D&D 5E Totally underwhelmed by 5e bladesinger, am I missing something?

[WarpedAcorn]

I remember back in 3rd Edition when I was doing Living Greyhawk that I could not wait until I qualified for Bladesinger. Something about it was super alluring and I was in love with the idea. When I actually qualified for the class I ended up not taking it. During the journey to get there I had noticed that what the Bladesinger did was not syncing up with how I was playing and what my roles in the group had been. Ultimately instead of Bladesinger I went Spellsword and I still think that it was a better choice at the time.

Fast forward to 5th Edition. At first Bladesinger looked super awesome and OP. It has a lot of flash and a lot of things that appeal to people looking for a gish build, especially when compared to the traditional Schools that only get a couple of abilities. But after the initial shock and awe wore off I thought that it looked pretty good, but was by no means OP.

Recently, one of the players at our table has rolled a Bladesinger, so I've gotten to see it in action. Overall, I'm not super impressed (and he has a 20 in Dex & Int). I definitely don't think its a bad choice, and having that bonus AC can be a huge benefit...but I think the build gives off the vibe that the Wizard should be up on the front lines, and I think that is a trap. I admit, the AC boost is significant, and by burning spell slots you can get even higher AC, but you still have Wizard HP. All it takes is one Crit and you are out of the fight.

I know Horwatch mentioned that you can outdo Cantrip damage with the melee attacks, but at the same time being in melee puts you at a bigger risk. Bladesinger definitely gives you that option though.

Overall, I think Bladesinger as a Wizard Specialty is just fine. I'm not sure of the numbers crunching how it would compare to an Abjurer in terms of straight defense, but I don't think it would be leaps and bounds ahead. And like I mentioned, the biggest pitfall of Bladesinger is tricking the player into thinking they are Eldritch Knights or that their default place is on the front lines. Afterall, a Bladesinger is still a Wizard.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

When you have a primary caster class (or a primary melee class), the gish subclass is just a bayonet attached to a rifle. You are adding flexibility (sometimes it is better to stab something than to blast it and vice versa). You can decide stabbing people with the bayonetted rifle is how you are primarily going to use the rifle, and that is fine, but you can't turn around and complain that you aren't killing as many people as the guy who is shooting people with his rifle, because the primary purpose of the rifle is to shoot people with.

[And to be clear, for a melee class "shooting people" is hitting them with a greatsword.]

 

[Chaosmancer]

Some slight Devil's advocating.

Portent is great, but not nearly as powerful as people are making it sound. It guarantees nothing unless you rolled very well/very poorly at the start of the day. If your portent is a 10 and an 11, then you might still fail what you attempt to do.

Sculpting spells is wonderful, but a lot of the time you can place AOE's to still be effective and not have to worry about allies in the blast, or, your allies are very well equipped to handle the save and/or damage (High dex rogue rarely worries about fireballs after lv 7, Bear Barbarian laughs at them)


And frankly, 1d8+5 is not bad damage, a sword and board fighter is only going to have 1d8+7 at best, and by level 8 also only have 2 attacks.


Now, my problem with Bladesong is to get the most bang for your buck, you end up a little MAD. Dex, Con, Int, all need to be +2 or +3 and Int really should be a +4 or +5.

And yeah, it is a way to turn a wizard into a melee combatant. Get to 14th level and you hit for 1d8+dex+int twice, AC is 13+dex+int with mage armor, your concentration checks are con+int, and if you get smashed for a big hit, you could burn a spell slot to reduce the damage or even cancel the attack. Those times the +5 AC from shield won't save you, reduce the damage by 5 points instead. It is a solid set of abilities to add onto the wizard, because you are still a 14th level wizard on top of it. Arcane Recovery, Ritual Casting and all.

 

[ThePolarBear]

a sword and board fighter is only going to have 1d8+7 at best

At level 8 an EK can have 1d8+7 (likely not, let's say 1d8+5) x2 + 1d8 + 1d8+int to a second target/2d8 on conditional activation. And an extra Feat/ASI to increase damage.

So no, not really at best... and i do not even know if this is at best, really.

Kinda undermining your point, but i agree that 1d8+5 is not "bad damage". Just a bit "meh" ihmo.

 

[Charles Rampant]

I'm pretty sure that all of this got hashed out before. Remember there was that guy who declared that Bladesong was broken, and when people cited the Evoker's ability in return, he said that he ignored it because, "It's a twinky ability that didn't exist in 1st edition"? Good times. I thought that was so funny, I shared it with my players.

Anyway, yeah, Bladesingers are cool. Their main benefit, from what I've seen, is offering a different 'flavour' of wizard. While an Evoker and a Illusionist might feel relatively similar a lot of the time, the Bladesinger definitely feels a step removed into the Gish camp. The fact that most of the time it will be doing roughly the same sorts of things doesn't impair that, and it gives the Wizard class a lot more appeal to some people who really don't want to play Gandalf, but instead something closer to a swashbuckling clever lad with a magical rapier in one hand and a spellbook in the other. 5e is pretty good at serving that particular niche, between Arcane Trickster, Valor Bard, Eldritch Knight and Bladesinger. As for balance, if we're being honest I tend not to have my monsters attack the wizard all that often anyway. I like to let the Tank feel special by having the monsters crush his/her skull in every third fight...

 

[hejtmane]

At level 8 an EK can have 1d8+7 (likely not, let's say 1d8+5) x2 + 1d8 + 1d8+int to a second target/2d8 on conditional activation. And an extra Feat/ASI to increase damage.

So no, not really at best... and i do not even know if this is at best, really.

Kinda undermining your point, but i agree that 1d8+5 is not "bad damage". Just a bit "meh" ihmo.

With dueling you add +2 damage to both paths so 4.5 +2 +5=11 22 damage average then add greenflame blade +4.5 so 26.5 average if you hit on all attacks on a ST if someone is nerby add 9+int to a second target. Then armor class can be 20 with plate + shield or a dex based 19 and then shield spell/absorb elements and not worry about using your spell slots for defense.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Wow, think you could try that without words like "retard"?

Forget it, he realized he was in over his head on gaining respect and decided to go big rather than go home in trying to get a rise out of people. So he's a laughingstock now. No need to belabor it.

 

[ThePolarBear]

[MENTION=6799371]hejtmane[/MENTION] Dueling was already counted. You know, 1d8 + 7 is impossible with just stats in this situation. I was assuming a very safe 16 in str/dex.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Anyway, yeah, Bladesingers are cool. Their main benefit, from what I've seen, is offering a different 'flavour' of wizard. While an Evoker and a Illusionist might feel relatively similar a lot of the time, the Bladesinger definitely feels a step removed into the Gish camp. The fact that most of the time it will be doing roughly the same sorts of things doesn't impair that, and it gives the Wizard class a lot more appeal to some people who really don't want to play Gandalf, but instead something closer to a swashbuckling clever lad with a magical rapier in one hand and a spellbook in the other. 5e is pretty good at serving that particular niche, between Arcane Trickster, Valor Bard, Eldritch Knight and Bladesinger. As for balance, if we're being honest I tend not to have my monsters attack the wizard all that often anyway. I like to let the Tank feel special by having the monsters crush his/her skull in every third fight...

^^^
Very much this!

I tend to think of it as fractions (perhaps because of how they do the spell slots with multiclassing). A fighter is 100% fight. An EK is 2/3 fight and 1/3 magic. A Bladesinger doesn't actually give up slots, but they play like a 1/3 fight, 2/3 magic class. I think they do this just fine. What they give up is roughly equivalent to the other "good" wizardly specializations, but probably not the best. I think to the OP's dissatisfaction, the real problem I think is that there needs to be a 50:50 arcane class, similar to the paladin/ranger. That will not be easy to craft, however, and I can see why they aren't just making it as a sub-class.

 

[Zardnaar]

Some slight Devil's advocating.

Portent is great, but not nearly as powerful as people are making it sound. It guarantees nothing unless you rolled very well/very poorly at the start of the day. If your portent is a 10 and an 11, then you might still fail what you attempt to do.

Sculpting spells is wonderful, but a lot of the time you can place AOE's to still be effective and not have to worry about allies in the blast, or, your allies are very well equipped to handle the save and/or damage (High dex rogue rarely worries about fireballs after lv 7, Bear Barbarian laughs at them)


And frankly, 1d8+5 is not bad damage, a sword and board fighter is only going to have 1d8+7 at best, and by level 8 also only have 2 attacks.


Now, my problem with Bladesong is to get the most bang for your buck, you end up a little MAD. Dex, Con, Int, all need to be +2 or +3 and Int really should be a +4 or +5.

And yeah, it is a way to turn a wizard into a melee combatant. Get to 14th level and you hit for 1d8+dex+int twice, AC is 13+dex+int with mage armor, your concentration checks are con+int, and if you get smashed for a big hit, you could burn a spell slot to reduce the damage or even cancel the attack. Those times the +5 AC from shield won't save you, reduce the damage by 5 points instead. It is a solid set of abilities to add onto the wizard, because you are still a 14th level wizard on top of it. Arcane Recovery, Ritual Casting and all.

Fighters get action surge and more feats, the other weapon users get things like rage. The fighter will likely have things like shield master or sentinel to up the damage.Its like the valor bard its not that good at fighting despite martial weapons and two attacks. The arcane Paladin (50/50 caster) is a multiclass warlock combined with the fighter 1-2 level dip.