D&D 5E Giving the arcane gish an identity.

[Tinker-TDC]

I'm not about to suggest warriors could be mentally strong and use their smarts to increase their effectiveness in battle.

Bad taste.

So a wizard did it.

WOTC taste.

Edit: Meant to come across as tongue-in-cheek, not actually insulting you.

 

[ECMO3]

Agreed that bladesinger seems the closest "as is" that we have available right now mechanically, but for many people it's not "fighter-y" enough and the EK isn't "magic-y" enough, so people are looking for something in-between. Both of those are also missing aspects strongly associated with implementations from past editions and other genres.

Main question posed by this thread though is : what should the identity of this character concept (presume both mechanically & thematically unless OP says otherwise?) be, given how strong the demand for this type of playstyle is, and how many variations on the theme there are. And how do we strike a middle ground between too specific that restricts individual character stories and not enough story background to give it its own identity distinct from other classes. And how do we ensure that mechanical aspects sufficiently reinforce the thematic identity.

That's the challenge.

I really only think you should look at mechanics. In 5E thematics are not really part of the class beyond the basic mechanics IMO, themeatics are built by the player into his character based largely on background and other choices. The class may provide some loose bounds on what you can do, but the sandbox is, and should be, large for the player here.

One reason I think this concept has so much trouble is people are trying to role this type of thematic into a class instead of letting the player define his character and keeping the class about mechanics.

In this respect, I think the premise is a bit faulty as you can build a bladesinger to be more fighter-y than normal through his feats and abilities and you can similarly build an EK to be more magic-y by doing the same in reverse. By doing this, I think you can more than eliminate the middle ground that exists between them.

For example you can build an EK at 12th level that has 6 cantrips, 14 known spells and 13 total daily spell castings (7 slots, 6 once-a-days). That is the same number of cantrips, 1 more known spell and 3 less casts than a full blown sorcerer. That is without tapping any racial abilities at all.

Similarly you can build a bladesinger with feats like weapon master, GWM, fighting adept or tavern brawler to bring more martial to the character while having a lot of spell slots. It is even viable to dump intelligence, buff strength and constitution and pick up medium armor. You would have weak spell saves but a ton of spells to cast in combat on buffs, while still having the bladesinger extra attack for combining melee and magic as well as song of defense.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I really only think you should look at mechanics. In 5E thematics are not really part of the class beyond the basic mechanics IMO, themeatics are built by the player into his character based largely on background and other choices. The class may provide some loose bounds on what you can do, but the sandbox is, and should be, large for the player here.

Theme and flavor text is an important part of D&D 5e classes. There's a reason we have different classes for the Sorcerer (a person whose magic is innate) and the Warlock (a person that got their magic from a magical patron). If they didn't have different themes, they wouldn't warrant different classes, and even with this difference between them, some people argue that they are still too similar in theme to warrant different classes. (Which is why I have Sorcerers be CON-casters in my campaigns, not CHA.)

One reason I think this concept has so much trouble is people are trying to role this type of thematic into a class instead of letting the player define his character and keeping the class about mechanics.

A player decides who their character is, but their class decides how they do that. There's a difference between a pirate that is a Rogue, a pirate that is a Barbarian, and a pirate that is a Wizard, not just in mechanics, but also in theme and how the character is roleplayed. A wizard, a rogue, and a barbarian will all be roleplayed differently, even if they're all pirates. In a large part this is due to mechanics (like a Wizard using spells to help them at sea and a Barbarian being a furious, raging war-machine), but it will also be influenced by the theme of the class (Wizards being studiers of the arcane and Barbarians being primal warriors).

In this respect, I think the premise is a bit faulty as you can build a bladesinger to be more fighter-y than normal through his feats and abilities and you can similarly build an EK to be more magic-y by doing the same in reverse. By doing this, I think you can more than eliminate the middle ground that exists between them.

But that requires you to expend feats to play your character. Feats should be add-ons to your character identity, IMO, not how you achieve your character identity. That's why feats are optional and classes/subclasses aren't, because your class is a more integral part of your identity as a character than a feat is.

For example you can build an EK at 12th level that has 6 cantrips, 14 known spells and 13 total daily spell castings (7 slots, 6 once-a-days). That is the same number of cantrips, 1 more known spell and 3 less casts than a full blown sorcerer. That is without tapping any racial abilities at all.

Similarly you can build a bladesinger with feats like weapon master, GWM, fighting adept or tavern brawler to bring more martial to the character while having a lot of spell slots. It is even viable to dump intelligence, buff strength and constitution and pick up medium armor. You would have weak spell saves but a ton of spells to cast in combat on buffs, while still having the bladesinger extra attack for combining melee and magic as well as song of defense.

Bladesingers can't use half of the GWM feat, and Tavern Brawler is a really bad feat for a Bladesinger to take (assuming you're using BB/GFB). Furthermore, Bladesingers have a restriction on what armor (only light armor), weapons (only one-handed weapons), and shields (none) they can use, which severely detriments its ability to serve as a general "arcane gish" character. Why the heck shouldn't an Arcane Gish be allowed to wear heavy armor, use a Maul, and cast a fireball into their heavy weapon? Why should an Arcane Gish be forced to take feats to emulate their core identity when a Paladin or Ranger gets theirs from just doing their class?

That's one of the main problems I have with this argument. Bladesingers have too many spells and are too limited on their martial choices, Eldritch Knights are too limited with spell choices and frankly suck at merging arcane and martial power in any satisfying way, Artificers have too much baggage from their core class that forces an arcane gish to be a magical Eberron-style tinker, and Hexblades are too tied to the identity of the Warlock class. Paladins and Rangers don't have those kinds of restrictions to their identity, so why should an Arcane Gish?

 

[Garthanos]

That's one of the main problems I have with this argument. Bladesingers have too many spells and are too limited on their martial choices, Eldritch Knights are too limited with spell choices and frankly suck at merging arcane and martial power in any satisfying way,

I agree but I have been wonder if allowing Eldritch Knights to dynamically swap out attacks or some self defense to enhance spells and similar things could introduce flexibility and similar methods.

 

[Minigiant]

Paladins and Rangers don't have those kinds of restrictions to their identity, so why should an Arcane Gish?

I think a difference between the ranger and paladin and the arcane gish is the ranger and paladin found their thematic and lore footing.

The ranger has magic to deal with supernatural wilderness and supernatural nondetection. The paladin is martial arm of a deity, church, oath, or ideology against its enemies. The paladin smites. The ranger marks.

I think finding the organic place and niche for the Arcane gish is extremely important to find its mechanical skeleton.

 

[ECMO3]

Theme and flavor text is an important part of D&D 5e classes. There's a reason we have different classes for the Sorcerer (a person whose magic is innate) and the Warlock (a person that got their magic from a magical patron). If they didn't have different themes, they wouldn't warrant different classes, and even with this difference between them, some people argue that they are still too similar in theme to warrant different classes. (Which is why I have Sorcerers be CON-casters in my campaigns, not CHA.)

IMO, the Warlock is an exception to this because of the stupid Patron. There is a strong theme attached to the Warlock class, but it really is the only one.

I disagree. I think this is mostly a throwback to the older editions and while people tend to play to certain themes, I don't think they are engineered into the class for the most part.

The Bard and Sorcerer are both Charisma-based casters, but you can build almost any theme around either of them. Changing a sorcerer to Constitution doesn't really change the theme at all IMO, it just changes their spellcasting ability.

A player decides who their character is, but their class decides how they do that. There's a difference between a pirate that is a Rogue, a pirate that is a Barbarian, and a pirate that is a Wizard, not just in mechanics, but also in theme and how the character is roleplayed. A wizard, a rogue, and a barbarian will all be roleplayed differently, even if they're all pirates. In a large part this is due to mechanics (like a Wizard using spells to help them at sea and a Barbarian being a furious, raging war-machine), but it will also be influenced by the theme of the class (Wizards being studiers of the arcane and Barbarians being primal warriors)..

I don't think so. There is a difference in how they fight and some of them are easier to align to certain social aspects, but they are not exclusive. All three though get fearsome reputation ability and use it the same way.

The Rogue and Barbarian in particular can be very, very similar, I would argue even indistinguishable in terms of roleplay. You wouldn't know until combat started, and even after combat you might not know just from the description of it. You can easily make a Rogue that is a furious war machine and unless you listened to the mechanics with words like "Rage" or "Sneak Attack" there could be no thematic difference if that is what you wanted to do.

The wizard is a full caster and that is going to bring a different element, but it isn't going to be any different than another full caster like a Cleric or Sorcerer unless you make it so.

But that requires you to expend feats to play your character. Feats should be add-ons to your character identity, IMO, not how you achieve your character identity. That's why feats are optional and classes/subclasses aren't, because your class is a more integral part of your identity as a character than a feat is.

I think the class should not be the character identity. The background, backstory and potentially race should are your primary theme. IMO you should pick a class where the mechanics will work with those things and use the class features, INCLUDING feats to make that.

Remember feats are class features, they are in the class tables and are part of the feat chassis. Unless you play a variant human or custom lineage, your class is the only way to get a feat.

Bladesingers can't use half of the GWM feat, and Tavern Brawler is a really bad feat for a Bladesinger to take (assuming you're using BB/GFB). Furthermore, Bladesingers have a restriction on what armor (only light armor), weapons (only one-handed weapons), and shields (none) they can use, which severely detriments its ability to serve as a general "arcane gish" character. Why the heck shouldn't an Arcane Gish be allowed to wear heavy armor, use a Maul, and cast a fireball into their heavy weapon? Why should an Arcane Gish be forced to take feats to emulate their core identity when a Paladin or Ranger gets theirs from just doing their class?

There is nothing that prevents bladesingers from using the GWM feat, using shields or using medium/heavy armor or using any of those weapons. Take mountain Dwarf, trade one of your weapons for a maul, choose bladesinger subclass and at 4th level choose GWM. You are now a bladesinger that can wield a Maul using BB/GFB with GWM. Pick a different race without armoer and weapons and you can still do it all, it just takes more time to come online.

Now if you want shields too you will need another feat, but if you are wielding a maul you probably don't want that. Take medium armored feat at 4th level instead if you want to sword and board.

Assuming a 14 Dex with shield spell she has a 22AC while swinging a maul, when she hits 6th level she gets bladesinger extra attack combining an attack and magic as one action and can do it with a maul. There are other abilities she can't use, but if this is the character you want to build those other abilities she can't use are not really important anyway.

If that is what you want to build, then yes you should take feats to do it. As I noted above feats are part of the wizard chassis, they are class abilities, you get them from the wizard class. If you want to play an Arcane GISH and Ranger suits you better, then play a Ranger and take magic initiate as a Ranger feat to pick up booming blade and green flame blade. What I don't get is the argument that you should not have to use a feat when other classes do.

Tavern brawler is a fine feat for a strength-based bladesinger if that is what you want. It gives you proficiency in improvised weapons which you can use to make an improvised weapon attack with vials of acid, poision, oil and holy water and it gives you a bonus-action grapple after that (which can be enhanced by spells). You can attack with a vial of oil and follow up with Green-flame blade and get the extra fire damage from the oil on the same turn while also getting a free grapple. You can also use holy water or acid to stop many opponents from regenerating in the same turn you hit them with your GFB (again in addition to grappling them). With the free grapple you can position enemies so your 2nd enemy GFB damage lands more often (in addition to all the other things you can do with a grappled creature). If you add the grappler feat to this you can potentially get advantage on all of your attacks after the first improvised weapon strike, which a huge damage boost. This lasts until the enemy uses an action to TRY to break it. I am not saying that is what you should play, but if you dump W/Ch and run a 14 intelligence this will be quite a powerful melee character.

That's one of the main problems I have with this argument. Bladesingers have too many spells and are too limited on their martial choices, Eldritch Knights are too limited with spell choices and frankly suck at merging arcane and martial power in any satisfying way, Artificers have too much baggage from their core class that forces an arcane gish to be a magical Eberron-style tinker, and Hexblades are too tied to the identity of the Warlock class. Paladins and Rangers don't have those kinds of restrictions to their identity, so why should an Arcane Gish?

I agree on the Warlock, and I have not played an Artificer, but I disagree on both the EK and the Bladesinger and if you find this to be the case I think it is because you didn't build your character out to do what you actually wanted to do and instead built to some predefined stereotype. You can play the character you claim you want to play with either of these.

I will say a Bladesinger can do GISH better than an EK, and honestly better than any other build, primarily because their extra attack feature is better and they get more spells, but there is nothing saying you need to take fireball and hypnotic pattern. Take spells that identify with the GISH character you want to be.

 

[Parmandur]

I think a difference between the ranger and paladin and the arcane gish is the ranger and paladin found their thematic and lore footing.

The ranger has magic to deal with supernatural wilderness and supernatural nondetection. The paladin is martial arm of a deity, church, oath, or ideology against its enemies. The paladin smites. The ranger marks.

I think finding the organic place and niche for the Arcane gish is extremely important to find its mechanical skeleton.

That's what I'm saying: the narrative side is underdeveloped.

 

[Minigiant]

That's what I'm saying: the narrative side is underdeveloped.

And really only in D&D. Many TT, TCG, or VG RPGs have created narratives for the arcane gish..

And it think its really ddue to the hostility to swordmagc, bowmagic, shieldmagic and all forms or weaponmagic and armormagic.

Like I aid before, it makes total sense for wizards to sell knowledge of spells that would be in better user for the physically fit to warriors.

If the D&D wizard is a scrawny little nerd or feeble old man, do you think he's gonna be the one casting the "make my sword boomerang" 1st level spell he invented? No, he's teach it to the fighter.

That happens 12 more times and some knight is gonna collect all these swordbuffs, armor buffs, and whatever to protect the Empire/Kingdom from the forces of Evil/Chaos or something. Gishes in video games tend to be extraplanar slayers but that crosses with rangers and paladins a lot.

But I still think D&D could use a Constitution based Super Soldier class. Hoping dudes up with arcane spells, runes, artifice and potions to make a bunch of Captain Arcanas is another option.

The returning rebounding shield makes sense as a gish spell.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

IMO, the Warlock is an exception to this because of the stupid Patron. There is a strong theme attached to the Warlock class, but it really is the only one.

I disagree. I think this is mostly a throwback to the older editions and while people tend to play to certain themes, I don't think they are engineered into the class for the most part.

The Bard and Sorcerer are both Charisma-based casters, but you can build almost any theme around either of them. Changing a sorcerer to Constitution doesn't really change the theme at all IMO, it just changes their spellcasting ability.

Literally the only thing that separates the three Arcane Full-Casters (Full-Caster equivalent for the Warlock) is theme. Sorcerers get their power innately, either being born with it or being magically altered sometime while alive. Warlocks get their power from making a pact with a powerful, magical entity/creature. Wizards get their power from studying arcane magic and figuring out how it works. They only exist as different classes because they have different themes. The different mechanics would not exist in the first place if the flavor text didn't exist.

Making sorcerers use CON instead of CHA for their spellcasting ability would at least cement the idea that Sorcerers are innate casters and Warlocks are bargainers that had to sign/make a contract/deal to get their magic. That wouldn't make the theme a ton different, but it would at least make the mechanics match the theme.

I don't think so. There is a difference in how they fight and some of them are easier to align to certain social aspects, but they are not exclusive. All three though get fearsome reputation ability and use it the same way.

The Rogue and Barbarian in particular can be very, very similar, I would argue even indistinguishable in terms of roleplay. You wouldn't know until combat started, and even after combat you might not know just from the description of it. You can easily make a Rogue that is a furious war machine and unless you listened to the mechanics with words like "Rage" or "Sneak Attack" there could be no thematic difference if that is what you wanted to do.

The wizard is a full caster and that is going to bring a different element, but it isn't going to be any different than another full caster like a Cleric or Sorcerer unless you make it so.

Barbarians don't get Cunning Action and have to focus on melee weapons, while rogues have to focus on Finesse/ranged weapons and have way less HP/ability to take a hit than Barbarians. Yes, they can be roleplayed similarly, but they are played in distinct ways and the mechanics influence how the characters are roleplayed.

You quite literally said "mechanics don't influence roleplaying" and moved the goalposts to "well, except for spellcasters, because that's different".

1) I think the class should not be the character identity. The background, backstory and potentially race should are your primary theme. IMO you should pick a class where the mechanics will work with those things and use the class features, INCLUDING feats to make that.

2) Remember feats are class features, they are in the class tables and are part of the feat chassis. Unless you play a variant human or custom lineage, your class is the only way to get a feat.

1) It is not your whole character identity, but it is your core mechanical identity. Race, background, feats, that's all just extras that you add to your character idea to build onto it. There's a reason classes are the most mechanics-heavy of the 3 defining character-building options (race, class, background).

2) No, they're not. ASIs are class features. Feats aren't. They're optional, ASIs aren't. Variant humans are also optional, as are Custom Lineages, as is made quite clear in their text. Feats are optional, classes aren't (yes, DMs can exclude certain classes, but the class system as a whole is a core part of 5e that cannot be taken out without completely changing the game, while feats can).

There is nothing that prevents bladesingers from using the GWM feat, using shields or using medium/heavy armor or using any of those weapons.

Yes, "something" does. Read the Bladesong feature, please. It cannot be activated while you're wearing medium/heavy armor or a shield, and you cannot wield two-handed weapons (or versatile weapons with two-hands) while using Bladesong. They are quite literally incompatible RAW. That's one of my major complaints with the "just play a bladesinger!" argument, because the Bladesinger heavily restricts the possible themes that a true, complete Arcane Gish class/subclass should be able to use (medium/heavy armor, shields, two-handed weapons, etc).

Take mountain Dwarf, trade one of your weapons for a maul, choose bladesinger subclass and at 4th level choose GWM. You are now a bladesinger that can wield a Maul using BB/GFB with GWM. Pick a different race without armoer and weapons and you can still do it all, it just takes more time to come online. You are now a bladesinger that can wield a Maul using BB/GFB with GWM. Pick a different race without armoer and weapons and you can still do it all, it just takes more time to come online.

Now if you want shields too you will need another feat, but if you are wielding a maul you probably don't want that. Take medium armored feat at 4th level instead if you want to sword and board.

Assuming a 14 Dex with shield spell she has a 22AC while swinging a maul, when she hits 6th level she gets bladesinger extra attack combining an attack and magic as one action and can do it with a maul. There are other abilities she can't use, but if this is the character you want to build those other abilities she can't use are not really important anyway.

If that is what you want to build, then yes you should take feats to do it. As I noted above feats are part of the wizard chassis, they are class abilities, you get them from the wizard class. If you want to play an Arcane GISH and Ranger suits you better, then play a Ranger and take magic initiate as a Ranger feat to pick up booming blade and green flame blade. What I don't get is the argument that you should not have to use a feat when other classes do.

I addressed all of this above. Again, read Bladesong to see why all of this is wrong.

Tavern brawler is a fine feat for a strength-based bladesinger if that is what you want. It gives you proficiency in improvised weapons which you can use to make an improvised weapon attack with vials of acid, poision, oil and holy water and it gives you a bonus-action grapple after that (which can be enhanced by spells). You can attack with a vial of oil and follow up with Green-flame blade and get the extra fire damage from the oil on the same turn while also getting a free grapple. You can also use holy water or acid to stop many opponents from regenerating in the same turn you hit them with your GFB (again in addition to grappling them). With the free grapple you can position enemies so your 2nd enemy GFB damage lands more often (in addition to all the other things you can do with a grappled creature). If you add the grappler feat to this you can potentially get advantage on all of your attacks after the first improvised weapon strike, which a huge damage boost. This lasts until the enemy uses an action to TRY to break it. I am not saying that is what you should play, and you will need to either run a relatively low intelligence or dump social skills completely to do it well but it is totally viable as a play style

Tavern Brawler a) doesn't turn a Bladesinger into the Arcane Gish that we want, and b) even if it did, it would take a feat to do so. Paladins don't require feats to be paladins, so neither should Stabnerds.

I agree on the Warlock, and I have not played an Artificer, but I disagree on both the EK and the Bladesinger and if you find this to be the case I think it is because you didn't build your character out to do what you actually wanted to do and instead built to some predefined stereotype. You can play the character you claim you want to play with either of these.


I will say a Bladesinger can do GISH better than an EK, and honestly better than any other build, primarily because their extra attack feature is better and they get more spells, but there is nothing saying you need to take fireball and hypnotic pattern. Take spells that identify with the GISH character you want to be.

Thank you so very much for telling me that I didn't think about my character build enough. That truly means a lot.

Please do mind the causticity, though I do feel that it's warranted. It is quite rude to say "if you aren't satisfied with the options available to you, it's because you did it wrong!", and I very much do not appreciate that and will ask you to never do that again to me or anyone else in the future.

I detailed why Bladesingers don't work (and explained why they didn't work how you thought they did). I detailed why Eldritch Knights don't work (largely because of them being restricted to only 4th level spells, them automatically gaining cantrips, even though Rangers and Paladins don't, them being restricted to basically just two schools of magic from the Wizard spell list, and they can't prepare spells the way that a true practitioner of merging spell and sword should be able to (in my mind, anyway), and they're not at all good at merging spells with swords in any form (and no, just spamming Shadow-Blade and GFB/BB doesn't count).

I can't play a mediumly-armored Elf that puts a lightning bolt into a scimitar that is released when the spell hits, or a Dwarf with a dwarven thrower that releases a fireball when it hits a giant in the face, or anything else that screams "merging arcane spell and weapon with each other".

 

[ECMO3]

Literally the only thing that separates the three Arcane Full-Casters (Full-Caster equivalent for the Warlock) is theme. Sorcerers get their power innately, either being born with it or being magically altered sometime while alive. Warlocks get their power from making a pact with a powerful, magical entity/creature. Wizards get their power from studying arcane magic and figuring out how it works.

That is not true for wizards and sorcerers as long as you meet the mechanical rues for the class and subclass you can make the character any theme you want.

You are making things up if you think the wizard has to be some guy with a Robe a pointy hat and a beard who spends his spare time studying and pouring over books.

They only exist as different classes because they have different themes. The different mechanics would not exist in the first place if the flavor text didn't exist.

Not true. The mechanics are entirely different and there is nothing in the rules that states your sorcerer did not experiment or study to learn how to use his abilities.

Making sorcerers use CON instead of CHA for their spellcasting ability would at least cement the idea that Sorcerers are innate casters and Warlocks are bargainers that had to sign/make a contract/deal to get their magic. That wouldn't make the theme a ton different, but it would at least make the mechanics match the theme.

Or you could make all 6 full caster classes strength based and make the exact same argument. This bit of homebrew is fine, but it is words in the rules with a secondary mechanical effect base don the ability you choose. It has little or nothing to do with the theme of the character or how you play them.

Barbarians don't get Cunning Action and have to focus on melee weapons, while rogues have to focus on Finesse/ranged weapons and have way less HP/ability to take a hit than Barbarians. Yes, they can be roleplayed similarly, but they are played in distinct ways and the mechanics influence how the characters are roleplayed.

You can have either player be a bruising mass of destruction and you can have barbarians use finesse weapons and both Rogues and Barbarians can use strength for damage on melee finesse weapons. I did not say you had to play the characters essentially the same, and the Rogue has a lot more options but you can play the characters essentially the same. It is technical words only related to the mechanics that separates them.

How they are played is entirely up to you, but you can have a bruising hulking melee Rogue who does just fine.

You quite literally said "mechanics don't influence roleplaying" and moved the goalposts to "well, except for spellcasters, because that's different".

Ok. Characters who are not spellcasters can not cast spells. That is true. Call it moving the goalposts if you want.

2) No, they're not. ASIs are class features. Feats aren't. They're optional, ASIs aren't. Variant humans are also optional, as are Custom Lineages, as is made quite clear in their text.

Ok then you have the "option" to use your class abilities to take feats and develop the character you want to develop.

Whether it is optional or not it is rules as written and I find it disingenuous to use the lame excuse that something RAW is "optional" in an argument on why we need an entirely new homebrew class added to the game.

Yes, "something" does. Read the Bladesong feature, please. It cannot be activated while you're wearing medium/heavy armor or a shield, and you cannot wield two-handed weapons (or versatile weapons with two-hands) while using Bladesong. They are quite literally incompatible RAW. That's one of my major complaints with the "just play a bladesinger!" argument, because the Bladesinger heavily restricts the possible themes that a true, complete Arcane Gish class/subclass should be able to use (medium/heavy armor, shields, two-handed weapons, etc).

Nothing stops a bladesinger from using a heavy weapon, using medium (or even heavy) armor or a shield. All it stops is the bladesong and song defense ability while in/using these.

Now if you think the "theme" of your bladesinger must absolutely include using the bladesong ability, then you are right you can't do that but nothing says your bladesinger must use bladesong. It is a myth that a bladesinger has to be played that way. Saying a bladesinger MUST use bladesong because she has that ability is like saying a fighter MUST use a blowgun because he has blowgun proficiency. It is not true. Yes it is an ability every bladesinger has, but it is not something you need to use and with medium armor the bladesinger can still have a very high AC without ever using bladesong.

What a bladesinger does have while using armor and a heavy weapons is what you say matters - mixing attacks and spells with their special extra attack feature.

I addressed all of this above. Again, read Bladesong to see why all of this is wrong.

Again I am not wrong, you are. RAW the only class (or subclass) restricted from certain armors is the Druid and none of the classes are restricted from using certain weapons.

Please cite the page number and exact text where it states someone who has taken the bladesong subclass can never use medium/heavy armor or any two-handed weapon.

I even said in my post above "There are other abilities she can't use, but if this is the character you want to build those other abilities she can't use are not really important anyway."

I detailed why Bladesingers don't work (and explained why they didn't work how you thought they did).

No you haven't, not really. You cited something that is not true about the bladesinger and then articulated that you don't think you should have to use class-given feats to build the character you want.

I can't play a mediumly-armored Elf that puts a lightning bolt into a scimitar that is released when the spell hits, or a Dwarf with a dwarven thrower that releases a fireball when it hits a giant in the face, or anything else that screams "merging arcane spell and weapon with each other".

Yes you can do this RAW.

Cast contingency with lighting bolt or fireball and make the stipulation "released when the weapon hits" or "releases a fireball when I hit something in the face while screaming merging arcane spell and weapon with each other". It is totally doable, and gets you exactly what you say you are after in both thematics AND mechanics.

In terms of thematics I think you get the same effect from the attack cantrips or for that matter absorb elements.