D&D 5E Silvery Barbs, how would you fix it? Does it need fixing?

[HammerMan]

So take +2 plate and a +3 shield (very rare items). You are now at 25 AC before buffs.

Add in a +2 buff of some kind (Shield of faith? Haste?) and defensive fighting style, and you have 28 AC.

Add in shield, and you hit 33 AC.

Creatures that hit 21-25 AC A LOT ... won't ever hit this.

Even if you roll it back to ; +1 plate and a +1 shield; 22 AC base. +2 AC self buff and defensive; 25 AC. Then 30 AC with shield. 1 rare item and 1 uncommon item, neither attunement, which isn't atypical for a level 8 PC (although both are defensive).

At the extreme, toss a cloak of displacement on top of this.

real case:

A paladin/Warlock with +2 halfplate (with a house rule material it was made of) and a +3 shield (DM random rolled, and learned why we don't suggest such) and the defensive fighting style, was allowed to spend money by having a mage make them magic items... they got a +1 ring of protection and a +1 cloak of protection, 27 AC on all the time. even without SHIELD (that would be broken on this girl) they were all but unhitable.

 

[Charlaquin]

It’s definitely very strong, but it doesn’t break anything, and I disagree that it’s a “can’t live without it” spell. I see no reason to ban or nerf it it if you’re allowing players to take spells from Strixhaven.

 

[Neonchameleon]

There are two issues with Silvery Barbs:

• It's badly written round things like Advantage and Legendary Resistance
• There are edge cases where it's better than Shield.

The advantage issue could be easily fixed by a line even of Sage Advice specifying exactly what happens such as "If the original roll has advantage so does the reroll - and take the two lower of the rolls with advantage" rather than a bad reading where you end up with the lowest of three dice. It's a bit of polishing that could have been done and could still be done.

As for the comparison with shield, Silvery Barbs is better at (a) preventing crits and (b) preventing e.g. grapples (because it's verbal only). Shield on the other hand is much more likely to block ordinary hits (because you use it and know what was rolled), has more of a swing unless the roll needed exactly a 11 to hit (or a 20 to hit anyway) so shield is better on both low AC and high AC characters, and applies for the whole turn rather than just against a single roll.

So the sky is not falling. In real use cases shield is just better than silvery barbs the overwhelming majority of the time even with the free advantage.

 

[Bolares]

It’s definitely very strong, but it doesn’t break anything, and I disagree that it’s a “can’t live without it” spell. I see no reason to ban or nerf it it if you’re allowing players to take spells from Strixhaven.

It's kind of an autopick in latter leves, because there will be little you will be spending your 1st level slots, but by then, you have a lot of potent options competing for your reaction.

 

[Bolares]

It's badly written round things like Advantage and Legendary Resistance

I don't get where is the confusion with Legendary Resistances.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't get where is the confusion with Legendary Resistances.

Yeah, the interaction there is pretty straightforward. Legendary Resistance turns a failure into a success. Doesn’t matter what the number you rolled on the die is.

 

[Bolares]

Yeah, the interaction there is pretty straightforward. Legendary Resistance turns a failure into a success. Doesn’t matter what the number you rolled on the die is.

I think some people think because you reroll you make a new ST. But then the same would be true of attack rolls, and the miriad of options that allow you to reroll them. Does it mean you make a brand new attack each time you get to reroll an attack?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I think some people think because you reroll you make a new ST. But then the same would be true of attack rolls, and the miriad of options that allow you to reroll them. Does it mean you make a brand new attack each time you get to reroll an attack?

I agree that this seems to be the source of confusion and also agree that this is not the case. The spell give a reroll and the Legendary Resistance trumps that anyway.

 

[Laurefindel]

The more I think of it, the more I'm looking forward using Silvery Barb as a DM. That's actually a very nice bad guy's spell. Low level, no concentration, cast as a reaction... You can force PCs to reroll their lucky save and eat their save-or-suck spell, all the while giving advantage to another baddy. And that's in addition to their action! I don't care if the characters use it too, that's too good of a BBEG's spell to pass!

 

[Mort]

I've been looking Strixhaven - interesting book with an interesting premise!

After looking it over - quite surprised that THIS spell is drawing so much attention. You can only get it if you belong to ONE of the colleges and it's not even the biggest thing I saw after 5 minutes of looking the book over:

A MUCH bigger deal, if you take the Witherbloom background - you get to add a bunch of cleric spells to your spell list (cure wounds, lesser restoration, revivify, greater restoration among several others). This obliterates the arcane/divine divide usually present. This would change the nature of most campaigns A LOT - and it means wizards are now even more versatile than ever (bards and sorcerers again get the short end of the stick because while these spells are on your class list, you still have to make room if you want them on your pretty small list of personally available spells)!