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

[abirdcall]

So, big thing in this white room.... young blue dragons don't have Legendary Resistances....

But if it had, the wizard would need to be in range of the dragons breath weapon to use barb. That's very dangerous for a lvl 6 wizard.

Hard to stay out of range when the dragon has a fly speed.

I would be with you if it had a range of 30ft but with 60ft that is going to be in range in most combats.

 

[Bolares]

Hard to stay out of range when the dragon has a fly speed.

I would be with you if it had a range of 30ft but with 60ft that is going to be in range in most combats.

There's a big difference between being in range of the breath weapon and the dragon having to move to put you in range, also, the blue dragon still doesn't have legendary resistances, so even if I agreed with you the example I was responding to doesn't make sense.

 

[NotAYakk]

Sorry, the dragon wasn't beefy enough.

But now we are talking about monsters immune to every spell worth using a LR the wizard can cast while people complain I am white rooming. So I'm not sure what is going on.

Obviously we don't have years of experience with barbs. If your position is we can make no conclusions without that exeperience, then why are you talking about it at all?

It is great at atripping LRs. Con is iften, if not always, a strong save on LR creatures. Using it on a stun strike is a good backup plan, making it even better at stripping LR. 1st level slots are roughly as cheap as Ki points.

 

[Bolares]

1st level slots are roughly as cheap as Ki points.

Sure, but you are not spending only one 1st level spell slot.

 

[ECMO3]

But now we are talking about monsters immune to every spell worth using a LR the wizard can cast while people complain I am white rooming. So I'm not sure what is going on.

not every spell, but many monsters with legendaries are immune to many save or suck conditions and many legendary monsters do have magic resistance. Off the top of my head: Vampires, DemiLich, Lich, Solar .....

I believe all of them are either immune to frightened, poisioned and charmed or they have magic resistance.

Now give me 4 legendary monsters that are immune to stun ...... heck give me 2.

It is great at atripping LRs. Con is iften, if not always, a strong save on LR creatures. Using it on a stun strike is a good backup plan, making it even better at stripping LR.

Not "a stun", 4 stuns in one turn. Further Constitution is the strongest save on most monsters, but Constitution it is NOT the strongest save on most legendary monsters. For the most part the only legendary monsters with the highest save in constitution are Dragons.

On most Legendary monsters Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma are often higher than Constitution because legendary monsters often get proficiency bonuses to those (in addition to having a high score).

1st level slots are roughly as cheap as Ki points.

No they are not, especially at higher levels. A 6th level wizard gets 4 1st level slots per LONG Rest. A 6th level Monk gets 6 Ki points per SHORT rest. That makes 1st level slots about 3 times as expensive at 6th level and it goes up from there because the Monk keeps adding Ki.

 

[Bolares]

No they are not, especially at higher levels. A 6th level wizard gets 4 1st level slots per LONG Rest. A 6th level Monk gets 6 Ki points per SHORT rest. That makes 1st level slots about 3 times as expensive at 6th level and it goes up from there because the Monk keeps adding Ki.

To be fair, in a fight they are pretty much similat. You can’t do a short rest in the middle of the fight so for this argument when you get them back is no as big of a deal

 

[Mort]

To be fair, in a fight they are pretty much similat. You can’t do a short rest in the middle of the fight so for this argument when you get them back is no as big of a deal

Sure, but for resource management purposes - this makes sense.

If the DM is to keep players on their toes they must be made to understand that resources spent in this fight will impact how prepared they are for the next one!

 

[Bolares]

Sure, but for resource management purposes - this makes sense.

If the DM is to keep players on their toes they must be made to understand that resources spent in this fight will impact how prepared they are for the next one!

100% it makes sense. I just pointed that out because we were talking about a fight specifically. And if you are fighting a legendary monster you are not worrying about saving resources for later anyway

 

[Stalker0]

No they are not, especially at higher levels. A 6th level wizard gets 4 1st level slots per LONG Rest. A 6th level Monk gets 6 Ki points per SHORT rest. That makes 1st level slots about 3 times as expensive at 6th level and it goes up from there because the Monk keeps adding Ki.

Barbs does have a bit more efficiency though in that you only spend it when you need it. Ki must be spent to start the strip regardless of success, barbs is only spent if the monster passes on the save.

That said, I agree that at higher levels monks will be able to stun more often than wizards can provide silvery barbs...assuming a reasonable short rest rate.

 

[ECMO3]

Barbs does have a bit more efficiency though in that you only spend it when you need it. Ki must be spent to start the strip regardless of success, barbs is only spent if the monster passes on the save.

No it doesn't

If you are using barbs to force a reroll on a save, the total cost is the spell slot for the spell that generated the save (which may even be a high level slot) plus the 1st level slot used on Barbs to force the second roll. This is at a minimum 2 slots to cause a second roll following a fail.

You do the same thing with stunning strike. You use stunning Strike once and he saves, then you use it a second time on the same turn. If he fails his save on the first SS you don't use it on the second, just like you would not use bards. In this respect it is the same as Barbs, you choose whether to make him save against stun again.

This is the same effect either way - you force two saves on a single turn and you make a decision to use a second resource once he saved on the first. The difference is monk has spent only 2 Ki to do this one action. The wizard has spent a first level slot, another slot (which could be high level) and used his reaction to get the exact same effect.

The other difference is the Monk can do it again on a bonus action