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Community
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Not Much Ado About Bless
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<blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 8612237" data-attributes="member: 2629"><p>Generally, bless is cast in combat. You can cast it in advance of combat, but that rarely works out in most campaigns. If you can't cast it in advance, you lose a round of being directly influential in the combat to create indirect benefit for 3 PCs. </p><p></p><p>When cast in Rd 1 of combat, it has no immediate effect on the game state. Nobody is falling down because you cast bless. Then, it will have an impact on roughly 1 in 8 attacks for the impacted PCs, and 1 in 8 saving throws for the impacted PCs. The first time or two it turns a miss into a hit offsets the loss of likely damage that the cleric could have created by casting guiding bolt (which deals damage and gives advantage on another attack). Thus, it is unlikely, from an offensive perspective, that bless will be a net benefit beyond the effectiveness of casting guiding bolt until round 3 or 4 (offensively). If you assume the guiding bolt missed, then that changes things .... but gudiing bolts usually have a better than 50-50 chance to hit, so the chances of being better off with bless immediately are less than 50%.</p><p></p><p>This means that until the point where bless has turned enough misses into hits to offset the impacts of a guiding bolt, enemies may stay on their feet longer and get an extra attack/spell that they might otherwise not have been able to take. That offsets the benefit of the defensive side of bless - enemies are up longer, allowing them to get the extra attempt to deal damage or cast a spell that offsets the extra saving throw that might be made. </p><p></p><p>Bless, to me, is a great spell when fighting a high HP solo (legendary) enemy. However, it isn't great in most other situations - merely good - and in a short combat ... downright bad.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jgsugden, post: 8612237, member: 2629"] Generally, bless is cast in combat. You can cast it in advance of combat, but that rarely works out in most campaigns. If you can't cast it in advance, you lose a round of being directly influential in the combat to create indirect benefit for 3 PCs. When cast in Rd 1 of combat, it has no immediate effect on the game state. Nobody is falling down because you cast bless. Then, it will have an impact on roughly 1 in 8 attacks for the impacted PCs, and 1 in 8 saving throws for the impacted PCs. The first time or two it turns a miss into a hit offsets the loss of likely damage that the cleric could have created by casting guiding bolt (which deals damage and gives advantage on another attack). Thus, it is unlikely, from an offensive perspective, that bless will be a net benefit beyond the effectiveness of casting guiding bolt until round 3 or 4 (offensively). If you assume the guiding bolt missed, then that changes things .... but gudiing bolts usually have a better than 50-50 chance to hit, so the chances of being better off with bless immediately are less than 50%. This means that until the point where bless has turned enough misses into hits to offset the impacts of a guiding bolt, enemies may stay on their feet longer and get an extra attack/spell that they might otherwise not have been able to take. That offsets the benefit of the defensive side of bless - enemies are up longer, allowing them to get the extra attempt to deal damage or cast a spell that offsets the extra saving throw that might be made. Bless, to me, is a great spell when fighting a high HP solo (legendary) enemy. However, it isn't great in most other situations - merely good - and in a short combat ... downright bad. [/QUOTE]
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