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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7253591" data-attributes="member: 16814">Show me a martial character with the hp pool of a wizard.  You're treating the use of a first level spell to get high AC as if it's devastating, and it's just not.  No one complained ever about the EK getting ACs in that range through shield, and the paladin in my game, at 8th level, sported a 23 AC with shield of faith up.  It's not ludicrously high, it's just good for one round at the expense of a spell slot.And, yes, not getting hit is better than getting hit, but when your evoker gets another level and starts dropping fireballs with impunity, he may like having a 13 AC amid the smoking corpse of hobgoblins (and it doesn't matter if they save or not, really).  Your evoker as a Bladesinger would have twisted out 1 additional arrow (on average) by increasing his AC from 13 to 17.  Chance for 4 hobgoblins to land at least three hits against AC 13 is slightly worse than landing 2 against AC 17 (47% to 52%).  So, in that case, it's not that much better.It only looks super awesome if you roll for stats and get two high stats to drop in INT and DEX.  But, even then, it's not game breaking.  A low level character that rolled well using one of the official options for stat generation in the PHB.  Yes, that's high, at low level it's very high, and pretty good, but by 5th level the field has evened out and it doesn't get better for the bladesinger.  There aren't better defensive spells to use to increase survivability, and enemy attack bonuses, and most importantly damage, outpace the bladesinger's ability to deny hits.  Again, a single surprise round or losing initiative can drop a bladesinger, and a dispel magic is lethal to them.  Plus, while they have this nice high AC, they're burning lots of resources (especially at low level) to prop up their survivability.Bladesingers are high resource consumption for their one trick of not getting hit.  it's not overpowering, and it's a much less great choice for point buy characters.   For the bladesinger alone, maybe.  Look at vonklaude's examples: the bladesinger needs the first round of the fight just to prepare themselves to fight, AND requires a cleric to also spend the first round preparing the bladesinger to fight.  The resource consumption is high -- 2 second level spells spent in the first round alone to prop up the bladesinger against a hard encounter.  Further, if you look at the action economy, that's 50% of the total party action resources in the first round spent to just get the bladesinger ready to fight!  In a game where most fights are 3 rounds, the bladesinger is expending 4 spell levels and extending the fight by a round at the beginning of most fights!Plus, one thing the toy example doesn't model is uncertainty about the scale of a fight or the number of fights before or after that fight.  When you actually play the bladesinger, and you need those slots to handle a some rolls that go against you, you get really nervous and start to horde the spells rather than spend them so freely.  The hill giant fight is entirely isolated from the rest of an adventure.</blockquote>

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