D&D 5E Treantmonk's Guide to Wizards 5e

[Bolares]

True albeit the main adventuring happens in the settlements (or so we've found) like Blingdenstone. The whole travelling encounter pace is a bit of an elephant in the room, to nod toward another thread. Is it similar in ToA? (Encounter dense areas surrounded by encounter sparse travel?)

Well, that depends on the style of game you're running. In my OotA, we focused a lot on the traveling part, and most of the time was spent there. Abyss is a hack of an hexcrawl game to me, but ToA focuses A LOT more on that. at least 1/3 of the game happens on the road explorin chult

 

[Rofel Wodring]

I'm only level 5 (with a Tempest cleric, not a wizard) and in the first chapter. We've been to a couple of dungeon-like locales, but haven't had more than two challenging encounters each trip. The worst thing we've seen so far is a room of cranes and two assassin vines, along with some throwaway encounters like that with crocodiles in the river. That might change at our new location later tonight.

 

[CapnZapp]

If a DM is allowing a single-encounter work-day they're distorting the game balance. That is fine for their campaign: I am not making any argument about one-encounter adventuring days.

The DM is "allowing" nothing.

He or she is simply running the adventure as written.

Any 6-8 encounter proponent must actively work to make that happen, assuming self-preserving players that don't just hold off rests because the game needs them to.

That's the entire complaint against 5e balance: it's destroyed by playing the game just like you're used to.

But that's a different discussion.



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[CapnZapp]

I did not play any differently from a wizard other than having a high AC

That's what we have been saying all along.

And to remember the key question:

Q. "does this make the BS OP?"

A. Well, not really, but it IS strong. If you want to call that OP, fine, but then do it because it overshadows Wizards with poorer defense, not because it overshadows Fighters or even comes close to."



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[CapnZapp]

During the travel part of OotA and ToA it is very common to have only one encounter per day....

I don't feel that's a good argument, to be honest.

The best thing you can do with that part is to cut it away entirely.

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[Bolares]

I don't feel that's a good argument, to be honest.

The best thing you can do with that part is to cut it away entirely.

well, that's not a point, that's a fact. Those parts are like that. And like I've said it depends on the style of game you want to run... That part was played in my game and it was awesome. So much as the players want me to focus on the exploration and travel part of ToA now...

 

[clearstream]

Any 6-8 encounter proponent must actively work to make that happen, assuming self-preserving players that don't just hold off rests because the game needs them to.

That's the entire complaint against 5e balance: it's destroyed by playing the game just like you're used to.

But that's a different discussion.

Indeed, and I feel like this elephant is a big part of why my analysis has been so at odds with that of others. As you know, I believe the game better with several encounters per "day" and have striven to achieve the DMG guideline rates in my campaign.

So you know, with that Cleric I can see it is great in two encounters a day, but then I question how good its "all Sacred Flame" strategy is going to be when it is out of 2nd and 3rd level casts? I'm valuing the Bladesinger's efficiency and sustain far too highly, because for most groups it seems like that doesn't matter much. If you're recovering all your spells between most encounters anyway, efficiency means very little.

It's clear to me that over a shorter adventuring day than the DMG guidelines appear to suggest, the Bladesinger power-point moves heavily away from melee and toward casting as a God-Wizard. The strategies players from other groups are reporting makes a lot of sense in that context.

 

[jgsugden]

What does, and does not, work in a published module often depends far more on the DM and player style of play, as well as party composition, than people realize. Having run two different parties through the same published module (not WotC - an adaption of an older adventure path) at roughly the same time early in the 5E era, I can say with authority that the experiences were very different. Even following the same written module, the two groups ended up with very different encounters. Once group completed the entire adventure in about 10 days of adventuring time while the other took at least twice as long.

 

[Rofel Wodring]

And to remember the key question:

Q. "does this make the BS OP?"

A. Well, not really, but it IS strong. If you want to call that OP, fine, but then do it because it overshadows Wizards with poorer defense, not because it overshadows Fighters or even comes close to."

Here's the thing about overshadowing wizards with poorer defense; they usually beat the Bladesinger on other areas, especially around level 14 or so.

Abjurer has a lot of the 'don't worry about me, lads' qualities of a Bladesinger but also comes with the ridiculously powerful feature of adding their proficiency bonus to Dispel Magic and Counterspell.
Conjurer isn't exactly OP right now, but after Xanathar's comes out and releases a bunch of new fiend-summoning spells we'll see.
Diviner needs no explation.
Evoker wizard, especially with Jeremy Crawford's interpretation of Empowered Invocation, does huge amounts of reliable damage especially in conjunction with Hex and Contingency. I think only the Sorlock Eldritch Blaster can consistently beat them without dipping too far into their stock of spells.
Illusionist's Malleable Illusions and Illusory Reality is outright broken if they use those abilities to their full potential.
Necromancer, if you abuse Animate Dead and your DM lets you switch out your skeletons' equipment, is just evil.
Transmuter... eh, no killer app.
I don't need to elaborate on the Theurgist.
I don't need to elaborate on the Lore Wizard.

Now, I'm not saying Bladesinger is underpowered or even not-OP. But at higher levels? At around level 11 or so, I often find myself wishing I went with a Diviner or an Illusionist or an Abjurer. The simple fact of the matter is that even with goodies like Purple Wyrm Poison (SKT has a place that lets you milk them for it if you're bold) and Flametongue Shortswords, spells will just outshine your melee capabilities. So oftentimes, you'll have wish you had something to enhance your spells rather than your melee capabilities.

That said, Bladesinger does shine in two ways. First of all, the wizard spells assume that the caster doesn't provide much in the way of melee interdiction. This was a big deal, especially at low level. Being able to trap a group of foes in a corridor caught in a Web with me on one side or corner and my buddies on the other side is a trick that never got old. Being able to get right up in the face of some caster jerk and force them to either Misty Step out of the way (and get stuck using a Cantrip) or eat a counterspell and/or melee retaliation is good, too. It's becoming less of a deal as I lean more on spells, but I'm hoping that this Ring of Free Action will breathe some life into the tactic.

Secondly, AC is still the best defense in the game and Song of Defense/Absorb Elements does stretch out their durability. Even with the reduced workdays of actually-played 5E D&D, you can still run dry on resources if you're not careful. Being able to drop a Greater Invis or a Haste on the melee characters while not being worried about painting a huge target on my head is relaxing and it HAS happened to me when I play other casters. You do not know pain until Stone Giants decide to gang up on the caster who has half of their team trapped behind a corridor Wall of Force.

 

[Rofel Wodring]

Here's the experience that changed my mind about the utility of a Bladesinger. Mild spoilers.

I've played the character in other DDAL modules, but my first real adventure was in Storm King's Thunder. And I played the character like a typical sorta-OP Bladesinger: focus on melee combat, use your spells as backup. This tactic does work pretty okay in SKT, because even during the traveling phase resources get stretched out.

However, what changed was when we went to location [REDACTED] and fought an adult [REDACTED] dragon. We got some advance warning and I was looking through my spells to see what would help. Right away you know you're going to have a bad time trying to melee a dragon with the Bladesinger toolkit. None of your Disadvantage-on-Demand spells at level 9 or so help and dragons got enough attacks at a high enough bonus to break through Bladesong + Shield without too much trouble. Since I knew dragons had Legendary saves, my backup plan of Web / Evard's / Suggestion / etc. wouldn't work too well, especially since my regular group at the time was melee-heavy except for a Dragonborn Sorcerer.

So while agonizing over how to deal with this situation and going through my spell list repeatedly, I noticed something: during a throwaway game of DDAL, I was lucky enough to meet up with another wizard and got to copy his spells. We were only level 5 at the time, but adding 20 spells to your spellbook is not an opportunity you turn down. And there was one spell I had completely overlooked until then: Ray of Enfeeblement. I realized that if I just spent the whole combat casting that, the only thing I'd have to worry about is the dragon breath (which is still a huge worry!). They could Legendary Save all they want, but I'd still get at least one round of halving all of their strength damage.

That turned an encounter I was dreading into a joke. The ancient blue dragon only got off one dragon's breath and the party laughed off the attacks. Yes, by round three I was drawing the dragon's full attention, but only about half of the attacks from then on hit me (I rolled terribly on the Wing Attack saves, sigh) between Shield and it was survivable. Everyone else rolled like crap -- I was super-fortunate to hit every round, since at a +4 INT/+4 proficiency bonus hitting was not guaranteed.

That encounter taught me two things: the first one is that there are some things a Bladesinger can do that a lot of traditional wizards can't do. The other one is that I would be playing more like a traditional wizard from then on out.