This isn't a "spell" per se, it's sole purpose is to attack the actual game mechanics of the dice throw , AFTER it happens. So any min/maxer will use it in CONJUNCTION with the attacks/feats/spells of the entire party to EFFECT the outcome of the dice throw, AFTER it happens, FOR ANY EVENT that the party wants to change.
And of course this "spell" is used at LEVEL 1. It's only as good as the min/maxer using it.
Anyhow, if an invincible Bard shows up at your table at level 1, don't complain, thanks........
A 1st-level bard has two spell slots; if they're invincible, it ain't gonna be because of Silvery Barbs.
Just saying, players using this know what they're doing.
This isn't a "spell" per se, it's sole purpose is to attack the actual game mechanics of the dice throw , AFTER it happens. So any min/maxer will use it in CONJUNCTION with the attacks/feats/spells of the entire party to EFFECT the outcome of the dice throw, AFTER it happens, FOR ANY EVENT that the party wants to change.
And of course this "spell" is used at LEVEL 1. It's only as good as the min/maxer using it.
Anyhow, if an invincible Bard shows up at your table at level 1, don't complain, thanks........
A 1st-level bard has two spell slots; if they're invincible, it ain't gonna be because of Silvery Barbs.
I agree. Silvery Barbs is not as powerful as a lot of people think it is.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I really like D&D, especially Ravenloft, Exandria and the Upside Down from Stranger Things. My pronouns are she/they (genderfae).
It's not nearly as powerful at 1st level than at 5th level or later because 5th level is when the big toys come out. It becomes a "force enhancer" that works with almost every kind of force, be it a critical hit, a save-or-succ, Rogue's Reliable Talent, Enhance Ability, or a good ol' Finger of Death.
It's not nearly as powerful at 1st level than at 5th level or later because 5th level is when the big toys come out. It becomes a "force enhancer" that works with almost every kind of force, be it a critical hit, a save-or-succ, Rogue's Reliable Talent, Enhance Ability, or a good ol' Finger of Death.
It still takes an extra spell slot to achieve that. Not sure why anyone would waste it on someone using reliable talent. Reliable talent is rather well named.
Because you know whether or not what you rolled succeeded or not, so using SilveryB on top helps boost it. A '10' on a skill check often is not enough to meet the threshold.
Such a lame spell. People who spam guidance and silvery barbs are the worst. It’s almost made season three of critical role unbearable.
guidance is converted into a class ability for clerics for my table - equal charges as your proficiency bonus. And silvery barbs is outright outlawed. Same with the twilight cleric. Anything that is game breaking and heavily leans the favor to the party is outlawed on my table. Dnd should not be another participation trophy argument - I will boot your goblin sorcerer off the top of a mountain in a heartbeat.
I do think Silvery Barbs is a bit overtuned. If it were a 2nd-level spell it would still be good and a must-have in a lot of builds, but much harder to dip or splash feats for. I would either increase its spell level, or keep it at 1st but remove the "siphon advantage" function.
It's not broken but I think it could be toned down without impacting its appeal. Casters are powerful enough as it is.
I do think Silvery Barbs is a bit overtuned. If it were a 2nd-level spell it would still be good and a must-have in a lot of builds, but much harder to dip or splash feats for. I would either increase its spell level, or keep it at 1st but remove the "siphon advantage" function.
It's not broken but I think it could be toned down without impacting its appeal. Casters are powerful enough as it is.
I think the problem is that putting it up to a level 2 slot makes it too costly. Compare it to Shield, which grants +5AC with Silvery Barbs which grants pseudo-advantage that, statistically, is equivalent to slightly more than +3AC. So Shield is about 50% stronger than Silvery Barbs and lasts the entire round as opposed to SB that lasts a single hit. SB does provide Advantage to a nominated ally...the usefulness of that is highly variable depending on the situation and style of campaign. The main consideration is that SB works on pretty much any d20 roll, whereas Shield only works on directed attacks (the attacks that are compared to your AC).
There just seems to be a lot of back and forth between Shield and SB to reliably say that one is better than the other. Delaying even the potential use of SB to L3, and to delay its realistic use until L5 or higher feels overly harsh to me, especially since with lower level slots, in my experience, tend to go from "precious resource that heavily penalises your use of them" to "why bother even tracking them" very quickly. It would seem to me to go from "too costly to use" to "it effectively costs nothing so why not?".
I can see why it could be considered OP, but I'm not sure if bumping it up a level would be a good idea either.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Really Shield is good any time you’re expecting to get hit a bunch, and it’s pretty much guaranteed to stop the first attack you use it again. SB can potentially fizzle out into spending a spell slot only to give an ally advantage, which is generally not a good trade. So the difference there seems to be between always fizzling a hit or always fizzling a crit. That actually still places more value on Shield, as then you’re blocking damage die plus modifiers, whereas if SB only stops a crit it’s only reducing the damage by the damage die.
If we disclude Silvery Barbs, Shieldis one of - if not the - best first level spell in the game. Comparing Silvery and Shield is an acknowledgement that the spell is extremely good, and many would argue that Shield is overpowered and should be second level or higher. So for those that believe that, Silvery already is too good for the level it's at, even if it isn't any better than the other spell.
However, I would honestly argue that Silvery is better than Shield. Shield is only defensive, whereas you can also give a teammate advantage on a crucial roll with Silvery. On top of all of that, the latter spell prevents you from ever getting hit with a crit, which is another thing that the former spell can't do.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
Silvery is more versatile, but Shield is more consistent and is a more efficient deterrent of attacks. Personally I’d say they ultimately occupy two different if slightly overlapping niches. Really the biggest issue I see with SB is that it steps on the toes of Bardic Inspiration features.
If we disclude Silvery Barbs, Shieldis one of - if not the - best first level spell in the game. Comparing Silvery and Shield is an acknowledgement that the spell is extremely good, and many would argue that Shield is overpowered and should be second level or higher. So for those that believe that, Silvery already is too good for the level it's at, even if it isn't any better than the other spell.
However, I would honestly argue that Silvery is better than Shield. Shield is only defensive, whereas you can also give a teammate advantage on a crucial roll with Silvery. On top of all of that, the latter spell prevents you from ever getting hit with a crit, which is another thing that the former spell can't do.
And the value of Silvery Barbs grows as your party size does. Because Shield can only ever help you, where as Silvery Barbs is a team friendly spell. You can protect yourself or your allies from crit/hit. You can interfere with enemy saves against any of your allies' abilities or spells.
If anyone has played in a 6+ crew where 3+ people take Silvery Barbs they know perfectly well how silly OP the spell can be. The players have to enter in to a sort of gentleman's agreement not to use it as often as they might be inclined for fear of the DM flipping the table. The Shield spell is not at risk of ever causing this situation.
And that's not accounting, yet, the ways Silvery Barbs can interact with class features and be exploited above baseline effectiveness. Order Clerics. Aberrant Mind Sorcererers. Etc. The spell can be enhanced to overperform to a truly disgusting degree.
I've learned to live with it, as the power creep of 5e seems to have accelerated in the later books. But it is undeniable that Silvery Barbs is the strongest 1st level spell.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
I do think Silvery Barbs is a bit overtuned. If it were a 2nd-level spell it would still be good and a must-have in a lot of builds, but much harder to dip or splash feats for. I would either increase its spell level, or keep it at 1st but remove the "siphon advantage" function.
It's not broken but I think it could be toned down without impacting its appeal. Casters are powerful enough as it is.
I think the problem is that putting it up to a level 2 slot makes it too costly. Compare it to Shield, which grants +5AC with Silvery Barbs which grants pseudo-advantage that, statistically, is equivalent to slightly more than +3AC. So Shield is about 50% stronger than Silvery Barbs and lasts the entire round as opposed to SB that lasts a single hit. SB does provide Advantage to a nominated ally...the usefulness of that is highly variable depending on the situation and style of campaign. The main consideration is that SB works on pretty much any d20 roll, whereas Shield only works on directed attacks (the attacks that are compared to your AC).
There just seems to be a lot of back and forth between Shield and SB to reliably say that one is better than the other. Delaying even the potential use of SB to L3, and to delay its realistic use until L5 or higher feels overly harsh to me, especially since with lower level slots, in my experience, tend to go from "precious resource that heavily penalises your use of them" to "why bother even tracking them" very quickly. It would seem to me to go from "too costly to use" to "it effectively costs nothing so why not?".
I can see why it could be considered OP, but I'm not sure if bumping it up a level would be a good idea either.
Except Shield does NOTHING to a critical hit. Silvery Barbs can negate crits on top of granting advantage to an ally.
Granting Advantage is pretty meh. In some scenarios and situations it's nice, but most of the time it's so easy to get that, be honest, none of my players get excited about it.
Other things it does over Shield:
Negate advantage from enemies' attacks
Are you talking literally or statistically? Literally, it does no such thing. Statistically, Shield does it better.
Negate advantage from enemies' saves
Statistically it can, sure.
Protect your allies from attacks and crits (Shield can only ever protect you)
Crits are overrated. Honestly, I've gotten enough of them to realise that most of the time, they're more emotionally impactful than problematic. +<5% per attack ain't an issue outside of the first couple of levels. More to the point though, bear in mind this assumes you haven't used your Reaction for anything else in that round. Shield doesn't have the quite same restrictions. Only 1 in 20 attacks are particularly useful for this purpose and even then...you may well not be able to use it, and even if you do, it leaves you vulnerable. As a full caster, you are the primary beneficiary of a boost to defence, and Shield does that much better by giving a higher protection to directed attacks for much longer, at the expense of not helping with Save DC spells. To be honest, in the majority of circumstances, you don't want to be burning your Reaction on protecting someone else. You're the squishy one, and if I'm trying to get to you as DM, my first move will be to try to get you to burn your Reaction on something like an attack on your ally.
Get you another shot on a Save-or-Suck that a target succeeded on for the cost of a 1st level spell and a reaction
That's about the main strength to SB in a match up against Shield. It's a very cheap method of getting a second crack at expensive save-or-suck spells/effects.
Things Shield does better:
Increases your AC for the entire round
Increases AC by 5 instead of effectively 3
So, Shield is better if you have a lot of mooks attacking you in a single round.
Not lots, and that's what's misleading you. Shield is, statistically, substantially better in any scenario a enemy makes a directed attack against you, 50% better. If there is a second enemy that makes such an attack against, or the solitary first enemy has Multi-Attack, you're insane to try SB rather than Shield...and to be honest, most times when you've gotten yourself into a scenario where an enemy is attacking the caster (who generally should be in the back and avoiding attacks), such as in break-through situations or when ranged creatures are shooting at you... that's going to happen.
SB is all around more useful in a LOT more circumstances.
Sure, mile wide and inch deep (somewhat hyperbolic in terms of degree, but the principle is there). Shield is much more useful in the scenarios where you want it...to the point that if SB is useful over Shield in a situation (most likely someone just cast a save-or-suck and the enemy succeeded against it, or the enemy has crit and I'm worried that my ally can't afford to tank it), then I still have to weigh up whether it's worth not being able to cast Shield later in the round...or Counterspell. The reverse is rarely true - only if we've planned an expensive save-or-suck would I really hesitate to use Shield or Counterspell in order to keep SB as an option.
With SB, if somebody gets hit with a crit, the enemy now has to roll a second natural 20 (0.25%). With Shield, they roll that 20 and Shield does nothing for you.
You're repeating this argument...but as I said, crits aren't anywhere near as big a deal outside the first few levels as people think. Even then, spending 25%-50% of your big gun ammo to counter <5% enemy output...well, it's not a no-brainer deal. Later on when low level spells become less of a consideration...crits are rarely things to worry about.
In fact, most of your post is repeating the same argument and making it appear like it's multiple different advantages to SB. SB is good for giving second shots at expensive save-or-suck spells and effects. It has a minor advantage in that it can reroll crits. In most situations though... you're wanting Shield, it provides a better defence against directed attacks and it provides it for an entire round rather than a single instance.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I do think Silvery Barbs is a bit overtuned. If it were a 2nd-level spell it would still be good and a must-have in a lot of builds, but much harder to dip or splash feats for. I would either increase its spell level, or keep it at 1st but remove the "siphon advantage" function.
It's not broken but I think it could be toned down without impacting its appeal. Casters are powerful enough as it is.
I think the problem is that putting it up to a level 2 slot makes it too costly. Compare it to Shield, which grants +5AC with Silvery Barbs which grants pseudo-advantage that, statistically, is equivalent to slightly more than +3AC. So Shield is about 50% stronger than Silvery Barbs and lasts the entire round as opposed to SB that lasts a single hit. SB does provide Advantage to a nominated ally...the usefulness of that is highly variable depending on the situation and style of campaign. The main consideration is that SB works on pretty much any d20 roll, whereas Shield only works on directed attacks (the attacks that are compared to your AC).
There just seems to be a lot of back and forth between Shield and SB to reliably say that one is better than the other. Delaying even the potential use of SB to L3, and to delay its realistic use until L5 or higher feels overly harsh to me, especially since with lower level slots, in my experience, tend to go from "precious resource that heavily penalises your use of them" to "why bother even tracking them" very quickly. It would seem to me to go from "too costly to use" to "it effectively costs nothing so why not?".
I can see why it could be considered OP, but I'm not sure if bumping it up a level would be a good idea either.
Except Shield does NOTHING to a critical hit. Silvery Barbs can negate crits on top of granting advantage to an ally.
Granting Advantage is pretty meh. In some scenarios and situations it's nice, but most of the time it's so easy to get that, be honest, none of my players get excited about it.
You may be using homebrew rules at your table that makes getting advantage easier than normal. Maybe consider that when using anecdotes like this about how easy advantage is to get. In the base game, it is not easy to get outside of specific conditions or the expenditure of limited resources.
Other things it does over Shield:
Negate advantage from enemies' attacks
Are you talking literally or statistically? Literally, it does no such thing. Statistically, Shield does it better.
Shield doesn't do it at all. Not even a little.
Negate advantage from enemies' saves
Statistically it can, sure.
So, yes, it can effectively nullify advantage, either from attacks or saves. In addition to the base effect of the reroll. Mechanically no, statistically yes. Most of the time we'll only care about the statistical effect.
Protect your allies from attacks and crits (Shield can only ever protect you)
Crits are overrated. Honestly, I've gotten enough of them to realise that most of the time, they're more emotionally impactful than problematic. +<5% per attack ain't an issue outside of the first couple of levels. More to the point though, bear in mind this assumes you haven't used your Reaction for anything else in that round. Shield doesn't have the quite same restrictions. Only 1 in 20 attacks are particularly useful for this purpose and even then...you may well not be able to use it, and even if you do, it leaves you vulnerable. As a full caster, you are the primary beneficiary of a boost to defence, and Shield does that much better by giving a higher protection to directed attacks for much longer, at the expense of not helping with Save DC spells. To be honest, in the majority of circumstances, you don't want to be burning your Reaction on protecting someone else. You're the squishy one, and if I'm trying to get to you as DM, my first move will be to try to get you to burn your Reaction on something like an attack on
Your handling of those numbers is confused. Crit damage isn't +5% damage per attack. That doesn't even make an sense. Not unless you're arguing that every single attack including nat 1s always hit.
You need to revist your math here and figure out what it is you're trying to say.
For example, say you're a Bladesinger and have a solid but achievable-at-low-level AC of 20 while Bladesong is active. And you're fighting some typical low level but hard hitting mook with a +6 to hit. 14 or higher on d20 hits. That's a 7 in 20 of a hit. But one of those is 20, and is also a critical hit. So 6/20 normal hit and 1/20 crit.
The crit will do a little less than double damage, due to not doubling the modifiers. But we'll call it a solid +80% damage for sake of example, each monster/attack will vary a bit. The normal hits deal 100% normal damage, and out crit deals 180% damage. That's 780% damage over those 7 hits. 111%. So the crits are adding +11% to the average damage dealt per hit.
That's just one example so you can follow along. Plug in the values for the monster vs pc stats you wanna analyze and you can see for yourself how much crits are contributing toward a character's incoming damage taken.
Get you another shot on a Save-or-Suck that a target succeeded on for the cost of a 1st level spell and a reaction
That's about the main strength to SB in a match up against Shield. It's a very cheap method of getting a second crack at expensive save-or-suck spells/effects.
Understatement. Forcing a reroll on a level 5 save or suck is functionally worth a 5th level spell slot, the net effect is similar to simply casting the same spell a 2nd time immediately when the 1st failed. The higher the level the spell you're forcing a reroll on the more powerful SB was.
And it isn't limited to spell saves. Or even your own abilities. You can force reolls on all kinds of saves. Even environmental or situational ones.
Things Shield does better:
Increases your AC for the entire round
Increases AC by 5 instead of effectively 3
So, Shield is better if you have a lot of mooks attacking you in a single round.
Not lots, and that's what's misleading you. Shield is, statistically, substantially better in any scenario a enemy makes a directed attack against you, 50% better.
That's unequivocally false.
If there is a second enemy that makes such an attack against, or the solitary first enemy has Multi-Attack, you're insane to try SB rather than Shield...and to be honest, most times when you've gotten yourself into a scenario where an enemy is attacking the caster (who generally should be in the back and avoiding attacks), such as in break-through situations or when ranged creatures are shooting at you... that's going to happen.
You have some funny notions about casters. You think every single spellcaster in the game should be hiding in the back lines?
Hey yall, keep your Eldritch Knights out of the front lines, boys. They are too fragile or something. Cleric? You better be hiding behind a rock because that full plate and shield you got ain't going to protect you.
SB is all around more useful in a LOT more circumstances.
Sure, mile wide and inch deep (somewhat hyperbolic in terms of degree, but the principle is there). Shield is much more useful in the scenarios where you want it...to the point that if SB is useful over Shield in a situation (most likely someone just cast a save-or-suck and the enemy succeeded against it, or the enemy has crit and I'm worried that my ally can't afford to tank it), then I still have to weigh up whether it's worth not being able to cast Shield later in the round...or Counterspell. The reverse is rarely true - only if we've planned an expensive save-or-suck would I really hesitate to use Shield or Counterspell in order to keep SB as an option.
We all know that there are more than one reaction based utility and you should weigh the pros and cons of using your reaction now in lieu of using for something else later.
But if your argument is just that a 3rd level spell might... might be more useful if... if you fighting a spellcaster.
Yeah. This is... true.
With SB, if somebody gets hit with a crit, the enemy now has to roll a second natural 20 (0.25%). With Shield, they roll that 20 and Shield does nothing for you.
You're repeating this argument...but as I said, crits aren't anywhere near as big a deal outside the first few levels as people think. Even then, spending 25%-50% of your big gun ammo to counter <5% enemy output...well, it's not a no-brainer deal. Later on when low level spells become less of a consideration...crits are rarely things to worry about.
In fact, most of your post is repeating the same argument and making it appear like it's multiple different advantages to SB. SB is good for giving second shots at expensive save-or-suck spells and effects. It has a minor advantage in that it can reroll crits. In most situations though... you're wanting Shield, it provides a better defence against directed attacks and it provides it for an entire round rather than a single instance.
Citation needed on all this math. It just doesn't check out.
Play a Bladesinger and tell me that enemy crits account for less that 5% of the damage you take. No man. It accounts for the vast majority of damage you take from attacks because that's all that'll even hit you. And when it does, will wipe the floor with you as a resukt because d6 hd is... not many.
That's just one extreme example to highlight how far this <5% damage figure is off by.
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.
People are also forgetting that the strength of Silvery Barbs is that it is an All-Purpose Tool. Unlike Shield, Bless, or the other examples of so-called OP 1st level spells, Silvery Barbs can be used for social situations, to make a climb check, to make a save-or-suck stick, to counter an enemy critical hit, etc. etc. It is useful for almost everything. That is a sure sign that it easily breaks the game as it renders most other spells and abilities B Tier just by existing because those other spells and abilities can Only be used in certain contexts whereas Silvery Barbs is useful Everywhere, All the Time. It's like a Swiss Army Knife that also functions as a mind hack and the best of all breath mints. With Arcane Recovery, having this as a 1st level spell makes too many things trivial for the party. With Spell Mastery, the party or the enemy Wizard gets literally infinite usages of that Swiss Army Knife/Mind Hack/Super Breath Mint.
People are also forgetting that the strength of Silvery Barbs is that it is an All-Purpose Tool. Unlike Shield, Bless, or the other examples of so-called OP 1st level spells, Silvery Barbs can be used for social situations, to make a climb check, to make a save-or-suck stick, to counter an enemy critical hit, etc. etc. It is useful for almost everything. That is a sure sign that it easily breaks the game as it renders most other spells and abilities B Tier just by existing because those other spells and abilities can Only be used in certain contexts whereas Silvery Barbs is useful Everywhere, All the Time. It's like a Swiss Army Knife that also functions as a mind hack and the best of all breath mints. With Arcane Recovery, having this as a 1st level spell makes too many things trivial for the party. With Spell Mastery, the party or the enemy Wizard gets literally infinite usages of that Swiss Army Knife/Mind Hack/Super Breath Mint.
Been allowing this in both of my campaigns since it came out in 2020. From one DM to another, so what?
People are also forgetting that the strength of Silvery Barbs is that it is an All-Purpose Tool. Unlike Shield, Bless, or the other examples of so-called OP 1st level spells, Silvery Barbs can be used for social situations, to make a climb check, to make a save-or-suck stick, to counter an enemy critical hit, etc. etc. It is useful for almost everything. That is a sure sign that it easily breaks the game as it renders most other spells and abilities B Tier just by existing because those other spells and abilities can Only be used in certain contexts whereas Silvery Barbs is useful Everywhere, All the Time. It's like a Swiss Army Knife that also functions as a mind hack and the best of all breath mints. With Arcane Recovery, having this as a 1st level spell makes too many things trivial for the party. With Spell Mastery, the party or the enemy Wizard gets literally infinite usages of that Swiss Army Knife/Mind Hack/Super Breath Mint.
Been allowing this in both of my campaigns since it came out in 2020. From one DM to another, so what?
Good for you. I have problem with you or anybody else making that choice at Your table with and for Your players. But at my table, Wizards act smart b/c they have high INT. Enemy wizards would Always pick this spell. Then the PCs will complain about it. Or multiple PCs pick up the spell. Then the BBEG is effectively nerfed unless I have wizards with Counterspell for every major encounter. Then the game becomes un-fun because it becomes too predictable because every major encounter will feature enemy wizards. But hey, if your players love to play Counterspell+Silvery Barbs Gotcha all the time, who am I to say that's a bad thing? The point is that a realistic application of this spell in a game universe changes the scale of encounters. If everybody and their grandpa is a Wizard, that's probably much less of a problem. But most of the time, the DM is cheating on behalf of the players by acting like their enemy Wizards don't know this spell.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Same here
Just saying, players using this know what they're doing.
I agree. Silvery Barbs is not as powerful as a lot of people think it is.
I really like D&D, especially Ravenloft, Exandria and the Upside Down from Stranger Things. My pronouns are she/they (genderfae).
It's not nearly as powerful at 1st level than at 5th level or later because 5th level is when the big toys come out. It becomes a "force enhancer" that works with almost every kind of force, be it a critical hit, a save-or-succ, Rogue's Reliable Talent, Enhance Ability, or a good ol' Finger of Death.
Because you know whether or not what you rolled succeeded or not, so using SilveryB on top helps boost it. A '10' on a skill check often is not enough to meet the threshold.
Such a lame spell. People who spam guidance and silvery barbs are the worst. It’s almost made season three of critical role unbearable.
guidance is converted into a class ability for clerics for my table - equal charges as your proficiency bonus. And silvery barbs is outright outlawed. Same with the twilight cleric. Anything that is game breaking and heavily leans the favor to the party is outlawed on my table. Dnd should not be another participation trophy argument - I will boot your goblin sorcerer off the top of a mountain in a heartbeat.
I do think Silvery Barbs is a bit overtuned. If it were a 2nd-level spell it would still be good and a must-have in a lot of builds, but much harder to dip or splash feats for. I would either increase its spell level, or keep it at 1st but remove the "siphon advantage" function.
It's not broken but I think it could be toned down without impacting its appeal. Casters are powerful enough as it is.
Voted: Perfectly Fine.
I think the problem is that putting it up to a level 2 slot makes it too costly. Compare it to Shield, which grants +5AC with Silvery Barbs which grants pseudo-advantage that, statistically, is equivalent to slightly more than +3AC. So Shield is about 50% stronger than Silvery Barbs and lasts the entire round as opposed to SB that lasts a single hit. SB does provide Advantage to a nominated ally...the usefulness of that is highly variable depending on the situation and style of campaign. The main consideration is that SB works on pretty much any d20 roll, whereas Shield only works on directed attacks (the attacks that are compared to your AC).
There just seems to be a lot of back and forth between Shield and SB to reliably say that one is better than the other. Delaying even the potential use of SB to L3, and to delay its realistic use until L5 or higher feels overly harsh to me, especially since with lower level slots, in my experience, tend to go from "precious resource that heavily penalises your use of them" to "why bother even tracking them" very quickly. It would seem to me to go from "too costly to use" to "it effectively costs nothing so why not?".
I can see why it could be considered OP, but I'm not sure if bumping it up a level would be a good idea either.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
It's worth noting that Shield is nuts. It's absolutely a top tier spell at 1st level. People multiclass just to get Shield.
Really Shield is good any time you’re expecting to get hit a bunch, and it’s pretty much guaranteed to stop the first attack you use it again. SB can potentially fizzle out into spending a spell slot only to give an ally advantage, which is generally not a good trade. So the difference there seems to be between always fizzling a hit or always fizzling a crit. That actually still places more value on Shield, as then you’re blocking damage die plus modifiers, whereas if SB only stops a crit it’s only reducing the damage by the damage die.
If we disclude Silvery Barbs, Shield is one of - if not the - best first level spell in the game. Comparing Silvery and Shield is an acknowledgement that the spell is extremely good, and many would argue that Shield is overpowered and should be second level or higher. So for those that believe that, Silvery already is too good for the level it's at, even if it isn't any better than the other spell.
However, I would honestly argue that Silvery is better than Shield. Shield is only defensive, whereas you can also give a teammate advantage on a crucial roll with Silvery. On top of all of that, the latter spell prevents you from ever getting hit with a crit, which is another thing that the former spell can't do.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.Silvery is more versatile, but Shield is more consistent and is a more efficient deterrent of attacks. Personally I’d say they ultimately occupy two different if slightly overlapping niches. Really the biggest issue I see with SB is that it steps on the toes of Bardic Inspiration features.
And the value of Silvery Barbs grows as your party size does. Because Shield can only ever help you, where as Silvery Barbs is a team friendly spell. You can protect yourself or your allies from crit/hit. You can interfere with enemy saves against any of your allies' abilities or spells.
If anyone has played in a 6+ crew where 3+ people take Silvery Barbs they know perfectly well how silly OP the spell can be. The players have to enter in to a sort of gentleman's agreement not to use it as often as they might be inclined for fear of the DM flipping the table. The Shield spell is not at risk of ever causing this situation.
And that's not accounting, yet, the ways Silvery Barbs can interact with class features and be exploited above baseline effectiveness. Order Clerics. Aberrant Mind Sorcererers. Etc. The spell can be enhanced to overperform to a truly disgusting degree.
I've learned to live with it, as the power creep of 5e seems to have accelerated in the later books. But it is undeniable that Silvery Barbs is the strongest 1st level spell.
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.
There will always be a spell at the top.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
Granting Advantage is pretty meh. In some scenarios and situations it's nice, but most of the time it's so easy to get that, be honest, none of my players get excited about it.
Are you talking literally or statistically? Literally, it does no such thing. Statistically, Shield does it better.
Statistically it can, sure.
Crits are overrated. Honestly, I've gotten enough of them to realise that most of the time, they're more emotionally impactful than problematic. +<5% per attack ain't an issue outside of the first couple of levels. More to the point though, bear in mind this assumes you haven't used your Reaction for anything else in that round. Shield doesn't have the quite same restrictions. Only 1 in 20 attacks are particularly useful for this purpose and even then...you may well not be able to use it, and even if you do, it leaves you vulnerable. As a full caster, you are the primary beneficiary of a boost to defence, and Shield does that much better by giving a higher protection to directed attacks for much longer, at the expense of not helping with Save DC spells. To be honest, in the majority of circumstances, you don't want to be burning your Reaction on protecting someone else. You're the squishy one, and if I'm trying to get to you as DM, my first move will be to try to get you to burn your Reaction on something like an attack on your ally.
That's about the main strength to SB in a match up against Shield. It's a very cheap method of getting a second crack at expensive save-or-suck spells/effects.
Not lots, and that's what's misleading you. Shield is, statistically, substantially better in any scenario a enemy makes a directed attack against you, 50% better. If there is a second enemy that makes such an attack against, or the solitary first enemy has Multi-Attack, you're insane to try SB rather than Shield...and to be honest, most times when you've gotten yourself into a scenario where an enemy is attacking the caster (who generally should be in the back and avoiding attacks), such as in break-through situations or when ranged creatures are shooting at you... that's going to happen.
Sure, mile wide and inch deep (somewhat hyperbolic in terms of degree, but the principle is there). Shield is much more useful in the scenarios where you want it...to the point that if SB is useful over Shield in a situation (most likely someone just cast a save-or-suck and the enemy succeeded against it, or the enemy has crit and I'm worried that my ally can't afford to tank it), then I still have to weigh up whether it's worth not being able to cast Shield later in the round...or Counterspell. The reverse is rarely true - only if we've planned an expensive save-or-suck would I really hesitate to use Shield or Counterspell in order to keep SB as an option.
You're repeating this argument...but as I said, crits aren't anywhere near as big a deal outside the first few levels as people think. Even then, spending 25%-50% of your big gun ammo to counter <5% enemy output...well, it's not a no-brainer deal. Later on when low level spells become less of a consideration...crits are rarely things to worry about.
In fact, most of your post is repeating the same argument and making it appear like it's multiple different advantages to SB. SB is good for giving second shots at expensive save-or-suck spells and effects. It has a minor advantage in that it can reroll crits. In most situations though... you're wanting Shield, it provides a better defence against directed attacks and it provides it for an entire round rather than a single instance.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
You may be using homebrew rules at your table that makes getting advantage easier than normal. Maybe consider that when using anecdotes like this about how easy advantage is to get. In the base game, it is not easy to get outside of specific conditions or the expenditure of limited resources.
Shield doesn't do it at all. Not even a little.
So, yes, it can effectively nullify advantage, either from attacks or saves. In addition to the base effect of the reroll. Mechanically no, statistically yes. Most of the time we'll only care about the statistical effect.
Your handling of those numbers is confused. Crit damage isn't +5% damage per attack. That doesn't even make an sense. Not unless you're arguing that every single attack including nat 1s always hit.
You need to revist your math here and figure out what it is you're trying to say.
For example, say you're a Bladesinger and have a solid but achievable-at-low-level AC of 20 while Bladesong is active. And you're fighting some typical low level but hard hitting mook with a +6 to hit. 14 or higher on d20 hits. That's a 7 in 20 of a hit. But one of those is 20, and is also a critical hit. So 6/20 normal hit and 1/20 crit.
The crit will do a little less than double damage, due to not doubling the modifiers. But we'll call it a solid +80% damage for sake of example, each monster/attack will vary a bit. The normal hits deal 100% normal damage, and out crit deals 180% damage. That's 780% damage over those 7 hits. 111%. So the crits are adding +11% to the average damage dealt per hit.
That's just one example so you can follow along. Plug in the values for the monster vs pc stats you wanna analyze and you can see for yourself how much crits are contributing toward a character's incoming damage taken.
Understatement. Forcing a reroll on a level 5 save or suck is functionally worth a 5th level spell slot, the net effect is similar to simply casting the same spell a 2nd time immediately when the 1st failed. The higher the level the spell you're forcing a reroll on the more powerful SB was.
And it isn't limited to spell saves. Or even your own abilities. You can force reolls on all kinds of saves. Even environmental or situational ones.
That's unequivocally false.
You have some funny notions about casters. You think every single spellcaster in the game should be hiding in the back lines?
Hey yall, keep your Eldritch Knights out of the front lines, boys. They are too fragile or something. Cleric? You better be hiding behind a rock because that full plate and shield you got ain't going to protect you.
We all know that there are more than one reaction based utility and you should weigh the pros and cons of using your reaction now in lieu of using for something else later.
But if your argument is just that a 3rd level spell might... might be more useful if... if you fighting a spellcaster.
Yeah. This is... true.
Citation needed on all this math. It just doesn't check out.
Play a Bladesinger and tell me that enemy crits account for less that 5% of the damage you take. No man. It accounts for the vast majority of damage you take from attacks because that's all that'll even hit you. And when it does, will wipe the floor with you as a resukt because d6 hd is... not many.
That's just one extreme example to highlight how far this <5% damage figure is off by.
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.
People are also forgetting that the strength of Silvery Barbs is that it is an All-Purpose Tool. Unlike Shield, Bless, or the other examples of so-called OP 1st level spells, Silvery Barbs can be used for social situations, to make a climb check, to make a save-or-suck stick, to counter an enemy critical hit, etc. etc. It is useful for almost everything. That is a sure sign that it easily breaks the game as it renders most other spells and abilities B Tier just by existing because those other spells and abilities can Only be used in certain contexts whereas Silvery Barbs is useful Everywhere, All the Time. It's like a Swiss Army Knife that also functions as a mind hack and the best of all breath mints. With Arcane Recovery, having this as a 1st level spell makes too many things trivial for the party. With Spell Mastery, the party or the enemy Wizard gets literally infinite usages of that Swiss Army Knife/Mind Hack/Super Breath Mint.
Been allowing this in both of my campaigns since it came out in 2020. From one DM to another, so what?
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
Good for you. I have problem with you or anybody else making that choice at Your table with and for Your players. But at my table, Wizards act smart b/c they have high INT. Enemy wizards would Always pick this spell. Then the PCs will complain about it. Or multiple PCs pick up the spell. Then the BBEG is effectively nerfed unless I have wizards with Counterspell for every major encounter. Then the game becomes un-fun because it becomes too predictable because every major encounter will feature enemy wizards. But hey, if your players love to play Counterspell+Silvery Barbs Gotcha all the time, who am I to say that's a bad thing? The point is that a realistic application of this spell in a game universe changes the scale of encounters. If everybody and their grandpa is a Wizard, that's probably much less of a problem. But most of the time, the DM is cheating on behalf of the players by acting like their enemy Wizards don't know this spell.