bladesinger party in 1:2 encounters if you have the archer as a champion instead of a battlemaster, using the precision strike offset for the sharpshooter feat. The DPR drop is significant enough that the giants can often last into the 5th round. I pointed this out earlier, and it seems to have been ignored.

Why is our party forbidden a Battlemaster? I'm not sure I understand the reason for that.

Ovinomancer said:
Secondly, using the numbers for the new bladesinger baseline (18I, 18D), you've increased the number of hits the bladesinger takes significantly (the math of disadvantage has big swings for even a 1 point change when high rolls are needed). Further, you've introduced a confound that the giants hit outright on a 19 even with shield (3 mage armor, 4 dex, 4 int, 1 warding bond is 22 AC, 27 with shield, and giants hit 27 on 19+8). That increases hits taken (a 'hit' that can't be obviated with shield goes from 1:400 to 1:100, or 4 times greater). On a probable day that doesn't add much, but over time it does, plus we have to consider the first 4 levels of only AC 20 max, same as the fighter, with much lower hit point pool and much lower blur usage.

Overall, your choice of the 50% break is useful as a comparison point, but you're not planning your bladesinger days and necessary resources on hand on the 1:2 chance, are you? If you aren't working off of 1:4 at least, you have an issue.

Do you agree that Hill Giants have atypical attack modifiers (+8) for their CR, and that by the guidelines BS should not be fighting Giants below level 5?

Ovinomancer said:
So, in the bladesinger party, the bladesinger has to plan on using all of their resources (especially the 18I bladesinger) on any given day. That severely limits using spells for anything other than role assumption. Meanwhile, if you take the restrictions off of the mage in the champion party to not match the bladesinger in resource expenditure and only on direct damage spells, the use of hypnotic pattern or fireball in 3 fights strongly reduces the number of attacks the champion faces, or, for second and first level, use of tasha's, fog cloud, darkness, and the like to carve up the battlefield and control the pacing of the fight so that the champion receives fewer hits is wide open. The bladesinger can do similar things, though, but then isn't tanking and adding damage that round (not tanking as many of the better area denial spells are concentration, and she has blur to maintain else she's in trouble).

First of all, they don't. You've never shown that. And the party with a Wizard with another Arcane Tradition uses more resources.

I think we could show that an all Battlemaster SS/CEx party is more broken than a BS, but I'm not arguing that nothing else is imba in 5e. I'm arguing that BS out-tanks martials while still being a full wizard.

Ovinomancer said:
Bladesinger requires the wizard's concentration slot.

What is another Arcane Tradition using that slot on, that is more effective and efficient?

Ovinomancer said:
Further, they require the cleric to buff the bladesinger so that the bladesinger can do her job as tank (the numbers for 21 AC with blur are rough on the bladesinger's hit point pool, especially without half damage, and then there's the now 1:50 chance you can't shield out and the static chance of a crit dropping you outright).

Again, this is a relative argument. BS is stronger than the alternatives, not invulnerable.

Ovinomancer said:
Essentially, your designed bladesinger MUST have high stats (20I, 18D at 6th), MUST have blur running, and MUST have a cleric cast warding bond or shield of faith (although this latter is the worse choice because of crits). That's a lot of resource stacking to get to where you're exceeding not being hit on a subclass that offers zero extra benefit for defense outside of defensive style.

To reiterate, I'm not using those high stats. I don't understand why a party shouldn't use their spells to fight effectively? Is your measure - must have all spells left at the end of the day?

Ovinomancer said:
I mean, if your goal is to say, "I can beat out a sword and board champion at not getting hit if I only roll great stats and have a cleric as my personal buffer!", then, I guess, you win. Assertion 1 (amended to sword and board champion only) sustained.

And yet, that isn't what I am saying. We can give Champion those same stats and BS still out-tanks them. If you know a better tank - propose it and let's get onto analysing that.

clearstream · Oct 23, 2017

Ovinomancer said:
Weird. When did 'doing more wizardry' become 'uses fewer spell slots?' I never, not once, claimed that another wizard would use more or less spell slots than the bladesinger, I said that the bladesinger has to use so many of her spell slots to power her shtick that she has fewer (to none) left to do wizardry. Wizardry defined loosely here as everything NOT aimed at enabling tanking.

Holy tautology: so you count as wizarding casting spells to resolve an encounter successfully, but only so long as those spells aren't used to tank. As a matter of definition, we have thus stipulated that BS is not doing wizardry.

Wizardry then is more a matter of style, rather than casting spells and getting useful results?

Ovinomancer said:
If you want to cast fewer spells per encounter, omit a magic missile usage from my champion build above (which doesn't consider any tradition benefits), it doesn't change anything. In fact, you can omit ALL of the MM casting in that toy example and it doesn't change the math (it's about 10 damage less at the end of the day). THAT example, the one I provided with clear explanation, expends far fewer slots than the bladesinger and comes out okay (greatsword champion example, sword and board champion the wizard doesn't change the outcome). That wizard ends with 4/0/2 just casting 1 scorching ray (a poor spell, generally) a combat.

Now, if you want recommendations on spells, see the above post. Some of that should be fairly obvious, though -- look for spells that render a foe incapable or at a disadvantage for a round or 2. Tasha's (wisdom save), web (dex save followed by a STR ability check), hypnotic pattern (wis save), etc. There's one from each level to get you started.

Okay, I'll try playtesting where the Wizard that replaces BS focuses on casting Scorching Ray. I tried Tasha's, but the short casting range (30') kept getting the Wizard dropped to zero. I'll include in that group an offensive Champion (although in the party that I've been testing the offensive Champion in as an alternative to BS, the giants keep killing it.)

Maybe alchemy will happen