D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook preview: "New Spells"

[Chaosmancer]

You're basically saying "because our group made it work it's not a problem to anyone". Not very persuasive.

Also, I suspect your DM is working hard in order to set up those difficult fights, and a DM working that hard is a luxury few groups can enjoy.

Point is: do you want to argue you need Shield as-is to enjoy the game?

I suspect you would have just as much fun even without these extreme builds, your DM would need to work less hard to challenge you in combat, and many many people would be ridden of the Shield headache once and for all.

[snip]

In the same way, I would have loved it if Shield was available only to the low AC builds it was created for.

You keep saying that Shield should only be available for the builds it was created for... but those are exactly the builds I'm talking about. Bladesingers are WIZARDS. Shield was designed for WIZARDS. So Shield is being used exactly for who it was created for in that instance. Eldritch Knights in 2014 were limited to abjuration and evocation spells. Shield is a level 1 Abjuration spell. In the 2014 PHB it is one of only four 1st level Abjuration spells. The others being Mage Armor (clearly not something the Eldritch Knight was supposed to take), Alarm and Protection from Good and Evil. Clearly they were meant to use Shield.

So... I'm confused. Should we rewrite the Bladesinger to say that it is the only Wizard who is forbidden from casting Shield? Should the Eldritch Knight have never been giving Abjuration spells? How are we supposed to limit the spell to "only those it was created for" when it is clear the Bladesinger and Eldritch Knight were designed to have access to it?

The thing I'm arguing is that... I think people are exaggerating the problem. Whether it is because they only have two combats in a day and so the Eldritch Knight is able to shield every single attack that would land against them, or because they prefer to exclusively use monsters that make attack rolls instead of saves, I don't know. But people keep claiming "an AC of 27 for 1 round was never intended!!" while I'm looking at the actual initial designs and thinking... actually it was. Unless you think the Bladesinger was designed with the designers never once thinking a wizard would take mage armor and shield, two classic and iconic wizard spells, or that they didn't realize Shield was an abjuration spell when they gave those spells to the Eldritch Knight.

And at the end of the day, if a heavily armored magical knight is able to spend 1 round being unhittable... that's exactly what the player was building their character to accomplish. They achieved their goal, that is a good thing. And if you desperately need to cause hp damage to them despite that... use a saving throw. But a tank successfully styming attacks against them is the build working as intended.

 

[CapnZapp]

Whatever expert DM you might be, shield forces you to adapt so much for such little investment (picking the shield spell and casting it requires no high tactics). I would say that no 1st level spell should be so effective in every combat.

I would say no low level spell should require the DM to adapt simply because it represents a no-brainer.

The game would be better off without the 2014 Shield spell.

 

[CapnZapp]

You keep saying that Shield should only be available for the builds it was created for... but those are exactly the builds I'm talking about. Bladesingers are WIZARDS. Shield was designed for WIZARDS. So Shield is being used exactly for who it was created for in that instance. Eldritch Knights in 2014 were limited to abjuration and evocation spells. Shield is a level 1 Abjuration spell. In the 2014 PHB it is one of only four 1st level Abjuration spells. The others being Mage Armor (clearly not something the Eldritch Knight was supposed to take), Alarm and Protection from Good and Evil. Clearly they were meant to use Shield.

So... I'm confused. Should we rewrite the Bladesinger to say that it is the only Wizard who is forbidden from casting Shield? Should the Eldritch Knight have never been giving Abjuration spells? How are we supposed to limit the spell to "only those it was created for" when it is clear the Bladesinger and Eldritch Knight were designed to have access to it?

The thing I'm arguing is that... I think people are exaggerating the problem. Whether it is because they only have two combats in a day and so the Eldritch Knight is able to shield every single attack that would land against them, or because they prefer to exclusively use monsters that make attack rolls instead of saves, I don't know. But people keep claiming "an AC of 27 for 1 round was never intended!!" while I'm looking at the actual initial designs and thinking... actually it was. Unless you think the Bladesinger was designed with the designers never once thinking a wizard would take mage armor and shield, two classic and iconic wizard spells, or that they didn't realize Shield was an abjuration spell when they gave those spells to the Eldritch Knight.

And at the end of the day, if a heavily armored magical knight is able to spend 1 round being unhittable... that's exactly what the player was building their character to accomplish. They achieved their goal, that is a good thing. And if you desperately need to cause hp damage to them despite that... use a saving throw. But a tank successfully styming attacks against them is the build working as intended.

Sigh.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

IDK sounds to me like it's Bladesinger that needs some work, more than Shield, but that really ought not to be any surprise. Bladesinger has never been revisited and came in a book that had questionable designs. I mean, I like it well enough, but...

 

[UngeheuerLich]

IDK sounds to me like it's Bladesinger that needs some work, more than Shield, but that really ought not to be any surprise. Bladesinger has never been revisited and came in a book that had questionable designs. I mean, I like it well enough, but...

It has been revisited in Tasha's cauldron. And had a quality of life change with extra attack. And a change of bladesong usage from 2/short rest to prof bonus per day.
But yes, there was some bad design at work. The bladesinger spells were not well balanced and also did not work well with the class they were designed for.

Back to topic:
RAW, the eldritch knight could not use shield and carry a shield because of hand free requirements.
Maybe the most simple solution would disallow shield to stack with a shield as mage armor does not work with armor.

Then I'd have it start at +3 and add +1 per spell level.
That way it is is not a straight nerf but if you really need more AC, you can use higher level slots.

 

[SteveC]

IDK sounds to me like it's Bladesinger that needs some work, more than Shield, but that really ought not to be any surprise. Bladesinger has never been revisited and came in a book that had questionable designs. I mean, I like it well enough, but...

As someone playing a Bladesinger, I don't think it needs work. Shield is a problem for classes that already have super high ACs, where it can make them virtually unhittable. My Sword Bard with a Hexblade Dip is base AC 18 at level 7. And then I do a Blade Flourish for an extra D8 AC. If I get hit on top of that, I can use Shield.

And the funny thing is, the character isn't taking over the campaign. Yes, I have a really high AC but I'm also setting up flanking positions for my group, so all of them can still be attacked. Once bad guys see me at full defense, they just don't even go after me anymore, so combat has a flow where I get attacked at the start and then not so much.

For the Bladesinger: if you're playing one and just wading into combat, you're not playing to the class' strengths. You don't do anywhere near the damage of a character who's designed to do that from the start. For that character, I get into melee combat when I have to concentrate on a spell. So if I have Slow or Hypnotic Pattern up, I can still do a decent job in combat, but it's nowhere near what other characters built around damage can do.

 

[ECMO3]

Thus gets to the heart of the issue right here.

Many people want their games to natch how they believe sword fights went down in history (and, of course, fictional movies and literature etc).

Everybody defending Shield basically says "just move past the AC monster to attack Squishies in the back".

This goes utterly against how these people see combat.

The entire fantasy genre as well as the AC hit point and damage system is against how sword fights went down (and go down) in history.

If we want historical realism on using weaponry a high magic fantasy game is not what you shoudl be playing and even if we take all magic out of it the basic weapon and AC combat system is not anything close to historically (or physically) accurate.

Further there may be some small subset of people who want historical sword fights, but that is an extremely small number, D&D is not now and never has been a good system for that and this small number, if it exists is widely countered by people who want a high magic unreal version of combat.

If a trained warriors can't prevent monsters from simply ignoring him, what even is this game??

When I DM I usually make it a point to attack spell casters. I don't walk past the warrior because he is casting shield and has a high AC, I walk past him and take AOOs to do that regardless of what his AC is, because the casters are more dangerous.

I do this as a player too. If I am playing a martial melee PC I will teleport, or just run by the bad guy front liners and martials to attack the enemy casters. The only time I won't do this is when my allies put down an AOE (and sometimes if I go before them their options are limited because of this).

Why wouldn't you play intelligence enemies and PCs this way?

Obviously a mighty warrior should be able to hold the monsters at bay and do his ONLY job, which is to protect his allies.

Unless there is a chokepoint a warrior should not be able to keep monsters away from the casters and why would the monsters want to let him?

The game letting him attain AC 27 is thus a problem. Even if the spell only lasts one round, the crucial part of combat rarely lasts more than three rounds, so if three slots is enough to effectively become invincible , that is a problem.

But it is not invincible, usuing Shield stops the Warrior from making AOOs, and as a defense it does nothing against shove, grapple, any save abilities or spells or most improvised actions. It hinders attacks, just like the fly spell, blink, charm and a host of other abilities that are in many ways and circumstances more effective at protecting from melee attacks.

IMO the real problem is not the warrior with the 27 AC, it is the lazy DM that just wants to hit him with a stick over and over and whether the warrior's AC is 7 or 27 those kind of tactics lead to boring combat IMO.

The solution is NOT to invalidate the basic premise of what a mighty warrior represent to this category of player, and ask them to be cool with the idea "you used your reaction to cast Shield, every monster obviously knows how magic works, and they will now all just move past you to eat the Wizard in the back, thank you very much ".

'
They should be eating the Wizard in the back whether the Warrior has shield or not, but regardless if you are asking how to deal with a player with shield, this is the way.

A much better solution would be so that this issue doesn't happen in the first place, by insuring only the ones the spell was initially intended for, can cast it.

Ok, so in 5E the spell was crreated for any PC with one level in Wizard, Sorcerer, or Hexblade, 3 levels in Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster or anyone who takes in the magic initiate feat.

Everyone who have seen use shield to date falls inside that list of people who it was intended for any many of them have something else like armor to go along with it.

Shield does exactly what it was intended to do in combat.

 

[ECMO3]

Sorry but dismissing every DM that's running adventures published by WotC and also every DM that doesn't find it "trivial" to "plan for" (whatever that means) the spell makes for a less convincing argument that you probably hoped.

It is not being dismissive, it is the truth. If the DM is "plans" for shield it is trivial. A monster with counterspell and more slots beats shield every single time, a monster with 5 higher on an attack roll compensates for shield every single time. It took me one sentence to describe two very simple ways to completely nerf shield in any encounter and it took and longer to type it than it took for me to come up with it those two ways. Those are two 100% effective solutions out of many solutions to make the spell completely non-effective and trivial. Like I said the fact they have shield is unimportant of you plan for it.

If you do not plan for it, then it requires more creativity and challenge, but I don't think that is a bad thing and if the players are not challenging the DM then the game is quite boring.

I play as a player a lot and I DM a lot, to include WOTC adventures.

 

[ECMO3]

IDK sounds to me like it's Bladesinger that needs some work, more than Shield, but that really ought not to be any surprise. Bladesinger has never been revisited and came in a book that had questionable designs. I mean, I like it well enough, but...

Bladesinger if fine IMO. There has to be a build that is the best at melee and Bladesinger fits this role very well.

The subclass is still pretty good at melee even if you go with a high strength, Dwarf and heavy armor through a feat, although if armored warrior is your thing other classes are better.

 

[ECMO3]

nm