For example, I roll for a Dex save, DC13. I roll 14 with no Dex bonis, so I pass. Mr Annoying Wizard casts silver barbs, I roll again and get 19. Silver barbs wasted.
The difference between silver barbs and other spells that give advantage/disadvantage is that you're not going to waste it by using it when it's redundant. That's actually a major advantage. You're not going to cast it on a failed save (if you want it to fail).My understanding is that the system works around a rough 60% hit rate. Let's squint our eyes and call it 50% for ease of discussion, I do enough maths throughout the day to bother. That means half your [dis]advantages are redundant and wasted, because you would have gotten the result you wanted anyway. Since you don't waste those redundant, it is effectively twice as powerful as a normal because it is effective twice as often (again, with squinted eyes).
I do think we need to give it chance to play before banning it. There are different quirks that have unpredictable effects and I find that that theory is heavily influenced by our hopes and fears. Still, I have a L8 Wizard. I rarely use L1 slots anymore because my higher ones are just more useful and I rarely get down to my L1 slots. On top of that, I rarely use my reaction, so I see myself using this spell virtually every round of my final battle each day because...why not?
Is that a healthy spell to have?
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This is a misconception. For the above mentioned spells you have to roll and if you succeed on the attack, or the target fails their save, then the target is definitely negatively affected. Barbs does force the target to roll. But that roll is not guaranteed to be lower than the original, or even if it is is not guaranteed to be low enough to fail. As I said before, if you require a save and the target fails, then does the required re-roll and the result is higher than the original, then the failed save was pointless as was spending the spell slot and reaction.
I am confused by the bolded part, if you cast say disintegrate on a target and they fail the save, why are you casting silvery barbs? The spell is a reaction to a roll, so if they fail the save you wouldn't cast it yeah?
I guess they confused their scenarios a bit there. I imagine what they tried to say was that if the target succeeds/the friendly fails, you cast it and the target still succeeds/the friendly still fails you did nothing except for wasting a spell slot.
Which is fair but then again no other reaction spell would help making the target fail their roll there (counterspell would likely be the better choice to protect a friendly though) and well it's still a dice rolling game. If you always assume that the enemy rolls are always going to succeed then why cast any save spell in the first place? So yeah there are some spells like counterspelling a low level spell or shield that gives a fix +5 to your AC so they're more reliable but that doesn't make Silvery Barbs bad at all.
Ah yeah I could see that, and yes some people are saying but they can still roll a success! And well yeah.. its like you said a dice roll, we could also point to spells cast at 4th lvl or higher means CS can fail, or the wizard your countering can also counter your counterspell causing it to fail outright. or that hits against you that beat your ac by 5, or simply miss making shield less valuable but we know that's just an asinine argument to make against CS or shield.
Also similarly guiding bolt can miss but that doesn't make it less powerful, Faerie fire they can pass their saves and your allies can fail theirs being a total detriment if you keep it up so on and so forth
So I'm not exactly sure how the fact that the target can still succeed takes any power away from barbs. It also as kaboom pointed out does always still grant the advantage part of its effect regardless of if the other portion works or not
This whole thread is pretty funny if you step back and look at it. The same arguments made by the same people on both sides on repeat. I think it is safe to say that opinions are not likely to be swayed here.
But
I do wonder what the out come of this poll would be if it were made a year from now when Silvery Barbs is no longer the new hot ticket item.
Frankly, I'm astonished I've gotten the response count I have on this thing. Over two hundred votes total, with "Busted" carrying just over fifty percent of the vote as of time of writing. It's gratifying to see, and it shows that yeah, the spell is super divisive and 'raises eyebrows' as somebody else put it, but it's not as cut-and-dried as a lot of folks think.
At this point I'm not necessarily preaching the whole second-level thing, but I wouldn't go apoplectic if it was changed to second level, either. That seems as decent a spot for it to sit as first, though I remind people that first-level spells - despite prevailing opinion in this thread - are not supposed to be all strictly terrible horrible no-good wastes of space you just endure till you get to the good stuff. First-level spells are just as important a piece of the toolkit as fifth, or even ninth; having really good, useful first-level spells that are fun to cast is arguably more important than any other spell level, since you ALWAYS have first-level spells on a spellcaster but you're never technically guaranteed anything else.
Heh. Yeah, I feel kinda obligated to playtest it at this point. That bard I mentioned earlier in the thread is the party's one and only utility caster; I currently have dissonant whispers. faerie fire, healing word, disguise self, and detect magic as her first-level loadout. The first three are absolutely non-negotiable, you do not get to bard without taking Whispers, Fire, and HW. Or at least I'm not going to, in the one and only game where I will ever bard. And frankly, when you look like this and have the reputation this gal does, Disguise Self is pretty much just as mandatory :P
I could pitch Detect Magic, sure...but I'm legitimately not sure whether Barbs would be a better choice for the party than Detect Magic. We already have no Identify, which is gonna suck major rocks. No ritual utility at all, and I ain't got the room for Ritual Caster to patch that. Having no Detect Magic just seems like handing the DM a gold-plated excuse to hose us in ways DMs rarely get to employ, it's a real hard sell being 'the utility caster' with no Detect Magic. Dunno. Curious what other folks might think, given the hooplah about Barbs being 'too good' for first level.
On top of that, I rarely use my reaction, so I see myself using this spell virtually every round of my final battle each day because...why not?
Is that a healthy spell to have?
Yes, there's no reward for going into a long rest with unused spell slots. Better to have resources you can use than resources that are wasted.
I look at it like this. If your level 1 party gets to have either a wand of magic missiles or a wand of silvery barbs, which would you choose? I suspect direct damage is still king at lower levels, and I would take the wand of MM at least 9 times out of 10. And by the time it isn't, the increased attacks per action, more creatures with multiattack, characters gaining feats, probably generally facing more enemies in combats, and higher proficiency bonuses are going to water down silvery barbs a little.
2. The effect is atypical and circumvents legendary resistances in what some people believe is an unintended way. Since LR causes a success, SB can then force a reroll after LR has been used. That's weird, and the uniqueness of it is a point in its favor -- even if all the other stuff I said wasn't true, you might take it just for this one use case, because nothing else can do it.
I would not consider LR to be "a successful d20 roll" as required by the spell. Now you can use Silvery Barbs to force a creature to expend the LR ability, but it is still a special ability and not a d20 roll.
Unfortunately, "a successful d20 roll" isn't what the spell description says. It says "succeeds on a [...] saving throw."
Unfortunately, "a successful d20 roll" isn't what the spell description says. It says "succeeds on a [...] saving throw."
Sure. Legendary Resistance succeeds on a saving throw. Silvery barbs says "when a creature succeeds on a ...saving throw..., you can force them to reroll, possibly turning success into failure." Silvery Barbs lets you change the number on the dice. Legendary Resistance says "the number on the dice doesn't matter, this critter succeeds anyways". Silvery barbs could change the number on the saving-throw dice to 1, and Legendary Resistance would not care because it ignores the roll entirely in favor of "you succeed". You're not forcing the creature to make a new save, you're mucking with the save it already made, which means the Legendary Resistance it used on that save still applies no matter how many times the party Barbs's it.
2. The effect is atypical and circumvents legendary resistances in what some people believe is an unintended way. Since LR causes a success, SB can then force a reroll after LR has been used. That's weird, and the uniqueness of it is a point in its favor -- even if all the other stuff I said wasn't true, you might take it just for this one use case, because nothing else can do it.
I would not consider LR to be "a successful d20 roll" as required by the spell. Now you can use Silvery Barbs to force a creature to expend the LR ability, but it is still a special ability and not a d20 roll.
Unfortunately, "a successful d20 roll" isn't what the spell description says. It says "succeeds on a [...] saving throw."
and rerolling the dice that has already resulted in a failure doesn't matter since it can't change the outcome.
Unfortunately, "a successful d20 roll" isn't what the spell description says. It says "succeeds on a [...] saving throw."
Sure. Legendary Resistance succeeds on a saving throw. Silvery barbs says "when a creature succeeds on a ...saving throw..., you can force them to reroll, possibly turning success into failure." Silvery Barbs lets you change the number on the dice. Legendary Resistance says "the number on the dice doesn't matter, this critter succeeds anyways". Silvery barbs could change the number on the saving-throw dice to 1, and Legendary Resistance would not care because it ignores the roll entirely in favor of "you succeed". You're not forcing the creature to make a new save, you're mucking with the save it already made, which means the Legendary Resistance it used on that save still applies no matter how many times the party Barbs's it.
Legendary Resistance wins.
That's certainly one interpretation.
The text for LR *actually* says "If the [boss] fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead." I would suggest that it's perfectly reasonable to rule that this means that the boss chooses to succeed, triggering the Barbs, which then causes him to roll again and potentially fail, at which point he could choose to use another LR to succeed. Furthermore, I would suggest that there's nothing indicating that your suggestion is any more -- or less -- appropriate than mine.
Silvery Barbs' spell text states "The triggering creature must reroll the d20 and use the lower roll."
The triggering creature does not make a new save. It uses the lower roll on its original save. The one where legendary resistance says "if you fail, you can choose to succeed instead". The creature has already chosen to succeed on that roll. There is no 'stack' in D&D, this is not Magic: the Gathering no matter how hard Wizards is trying to make those two the same thing. I don't have the link as I heard it secondhand (If someone else can provide it I'd be appreciativer), but the development team has already chimed in on this issue: legendary resistance beats Silvery Barbs, always. If someone wants to rule otherwise because they're fishing for reasons why Silvery Barbs should be banned forever and nobody should be able to muck with dice rolls ever again, that's on them, not the spell or the game.
For example, I roll for a Dex save, DC13. I roll 14 with no Dex bonis, so I pass. Mr Annoying Wizard casts silver barbs, I roll again and get 19. Silver barbs wasted.
The difference between silver barbs and other spells that give advantage/disadvantage is that you're not going to waste it by using it when it's redundant. That's actually a major advantage. You're not going to cast it on a failed save (if you want it to fail).My understanding is that the system works around a rough 60% hit rate. Let's squint our eyes and call it 50% for ease of discussion, I do enough maths throughout the day to bother. That means half your [dis]advantages are redundant and wasted, because you would have gotten the result you wanted anyway. Since you don't waste those redundant, it is effectively twice as powerful as a normal because it is effective twice as often (again, with squinted eyes).
I do think we need to give it chance to play before banning it. There are different quirks that have unpredictable effects and I find that that theory is heavily influenced by our hopes and fears. Still, I have a L8 Wizard. I rarely use L1 slots anymore because my higher ones are just more useful and I rarely get down to my L1 slots. On top of that, I rarely use my reaction, so I see myself using this spell virtually every round of my final battle each day because...why not?
Is that a healthy spell to have?
I actually think incentivizing a medium level caster to use their lower level spells slots is a good thing. As for you rarely using your reactions, I think that is unfortunate that your DM is missing an opportunity to challenge you in this way, especially at level 8, but if you are both having fun I suppose that does not matter. When I played a wizard, I was not the most targeted PC on the field, but to not have Shield prepared would have been a miscalculation. At level 8, a wizard can handle maybe one or two rounds of unopposed, successful targeting from multiple weaker enemies. I probably used it every few battles. A single, standard big daddy, CR8 monster has the ability to one-shot a wizard.
I think this comes down to philosophy. An unused Shield is not useless in my mind, just like an unused Counterspell is not useless. But yes, I do think Silvery Barbs can and should be used offensively when the conditions of the battle suit its use.
This whole thread is pretty funny if you step back and look at it. The same arguments made by the same people on both sides on repeat. I think it is safe to say that opinions are not likely to be swayed here.
But
I do wonder what the out come of this poll would be if it were made a year from now when Silvery Barbs is no longer the new hot ticket item.
Frankly, I'm astonished I've gotten the response count I have on this thing. Over two hundred votes total, with "Busted" carrying just over fifty percent of the vote as of time of writing. It's gratifying to see, and it shows that yeah, the spell is super divisive and 'raises eyebrows' as somebody else put it, but it's not as cut-and-dried as a lot of folks think.
At this point I'm not necessarily preaching the whole second-level thing, but I wouldn't go apoplectic if it was changed to second level, either. That seems as decent a spot for it to sit as first, though I remind people that first-level spells - despite prevailing opinion in this thread - are not supposed to be all strictly terrible horrible no-good wastes of space you just endure till you get to the good stuff. First-level spells are just as important a piece of the toolkit as fifth, or even ninth; having really good, useful first-level spells that are fun to cast is arguably more important than any other spell level, since you ALWAYS have first-level spells on a spellcaster but you're never technically guaranteed anything else.
That's definitely a good thing, if it was massively in favor of busted that would show a serious disconnect between the design team and the players. a 50/50 seating of OP to I think its ok I think shows it's seriously the verge of at least being OP if it's not actually (and that's just going to come down to how you value it) but at least it's not coming in as just flat out broken
I honestly think comparing Silvery Barbs to Shield is a bit of a mistake. Sure, they're both reaction spells, but beyond that? I don't see the similarity; Silvery Barbs affects one enemy roll and grants an ally advantage, Shield buffs AC and lasts until the start of your next turn. To me the comparison just feels like a reach that would make Stretch Armstrong wince.
What I'm trying to do with these comparisons is prove that the things Silvery Barbs can do have existed in D&D 5e for a long time. This spell is not a wild divergence from everything we've ever known that's radically changing the face of D&D as we know it, it's simply an assemblage of things other spells can do in an arguably too-convenient package. People are acting like this spell will blow up the entire edition, and that this is the first time in D&D history they've been able to hedge their bet on a save-or-suck control spell. That is simply not true. One can argue that the spell is not costly enough for what it provides, and there's reasonable arguments to be made there. But the pants-staining panic I've seen in a couple of plays is dismaying and unnecessary.
I do not and never have cared for "THE SKY IS FALLING!" protestations of eternal damnation. The spell is fine. All it can do is cause a die roll to flub, and if a DM isn't prepared for any given roll to go any given way they shouldn't be DMing. Might it have been a better choice to rate it second level, like all the other Strixhaven spells? Perhaps. Frankly I'm not opposed to the notion, and if a DM wants to houserule/homebrew Silvery Barbs as a second-level spell rather than a first, I would not give them the sass. But the overblown outcry is just frustrating.
Are those the arguments you've been hearing? I've read every post in this thread so far, and I don't think that's how I'd characterize what I've heard. I would go as far as to suggest that you are exaggerating the responses significantly. Probably for humorous intent, but the knock-on effect is to create a strawman.
I wouldn't necessarily say I've been hearing those arguments here, but I have heard them elsewhere. That Silvery Barbs is going to "break 5th edition" or that "you're nerfing yourself if you don't take this spell".
This entire book won't be at my game table, especially Silvery Barbs. It is an absurd 1st level spell. Every single character that has spell slots should take this spell. You'd be crazy not to.
I have been over these points already. The versatility of the spell does not make it overpowered. Bane and Bless are objectively better in situations where there is more than one target. With Shield, you can already know whether you can neutralize the attack before you cast it (and therefore whether you want to burn the spell slot and reaction). You cannot do that with Silvery Barbs. All of this we have been over in great detail. If you trade some of these things for SIlvery Barbs as a catch-all, you are sandbagging yourself. Play how you want, but as likely the only person in this thread who has actually played with this spell so far, I am telling you that you are making a mistake. The spell is great, powerful even, but not an adequate replacement for any of these in all or even most situations.
I have been over these points already. The versatility of the spell does not make it overpowered. Bane and Bless are objectively better in situations where there is more than one target. With Shield, you can already know whether you can neutralize the attack before you cast it (and therefore whether you want to burn the spell slot and reaction). You cannot do that with Silvery Barbs. All of this we have been over in great detail. If you trade some of these things for SIlvery Barbs as a catch-all, you are sandbagging yourself. Play how you want, but as likely the only person in this thread who has actually played with this spell so far, I am telling you that you are making a mistake. The spell is great, powerful even, but not an adequate replacement for any of these in all or even most situations.
To be fair, the bolded part isnt necessarily true. Unless you have a DM that shares the value of their rolls immediately, all you know when cast Shield is that the attack hit you. You do not know whether the +5 will be sufficient for the attack not to hit, nor is there a guarantee that it will be helpful against subsequent attacks. The Shield spell can very well fail you. I find it unlikely a +5 for a round will not have any impact, but I also find it very unlikely that having 2 more d20s rolled in your side's favor with barbs will not have any impact either
But, as Mezzurah has pointed out, the effectiveness of Shield is not the most apt comparison in the first place.
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Martial characters are often rated 'Good/Better/Best' on whether or not they have good, solid, reliable uses for their bonus action and their reaction. It's why Polearm Master is considered by intellectuals to often be superior to GWM/SS - sure, the +10 Power Strike/Power Shot options from GWM and SS are fine and all, but Polearm Master gives you a reliable bonus action and an often-reliable reaction within a single feat, offering many martial characters a huge edge in action economy. This isn't considered "Ohh Pee" so much as just smartly efficient utilization of resources - the martial character has a bonus and a reaction, why not try and use them?
Folks are unused to spellcasters being judged the same way, because Wizards typically does not allow spellcasters to have useful ways to utilize their bonus or reaction. This is usually justified by saying that spellcasters' main actions are so much more impactful than a martial character's multiattack suite, but I don't know how much I buy that because the spellcaster's actions are also limited by their spell slots. Yes, a higher-level spell is often more impactful than a three-hit combo, but the three-hit combo is limitless while the higher-level spells are usually done after three or four casts regardless of which action they use. Good bonus-action spells that aren't Smite-style weapon boosters are extremely rare, and good reaction spells are even rarer.
In that sense, Barbs might be considered "Ohh Pee" because it cracks the paradigm of not letting casters use their bonus actions or reactions for useful stuff...but I'd ask why people think that paradigm is okay in the first place? Why should spellcasters, which already have to pay for their spells with bad armor, bad HP, nonexistent weapon combat, limited usage via spell slots, and often drastically fewer and less impactful class features than martial characters, also have to give up making full use of their turn every turn the way so many martial characters can? Is there a particular reason, beyond "spells are too powerful!", that people can think of as to why spellcasters shouldn't be given more options to fully utilize their turn in the game?
I have been over these points already. The versatility of the spell does not make it overpowered. Bane and Bless are objectively better in situations where there is more than one target. With Shield, you can already know whether you can neutralize the attack before you cast it (and therefore whether you want to burn the spell slot and reaction). You cannot do that with Silvery Barbs. All of this we have been over in great detail. If you trade some of these things for SIlvery Barbs as a catch-all, you are sandbagging yourself. Play how you want, but as likely the only person in this thread who has actually played with this spell so far, I am telling you that you are making a mistake. The spell is great, powerful even, but not an adequate replacement for any of these in all or even most situations.
To be fair, the bolded part isnt necessarily true. Unless you have a DM that shares the value of their rolls immediately, all you know when cast Shield is that the attack hit you. You do not know whether the +5 will be sufficient for the attack not to hit, nor is there a guarantee that it will be helpful against subsequent attacks. The Shield spell can very well fail you. I find it unlikely a +5 for a round will not have any impact, but I also find it very unlikely that having 2 more d20s rolled in your side's favor with barbs will not have any impact either
But, as Mezzurah has pointed out, the effectiveness of Shield is not the most apt comparison in the first place.
I thought someone might call this out. I will direct you to my key word here: you can know. You do not necessarily always know or get to know. I do not speak for everyone, but there has only been one table I played at where the hit was not called out, and that was only because no one in the party had an answer for it. It seems standard practice in my experience. In my opinion, a DM who refuses to share that with the intent to make wizards waste Shield is kind of playing with a DM vs player mindset, but that, again, comes down to philosophy.
A nit pick:
You can waste silver barbs.
For example, I roll for a Dex save, DC13. I roll 14 with no Dex bonis, so I pass. Mr Annoying Wizard casts silver barbs, I roll again and get 19. Silver barbs wasted.
The difference between silver barbs and other spells that give advantage/disadvantage is that you're not going to waste it by using it when it's redundant. That's actually a major advantage. You're not going to cast it on a failed save (if you want it to fail).My understanding is that the system works around a rough 60% hit rate. Let's squint our eyes and call it 50% for ease of discussion, I do enough maths throughout the day to bother. That means half your [dis]advantages are redundant and wasted, because you would have gotten the result you wanted anyway. Since you don't waste those redundant, it is effectively twice as powerful as a normal because it is effective twice as often (again, with squinted eyes).
I do think we need to give it chance to play before banning it. There are different quirks that have unpredictable effects and I find that that theory is heavily influenced by our hopes and fears. Still, I have a L8 Wizard. I rarely use L1 slots anymore because my higher ones are just more useful and I rarely get down to my L1 slots. On top of that, I rarely use my reaction, so I see myself using this spell virtually every round of my final battle each day because...why not?
Is that a healthy spell to have?
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Ah yeah I could see that, and yes some people are saying but they can still roll a success! And well yeah.. its like you said a dice roll, we could also point to spells cast at 4th lvl or higher means CS can fail, or the wizard your countering can also counter your counterspell causing it to fail outright. or that hits against you that beat your ac by 5, or simply miss making shield less valuable but we know that's just an asinine argument to make against CS or shield.
Also similarly guiding bolt can miss but that doesn't make it less powerful, Faerie fire they can pass their saves and your allies can fail theirs being a total detriment if you keep it up so on and so forth
So I'm not exactly sure how the fact that the target can still succeed takes any power away from barbs. It also as kaboom pointed out does always still grant the advantage part of its effect regardless of if the other portion works or not
Frankly, I'm astonished I've gotten the response count I have on this thing. Over two hundred votes total, with "Busted" carrying just over fifty percent of the vote as of time of writing. It's gratifying to see, and it shows that yeah, the spell is super divisive and 'raises eyebrows' as somebody else put it, but it's not as cut-and-dried as a lot of folks think.
At this point I'm not necessarily preaching the whole second-level thing, but I wouldn't go apoplectic if it was changed to second level, either. That seems as decent a spot for it to sit as first, though I remind people that first-level spells - despite prevailing opinion in this thread - are not supposed to be all strictly terrible horrible no-good wastes of space you just endure till you get to the good stuff. First-level spells are just as important a piece of the toolkit as fifth, or even ninth; having really good, useful first-level spells that are fun to cast is arguably more important than any other spell level, since you ALWAYS have first-level spells on a spellcaster but you're never technically guaranteed anything else.
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Heh. Yeah, I feel kinda obligated to playtest it at this point. That bard I mentioned earlier in the thread is the party's one and only utility caster; I currently have dissonant whispers. faerie fire, healing word, disguise self, and detect magic as her first-level loadout. The first three are absolutely non-negotiable, you do not get to bard without taking Whispers, Fire, and HW. Or at least I'm not going to, in the one and only game where I will ever bard. And frankly, when you look like this and have the reputation this gal does, Disguise Self is pretty much just as mandatory :P
I could pitch Detect Magic, sure...but I'm legitimately not sure whether Barbs would be a better choice for the party than Detect Magic. We already have no Identify, which is gonna suck major rocks. No ritual utility at all, and I ain't got the room for Ritual Caster to patch that. Having no Detect Magic just seems like handing the DM a gold-plated excuse to hose us in ways DMs rarely get to employ, it's a real hard sell being 'the utility caster' with no Detect Magic. Dunno. Curious what other folks might think, given the hooplah about Barbs being 'too good' for first level.
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Yes, there's no reward for going into a long rest with unused spell slots. Better to have resources you can use than resources that are wasted.
I look at it like this. If your level 1 party gets to have either a wand of magic missiles or a wand of silvery barbs, which would you choose? I suspect direct damage is still king at lower levels, and I would take the wand of MM at least 9 times out of 10. And by the time it isn't, the increased attacks per action, more creatures with multiattack, characters gaining feats, probably generally facing more enemies in combats, and higher proficiency bonuses are going to water down silvery barbs a little.
Unfortunately, "a successful d20 roll" isn't what the spell description says. It says "succeeds on a [...] saving throw."
Sure.
Legendary Resistance succeeds on a saving throw. Silvery barbs says "when a creature succeeds on a ...saving throw..., you can force them to reroll, possibly turning success into failure."
Silvery Barbs lets you change the number on the dice. Legendary Resistance says "the number on the dice doesn't matter, this critter succeeds anyways". Silvery barbs could change the number on the saving-throw dice to 1, and Legendary Resistance would not care because it ignores the roll entirely in favor of "you succeed". You're not forcing the creature to make a new save, you're mucking with the save it already made, which means the Legendary Resistance it used on that save still applies no matter how many times the party Barbs's it.
Legendary Resistance wins.
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and rerolling the dice that has already resulted in a failure doesn't matter since it can't change the outcome.
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That's certainly one interpretation.
The text for LR *actually* says "If the [boss] fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead." I would suggest that it's perfectly reasonable to rule that this means that the boss chooses to succeed, triggering the Barbs, which then causes him to roll again and potentially fail, at which point he could choose to use another LR to succeed. Furthermore, I would suggest that there's nothing indicating that your suggestion is any more -- or less -- appropriate than mine.
Silvery Barbs' spell text states "The triggering creature must reroll the d20 and use the lower roll."
The triggering creature does not make a new save. It uses the lower roll on its original save. The one where legendary resistance says "if you fail, you can choose to succeed instead". The creature has already chosen to succeed on that roll. There is no 'stack' in D&D, this is not Magic: the Gathering no matter how hard Wizards is trying to make those two the same thing. I don't have the link as I heard it secondhand (If someone else can provide it I'd be appreciativer), but the development team has already chimed in on this issue: legendary resistance beats Silvery Barbs, always. If someone wants to rule otherwise because they're fishing for reasons why Silvery Barbs should be banned forever and nobody should be able to muck with dice rolls ever again, that's on them, not the spell or the game.
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I actually think incentivizing a medium level caster to use their lower level spells slots is a good thing. As for you rarely using your reactions, I think that is unfortunate that your DM is missing an opportunity to challenge you in this way, especially at level 8, but if you are both having fun I suppose that does not matter. When I played a wizard, I was not the most targeted PC on the field, but to not have Shield prepared would have been a miscalculation. At level 8, a wizard can handle maybe one or two rounds of unopposed, successful targeting from multiple weaker enemies. I probably used it every few battles. A single, standard big daddy, CR8 monster has the ability to one-shot a wizard.
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Hello ArntItheBest,
I think this comes down to philosophy. An unused Shield is not useless in my mind, just like an unused Counterspell is not useless. But yes, I do think Silvery Barbs can and should be used offensively when the conditions of the battle suit its use.
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That's definitely a good thing, if it was massively in favor of busted that would show a serious disconnect between the design team and the players. a 50/50 seating of OP to I think its ok I think shows it's seriously the verge of at least being OP if it's not actually (and that's just going to come down to how you value it) but at least it's not coming in as just flat out broken
I honestly think comparing Silvery Barbs to Shield is a bit of a mistake. Sure, they're both reaction spells, but beyond that? I don't see the similarity; Silvery Barbs affects one enemy roll and grants an ally advantage, Shield buffs AC and lasts until the start of your next turn. To me the comparison just feels like a reach that would make Stretch Armstrong wince.
Never mind, there's one.
ArntItheBest,
I have been over these points already. The versatility of the spell does not make it overpowered. Bane and Bless are objectively better in situations where there is more than one target. With Shield, you can already know whether you can neutralize the attack before you cast it (and therefore whether you want to burn the spell slot and reaction). You cannot do that with Silvery Barbs. All of this we have been over in great detail. If you trade some of these things for SIlvery Barbs as a catch-all, you are sandbagging yourself. Play how you want, but as likely the only person in this thread who has actually played with this spell so far, I am telling you that you are making a mistake. The spell is great, powerful even, but not an adequate replacement for any of these in all or even most situations.
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Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
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To be fair, the bolded part isnt necessarily true. Unless you have a DM that shares the value of their rolls immediately, all you know when cast Shield is that the attack hit you. You do not know whether the +5 will be sufficient for the attack not to hit, nor is there a guarantee that it will be helpful against subsequent attacks. The Shield spell can very well fail you. I find it unlikely a +5 for a round will not have any impact, but I also find it very unlikely that having 2 more d20s rolled in your side's favor with barbs will not have any impact either
But, as Mezzurah has pointed out, the effectiveness of Shield is not the most apt comparison in the first place.
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Let's try this.
Martial characters are often rated 'Good/Better/Best' on whether or not they have good, solid, reliable uses for their bonus action and their reaction. It's why Polearm Master is considered by intellectuals to often be superior to GWM/SS - sure, the +10 Power Strike/Power Shot options from GWM and SS are fine and all, but Polearm Master gives you a reliable bonus action and an often-reliable reaction within a single feat, offering many martial characters a huge edge in action economy. This isn't considered "Ohh Pee" so much as just smartly efficient utilization of resources - the martial character has a bonus and a reaction, why not try and use them?
Folks are unused to spellcasters being judged the same way, because Wizards typically does not allow spellcasters to have useful ways to utilize their bonus or reaction. This is usually justified by saying that spellcasters' main actions are so much more impactful than a martial character's multiattack suite, but I don't know how much I buy that because the spellcaster's actions are also limited by their spell slots. Yes, a higher-level spell is often more impactful than a three-hit combo, but the three-hit combo is limitless while the higher-level spells are usually done after three or four casts regardless of which action they use. Good bonus-action spells that aren't Smite-style weapon boosters are extremely rare, and good reaction spells are even rarer.
In that sense, Barbs might be considered "Ohh Pee" because it cracks the paradigm of not letting casters use their bonus actions or reactions for useful stuff...but I'd ask why people think that paradigm is okay in the first place? Why should spellcasters, which already have to pay for their spells with bad armor, bad HP, nonexistent weapon combat, limited usage via spell slots, and often drastically fewer and less impactful class features than martial characters, also have to give up making full use of their turn every turn the way so many martial characters can? Is there a particular reason, beyond "spells are too powerful!", that people can think of as to why spellcasters shouldn't be given more options to fully utilize their turn in the game?
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I thought someone might call this out. I will direct you to my key word here: you can know. You do not necessarily always know or get to know. I do not speak for everyone, but there has only been one table I played at where the hit was not called out, and that was only because no one in the party had an answer for it. It seems standard practice in my experience. In my opinion, a DM who refuses to share that with the intent to make wizards waste Shield is kind of playing with a DM vs player mindset, but that, again, comes down to philosophy.
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