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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 7018024" data-attributes="member: 6677017">Sorry for the delay--I haven't been around for a while.I'm willing to accept some variance in level of martial and magical for a Bladesinger, as a Bladesinger is a specific flavor of the classic fighter/magic-user, rather than identical to the concept. For a classic fighter/mage, I'd want a 20th level character to be about 15th or 16th level in each class. For this 5e iteration, I'm okay with having it be mostly mage, with a cleric level of melee ability.I see it switching on and off between attacks and spells, probably 60-70% melee attacks. I feel that either green flame blade or booming blade are pretty essential to the 5e version for damage purposes (since a Bladesinger concept needs decent melee damage), but getting that damage through spells isn't essential. Decent damage doesn't mean on par with a rogue or single classed fighter. It does mean keeping up with a melee cleric or their own ranged cantrip damage. Basically, I see them casting one concentration spell (if the situation warrants it) then spending the rest of the combat alternating between melee attacks and a variety of spells that fit their personal style. Fireball, fly, magic missile, dispel magic, stinking cloud, invisibility, haste, whatever. They are warrior with one hand and wizard with the other in combat. For bonus actions, I have no particular thoughts on their frequency. My image of the playstyle doesn't require them, although if it has useful spells that can be cast with bonus actions that is a great opportunity to swing a weapon and cast a spell on the same round--always a good thing. I completely disagree with this. Valor Bard, Bladesinger, and Tempest Cleric are examples of subclasses with 9th level spells that imply melee presence. Sure, you can do more damage with a meteor swarm, but that gets into all sorts of playstyle considerations. How many encounters do you have in a day, how many spell slots do you use for non-ritual utility spells outside of combat, etc. A Bladesinger that only uses his weapon for playing with kobolds at low levels and then switches to exclusive caster combat is a design failure. I don't think they failed on this design, and I think Bladesinger is fine from a purely mechanical standpoint.I consider Bladesinger to be MAD dependent because it needs a good casting stat and a good attack stat on those criteria. Requiring a third stat (Intelligence plus Strength & Dexterity) to build a Bladesinger to represent a traditional concept, while still having that concept be less effective than building a character with Intelligence and Dexterity alone, is a complete design fail. The initial premise of discussion was about how to fix that particular problem. I'm not trying to improve the effectiveness of Bladesinger, rather I'm trying to find the easiest way to fix that lore/mechanical effectiveness mismatch.</blockquote>

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