*sigh* Pardon moi, but if you're going to be rude about playing a subclass the way its intended to be played, and just insisting on being just a boring, ranged spellcaster again? Then I think we're done here. I happen to like gish types, so you can take your 'boring melee' comments and have fun. Good bye.
D&D 5E [GUIDE] Inquisitor Lim's Bladesinger and Wizard Guide: Xanathar's Edition
- Thread starter Rofel Wodring
- Start date
clearstream
(He, Him)
A note about Bless and Guidance, they buff different dice rolls so cannot stack as you say under Cleric.
Bless buffs attacks and saving throws. Guidance buffs ability checks.
Rofel Wodring
Explorer
I'm sorry if I came off as rude, but I'm inherently disdainful of 'how can I make my Bladesinger better in melee' comments for two reasons.Mephista said:
1.) If the Bladesinger does get substantially better in melee than it is right now, it'll overshadow every other gish. Compare the Bladesinger to, say, the Hexblade. The Bladesinger beats it on AC, spell selection, spells per day, and the Trinity of Defense. The Hexblade's only real area it can beat the Bladesinger on is raw DPR, and that's only if the Bladesinger has a gentleman's agreement not to abuse spells like Planar Binding and Simulacrum. I don't like CoDzilla and you shouldn't either.
2.) Looking for ways to make your Bladesinger stronger in melee at the expense of other things (most critically, what to do with your concentration slot) will make your character substantially less effective. Treantmonk was rather subtle about this in his original guide and it recently led to a rather fruitless conversation, so I'm going to be more explicit. If melee megadamage is what's really important to you, such that when you're asked the question 'is Blur really that more important to you than Enemies Abound' and you say 'yes', Bladesinger really isn't the right choice for you.
If 1 and 2 seem to conflict, here's an analogy. In 3.5E D&D, CoDZilla was not the most effective way to play a cleric. The most effective way to play a cleric was what 4E D&D would later call a laser cleric. However, laser clerics flew under the radar when Pathfinder went out of its way to nerf the CoDzilla cleric. In fact, Pathfinder went out of their way to (unwittingly) buff up the laser cleric so that the only thing 3.5E clerics really have on them is Divine Metamagic and the Spell Domain. But why did CoDZilla get the nerf stick while the laser cleric got goodies? Because CoDzilla directly created jealousy by being better than the actual martials.
Rofel Wodring
Explorer
Can't believe I haven't noticed that Bless doesn't buff ability checks after three years of playing. Whoops.
Treantmonklvl20
Explorer
If you are looking for an Arcane Melee type character that packs a punch, I recommend a Bladesinger 2/Arcane Trickster X. This combines good AC, a Melee attack that hits very hard (Add Booming Blade or GFB along with Sneak Attack, and let's throw a Magic Weapon on top), decent spellcasting (significantly better than a straight AT, and every cantrip you might want), a ton of skills, and goodies like Evasion, Magical Ambush, (and oh yes) Versatile Trickster. You have the joy of Booming Blade/GFB continuing to scale right alongside your sneak attack dice. Overall, I think it's a great Gish. If Eladrin is allowed in your campaign, that's the one you want for this build. Grab Warcaster at level 4, then pump that Dex to 20.
It's not a Wizard though, it's a melee Rogue with some additional Spell and Melee capability thrown in. Still a good build though, I've seen it played, and did not find it lacking. This is a build that will primarily swing its sword through level 20.
Treantmonklvl20
Explorer
I have a question. In your Guide you rate Warcaster sky blue (highest rated feat) and mention that you also want to concentrate on ASI.
Of course, Dex and Int are both obvious contenders for that ASI.
How would you recommend splitting the level 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 options?
Of course, Dex and Int are both obvious contenders for that ASI.
How would you recommend splitting the level 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 options?
clearstream
(He, Him)
@Rofel Wodring may put it earlier, but for me Warcaster seems natural for level 12 given the extra damage from the cantrips at 11. I believe @Mephista may have prioritised it more highly, which makes sense for a greater melee focus.
At level 4, from a strictly mechanical point of view, +2 Dexterity is pretty favoured. Better initiative ensures Bladesong can be up before attacks start, always-on AC speaks for itself, the melee attack and damage advantages are helpful, Dex saves come up more than Int.
+2 Intelligence feels slightly pushed toward level 8 and level 16. The AC isn't always on. The save DC and attack chance improvements become relatively more important once the Bladesinger is casting more spells at foes. A minor consideration is the extra spell preparation. The Concentration benefit is good. Bladesinger perhaps gets more out of Intelligence than Dexterity, except for that first ASI.
Level 20 feels to me impossible to guess. It would depend on magic items, ability arrays being at or below maximum, etc.
All of those depend on the character, their ability array, how they want to play, but you can see the rhythms of the archetype.
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clearstream
(He, Him)
I thought it might be interesting to simulate Warcaster's impact on maintaining Concentration. The two characters have Constitution 14 and Intelligence 16 to start with. The left takes the ASI and the right takes the feat. The DC is assumed to be 10.
Reciprocal shows the naive expectation for number of hits until a Concentration failure. We expect to lose Concentration somewhere among 7 hits for the ASI versus about 25 for the feat.
The red and green coloured block is the interesting part. With an assumption of taking 5 hits, how many occurrences of fails should be expected? Failing 0 times or more is 100%. Failing 1 time or more is 56% for the ASI and 18% for the feat.
One confound is that the character taking the ASI gets hit slightly less often due to Intelligence improving AC: let's say that was a whole hit less.
The character taking the ASI is still close to 50/50 on losing Concentration. (The character would need to take at least 3 fewer hits to keep Concentration as successfully as the Warcaster.) As these values evolve, the gap stays about the same. For example, with both characters starting at Constitution 16 and Intelligence 18 (say at higher level), the Warcaster has only a 5% chance of losing Concentration once or more over five hits, against 20%-ish with the ASI.
Reciprocal shows the naive expectation for number of hits until a Concentration failure. We expect to lose Concentration somewhere among 7 hits for the ASI versus about 25 for the feat.
The red and green coloured block is the interesting part. With an assumption of taking 5 hits, how many occurrences of fails should be expected? Failing 0 times or more is 100%. Failing 1 time or more is 56% for the ASI and 18% for the feat.
One confound is that the character taking the ASI gets hit slightly less often due to Intelligence improving AC: let's say that was a whole hit less.
The character taking the ASI is still close to 50/50 on losing Concentration. (The character would need to take at least 3 fewer hits to keep Concentration as successfully as the Warcaster.) As these values evolve, the gap stays about the same. For example, with both characters starting at Constitution 16 and Intelligence 18 (say at higher level), the Warcaster has only a 5% chance of losing Concentration once or more over five hits, against 20%-ish with the ASI.
Rofel Wodring
Explorer
Treantmonklvl20 said:
Assuming you were A) On Point-Buy, B) Did not get a stat-replacement magic item, C) Were not playing a STR-build Tortle, and D) You didn't go for an unusual feat like Historian:
I generally go for an ASI that first balances out any odd stats you had coming out of Chargen. I played a high-elf with a 15 15 15 8 8 8 array, so I had two odd stats and a +1 went into both of them at level 4. Level 8, I went straight for Warcaster. If I still had an odd stat (perhaps because I was playing a +2 DEX/+1 WIS race) I probably would have went for Resilient: CON instead of Warcaster. But I was playing Storm King's Thunder as a Bladesinger, and when you get hit in that module -- YOU GET HIT.
Level 12 went towards pumping up INT. I traded a Bag of Holding for a Headband of Intellect early on, but I wanted the Attunement slot back and I also wanted to prep for having a INT of 20 at level 16. Level 18... eh. I guess I could always put a +2 into DEX, but it doesn't seem like the best use of the ASI. Maybe I'll grab Lucky or Tough or even Resilient: CON.
Treantmonklvl20
Explorer
Not enough information! My mistake.
My group tends to play with Stat Array which means Int and Dex are likely 16 with a high elf at level 1 (Standard array is 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 - So with High Elf (+2 dx +1 Int) it looks like Str 10, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 16, Wis 12, Cha 8)
Definitely at level 4, not going to have any magic items that boost stats. Best not to make assumptions for the future at that point either.
So, based on your post, should I assume your recommendation would be Warcaster at level 4, Int at 8 and 12, then Dex at 16, 20?
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