D&D 5E Bladesinger - a criticism of its design

[Mort]

Maybe, but the naysayers are ignoring GFB and BB. Our BS dishes out plenty of damage in melee. For Levitate, it's just a matter of choosing your targets: many foes have terrible Con saves.

You put forward that it's binary, but let's look at scenarios because in play I'm not seeing anything binary happening. What level do you suggest? What foes? What allies?

Ok, I'll bite:

6th level 4 person party encounters 2 Hill giants (a hard encounter for this party).

Party 1: Bladesinger wizard who wants to act as a front line tank and acts accordingly, rogue, cleric, archer fighter.

Party 2: Bear totem barbarian, rogue, cleric, diviner mage.

Before running any numbers, I strongly suspect party 2 will have a much easier time of it (assuming you abide by the conditions I mentioned for the BS).

 

[clearstream]

But, to circle back to your challenge, it's critical that we establish what it means to be the party tank -- that it means actually taking attacks to protect the other members of the party. If your analysis is that, by level 7 the bladesinger can just banish a foe, then we are no longer talking about the bladesinger taking the fighter's tanking shtick, we're talking about what wizards do which has already been conceded as superior to the generic fighter. So, any analysis on the tanking abilities of the bladesinger MUST revolve around the bladesinger taking the same number of attacks as the champion. If we agree there, then we can proceed. We'll find that crit chance dominates for the bladesinger, so survival rates are flat.

My argument isn't that a BS stops being a Wiz and becomes a tank. It's that a BS can tank and be a Wiz. From tonight's game, I also question all these assertions they don't contribute much in melee. Using GFB, our BS hands out.

Let's map out the scenario first, and then decide what rounds in combat and outcomes look probable.

 

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Ok, I'll bite:

6th level 4 person party encounters 2 Hill giants (a hard encounter for this party).

Party 1: Bladesinger wizard who wants to act as a front line tank and acts accordingly, rogue, cleric, archer fighter.

Party 2: Bear totem barbarian, rogue, cleric, diviner mage.

Before running any numbers, I strongly suspect party 2 will have a much easier time of it (assuming you abide by the conditions I mentioned for the BS).

Looks somewhat cherry-picked, with the choice of foes and switch to Barbarian (we were talking about Champion). But that's fine.

However please understand my argument. If what you are saying is that BS played badly isn't very good, I conceded that already: any archetype played badly isn't very good. So to run this scenario, BS chooses from their abilities intelligently, tanking if that looks best, casting if that looks best, tanking and casting if that looks best. Or anything else that looks right.

I'll set up my characters, you set up yours. Should be interesting

 

[Mort]

Looks somewhat cherry-picked, with the choice of foes and switch to Barbarian (we were talking about Champion). But that's fine.

However please understand my argument. If what you are saying is that BS played badly isn't very good, I conceded that already: any archetype played badly isn't very good. So to run this scenario, BS chooses from their abilities intelligently, tanking if that looks best, casting if that looks best, tanking and casting if that looks best. Or anything else that looks right.

If the BS is played "mostly" as a wizard, that actually makes my point. The BS abilities are very good for the survival of a wizard, but their even better if the BS gets nowhere near melee. My whole argument is that the best use of the BS abilities are far, far away from the Tank role. Sure the BS and party could overcome the Hill Giants (probably), but nowhere near as smoothly/easily with the BS tanking.

I'll set up my characters, you set up yours. Should be interesting

Also, I fully agree that the scenario can get way too cherry picked. For this to actually work right, in a "real world" (heh) sort of way, you'd need to have a third party actually running the Hill Giants and the "characters" reacting accordingly. Essentially play by post style.

 

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If the BS is played "mostly" as a wizard, that actually makes my point. The BS abilities are very good for the survival of a wizard, but their even better if the BS gets nowhere near melee. My whole argument is that the best use of the BS abilities are far, far away from the Tank role. Sure the BS and party could overcome the Hill Giants (probably), but nowhere near as smoothly/easily with the BS tanking.

I feel like you are right in part. And we need to run a couple of scenarios to demonstrate it. The BS can tank, if he wants, but as you say he is better off following a hybrid role. I agree that his wizard powers are stronger than his melee, but his melee powers are pretty darned strong. What I'm finding in play is that our BS is seldom hit, does great damage with GFB, and as he's usually not solo-tanking foes with CR equal to his level (i.e. about double his XP threshold), he contributes effective melee... with undiminished casting power.

Also, I fully agree that the scenario can get way too cherry picked. For this to actually work right, in a "real world" (heh) sort of way, you'd need to have a third party actually running the Hill Giants and the "characters" reacting accordingly. Essentially play by post style.

Indeed. Don't think I didn't notice the switch from Champion to Bearbarian (sic). I didn't say BS tanked better than Bearbarian. Giant is a canny pick because of the big crits, but also I feel like people need to notice how they're drawn to choosing creatures with high CRs as foes, to "prove" that BS isn't good at tanking. Giants are CR 5 (versus CR 6 characters), and previously it was a CR 4 (against a level 4). What is a Wizard doing even looking like tanking that in the first place?

But let's run it and see. It's easy enough to be objective about the foe's choices, and make sensible choices for our PCs.

 

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However, if you look at the Champion, he barely dies in the second fight. If he wins initiative, he survives. If he gets a healing for around 8 damage, he survives. The champion's fail rate is razor thin, whereas the bladesingers is fixed at the crit chance.

Crits do variable damage, so correctly speaking it's the likelihood of the crit * the likelihood of the needed damage. And BS is efficient on healing resources.

But really, the only way to resolve this is in the scenario. What level? What are reasonable foes? Set up a Champion.

 

[Mort]

Indeed. Don't think I didn't notice the switch from Champion to Bearbarian (sic). I didn't say BS tanked better than Bearbarian. Giant is a canny pick because of the big crits, but also I feel like people need to notice how they're drawn to choosing creatures with high CRs as foes, to "prove" that BS isn't good at tanking. Giants are CR 5 (versus CR 6 characters), and previously it was a CR 4 (against a level 4). What is a Wizard doing even looking like tanking that in the first place?

But let's run it and see. It's easy enough to be objective about the foe's choices, and make sensible choices for our PCs.

If it's not a real challenge (say giants or equivalent seriously "big" threat) than it doesn't show all that much. Tanking in an "Easy" encounter, one where the BS is hitting well below his challenge level isn't dispositive because there's too much of a "that's too easy" confound.

I'll have to run some numbers tonight/tomorrow and see how it goes.

 

[Mort]

Crits do variable damage, so correctly speaking it's the likelihood of the crit * the likelihood of the needed damage. And BS is efficient on healing resources.

But really, the only way to resolve this is in the scenario. What level? What are reasonable foes? Set up a Champion.

Not sure what "efficient on healing resources..." means.

Haven't had near enough time to run full simulations but some initial observations:

The BS's survivability in this scenario is even higher than I expected, though it is very swingy. With bladesong the AC (even only using studded leather, because of the high stats) will be 21;
if the BS casts haste that goes up to 23;

if the BS is willing to devote his reaction for shield when necessary then his AC is effectively 27 for the encounter (he has more than enough spell slots to use shield as necessary).

This means his survivability against the hill giants (assuming he's the one drawing all the attacks AKA tanking) is effectively 4 rounds. (math is pretty simple: HGs do 39.6 per melee round each assuming 5% crits and hitting all the time, with the BS's AC this means their combined DPR against him is down to 7.92, I'm going with the BS having 32 HPs) .

The Barbarian's survivability in the same circumstances is 3 rounds (assuming barb with 16 AC, 77 HPs and raging).

The champion's is 2.2 rounds, even assuming plate, shield AND defense style (AC 21 and 71 HPs which means the champ had a very high Stat available for CON and that he pumped it at 4th or 6th, so actually 2.2 is likely high). Note, an eldritch knight could do much better here because they could PUMP AC to 25 when needed (same method as the BS)

On the surface, the BS is the clear winner, but there are some confounds.

The big one is that the BS's high survivability is based on not getting hit. If he does get hit, it only takes 2 average hits to drop him. A crit is almost certain to drop him. To the Hill Giants it's literally like trying to swat a fly and IF they hit, there's a splat.

The Barbarian is getting hit a lot (65% if the time) so his time staying up is much less swingy.

The Champion is also getting hit a lot (40% of the time) so not a huge amount of swinginess here either.

The second confound (as far as tanking anyway), the BS is so hard to hit that the HGs, even with their limited INT, will realize after the first or seconf round, (assuming they didn't get lucky and splat the BS) that they should target the rest of the party Instead. This is much less likely with the barbarian or the champion because, on them, their blows are having a visible effect.

So initial analysis, the BS will do well for himself barring bad luck, but I still maintain the barb is a better tank because they will draw fire MUCH better.

Edit: another takeaway, if your the DM and you allow both the BS and the feat luck prepare to have a lot of frustrated bad guys!

Thoughts? Anyone still care?



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Not sure what "efficient on healing resources..." means.

It means the cleric can spend slots on other things.

Haven't had near enough time to run full simulations but some initial observations:

The BS's survivability in this scenario is even higher than I expected, though it is very swingy. With bladesong the AC (even only using studded leather, because of the high stats) will be 21;
if the BS casts haste that goes up to 23;

I'm running my party against the Hill Giants. I'm strictly limiting each caster to 1/6th of their casts (to emulate an expected adventuring day).

My Bladesinger runs Blur. You might recall the stat line is 16, 15, 13, 12, 10, 9 before ASIs (one point better than average for 4d6 drop worst). High Elf + ASI gives 18 on Dex and Int. The cleric saves a lot of healing spells by using Shield of Faith (1st level) and Warding Bond (2nd level) proactively.

if the BS is willing to devote his reaction for shield when necessary then his AC is effectively 27 for the encounter (he has more than enough spell slots to use shield as necessary).

This means his survivability against the hill giants (assuming he's the one drawing all the attacks AKA tanking) is effectively 4 rounds. (math is pretty simple: HGs do 39.6 per melee round each assuming 5% crits and hitting all the time, with the BS's AC this means their combined DPR against him is down to 7.92, I'm going with the BS having 32 HPs) .

It's better than that. They seldom hit at all, not even critical hits (1 in 400). That's using two casts - Mage Armor (1st) and Blur (2nd).

On the surface, the BS is the clear winner, but there are some confounds.

The big one is that the BS's high survivability is based on not getting hit. If he does get hit, it only takes 2 average hits to drop him. A crit is almost certain to drop him. To the Hill Giants it's literally like trying to swat a fly and IF they hit, there's a splat.

The Barbarian is getting hit a lot (65% if the time) so his time staying up is much less swingy.

The Champion is also getting hit a lot (40% of the time) so not a huge amount of swinginess here either.

The second confound (as far as tanking anyway), the BS is so hard to hit that the HGs, even with their limited INT, will realize after the first or second round, (assuming they didn't get lucky and splat the BS) that they should target the rest of the party Instead. This is much less likely with the barbarian or the champion because, on them, their blows are having a visible effect.

So initial analysis, the BS will do well for himself barring bad luck, but I still maintain the barb is a better tank because they will draw fire MUCH better.

Edit: another takeaway, if your the DM and you allow both the BS and the feat luck prepare to have a lot of frustrated bad guys!

Thoughts? Anyone still care?

My BS is using Booming Blade to control the Giants. And as I said, Blur. Honestly the BS just makes a joke of those giants. The Rogue and Archer kite them easily, dealing a heck of a lot of ranged damage. The cleric has Warding Bond running on the BS just in case.

I do care. I will post my log from Fantasy Grounds later on. I appreciate your frankness in posting your findings. The base AC for my BS is 13+8+1+2 = 24 and the Blur means the Hill Giants hit on 16+ but have Disadvantage. They essentially never critical. Any damage is halved. My BS tanks like a b****** and can still cast like a normal Wizard.

Booming Blade narrows the Hill Giant's options. Being dumb, they don't much like taking damage when they move to run away. That said, they have no means of fleeing my Rogue, who can use Cunning Action to keep raining SS (Longbow) damage onto them (with Sneak Attack, whenever BS is adjacent to them).

I should add that they can't flee my BS. Their speed of 40' is the same as BS' (with Bladesong).

 

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Arguments suggesting BS isn't OP

I hope you are keeping track of Mort and my cases. Could I suggest level 6 party of 4 PCs, BS tanks, and we have a more normal "hard" encounter of 4+ foes? BS beats out Champion and Barbarian against big foes, and frankly those are BS's worst showing. Against numerous weaker foes BS dishes out with GFB.

Full-fleshed scenarios really help cement the argument that the BS design deserves criticism.