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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CleverNickName" data-source="post: 8830834" data-attributes="member: 50987">Okay, full disclosure: I've never played a Bladesinger.   The name suggests it might be some kind of bard college or another bard-like character trope, so I never stopped to even read it.  (I have a pretty severe bard allergy; I try to stay as far away from them as possible.)  But one of the Bladesinger's fans assures me that this is not the case:I won't lie, this sounds pretty bard-adjacent to me.  But I'm intrigued enough by "the esoteric/hermetic sword manuals of Agrippa and Thibaut" reference, so I decided I should at least read it.So in the spirit of the Survivor thread, let's take a look at the Bladesinging subclass for wizard.[SPOILER=Bladesinging Deep Dive]The Concept(from "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything")Bladesingers master a tradition of wizardry that incorporates swordplay and dance.Originally created by the elves, and then adopted by non-elf practitioners.In combat, a bladesinger uses maneuvers that fend off harm, channel magic into attacks.Witnesses say the swordwork on display is beautiful, "a glorious dance accompanied by a singing blade."2nd LEVEL FEATURESTraining in War and Song: you gain proficiency with light armor, one 1H melee weapon of your choice, and the Performance skill.The extra armor proficiency is factory standard for mage subclasses nowadays.  The one-handed weapon is pretty much always going to be the rapier, but I appreciate the optional flexibility.  And I'm not sure why the Performance skill was included; it's not used by any of the class features.  It would have made a lot more sense to replace it with Acrobatics, but whatever.Bladesong: the namesake ability of the subclass is pretty cool, I won't lie.  You spend a bonus action to activate this ability, and for the next minute (or until you don Medium or Heavy Armor or pick up a shield, or use two hands to make an attack with a weapon), you enjoy four benefits:  (1) you add your Intelligence modifier to your Armor Class, (2) your base speed increases by 10 feet, (3) you have Advantage on Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks, and (4) you add your Intelligence modifier to concentration checks.6th LEVEL FEATUREExtra Attack: at 6th level, you can attack twice instead of once when you take the Attack action on your turn.  Or you can cast one of your cantrips in place of one of those attacks.  If you have the Magic Initiate feat and selected the eldritch blast cantrip, you can unleash a truly impressive number of attack rolls every single round.10th LEVEL FEATURESong of Defense: When you take damage, you can spend your reaction and one spell slot to reduce that damage by X, where X = (five times the spell slot's level).  This is about as close to healing as a wizard can get without multiclassing.14th LEVEL FEATURESong of Victory: add your Intelligence modifier to your melee weapon damage while your Bladesong is active.And that's the Bladesinger in a nutshell.  Despite the flavor text in Tasha's, there aren't any "maneuvers" and there's no ability to "channel magic into your attacks."  Everything else is exactly what you would expect from reading the description.I'm not really seeing the "sword manuals of Agrippa and Thibaut," but it's better than a fighter/wizard multiclass so...thumbs up.<img src="https://media1.giphy.com/media/yDWmdkoCgbfqToDHs6/200.gif" alt="Episode 1 Yes GIF by America's Got Talent's Got Talent" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />[/SPOILER]</blockquote>

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