D&D 5E My Quick and Dirty Tasha Read

[NaturalZero]

And then these ridiculous pseudo-Psionics classes.
Why not play an eldritch knight / arcane trickster / whatever-class-with-arcane-spells and claim it's psionics?

More and more draws me back to Pathfinder (1e).

I've tried to play the eldritch knight. I really have.

It's just so bad as gish compared to pretty much any other weapon-using magic class they've put out. The psi war is better at doing "magic fighter" powers. The rune knight gets stuff that's way more applicable to a magic melee user. The echo knight blows it away in magic utility and unique class features. We desperately needed more magic fighter options.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I've tried to play the eldritch knight. I really have.

It's just so bad as gish compared to pretty much any other weapon-using magic class they've put out. The psi war is better at doing "magic fighter" powers. The rune knight gets stuff that's way more applicable to a magic melee user. The echo knight blows it away in magic utility and unique class features. We desperately needed more magic fighter options.

Personally, I'm tempted to replace their "cantrip and weapon" feature with the new one for the Bladesinger.

I know people will say that it infringes on the Bladesinger to do so, but the only Bladesingers at my table has been one guy who wanted a multi-classed monstrosity for huge AC. He literally only took 2 levels for Bladesong, had some rogue, and I think maybe fighter? I stopped paying attention to what his build was fairly quickly.

 

[NaturalZero]

Personally, I'm tempted to replace their "cantrip and weapon" feature with the new one for the Bladesinger.

I know people will say that it infringes on the Bladesinger to do so, but the only Bladesingers at my table has been one guy who wanted a multi-classed monstrosity for huge AC. He literally only took 2 levels for Bladesong, had some rogue, and I think maybe fighter? I stopped paying attention to what his build was fairly quickly.

The bladesinger is another gish that's garbage at being a gish. It's phenomenal at being a generic wizard with high AC, but you still don't want to wade into melee with it.

 

[Mistwell]

The Twilight cleric is amazing. S+ tier. 1d6+level temp HP every round without concentration? To the entire party? That is so good.

I wish it scaled better. If it had followed cantrip dice, increasing to 2d6+level at level 5, etc, it would be much better. As it stands, it's great in the lower tiers but pretty meaningless at the high tier.

I think the darkvision sharing out to 300' is pretty darn powerful too. And the domain spell list is pretty good. It's a nice subclass.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The bladesinger is another gish that's garbage at being a gish. It's phenomenal at being a generic wizard with high AC, but you still don't want to wade into melee with it.

It's garbage at being a general swordmage/duskblade, but isn't awful at gishing. There are better options in 5e (Arcane Trickster is the main one), but it's not awful. With this book, they toned down how often you can use Bladesong so it's less abusable for those that don't want to be bladesingers but just want a 30+ for AC.

 

[NaturalZero]

It's garbage at being a general swordmage/duskblade, but isn't awful at gishing. There are better options in 5e (Arcane Trickster is the main one), but it's not awful. With this book, they toned down how often you can use Bladesong so it's less abusable for those that don't want to be bladesingers but just want a 30+ for AC.

I guess we might be working with different definitions of "gish." I understand that it used to literally be a multiclass fighter/wizard githyanki and, by that definition, it's certainly a functional gish that is at least better than the generic wizard.

For me, "gish" in a modern context IS the swordmage/duskblade type build though, which is a specific character concept as opposed to the old clunky amalgam of mechanics. I want a gish that has no problem wading into melee and consistently using magical melee powers that aren't sub-par compared to the rest of his kit.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I guess we might be working with different definitions of "gish." I understand that it used to literally be a multiclass fighter/wizard githyanki and, by that definition, it's certainly a functional gish that is at least better than the generic wizard.

For me, "gish" in a modern context IS the swordmage/duskblade type build though, which is a specific character concept as opposed to the old clunky amalgam of mechanics. I want a gish that has no problem wading into melee and consistently using magical melee powers that aren't sub-par compared to the rest of his kit.

No, we're using the same definition of gish. I agree that the Bladesinger by no means fills the swordmage/duskblade niche of 5e, and wish they would make an arcane gish half-casting class (I've made my own homebrew version). However, it does pretty well at gishing for a wizard.

 

[MGibster]

This is true, and well understood. But just because something is optional doesn't mean it cannot be critiqued, analyzed, disagreed with, loved, etc. Your respond is marginally more useful than if you had said "giraffes have long necks"

Thanks to Tasha's, long necks on giraffes are now optional.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I guess we might be working with different definitions of "gish." I understand that it used to literally be a multiclass fighter/wizard githyanki and, by that definition, it's certainly a functional gish that is at least better than the generic wizard.

For me, "gish" in a modern context IS the swordmage/duskblade type build though, which is a specific character concept as opposed to the old clunky amalgam of mechanics. I want a gish that has no problem wading into melee and consistently using magical melee powers that aren't sub-par compared to the rest of his kit.

Yeah, there aren't really a lot of melee spells, seems like that is what is really missing to make the various half-casters into Gishes.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The bladesinger is another gish that's garbage at being a gish. It's phenomenal at being a generic wizard with high AC, but you still don't want to wade into melee with it.

Hardly. I’m in melee with my BS all the time. Works great. You don’t need to be a tank to be a melee character.

It's garbage at being a general swordmage/duskblade, but isn't awful at gishing. There are better options in 5e (Arcane Trickster is the main one), but it's not awful. With this book, they toned down how often you can use Bladesong so it's less abusable for those that don't want to be bladesingers but just want a 30+ for AC.

They also nerfed the ability to actually play it as a melee character, since at low levels they literally halved (if not worse) how often you can have bladesong up.