How does the Grave cleric's player know when touse their reaction if they're never informed that the trigger occurred? I agree - if the cleric cannot see the attack (i.e. a hidden attacker, as one example), they cannot react to it. But if the DM never says "that's a critical hit" and instead just says "you suffer 57 points of damage and lose a hand" when the creature normally deals ~20ish on a hit, is the Grave cleric just supposed to say "wait, was that a critical hit?! Can I stop it?"
DMs who conceal every single roll they possibly can are forgetting that the characters in the game can see and judge things the players cannot. A Grave cleric with a divine ability to 'impede death's progress' would be able to see a particularly gruesome hit coming and know their ability can stay that hit's fury to a degree. The same way a martially trained character, adept at heavy melee combat, should be able to look at a creature and judge its armor class to within a poijnt or two - the trained martial character should be able to know how difficult it will be to successfully land a strike on an enemy after a single exchange, if not sooner, unless some X-factor says otherwise. Hiding dice because that feels more immersive comes at the cost of turning characters into simpletons that miss obvious cues and facts they have no business missing.
Because at that time there is a legit compelling reason to announce that it was a critical. Something that is missing from SB and Gravithingy.
Same reason... They can deny it and also you would want to know for shield as well.
Your rationale is a bit faulty.
No it's not? Shield won't work on a crit, and I take it that's the point you're making? Grave Cleric states that you use it after a crit roll is made. Others don't. Just that you can use it in x or y cases but not that you know it's a crit.
Yes but it's a "hit" and you could use shield for no benefit.... Do you really think that's the intent?
So you would be ok with a DM saying "that hits" and you use shield.... Only for the "hit" to actually be a crit and the shield does nothing?
Silvery Barbs states that you can use it in response to a successful attack roll, save, or ability check. So the presence of the spell means that the DM has legitimate reason to announce the success of every such roll, then?
Shield specifically allows you to know the roll before you use the spell. Even the harshest readin of that spell says you get to know the number on the d20 before committing to using Shield. Barbs allows you to determine the success of a roll for something you can see, though I will always balk at the "Barbs lets you know the result of every single roll made within 60 feet of you, regardless of whewther you know that roll is being made" reading. Nevertheless, if you can see the action an enemy is taking, Barbs lets you know if it works. Or rather, you know how to tell whether it works or not well enough to reliably cast Barbs, as part of learning that spell.
Don't conceal die rolls that don't have to be concealed. It's not nearly as cool as people think it is.
Shield specifically allows you to know the roll before you use the spell. Even the harshest readin of that spell says you get to know the number on the d20 before committing to using Shield. Barbs allows you to determine the success of a roll for something you can see, though I will always balk at the "Barbs lets you know the result of every single roll made within 60 feet of you, regardless of whewther you know that roll is being made" reading. Nevertheless, if you can see the action an enemy is taking, Barbs lets you know if it works. Or rather, you know how to tell whether it works or not well enough to reliably cast Barbs, as part of learning that spell.
Don't conceal die rolls that don't have to be concealed. It's not nearly as cool as people think it is.
But again nothing here tells you that the roll was a crit. If you judge it like this, then a dm can't roll behind a screen anymore, can't fudge dice rolls. Nothing in RAW forces a dm to tell their players if an attack roll was a crit, IF there isn't a reason to do so. Grave Cleric does SB doesn't. It's not in the spell description. : You magically distract the triggering creature and turn its momentary uncertainty into encouragement for another creature. The triggering creature must reroll the d20 and use the lower roll. Nowhere does it mention you knowing if the attack was a crit or not. It just isn't in the description.
Individual playstyles across the player base is a hard thing to build around. I wonder how many DM's hide the results of their die rolls and how many share, even if they roll behind a screen? Someone should make a poll in a separate thread.
But again nothing here tells you that the roll was a crit. If you judge it like this, then a dm can't roll behind a screen anymore, can't fudge dice rolls. Nothing in RAW forces a dm to tell their players if an attack roll was a crit, IF there isn't a reason to do so. Grave Cleric does SB doesn't. It's not in the spell description. : You magically distract the triggering creature and turn its momentary uncertainty into encouragement for another creature. The triggering creature must reroll the d20 and use the lower roll. Nowhere does it mention you knowing if the attack was a crit or not. It just isn't in the description.
Oh, so your point is that SB let's you know if something is a success, but not specifically if it is a crit or not?
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
But again nothing here tells you that the roll was a crit. If you judge it like this, then a dm can't roll behind a screen anymore, can't fudge dice rolls. Nothing in RAW forces a dm to tell their players if an attack roll was a crit, IF there isn't a reason to do so. Grave Cleric does SB doesn't. It's not in the spell description. : You magically distract the triggering creature and turn its momentary uncertainty into encouragement for another creature. The triggering creature must reroll the d20 and use the lower roll. Nowhere does it mention you knowing if the attack was a crit or not. It just isn't in the description.
Oh, so your point is that SB let's you know if something is a success, but not specifically if it is a crit or not?
Yes, that's my point, same for the Chronomancer, or Cutting Words for the Lore Bard. If people are up in arms against SB they should be protesting against Chronal Shift and Cutting Words as well.
Shield specifically allows you to know the roll before you use the spell. Even the harshest readin of that spell says you get to know the number on the d20 before committing to using Shield.
The only trigger with shield is that you get attacked. The spell says nothing about the result of the attack roll, and the one specific attack is does mention doesn't use an attack roll at all:
An invisible barrier of magical force appears and protects you. Until the start of your next turn, you have a +5 bonus to AC, including against the triggering attack, and you take no damage from magic missile.
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Fair enough. My mistake, I believed it used the same wording as other, similar sorts of spells.
Regardless, I truly don't believe that concealing a roll on something the character can actively witness adds much to the game outside of narrow circumstances. yes, some rolls are indeed best behind the screen, but those are specifically rolls the character cannot easily see, or cannot see at all. You hide rolls for things the character wouldn't know they didn't see unless they made their roll, things like secret doors or traps or other "just knowing you flubbed a roll would screw this up" bits. Denying your characters information they should easily be able to see and understand in combat because you dislike reaction spells? Less okay. Not okay at all in my book, but what do I know I'm just some forum hussy.
Shield specifically allows you to know the roll before you use the spell. Even the harshest readin of that spell says you get to know the number on the d20 before committing to using Shield.
The only trigger with shield is that you get attacked. The spell says nothing about the result of the attack roll, and the one specific attack is does mention doesn't use an attack roll at all:
An invisible barrier of magical force appears and protects you. Until the start of your next turn, you have a +5 bonus to AC, including against the triggering attack, and you take no damage from magic missile.
The trigger for shield is an attack that hits, not just that you were attacked.
* - which you take when you are hit by an attack or targeted by the magic missile spell
Fair enough. My mistake, I believed it used the same wording as other, similar sorts of spells.
Regardless, I truly don't believe that concealing a roll on something the character can actively witness adds much to the game outside of narrow circumstances. yes, some rolls are indeed best behind the screen, but those are specifically rolls the character cannot easily see, or cannot see at all. You hide rolls for things the character wouldn't know they didn't see unless they made their roll, things like secret doors or traps or other "just knowing you flubbed a roll would screw this up" bits. Denying your characters information they should easily be able to see and understand in combat because you dislike reaction spells? Less okay. Not okay at all in my book, but what do I know I'm just some forum hussy.
Oh, come on I never attacked you personally. In fact, I even agree with you that SB is not op and should be banned. I just don't agree with you when it comes to crits. Or I think that's what you were saying half a dozen pages ago.
Barbs can’t save you from a crit; its trigger is a successful saving throw, not a successful attack roll.
I believe it triggers on a successful d20 roll.
Yes.
This: "which you take when a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself succeeds on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw"
So yes it can save you from a crit and no shield cannot even if you're dealing with the expanded CRIT range...
A crit is a crit.
That's part of the problem is it seems people don't seem to understand the extent of the spell.
This is a prime example.
No place in the rules does anyone have to announce they critted before damage is dealt. Attack roll -> hit or miss -> reaction or not -> damage resolution. Crit or not. Yes you can stop a crit, but you also don't know in advance that it was a crit in the first place. This spell is not broken.
That really depends on the table. I don’t know many people who don’t go “oh natural 20” when they roll one. Dms included
That's true, but that's more a tables' tradition than a rule. Of the three dms in our group, one never announced crits, even before this. One of us announced it and one, me, was on the fence. I now will stop announcing crits before damage is rolled. It adds tension and makes things like SB and the Chronomancer ability less of a problem if there was one at all. Knowing that a NPC critted is the same form of meta gaming as keeping track of the exact score of a players' hp.
Ugh, great, more withheld information during combat turns. First we have "I'm not naming my spell until after you declare whether or not you're casting Counterspell," then "I'm not revealing whether or not you successfully saved until everyone who's saving has declared whether they're using Bardic Inspiration," and now we've got "I'm not revealing I rolled a 20 until after you declare whether you're casting Silvery Barbs."
I always love when the mechanically correct, tactically superior play is also the drawn-out, annoying play. That's good design right there.
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Shield specifically allows you to know the roll before you use the spell. Even the harshest readin of that spell says you get to know the number on the d20 before committing to using Shield.
The only trigger with shield is that you get attacked. The spell says nothing about the result of the attack roll, and the one specific attack is does mention doesn't use an attack roll at all:
An invisible barrier of magical force appears and protects you. Until the start of your next turn, you have a +5 bonus to AC, including against the triggering attack, and you take no damage from magic missile.
The trigger for shield is an attack that hits, not just that you were attacked.
* - which you take when you are hit by an attack or targeted by the magic missile spell
Oh, oops, yes. I wish they'd format the mouseover so that text shows up too
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If the DM withholds the roll value and just announces hit/miss, then you also don't know whether or not it is a crit, which also tanks the value of SB. But even in that scenario, Shield is still the better spell (defensively). You don't know that Shield will work, but you also don't know if Silvery Barbs will work.
Example: If you have 15 AC and the monster has a +8 modifier. The DM rolls an attack and just says "it hits", asking for a reaction.
Shield has a ~71.5% of blocking the attack. Silvery Barbs has a 35% chance of blocking the attack. The math continues to favor Shield across a broad spectrum of attack modifiers. The only time SB is better defensively is when you have an extremely high AC compared to monster attack modifier, to the point where the monster needs to roll a 18+ to hit you in the first place - in which case, the attacks are probably relatively weak.
And if you are facing weak attacks, you are only threatened by a multitude of attacks - in which case, Shield wins again because it lasts the entire round. SB only wins against either a single very weak attack, or a single guaranteed crit. Or potentially, a single attack followed by a single saving throw, assuming you can line up the timing properly.
it seems people don't seem to understand the extent of the spell.
Totally false.
Yo... he was replying to a person who misunderstood the ability. So, your "totally false" is...well, totally false. The person he was replying to, directly quoting them, "didn't understand the extent of the spell". He is 100% correct here.
I've used a nearly identical feature (Chronal Shift) up to level 20. It was strong. I liked the ability and used it sometimes to save an ally from a critical hit, or fix my initiative if I rolled terribly, and occasionally on a saving throw. It was an ability that was nice to have. Like having a worse "Lucky" feat held in reserve (also, yes, it is worse than lucky, lucky doesn't eat your reaction) when I didn't particularly need my reaction for something else.
"Held in reserve" you say? Huh. Was that because unlike Silvery Barbs you had a hard limit of only 2 uses of chronal shift per day? Yes. That feature is incredibly strong and yet the balancing factor for it is the limited uses. Imagine, since you hit 20 on this character, you could at-will cast Silvery Barbs because of your wizard feature that gives infinity uses of a low level spell. And you could essentially force rerolls every round.
Shield isn't "nice to have."
Yes it is. You can ban the spell and the game works just fine without it. In no cases is it mandatory, it is only ever nice-to-have.
It's something you build around having and rely on to keep you alive as a properly optimized caster. In high stake fights as a caster, especially as you get higher level, your reaction is a precious resource. People keep pointing out what a great, strong ability Silvery Barbs is... but no matter how strong it is (and that's being exaggerated quite a lot), it's one roll that you might make go your way. Shield, Counterspell, Absorb Elements? Those (mostly) don't leave anything up to chance and are outright better uses of your reaction in many, many circumstances. They're much more reliable in their impact, and in the case of Shield also are going to have a much more pronounced impact in most fights, most of the time*.
I think it is odd when people say stuff like this. How exactly is any of those more reliably useable than Silvery Barbs???
Ok, yes, if you get hit, then shield can probably protect you. But, what if you ally gets hit? Is shield going to protect your ally? Silvery Barbs can. So barbs wins this hands down. If you're doing a good job being a caster you shouldn't even be getting targeted most of the time, so being able to use your reaction to help an ally will, should, come up far far far more often than trying to save your own behind. Unless you're like an Eldritch Knight or something.
Absorb Elements is fantastic, and I'm not sure anyone has argued that barbs replaces it, they have different triggers that don't overlap in any way. But which is more likely to let you use your reaction in a meaningful way? How often do you get hit with enough elemental damage that it is worth cutting it in half with a spell slot -Vs- A d20 succeeds that you don't want to succeed. I find it hard to imagine a single round of combat, ever, in which you couldn't barbs something if you wanted to but there are entire combat scenarios where absorb elements is entirely useless let alone every round. Easily more reliably useful.
Counterspell is great for stopping spells and that's it. So only when vs spellcasters. Maybe you fight only spellcasters and can reliably counterspell every round but I am confident that isn't the standard at most tables. Any fight, any round, where there isn't an enemy spellcaster casting a spell even worthy of counterspelling, is a round barbs could still have a use. There is just no way you'll be able to counterspell reliably as often as you could barbs.
Out of combat special note: Barbs can be used in out of combat scenarios of all stripes, and isn't a combat-only spell like the ones you're talking about. This is one area the spell can be damaging to the game, too, because in a lot of these scenarios there are d20 rolls that whether they succeed or not isn't just "announced" but with the presence of this ability now should be, maybe even must be. If you're deception-ing a nobleman and he insights your ploy, did he just not let on he knows you're lying or did he fall for it? Somehow silvery barbs lets you know. It is bad for the game.
All? No. Not all. But many. If you have to pick Shield or Silvery Barbs (which as a Sorcerer, given your limited options, is not a ludicrous notion), it's not even a contest. +5 AC isn't a chance to influence a roll, it's a reliable effect that lasts the round for your reaction. The same is true of Absorb Elements. Counterspell (yes, I know it's 3rd level) can just rob an enemy of a turn. Silvery Barbs can have big impact, too. But it won't be as often.
Won't...be as often? Dude. It is ANY d20 roll ANYONE makes within 60ft of you, at ANY time. That is basically always. You can reliably barbs all the time. If you don't have to worry about slots you could easily find something to barbs every single round, reliably. Easily. The trigger for this spell is so common you have to intentionally not cast it when it triggers waiting for an even better trigger later in the same round. The trigger for this spell happens repeatedly.
*Let me justify "most fights" here. I am operating under the assumption that most fights are going to be against a group of enemies using attack rolls, as most creatures in the game use attack rolls to damage you, or you are going to be facing something with legendary resistance. In either case, the reliable mitigation is usually better. Silvery Barbs is better if you are against a single creature making fewer, bigger attacks.
No. Shield is better only if you're getting lots of attacks targeted at you. Barbs is better even in those other situations if you're not getting targeted because while you're not getting targeted shield is useless, and barbs is useful. No sorcerer should be frontline fighting so this shouldn't be a crazy notion.
I never said Barbs didn't stop a crit. In fact, I specifically pointed out that Barbs' sole defensive edge over Shield was the ability to interdict crits.
That isn't its sole edge tho. Shield can't block attacks against allies. An enemy BBEG could have a bunch of minions who all have barbs and all of them can interdict every single attack against the boss. Shield can't do that. Shield can't even pretend to do that.
Shield is also useless at extremes of the bounded accuracy. This might be edge case but it is important to understand how it works because it modifes the way extremely defensive characters work as a whole... If you have a sufficiently high AC compared to the attacker's hit modifier, shield is basically useless, this has always been true. Barbs would still ward against crits tho. So now with the addition of this spell, extremely defensive characters have become even moreso. If you have a high AC character barbs is going to be superior on them, especially while fighting junk mobs with low hit mods. Say, you're a warforged EK with a focus on defense, so you've stacked some AC like nearly every EK aims to do. Fullplate, shield, protection style, all brings you to AC 22 before even talking magic items, a few of those and we're sitting comfy at AC25. Here is the breakdown of hitrates, I used "doh" to abbreviate the expected average 'damage of hit', or essentially, the average of hit rate times the damage multiplier for landing that hit/crit:
+5 and less: only nat20 hits, 5% crit (.1doh)
+6: 19-20 hits, 5% hit + 5% crit (.15doh)
+7: 18-20 hits, 10% hit + 5% crit (.2doh)
+8: 17-20 hits, 15% hit + 5% crit (.25doh)
+9: 16-20 hits, 20% hit + 5% crit (.3doh)
What does shield do in this situations? Well, lets look at assuming we always shield:
+5 and less: shield does nothing. can't help at all. unmitigated incoming damage (stays .1doh)
+7: cast shield 1/3rd still crits, -50% incoming damage (from .2 to .1doh)
+8: cast shield 1/4 still crits, -60% incoming damage (from .25 to .1doh)
+9: cast shield 1/5 still crits, -67% incoming damage (from .3 to .1doh)
What's neat about shield is that math is easy and remains fixed regardless how many attacks you receive. Barbs not so much, but lets start with baseline of just one attack and then go up from there. So what would barbs do?
+5 and less: 1/20 still crits, from (.1 to .005doh) -95% incoming damage
+6: after barbs crit 2/20 hits(.005) 1/20 crits(.005) and non-crit 2/20 hitsx1(.005), (.15doh to .015doh) -90% incoming damage
+7: after barbs crit 3/20 hits(.0075) 1/20 crits(.005) and non-crit 3/20 hitsx2(.015), (.2doh to .0275doh) -86% incoming damage
+8: after barbs crit 4/20 hits(.01) 1/20 crits(.005) and non-crit 4/20 hitsx3(.03), (.25doh to .045doh) -82% incoming damage
+9: after barbs crit 5/20 hits(.0125) 1/20 crits(.005) and non-crit 5/20 hitsx4(.05), (.3doh to .0675doh) -78% incoming damage
So clearly Barbs is superior vs a single attack. But people sorta could feel that intuitively. But while that is nice to see in black and white with figures, it is still only the intermediary step. Because now that we have these figures we can actually calculate precisely when there are a number of attacks that swing the scales and makes shield better than barbs. Obviously, when number of attacks =1, barbs is better.
Shield Vs Barbs @ 2 incoming attacks:
+5: .1doh vs .0525
+6: .1doh vs .0825
+7: .1doh vs .11375 (Shield is just barely better here, we found a threshold! This means we can create a best-use mathematical rule!)
Rule: If you are hit by an enemy that can hit you with a nat 18 or lower and you expect 1+ additional followup attacks, use shield over barbs.
And at 3 attacks:
+5: .1doh vs .068
+6: .1doh vs .105 (Another threshold!)
Rule: If you are hit by an enemy that can hit you with a nat 19 or lower and you expect 2+ additional followup attacks, use shield over barbs.
So, shield is defensively better in most scenarios where you are getting hit numerous times. But, only for you. If you are this EK and are getting attacked 3+ times a round holding enemy aggro, as it were, then yes shield is better for you. But in this situation everyone else in your party, shield is useless for them, and barbs would be better because they could still use barbs to protect... you.
If you shield one of those early hits and then a followup hit is a crit, your wizard pal can still barbs it and turn it into a very likely miss. So barbs is extremely useful for everyone else other than the guy being focused, who is better off with shield + allies who care about him.
Again, this isn't even the part of barbs that is problematic, but saying "Barbs' sole defensive edge over Shield was the ability to interdict crits" is just factually and objectively false.
The whole "you get to recast Greater Arcana spells" thing is overstated. Anything that provides disadvantage on a saving throw is similarly "getting a second casting for free".
No, it isn't. Barbs is used when they succeed. Disadvantage is applied before the roll and the result of it is known. These are two very different situations. The value of applying disadvantage is less, by a rate at which the enemy would have failed both rolls. So, yes, disadvantage on saves is great, it isn't as much of a gain as a forced reroll after the initial save succeeded.
Don't conflate them.
Again - Barbs does nothing that couldn't happen without Barbs being cast.
Yes, in a world where all enemies fail every check, barbs is useless. You found the loophole.
A DM can always just flub the save the first time.
Yes, in a game where the DM doesn't use dice rolls then an ability that changes dice rolls wouldn't be super valuable, this is true. If your DM cheats fudges rolls, might wanna steer clear of this spell at his table. Or maybe just steer clear of his table altogether.
Barbs can potentially 'save' a big cast by retroactively imposing disadvantage on the save, but despite what yaybos in this thread keep squawking, doing so is not free.
It isn't retroactive disadvantage. You're conflating again.
Reactions are not free. First-level spell slots are neither free nor valueless, even at high levels. There are very good first-level spells you should be wanting to cast even deep into Tier 3 and 4 play, anyone who says your first-level slots are throwaways after Tier 1 is a damn dirty liar.
Is this an argument anymore?
Every Silvery Barbs you throw is a Dissonant Whispers you don't get to cast, or a Detect Magic you have to waste ten minutes on instead of just casting. It's a Bane or Bless you don't get to throw out or a Command you don't get to issue. It's a Healing Word you can't use to save an ally's life or a Disguise Self you can't use to infiltrate the villains' fortress. It's a Faerie Fire you can't illuminate the battlefield with, a Hex you can't wither an enemy with, a Protection from Evil and Good you don't get to apply...there's tons of high-value first-level spells.
Fairly sure people know that if you cast a spell with a spell slot you can't then use that spell slot for some other spell. That's pretty well established even among people who don't know the rules very well this isn't in contention by, like, anyone anywhere. This exact paragraph just replace Barbs with Shield. "Every Shield you throw is a Dissonant Whispers you don't get to cast, or a Detect Magic you have to waste ten minutes on instead of just casting. It's a Bane or Bless you...." So how it is a meaningless argument?
If you're abandoning first-level spells on anything but a warlock, you're playing your spellcaster poorly, just the same way as anyone would say if you said "I don't need my cantrips anymore, I'm just gonna dump 'em." Every single casting class in this game has at least two primo first-level spells they're gonna want access to for the entire length of the campaign, and burning every slot they have on Silvery Barbs because they're throwing away their first-level spells is just bad play.
It is curious you keep saying "throw away" your slot when describing casting silvery barbs to change the outcome of events. Are you one of those DMs you described earlier who just doesn't abide by die rolls and are concerned people are going to waste spells fighting-in-vane against your already determined outcomes and therefore "throw away" their spell slots? That really is the only counterargument for how powerful this spell is, it does indeed rely entirely on the notion that the DM follows the results of the dice. If they don't, this spell is indeed nearly useless.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
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Yes but it's a "hit" and you could use shield for no benefit.... Do you really think that's the intent?
So you would be ok with a DM saying "that hits" and you use shield.... Only for the "hit" to actually be a crit and the shield does nothing?
Exactly....
Shield specifically allows you to know the roll before you use the spell. Even the harshest readin of that spell says you get to know the number on the d20 before committing to using Shield. Barbs allows you to determine the success of a roll for something you can see, though I will always balk at the "Barbs lets you know the result of every single roll made within 60 feet of you, regardless of whewther you know that roll is being made" reading. Nevertheless, if you can see the action an enemy is taking, Barbs lets you know if it works. Or rather, you know how to tell whether it works or not well enough to reliably cast Barbs, as part of learning that spell.
Don't conceal die rolls that don't have to be concealed. It's not nearly as cool as people think it is.
Please do not contact or message me.
But again nothing here tells you that the roll was a crit. If you judge it like this, then a dm can't roll behind a screen anymore, can't fudge dice rolls. Nothing in RAW forces a dm to tell their players if an attack roll was a crit, IF there isn't a reason to do so. Grave Cleric does SB doesn't. It's not in the spell description. : You magically distract the triggering creature and turn its momentary uncertainty into encouragement for another creature. The triggering creature must reroll the d20 and use the lower roll. Nowhere does it mention you knowing if the attack was a crit or not. It just isn't in the description.
Individual playstyles across the player base is a hard thing to build around. I wonder how many DM's hide the results of their die rolls and how many share, even if they roll behind a screen? Someone should make a poll in a separate thread.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Oh, so your point is that SB let's you know if something is a success, but not specifically if it is a crit or not?
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Yes, that's my point, same for the Chronomancer, or Cutting Words for the Lore Bard. If people are up in arms against SB they should be protesting against Chronal Shift and Cutting Words as well.
The only trigger with shield is that you get attacked. The spell says nothing about the result of the attack roll, and the one specific attack is does mention doesn't use an attack roll at all:
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Fair enough. My mistake, I believed it used the same wording as other, similar sorts of spells.
Regardless, I truly don't believe that concealing a roll on something the character can actively witness adds much to the game outside of narrow circumstances. yes, some rolls are indeed best behind the screen, but those are specifically rolls the character cannot easily see, or cannot see at all. You hide rolls for things the character wouldn't know they didn't see unless they made their roll, things like secret doors or traps or other "just knowing you flubbed a roll would screw this up" bits. Denying your characters information they should easily be able to see and understand in combat because you dislike reaction spells? Less okay. Not okay at all in my book, but what do I know I'm just some forum hussy.
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The trigger for shield is an attack that hits, not just that you were attacked.
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Oh, come on I never attacked you personally. In fact, I even agree with you that SB is not op and should be banned. I just don't agree with you when it comes to crits. Or I think that's what you were saying half a dozen pages ago.
Ugh, great, more withheld information during combat turns. First we have "I'm not naming my spell until after you declare whether or not you're casting Counterspell," then "I'm not revealing whether or not you successfully saved until everyone who's saving has declared whether they're using Bardic Inspiration," and now we've got "I'm not revealing I rolled a 20 until after you declare whether you're casting Silvery Barbs."
I always love when the mechanically correct, tactically superior play is also the drawn-out, annoying play. That's good design right there.
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Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
If you play it that way shield gets really bad as your not even certain if you use it will help....
If they get a 27 and the best shield can give you is a 21 (assuming you can even get that) then it's not even going to block the initial hit.
In this scenario SB is much better as you force a reroll
It is a valid playstyle, but it is one that boosts the power of one spell and reduces the power of another.
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Agreed... I wouldn't play that way myself but to each their own
If the DM withholds the roll value and just announces hit/miss, then you also don't know whether or not it is a crit, which also tanks the value of SB. But even in that scenario, Shield is still the better spell (defensively). You don't know that Shield will work, but you also don't know if Silvery Barbs will work.
Example: If you have 15 AC and the monster has a +8 modifier. The DM rolls an attack and just says "it hits", asking for a reaction.
Shield has a ~71.5% of blocking the attack. Silvery Barbs has a 35% chance of blocking the attack. The math continues to favor Shield across a broad spectrum of attack modifiers. The only time SB is better defensively is when you have an extremely high AC compared to monster attack modifier, to the point where the monster needs to roll a 18+ to hit you in the first place - in which case, the attacks are probably relatively weak.
And if you are facing weak attacks, you are only threatened by a multitude of attacks - in which case, Shield wins again because it lasts the entire round. SB only wins against either a single very weak attack, or a single guaranteed crit. Or potentially, a single attack followed by a single saving throw, assuming you can line up the timing properly.
I don't think shield vs barbs is the issue who cares about the defense part? The re-roll successful anythings is the issue.
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Yo... he was replying to a person who misunderstood the ability. So, your "totally false" is...well, totally false. The person he was replying to, directly quoting them, "didn't understand the extent of the spell". He is 100% correct here.
"Held in reserve" you say? Huh. Was that because unlike Silvery Barbs you had a hard limit of only 2 uses of chronal shift per day? Yes. That feature is incredibly strong and yet the balancing factor for it is the limited uses. Imagine, since you hit 20 on this character, you could at-will cast Silvery Barbs because of your wizard feature that gives infinity uses of a low level spell. And you could essentially force rerolls every round.
Yes it is. You can ban the spell and the game works just fine without it. In no cases is it mandatory, it is only ever nice-to-have.
I think it is odd when people say stuff like this. How exactly is any of those more reliably useable than Silvery Barbs???
Won't...be as often? Dude. It is ANY d20 roll ANYONE makes within 60ft of you, at ANY time. That is basically always. You can reliably barbs all the time. If you don't have to worry about slots you could easily find something to barbs every single round, reliably. Easily. The trigger for this spell is so common you have to intentionally not cast it when it triggers waiting for an even better trigger later in the same round. The trigger for this spell happens repeatedly.
No. Shield is better only if you're getting lots of attacks targeted at you. Barbs is better even in those other situations if you're not getting targeted because while you're not getting targeted shield is useless, and barbs is useful. No sorcerer should be frontline fighting so this shouldn't be a crazy notion.
That isn't its sole edge tho. Shield can't block attacks against allies. An enemy BBEG could have a bunch of minions who all have barbs and all of them can interdict every single attack against the boss. Shield can't do that. Shield can't even pretend to do that.
Shield is also useless at extremes of the bounded accuracy. This might be edge case but it is important to understand how it works because it modifes the way extremely defensive characters work as a whole... If you have a sufficiently high AC compared to the attacker's hit modifier, shield is basically useless, this has always been true. Barbs would still ward against crits tho. So now with the addition of this spell, extremely defensive characters have become even moreso. If you have a high AC character barbs is going to be superior on them, especially while fighting junk mobs with low hit mods. Say, you're a warforged EK with a focus on defense, so you've stacked some AC like nearly every EK aims to do. Fullplate, shield, protection style, all brings you to AC 22 before even talking magic items, a few of those and we're sitting comfy at AC25. Here is the breakdown of hitrates, I used "doh" to abbreviate the expected average 'damage of hit', or essentially, the average of hit rate times the damage multiplier for landing that hit/crit:
What does shield do in this situations? Well, lets look at assuming we always shield:
What's neat about shield is that math is easy and remains fixed regardless how many attacks you receive. Barbs not so much, but lets start with baseline of just one attack and then go up from there. So what would barbs do?
So clearly Barbs is superior vs a single attack. But people sorta could feel that intuitively. But while that is nice to see in black and white with figures, it is still only the intermediary step. Because now that we have these figures we can actually calculate precisely when there are a number of attacks that swing the scales and makes shield better than barbs. Obviously, when number of attacks =1, barbs is better.
Shield Vs Barbs @ 2 incoming attacks:
Rule: If you are hit by an enemy that can hit you with a nat 18 or lower and you expect 1+ additional followup attacks, use shield over barbs.
And at 3 attacks:
Rule: If you are hit by an enemy that can hit you with a nat 19 or lower and you expect 2+ additional followup attacks, use shield over barbs.
So, shield is defensively better in most scenarios where you are getting hit numerous times. But, only for you. If you are this EK and are getting attacked 3+ times a round holding enemy aggro, as it were, then yes shield is better for you. But in this situation everyone else in your party, shield is useless for them, and barbs would be better because they could still use barbs to protect... you.
If you shield one of those early hits and then a followup hit is a crit, your wizard pal can still barbs it and turn it into a very likely miss. So barbs is extremely useful for everyone else other than the guy being focused, who is better off with shield + allies who care about him.
Again, this isn't even the part of barbs that is problematic, but saying "Barbs' sole defensive edge over Shield was the ability to interdict crits" is just factually and objectively false.
No, it isn't. Barbs is used when they succeed. Disadvantage is applied before the roll and the result of it is known. These are two very different situations. The value of applying disadvantage is less, by a rate at which the enemy would have failed both rolls. So, yes, disadvantage on saves is great, it isn't as much of a gain as a forced reroll after the initial save succeeded.
Don't conflate them.
Yes, in a world where all enemies fail every check, barbs is useless. You found the loophole.
Yes, in a game where the DM doesn't use dice rolls then an ability that changes dice rolls wouldn't be super valuable, this is true. If your DM
cheatsfudges rolls, might wanna steer clear of this spell at his table. Or maybe just steer clear of his table altogether.It isn't retroactive disadvantage. You're conflating again.
Is this an argument anymore?
Fairly sure people know that if you cast a spell with a spell slot you can't then use that spell slot for some other spell. That's pretty well established even among people who don't know the rules very well this isn't in contention by, like, anyone anywhere. This exact paragraph just replace Barbs with Shield. "Every Shield you throw is a Dissonant Whispers you don't get to cast, or a Detect Magic you have to waste ten minutes on instead of just casting. It's a Bane or Bless you...." So how it is a meaningless argument?
It is curious you keep saying "throw away" your slot when describing casting silvery barbs to change the outcome of events. Are you one of those DMs you described earlier who just doesn't abide by die rolls and are concerned people are going to waste spells fighting-in-vane against your already determined outcomes and therefore "throw away" their spell slots? That really is the only counterargument for how powerful this spell is, it does indeed rely entirely on the notion that the DM follows the results of the dice. If they don't, this spell is indeed nearly useless.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.