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

[Prism]

It appears a number of people in this thread have failed to understand that this is the problem I'm criticising: Bladesinger is a full mage (with better AC and Concentration saves and Acrobatics and mobility) who can also rush into melee as a competent melee type.

The bladesinger isn't really a full mage with benefits though in comparison to the other wizard subclasses. It is very front loaded so it might seem this way at lower levels but its melee ability drops off fairly quickly at mid levels and what you often end up with is a wizard that's hard to hit. Other wizards are getting various additional abilities which can be used to deal with a wider variety of situations.

For me the bladesinger is strong at low levels but worse than several of the other wizard subclasses at higher levels. Maybe that's a design problem but other classes have this issue too.

 

[CapnZapp]

It appears a number of people in this thread have failed to understand that this is the problem I'm criticising: Bladesinger is a full mage (with better AC and Concentration saves and Acrobatics and mobility) who can also rush into melee as a competent melee type.

Full mages alone are the bar for power in 5e (less so than in earlier editions, but still so). A full mage who can compete in melee (with better AC than the heaviest armoured martial) is poor design. And avoidable. The class itself develops the concept wonderfully. It is flavourful and fun: I want to see better balanced archetypes in splatbooks because I want to see the game expand. If you didn't play 3rd edition, you missed the egregious power-creeping of its numerous splatbooks.

Power-creeping by design appears to arise from a myopic, commercially-drive belief that player purchase decisions are principally driven by munchkin behaviour. I believe that well-written, flavourful features, that do something different and valued, are more important to players than straight power options. In my experience, groups love embracing options that don't overshadow the content they've already invested in. With the value of hindsight, 5e can do better than 3e.

Finally, for those who think that balancing the game without taking the standard character generation system into account is fine, we're not going to reach a point where I agree with you. And that is independent of whether the game is easier to balance using points buy: stop conflating the arguments. I appreciate your input, but please don't recite the argument again here. If you'd like to explore it further, I encourage you to make your own thread.

At this point I really don't know what you want out of the thread, vonklaude.

We are not failing to understand you, we are just trying to help you understand why not more people are as bothered by the Bladesinger as you seem to be.

Is the Bladesinger design theoretically overpowered? Yes.

Is it near the top of the list of balance issues that create problems in practical play? It appears it isn't.

So what is left to say?

You ask people to take further discussion on chargen methods to a new thread, but all there is to say on that subject has already been said. If you don't or won't see the point of those arguments by now, reiterating them won't help.

I guess all that's left is to agree to disagree - yes, you have a few points, it's just that they feel much bigger in theory than in practice - and move on to another subject

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[clearstream]

You need to play with my group then. Today was 4 combats before taking a rest with level 1&2 characters. Challenging may be debated, but they were medium fights according the DMG (which is a measurement I seldom use). This really isn't uncommon with us, and in the other game we play (where I'm a player), we seldom take a short rest, because the opportunity cost is too high. We play based on a 24 hour world cycle, rather than the short rest/long rest/encounters per day setup, which removes abuse by short rest classes and the dreaded five minute work day.

Interesting. We have just had months discussing elephants in the room, where the consensus appeared to be that combats per rest is usually on the low side. But you've changed the rest system (probably a good idea) which reduces this examples relevance to balance in the context of the standard game.

 

[clearstream]

This is akin to how some people are fine with saying "if you use feats and multiclassing you're on your own" as if asking the game to be balanced with those two "options" was unreasonable or strange...

The truth is simply that you have two axioms to choose between:

"The game is balanced around rolling dice since that's presented as the default chargen method"

and

"The game is balanced around a maximum starting ability of 15"


It's your choice to make. I just feel the first one is a little bit too faith-based for my liking. It's not like it's a secret that WotC is pandering to what the customers want over the best interests of game balance.

To me it's simple. People WANT to roll dice when creating characters. WotC therefore makes it the default choice. End. Of. Analysis.

That WotC carefully weighed the balancing pros and cons of what chargen method to make the default borders on gullible, in my opinion. It was a marketing move, nothing more.

The truth is that point-buy is MUCH more balanced, but since WotC knows its customers doesn't like to hear that, they don't make an effort to tell us.

And it's not exactly as if I'm asking you to take my word for it either. I'm pretty sure y'all know deep down I'm right. It isn't very hard to see why the game just works better when your level 4 and 8 ASIs take you to a +4 and a +5 bonus - that is, that you truly have to choose between a feat and a +1 ability modifier increase to your prime stat.

Also need to call you out on being disingenuous here Capn. You've spent the last year asserting that it is reasonable to expect RAW to work properly.

Think about it. What people are saying seems to be - Class is fine if you just don't use the standard rules of the game. Something I've seen you object to in other threads.

That doesn't mean I disagree with your argument about better game balance. Only that it excuses failure to balance correctly with the reasonable limits of the standard system in mind. (Usually at minimum, a game designer stress-tests their work against the system minimums and maximums. One might not go to cases that occur less than 1% of the time, but one should certainly go to cases that occur 4% of the time!)

 

[FrogReaver]

Also need to call you out on being disingenuous here Capn. You've spent the last year asserting that it is reasonable to expect RAW to work properly.

Think about it. What people are saying seems to be - Class is fine if you just don't use the standard rules of the game. Something I've seen you object to in other threads.

That doesn't mean I disagree with your argument about better game balance. Only that it excuses failure to balance correctly with the reasonable limits of the standard system in mind. (Usually at minimum, a game designer stress-tests their work against the system minimums and maximums. One might not go to cases that occur less than 1% of the time, but one should certainly go to cases that occur 4% of the time!)

The issue is your points for what makes the bladesinger strong is all wrong. Bladesinger sucks at melee. It's only saving grace is it gets HIGH AC and really good concentration checks. Those things make it a better wizard (easier to stay alive) and (easier to keep concentrating on your encounter ending spells, which high AC also helps with...)

The only decent ability he has in melee is to lock down an opponent from attacking the rest of the party IF AND ONLY IF he takes warcaster so he can booming blade as an OA. Heck, by max level firebolt is doing nearly just as much or more than he does in melee.

It's like you get way to hyper focused on something. Yes there is a problem with bladesinger, but it's not for the reasons you keep spouting. It has nothing to do with it's melee ability and everything to do with it being the best wizard subclass for enabling wizard stuff hands down.

 

[guachi]

It isn't very hard to see why the game just works better when your level 4 and 8 ASIs take you to a +4 and a +5 bonus - that is, that you truly have to choose between a feat and a +1 ability modifier increase to your prime stat.

Lots of snippage.

Your last point nails it.
D&D is a resource management game (in part). Much of that resource management has been removed (unfortunately, IMO). However, they've put management of ASIs and your abilities in.

I rarely play as I spend most of my time DMing. Because of the amount of AL games I've DMed I can pick two magic items from adventures I've run. I've chosen (unless I've changed my mind) Gauntlets of Ogre Power and a rapier +1. That's something akin to starting with a 20. The only "choice" is"how extremely broken do I want to make my character?"

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Only that it excuses failure to balance correctly with the reasonable limits of the standard system in mind. (Usually at minimum, a game designer stress-tests their work against the system minimums and maximums. One might not go to cases that occur less than 1% of the time, but one should certainly go to cases that occur 4% of the time!)

Your player rolled not only an 18, but also a 17. That is a pretty edge case.

If you have suggestions for how to balance a character with primary and secondary stats that high, compared to one that rolled below 13 for them for example, while still keeping ability scores relevant, we're all ears. Rolling for stats is an inherently potentially unbalanced system.

 

[Mort]

.... Yes there is a problem with bladesinger, but it's not for the reasons you keep spouting. It has nothing to do with it's melee ability and everything to do with it being the best wizard subclass for enabling wizard stuff hands down.

I agree with a good portion of your post, but I find the bladesinger abilities too self centered (for lack of better words) to be "best" at helping the party.

Obviously the wizard keeping himself alive is a big boon to the party, but that's ALL the bladesinger abilities are good at. Contrast this with some other traditions: abjuration can extend hit points to others, divination 's ability can ensure a hit, ensure a miss, or ensure the guy you want to go first goes first.

From a party perspective, the bladesinger is not weak, but other traditions more than hold their own.





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[CapnZapp]

Also need to call you out on being disingenuous here Capn. You've spent the last year asserting that it is reasonable to expect RAW to work properly.

Think about it. What people are saying seems to be - Class is fine if you just don't use the standard rules of the game. Something I've seen you object to in other threads.

That doesn't mean I disagree with your argument about better game balance. Only that it excuses failure to balance correctly with the reasonable limits of the standard system in mind. (Usually at minimum, a game designer stress-tests their work against the system minimums and maximums. One might not go to cases that occur less than 1% of the time, but one should certainly go to cases that occur 4% of the time!)

No, what it means is that treating point-buy as something exotic and unusual instead of Rules as Written comes across as strange to me.

It feels like you're seeking out problems by not admitting random roll is unbalanced, because it clearly is.

You might be thinking about my criticism against OP feats. Well, there we don't have a much better option available to us right under our noses.

Is it possible I would be in your situation railing against default version 1 of Great Weapon Mastery getting irritated when asked to simply switch to official version 2? I guess.

But we don't have official much-better balanced versions of feats.

But we do have a much-better balanced version of chargen.

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[FrogReaver]

I agree with a good portion of your post, but I find the bladesinger abilities too self centered (for lack of better words) to be "best" at helping the party.

Obviously the wizard keeping himself alive is a big boon to the party, but that's ALL the bladesinger abilities are good at. Contrast this with some other traditions: abjuration can extend hit points to others, divination 's ability can ensure a hit, ensure a miss, or ensure the guy you want to go first goes first.

From a party perspective, the bladesinger is not weak, but other traditions more than hold their own.





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It's not like I think either of those subclasses you mentioned are bad. They are both solid and I could easily play a Wizard of either of them. It's not even that I overrate survivability. I don't. It's that by having to focus less on your survivability you free up your resources and other party members resources to do other things. It's that by having good concentration saves you no longer lose concentration spells in combat which saves your resources and party resources etc. That's ultimately what makes it the best wizard subclass in my mind. You say it's too self-centered, but I see major party benefits for that bit of self centeredness it has.

The Divination subclass has it's own uses and is a bit of an enabling type itself. It's probably a better wizard subclass by the time you hit level 12. I can go with that as you have enough resources to shore up your concentration and using 1-2 level 1 spells a day on defense at that point doesn't really matter. I tend to focus on earlier levels 3-9 as that's where most games I'm in end up and in those you are sacrificing quite a bit to have compotent defences and risk a lot with your relatively low concentration bonus.

Abjuration has very similar benefits to the bladesinger. Without doing a real analysis my gut tells me the benefits at least early don't stack up against the blade singers but it shouldn't be too far behind.