D&D 5E Experience with a bladesinger?

[TheLastRogue]

This is based on your experience playing them?



Is this from your experience as well?


I'm not really interested in "This is how I'm guessing it's played" because if there's one thing about 5e, it's that theorycrafting never does it justice or represents how the class is actually played. The background of a bladesinger (and history of that class going back to 2e) is one where the PC is in melee most of the time, with spells to augment it. I'm curious to know if in actual play, the class can't support that well.

I DM one. He has high Dex & Intended, so he is very hard to hit. He fights with a rapier, so his low Stress isn't an issue in melee. In play, he is a super mobile damage dealer. Bladesinging cantrips coupled with short range attacks (burning hands, thunderwave, etc) make for a very flavorful playstyle.

It's not the most optimized... Not even close... But, he's having fun, and he is a dervish on the battlefield.

Hope that helps a bit. Character's back story is that he is looking for his family's moonblade. We are a beer & pretzels group so optimization takes a backseat in our games.

Hope this helps a bit.

 

[RSIxidor]

I still haven't played one but my take is they'll be good as a secondary or tertiary front-liner. Not a tank. Definitely not a tank.

Though I could see the argument for a 2-level dip to get a great bonus twice per short rest for certain melee builds.

I also see the potential for any build that is massively based in Concentration spells. That bonus to concentration is awesome.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I DM one. He has high Dex & Intended, so he is very hard to hit. He fights with a rapier, so his low Stress isn't an issue in melee. In play, he is a super mobile damage dealer. Bladesinging cantrips coupled with short range attacks (burning hands, thunderwave, etc) make for a very flavorful playstyle.

It's not the most optimized... Not even close... But, he's having fun, and he is a dervish on the battlefield.

Hope that helps a bit. Character's back story is that he is looking for his family's moonblade. We are a beer & pretzels group so optimization takes a backseat in our games.

Hope this helps a bit.

I never really cared about optimized PCs anyway, so this helps quite a bit. Along with some of the other actual play examples given, and I have a much better idea. Thanks!

 

[aarduini]

Well, that depends on if you interpret "use two hands to make an attack with a weapon." If you attack with an off hand, that could count, I think. But you're spot on with the bow. Don't know how I missed that.

Personally, I thought the intent was to do a free / focus hand, and sword in the other, like the other bladesingers I'm familiar with do.

Some of the bladesingers in the lore and fluff fought with two weapons. A bow requires two hands to use, so I don't believe it is compatible with bladesong.

 

[aarduini]

I just played my strait 5th level bladesinger last night in encounters. I started off the battle by being a wizard and fireballing a bunch of gnolls. I killed three. The rest of the party, which was made up mostly of warriors, was bottlenecked because the paladin had a bear mount and passage was narrow. With booming blade and flaming sphere, I was pacing the paladins. The rogue was doing more damage though. One of the last gnolls was about to get away, but with my extra movement and misty step I was able to head him off and kill him with booming blade.

I say again, the badesinger has its own style of play. The warlock's spell slots are too limited. He is just a cantrip warrior. The paladin and ranger are good gishes, but they are still a different style of play. At higher levels the bladesinger will be fighting along side elementals and simulacrums. My 10 level bladesinger used a water elemental. My concentration was so high I didn't have to worry about it turning on us. The ability to be in the middle of the fight and have such a large arsenal of attack options is fun place to be. I absolutely love the bladesinger class.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I think the Spellsinger is fantastic. While it gets its 2nd attack 1 level later than a fighter, the fact is that between levels 1-10 your damage output is similar to a fighter and with far more defensive benefits since he gets his higher level spells far faster. In fact, since the Spellsinger will get Haste long before an EK fighter you will likely be doing better average damage at levels 1-10 than the fighter. Naturally the Spellsinger will want to be mindful of acquiring feats like War Caster to avoid a loss of concentration.

By level 11 the fighter gets his extra attack so he'll probably now be similar damage to the Spellsinger, and maybe a tiny temp bump from Action Surge, but he STILL doesn't have Haste if he's EK. Both classes will still be doing very similar damage and by 10th level the Spellsinger not only has access to spells levels 1-5 but also can now convert spell slots to hit points. By 13th level the EK can finally cast Haste so it is not until this moment that he genuinely takes any meaningful damage lead against the Spellsinger, but just a level later the Spellsinger catches up a fair bit with the ability to add his Intelligence modifier to damage. Then, at 17th level the Spellsinger gets Foresight to more or less permanently gain advantage while enemies have disadvantage against us. At 18th level the Spellsinger pretty much gains a permanent +5 to AC as long as he has a reaction free via the ability to cast Shield without expending a spell slot. Even were we playing for 20th level, while the fighter would finally get yet another attack, regardless that the Spellsinger already has so much going for it defensively to more than make up for the offense difference, we can dip into another class for levels 19-20 to get a bit more damage from our existing attacks to compensate for the fighter's damage output advantage.

The Spellsinger will have similar damage output and superior defensive capabilities at most levels, and with the benefit of overwhelmingly superior spellcasting versatility. It's just a great class.

I'm not saying Bladesingers are bad, but when you claim that the Bladesinger is competitive in combat with a fighter you're selling the fighter short. Fighters, and especially archers, blow Bladesingers out of the water when it comes to weapons combat. "You will likely be doing better average damage at levels 1-10 than the fighter" is simply not true in any game with feats, and probably not even without feats.

1.) Sharpshooter archers will outdamage you by a factor of 1.3x to 4x, depending on whether you're using melee cantrips under ideal circumstances or ranged weapons or ranged cantrips. And unlike you, the Sharpshooters are effective at 600', which means they can get up to ten rounds of free attacks while you're twiddling your thumbs, which in practice means that Sharpshooters can act as area denial/overwatch, and you can't.

2.) Fighters will tend to have better attack stats (Str or Dex), will hit more often, and do more damage. That's because unlike you they don't have to invest in Int, and they also get extra ASIs at 6th and 14th level. If you're investing in Warcaster this disparity just gets worse.

3.) War Magic. It's better than Haste for DPR purposes: always on, doesn't cost concentration or actions to initiate, doesn't give you a horrifically large vulnerability.

TL;DR Unsurprisingly, Bladesingers are not competitive with fighters in weapon damage output. Bladesingers are better wizards than Eldritch Knights, not better fighters.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

While I disagree with the sentiment that you should "just play another class," I will agree that warlocks, along with rangers and paladins, are the best gishes in the game. Monk, Fighter, Barbarian, and Rogue might have a few magic tricks, but they're heavy on the fighter side. Cleric, wizard, druid, and sorcerer might have a few melee options, but they're primarily casters. Yes, even the Moon Druid once we get past that level 2-3 Bear issue.

Warlocks, rangers and paladins are the ones who mix mundane skills with supernatural magic to back them up. Why else call the warlock a magical archer?

Haven't quite figured out where to put the Bard yet. I really want to put it alongside the warlock and paladin, give their historic partial-caster state, but I'm not sure.

Anyways, I bring this up in no small part because I think that we should be comparing the bladesinger's melee attacks to a Divine Strike feature for parity.

Great points. And honestly, I should have worded that better. What I mean is, if you are wanting to play a character that is optimized and a focused on being a melee combatant with magic, warlock may be a better choice.

The bladesinger is going to have better spell utillity that any other gish, however.

I personally don't care for high level spellcaster gameplay, so that also probably scews my opinion on the matter. I also like that with an invocation, warlocks can have mage armor as a cantrip. A fey warlock gish is really mobile, too, with great control options, which is what I would want out of the bladesinger.
So, depending on what you actually want to play, in terms of gameplay as well as theme, there are a lot of good options in 5e.

I'm currently playing a bard/undying warlock that is really cool, while my wife is playing a gnome ranger with a warhammer. we also have a paladin and a arcane trickster in the group. So, lots of gish. They all work, and luckily play fairly differently.

 

[Kalshane]

I house rule that elven chain counts as light armour as well as being wearable by those non proficient. Makes it roughly equal to studded armour +2 for an armour wearer, slightly better than mage armour for a wizard and slightly worse than a robe of the archmage. I make mithril armour purchasable and non magical (mainly as a nod to earlier editions) so prefer to keep that one as medium/heavy armour so it doesn't become the standard for dex based characters.

I do something similar, though Elven Chain only counts as light armor if you have medium armor proficiency. Basic idea is while Elven Chain is really easy to move in (allowing users without proficiency to wear it without penalty) those who actually know how to wear and move in a chain shirt can maximize the armor's potential.

 

[Mephista]

Some of the bladesingers in the lore and fluff fought with two weapons. A bow requires two hands to use, so I don't believe it is compatible with bladesong.

Personally, I've never seen any of these TWFing bladesingers before in any lore. Can you give an example?

 

[Mephista]

Great points. And honestly, I should have worded that better. What I mean is, if you are wanting to play a character that is optimized and a focused on being a melee combatant with magic, warlock may be a better choice.

The bladesinger is going to have better spell utillity that any other gish, however.

Using that whole warrior/gish/dedicated caster line up I did above, where would you put the bard, would you say? Do you think they're more gishy like the warlock, or more dedicated caster like a cleric?