Int and con is a lot better than Dex and con for a bladesinger. Like that’s really your recommendation???
Are you building to be a good caster or a good melee character? If you want to be good at melee, my recommendation is Dex and Intelligence, but if you want to choose between the two Dexterity is clearly the better of the two. Here are the resons why:
Dexterity adds to AC all the time, Intelligence only adds in bladesong
You can use Dexterity for attacking all the time with a Finesse weapon, you can only use Intelligence when in Bladesong
The best melee cantrips work off of Dexterity
Shadowblade works off of Dexterity
The only thing that works off of Intelligence exclusively is Truestrike and in melee that is substantially outclassed by both Booming Blade and Greed Flame Blade.
I think getting Constitution over either of those is a very bad choice, but if you want to get something in Constitution from a book background then Dexterity+Con is a better option than Intelligence+Con, especially given the feats associated with those two backgrounds.
I don’t agree. If there was a magic initiate background that could take strength without dex or con I’d have happily chosen it.
Well you are purposely choosing a mechanically poor choice for the Bladesinger. I think that is disengenuous.
Criminal gives all 3: Intelligence, Dexterity and Constitution, as well as a better Origin Feat than Sage.
If your argument is that a Bladesinger who makes bad choices is bad at melee I would gladly agree with you.
But that ignores 2 critical aspects - action economy and buffs really matters.
1. Giving up actions during combat to cast false life isn’t good solution. I’m confident saying any EK actually attacking is vastly superior to the Bkadesinger that uses combat actions for false life.
That is why you cast false out of combat using a high level slot. Playing a 7th level Bladesinger you wake up in the morning and cast a 4th level Flase life (with the new FR spells I would actually use a 3rd level slot instead, I would not use a 4th level spell for that in a modern Bladesinger, I would keep it for Backlash).
You don't generally cast False Life at all in combat, if you are getting damaged you would cast Arcane Vigor, which is a bonus action, or Armor of Agathys if you have it from Runecarver which is also now a bonus action. But you are entering the fight with more total hit points than the fighter and taking less damage at most levels. You are taking a lot less damage at high levels.
When is the Eldrictch Knight casting those 6 spells he has?
2. Extending the adventuring day causes other offensive problems for the bladesinger as he has limited slots to keep his strong buff spells going.
He has a lot of spell slots available. A lot more than an Eldritch Knight.
Essentially to do as you suggest you end up tanking your dpr for more survivability. That’s just not a good tradeoff.
No it is not tanked.
Like if your proposal is the bladesinger stops attacking and casts false life a bunch, we can say he’s 50% more survivable (or whatever the number comes out to) but the EK does 400% more damage or whatever the number comes out to.
He is not, he is more like 150% more survivable.
There are a lot of variables, but I have played multiple Bladesingers to level 20, 1 Eldritch Knight to level 20 and several Eldritch Knights at lower levels.
I don't remember ever casting False Life during combat, but that is what most of my 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th and 9th level spell slots were used for on every Bladesinger I played. Like well over 50% of the time I cast a spell with one of those slots it was False Life and when they were not used for that they were used for Song of Defense. 6th level slots were the exception, most of those were used on Contingency and some for Tasha's Guise. With the new rules I would not use 4th level slots for False Life.
There’s just no way to maintain the originally calculated damage I gave with any assumptions that allow the extra slots to be used for false life.
Yes there is and it is even more so when you consider getting into melee.
The Bladesinger is faster and has spells to get him there, to include Bonus action spells like Misty Step. They can fly to engage a flying enemy in melee and can do it with a bonus action at high levels.
They have low level spells that he casts out of combat that damages enemies that hit him in melee, he has spells that dramatically reduce damage he takes on something that makes it through (Absorb Elements, Backlash). He has spells that take a bonus action and boost damage.
...and it took giants or more who got lucky or somehow gained advantage to negate the disadvantage in order to have a chance of hitting me.
