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

[CapnZapp]

That's what I call - warping the narrative.

Yes, the DM can stop targeting AC and start targeting say Strength or Charisma saves. For the sake of one archetype... !?

Here you are entirely correct.

The suggestion to change the whole game just to fix one small issue is never logical.

I hear this stuff all the time. It never becomes reasoned.

"Oh, so you feel ranged is OP - just give all monsters better ranged attacks, or play only dungeons where they attack from 30 ft away"
"Oh, so you feel Int is underutilized - have monsters Feeblemind you more"
"Oh, so you feel the attrition game doesn't work because it's too easy to rest - just always set an eggtimer and have the story force you to skip rests"
"Oh, so command monsters don't have the tricks they need to manifest this trait - just have them act "intelligently" by spending massive amounts of time on their tactics"
...

It never ceases to amaze me the lengths to which some people are prepared to go in order to not have to admit that their favorite edition might have flaws.

I might not agree with you on this particular issue, Vonklaude, but I feel for you when people tell you there's never anything wrong with the rules, all you need to do is be a better DM...

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Show me where I say both stats are 20s? The character is 20 Dex, 14 Con, 18 (or maybe 19) Int. AC 22. Better than a plate armored fighter with shield and defense fighting style. Maybe later the stats will go to both 20, for AC 23.

Bladesinger (SCAG) is an Arcane Tradition for Wizard that seems to be balanced around the assumption a PC won't have high Intelligence and high Dexterity. I believe that is an unjustified assumption in a game where points buy is an option. The TotYP campaign I'm in will have a Wizard with Intelligence and Dexterity both at 20/+5 by level four.

Right in the first paragraph of your OP.

Most archetypes are fine with even two 20s. I can't think right now of another archetype that gets something as strong as a possible AC 23 caster. Can you think of one?

I'm unsure. If your DM does tend to have monsters only making basic attacks, then very powerful.
So do you feel that Bladesinger is inherently overpowered, or that it merely synergises a little too well with the edge cases where someone uses the rolling method for ability generation and gets extremely high results?

To repeat my previous question: Would you regard a bladesinger generated with ability scores that were as unusually low as your example's were unusually high to also be overpowered?
Do you have an issue with the rolling ability scores method that may result in a character having 13s as their highest scores playing alongside the one with the 18 and 17?

Bladesinger can fight, or they can sit there and cast like any other Wizard, behind their fantastic AC, Concentration bonus, Acrobatics bonus, and extra speed.

They can't cast as well as most other wizards, because their tradition abilities boost their melee capabilities rather than their casting. They can't fight as well as a dedicated martial. They have versatility, and a good defence against a common attack form, but in terms of action economy, each round they're generally either only going to be casting or fighting, often doing neither as well as a more focused party member. Versatility is useful, and I don't think that anyone has argued that Bladesingers are useless. But game-breaking under normal circumstances? Probably not.

 

[clearstream]

I generally avoid the discussions of resting rules, because many look upon it from a gamist perspective, rather than simulationist. Our games are more story based, and since you can only long rest every 24 hours, the world doesn't stop just because you want to take a rest. Even an hour short rest may put you in a bad situation, where the enemy can put up defenses against your next incursion (or even seek you out in force, putting the PCs at a serious tactical disadvantage).

When balancing features, they need to work with the typical range. So even if some groups use 4 encounters between short rests, many don't. The average stated in the DMG is 2-3 per short rest (6-8 per long rest), but the daily XP table on the same page belies that range, and is about an encounter fewer (5-7 per long rest).

I accept (and applaud) that for groups like yours that are using more encounters per short rest, all short rest resources will receive a nerf. Alas for Monks and Battlemasters, who cop the fallout from that. But yes, great for mitigating Bladesingers.

Correct balancing needs to include consideration for the typical game. Including therefore, the pacing of the game that DMs are told in core content is standard.

 

[clearstream]

Right in the first paragraph of your OP.

*Chagrin* Holy typo, I intended "eight". They'll have one at 20 by level four, for an already ludicrous +9 to AC.

So do you feel that Bladesinger is inherently overpowered, or that it merely synergises a little too well with the edge cases where someone uses the rolling method for ability generation and gets extremely high results?

That's a good question. For me it starts feeling overly rewarded when it matches the heaviest defensive fighter - AC 21. Therefore I must think that +7 is the edge of okay; and I would qualify that as including after one ASI. Meaning starting with a 15 and a 14. The expected array from 4d6 drop lowest is 16, 14, 13, 12, 10, 9. Therefore I must think that what you characterise as an "edge case" isn't an edge case: it's common enough in practice. +8 with one ASI requires no better than a 16 and a 15.

Some people have asked what fix I would propose, but this thread isn't really about fixes. It's about lodging my disgruntlement with a result of the Wizards design process. Some people want to say that there are other - larger - problems. That's fine, there are enough pixels to go around all of us. Bladesinger can be problematic and there can be other, bigger problems: those can both be true at the same time. In fact, I often feel that it is the underpowered options that are the most problematic. The function either as traps, or blank content. Look at my feats survey. For all we might want to see SS and CEx fixed, there are far more feats that languish through being underpowered.

 

[CapnZapp]

They can't cast as well as most other wizards, because their tradition abilities boost their melee capabilities rather than their casting. They can't fight as well as a dedicated martial. They have versatility, and a good defence against a common attack form, but in terms of action economy, each round they're generally either only going to be casting or fighting, often doing neither as well as a more focused party member. Versatility is useful, and I don't think that anyone has argued that Bladesingers are useless. But game-breaking under normal circumstances? Probably not.

This.

It's the detailed description I couldn't be bothered to write, so I wrote "bard" instead... ☺

Now, it's possible to argue the Bladesinger creeps uncomfortably close to 90-95% capacity in selected scenarios, making a solid argument for labeling the subclass "very powerful".

And yes, it might have been preferable if WotC settled for 80-85%...

...but at least it's no 50% class like the d20 bard.


Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[Ovinomancer]

Actually, that's probably the nub of it for me. Fighters are already overshadowed by Wizards. It's indefensible to make a Wizard also able to take up effective melee on the side, and oh by the way have an AC better than the best fighter can muster.

That's probably why it vexes me so much: it points at a deeper and more concerning design failure. 5e shows glimmers of establishing really great game balance, and then undermines it with elements of feats like SS and CEx, and archetypes like Bladesinger. Truly great game design is powerfully informed by what you might call pillar-values. Statements like "ranged is disadvantaged in melee", "melee attacks do the most one target damage", "the skillful classes (currently Rogue and Bard) are always best at skills", casters aren't good at melee... that sort of thing. What those pillars do is broaden choice (multiple strategies are valid), allow players to shine (prevent over-shadowing) and avoid warping the narrative (no one game feature bends the world around it).

When I hear - Bladesinger is only moderately good at melee - that's already a long way across the line. Fighters are already overshadowed by Wizards. People talk about it being only problematic if you run two encounters per short rest (like most people) or roll stats that 1:6 characters will have using the standard character generation system. Or give examples of their characters that are fine, because they don't have those stats. (Unlucky for them, but it makes their example irrelevant to this discussion.)

Or is it an inevitability of commercial game design: the designers will always be pushed to ramp up power in expansions?

As i understand it, your issue is that the Bladesinger does wizardy things well and fighery things moderately well. This is a problem because wizards already outshine fighters, and now the Bladesinger is also able to do the fighter's job directly. The problem with this is that when the Bladesinger is doing the fighter's job, it's only mediocre at the job -- high AC is good, low hp isn't, and damage output is reasonable but not to the level a fighter can dish. Add to this that the Bladesinger cannot both do the fighter's job and the wizard's job at the same time and you end up with what the Mystic Theurge was in 3.x -- a class that looks really strong, but suffers so much from opportunity costs that they end up as a versatile but not very strong character. The Bladesinger is very versitle, yes, but it has to choose which job it's doing round to round. When it's a wizard, it overshadows the fighter, like every other wizard. When it's in melee, doing the fighter's job, it doesn't overshadow the fighter -- instead it's overshadowed by the fighter.

Your main complaint really just comes down to the Bladesinger is a wizard, and that's not novel or especially broken. All that the neat features of the bladesinger do is give it some extra versatility to be a mediocre fighter at the expense of being a wizard for those moments.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That's probably why it vexes me so much: it points at a deeper and more concerning design failure. 5e shows glimmers of establishing really great game balance

... really? could be pyrite deposits....

, and then undermines it with elements of feats like SS and CEx, and archetypes like Bladesinger. Truly great game design is powerfully informed by what you might call pillar-values. Statements like "ranged is disadvantaged in melee", "melee attacks do the most one target damage", "the skillful classes (currently Rogue and Bard) are always best at skills", casters aren't good at melee... that sort of thing. What those pillars do is broaden choice (multiple strategies are valid), allow players to shine (prevent over-shadowing) and avoid warping the narrative (no one game feature bends the world around it).

Consider that 5e might not have been "Truely great game design" with the intent of creating a technically-'great' game, but, rather, pragmatic game design with the intent of selling a new edition of D&D to a bunch of lunatics who'd just spent years viciously ripping apart the last attempt at creating a technically-decent game.

When I hear - Bladesinger is only moderately good at melee - that's already a long way across the line. Fighters are already overshadowed by Wizards.

5e doesn't balance on mechanics or even concepts or across pillars or anything. It's balanced by the DM taking that spotlight, and willfully shining it on the Fighter (or whoever's character hasn't been shining too brightly on it's own, but if we're being honest, it's probably the fighter much of the time) now and then.

Or is it an inevitability of commercial game design: the designers will always be pushed to ramp up power in expansions?

Yes, that's an inevitability of commercial game design in general, but in the case of D&D there a countervailing demand for tradition and slow pace of release. So the whole power creep thing we've so far seen with a few sub-classes over several years could be a whole lot worse.

That's what I call - warping the narrative.

You should be doing this anyway, bladesinger or not.

Exactly. You can't expect to just sit down and run 5e cold, nor can you expect to use it to tell whatever story you want. When you sign up to run 5e, you're signing up to deliver a D&D experience, and there are parameters to that, and tricks to making it work.

As i understand it, your issue is that the Bladesinger does wizardy things well and fighery things moderately well. This is a problem because wizards already outshine fighters, and now the Bladesinger is also able to do the fighter's job directly. The problem with this is that when the Bladesinger is doing the fighter's job, it's only mediocre at the job

How's an EK at doing the wizard's job?

 

[Ovinomancer]

How's an EK at doing the wizard's job?

Lousy, but better than nothing.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Lousy, but better than nothing.

So the EK doesn't rise to "mediocre" when doing the wizard's job, like the Bladesinger stepping into the fighter's job does...
... I suppose that's part of the perceived issue.

 

[Ovinomancer]

So the EK doesn't rise to "mediocre" when doing the wizard's job, like the Bladesinger stepping into the fighter's job does...
... I suppose that's part of the perceived issue.

Is the idea that wizards generally overshadow fighters being debated? I hasn't thought so. I was under the impression that it was the thinking that Bladesingers do so even more by taking the fighter's shtick that was being contended.