D&D 5E (2014) Bladesinger - a criticism of its design

[Ovinomancer]

I don't understand your argument here. You saw that BS used Mage Armor - it runs all day - one cast of a 2nd level spell, and one cast of a 1st level spell. It has 2/2/3 casts remaining + Arcane Recovery. That was at a Super-Deadly encounter! How many Super-Deadly encounters are you envisioning per day? What spells do you think another Arcane Tradition is contributing in that fight, that are so much more efficient?

Firstly, a 6th level wizard has 3/3/2 slots, not 3/3/3.

So, in the second fight, the bladesinger casts again and is down to 0/1/2 casts (she has to use that second shield this time to stay up -- another 19 damage is bad). Further, the cleric is now down to 0/1/2 casts, with no healing words. Oh, wait, let's up those words to a second and a third slot, so 0/0/1.

So, good, short rest. Yay! Arcane recovery for half level slots, to 1 first, 1 second, up to 1/2/2 slots. Mage armor still up. Last fight of the day. You make it burning higher level slots for shields because the cleric is tapped and can't help you this time so you cannot be hit.

Yay! You've finished the day and burned all of your slots to be the tank. No wizardy things done.

 

[Ovinomancer]

As a further point, your scenario requires that the party know a fight is coming, or spend the first 2 rounds of the fight setting up the combos (the cleric is casting warding bond and sanctuary to effect the scheme). While warding bond does have a 1 hour duration, that's not long enough to ensure your preplanning always works to anticipate a fight, so there's a distinct risk that the spell is wasted without effect if precast in anticipation.

That's a lot of work just to put the bladesinger into a position where they can tank. The fighter could benefit from both Warding bond and blur as well, cast by other party members, and improves his survivabiltiy as well. Further, the DPS of your group is low -- the cleric doesn't contribute, the bladesinger is doing low melee damage, so it's really only the two archers contributing significantly to DPS. Your fight takes longer to finish. The champion led group has much more effective DPS, with the cleric not needing to warding bond and hide, instead tossing guiding bolts for the rogue to handle off-tank giants, the champion dishing a significant amount of damage back to the giants, and the wizard actually able to engage in trivializing foes with spells either though DPS or lockdowns.

Finally, running a few mock combats in FG doesn't mean that's any more than an anecdote. THOSE fights went well for everyone, with carefully planned and seemless tactical decision making on the side of the party, who integrated all of their abilities to maximize the bladesinger while the giants appeared to engage separate targets and run after kites that had plenty of open fields without obstructions to slow them down.

So, yeah, open field, party with optimized tactics to show of the bladesinger, a few run-throughs without anything wild happening, and lots and lots of resources burned and you get a good result. Congrats! This wasn't in dispute (in fact, you explicitly chose some resource expenditure to directly counteract the glaring weakness of critical vulnerability -- and you'd have to). What's in dispute isn't that the bladesinger can't burn lots of resources to not get hit, but that they can still be an effective wizard while doing so. You've pretty clearly shown that the resource burn to make the bladesinger viable as a tank is so high that the bladesinger cannot risk casting spells for other purposes without endangering their tanking. So, my point stands: the bladesinger can be a poor fighter (good AC, bad hp, moderate to low damage output) at the cost of being a wizard. It's a good tradition, strong in some regards, not so much in others, but not super-awesome, only choose this, can be both a fighter and a wizard. You can pick, but you can't really do both jobs.

 

[FrogReaver]

[MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]n what are you actually arguing? That blade singers spend to many resources to act like a tank and wizard in every fight of every day? That they can never act like the tank? That the added defensive abilities the bladesinger gets just aren't very good? What exactly is your position?

 

[clearstream]

Firstly, a 6th level wizard has 3/3/2 slots, not 3/3/3.

Something's up here. In my hard copy PHB and on Fantasy Grounds and on 5e SRD, a 6th level Wizard has 4 1st level slots, 3 2nd level and 3 3rd. 4/3/3. Arcane Tradition then recovers 3 levels of slots.

So, in the second fight, the bladesinger casts again and is down to 0/1/2 casts (she has to use that second shield this time to stay up -- another 19 damage is bad). Further, the cleric is now down to 0/1/2 casts, with no healing words. Oh, wait, let's up those words to a second and a third slot, so 0/0/1.

She doesn't need to. The cleric uses a Prayer of Healing (2nd level) to bring everyone back up to nearly full, and she spends 1 Hit Die. This is more efficient than the alternatives.

BS is on 2/2/3 casts + 3 levels of slots
Cleric is on 1/1/3 casts + channel divinity

So, good, short rest. Yay! Arcane recovery for half level slots, to 1 first, 1 second, up to 1/2/2 slots. Mage armor still up. Last fight of the day. You make it burning higher level slots for shields because the cleric is tapped and can't help you this time so you cannot be hit.

So you are anticipating three super-deadly encounters in the same day? Please play these and see what is left of the party that doesn't have the BS. Cleric is happy to use their 4 qualifying slots for Warding because that's really the most efficient thing to do.

Yay! You've finished the day and burned all of your slots to be the tank. No wizardy things done.

Huh? BS could use other slots because BS is presumably not tanking six super-deadly encounters a day! Most encounters don't merit the cast of a single Shield, nor a Warding Bond. These Giants are +8 attack, dealing 3d8+5 with Greatclub, or 3d10+5 with a rock.

 

[clearstream]

As a further point, your scenario requires that the party know a fight is coming, or spend the first 2 rounds of the fight setting up the combos (the cleric is casting warding bond and sanctuary to effect the scheme). While warding bond does have a 1 hour duration, that's not long enough to ensure your preplanning always works to anticipate a fight, so there's a distinct risk that the spell is wasted without effect if precast in anticipation.

No, I don't do that. The only cast in anticipation was Mage Armor. Everything else was cast during the fight, while the Giants were taking moves, throwing rocks etc.

The fighter could benefit from both Warding bond and blur as well, cast by other party members, and improves his survivabiltiy as well. Further, the DPS of your group is low -- the cleric doesn't contribute, the bladesinger is doing low melee damage, so it's really only the two archers contributing significantly to DPS. Your fight takes longer to finish.

Fighter cannot Blur because target is self only. The "hard" encounter (2 giants) is over in 4 rounds. The "super-deadly" (3 giants) takes about 6.

THOSE fights went well for everyone, with carefully planned and seemless tactical decision making on the side of the party, who integrated all of their abilities to maximize the bladesinger while the giants appeared to engage separate targets and run after kites that had plenty of open fields without obstructions to slow them down.

No, they don't go well for the non-BS tanks at all. I had the giants attempt to gang up, attempt to attack easier targets. One run through of the "hard" version of the encounter started at virtually the minimum distance (two giants appeared 30' away). (I rolled for starting distances using the DMs Shield.)

 

[Ovinomancer]

[MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]n what are you actually arguing? That blade singers spend to many resources to act like a tank and wizard in every fight of every day? That they can never act like the tank? That the added defensive abilities the bladesinger gets just aren't very good? What exactly is your position?

I've clearly stated it a number of times: the bladesinger can either be a mediocre tank or a wizard, but not both at the same time.

If she wants to burn her resources to be the tank, she can do that, but that puts her slightly below par with the figher, who can fill that role well due to both toughness, AC, and damage output -- the bladesinger can manage AC. If they choose to be a wizard, then the tradition is roughly on par with other traditions because it's benefits are conditional on being attacked whereas the other traditions abilities are conditional on the wizard using them as they want to. I place a higher value on abilities that are useful when I want to use them rather than abilities that are only useful if the enemy obliges to make them so.

So, yeah, with a lot of resources expended, the bladesinger can stand the front line. To do so, she has to spend resources to negate hits (shield), reduce the 1-shot effect of crits (blur), and, as in [MENTION=71699]vonklaude[/MENTION]'s toy problem, use other party member resources to further reduce risk (warding bond). Even then, the bladesinger in klaude's example took more than half of their hitpoints in the single-run encounter fully optimized for the bladesinger.

Bladesingers CAN tank -- if they choose to not do wizardy things. The need to keep slots for blur and shield to be able to survive on the front line is so high that they cannot afford to expend them on other uses if the party is relying on the 'singer to tank.

At higher levels, this is less of the total resource drain, but then AC is far less useful in melee as well, and AC is all that the bladesinger can get. It takes more and more resources to increase it (you can haste as well, which is another round of combat gone, your cleric can shield of faith you, so long as they don't have a better use for concentration, etc.) but the enemies' to hit bonuses increase rapidly as well. And then there's the issue of spellcasting enemies. Sure, the fighter doesn't have any better chance of avoiding fireballs (worse, actually), but they have the hp to soak it where the bladesinger doesn't. A CON save can end the bladesinger (and the CR 6 Mage has cone of cold, which at 8d8 is a bad day for the 'singer). It's a glass shield -- great at defense until it's hit.

 

[clearstream]

I've clearly stated it a number of times: the bladesinger can either be a mediocre tank or a wizard, but not both at the same time.

I know you assert that, so I have dug into it with actual play-through. Both claims are not sustained by anything I am seeing. BS is a top-tier tank. And due to having excellent Concentration, protection from being grappled, and extra movement, is a great caster. The only Arcane Tradition that for me is playing out competitively is Divination Wizard, but Divination Wizard can't switch roles the way BS can.

So, yeah, with a lot of resources expended, the bladesinger can stand the front line. To do so, she has to spend resources to negate hits (shield), reduce the 1-shot effect of crits (blur), and, as in @vonklaude's toy problem, use other party member resources to further reduce risk (warding bond). Even then, the bladesinger in klaude's example took more than half of their hitpoints in the single-run encounter fully optimized for the bladesinger.

One Mage Armor cast per day + one second level spell per encounter is hardly burning through resources. As for the damage, as I pointed out it was purely discretionary. BS decided to save the 1st level cast that time. (The Cleric's Prayer already looked likely due to damage across the party anyway.) I've run the "hard" version of the encounter with a Divination Wizard and although I felt able to spend just one third level slot, the spell didn't stick because a rock ended Concentration. Total value from the Divination Wizard was one extra attack by the Archer.

Also, I didn't "optimise" the encounter. I ran the encounter that @Mort designed. Propose another, and I will run it.

Bladesingers CAN tank -- if they choose to not do wizardy things. The need to keep slots for blur and shield to be able to survive on the front line is so high that they cannot afford to expend them on other uses if the party is relying on the 'singer to tank.

Can you state exactly what "wizardy" things you are envisioning please? At present, I'm really not seeing what you have in mind.

If you think the picture changes at higher levels, can you suggest a level and a scenario?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Something's up here. In my hard copy PHB and on Fantasy Grounds and on 5e SRD, a 6th level Wizard has 4 1st level slots, 3 2nd level and 3 3rd. 4/3/3. Arcane Tradition then recovers 3 levels of slots.

Nope, my bad, scanned the wrong line.

She doesn't need to. The cleric uses a Prayer of Healing (2nd level) to bring everyone back up to nearly full, and she spends 1 Hit Die. This is more efficient than the alternatives.

BS is on 2/2/3 casts + 3 levels of slots
Cleric is on 1/1/3 casts + channel divinity

So, after the second fight, same as the first, the cleric is using a 3rd slot for the healing word and is down to 0/0/2, plus the prayer so 0/0/1. The cleric has burned their entire spell list to prop up the bladesinger, and you think this means the bladesinger is a really good tank?

So you are anticipating three super-deadly encounters in the same day? Please play these and see what is left of the party that doesn't have the BS. Cleric is happy to use their 4 qualifying slots for Warding because that's really the most efficient thing to do.


Huh? BS could use other slots because BS is presumably not tanking six super-deadly encounters a day! Most encounters don't merit the cast of a single Shield, nor a Warding Bond. These Giants are +8 attack, dealing 3d8+5 with Greatclub, or 3d10+5 with a rock.

3, 3 encounters is what I said, not 6. Inflating my statements to win arguments doesn't reflect well on you.

And, huh? Most encounters don't merit the casting of a single shield? What numbers are you running to show this? Certainly not the one you proposed, and are you really going to play the bladesinger on the assumption she'll never need to cast shield so you can expend those slots freely on other things?

Bladesinger, AC 23, standing up to 3 giants at tank. Assume the bladesinger is out front and the giants are in 'smash closest thing first' mode to start. All three giants attack the bladesinger, first with a toss of a rock, then in melee second round --

Bladesinger wins initiative 75% of the time (+4 vs -1).

Round the first:
Bladesinger casts blur, moves to intercept (or just better position to protect the party). Activates bladesong.

Giants all toss rocks at bladesinger and close. Hit on 15+, or 30%, blur reduces to 9%, crits are 0.25%, 3 attacks, so bladesinger is hit by 1 rock is roughly 25%. One rock deals an average of 21.5 damage. Bladesinger at 6th with 14 CON has 31. Probably wants to shield that.

Chance 2 rocks hit is ~1.5%. That's dead, so the bladesinger is definitely burning a shield here.

Chance all three rocks hit is 0.07%, so better chance of a crit at 0.25%. Bladesinger can't shield that, and just goes down.

So, first round is ~26.5% chance of needing a shield and 0.75% chance of death.

Round the second:
Bladesinger now in melee. Does some GFB for some damage.

Giants all attack bladesinger. 6 attacks, now at 9% each, with 0.25% chance of crit, doing an average of 18.5 damage.

Chance bladesinger is hit by at least:
1 attack -- 43%
2 attacks -- 3.4%
3 attack -- 0.25% (this is close to crit chance, we we'll ignore below this)

So, that's a better than 45% chance the bladesinger will need to shield in the second round. Added to the first round, the averages say the bladesinger will need to shield at least once in this kind of combat. And that's with blur up.

The chance to crit for the melee attacks, by the way, is about 1.4%. Even with blur, that's not negligible, and it's a 1-shot down for the bladesinger.

So, the bladesinger has to keep that slot available and should expect to expend at least 1 in that fight.

Now, if the bladesinger loses initiative, things are very, very bad for the singer.

Round the first --
3 rocks at AC 18, no blur, hit on a 10+ (55%) crit on a 20 (5%), damage 21.5 or 37.5 on a crit. Bladesinger sucks up

1 hit: 91% chance
2 hits: 43% chance
3 hits: 17% chance

So, that's 91% chance of half the hit points or a shield use, a 43% chance of dead or less than half hp (1 shield) or 2 shields, and a 17% chance that you just burned all of your 1st level slots on shield. That's some bad resource usage!

A crit ends the discussion, and there's a 14% chance of that happening in the opening round.

So, sure, with preparation and resource usage, the bladesinger can tank, but her shallow hitpoint pool means she needs to keep slots open to shield for bad luck. Without preparation, the bladesinger goes down as fast as a normal wizard.

You can count on winning initiative 75% of the time for staying up, but you might want to save those slots, just in case.

 

[Rhenny]

Don't forget...if BS gets hit while concentrating on Blur, make con check or lose concentration.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I know you assert that, so I have dug into it with actual play-through. Both claims are not sustained by anything I am seeing. BS is a top-tier tank. And due to having excellent Concentration, protection from being grappled, and extra movement, is a great caster. The only Arcane Tradition that for me is playing out competitively is Divination Wizard, but Divination Wizard can't switch roles the way BS can.

My argument is my argument, which was the question I answered.

Further, you single play through of an optimized combat fully supporting the bladesinger that then extraploates to a day that doesn't require extensive resource expediture doesn't invalidate my claim, it says that the best case scenario is that the bladesinger gets to be half a wizard. You may find it persuasive, but i don't find cherry picked, best case scenarios to be very impressive.

One Mage Armor cast per day + one second level spell per encounter is hardly burning through resources. As for the damage, as I pointed out it was purely discretionary. BS decided to save the 1st level cast that time. (The Cleric's Prayer already looked likely due to damage across the party anyway.) I've run the "hard" version of the encounter with a Divination Wizard and although I felt able to spend just one third level slot, the spell didn't stick because a rock ended Concentration. Total value from the Divination Wizard was one extra attack by the Archer.

That's the resource cost just to enable your baseline assumptions, though. A hit and a failed concentration check put the bladesinger in a very bad spot, for instance. A crit can't be ignored and outright ends the bladesinger. Having a cleric doing nothing with their spell slots but enable the bladesinger isn't sustainable, either. You claim 1 first and 1 second, but your scenario had a second 1st and 4, 4!, spellls from the cleric to enable the scenario (the two healing words to prevent one more hit from dropping both the bladesinger AND the cleric, for instance). That's nuts, and insisting it is low effort is equally nuts. You're completely ignoring all the confounders here and focusing on best cases.

Also, I didn't "optimise" the encounter. I ran the encounter that @Mort designed. Propose another, and I will run it.

Your two non-casters both are selected to optimize ranged combat and kite. Your cleric did nothing but prop up the bladesinger. You had the giants act stupidly and spread fire while allowing themselves to be affected by the bladesinger. You picked your party and their abilities to optimize the bladesinger.

Can you state exactly what "wizardy" things you are envisioning please? At present, I'm really not seeing what you have in mind.

You've made the assertion that wizards outshine fighters without bladesinger as a tradition. I agreed with you. Do I need to explain to you, now, how that works, or did I utterly misunderstand why you made that statement to begin with? Because I assumed it was the ability to trivialize fights and obstacles with spell usage, which requires slots, which the bladesinger is using to prop up her career as a fighter.

If you think the picture changes at higher levels, can you suggest a level and a scenario?

So you can pick a party setup that props up the bladesinger and then claim that the bladesinger is the star? Not terribly interested.