D&D 5E (2014) Silvery Barbs and Fey Touched

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't see this

Poisson distribution - Wikipedia

 

[EzekielRaiden]

but you can also use it, if you aren't a spellcaster, to help a spellcaster land that critical spell. It won't happen often - maybe once a day - but it can be clutch.

The problem with this logic is that nearly anything CAN be clutch. Hunter's mark "can" be clutch--you do just enough extra damage to kill something that would've pasted a friend. Even weird obscure spells can be clutch in weird obscure situations. When the standard is met by every spell, it's not a very useful standard for separating spells from one another.

Is it useful? Yes. Being able to have a high chance of negating one critical hit a day is decent--not amazing, but decent. I don't think that specific benefit is unequivocally better than other spells you could get via Fey Touched. The advantage to an ally is similarly useful but not amazing, since you're very limited in how you can strategize around it, being unable to save it for a preferred roll. (E.g., even if you give it to your Wizard friend who's preparing to cast a clutch spell, said Wizard cannot choose to hold onto it when the enemy casts fireball at her before her turn comes up. She has to use the Advantage on the next roll, even if it isn't her preference to do so.)

Silvery barbs is a very good spell, an upper tier 1st-level option. That it can be acquired via Fey Touched surely does make FT better, particularly since it doesn't depend on your casting modifier (and thus it doesn't matter if you increased your preferred stat with FT or not). But is it enough to make FT unequivocally insanely amazing? Ehhh...not sure on that one. E.g., I still think a Dragon Sorcerer would favor Elemental Adept for their chosen element first, Lucky remains a ridiculously powerful feat for any character, and Warcaster remains vital to any spellcasting character who expects to make Concentration saves. As others have noted, the biggest benefits of silvery barbs are for characters who have plenty of extra 1st-level slots to burn, and that doesn't apply to non-casters, particularly since there may actually be times where a melee character would want to use fey step instead of silvery barbs, but you're only able to cast one of the two spells each day.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

particularly since there may actually be times where a melee character would want to use fey step instead of silvery barbs, but you're only able to cast one of the two spells each day.

This is not actually correct. You can cast each of them once.

You can cast each of these spells without expending a spell slot. Once you cast either of these spells in this way, you can’t cast that spell in this way again until you finish a long rest.

You can still cast the other one.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This is not actually correct. You can cast each of them once.

You can still cast the other one.

Ah, pardon, I missed that bit and instead saw "Once you cast either of these spells in this way" and made the wrong connection. Thank you for the correction.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Ah, pardon, I missed that bit and instead saw "Once you cast either of these spells in this way" and made the wrong connection. Thank you for the correction.

I had to look twice myself, the wording aint the clearest!

 

[Stoutstien]

Ah, pardon, I missed that bit and instead saw "Once you cast either of these spells in this way" and made the wrong connection. Thank you for the correction.

I had the same reading the first time I read those feats. Didn't catch it until I did a second pass. Poor editing choice.

I think in the end the inclusion of this spell on this feat doesn't weaken it and it wasn't exactly in a bad spot to begin with. A half feat that practically gives you two spell knowns and a free casting of each of those spells with one of those spells being a floating pick between two schools of magic that has a plethora of options now including silverly Barb. It's a straight buff to an opinion that didn't need it.

It's one more reason why a player might select this feat over another one.

 

[ECMO3]

Poisson distribution - Wikipedia

I am very familiar with the poisson distribution. It does not say what you stated though; that critical hits come in bunches.
Also a poisson distribution evaluates the probability of a number of discrete events, but it is evaluated over a continuous measurable (most often time) with the events being modeled as impulses that can not overlap in the measurable space (in the example of time they are instantaneous).

So if you knew the average rate of critical hits in a given amoint of time (say 10 crits rolled on average in an hour of gameplay), then you can directly determine the chance of a specific number in a smaller time (say 3 hits in a minute of play). But you can't use it to evaluate the number of critical hits against a number of rolls because the number of rolls is not continuous - by that I mean you can't get three critical hits on one roll of the dice.

 

[ECMO3]

Is it useful? Yes. Being able to have a high chance of negating one critical hit a day is decent--not amazing, but decent. I don't think that specific benefit is unequivocally better than other spells you could get via Fey Touched.

I think it is, particularly at high level. Also it is an extremely high chance of negating a crit with a moderate chance (depending on the enemy) of turning it completely into a miss.

The advantage to an ally is similarly useful but not amazing, since you're very limited in how you can strategize around it, being unable to save it for a preferred roll.

In this respect it is no different than help or steady aim or other things that can give advantage, but it is more flexible.