Agree with these, but IME there is a huge difference between playing a single class Bladesinger and a mutliclass. I love Rogue-bladesingers. That actually may be my favorite class. I had a character I intended to play as a Mercy Monk/Bladesinger but she got killed with a crit at level 1/1 against a wererat when we had no silver weapons. She was not into either subclass yet.Hell yeah. If the DM doesn’t need Rogue-Haste, hasting the Rogue is pretty killer. Especially if the rogue is a swashbuckler or has mobile, so they’re less likely to need their reaction for Uncanny Dodge.
In a rolled stats game, I did a Cobalt Soul Monk/Bladesinger. Very good. Shadowblade was usually more worth the cost than haste because each attack wasn’t that big so 1 more wasn’t as big a deal as it would have been for the Barbarian.
A multiclass bladesinger makes an awesome kite-gish. They have more powerful attacks, in the case of the Monk extraordinary movement, and they have bonus actions (usually lethal bonus actions) to use every turn and in tier 3 Monk has stunning attack (assuming 6 levels in bladesinger). They also lack the spell slots of a single class wizard though. If they push bladesinger to level 6 they can get the unique special attack and that is not behind where the Rogue would be with 4 more levels (2 more dice) of SA. Most of the time they don't do 11th level in wizard, because going beyond 6 they are not boosting their striking a lot. A single class bladesinger gets SOD at 10th and contingency at 11th boosting defense and the ability to tank even further.
A single class bladesinger is completely different. With the exception of extra attack and song of victory everything they get is focused on defense and SOD makes it really difficult to damage them. When the get it they already have AE, shield, blur, counterspell, dispel magic, protection from good and evil, upcast false life a sky-high AC, and are 1 level away from contingency. Now in addition to finding something that can get around all of those and land decent damage that sticks, you have to take away his reaction too or do it multiple times a turn.
Being Beefy is overated. Hps are far less effective than resistance or AC in countering attacks. You just need to look at monsters for evidence of this. As you noted a "normal" 5e encounter is pathetically easy. However a "normal" monster of a given CR has about 2-8 times as many hps as a Barbarian of the same level. Despite having WAY more hps they are sorely overmatched by the party in a fight. Finally you only get back half your hit dice with a long rest, so if you are using hit dice every short rest your party is going to be at a disadvantage for several days. This also works both ways, the bladesinger can use hit dice on short rests too to recover from the one or two times they were hit, or more likely the AOEs or traps they were victim to. Finally on beef; don't forget false life. Most of the spells you use in a fight with a bladesinger are between 1st and 3rd level, even at high levels. Fales life is not usually used at low levels but at 7th level plus you often have upcast false life running before the fight. At 11th level you usually have it running before the fight and you have it on tap under a contingency. 5th-level false life + 5th level false life contingency is about 50hps. That is a lot of "beef" especially when combined with AC and damage redcuction.Unless there is a beefy tank, in which case it’s their job to soak up hits and survive to take a short rest. In general I want enemies to want to hit me, and be punished for even trying, and have hard choices between me and the other PCs.
Unless backing off forces the enemy to attack the Barbarian who won’t really care, attack the fighter and get smacked by the sentinel Barbarian, or try to chase you and risk sentinel OA from the Barbarian and get boomed by your booming blade.
The mobility of the BS opens up rather a lot of very strong group tactics.
Sentinel is a somewhat common 1st-level feat for our bladesingers, probably not as common as some others, but it is used. Bladesingers get that feat more often than other classes at my tables (and it works well with mirror image while fighting alone since an attack on an image causes an AO). Fighters sometimes get it too. It does use the bladesingers reaction, so it is usually used at/near the end of the enemies turns. Also it is rare we have both a melee Fighter and a Barbarian in the same party. Typically we play with 4 or 5 players.
In the games I play it is the bladesinger's job to soak up attacks and while the Fighters, Barbarians and Clerics can take it, we usually try to make it easier for the enemy to attack the bladesinger.
As far as the Barbarian not caring, they do because the party as a whole has a limited number of hps. If the party misses the 40-hp bladesinger the party has more hps than if they hit the 100-hp Barbarian, even if he is in rage and takes half damage.
In general, I just don't get why you would want the enemy attacking anyone other than the bladesinger when the amount they will deal is less when it is harder to hit. Now if we are a few rounds into the fight and the bladesinger got hit a couple times with a breath weapon and a lucky crit, yeah sure she needs to get out of there (and she usually can easily if not incpacitated), but the same is true for the fighter who got hit with all that, could not cast AE to reduce the breath damage and had a couple normal hits to boot.
Not really. If you have 5 8th-level characters fighting one "deadly" enemy at 8th level that should be a CR 13 foe. That is a nominal +8 and they do have a higher proficiency bonus than the characters. In such a case the chance of landing an attack vs bladesong and blur on a bladesinger with a 20dex is less than 10%. That assumes no other AC raising magic (which by 8th level you probably have). That is with 1 enemy, put more enemies in a "deadly" encounter and you are getting even lower chance to hit on an OA. That is not worth a feat IMO.Again, this only works if you’re running enemies with a fairly low hit chance against even a basic heavy armor fighter with no shield. As much as I like 5e, the monster design and CR are terribly designed, and even the best guidelines out there are barely usable. When making an encounter, I use the Deadly threshold as the floor, unless it’s a “trash mob” fight to make the group feel badass, or a string of fights with no time to rest or even throw heals between fights. When making enemies, I use AC and to hit numbers based on creatures with the same effective proficiency bonus as the PCs, as a baseline to see if my encounter will be challenging or not as is.
In tier 3 they are more likely to hit, but by then you have ~30hp on tap with false and you have SOD and enough slots you can burn something like misty step for mobility with little regard.
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