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

[ECMO3]

This may be part of the reason some of us value shield differently.

If you are telling the player what the attack roll is, then your right, shield is very efficient.
If you are telling the player "the attack hit", then shield has a miss chance, and is toned down.

The same is true for Barbs though except it is a bigger effect.

Statistically if all you know is a single roll succeeded then if you make a population estimate based on that single sample, the estimated population median roll is success. This means in a completely blind test the chance of another sucess on the reroll is higher than the chance of a failure on the reroll.

This means statistically if you have no idea of the roll or the target DC, the chance of failure is less than 50% if the only observation is a success.

 

[Stalker0]

2) you're confident that the monster has a good chance of failing the spell save.

While wizard players don't have exact monster saves.... it is not hard to know what most monsters weak saves are.

Its not hard to know that golems have terrible charisma saves, or big monsters tend to have weak dex saves, brutish monsters tend to have bad will saves, etc etc.

If a wizard is casting spells on a monster that he thinks the creature has over a 50% chance of success, that wizard should be picking other control spells

 

[Stalker0]

The same is true for Barbs though except it is a bigger effect.

Statistically if all you know is a single roll succeeded then if you make a population estimate based on that single sample, the estimated population median roll is success. This means in a completely blind test the chance of another sucess on the reroll is higher than the chance of a failure on the reroll.

This means statistically if you have no idea of the roll or the target DC, the chance of failure is less than 50% if the only observation is a success.

Except we aren't in the dark, except in the case that the DM is throwing out a completely unknown creature. Most wizards can guage which saves are the "weak spots" for many monster. And most monster saves are not so strong that a wizard has less than 50% chance of success against them. Most weak spots are truly weak, and a wizard targeting them generally has a 60%+ chance of getting it through.

 

[Mort]

While wizard players don't have exact monster saves.... it is not hard to know what most monsters weak saves are.

Its not hard to know that golems have terrible charisma saves, or big monsters tend to have weak dex saves, brutish monsters tend to have bad will saves, etc etc.

If a wizard is casting spells on a monster that he thinks the creature has over a 50% chance of success, that wizard should be picking other control spells

I've been DMing my group a LONG time and I throw in enough "nonstandard" monsters (reskinned, homebrew, and from sources I'm pretty sure the players aren't looking at) that they know not to assume they know good vs. bad saves on monsters!

 

[Stalker0]

I've been DMing my group a LONG time and I throw in enough "nonstandard" monsters (reskinned, homebrew, and from sources I'm pretty sure the players aren't looking at) that they know not to assume they know good vs. bad saves on monsters!

Ergo why you think the spell is probably not as bad as others. But could you see that in a world where most monsters come from the manual, that a wizard player would be able to know good vs bad saves most of the time?

 

[abirdcall]

I've been DMing my group a LONG time and I throw in enough "nonstandard" monsters (reskinned, homebrew, and from sources I'm pretty sure the players aren't looking at) that they know not to assume they know good vs. bad saves on monsters!

This isn't a weakness in Silvery Barbs.

The weakness lies in the choice of the original spell or ability. Silvery Barbs lets you get another shot at it. If the original decision was bad then Barbs will not be as good but a spell shouldn't be judged based on whether the player can make bad decisions when using it.

 

[ECMO3]

One thing we do have to note on healing word. At 5+ level, healing word does become a lot stronger, as yes I would not expect a single monster to take down a PC in one round.

But 1-4 levels, PCs are still fragile. If a PC with little health left takes a good hit from a monster.... there is a solid chance they will just die outright, so if they are wading into combat believing healing word will save them....they are really rolling the dice on death.

What is the difference at 5th level? It is a bonus action.

It is unlikely a PC of levels 1-4 will die from a CR appropriate monster who makes an attack. For example a 4th level wizard is going up against an adult white Dragon. He is down now, but has a 10 constitution and 18hps when fully healed. You heal him 5. The dragon has to do 22 points of damage on a SINGLE ATTACK to kill him outright. The chance of doing that on a bite is 50% (when you hit), to do it on a claw he would need a crit. That is a CR13 foe against a 4th level wizard who dumped constitution.

Now you can attack a downed character and deal 2 death saves every time you hit him with advantage from within 5 feet and as a DM I do that. But this is more reason to use HW as the character will almost certainly die if you don't.

 

[Mort]

Ergo why you think the spell is probably not as bad as others. But could you see that in a world where most monsters come from the manual, that a wizard player would be able to know good vs bad saves most of the time?

1) this depends heavily on group. Most players are A LOT more casual than, for ex, you see on this board. I jumped at the opportunity to play in a casual 1 shot a bit ago and the player playing the wizard had no idea of common weaknesses.

2) Not everyone plays a versatile wizard. Build a sorcerer or bard a bit too narrowly and certain monsters will give them massive trouble (particularly bards which, in addition to having spells that mostly require spells are pretty short on physical save spells).

The point is - Silvery Barbs might be good, but it depends on the group, situation and even swinginess of the dice. I'll be curious to see what we're saying about it in a year.

 

[Bolares]

but a spell shouldn't be judged based on whether the player can make bad decisions when using it.

But that’s the main way we can gauge if a spell is a trap option. Barb is SIGNIFICANTLY worse in the hands of a newbie

 

[Mort]

This isn't a weakness in Silvery Barbs.

The weakness lies in the choice of the original spell or ability. Silvery Barbs lets you get another shot at it. If the original decision was bad then Barbs will not be as good but a spell shouldn't be judged based on whether the player can make bad decisions when using it.

It actually IS a weakness of Silvery Barbs. The spell is as good or as bad as the spell it enhances. It's reliant on a combo effect - that's not a strength.