D&D 5E Silvery Barbs, how would you fix it? Does it need fixing?

[ECMO3]

I am comparing "PC with Barbs" to "PC without Barbs", not "Use Barbs" to "Not use Barbs".

A PC with barbs lands spells 75% of the time that a PC without landed 50% of the time at a cost of 0.5 level 1 slots and reactions/cast.

That presumes such a PC will always use barbs. If you make the decision to use it before the die is cast this is true, if not, then it is not.

Suppose you find a weak save and a spell the monster won't want to land. As an example, synaptic static and an int save.

The monster has a 2/3 chance to save. So you throw out static; 1/3 of the time a LR is used, and you are done. 2/3 of the time, you barb and force a reroll; again, 1/3 of that leads to a LR use.

This is far, far weaker and far less likely than stopping a critical hit IMO.

You go from 1 action 1 5th slot for 1/3 LR removed, to 1 action 1 5th 1/3 reaction 1/3 1st for 5/9 LR removed. That is 1.67x as many LR removed.

Except LR is measured in integers and 1.67X1/3 is still less than 1. Moreover you will need to use multiple

What more, if there is more than one spellcaster (or non spellcaster save inducer), and your barb wasn't needed, you can use it in their spells/effects.

Or if it was "needed" now you can't cast absorb elements when the legendary monster breathes on you or shield (or barbs) when he bites you and you die from it.

You are burning your reaction and likely doing it to no effect.

While 5/9 LR per turn isn't a lot, 2 spellcasters are now stripping 10/9 per round instead of 2/3, and using 1st level slots instead of high level ones (how many 1st level slots produce effects a mosnter eould burn a LR on?). So around turn 3, at an average of 30/9 LR burnt, the monster starts risking using up their last LR on each effect. So you can start landing debuffs.

I is per round, not per turn because you only get 1 reaction per round.

The last time as a player I fought enemies with LR (fighting 3 dragons from a cloud giants flying castle) they used LR against ensnaring strike to keep from plummeting to their death, and while that was a corner case, things like charm person, ensnaring strike and cause fear can commonly be very debilitating against a single enemy. Fighting a Vampire for example, synaptic static will cause damage that will be mostly healed on his next turn and result in a -4 or so on attacks until he saves. Why would I ever use an LR on that? Cause fear on the other hand will stop him from attacking completely until he saves (unless the party is stupid enough to walk up to him). Similarly, ensnaring strike will stop him from attacking and make him use an action to escape.

 

[ECMO3]

For its level... I'm having trouble of thinking of a better 1st level spell than this.

Better 1st level spells: Shield, Absorb Elements, Protection from Evil and Good, Healing Word, Goodberry, Find Familiar, Catapult

Comparable 1st level spells: Ensnaring Strike, Hex, Cause Fear, Entangle, Armor of Agathys, Bless, Faerie Fire, Feather Fall, Magic Missile, Sanctuary, Thunderwave, Heroism, Silent Image, Burning Hands, Hellish Rebuke, Zyphyr Strike, Dissonent Whispers

Shield can certainly save the wizard from taking a lot of damage, but this spell can completely change the course of a battle by ensuring a key spell hits. That is literally what the wizard does, this spell just makes them that much better at it.

A single casting of Barbs also can (and usually will) have no effect on the battle at all. Sure it "can" completely change the battle, but the spells I listed as better are more likely to do that:

Shield is almost always effective and often against more than one attack. As it is a wizard spell it often also results in "automatic success" on the concentration save that would follow a hit.

Absorb elements is usually the equivalent of an automatic save plus a damage boost on the following turn. Again automatic is better than a second chance.

Protection from evil and good will give disadvantage to enemies for 100 rounds and immunity to fear and charm. The disadvantage is more or less up to 100 times what you get out of one slot when you make an enemy reroll.

Healing Word prevents allies from dying. It almost always works and actually brings them back into the fight giving them actions or attacks when they previously had none and it does it using a bonus action.

Goodberry is 10hps as a 1st level cast, and complete nourishment for 10 people. It also lasts 24 hours, meaning when you get the benifit it is often from a slot you used the day before and "free" at the time.

Find Familiar is free advantage plus a lost action for at least 1 round, potentially advantage for many rounds and has a ton of non-combat uses.

Catapult causes 3d8 damage from the cast plus damage from acid, fire, holy water or whatever you catapulted at the bad guy. That is HUGE damage for a 1st level spell, there is no save if it hits and you can usually line it up so you get two enemies in the line of fire, meaning 2 chances to hit (which is the equivalent of advantage)

 

[Stalker0]

Better 1st level spells: Shield, Absorb Elements, Protection from Evil and Good, Healing Word, Goodberry, Find Familiar, Catapult

Comparable 1st level spells: Ensnaring Strike, Hex, Cause Fear, Entangle, Armor of Agathys, Bless, Faerie Fire, Feather Fall, Magic Missile, Sanctuary, Thunderwave, Heroism, Silent Image, Burning Hands, Hellish Rebuke, Zyphyr Strike, Dissonent Whispers

Protection from Evil and Good..... great spell, but niche.

Absorb Elements....great spell, but niche (just not as niche).

Shield....great spell, if your front line if failing and your taking a lot of damage.

Healing Word....no

Goodberry.... only with life cleric cheese, otherwise not that great.

Find Familiar....great spell, but not one your using every day.

Bless.... probably the only other spell that could have the crown to me. Like this new barb spell, it is a spell that is great whether you are a 1st level caster or a 20th level one.


If you are player a "god" wizard (aka one relying on saving throws), there is just no better spell than this. Offense trumps defense, I would much rather have my opponents knocked out with a hypnotic pattern boosted by this spell than wait to use shield to protect myself. And again, that is not even accounting for the boost this gives your allies.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Shield as it exists is broken on a high AC character. Stuff like magic plate + magic shield + shield spell breaks bounded accuracy.

Not really. That’s a lot of investment to…stand there and get ignored by most of the enemies because you’re a turtle with less offense and control than pretty much anyone else in the party.

Naw, the worst thing that happens is that AC diverges so far, that the DM ends up either boosting monster ATK to such a level that non-insane-AC PCs cannot avoid being hit, or the PC with such AC becomes invulnerable to attacks. So either there is an invulnerable PC, or the DM rotates away from vs-AC attacks.

or the DM runs a fairly normal game and this doesn’t actually ever come up.

Has this "invulnerable" PC come up in play for you? Certainly hasn't for me.

Now granted, I haven't seen many eldritch knights or bladesingers in play - but even there it's a decent resource drain AND there are plenty of other ways to menace PCs that have nothing to do with AC.

Yeah it really seems like a phantom problem tbh.

So take +2 plate and a +3 shield (very rare items). You are now at 25 AC before buffs.

Add in a +2 buff of some kind (Shield of faith? Haste?) and defensive fighting style, and you have 28 AC.

Add in shield, and you hit 33 AC.

Creatures that hit 21-25 AC A LOT ... won't ever hit this.

Even if you roll it back to ; +1 plate and a +1 shield; 22 AC base. +2 AC self buff and defensive; 25 AC. Then 30 AC with shield. 1 rare item and 1 uncommon item, neither attunement, which isn't atypical for a level 8 PC (although both are defensive).

At the extreme, toss a cloak of displacement on top of this.

That isn’t a normal game scenario.

So, I covered everything from +2 plate/+3 shield and cloak of displacement, down to a +1 plate and +1 shield.

In every case we end up with AC that is 30+.

+1 plate is a rare item, so is a +2 shield. A +1 shield is merely uncommon. So +1 plate and a +1 shield is 1 rare item and 1 uncommon item. That isn't unexpected by level 8 or so.

With both, you have 22 AC. Toss on defensive fighting style (23) and a +2 AC buff (like shield of faith) and you have 25 AC. Add in shield, and you can hit 30 AC. Against CR 10 or so foe (stone golem, young red dragon, deva), that is only getting hit on a crit. And most attacks don't even need the shield spell.

If you are playing, say, a Paladin 2/Bladesinger 6 you have plenty of slots to spend on shield.

That all doesn’t work together. You can’t have plate and be in Bladesong, just to start with.

Even if we find a different way to get to AC 25 that isn’t a case of the DM giving way too powerful treasure for the level, it’s only hitting 30 when you use a reaction spell. You’ve invested heavily to be less sturdy than a fighter and less offensively potent than a Wizard who lets the fighter protect the squishies. And you aren’t counterspelling.

As for plenty of slots…good luck surviving in most games I’ve seen without spending slots on anything but Shield.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That’s not clear. And here’s the scenario:

1. Wizard throws save or suck spell at creature with legendary saves.
2. Target rolls poorly so uses legendary save and, thus, achieves a successful saving throw.
3. Successful save is condition for silvery barbs which forces target to save again.
4. Poor roll causes target to use legendary save a second time.

It's perfectly clear, and that is not how Legendary Resistance works. "choose to succeed" means choose to succeed. Once you have used legendary resistance you have succeeded in that saving throw. It doesn't matter how many dice you roll before, after or during, nothing can make you fail because you have CHOSEN to succeed.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Healing Word....no

I love detail and eloquence in which you dismiss the most powerful spell in 5e.

 

[Dausuul]

I love detail and eloquence in which you dismiss the most powerful spell in 5e.

I've been playing a character with healing word for a while now. I think I've cast it maybe twice.

It provides a piddling amount of hit points, so the only really good use for it is when another PC is down. But in that situation, I am generally reaching for the big guns; the encounter is going badly and I need something to turn it around posthaste. And thanks to the bonus action spellcasting rules, healing word and big guns are incompatible. It's one or the other.

If the fallen PC has something that can turn things around, and if they get a turn before the monsters smack them back down, healing word can be the right spell. But those are two big "ifs." The other scenario I'd use it is when I have no big guns left to fire. But that's always a desperation play--I'm much more careful with my resources than the other players in my group, so if I'm low on gas, they're flat empty.

Healing word seems great in a white room. In actual play, I get far more use out of dissonant whispers and faerie fire.

 

[Bolares]

I've been playing a character with healing word for a while now. I think I've cast it maybe twice.

It provides a piddling amount of hit points, so the only really good use for it is when another PC is down. But in that situation, I am generally reaching for the big guns; the encounter is going badly and I need something to turn it around posthaste. And thanks to the bonus action spellcasting rules, healing word and big guns are incompatible. It's one or the other.

If the fallen PC has something that can turn things around, and if they get a turn before the monsters smack them back down, healing word can be the right spell. But those are two big "ifs." The other scenario I'd use it is when I have no big guns left to fire. But that's always a desperation play--I'm much more careful with my resources than the other players in my group, so if I'm low on gas, they're flat empty.

Healing word seems great in a white room. In actual play, I get far more use out of dissonant whispers and faerie fire.

Healing word's power doesn't scale well, that's for sure (you get more and more healing spells with time), but in lower level, being a bonus action, long distance way to stop death saving throws is HUGE.

 

[clearstream]

Redirect Notice

Silvery Barbs is a spell from Strixhaven that is a reaction to cast, forces a reroll, and then grants advantage.

ThinkDM says he’d ban the spell.

I’d rather find a way to fix it.

But how?

I love Fey Touched as a feat pick, and suspect that I would nearly always take silvery barbs as my 1st-level spell. One free cast from the feat, and then whatever spell slots I have can cast it.

That intuition makes me feel that yes - it's over-tuned - but not wildly so. For me its great strength is that it is so broadly applicable. There will hardly ever be a time when it isn't good. I suppose there is also the exploit potential - one ally does thing that I react to so that another ally gets trivantage.

For a bladesinger, it's absolutely incredible. Amplifies their power markedly. It's an auto-pick, because unlike shield it stops crits. EK can take a crit, so for EK maybe shield wins out, although I suspect the greater versatility of barbs wins out.

Bottom-line, I don't think it is crazy, but it does narrow valid strategies by overshadowing other spells: being almost always good.

 

[Mort]

Healing word's power doesn't scale well, that's for sure (you get more and more healing spells with time), but in lower level, being a bonus action, long distance way to stop death saving throws is HUGE.

It's a bit more than that. It contributes to whack a mole fights. Healing word takes advantage of the fact that other than low HP the PC pops up completely able.

Cleric casts healing word - fighter pops up with single digit HP. but he can now deal the same damage to the bad guys he could when he had full HP. So for a bonus action, the fighter is back in action. If he gets nocked down, another bonus action brings him up. Same with a wizard, the wizard that just popped up can cast the same spells as before, just like he hadn't been near death a second ago.

Many (if not from what I've seen, most) DMs don't attack downed PCs. The DM has to commit to doing so. Even then, it takes a foe with 3 attacks to take a PC from single digits to dead in one round, or multiple foes attacking the same downed PC (even less common).