D&D 5E (2024) 3 cantrips per round with the Bladesinger’s Extra Attack, Eldritch Knight’s War Magic and Haste? (5 with Action Surge?)

Horwath said:

problem is upcasting, not +2d8 base bonus.
and most is with "scorching ray exploit".

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mellored said:

That's still showing my point.
Multiple attacks is a Multiplier

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Horwath said:

I too agree with extra attacks being better than extra damage on single attack.
maybe cantrips could have followed similar way.
at 5th level you can cast 2 Action cantrips per Action or 2 Bonus action cantrips per Bonus action. 3 at 11th, etc....

or fighter could have gotten extra attacks at levels 5,9,13,17 and some actually interesting capstone instead of one more attack. Then by default you would be worse with multiclassing by atleast one level.

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Silam said:

Assuming there is no flaw in the above logic, I am interested to explore the implications of this quirky build...

It certainly should raise some red flags as even if it's RAW, it probably isn't RAI... but I don't necessarily think it's overpowered either.

At 13th level, I bet there are quite a few builds more powerful than BS6, EK7. Even if constraining to a gish build, a BS13 or Bard of Valor 13 are probably more powerful than this very fragmented progression?

But I guess it's interesting in the (potentially narrow) context of campaigns with an emphasis on endurance. Like, not one of those campaigns where you take a long rest between each battle. Rather, one of those campaigns where it's not even possible at all to take a long rest in the middle of a dungeon (you'll just be interrupted indefinitely during those 8 hours, until TPK). For those type of endurance based campaigns, it becomes a weaker argument to say that "at high levels, a wizard has enough slots for every single round that they'll fight in a day, and therefore it's always a bad idea to spend a round on cantrips or attack actions, rather than spending slots" (which is a fairly decent argument for a non-endurance kind of game).

So if you think of it with the above frame of mind, what kind of cantrips would you have in your roster, if on most rounds you were slinging 2 or 3 of them, and only occasionally spending slots? Some that come to mind for me:

• For the gish flavor:
  • True Strike
  • Booming Blade
  • Green-Flame Blade (these two haven't been updated for 2024, right?)
• For protection:
  • Blade Ward (if you chose not to use Haste for that battle, and therefore have your concentration available)
• Tactical:
  • Shocking Grasp
  • Mind Sliver (does this stack? seems like it)... you could potentially impose a 3d4 penalty on the next save (EDIT: no, it wouldn’t stack, but could still be intetesting to throw in to "prime" the target before spending a precious slot next round), or at least get a better shot that at least one of the saves fail.
• Any of the long range attacks:
  • Fire Bolt, etc.
• AoE:
  • Thunderclap

What else?

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Zardnaar said:

Theoretically as many spell slots you have.

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Peter BOSCO'S said:

More, because (with 17+ levels in Bard, Sorcerer, or Wizard) you could have cast L9 Mass Suggestion on twelve creatures every day for the past year, awaiting the correct trigger, which you could tie to the date of the year with something like "On the twelfth day of the month of Fireseek in the Common Year 577 do X" so that they were all still going. If those levels were in Wizard you could have cast it twice per day with Arcane Recovery, so that would be 730 spells going at once from that alone. You could add on another 30 using your L8 slot and 10 more with your L7 slot to cast more Mass Suggestions so that is 770 spells right there, and you still have all your L1-L6 slots, and any spells from your Magic items for even more. (If all 12 targets failed their saves every time that would give you 9,240 controlled targets.) [Also, this would be wrong.]

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Peter BOSCO'S said:

More, because (with 17+ levels in Bard, Sorcerer, or Wizard) you could have cast L9 Mass Suggestion on twelve creatures every day for the past year, awaiting the correct trigger, which you could tie to the date of the year with something like "On the twelfth day of the month of Fireseek in the Common Year 577 do X" so that they were all still going. If those levels were in Wizard you could have cast it twice per day with Arcane Recovery, so that would be 730 spells going at once from that alone. You could add on another 30 using your L8 slot and 10 more with your L7 slot to cast more Mass Suggestions so that is 770 spells right there, and you still have all your L1-L6 slots, and any spells from your Magic items for even more. (If all 12 targets failed their saves every time that would give you 9,240 controlled targets.) [Also, this would be wrong.]

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jmartkdr2 said:

It's still not a good build, but if you add a couple levels of warlock you could get Agonizing Blast on Greenflame Blade, which would add +cha damage to the main and secondary damage.

Or, with Spellfire Spark you can get PB/day bonus action Sacred Flames, which would be pretty goofy to spam on someone (getting Agonizing Blast on that spell is trickier, but can be done via Pact of the Tome or 3+ levels of Celestial Warlock. At Warlock 6 you can stack Agonizing Blast and Radiant Soul, which at level 19 would reliably get you 3 casts per turn at 4d8+2[cha] each, easily expanded via Haste or Action Surge)

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Silam said:

Interesting ideas... the BS6 of this build can be swapped out for a Valor Bard 6, which has the exact same cantrippy-flavored Extra Attack ability. This could reduce MADness (though the EK is still Int-based, so can't win em' all...).

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