D&D 5E Blees Still Broken/OP?

[NotActuallyTim]

And is getting angry and depressed your idea of fun...?

No. Why would they? That sounds horrible.

DnD is like beating my head against a wall. It feels so good when I stop.

 

[Celtavian]

This is a bit of a tangent, but I'm surprised that Warding Bond doesn't get more attention. I rarely see it mentioned, and yet especially for Life Clerics (who have an otherwise-semi-useless "Heal self whenever you heal someone else feature") it's no-concentration +1 AC, +1 to saves, resistance to everything for one of your buddies for a whole hour, at the cost of one spell slot and a share in the damage. What's not to like? (Okay, the potential disruption to your own Concentration is not to like. But aside from that...)

Anyway, if Shield of Faith is popular at your table, I would expect Warding Bond to be popular too.

We tried using warding bond. It ended up putting two people low on hit points when things started hitting real hard. We found it was better to keep the cleric hit points as high as possible and use pop up healing with healing word. We also found warding bond is especially painful if you end up in a surprise AoE attack.

 

[Celtavian]

You can't cast bless and another spell in the same round unless it is a cantrip IIRC.

Doesn't have to be cast in the same round. You can blessfirst, then use spiritual weapon the next round. That's how I've done it. Bless the party, run into battle the next round slamming with your weapon and activating spiritual weapon.

 

[Zardnaar]

Heh. From a tactical perspective, I agree with you 100%. But, sadly, you don't know my players.

They are smack-talking, manhood-measuring, ally-robbing, NPC-killing murder-vagabonds. The only time they're happy to cast spells on other PCs is when it's a "broken arrow" area-of-effect damage spell. They shed a few crocodile tears, then explain with wide-eyed innocence that it's an "efficient" choice that they're targeting the fireball on the rest of the party, because the surrounding enemies will take even more damage than the targeted PCs.

Then the caster screams "yessssss!" and vigorously thrusts his hips when the PC rogue rolls a natural "1" on his Dex save.

They'll rush over to a fallen and dying PC ally who has a healing potion on their body, grab the potion, then drink it themselves because they've taken a few hits. "Don't worry, bro. You only have 1 death box. You'll stabilize".

When they open treasure chests, the most common action is to immediately go for a Sleight of Hand to purloin the most obviously valuable item. I've seen a paladin attempt this. A CG-aligned paladin, but still...

In tactical combat, it's a regular sight to see an AC 21 fighter retreat behind an AC 13 wizard to avoid onrushing enemies, as long as he wins initiative. "Don't worry, bro. You can always cast shield... Ooooh! Three critical hits! That's gotta hurt! Bwahahahaaha!"

During the days of 4e, they managed to lose 232 characters. In 4e. I kept a record of every one. They've lost 87 characters (and we're on our 7th campaign) in 5e so far. And they love it. They will never change their behaviors, because there's nothing they find funnier than screwing over another player. This is how they play D&D; this is how they unwind after work, and without their kids around. Now, imagine what that's like for me as their DM for more than a decade...

In summary... no, warding bond doesn't seem to get a lot of play at my table. Strange, eh?

I would just boot these players from my game. An in game expectation is you do not screw the other PCs over.

 

[famousringo]

Also, I'm now making a note to stat up the Blees as a humanoid race at some point...

They each add 1d4 to every roll at all times and they all have a -5/+10 feat.

But if they ever fail a concentration check, they die instantly.

 

[TwoSix]

They each add 1d4 to every roll at all times and they all have a -5/+10 feat.

But if they ever fail a concentration check, they die instantly.

"Best henchman I ever had, until he stubbed his toe and winked out of existence."

 

[Illithidbix]

So the party cleric finally cast Bless in tonight's game.

CLERIC: *Relative newbie to D&D and trying to work out what to do at start of combat* "Hmm, what does Bless do?"
ME: *Being helpful* "ZARDNAAR FROM THE INTERNET SAYS IT IS OVERPOWDERED!"
ME: *Slightly less over enthusiastically* "It lets you choose people to add 1d4 to attack and saving throws, it's pretty effective"
*Cleric then looks it up in PHB and casts it on rest of the party.*

A round later.

CLERIC: *To rest of party* "Remember you get a D4 to add to an attack or saving throw"
ME: "You get a D4 for EVERY attack and saving throw"
CLERIC "... oh"
ME: "IT IS OVERPOWDERED!" (because repetition makes things funny.)

(Cleric's first D&D experience was playing a Bard in my campaign, where choosing who got Bardic Inspiration was a big deal...)

A few more rounds later.

Cleric: "Yeah I can see why people would say this is overpowered..."

 

[Krachek]

To nerf Bless you could use the cast at higher level feature.
Cast at level 1, it add a 4d to attack rolls.
you need to cast it at level 3 to add the dice to saving throw also.

 

[Nytmare]

The title of this thread reminded me of one of my favorite moments in film blooper history. Sorry for the tangent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Avis_OWEZlI#t=141