D&D 5E How would you do the sword mage in 5e?

[NotAYakk]

I vaguely remember we houseruled the swordmage teleport attack to be an easy to apply and track aura instead of individual enemy mark tracking after essentials came out and did that for other defenders.

I am a big fan of the essentials aura defender mechanic compared to the individual enemy marking.

A "shield" around the swordmage also works.

In 4e, with the myriad of defender marks, the swordmage's Aegis was interesting in that it let you, nay encouraged you, to mark a foe and move away from them. You'd then use your presence somewhere else to tank, plus interfere with one foe's ability to fight your allies.

The swordmage had to use tools to (a) get close to the foe, (b) get away from the foe, (c) engage another foe. Which was the swordmage's minigame. (Good 4e classes had tactical minigames; ranger baiting, rogue getting advantage, avenger isolating a foe, defenders and their marks, warlock boon triggering, controllers and zones/positioning of enemies, leaders and producing bulwarks and positioning allies; this was layered on top of the default 4e tactical combat game.)

Your aura solution also reduces this effect; either it is short ranged (making the swordmage mark just another marking mechanic, nothing different) or long range (making it nearly unavoidable).

But in 5e, there isn't a myriad of mark mechanics. So the aegis doesn't have to fit in with them nor stand out from them.

The reason why I proposed (the honestly weaker) protect an ally instead of mark a foe is that it fits the pattern of 5e protection abilities better, and being less tactically dominant it also fits the generally weaker 5e defence mechanics. In 4e, monsters tended to have abilities explicitly designed to counter defender marks (foes marked defenders, explicitly shed or avoided marks, etc); in 5e these are less common (mostly just flyby, honestly).

Hence the weaker aegis.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I'd heavily lean into the 4e swordmage for inspiration, rather than the much more thematically specific Duskblade of 3.5e. I'd also look at the Paladin, Ranger, and Artificer to see how similar classes function in 5e.

• Arcane half caster, with an extra attack at 5th level is an obvious starting point.
• Its spell list would have a ton of spells which work similar to searing smite, ensnaring strike, and lightning arrow (and ones unique to its spell list). In order to push the theme of applying magical damage and effects via weapon attacks.
• Not really anything in the way of magic blasting. Nothing like burning hands or fireball. It's a swordmage, not a wizard.
• Reaction based teleports similar to the 4e swordmage. This would be the class 'signature ability'.
• 4e swordmage had a warding ability. However 5e doesn't really do flat +1 AC benefits. So something a bit like shield. Maybe +2 AC as a reaction, as many times as your INT modifier per long rest. Need a hand free to do it.
• Weapon attacks would be made with DEX or STR. None of this cheesy and exploitive casting stat for weapon attacks business.

Subclass ideas:

• Duskblade (For the 3.5e archtype)
• Death Knight (The WoW styled Death Knight isn't really in 5e)
• Elementalist (In 4e, genasi were the archetypical elemental swordmages)

 

[Flamestrike]

Really? Just look at their first-level powers.

Things I can largely simulate with cantrips (Booming Blade, Greenflame blade, Sword burst, Lightning lure etc) and spells like the Smite spells, and so forth.

 

[NotAYakk]

I'd heavily lean into the 4e swordmage for inspiration, rather than the much more thematically specific Duskblade of 3.5e. I'd also look at the Paladin, Ranger, and Artificer to see how similar classes function in 5e.

• Arcane half caster, with an extra attack at 5th level is an obvious starting point.
• Its spell list would have a ton of spells which work similar to searing smite, ensnaring strike, and lightning arrow (and ones unique to its spell list). In order to push the theme of applying magical damage and effects via weapon attacks.
• Not really anything in the way of magic blasting. Nothing like burning hands or fireball. It's a swordmage, not a wizard.
• Reaction based teleports similar to the 4e swordmage. This would be the class 'signature ability'.
• 4e swordmage had a warding ability. However 5e doesn't really do flat +1 AC benefits. So something a bit like shield. Maybe +2 AC as a reaction, as many times as your INT modifier per long rest. Need a hand free to do it.
• Weapon attacks would be made with DEX or STR. None of this cheesy and exploitive casting stat for weapon attacks business.

Subclass ideas:

• Duskblade (For the 3.5e archtype)
• Death Knight (The WoW styled Death Knight isn't really in 5e)
• Elementalist (In 4e, genasi were the archetypical elemental swordmages)

One fun thing 4e swordmages had was the ability to leverage their magical sword's abilities to enhance spells.

So a +X sword acted as a +X spell focus, and a sword that did extra fire damage enhanced damaging spells with fire damage.

I think it is a worthy mechanic for a 5e import.

...

The subclass ideas do match the 4e paragon path types. Hence put "kind of aegis" as a secondary pick, and not the subclass.

The 3 aegis in 4e where "snaring", "shielding" and "assault". Assault teleported you to attack them, Ensnaring teleported them to you after they attacked an ally, and Shielding just protected your ally from a distance.

I could almost see Shielding as being default, and a specific subclass unlocks Assault/Ensnaring (or some mechanic replacement for DK/DB).

 

[Voadam]

In 4e, with the myriad of defender marks, the swordmage's Aegis was interesting in that it let you, nay encouraged you, to mark a foe and move away from them. You'd then use your presence somewhere else to tank, plus interfere with one foe's ability to fight your allies.

The swordmage had to use tools to (a) get close to the foe, (b) get away from the foe, (c) engage another foe. Which was the swordmage's minigame. (Good 4e classes had tactical minigames; ranger baiting, rogue getting advantage, avenger isolating a foe, defenders and their marks, warlock boon triggering, controllers and zones/positioning of enemies, leaders and producing bulwarks and positioning allies; this was layered on top of the default 4e tactical combat game.)

The original 4e paladin had a similar thing of mark them then if they attack someone else the opponent gets hit with god lasers, so there was an incentive to mark then run away from the bad guy so they would trigger the mark.

Which was a terrible structural incentive for what should be narratively heroic paladin protector actions.

I played a spelljamming viking swordmage character at epic and paragon and the narrative of "This'll teach you turn your back on a pirate!" if an opponent attacked someone else was fairly fantastic. I forget if there was a higher level thing where it basically marked everyone within 30 feet but I have a vague memory of that and it working well without zipping in and away as a tactical minigame.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

One fun thing 4e swordmages had was the ability to leverage their magical sword's abilities to enhance spells.

So a +X sword acted as a +X spell focus, and a sword that did extra fire damage enhanced damaging spells with fire damage.

I think it is a worthy mechanic for a 5e import.

...

The subclass ideas do match the 4e paragon path types. Hence put "kind of aegis" as a secondary pick, and not the subclass.

The 3 aegis in 4e where "snaring", "shielding" and "assault". Assault teleported you to attack them, Ensnaring teleported them to you after they attacked an ally, and Shielding just protected your ally from a distance.

One thing I'm keen to avoid is the swordmage just dumping elemental damage like some not-so-divine smite. Putting a bit on is fine, but I think that the main thing should be inflicting status effects, similar to the 3.5e duskblade, or spells such as thunderous smite or wrathful smite.

So while you're doing elemental damage, you can't nova like a Paladin.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Additional things I forgot to add to my post further up about how I'd design a swordmage class:

• D8 hit die: Movement is very important to the class. You're not meant to just sit there eating blows.
• Martial weapons, light armour, and shields for proficiencies. Some subclasses would open up medium armour.
• Saving throws: Dexterity and Intelligence.
• Skills: Pick two from Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, History, Insight, Intimidation, and Persuasion.

 

[NotAYakk]

The original 4e paladin had a similar thing of mark them then if they attack someone else the opponent gets hit with god lasers, so there was an incentive to mark then run away from the bad guy so they would trigger the mark.

Which was a terrible structural incentive for what should be narratively heroic paladin protector actions.

I played a spelljamming viking swordmage character at epic and paragon and the narrative of "This'll teach you turn your back on a pirate!" if an opponent attacked someone else was fairly fantastic. I forget if there was a higher level thing where it basically marked everyone within 30 feet but I have a vague memory of that and it working well without zipping in and away as a tactical minigame.

Yes, swordmages got some fun "you violated my aegis" encounter powers.

And unlike the paladin, "I mark you and run away" was on-brand for a swordmage, as it was an evasive defender.

Paladin's mark required they attack the target or move adjacent to it. Swordmage's by design did not. So the swordmage was encouraged to kite their foes -- mark one foe, move off and engage another, then if the first foe didn't chase them punish them for it.

...

In 4e, the swordmage could use int to AC in light armor (instead of dex).

In 5e this is off-brand.

In 4e, the swordmage got a free +1 AC from holding a sword (its ward), and another +2 if the offhand was free (basically replacing a shield). In 4e, there are no shields with AC boosts, so that +2 was a full replacement. So their choice was +2 AC, or higher damage from 2H weapons.

Some abilities got a further boost from 2H weapons as well.

Their spells used int (even if they involved a melee attack), but the assault (teleport and hit) used a basic attack; so they wanted strength as well. This turned out to have ... math issues ... so a feat was added giving them int on basic attacks (in 4e, your int bonus could hit +10, and foes AC expected your stat to scale; so unless you heavily invested in strength, assault swordmage mark became gimped. Similarly, your OAs became gimped).

5e has less of this.

The light/medium armor problem remains. To have decent AC, you need 14 Dex in medium armor, and you need to cap dex in light armor. If your class is making melee attacks you are going to have a huge incentive to use finesse weapons.

There are no light armor "attack with weapon" classes that don't use Dex; barbarian is close, but really 14 Dex+medium armor is optimal (they are just less gimped in lighter armor then others, especially if they have a high con) defensively. And they use rage (1/2 damage from most weapon attacks) for defence.

I don't think siloing swordmages into "finesse weapons" is great.

 

[ECMO3]

Really? Just look at their first-level powers. They should be pretty basic and easy to do, right, even if the systems work a bit differently?

First, take the encounter powers:

• Chilling Blow: Deals weapon damage and then some extra damage every time the target attacks until the start of your next turn.
• Flame Cyclone: A short-range AOE dealing fire damage. OK, this is fairly close to burning hands.
• Foesnare: Deal weapon damage and immobilize the target until the start of your next turn.
• Lightning Clash: Hit one target for weapon damage, and then another nearby target with a minor lightning bolt.

Or the more powerful daily powers:

• Burning Blade: Strong weapon attack, adds a continuing effect that deals extra fire damage on subsequent attacks.
• Frost Backlash: Reaction, when hit make a very strong weapon attack that also has a much better attack chance.
• Whirling Blade: Throw your weapon at a target at short range, making a strong weapon attack with it. On a miss, try for a second, third, or fourth target. Then the weapon returns to your hand.

Other than Flame Cyclone basically being burning hands, there's nothing a fighter/mage, eldritch knight, hexblade, or bladesinger can do that's close to these. The options available in 5e are for characters who sometimes fight and sometimes cast spells, but there's nothing for someone who fights with magic.

I would disagree that these or something very similar do not exist in 5E.

Flame Cyclone: As you mentioned this is the same as Burning Hands
Foesnare: This is the same as Ensnaring Strike
Lightning Clash: Green Flame Blade is very similar, substituting Fire damage for lightning damage
Burning Blade: Same as Searing Smite
Frost Backlash: Same as the Reposte maneuver, with extra damage instead of a better attack chance

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Things I can largely simulate with cantrips (Booming Blade, Greenflame blade, Sword burst, Lightning lure etc) and spells like the Smite spells, and so forth.

What spells involve throwing your weapon and it exploding and then coming back to you?

No reflavoring shatter or whatever.

What spells let the swordmage do any of their class feature stuff, as opposed to thier powers? Mark, reaction teleport to protect/attack as one action, giving allies AC buffs or enemies attack penalties that make it more desireable for them to attack you? Which spells stop any enemy that comes near you from getting past you (gotta be low enough level you can use it in most fights at a reasonably low level)?