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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ECMO3" data-source="post: 8494865" data-attributes="member: 7030563">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.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 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.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.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 lifeBy 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.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.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.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.</blockquote>

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