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Bladesinger - a criticism of its design
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<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7240241" data-attributes="member: 71699"><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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 "<em>ranged is disadvantaged in melee</em>", "<em>melee attacks do the most one target damage</em>", <em>"the skillful classes (currently Rogue and Bard) are always best at skills"</em>, <em>casters aren't good at melee</em>... 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).</p><p></p><p>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 <em>standard</em> 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.)</p><p></p><p>Or is it an inevitability of commercial game design: the designers will always be pushed to ramp up power in expansions?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 7240241, member: 71699"] 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 "[I]ranged is disadvantaged in melee[/I]", "[I]melee attacks do the most one target damage[/I]", [I]"the skillful classes (currently Rogue and Bard) are always best at skills"[/I], [I]casters aren't good at melee[/I]... 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 [I]standard[/I] 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? [/QUOTE]
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