D&D 5E Treantmonk's Guide to Wizards 5e

[clearstream]

This is what we told vonklaude repeatedly, to no avail. He persisted past every way we presented this fundamental argument, and that other thread is hundreds of posts long.

Hi Capn, this and your last several posts have all been ad-hominems - attacking me and contributing nothing to the discussions. I'm entitled to a point of view, even one that conflicts with your own. My point of view isn't a democracy: it's informed by the views of others, but also by experience, playtesting and mathematical simulations. Even if every last person on this forum insisted 2+2=5, I would continue to argue that it equals four.

So long as others are interestingly engaged in the discussion (as @Ovinomancer and I were in the previous thread) I'm happy to continue it. There we worked through some worthwhile maths and I learned a great deal. For one thing, I now know how to create a probability density function (which proved how good Blur is). We were able to create Monte Carlo simulations to demonstrate the frequency of relevant ability arrays (much more frequent than expected).

I'd very much like to listen to your insights if you have anything that isn't about me, or your dislike of my pursuing discussion for as long as I wished in a thread that I created (i.e. the one about Bladesingers).

 

[CapnZapp]

Hi Capn, this and your last several posts have all been ad-hominems - attacking me and contributing nothing to the discussions. I'm entitled to a point of view, even one that conflicts with your own.

If you consider my informational message to Treeantmonk to be factually false and/or a personal attack on you, I apologize. If you can find a single point where I deny you your right to express yourself, I retract it.

I don't wish to engage you in discussion at this point and thus will keep this very brief: my sole aim was to inform Treeantmonk what he would get into if he chose to engage you in a renewed Bladesinger discussion. As I suspected, and as has been confirmed now, he was not aware of the earlier thread. I tried to keep that message brief and on-point and free of personal attacks, clearly I failed in that.

Now that my message has been delivered, I will bow out of the thread (specifically, this sub-thread).

 

[Treantmonklvl20]

But... what if the attacks back don't matter? Concretely, what if forcing defenses pays off more in declining the consequence of attacks back, than forcing damage to reduce rounds does?.

You have stated that the BS that uses a rapier should be rated "blue". I rated it "red". We are not close together on this, and you haven't really addressed my main reason for the rating:

If doing good damage doesn't matter, why are you swinging a sword (poorly) instead of casting spells?

Please don't answer by pointing out BS defense, or how damage doesn't really matter, or how a BS will still be standing when his party members go down, or calculating DPR of the party vs the AC/HP of CR appropriate creatures. None of these things answer the question. You are a BS in melee. You can cast a spell or you can ineptly poke with a pointy weapon. Why do you think choosing the latter is "fantastic"?

 

[Bolares]

I'm wavering in my agreement with this. Say at level 6 our foes have between them 300 HP? If the party deals 50 per round: the combat is over in 5 rounds. Traditionally, we want to reduce the number of attacks back to the minimum so we focus on damage to reduce the number of rounds. But... what if the attacks back don't matter? Concretely, what if forcing defenses pays off more in declining the consequence of attacks back, than forcing damage to reduce rounds does?

This would make sense if there wasn't the natural 20 crit... Doesn't matter how good is your AC, there is always at least a 5% chance de attack will hit you, and then it will be nasty.

 

[clearstream]

This would make sense if there wasn't the natural 20 crit... Doesn't matter how good is your AC, there is always at least a 5% chance de attack will hit you, and then it will be nasty.

Hence Blur. Makes the critical chance 1/400.

 

[Bolares]

Yeah, but you give up your concentration for that... and a mage has so many better uses to his concentration...

Don't get me wrong, I love Gish Characters... and you can do one with the BS. But you have to make so many sub optimal choices to make it work fine. Sure it's a fan character to play. But for every melee choice you make, there is at least one other, more tradicional mage choice that is better. Why choose a rapier when using spell is better? Why tank in melee, using your concentration when you can be in the back row changing the battlefield completely? The list goes on.
So I can only say there is a design flaw when you build an archetype to do something, and that's the leat optimal choice for that character....

 

[clearstream]

You have stated that the BS that uses a rapier should be rated "blue". I rated it "red". We are not close together on this, and you haven't really addressed my main reason for the rating:

If doing good damage doesn't matter, why are you swinging a sword (poorly) instead of casting spells?

Preamble: Booming-Blade is for tanking fewer, stronger foes. Green-Flame Blade is for hordes.

The low melee damage assumption for Booming Blade is based upon foe never moving. If foe never moves, BS' ability to sustain melee against it all day with Blur is solid. Other party members don't die, because fewer foes reach them. Alternatively, if tanked foe does move, they take the Booming Blade secondary and an Attack of Opportunity. At that point, damage becomes comparable to sword-and-board Battlemaster (who cannot sustain in melee the way BS can).

To estimate this, add an assumption to your damage simulation called "on-move" (chance that foe moves). BS' melee damage per round has three components: the cantrip, the secondary and the AoO. On-move is a multiplier on the secondary and the AoO.

Logically, foe either ignores or !ignore BS

• If foe ignores, on-move = 1. Damage becomes comparable to sword-and-board Battlemaster.
• If foe !ignore, on-move = 0. Damage is low, but tanking mission is accomplished.

A foe can attempt to ignore BS and close with their allies. Hoping to make on-move = a fraction. BS' allies Dodge or Disengage away, and BS moves back into reach. Foe now has to decide whether to do it again?

That doesn't work against all foes. Haste+GFB is better against hordes, dealing slightly more damage than a sword-and-board Battlemaster (but with 2 better AC).

 

[clearstream]

Yeah, but you give up your concentration for that... and a mage has so many better uses to his concentration...

Don't get me wrong, I love Gish Characters... and you can do one with the BS. But you have to make so many sub optimal choices to make it work fine. Sure it's a fan character to play. But for every melee choice you make, there is at least one other, more tradicional mage choice that is better. Why choose a rapier when using spell is better? Why tank in melee, using your concentration when you can be in the back row changing the battlefield completely? The list goes on.
So I can only say there is a design flaw when you build an archetype to do something, and that's the leat optimal choice for that character....

I don't really want to start another debate here on this point. Instead please refer to the probability distribution functions (the graphs) on page 35 of this thread http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?588010-Bladesinger-a-criticism-of-its-design/page35

That should explain why Blur is worth your concentration slot. Not in every case, but in many cases.

 

[CapnZapp]

Hey Everyone - quick update for Oct 30th.

Apparently part 2 of my guide has been "flagged as inappropriate" on google docs and I am no longer able to share it.

I've requested a review as I'm not sure why it would have been flagged.

I've copied it to a new doc, here's a link.

P.S. - anyone who would like to cut-and-paste the document to have their own copy is welcome to do so.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/31/16581406/google-docs-error-terms-of-service-lock-out

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[ppaladin123]

https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/31/16581406/google-docs-error-terms-of-service-lock-out

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

Yup, I am seeing reports of this on twitter in various places.