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

[Captain Panda]

.....The spell is waaaay stronger than shield, if you think they're comparable I don't really know what to say.

You don't know what to say? Well, you could start with why you think otherwise. If I had to pick just one, as a combat-focused caster? It's shield. Every time. Silvery Barbs is nice, it's versatile, you can negate a crit, make something miss a teammate. That's good. It's still one attack negated, and advantage on one swing (which is being WILDLY overstated in value in this thread). At the cost of a spell slot and your reaction, which means you can't do this and shield, absorb elements, or counterspell. Those are all things a caster is probably going to want to do, too.

Shield doesn't negate just one attack, if you have five or six things swinging at you twice each, adding +5 to your AC for a round can very well be the difference between getting spanked half a dozen times or getting spanked not at all. +5 AC can't negate crits, but it can dramatically increase your chance of avoiding attacks, and for more than just one attack. Silvery Barbs doesn't even compete if you're talking about spells for your own defense. It has a niche in that it can be used offensively, or used to help you with a saving throw or help an ally, but in its own domain shield is objectively a better spell. As it should be, since it's more limited.

People in this thread are why Wizards of the Coast should be really careful when they listen to feedback, because people genuinely do bandwagon and overreact. This spell is fine. You see people in this thread making wild, zany claims like not only is it the best first level spell (a dubious claim), but it's the best second level spell too?! That's just wrong. And the way people are arriving at this conclusion can make any spell look broken. If you come up with the case where the spell is at its very strongest and just assume it works (it doesn't automatically make something fail, mind, just raises the odds), you can make anything look super strong.

Look, I can do this for any half decent spell using the same style of argument. Example, the sleep spell: "Most fights at level one and two are against things with low hp. Sleep doesn't even allow a saving throw! If you're fighting five kobolds and cast sleep, the fight ends, no saving throw! How is that balanced?! It just ENDS the fight! This spell should just be banned."

Or, since according to some Silvery Barbs is the greatest level two spell as well, how about web? "So you're telling me you can just create difficult terrain and restrain everything in a 20 foot cube?! That's up to SIXTEEN creatures! If they fail their save, they can't move and have to use their ACTION to get out of the web! And they have disadvantage on all attack rolls, and your group has ADVANTAGE on all attacks against them? All attacks! ALL OF THEM! It's ridiculous. How did this make it through playtesting?"

I'm not trying to be an naughty word or erect strawmen, here. But would the above be convincing to you if you hate Silvery Barbs? And isn't the above obviously a dramatically better use of a spell slot? And it's not like web is even the spell everyone talks about when they talk about busted second level spells. Silvery Barbs has a function, sure. It can, for example, encourage a boss to fail a saving throw against Banishment (as an example used earlier in the thread). But in that case, it's Banishment that's doing the heavy lifting, not Silvery Barbs.

The spell just came out, guys. Calm down and actually wait to see it in play for a bit before you start talking about nerfs or bans.

 

[NotAYakk]

I'm not trying to be an naughty word or erect strawmen, here. But would the above be convincing to you if you hate Silvery Barbs? And isn't the above obviously a dramatically better use of a spell slot? And it's not like web is even the spell everyone talks about when they talk about busted second level spells. Silvery Barbs has a function, sure. It can, for example, encourage a boss to fail a saving throw against Banishment (as an example used earlier in the thread). But in that case, it's Banishment that's doing the heavy lifting, not Silvery Barbs.

The spell just came out, guys. Calm down and actually wait to see it in play for a bit before you start talking about nerfs or bans.

Silvery Barbs is an amazing use of a level 1 spell slot once you are past low levels, and are fighting a foe worth casting a single spell on.

Because whenever it passes a saving throw, you can "spend" a 1st level slot and a reaction and the "passed save" effect to basically replace an action, and a higher level spell slot.

Its action economy is crazy. Its slot economy is amazing.

One of many practical use cases -- battering through LRs -- can be demonstrated with math. So I did.

But the balance of (reaction+1st level slot+passed save effect) = (action + higher level slot) which you have a choice to spend every time someone passes a save makes it really obviously amazing, and why it gets better as you gain levels.

The fact you can use it on allies effects, and negate crits, and in extremis as a defensive spell to avoid a hit, is just gravy. As is the bonus "give advantage" rider.

It is possible, but implausible, that playtesting makes it less amazing. I mean, in a game where reactions are worth more than actions (lots of counterspells and shields and feather falls and absorb elements) the calculus changes.

But please don't tell me I can't look at a spell and understand how it can be used.

 

[the Jester]

One of many practical use cases -- battering through LRs -- can be demonstrated with math. So I did.

It does nothing at all to Legendary Resistances. A use of LR turns a fail into a success, period. The designers have chimed in, above, and I think it's pretty evident that allowing a 1st level spell to overcome LR makes that spell waaay broken for first level.

 

[UnknownDyson]

You don't know what to say? Well, you could start with why you think otherwise. If I had to pick just one, as a combat-focused caster? It's shield. Every time. Silvery Barbs is nice, it's versatile, you can negate a crit, make something miss a teammate. That's good. It's still one attack negated, and advantage on one swing (which is being WILDLY overstated in value in this thread). At the cost of a spell slot and your reaction, which means you can't do this and shield, absorb elements, or counterspell. Those are all things a caster is probably going to want to do, too.

On a reaction that requires only a verbal component, you can force disadvantage onto an enemy and grant an ally advantage. This first-level spell allows you to hinder an enemy and aid an ally at the same time for a very low cost. And it isn't limited to an attack you can do this for an ability check, or a saving throw. There are a lot of people that don't understand how to play this game strategically, and I am not advocating for power gaming at the expense of roleplay. I am simply stating that some people do not understand what features are strong and what features are weak, I think you are one of those people.

Shield doesn't negate just one attack, if you have five or six things swinging at you twice each, adding +5 to your AC for a round can very well be the difference between getting spanked half a dozen times or getting spanked not at all. +5 AC can't negate crits, but it can dramatically increase your chance of avoiding attacks, and for more than just one attack. Silvery Barbs doesn't even compete if you're talking about spells for your own defense. It has a niche in that it can be used offensively, or used to help you with a saving throw or help an ally, but in its own domain shield is objectively a better spell. As it should be, since it's more limited.

Shield gives you plus 5 to armor class nothing more nothing less. If you are facing intelligent enemies or spell casters they can opt to make you roll a saving throw instead of attacking you or just attempt to grapple you bypassing shield. Shield is an amazing spell, don't get me wrong but it does not scale nearly as well as Silvery barbs. When you get to higher tiers of play, it's much more likely that you will be hit regardless of whether you shield or not because the attack modifiers are too high on the enemy, which is why health scales way better than armor class. You just don't know what you're talking about here. Advantage and disadvantage on any aspect of combat is so domineering, to call that niche shows a laughable misunderstanding of how bounded accuracy affects combat in 5e.

People in this thread are why Wizards of the Coast should be really careful when they listen to feedback, because people genuinely do bandwagon and overreact. This spell is fine. You see people in this thread making wild, zany claims like not only is it the best first level spell (a dubious claim), but it's the best second level spell too?! That's just wrong. And the way people are arriving at this conclusion can make any spell look broken. If you come up with the case where the spell is at its very strongest and just assume it works (it doesn't automatically make something fail, mind, just raises the odds), you can make anything look super strong.

You're just going full tilt Dunning Kruger Effect now. Again, I just think you don't know what you are talking about. Silvery Barbs is better than some 4th level spells, and only gets stronger the higher the party goes.

Look, I can do this for any half decent spell using the same style of argument. Example, the sleep spell: "Most fights at level one and two are against things with low hp. Sleep doesn't even allow a saving throw! If you're fighting five kobolds and cast sleep, the fight ends, no saving throw! How is that balanced?! It just ENDS the fight! This spell should just be banned."

A massive false equivalency, sleep is a great spell early on, but there is a lot of counterplay for it. The easiest one to spot is the health pool which, 5d8 ceases to be very effective when you leave the first tier of play. The second is that it does not work on creatures that are immune to charm or undead. It also does not work on elves. Sleep is a great early game spell but it tapers off a lot sooner than shield.

Or, since according to some Silvery Barbs is the greatest level two spell as well, how about web? "So you're telling me you can just create difficult terrain and restrain everything in a 20 foot cube?! That's up to SIXTEEN creatures! If they fail their save, they can't move and have to use their ACTION to get out of the web! And they have disadvantage on all attack rolls, and your group has ADVANTAGE on all attacks against them? All attacks! ALL OF THEM! It's ridiculous. How did this make it through playtesting?"

Another egregious false equivalency. Web allows the enemy to make a dexterity saving throw, so creatures that are proficient or have magic resistance are going to fare much better with this. Web can be removed with fire. There are also creatures who are immune to the restrained condition such as Shadows. There is meaningful counterplay to Web. Silvery Barbs doesn't even grant the target a saving throw, it just happens. The only way to thwart it is to counterspell. They are different kinds of spells but if I could only take one of them, I would go with Silvery Barbs because it is busted.

I'm not trying to be an naughty word or erect strawmen, here. But would the above be convincing to you if you hate Silvery Barbs? And isn't the above obviously a dramatically better use of a spell slot? And it's not like web is even the spell everyone talks about when they talk about busted second level spells. Silvery Barbs has a function, sure. It can, for example, encourage a boss to fail a saving throw against Banishment (as an example used earlier in the thread). But in that case, it's Banishment that's doing the heavy lifting, not Silvery Barbs.

I don't believe you to be a bad actor, you just don't know what you're talking about. I don't hate Silvery Barbs, it is just objectively overpowered. If that doesn't bother you that's fine, your table is your table. But I would not hold it against any DM who banned it from play.

 

[Dausuul]

It does nothing at all to Legendary Resistances. A use of LR turns a fail into a success, period. The designers have chimed in, above, and I think it's pretty evident that allowing a 1st level spell to overcome LR makes that spell waaay broken for first level.

No one ever claimed SB could bypass LR. But it can force an enemy to spend LR by turning a "natural" success (one achieved without using LR) into a failed save.

It's not the optimal use of the spell IMO, because I wouldn't expect the DM to announce whether a successful save was a natural one, so you will sometimes waste your slot trying to make the enemy use LR when it already did. SB is at its best against an important but non-legendary target. Nevertheless, burning LR is a thing it can do.

And if the DM does cue you in to when a save is a natural success, SB becomes super efficient.

 

[ECMO3]

Because whenever it passes a saving throw, you can "spend" a 1st level slot and a reaction and the "passed save" effect to basically replace an action, and a higher level spell slot.

Not whenever, only when you haven't already used your reaction AND when you have not already used your reaction or won't need to AND you are within 60 feet. If ALL of those things are true you can make an enemy reroll a passed save and more often than not it will pass its save again.

Its action economy is crazy. Its slot economy is amazing.

It uses your reaction, the only one you can take. Use it to try to banish a Lich or a Balor or a host of other enemies and the enemy saves again and now you can't counterspell it. Hardly a good trade.

It's slot economy is not amazing, objectively it is not really even good. If you use it to reroll a save it means by definition you are using an extra slot to try to achieve an effect normally done using less slots. Using the hold person as an example, you are adding a 1st and 2nd level spell to try and land a 2nd level spell. The cost here is 1st and 1 2nd, not one 1st. That is equivalent to a 3rd level spell slot to achieve a 2nd level effect.

In terms of slot economy compare it to other 1st levels spells; the vast majority of which either always work or almost always work and those that don't almost always work still often cause partial effect. This spell works sometimes, necessarily less than 50% statistically if you use it every time someone within range saves while you have a reaction.

One of many practical use cases -- battering through LRs -- can be demonstrated with math. So I did.

Except sage advice has already said you can't use it for this.

But the balance of (reaction+1st level slot+passed save effect) = (action + higher level slot) which you have a choice to spend every time someone passes a save makes it really obviously amazing, and why it gets better as you gain levels.

You do not have a choice to do that every time. As I noted above, you can only do it if you have a reaction available AND you are within 60' AND you have slots available.

The fact you can use it on allies effects, and negate crits, and in extremis as a defensive spell to avoid a hit, is just gravy. As is the bonus "give advantage" rider.

It is a defensive spell to avoid a crit but is far, far less effective at avoiding a hit, or more importantly avoiding damage in general.

Shield, Absorb Elements, false life, Armor of Agathys and to be honest even protection from good and evil will all work better for avoiding damage.

It is possible, but implausible, that playtesting makes it less amazing. I mean, in a game where reactions are worth more than actions (lots of counterspells and shields and feather falls and absorb elements) the calculus changes.

Here are the classes able to use the spell:
1. Arcane Trickster Rogue: Regularly uses reactions, does not have many powerful spells to pair with it. Moreover long before an AT is getting 3rd level spells he can impose disadvantage on a save by hiding ... which he can do with a bonus action and without spending any slots and with a minimum roll of about 23 on his stealth check (assuming he got expertise in stealth).

2, Eldritch Knight Fighter: Regularly uses reaction for shield, has very limited spells known that can be filled with an enchantment and does not have powerful spells to pair with it

3. Wizard and Sorcerer: If you commonly waste reactions within 60' of a powerful enemy you are going to die quickly.

4. Bard: This is the only class with access to it that will get a ton of mileage out of it. However Bards do not have the best offensive spells available to pair it with and lack other good reaction spells to compete with it. That said a Bard with this in a party with a wizard could be very effective.

That is not to say it is not useful or not a good spell, but it is not as OP as people make out.

But please don't tell me I can't look at a spell and understand how it can be used.

Fine, but then don't suggest it is more powerful than it is.

 

[Captain Panda]

On a reaction that requires only a verbal component, you can force disadvantage onto an enemy and grant an ally advantage. This first-level spell allows you to hinder an enemy and aid an ally at the same time for a very low cost. And it isn't limited to an attack you can do this for an ability check, or a saving throw. There are a lot of people that don't understand how to play this game strategically, and I am not advocating for power gaming at the expense of roleplay. I am simply stating that some people do not understand what features are strong and what features are weak, I think you are one of those people.

I'm speaking purely as a powergamer with extensive experience playing from 1 to 20 with epic boons. This is a balance discussion, roleplaying isn't relevant.

I understand perfectly well what this spell is capable of. The problem here is that one of us has extensive knowledge of Fifth Edition and the other doesn't. I think we would both agree on that, it's just that you're wrong about which of us is ignorant. You are lacking some very basic principles of powergaming in your assumptions here.

Shield gives you plus 5 to armor class nothing more nothing less. If you are facing intelligent enemies or spell casters they can opt to make you roll a saving throw instead of attacking you or just attempt to grapple you bypassing shield. Shield is an amazing spell, don't get me wrong but it does not scale nearly as well as Silvery barbs. When you get to higher tiers of play, it's much more likely that you will be hit regardless of whether you shield or not because the attack modifiers are too high on the enemy, which is why health scales way better than armor class. You just don't know what you're talking about here. Advantage and disadvantage on any aspect of combat is so domineering, to call that niche shows a laughable misunderstanding of how bounded accuracy affects combat in 5e.

On the contrary, Shield scales extremely well. AC has accelerating returns. +5 AC for the entire round. The higher level you are, the cheaper the price gets and the better shield becomes, and the worse Silvery Barbs becomes. I know, I know, you don't "get it." I'll actually break this down for you.

At high levels if you build for AC, bounded accuracy means that you can just count entire ranges of CR out of the fight, because they can only hit you on a 20. If they do? Well, sometimes you get hit, HP is a resource. If they critically hit you and it really hurts? That's why you take lucky. If you think it's better to use Silver Barbs to "force" one miss, if you even think Silvery Barbs is even in the same category as Shield in terms of mitigating incoming damage, you just don't know what you're talking about. So let me share a very basic principle of powergaming that someone who seems to view himself as such an authority on min-maxing should know: action economy wins fights.

You assert that at higher tiers of play attack modifiers are so high that +5 AC become effectively irrelevant. That's nonsense. So what sort of fight are you expecting, here? That's kind of important to know if you're going to discuss what's effective and what isn't. Are you assuming basic, medium-hard difficulty fights with one or two creatures that don't have legendary resistances? If you're only up against a couple creatures, you're going to smash them with or without Silvery Barbs. Or you should. In a fight that's actually dangerous, a single beefy target is going to have legendary resistance (which Silvery Barbs doesn't negate), and you're going to have a pile of mooks to handle. Alternatively, for battles that aren't boss fights, an assumption I am baking into my thinking is that you are going to be faced with large numbers of enemies. If you aren't facing off against enemies in numbers, if you really are just fighting one big thing that makes one or two big attacks, Silvery Barbs has a larger impact. That's also not a style of play that is especially challenging. Tilting a single attack, or saving throw, or ability check is not on the same level as decreasing the number of attacks that connect from "not many" to "almost none." Shield is a much more economical spell, and will dramatically outpace Silvery Barbs in mitigating a large barrage of enemy attacks.

Silvery Barbs uses your one reaction for the round, which means you can no longer cast Shield (uh oh), and you can no longer Counterspell (BIG UH OH). That is a tremendous opportunity cost. What do you get out of it? Well, it depends. Sometimes you can save a buddy who botches an important saving throw. That's good. Sometimes you try to do that and it doesn't work out, and then you're down a reaction. Sometimes you can make an enemy fail a saving throw. But that's the thing... one enemy. One ally. One attack. Even if we operate under the faulty assumption that Silvery Barb always turns a roll the way you want it to go, instead of just tilting the dice 3-4 points in your favor on average for a single roll, the impact is always limited. In order for it to be "broken" as people keep repeating, it would need to tilt entire fights. One key roll being reverse can tilt a fight, but it's not something you can rely on.

Intelligent enemies? Doesn't matter how smart they are if they rely on attack rolls. Grappled or not, most creatures in the published books need to make attack rolls to deal damage, that's the win condition of most monsters. Someone competently building an AC tower can shrug off a large part of the main way things damage you. Saving throws are a thing, yes, but they are less common, and against spells what you want is probably Counterspell more than Silvery Barbs. That said, there are cases where Silvery Barbs would be handy. It isn't isn't nearly as many as you are asserting. At this point you're probably just going to keep asserting it more because people never admit when they're wrong rather than because there's any truth behind it. One roll can be made to miss you. One. I'll grant it's versatile, you can also allow someone to remake a save, or ability check. That's handy. That's why it's a good spell. If it only impacted attack rolls it would be pretty weak, so it's good it can impact more than that.

You're just going full tilt Dunning Kruger Effect now. Again, I just think you don't know what you are talking about. Silvery Barbs is better than some 4th level spells, and only gets stronger the higher the party goes.

Better than 4th level spells? Come on now, even you can't believe that. If you do, you really should stop accusing others of suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect. Quick compare and contrast time: Silvery Barbs, force a reroll using your reaction; Polymorph, your ally can go from injured to being a giant gorilla. You're going a bit agro and dipping into the hyperbole. It doesn't make you look like you know what you're talking about when you fling out insults rather than making arguments.

You're the one who doesn't have an understanding of how powergamers think. It is very rarely powergamers who knee-jerk whine about things like this.

A massive false equivalency, sleep is a great spell early on, but there is a lot of counterplay for it. The easiest one to spot is the health pool which, 5d8 ceases to be very effective when you leave the first tier of play. The second is that it does not work on creatures that are immune to charm or undead. It also does not work on elves. Sleep is a great early game spell but it tapers off a lot sooner than shield.

My point, you missed it.

The point is that if you disingenuously (or hell, even sincerely) misrepresent a spell by highlighting its best use-case rather than how it plays in practice, you can make spells that are totally balanced, like sleep, seem broken.

Another egregious false equivalency. Web allows the enemy to make a dexterity saving throw, so creatures that are proficient or have magic resistance are going to fare much better with this. Web can be removed with fire. There are also creatures who are immune to the restrained condition such as Shadows. There is meaningful counterplay to Web. Silvery Barbs doesn't even grant the target a saving throw, it just happens. The only way to thwart it is to counterspell. They are different kinds of spells but if I could only take one of them, I would go with Silvery Barbs because it is busted.

Again, my point, you missed it.

Though I actually think web is a really good spell. The point, again, is that it's easy to take the best case assumptions for a spell and conclude erroneously that the spell is therefore broken.

I don't believe you to be a bad actor, you just don't know what you're talking about. I don't hate Silvery Barbs, it is just objectively overpowered. If that doesn't bother you that's fine, your table is your table. But I would not hold it against any DM who banned it from play.

"Objectively"? No.

 

[ECMO3]

On a reaction that requires only a verbal component, you can force disadvantage onto an enemy and grant an ally advantage

No you can't force disadvantage. You force a reroll to a roll that already suceeded. There is a HUGE difference between the two statistically. The two dice combination of disadvantage has 4 possible outcomes and three of them are failures. SB has 2 possible outcomes and only 1 is a failure.

. This first-level spell allows you to hinder an enemy and aid an ally at the same time for a very low cost. And it isn't limited to an attack you can do this for an ability check, or a saving throw. There are a lot of people that don't understand how to play this game strategically, and I am not advocating for power gaming at the expense of roleplay. I am simply stating that some people do not understand what features are strong and what features are weak, I think you are one of those people.

But it does neither automatically. It gives you a CHANCE to hinder an enemy and a CHANCE to aid an ally.

This as opposed to say the spell shield which has exactly the same cost and will almost always hinder an enemy and help an ally or absorb elements that has exactly the same cost will 100% always hinder an enemy and help an ally.

Shield and absorb elements are both objectively better at what they do, however their use is more limited (which it should be). SB has a much broader use but is far less reliable and less powerful in those circumstances.

Shield gives you plus 5 to armor class nothing more nothing less.

Shield almost always prevents you from taking a hit (often mutliple hits), thereby saving you hit points and it hinders enemies because their attacks to do less damage. And it is almost always successful in accomplishing this.

To turn your words against you: SB lets an enemy reroll a saving throw and gives an ally advantage nothing more, nothing less. More than half of the time neither of these individually will change the effect of either respective roll.

If you are facing intelligent enemies or spell casters they can opt to make you roll a saving throw instead of attacking you or just attempt to grapple you bypassing shield.

Grapple does not really bypass shield. If you are grappled you can still cast shield. They can choose to grapple instead of using another attack but if they do then they do no damage and shield is irrelevant.

Grapple is one case that SB is better than shield. You can use it to force an opponent to reroll a successful grapple check. Like most uses though, if the opponent chose to grapple you and suceeded once, chances are he will succeed again. You do have the advantage of knowing your own roll (and therefore his target). I would argue though that even if this was always successful, I don't think preventing a grapple is objectively better than preventing a damaging hit.

If you are facing a spell caster and you have counterspell they can't make you roll anything .... unless you have already used your reaction for something else.

Shield is an amazing spell, don't get me wrong but it does not scale nearly as well as Silvery barbs. When you get to higher tiers of play, it's much more likely that you will be hit regardless of whether you shield or not because the attack modifiers are too high on the enemy, which is why health scales way better than armor class.

I can say from experience this is not true and I would argue it is actually backwards. I think Shield, Absorb elements and many 1st level spells scale better than SB because of bounded accuracy.

My 13th level bladesinger went toe-to-toe with the Balor Bel 2 weeks ago and was 8hps down when the fight ended. For reference Bel is running a +16 to hit and my bladesinger was not even optimized, wearing studded leather, having no AC-increasing magic items and a 10 constitution.

The defensive 1st level spells I used included Protection from Good and Evil, absorb elements, shield and false life (the last of which was upcast at 5th level). The party sorcerer also cast Haste on me. She was running a 23AC (28 with shield) and disadvantage due to PGE.

This is a zero sum situation, to prepare Barbs she would have had to not prepare something else. I can say 100% if she had relied on Barbs instead of the other 1st level spells noted above she undoubtedly would have fared worse. Going spell-by spell - If she had SB and had chosen to prepare it instead of PGE she would have died, no doubt about it and frankly the entire party probably would have died. If she had chosen to prepare SB instead of Shield, AE or False Life she MIGHT have survived the battle but she would have lost a crapload more hps.

He Fireballed me 4 times. I made all 4 saves and used AE all 4 times and took a total of about 30 points of damage on those four fireballs combined, most of which was eaten by the false life

By the way, she did actually cast banishment during that fight, but with his +8 Charisma Save he needed a 10 to save against my 20 intelligence, meaning more likely than not it would have still been a waste with SB ..... and that is his weakest save and before he had to even tap a legendary! After he made that save we just stopped trying to be fancy and pounded him to death with damaging spells and attacks.

You just don't know what you're talking about here. Advantage and disadvantage on any aspect of combat is so domineering, to call that niche shows a laughable misunderstanding of how bounded accuracy affects combat in 5e.

Two things. First SB does NOT impose disadvantage. Second advantage is not what you are making it out to be. A Rogue can get it through a Bonus action.

To be honest I can get advantage every other turn with a cantrip .... and that is a crappy cantrip. If advantage was as
"domineering" as you claim, Truestrike would be an S-tier cantrip.

A massive false equivalency, sleep is a great spell early on, but there is a lot of counterplay for it. The easiest one to spot is the health pool which, 5d8 ceases to be very effective when you leave the first tier of play.

This is not exactly true, because it is current hps, not total hps. I don't deny that sleep is far less powerful at higher levels, but it still works quite well on a heavily damaged enemy if you have it and it can be critical in the right situation depending on initiative order.

I have had it on a high-level Rogue because I screwed up and did not have a convenient chance to replace it as I always had another spell I wanted to replace more.

I would also argue though that as saves get better on higher level monsters and as Legendary resistances become more common SB will be less effective at anything other than preventing a critical hit.

Another egregious false equivalency. Web allows the enemy to make a dexterity saving throw, so creatures that are proficient or have magic resistance are going to fare much better with this. We

And they are going to still fare much better when you use SB to make them save against it again.

This is the biggest fallacy in this. When used to repeat a save' SB is most effective when the save is hard to make, but if the save is hard to make enemies will rarely succeed and rarely give you a chance to use it.

 

[Captain Panda]

That is not to say it is not useful or not a good spell, but it is not as OP as people make out.

Oh, agreed. Just to be clear, my position isn't "this spell is useless," my position is "this spell has limited applications and is not broken as people are asserting it is."

 

[NotAYakk]

Not whenever, only when you haven't already used your reaction AND when you have not already used your reaction or won't need to AND you are within 60 feet. If ALL of those things are true you can make an enemy reroll a passed save and more often than not it will pass its save again.

Also you can't use it while dead, unconscious, silenced, or a bunch of other obvious and irrelivant reasons to add to your irrelivant nit picks above.

Yes, to cast a spell you need to cast a spell. To pay the costs which I state you have to pay those costs.

Please stop.

It uses your reaction, the only one you can take. Use it to try to banish a Lich or a Balor or a host of other enemies and the enemy saves again and now you can't counterspell it. Hardly a good trade.

Yes, I think I said it uses a reaction, and even talked about it not bring good when reactions are worth more than actions.

Bringing that up in response to my post is repeating my post. I am uncertain why you are doing that?

It's slot economy is not amazing, objectively it is not really even good. If you use it to reroll a save it means by definition you are using an extra slot to try to achieve an effect normally done using less slots. Using the hold person as an example, you are adding a 1st and 2nd level spell to try and land a 2nd level spell. The cost here is 1st and 1 2nd, not one 1st. That is equivalent to a 3rd level spell slot to achieve a 2nd level effect.

No, you have already spent the slot and failed to land the hold person. That is not part of the economy of using silcery barbs. That happens even if you don't use silvery barbs.

Silvery barbs in this situation lets you swap a 1st level slot and a reaction for the same value as you had just spent a 2nd level slot and an action on.

That is its action and slot cost. (1 reaction + 1 1st level slot) in exchange for the value of (higher level slot (2nd in your example)+ action + effect of passed save (nothing in this example)).

If casting hold person with an action and a 2nd level slot was worth it before you knew if it would fail, you are getting the same "payout" here for a reaction+1st level slot.

And when you do it on a 5th level or 7th or 9th level spell that the target passed the save on, your payout grows; the spell gets better at higher levels. Trading a 1st level slot for a 2nd isn't as impressive.

Except sage advice has already said you can't use it for this.

You use it to force the first use of LR, not a 2nd use. A successful save doesn;t burn a LR; this lets you convert "natural" successes into more chances to bait LR uses.

I have explained above in a previous post. I even mentioned I did that. I guess you missed that; sorry.

Anyhow, it ican boosts the rate you can strip LRs significantly, about half way to monk levels (better on some foes, worse on others).

Now, I have found LR to be so punative that when faced with it, most casters switch to damage mode; so maybe this isn't a bad thing.