I don’t know. I know there’s a lot of hyperbole here but I went back and read the subclass and I’m just not seeing it. Bladesong can only be used twice between rests and only lasts 1 minute. The int modifier on AC would normally be +4 max, maybe on top of another +4 based on your dex but it’s really only going to get you the same AC as other characters. I’d have to see a scenario where it’s really causing a problem.
If it ever came up at my table, I'd probably solve it the way I prefer to solve all such issues.
"You want to play the Bladesinger? All right. Bladesinging, in Tyberos [i.e. the homebrew setting I use when not in Exandria or Eberron], is very much an elven secret. It can only be learned in a Grove, taught by elves to other elves. The Bladesinger's arts, much like the Feywarden's arts, require decades of dedication and patient study. You can have this extremely powerful, fun, and flavorful subclass - but you're going to respect its story, and you're barred from multiclassing until and unless you can give me a story I want to hear about why and how you're splicing all these other things in."
"Don't think that's fair? That's fine - War Wizardry is commonly taught in arcane colleges throughout Tyberos and is freely available to all prospective wizard students, though many of the finer academies only teach it to students who swear a commitment to military service when they're finished learning. Humanity actually created the school of War Wizardry as an answer to the power of elven Bladesingers - a single War Wizard is not remotely as powerful and capable as a Bladesinger, but a War Wizard backed by the squad of highly trained soldiers he works in mutual support with is a different story."
"Huh? You want to be a yuan-ti Bladesinger with three levels of Battlesmith artificer and a level of monk so you can add three of your six ability modifiers to your AC and attack with your Intelligence instead of your Dexterity? Lolnope. Try again, honey - and this time, please try to make a D&D character instead of a World of Warcraft toon."
I don’t know. I know there’s a lot of hyperbole here but I went back and read the subclass and I’m just not seeing it. Bladesong can only be used twice between rests and only lasts 1 minute. The int modifier on AC would normally be +4 max, maybe on top of another +4 based on your dex but it’s really only going to get you the same AC as other characters. I’d have to see a scenario where it’s really causing a problem.
An example of a powerful Bladesinger.
Barbarian 1, Bladesinger everything else.
Take all our your Ability score increases into Dexterity, Intelligence, and Constitution.
You will end up with 25 AC while Bladesinging, and 30 with Shield.
This took about two minutes to think of. Not super broken, but it can get much worse than this.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
The problem with bladesinger is that it grants a bonus to AC, instead of just a flat figure, which is just incorrect design in 5e. It should be granting a specific AC (probably 10 + Int Bonus + Dex Bonus, making it identical to the barbarian and monk abilities).
I’ve only made it to level 5 with a bladesinger so I haven’t really seen any issues with it. It’s fun, but I need to work with it more to see what you’re seeing.
Up until level 5, there are basically no issues with the subclass. You have an amazing AC, are great with concentrating, have some other minor benefits, and Booming Blade/Green Flame Blade allow for you to do quite a bit of damage in melee combat.
Then, you get to level 6. You get Extra Attack, at this point you have to choose between casting a cantrip (BB, GFB) as an action or attacking twice as an action.
Then, the level 10 ability sucks. It's a reaction to get rid of damage by expending spell slots, which you most likely have already used for shield, so it's mostly useless, and sucks.
Also, I do agree with Yurei, real changes to fix these problems are not likely because WotC hates fixing subclasses (even though they are fixing the Beast Master a bit), so these are most likely not going to happen.
I don't think the level 10 ability sucks at all - it compliments shield. When shield won't stop the attack, you can still reduce the damage.
The problem with bladesinger is that it grants a bonus to AC, instead of just a flat figure, which is just incorrect design in 5e. It should be granting a specific AC (probably 10 + Int Bonus + Dex Bonus, making it identical to the barbarian and monk abilities).
Yeah - it's probably better to just dump the light armor proficiency and give them standard "always on" unarmored defense of 10 + DEX + INT. Let the Bladesong give them temporary hit points = to INT modifier each round or something.
Nah, it’s a temporary bonus so handled differently.
Plenty of temporary bonuses don't stack (look at Mage Armor or Barkskin), and an ability usable 2x/short rest for a minute per use is basically permanent.
That requires a relatively laid back campaign. Not a given....
It is literally the standard rate -- one short rest every 1/3 of your daily xp. I have seen far more games where resting was more common than the game intends than games where resting was less common.
I’ve only made it to level 5 with a bladesinger so I haven’t really seen any issues with it. It’s fun, but I need to work with it more to see what you’re seeing.
Up until level 5, there are basically no issues with the subclass. You have an amazing AC, are great with concentrating, have some other minor benefits, and Booming Blade/Green Flame Blade allow for you to do quite a bit of damage in melee combat.
Then, you get to level 6. You get Extra Attack, at this point you have to choose between casting a cantrip (BB, GFB) as an action or attacking twice as an action.
Then, the level 10 ability sucks. It's a reaction to get rid of damage by expending spell slots, which you most likely have already used for shield, so it's mostly useless, and sucks.
Also, I do agree with Yurei, real changes to fix these problems are not likely because WotC hates fixing subclasses (even though they are fixing the Beast Master a bit), so these are most likely not going to happen.
I don't think the level 10 ability sucks at all - it compliments shield. When shield won't stop the attack, you can still reduce the damage.
You can do no such thing. You already used your only reaction for shield, so you can't use the level 10 ability.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
That requires a relatively laid back campaign. Not a given....
It is literally the standard rate -- one short rest every 1/3 of your daily xp. I have seen far more games where resting was more common than the game intends than games where resting was less common.
You can do no such thing. You already used your only reaction for shield, so you can't use the level 10 ability.
There is no guarantee you have used your reaction for shield. The triggering damage might not have been an attack roll, or (depending on how the game handles visibility of attack rolls), you might have chosen to not cast shield because the attack would hit you anyway.
You can do no such thing. You already used your only reaction for shield, so you can't use the level 10 ability.
There is no guarantee you have used your reaction for shield. The triggering damage might not have been an attack roll, or (depending on how the game handles visibility of attack rolls), you might have chosen to not cast shield because the attack would hit you anyway.
The poster I quoted said that you can use shield and then use the level 10 ability, I was correcting them.
Also, only idiots would not cast shield. It's a 1st level reaction spell that raises your odds of not being hit by 25%, while the level 10 ability requires a spell slot to reduce damage by 5 x the level of spell slot expended. In literally all conditions, shield is better, unless your DM goofed and revealed too much.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
That requires a relatively laid back campaign. Not a given....
It is literally the standard rate -- one short rest every 1/3 of your daily xp. I have seen far more games where resting was more common than the game intends than games where resting was less common.
That sounds extremely anecdotal.
The second part is, though it seems to come up pretty regularly on the forums so it's not just me. For the first part, though:
Multipart Encounters
Sometimes an encounter features multiple enemies that the party doesn’t face all at once. For example, monsters might come at the party in waves. For such encounters, treat each discrete part or wave as a separate encounter for the purpose of determining its difficulty.
A party can’t benefit from a short rest between parts of a multipart encounter, so they won’t be able to spend Hit Dice to regain hit points or recover any abilities that require a short rest to regain. As a rule, if the adjusted XP value for the monsters in a multipart encounter is higher than one-third of the party’s expected XP total for the adventuring day (see “The Adventuring Day,” below), the encounter is going to be tougher than the sum of its parts.
I can’t remember ever being in a campaign where we were able to constantly rest. Most dungeon/castle/cave/whatever environments don’t have a safe place to rest after every fight.
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It is the only subclass that I have just flat out banned when DMing because of the Munchkin Abuse(tm)
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
For me, the biggest problem is when the bladesingers start getting north of forty AC. Then, it starts getting tough for gods to hit them.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
I don’t know. I know there’s a lot of hyperbole here but I went back and read the subclass and I’m just not seeing it. Bladesong can only be used twice between rests and only lasts 1 minute. The int modifier on AC would normally be +4 max, maybe on top of another +4 based on your dex but it’s really only going to get you the same AC as other characters. I’d have to see a scenario where it’s really causing a problem.
If it ever came up at my table, I'd probably solve it the way I prefer to solve all such issues.
"You want to play the Bladesinger? All right. Bladesinging, in Tyberos [i.e. the homebrew setting I use when not in Exandria or Eberron], is very much an elven secret. It can only be learned in a Grove, taught by elves to other elves. The Bladesinger's arts, much like the Feywarden's arts, require decades of dedication and patient study. You can have this extremely powerful, fun, and flavorful subclass - but you're going to respect its story, and you're barred from multiclassing until and unless you can give me a story I want to hear about why and how you're splicing all these other things in."
"Don't think that's fair? That's fine - War Wizardry is commonly taught in arcane colleges throughout Tyberos and is freely available to all prospective wizard students, though many of the finer academies only teach it to students who swear a commitment to military service when they're finished learning. Humanity actually created the school of War Wizardry as an answer to the power of elven Bladesingers - a single War Wizard is not remotely as powerful and capable as a Bladesinger, but a War Wizard backed by the squad of highly trained soldiers he works in mutual support with is a different story."
"Huh? You want to be a yuan-ti Bladesinger with three levels of Battlesmith artificer and a level of monk so you can add three of your six ability modifiers to your AC and attack with your Intelligence instead of your Dexterity? Lolnope. Try again, honey - and this time, please try to make a D&D character instead of a World of Warcraft toon."
Please do not contact or message me.
An example of a powerful Bladesinger.
Barbarian 1, Bladesinger everything else.
Take all our your Ability score increases into Dexterity, Intelligence, and Constitution.
You will end up with 25 AC while Bladesinging, and 30 with Shield.
This took about two minutes to think of. Not super broken, but it can get much worse than this.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Yeah but you’re talking about multiclassing it. A straight up regular bladesinger I don’t see an issue with.
The problem with bladesinger is that it grants a bonus to AC, instead of just a flat figure, which is just incorrect design in 5e. It should be granting a specific AC (probably 10 + Int Bonus + Dex Bonus, making it identical to the barbarian and monk abilities).
Nah, it’s a temporary bonus so handled differently.
I don't think the level 10 ability sucks at all - it compliments shield. When shield won't stop the attack, you can still reduce the damage.
Yeah - it's probably better to just dump the light armor proficiency and give them standard "always on" unarmored defense of 10 + DEX + INT. Let the Bladesong give them temporary hit points = to INT modifier each round or something.
Plenty of temporary bonuses don't stack (look at Mage Armor or Barkskin), and an ability usable 2x/short rest for a minute per use is basically permanent.
How often are you resting?
A short rest every other combat is pretty standard, unless all your fights are Easy.
It is literally the standard rate -- one short rest every 1/3 of your daily xp. I have seen far more games where resting was more common than the game intends than games where resting was less common.
You can do no such thing. You already used your only reaction for shield, so you can't use the level 10 ability.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
That sounds extremely anecdotal.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
There is no guarantee you have used your reaction for shield. The triggering damage might not have been an attack roll, or (depending on how the game handles visibility of attack rolls), you might have chosen to not cast shield because the attack would hit you anyway.
The poster I quoted said that you can use shield and then use the level 10 ability, I was correcting them.
Also, only idiots would not cast shield. It's a 1st level reaction spell that raises your odds of not being hit by 25%, while the level 10 ability requires a spell slot to reduce damage by 5 x the level of spell slot expended. In literally all conditions, shield is better, unless your DM goofed and revealed too much.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
The second part is, though it seems to come up pretty regularly on the forums so it's not just me. For the first part, though:
(https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/creating-adventures#ModifyingEncounterDifficulty). That's pretty clear that they expect a short rest at level every 1/3 of your daily budget.
I can’t remember ever being in a campaign where we were able to constantly rest. Most dungeon/castle/cave/whatever environments don’t have a safe place to rest after every fight.