D&D (2024) How to balance the shield spell?

[Incenjucar]

1. Unless unable to use reactions
2. Unless counterspell
3. Unless shield rebalanced, so it isn't +5 AC in all situations
4. Unless other reactions are more important

Using shield is often a bad plan, because level 1 slots are so cheap already. It takes an average of 4 attack attempts for casting shield to be worthwhile. 4 level 1 slots last for 16 attacks, which could be a lot of rounds of combat.

I say that the real problem is that shield is an insanely good level 1 spell at high levels, not that you can cast it repeatedly.

1. Unlikely to be happening round after round
2. Counterspell every single round against a 1st level spell is super unlikely
3. Sure
4. In which case nothing is lost because you did something better


At low levels, shield has a cost because it eats into your other options. At high levels, using a low-level spell is usually only for unique and interesting situations because most burn a whole action, but Shield does not. You can easily find yourself using Shield almost every round almost every encounter because it's basically free.

 

[NotAYakk]

Sure

1. Unlikely to be happening round after round
2. Counterspell every single round against a 1st level spell is super unlikely
3. Sure
4. In which case nothing is lost because you did something better


At low levels, shield has a cost because it eats into your other options. At high levels, using a low-level spell is usually only for unique and interesting situations because most burn a whole action, but Shield does not. You can easily find yourself using Shield almost every round almost every encounter because it's basically free.

Except you can still do that without it being slotless.

It takes 4 attacks on average to trigger 1 opportunity to cast shield. Capping at 1/round.

And wizards who are attacked that often are dead? Unless they are AC optimizing +5 AC won't make them beefy.

Wizards who are not getting attacked 5+ times per round are not going to use shield every round. (at 5 attacks/round it is 0.77 shield casts per round).

 

[Incenjucar]

Sure

Except you can still do that without it being slotless.

It takes 4 attacks on average to trigger 1 opportunity to cast shield. Capping at 1/round.

And wizards who are attacked that often are dead? Unless they are AC optimizing +5 AC won't make them beefy.

Wizards who are not getting attacked 5+ times per round are not going to use shield every round. (at 5 attacks/round it is 0.77 shield casts per round).

Then there's no reason not to block it!

Monsters typically have multiple melee attacks per round, especially anything legendary. There's even the outlier of the marilith with 7 attacks per round.

 

[NotAYakk]

Sigh.

 

[mellored]

Then there's no reason not to block it!

A spell you don't cast is a waste of space.

That's part of the complaint about most level 1 spells at high levels.

 

[kilpatds]

Not sure what your point is, but it does give me another idea.

Shield
Your AC is 20 until the end of your next turn. Including again the triggering attack.
At higher level: increase AC by 1.

I'd suggested that elsewhere, except started at 18 instead (13 from mage armor, +5 from shield)

It means my stupid-AC bardadin can't hack their already stupid AC to completely insane, which is a feature. It should shore up the cloth-wearing Wizard's AC, not the bladesinger's or the sword bard's. And now it has a reasonable scaling opportunity.

 

[mellored]

I'd suggested that elsewhere, except started at 18 instead (13 from mage armor, +5 from shield)

I assume +2 Dex.
20 is also what a plate+shield gets.
21 with defensive style.

I kinda want to bump it to 21. Since you are expending a spell.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I like it as is.