Mind of tempest
(he/him)advocate for 5e psionics
what is the preposed difference for the sword mage from say the Pladin what makes it feel different to play so to speak as all I see is people wanting more smite options?
D&D (2024) How should the Swordmage be implemented in 1DnD?
- Thread starter Frozen_Heart
- Start date
Shardstone
Hero
I think the option to take a feature that allows you to cast a range of spells through your weapon on a successful hit is a must. 5E lacks true weapon arts, so if you want to do cool sword magic, the only avenue is through spells.
The Paladin is limited to just pure damage. Ideally, the Spellblade would be able to channel other spells, like charm person, thunderwave, hold person, etc through their weapon and striking the target. Perhaps this lessens or even removes the damage of the attack; perhaps this can only be used for certain spells under certain parameters. But the idea of dealing out utility by striking things with weapons, and probably having 3 attacks vs 2 at the highest levels, would be great. Combine with cantrips to effect.
Ofc, the Paladin also has Auras, Lay On Hands and Channel Divinity. The Spellblade, in addition to a compelling story, would need something comparable for this too. Fortunately, there are a huge number of ideas out there, even in this thread, including Aegis and so on. Other ideas could be spell sight, the ability to counterspell with Opportunity Attacks, the ability to break spells with weapon attack reactions, and so on. You could even embrace concepts from the Valda's Spire Warmage, which involves different enhancement features for cantrips.
All of these mechanical ideas, which are cohesive, cannot fit together within one subclass. So, a full class would allow the Spellblade -- whatever it's real name ends up being -- to demonstrate the unique fantasy it brings to the table.
The Paladin is limited to just pure damage. Ideally, the Spellblade would be able to channel other spells, like charm person, thunderwave, hold person, etc through their weapon and striking the target. Perhaps this lessens or even removes the damage of the attack; perhaps this can only be used for certain spells under certain parameters. But the idea of dealing out utility by striking things with weapons, and probably having 3 attacks vs 2 at the highest levels, would be great. Combine with cantrips to effect.
Ofc, the Paladin also has Auras, Lay On Hands and Channel Divinity. The Spellblade, in addition to a compelling story, would need something comparable for this too. Fortunately, there are a huge number of ideas out there, even in this thread, including Aegis and so on. Other ideas could be spell sight, the ability to counterspell with Opportunity Attacks, the ability to break spells with weapon attack reactions, and so on. You could even embrace concepts from the Valda's Spire Warmage, which involves different enhancement features for cantrips.
All of these mechanical ideas, which are cohesive, cannot fit together within one subclass. So, a full class would allow the Spellblade -- whatever it's real name ends up being -- to demonstrate the unique fantasy it brings to the table.
CreamCloud0
One day, I hope to actually play DnD.
besides the obvious of being elemental/arcane focused rather than divine, personally, a swordmage differs in that they're more of a controller and skirmisher than the 'smite it to death' striker of the paladin, their attacks inflicting status effects on the enemies or other effects like forced movement, as well as being more mobile to get around the battlefield,
i'd also like to see it function as an AoE 'martial' attacker but that's just me, it'd also be a good class structure for being able to target elemental vunerabilities from being able to switch up their active element on the fly.
Edit: there’s also probably a good portion of people who’d love to be able to play a ‘magic martial’ without having to focus on the resource management of spell slots and just be able to use cantrips or similar infinite use class abilities.
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Striker skirmisher control martial weapons extra attack for multiplicative bonuses spellcasting and some have strongly suggested armor... The class you were talking about left to go drink punpun's beer and challenge it to arm wrestling.
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Yaarel
🇮🇱He-Mage
I agree the Swordmage can be, and usually is, a Skirmisher. It has extreme mobility, both agile Athletics and even full-on teleport. It avoids any armor that might interfere with this mobility, and can "fire fight" and "trouble shoot" by arriving anywhere in the combat area where there might be an urgent situation.
Officially, the 4e Swordmage is a "Defender", meaning a mage who is a "tank", but specifically a tank that can bodyguard allies, and prevent them from getting harmed.
The Swordmage can also be a "Striker" in the sense of dealing heavy damage to neutralize a threat, and in this case, it is by teleporting to a hostile target to then "nova" whatever spells are available to end that hostile target.
The Swordmage can also be a "Controller", but less so than the Wizard. The Wizard must avoid melee but does best when looking at the battle area from a distance anyway to "control" which hostiles can reach which allies, analogous to a narrow pass. In the case of the Swordmage, the control aspect is closer, such as teleporting to a specific hostile to then teleport with that hostile away from its tactical advantage. The Swordmage can also form walls and such nearby to prevent hostile access, but this overlaps with the Defender function.
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This is not true. Virtually every class can cast and attack as long as you are doing one of those as an action and another as a bonus action.
A Bladesinger can both cast and attack, with an action provided the casting is a Cantrip. An Eldritch Knight can both make a full attack action and a full casting action.
So you want to essentially do the equivalent of 5 actions in one turn? This is similar to the Steel Wind Strike spell which is available to several casters at relatively high level.
In any case to do this at will in 5E I think you need to keep the damage very low. Just roll it into a subclass ability: When taking the attack action a character can replace one or both of their attacks to use the Swordmage feature - make a weapon attack roll against an enemy within reach, on a hit the creature takes proficiency bonus damage, the Swordmage then teleports to within 5 feet a second creature within 60 feet and and makes another attack against that creature for pb damage. No other damage bonuses can be applied to these attacks.
With that you could teleport twice and attack 4 times.
There are spells that do this, if that doesn't scrath the itch roll it into a subclass ability either as an action at will or as a bonus action PB times a day.
Corinnguard
Hero
https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-METP-j7wAzyjzLStKsg This is Kibblestasty's Spellblade class. Unlike Laser Llama's Magus class, the Spellblade does have cantrips in addition to being a half-caster.
mellored
Legend
Which is not doing sword-magic.
It's doing swords, then doing magic.
Steel Wind Stike is exactly what I want, and Ensnaring Strike, and Thunderous Smite. Make more spells like that (and not spread out over multiple classes).
Have at least 20 of them for the wizard / bard / artificer. Enough to fill your preparation slots.
Shadow Repost
Reaction
Trigger: you are missed by an attack
Teleport to a space adjacent to the attacker and make a melee attack against them.
Ranger could also use some more.
Artificer can mostly grab the wizard ones. But it wouldn't hurt if they had a few of their own.
Third Arm
Bonus Action
You grow a third metalic arm with a claw on the end. When you cast this spell, or as a bonus action on each turn afterwards, your extra arm can make an Unarmed Strike. You can use your spell casting modifier instead of Strength for the attack roll or save DC.
The arm can also hold on to stuff including for climb checks. However it does not have enough finesse for anything but rudimentary tasks.
CreamCloud0
One day, I hope to actually play DnD.
well that's the thing about brainstorming a concept, lots of people suggest lots of different things they want or think would be good for the theme, but you don't actually expect every single one of those ideas to make it into the final product.
It is a thing about brainstorming, but there are an awful lot of posts that blatantly call for something that would be embarrassed slumming it in a party with mediocre wannabes like punpun and a gm blessed coffeelock.
It's hard to ignore the raw power of low level wizard spells for utility control and (de)buff while people are calling for that to be expanded with maybe spells maybe not spells riders to weapon attacks. At one point someone even suggested... I quote because it's worse than I remembered "Teleport 2 times and attack 3 people". Not even a pure spellcaster can teleport twice in a turn and attacking three people requires either fighter 11's extra attack or some kind of AOE(burst/come/line). This isn't "brainstorming", it's an endless expansion of what cool things any class has being called for as a requirement for the thing slapping punpun around and it's telling that none of the people pushing for the creation of this "class" are showing any interest in pointing out where it crosses line too far.
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