WOW. That is powerful fighting words. I agree with you, but I don't think this is a very good or reliable argument. For the same reason you must never argue with hoaxers such as 9/11 Truthers or those who believe Bill Gates/George Soros/Matthew Mercer is out to control the world, you will not win here, as neither side is any longer willing to listen to the evidence of the other. Erriku, I pray you, concede, as there is no beating the unbeatable.
So now the responders to this thread are going to be painted as holding the same mentality as conspiracy theorists? Thats a low blow, regardless of who you are referring to or including in the statement.
People from each side have been going to great lengths to try to argue and support their points on why they think the spell is or is not overpowered. Not all arguments are perfect, nor are all as well thought out as one another, but in any event it does not appear like the majority of commenters are arguing in bad faith. Suggesting that none of it matters because no one will budge on their opinion is incredibly dismissive of the time and thought that each person has put into their comments.
You think Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master are busted feats? That is probably the biggest red herring I have ever seen used on this site. I do not believe the math supports your assertion. The need to measure your use of reactions is not at all the same as gambling on AC with a -5 to your hit. The barbarian taking Great Weapon Master almost certainly will not be seriously impacted because they are using Reckless Attack when using Great Weapon Master (or they should be). Fighters use this with Polearm Master to get two chances to stack a +10 to their damage, effectively giving them advantage, plus a bonus action attack whether the first attack succeeds or fails. Smart Sharpshooters will be leveraging their range so that even if they miss, the penalty is not being hit in turn. The feats are good options to utilize even with high AC enemies, at least for players who understand their PCs and the abilities they have. These are not broken feats, they are effective feats. This is entirely dissimilar to my argument that casters need to be careful about wasting their reaction economy. In fact, it is the opposite.
Maybe saving your buddy from a hit, you mean. Further, I do not believe you understand just how casters are both extremely fragile and frequently targeted. There is almost nothing that locks enemies into combat with the martial classes and this is not even meta-gaming; it is wise to down the casters first in a fight where they exist. Why do you think casters have Shield to begin with?
You have to know a target succeeded on a non-combat check for you to use this spell. It does not impart knowledge and even if this spell magically imparted knowledge to the user, it would have to be cast first before it could function in providing this knowledge.
The Subtle Spell feature does not only augment Silvery Barbs. Are you suggesting that other spells are not able to benefit from this class feature to the same extent? You can use Subtle Spell and use any number of spells to charm the person, many of which targets are not made aware that they are charmed. This is not a strong argument against the use of Silvery Barbs, but Metamagic and specifically Subtle Spell. I feel like you are losing the thread of your argument here.
I have been over grapple. I went into this at length, in fact. You did not read my argument before you decided to challenge my position. Please rectify this.
You do not seem to understand the limitations of the spell, which I have noticed among several users here and is likely because people have not tried using it before cursing WotC for their decisions. You cannot start by buffing your allies. You must debuff someone before you gain access to the secondary effect of buffing one person. You cannot use this for a group stealth check, as the debuff targets one creature and the buff targets one creature. Your other examples are good ways you can try planning for its use, assuming many things go right. These are not examples of why the spell is broken, but instead by the spell is valuable.
You are trying to dismiss Yamana’s argument on the grounds that no spell is exactly like this one. That is, frankly, silly. New spells must be created to keep 5e fresh. Some spells are going to change the meta; this change is actually necessary. They are each and every one useful for particular reasons and less useful for others. Even Silvery Barbs, which I have explained already and which you have not effectively addressed without first constructing strawmen arguments.
Yes, action economy is extremely important. Why are you ignoring this fact with respect to reactions? I suppose I should thank you for making my point for me. If you use this, you have no answer for several of the typical reasons a caster is holding their reaction. The fact that your team lacks synergy is not a valid argument why Guiding Bolt is not powerful. You can just as easily misuse Silvery Barbs because your team lacks this cohesion as well.
Again, you cannot dismiss arguments on the grounds that they are unlike an entirely new spell. Faerie Fire grants advantage on all attack rolls against all of the targets in the area for the duration. Not one attacker for a single attack and you do not need to debuff a character first. The spell is a fantastically powerful 1st level spell. Also, no one… literally not one poster in this thread, has stated or implied that Silvery Barbs is not insanely good. Again, you are having arguments with yourself. The simple fact that you concede that Faerie Fire can be better undermines your entire argument that Silvery Barbs is overpowered for a 1st level spell. Please stop trying to make your imaginary arguments into my argument
So where to start, GWM and SS are often considered OP feats compared to the other feats in the game, they are default must have abilities on martial builds, if your playing a great sword weilding fighter or axe weilding barb and your not packing GWM your character is under performing. These feats are over powered, do they shatter the game into a million pieces? no but they are over powered. Again as I've said in this thread something does not need to set the cosmos on fire to be OP.
As for nothing locks things into combat, yes stuff does lock targets into combat, being restricted in movement, being hit by sentinel, being restrained by spells or grappled all lock a target down. Even just not having enough movement to reach you keeps you safe (at least for a turn) Maybe you play at a table where the DM spends all his time trying to down the casters, many of us don't. Am I targeted? Of course I am but I don't play with DM's that seem to have hate for the casters and constantly try to down me every combat. So hey tables vary I guess, sorry your DM (or you if your the DM) has a need to target and drop the caster all the time.
As for having to know the target passed a check first, yes you would know in many situations, lets look at web "make a strength check against your spell DC" I know Maximilians Earthen Grasp isn't as popular but that throws a str check as well, but these are just some instances of "you would just know" kinda checks there are many of them that can arise. You could also add in something like.. a giant trying to do something dexterous in combat, you might not know the DC but seeing him roll 18 its not hard to say.. well barbs that and see if he rolls lower. You know the giant isn't very dexterous and a lower roll could easily lead to failure.
Subtle spell wasn't a "SUBTLE SPELL WITH THIS IS BROKEN!!!" it was just another example of a situation where silvery barbs has amazing usage. Charming someone isn't always the desired outcome (especially with low level charm spells where the target knows it was targeted), Barbs is great when used in situations where someones trying to pitch a lie to a guard, rogue's trying to steal something as your party distracts. basically just any kind of opposed check barbs is great, and subtle just gets around that part where people know a spell was cast. Again this is just another example of something a lvl 1 reaction spell can swing out of combat, it's not just its in combat abilities
"I have been over grapple. I went into this at length, in fact. You did not read my argument before you decided to challenge my position. Please rectify this." Your going over grapple in length amounted to you played a game with a rune knight that built to grapple so it wasn't useful. Oh wow.. guess how many campaigns don't have rune knights built for grapple? In our current campaign we actually have a rogue built for grapple because they have an BA bite ability against grappled targets. Here barbs would be great so they could more likely get off the grapples when the target rolls high and again, this was just yet ANOTHER example of a situation barbs can come in very effective. Not the end all be all of barbs
"You do not seem to understand the limitations of the spell, which I have noticed among several users here and is likely because people have not tried using it before cursing WotC for their decisions. You cannot start by buffing your allies. You must debuff someone before you gain access to the secondary effect of buffing one person. You cannot use this for a group stealth check, as the debuff targets one creature and the buff targets one creature"
No you don't understand, your not starting by buffing your ally.Your debuffing ONE ally to advantage another ally. If you need to make a group stealth check your reliable talent, expertise in stealth rogue with +5 dex is pretty much guaranteed to succeed, having him pick the lower of two dice so you could buff the chances that a low stealth member might pass their check so that the group could succeed on the stealth check is entirely possible with this spell. This works for any kind of check or save, if someone in your group is pretty much guaranteed to succeed but someone else is going to struggle barbs can attempt to swing the favor, and again because I need to specify this these are just more examples of great stuff a lvl 1 reaction spell offers
"Yes, action economy is extremely important. Why are you ignoring this fact with respect to reactions?"
because I feel you vastly overstate how important reactions are, your posts read as if every single turn of every combat you need to be hoarding your reaction because your going to need to shield and going to need to counter spell and this is just not true. Counter spell is incredibly important when there is a caster on the field, again maybe in your games casters are just around every corner and you need counter spell constantly but that is not the norm of the bulk of tables that play this game. Often CS is that spell that goes unused for vast stretches of the game but thank god you had it when you needed it, in those situations you won't be using barbs of course, like that's obvious. Also many games just don't need shield on demand constantly there are things that can threaten you and things that just aren't. This game is turn based, once the things that are a possible threat have gone and you've needed shield or not your now free to whip out barbs. You don't need your reaction available 24/7 and that's the point, when you don't which is VERY often barbs is such a no brainer to be throwing around. And just to quickly address your saying that I said Bolt isn't powerful, I NEVER said that it wasn't power I just pointed out how barbs can guarantee the person you want to have advantage has advantage
Than you fall back into Faerie fire being better in situations somehow means my argument is invalid. Again the game doesn't need to end because a wizard cast barbs, it just needs to be too powerful for a lvl 1 reaction spell that swings the chances of 2 actions. That is what over powered means does it not? That is my argument against people stating stuff like bolt/bless/metamagic. Those all require more important resources, turn actions and/or concentration to keep up (sorcery points and metamagic choice for heightened) and none of the supposed similar spells have nearly the utility of barbs. Those spells are good, but your not just whipping out a guiding bolt on a whim because someone did something for instance, which is exactly what you can do with barbs (guiding bolt also doesn't do anything for you outside of combat).
Silvery barbs is a spell that has come into a set of classes that haven't need extra power and utilizes a type of action that VERY often goes unused turn after turn and said "here's your answer, use your reaction to impart more control on the game"
pardon my noobness for not knowing how to quote break
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.
So where to start, GWM and SS are often considered OP feats compared to the other feats in the game, they are default must have abilities on martial builds, if your playing a great sword weilding fighter or axe weilding barb and your not packing GWM your character is under performing. These feats are over powered, do they shatter the game into a million pieces? no but they are over powered. Again as I've said in this thread something does not need to set the cosmos on fire to be OP.
As for nothing locks things into combat, yes stuff does lock targets into combat, being restricted in movement, being hit by sentinel, being restrained by spells or grappled all lock a target down. Maybe you play at a table where the DM spends all his time trying to down the casters, many of us don't. Am I targeted? Of course I am but I don't play with DM's that seem to have hate for the casters and constantly try to down me every combat. So hey tables vary I guess, sorry your DM (or you if your the DM) has a need to target and drop the caster all the time.
As for having to know the target passed a check first, yes you would know in many situations, lets look at web "make a strength check against your spell DC" I know Maximilians Earthen Grasp isn't as popular but that throws a str check as well and these are just some instances of "you would just know" kinda checks. You could also add in something like.. a giant trying to do something dexterous in combat, you might not know the DC but seeing him roll 18 to say.. well barbs that and see if he rolls lower. You know the giant isn't very dexterous and a lower roll could easily lead to failure.
Subtle spell wasn't a "SUBTLE SPELL WITH THIS IS BROKEN!!!" it was just another example of a situation where silvery barbs has amazing usage. Charming someone isn't always the outcome, Barbs is great when used in situations where someones trying to pitch a lie to a guard, rogue's trying to steal something as your party distracts. basically just any kind of opposed check barbs is great, and subtle just gets around that part where people know a spell was cast. Again this is just another example of something a lvl 1 reaction spell can swing out of combat, it's not just its in combat abilities
No you don't understand, your not starting by buffing your ally.Your debuffing ONE ally to advantage another ally. If you need to make a group stealth check your reliable talent, expertise in stealth rogue with +5 dex is pretty much guaranteed to succeed, having him pick the lower of two dice so you could buff the chances that a low stealth member might pass their check so that the group could succeed on the stealth check is entirely possible with this spell. This works for any kind of check or save, if someone in your group is pretty much guaranteed to succeed but someone else is going to struggle barbs can attempt to swing the favor, and again because I need to specify this these are just more examples of great stuff a lvl 1 reaction spell offers
because I feel you vastly overstate how important reactions are, your posts read as if every single turn of every combat you need to be hoarding your reaction because your going to need to shield and going to need to counter spell and this is just not true. Counter spell is incredibly important when there is a caster on the field, again maybe in your games casters are just around every corner and you need counter spell constantly but that is not the norm of the bulk of tables that play this game. Often CS is that spell that goes unused for vast stretches of the game but thank god you had it when you needed it, in those situations you won't be using barbs of course, like that's obvious. Also many games just don't need shield on demand constantly there are things that can threaten you and things that just aren't. This game is turn based, once the things that are a possible threat have gone and you've needed shield or not your now free to whip out barbs. You don't need your reaction available 24/7 and that's the point, when you don't which is VERY often barbs is such a no brainer to be throwing around.
Than you fall back into Faerie fire being better in situations somehow means my argument is invalid. Again the game doesn't need to end because a wizard cast barbs, it just needs to be too powerful for a lvl 1 reaction spell that swings the chances of 2 actions. That is what over powered means does it not? That is my argument against people stating stuff like bolt/bless/metamagic. Those all require more important resources, turn actions and/or concentration to keep up (sorcery points and metamagic choice for heightened) and none of the supposed similar spells have nearly the utility of barbs. Those spells are good, but your not just whipping out a guiding bolt on a whim because someone did something for instance, which is exactly what you can do with barbs (guiding bolt also doesn't do anything for you outside of combat).
pardon my noobness for not knowing how to quote break
They really are not. They are very powerful for specific classes, but they are not overpowered. I think you are more than a little careless in your use of the term ‘overpowered’. What about Bountiful Luck? Crossbow Expert? Crusher recently changed the meta on feats for anyone that does bludgeoning damage. Put Fey Touched on a high-level fighter or monk and watch them go crazy. The new Gift of the Dragon feats are all fantastic. I got bored after ‘G’ and there are plenty more. I am sorry to say that you simply are speaking from ignorance if you think those feats you listed necessarily always eclipse any of the ones I have listed and all the ones I did not bother trying to list.
No, I play at a table with reasonably skilled players. I encourage you to read my post again. In your haste to respond, you again are trying to counter arguments that never existed. I did not say that there are no ways to lock creatures into combat with martial classes. You listing some is immaterial because it does nothing at all to address my actual statement. Additionally, you misunderstood the other part of my statement. I did not say that I am always targeted, nor did I say that my DM hates casters. I said casters are fragile and frequently targeted. The words are literally right in front of you. Please read them.
Again, I did not say or imply that you can never know when a target creature makes or passes a skill check. If you continue to demonstrate an inability to even understand my arguments, I do not see much more value in debating this issue with you. Having to spend all my time correcting your errors in understanding is kind of exhausting. Read first, internalize, then respond. Your order of operations is reversed.
Sigh… Yes, I know that it was not your intended argument to make a case against Subtle Spell. What I did was explain why your rationale is better suited to that argument than the argument you are trying to make. It does not prove that Silvery Barbs is broken if it can also be applied to other spells for equal or greater remarkable effect.
Any failure in understanding is due to your inability to communicate your ideas well, but thank you for reworking your example. A group check applies to the group. I do not know rogues very well, but I do understand that they do not get Reliable Talent until level 11. A DC of 15 at level 11 would be considered extremely easy relative to the party. You are placing way too much on the shoulders of Reliable Talent if you think that it can offset an entire party’s rolls for any stealth check meant to challenge the party. Half of the party must succeed on a check for everyone to succeed. There is almost certainly one heavily armored PC in the group, so at best, you can wipe away the disadvantage. What are the odds that their dexterity is high? Probably not great. It is not a bad use of the spell, but it is not great either and this hardly demonstrates why the spell is overpowered. A group check using Reliable Talent is creative, but not an unfair manipulation of the mechanics, which is what you would need at the very least to support the position that the spell is too powerful. Pass without Trace is almost laughably better in this example. Try again.
Again, if you feel that Counterspell is not important to keep in reserve until you are certain you will not use it, barring a situation that demands you use something else, and we are measuring correctness through the lens of maximum utility, you are simply wrong. My post reads the way you describe because you are not wasting your time trying to understand your opponent before you engage them. Or you are arguing in bad faith. Take your pick, but you are equally wrong regardless. As I said in our earlier exchange, you do not know what you do not know. It pays to take a measured approach to the battle and in the use of your limited reactions. You do not know what my campaigns include and why would you even ask when you can just make reductio ad absurdum arguments on what is in my game? That is clearly the path you have chosen. Further, we have reached a point in our exchange where you are trying to steal my arguments and make them your own. MY position is that Counterspell is not used overly often but you (and your party) will be glad you have it when you need it. Please stay in your lane. As for Shield not being needed often, that is the risk you are free to take and maybe your DM holds your hand a bit by not taking advantage of your poor choices. That does not make these choices any less poor, however.
No, your concession that Faerie Fire, a spell you have no issue with can be significantly more powerful than Silvery Barbs does not invalidate your argument, it undermines it. Hopefully for the last time, please respond to my actual arguments, not the arguments that you fabricate and place in my corner. In play, Faerie Fire has a reasonable chance at being far and away the better choice than Silvery Barbs because of how powerful it can be in common situations. You are trying to define overpowered rather narrowly. I will not agree to that curiously convenient definition of overpowered, no. I will not agree that the Moon is made of cheese, in case you were also going to ask about that. Bless does not require more important resources. These examples impact the casters in different ways, the depth and breadth of which depend on the class, level, build, and player use. All of this is demonstrably over your head. There is a consistent casual reductionism on your end, where complicated processes have deceptively simple answers. The reason is clear: you just are more interested in arguing than thinking about these spells, feats, subclass traits, battle conditions, etc. The perfect example to demonstrate my point is in your post here: “… your not just whipping out a guiding bolt on a whim because someone did something for instance, which is exactly what you can do with barbs” (errors are yours). This is a silly statement. Guiding Bolt is absolutely going to be used when a creature does ‘something’. Whether you use the spell depends on what that something is, just like when using Silvery Barbs. Guiding Bolt may not have much use outside of combat, but who said that is required for a spell to be overpowered? There are many spells that have use in and out of combat. They are not overpowered for this reason.
I think I am done debating this issue with you. You are not really offering much in the way of interesting discussion. You are just tucking your head and windmilling and if I am being honest, I feel like there are better uses of my time.
The only two coppers I've got to add that probably hasn't already been said is this: The spell itself is fine...
Except that it's 1st level.
if it were 2nd level, I'd still ***** about it, but I would at least accept it.
...that said, I'm not banning it at my tables without a good reason to beyond my disagreement of its spell level.
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Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
I think I am done debating this issue with you. You are not really offering much in the way of interesting discussion. You are just tucking your head and windmilling and if I am being honest, I feel like there are better uses of my time.
Thats perfectly fine by me, I don't feel the need to explain my arguments to someone that needs to resort to "All of this is demonstrably over your head", makes such strong cases as "You are trying to define overpowered rather narrowly. I will not agree to that curiously convenient definition of overpowered, no. I will not agree that the Moon is made of cheese"
has to post things like "Sigh…" " I am sorry to say that you simply are speaking from ignorance if you think those feats you listed necessarily always eclipse any of the ones I have listed"
has to say "The words are literally right in front of you. Please read them." but than comes back "with Any failure in understanding is due to your inability to communicate your ideas well"
and great strategy here "barring a situation that demands you use something else, and we are measuring correctness through the lens of maximum utility, you are simply wrong. My post reads the way you describe because you are not wasting your time trying to understand your opponent before you engage them. Or you are arguing in bad faith. Take your pick, but you are equally wrong regardless"
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?
The name Silvery Barbs doesn't seem to have any correlation to the effect of the spell.
I don't understand the implication of the description. The spell is cast in Reaction to a creature "succeeding" on an attack, save, or check. The description says "turn it's momentary uncertainty into encouragement". I don't know why it would be uncertain if it just succeeded.
The last line "a creature can be empowered by only one use of this spell at a time" isn't necessary, since multiple effects of the same kind don't stack, and neither does ADV.
The spell is very "meta-gamey".
I'm surprised it made it through review at WotC. It looks like something you'd find on D&D Wiki.
The only two coppers I've got to add that probably hasn't already been said is this: The spell itself is fine...
Except that it's 1st level.
if it were 2nd level, I'd still ***** about it, but I would at least accept it.
...that said, I'm not banning it at my tables without a good reason to beyond my disagreement of its spell level.
House rule that it's second level. So long as you say it ahead of time (session 0 or your equivalent thereof ideally, or right now if you're running a campaign), then I'm sure people will understand. I've yet to see anything counter the idea that the problem is that it's too low level, so I don't think it's unreasonable to say it is houseruled as such. I've not played with it yet, but it seems odd that it's L1. It's significantly better than L1 spells and no worse than L2 spells.
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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.
The only two coppers I've got to add that probably hasn't already been said is this: The spell itself is fine...
Except that it's 1st level.
if it were 2nd level, I'd still ***** about it, but I would at least accept it.
...that said, I'm not banning it at my tables without a good reason to beyond my disagreement of its spell level.
House rule that it's second level. So long as you say it ahead of time (session 0 or your equivalent thereof ideally, or right now if you're running a campaign), then I'm sure people will understand. I've yet to see anything counter the idea that the problem is that it's too low level, so I don't think it's unreasonable to say it is houseruled as such. I've not played with it yet, but it seems odd that it's L1. It's significantly better than L1 spells and no worse than L2 spells.
The issue is that since I use Beyond and don't otherwise really ban or edit existing material, I'd have to make sure they use the homebrewed version for implementation
The problem therein is the rest of the homebrew I *don't* allow but happen to be in my collection.
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Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
This thread is too long for me to go read the whole thing, but there is another pair of spells that I think are worth mentioning with respect to the balance of Barbs...
Bane & Bless.
1st level spells with concentration that let you give +/- 1d4 to all attack rolls and saving throws. Not just one. I personally find +/- 1d4 is about equivalent to (dis)advantage with the minor difference of not granting sneak attack damage. On the whole I think these two are more powerful than Barbs. And like other existent spells mentioned, Bane and Bless are very good, but no one is saying they are broken.
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Founding Member of the High Roller Society.(Currently trying to roll max on 4d6)
The issues I have with Silvery Barbs is that, unlike every other spell discussed here (aside from Shield) it just works. There is no attack roll like with Guiding Bolt, there is no save like with Bane, Counterspell, and Faerie Fire it just happens. You could cast Bane and get zero affect as every creature makes the save. Not so with Silvery Barbs!
Having Silvery Barbs makes save-or-suck spells SO MUCH better! Let's say you throw a Hold Person and they make their save. Well, now you can make them roll again and use the lower roll -AND- grant pseudo-advantage to your ally. Now, not only is that target paralyzed, but your allies who are attacking with advantage get a third d20 to really fish for that crit! All for the cost of your reaction (which, let's face it, most caster don't use much anyway) and a 1-level spell slot. Of all of the reaction spells, Silvery Barbs is easily the most versatile and universally useful.
The other thing that makes this better than Bane or Bless is that you can use it on top of those two spells.
What makes it better than Shield is that it affects more than just weapon attacks! Say that you got hit with a sword, well Silvery Barbs makes that now a miss, which Shield might do, and you grant yourself the extra d20 (which I will say you get whether the new roll succeeds or fails!) and now you get hit with a save spell. Shield does nothing for that save spell, but now you basically have advantage on that save. Even if you couldn't use Silvery Barbs outside of combat, I would still say that it edges out Shield.
And no one is saying that concentration is bad. But it is an additional cost. You can only concentrate on one spell at a time, and you could lose it. Say you cast Bless and before any of your allies get a turn, you get hit and loose concentration. That was a wasted spell (and action). There is no chance that Silvery Barbs get's wasted.
In summary: it JUST WORKS (no save, roll to hit), only takes a reaction, can buff your own spells, is universally useful, and requires 0 concentration.
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.
But you get to use this -AFTER- you know whether they succeed or not. So it is impossible to waste it, unlike every other advantage/disadvantage/reroll affect in the game! Most reroll affects say that they use the new roll, so you could potentially turn a normal hit into a crit! There is NO chance of this with barbs, because it says they use the lower of the two rolls.
This also does not impose disadvantage, it can stack with disadvantage! And it COMPLETELY negates advantage!
I roll a 14/18 with advantage, success! Oh, Silvery Barbs I now have to roll again. 12...drat.
Also worth mentioning that even if the reroll still results in a success, the spell is never completely wasted. Your ally still gets advantage.
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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.
Advantage can fail just as easily as disadvantage can still succeed. it's entirely possible for Barbs to be cast and accomplish nothing. It's less likely than for other spells, but it's entirely possible.
Mezz had a good point, honestly. Nobody has any play experience with Barbs right now. They can't, the book hasn't even been out a week. The rampant theorycrafting is a good way to while away slow days at work, but it ain't hard, play-proven fact. Could be that the spell is every bit as bad as the sky-is-falling edition exploders say it is, could be that it's perfectly fine and not gonna cause any real issues. I remember a lot of the same hooplah being bandied about when the Twilight cleric was released, how Twilight was going to Ruin D&D Forever(TM) with its raging overpoweredness, and the edition has yet to explode from just over a year of folks being able to radiate temp HP once or twice a day.
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.
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So now the responders to this thread are going to be painted as holding the same mentality as conspiracy theorists? Thats a low blow, regardless of who you are referring to or including in the statement.
People from each side have been going to great lengths to try to argue and support their points on why they think the spell is or is not overpowered. Not all arguments are perfect, nor are all as well thought out as one another, but in any event it does not appear like the majority of commenters are arguing in bad faith. Suggesting that none of it matters because no one will budge on their opinion is incredibly dismissive of the time and thought that each person has put into their comments.
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So where to start, GWM and SS are often considered OP feats compared to the other feats in the game, they are default must have abilities on martial builds, if your playing a great sword weilding fighter or axe weilding barb and your not packing GWM your character is under performing. These feats are over powered, do they shatter the game into a million pieces? no but they are over powered. Again as I've said in this thread something does not need to set the cosmos on fire to be OP.
As for nothing locks things into combat, yes stuff does lock targets into combat, being restricted in movement, being hit by sentinel, being restrained by spells or grappled all lock a target down. Even just not having enough movement to reach you keeps you safe (at least for a turn) Maybe you play at a table where the DM spends all his time trying to down the casters, many of us don't. Am I targeted? Of course I am but I don't play with DM's that seem to have hate for the casters and constantly try to down me every combat. So hey tables vary I guess, sorry your DM (or you if your the DM) has a need to target and drop the caster all the time.
As for having to know the target passed a check first, yes you would know in many situations, lets look at web "make a strength check against your spell DC" I know Maximilians Earthen Grasp isn't as popular but that throws a str check as well, but these are just some instances of "you would just know" kinda checks there are many of them that can arise. You could also add in something like.. a giant trying to do something dexterous in combat, you might not know the DC but seeing him roll 18 its not hard to say.. well barbs that and see if he rolls lower. You know the giant isn't very dexterous and a lower roll could easily lead to failure.
Subtle spell wasn't a "SUBTLE SPELL WITH THIS IS BROKEN!!!" it was just another example of a situation where silvery barbs has amazing usage. Charming someone isn't always the desired outcome (especially with low level charm spells where the target knows it was targeted), Barbs is great when used in situations where someones trying to pitch a lie to a guard, rogue's trying to steal something as your party distracts. basically just any kind of opposed check barbs is great, and subtle just gets around that part where people know a spell was cast. Again this is just another example of something a lvl 1 reaction spell can swing out of combat, it's not just its in combat abilities
"I have been over grapple. I went into this at length, in fact. You did not read my argument before you decided to challenge my position. Please rectify this." Your going over grapple in length amounted to you played a game with a rune knight that built to grapple so it wasn't useful. Oh wow.. guess how many campaigns don't have rune knights built for grapple? In our current campaign we actually have a rogue built for grapple because they have an BA bite ability against grappled targets. Here barbs would be great so they could more likely get off the grapples when the target rolls high and again, this was just yet ANOTHER example of a situation barbs can come in very effective. Not the end all be all of barbs
"You do not seem to understand the limitations of the spell, which I have noticed among several users here and is likely because people have not tried using it before cursing WotC for their decisions. You cannot start by buffing your allies. You must debuff someone before you gain access to the secondary effect of buffing one person. You cannot use this for a group stealth check, as the debuff targets one creature and the buff targets one creature"
No you don't understand, your not starting by buffing your ally.Your debuffing ONE ally to advantage another ally. If you need to make a group stealth check your reliable talent, expertise in stealth rogue with +5 dex is pretty much guaranteed to succeed, having him pick the lower of two dice so you could buff the chances that a low stealth member might pass their check so that the group could succeed on the stealth check is entirely possible with this spell. This works for any kind of check or save, if someone in your group is pretty much guaranteed to succeed but someone else is going to struggle barbs can attempt to swing the favor, and again because I need to specify this these are just more examples of great stuff a lvl 1 reaction spell offers
"Yes, action economy is extremely important. Why are you ignoring this fact with respect to reactions?"
because I feel you vastly overstate how important reactions are, your posts read as if every single turn of every combat you need to be hoarding your reaction because your going to need to shield and going to need to counter spell and this is just not true. Counter spell is incredibly important when there is a caster on the field, again maybe in your games casters are just around every corner and you need counter spell constantly but that is not the norm of the bulk of tables that play this game. Often CS is that spell that goes unused for vast stretches of the game but thank god you had it when you needed it, in those situations you won't be using barbs of course, like that's obvious. Also many games just don't need shield on demand constantly there are things that can threaten you and things that just aren't. This game is turn based, once the things that are a possible threat have gone and you've needed shield or not your now free to whip out barbs. You don't need your reaction available 24/7 and that's the point, when you don't which is VERY often barbs is such a no brainer to be throwing around. And just to quickly address your saying that I said Bolt isn't powerful, I NEVER said that it wasn't power I just pointed out how barbs can guarantee the person you want to have advantage has advantage
Than you fall back into Faerie fire being better in situations somehow means my argument is invalid. Again the game doesn't need to end because a wizard cast barbs, it just needs to be too powerful for a lvl 1 reaction spell that swings the chances of 2 actions. That is what over powered means does it not? That is my argument against people stating stuff like bolt/bless/metamagic. Those all require more important resources, turn actions and/or concentration to keep up (sorcery points and metamagic choice for heightened) and none of the supposed similar spells have nearly the utility of barbs. Those spells are good, but your not just whipping out a guiding bolt on a whim because someone did something for instance, which is exactly what you can do with barbs (guiding bolt also doesn't do anything for you outside of combat).
Silvery barbs is a spell that has come into a set of classes that haven't need extra power and utilizes a type of action that VERY often goes unused turn after turn and said "here's your answer, use your reaction to impart more control on the game"
pardon my noobness for not knowing how to quote break
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.
They really are not. They are very powerful for specific classes, but they are not overpowered. I think you are more than a little careless in your use of the term ‘overpowered’. What about Bountiful Luck? Crossbow Expert? Crusher recently changed the meta on feats for anyone that does bludgeoning damage. Put Fey Touched on a high-level fighter or monk and watch them go crazy. The new Gift of the Dragon feats are all fantastic. I got bored after ‘G’ and there are plenty more. I am sorry to say that you simply are speaking from ignorance if you think those feats you listed necessarily always eclipse any of the ones I have listed and all the ones I did not bother trying to list.
No, I play at a table with reasonably skilled players. I encourage you to read my post again. In your haste to respond, you again are trying to counter arguments that never existed. I did not say that there are no ways to lock creatures into combat with martial classes. You listing some is immaterial because it does nothing at all to address my actual statement. Additionally, you misunderstood the other part of my statement. I did not say that I am always targeted, nor did I say that my DM hates casters. I said casters are fragile and frequently targeted. The words are literally right in front of you. Please read them.
Again, I did not say or imply that you can never know when a target creature makes or passes a skill check. If you continue to demonstrate an inability to even understand my arguments, I do not see much more value in debating this issue with you. Having to spend all my time correcting your errors in understanding is kind of exhausting. Read first, internalize, then respond. Your order of operations is reversed.
Sigh… Yes, I know that it was not your intended argument to make a case against Subtle Spell. What I did was explain why your rationale is better suited to that argument than the argument you are trying to make. It does not prove that Silvery Barbs is broken if it can also be applied to other spells for equal or greater remarkable effect.
Any failure in understanding is due to your inability to communicate your ideas well, but thank you for reworking your example. A group check applies to the group. I do not know rogues very well, but I do understand that they do not get Reliable Talent until level 11. A DC of 15 at level 11 would be considered extremely easy relative to the party. You are placing way too much on the shoulders of Reliable Talent if you think that it can offset an entire party’s rolls for any stealth check meant to challenge the party. Half of the party must succeed on a check for everyone to succeed. There is almost certainly one heavily armored PC in the group, so at best, you can wipe away the disadvantage. What are the odds that their dexterity is high? Probably not great. It is not a bad use of the spell, but it is not great either and this hardly demonstrates why the spell is overpowered. A group check using Reliable Talent is creative, but not an unfair manipulation of the mechanics, which is what you would need at the very least to support the position that the spell is too powerful. Pass without Trace is almost laughably better in this example. Try again.
Again, if you feel that Counterspell is not important to keep in reserve until you are certain you will not use it, barring a situation that demands you use something else, and we are measuring correctness through the lens of maximum utility, you are simply wrong. My post reads the way you describe because you are not wasting your time trying to understand your opponent before you engage them. Or you are arguing in bad faith. Take your pick, but you are equally wrong regardless. As I said in our earlier exchange, you do not know what you do not know. It pays to take a measured approach to the battle and in the use of your limited reactions. You do not know what my campaigns include and why would you even ask when you can just make reductio ad absurdum arguments on what is in my game? That is clearly the path you have chosen. Further, we have reached a point in our exchange where you are trying to steal my arguments and make them your own. MY position is that Counterspell is not used overly often but you (and your party) will be glad you have it when you need it. Please stay in your lane. As for Shield not being needed often, that is the risk you are free to take and maybe your DM holds your hand a bit by not taking advantage of your poor choices. That does not make these choices any less poor, however.
No, your concession that Faerie Fire, a spell you have no issue with can be significantly more powerful than Silvery Barbs does not invalidate your argument, it undermines it. Hopefully for the last time, please respond to my actual arguments, not the arguments that you fabricate and place in my corner. In play, Faerie Fire has a reasonable chance at being far and away the better choice than Silvery Barbs because of how powerful it can be in common situations. You are trying to define overpowered rather narrowly. I will not agree to that curiously convenient definition of overpowered, no. I will not agree that the Moon is made of cheese, in case you were also going to ask about that. Bless does not require more important resources. These examples impact the casters in different ways, the depth and breadth of which depend on the class, level, build, and player use. All of this is demonstrably over your head. There is a consistent casual reductionism on your end, where complicated processes have deceptively simple answers. The reason is clear: you just are more interested in arguing than thinking about these spells, feats, subclass traits, battle conditions, etc. The perfect example to demonstrate my point is in your post here: “… your not just whipping out a guiding bolt on a whim because someone did something for instance, which is exactly what you can do with barbs” (errors are yours). This is a silly statement. Guiding Bolt is absolutely going to be used when a creature does ‘something’. Whether you use the spell depends on what that something is, just like when using Silvery Barbs. Guiding Bolt may not have much use outside of combat, but who said that is required for a spell to be overpowered? There are many spells that have use in and out of combat. They are not overpowered for this reason.
I think I am done debating this issue with you. You are not really offering much in the way of interesting discussion. You are just tucking your head and windmilling and if I am being honest, I feel like there are better uses of my time.
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The only two coppers I've got to add that probably hasn't already been said is this: The spell itself is fine...
Except that it's 1st level.
if it were 2nd level, I'd still ***** about it, but I would at least accept it.
...that said, I'm not banning it at my tables without a good reason to beyond my disagreement of its spell level.
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
Thats perfectly fine by me, I don't feel the need to explain my arguments to someone that needs to resort to "All of this is demonstrably over your head", makes such strong cases as "You are trying to define overpowered rather narrowly. I will not agree to that curiously convenient definition of overpowered, no. I will not agree that the Moon is made of cheese"
has to post things like "Sigh…" " I am sorry to say that you simply are speaking from ignorance if you think those feats you listed necessarily always eclipse any of the ones I have listed"
has to say "The words are literally right in front of you. Please read them." but than comes back "with Any failure in understanding is due to your inability to communicate your ideas well"
and great strategy here "barring a situation that demands you use something else, and we are measuring correctness through the lens of maximum utility, you are simply wrong. My post reads the way you describe because you are not wasting your time trying to understand your opponent before you engage them. Or you are arguing in bad faith. Take your pick, but you are equally wrong regardless"
can take your tude and shove it
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?
Great summary.
The name Silvery Barbs doesn't seem to have any correlation to the effect of the spell.
I don't understand the implication of the description. The spell is cast in Reaction to a creature "succeeding" on an attack, save, or check. The description says "turn it's momentary uncertainty into encouragement". I don't know why it would be uncertain if it just succeeded.
The last line "a creature can be empowered by only one use of this spell at a time" isn't necessary, since multiple effects of the same kind don't stack, and neither does ADV.
The spell is very "meta-gamey".
I'm surprised it made it through review at WotC. It looks like something you'd find on D&D Wiki.
Probably ranking among the best 1st level spells likely rating blue or gold in most if not all bard, sorcerer, and wizard handbooks. It's that good.
House rule that it's second level. So long as you say it ahead of time (session 0 or your equivalent thereof ideally, or right now if you're running a campaign), then I'm sure people will understand. I've yet to see anything counter the idea that the problem is that it's too low level, so I don't think it's unreasonable to say it is houseruled as such. I've not played with it yet, but it seems odd that it's L1. It's significantly better than L1 spells and no worse than L2 spells.
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.
The issue is that since I use Beyond and don't otherwise really ban or edit existing material, I'd have to make sure they use the homebrewed version for implementation
The problem therein is the rest of the homebrew I *don't* allow but happen to be in my collection.
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This thread is too long for me to go read the whole thing, but there is another pair of spells that I think are worth mentioning with respect to the balance of Barbs...
Bane & Bless.
1st level spells with concentration that let you give +/- 1d4 to all attack rolls and saving throws. Not just one. I personally find +/- 1d4 is about equivalent to (dis)advantage with the minor difference of not granting sneak attack damage. On the whole I think these two are more powerful than Barbs. And like other existent spells mentioned, Bane and Bless are very good, but no one is saying they are broken.
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Well the spell can change a 20 into something less fatalistic.
Also worth mentioning that even if the reroll still results in a success, the spell is never completely wasted. Your ally still gets advantage.
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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.
Advantage can fail just as easily as disadvantage can still succeed. it's entirely possible for Barbs to be cast and accomplish nothing. It's less likely than for other spells, but it's entirely possible.
Mezz had a good point, honestly. Nobody has any play experience with Barbs right now. They can't, the book hasn't even been out a week. The rampant theorycrafting is a good way to while away slow days at work, but it ain't hard, play-proven fact. Could be that the spell is every bit as bad as the sky-is-falling edition exploders say it is, could be that it's perfectly fine and not gonna cause any real issues. I remember a lot of the same hooplah being bandied about when the Twilight cleric was released, how Twilight was going to Ruin D&D Forever(TM) with its raging overpoweredness, and the edition has yet to explode from just over a year of folks being able to radiate temp HP once or twice a day.
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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.
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