So I like the Bladesinger and I never really thought about it as overpowered, but as a reminder Shield prevents all damage from Magic Missileand gives them +5 to their AC for the turn so I'm not sure that's the counter you think it is.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I had, or created rather, this same kind of problem in a game where I played an Open Hand Monk. The DM let us roll our stats and I rolled really really well and became untouchable in combat. He eventually asked that I reduce my stats and I had no problem with that because I felt bad that I was outperforming my teammates so much. I'm not convinced it's a problem with the School, but more with just how frustrating and boring it can be for someone to have godly AC.
That said, I don't think that having a godly AC 'breaks' a fight, really. For one thing, it takes a significant investment and should return something cool, which it does. All such similar investments (damage, utility, social, etc) should return things similarly cool. For another, reasonably intelligent opponents should simply pick different targets after failing to hit the speedy elf and then the Bladesinger can't tank for them anymore. Granted they are still a full caster and a half martial class, but their damage dealing capability has no synergy or buffs from their School.
My recommendation for a simple counter? Heat Metal. A smart Bladesinger will drop whatever it is, but if they can't or won't they take 2d8 fire every turn and have Disadvantage on all attacks and ability checks, negating much of their subclass benefits.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
You’re still missing the point. I’ll say for a 3rd time. It’s not the power level. It’s the power level compared to the other characters at the same level. An entire campaign of special consideration for one character that is unhittable compared to the rest of the party is utterly ridiculous, immersion breaking, and frustrating to the party. I didn’t say the DM. I love that you’re like “why are you still trying to hit him after 2 years?” Lol. How dumb and immersion breaking if the DM just gives up on making attack rolls and only goes after the character with special anti-bladesinger attacks? You prove my point. You would just stop attacking the bladesinger because it’s pointless....then what?. You only attack other party members and not the singer? Every encounter there has to be something specific for the bladesinger? That’s BS and you know it. No subclass In any version of D&D is meant to be unhittable with attack rolls. Every encounter starts to revolve around having bladesinger counter measures in every encounter. The other players can see that he never is hit like them and the DM has to come up with ways to handle him. Who enjoys playing like that? How many beholders are you going to throw at them how many mass hypnosis are going to send at them? Sometimes you want to have them face a pack of knolls...etc. you’re naming specific ways to get around a bladesinger and none of what you are saying is news. The point is this sub class adds an element that is very limiting and repetitive with encounters. Puzzles and traps fine. Great but saying being immune to an entire element of the game is fine because there are other elements to the game. It’s not fine. They should have done a better job with the sub class and actually play tested it. It’s is extremely unbalanced and adds a lot of frustration to the other players of a party. The party members decided to hold some PVP matches for fun before the sessions started. A level 12 bugbear Barbarian with bracers of defense and cloak of protection as well as a decent magic weapon vs the Bladesinger with a +1 sword. Battle was over in less than 5 turns. The bladesinger took 3 points of damage. The barbarian player was very experienced and knew what he was doing. It was no contest. Same result facing the warlock, Sorcerer, fighter, Druid, and Cleric. Some matches the blade singer took 0 damage. The only other player where it was even a close battle was the revised Ranger with a +13 to hit with a longbow and ways to grant himself advantage on attacks. Even then he lost. The battles were extremely one sided. I’d be fine with bladesinger subclass if it was of a comparable power level to other subclasses. Not even close.
Sorry, I seriously thought you were posting on here looking for assistance... it being your first post and all.
Clearly though, you are just looking to vent - carry on sir.
... and for the record, I've probably had half a dozen Bladesingers at my table over the past few years (not to mention back in the 2e days), I honestly find the Barbarian more annoying... but have not had a "problem" with any of them. It' all in the DM style and the tone of the game I guess. My D&D games are extremely lighthearted and among friends (unlike my Call of Cthulhu games), I guess I have never really felt I "had to do more damage" to someone... or "had to do damage" period... and it's not uncommon for me to have a goblin toss a rabid badger covered in sticky tree sap at one of my players just for the shits and giggles of it - in all in fun an games. Oh, and PvP is nowhere near balanced. Never has been, and you'll always have problems when trying to run one as so.
A Bladesingers AC isn't really any better than a barbarian. Yes the Bladesinger can stack mage armor on top of his dex and int to AC, but a barbarian can stack a shield with his Dex and con to achieve essentially the same AC. And the barbarians AC is persistent. The Bladesinger only has the higher AC for the 10 rounds or so that he is blade singing. And the barbarian, in addition to having a similar high AC is only taking half damage from weapons do to raging.
And the mirror images don't have the same AC as the Bladesinger. They only get his dex modifier. So they have at best an AC of 15.
The combination of mage armor, blur and mirror image comes at a cost of two 2nd level and one 1st level spell slot. At best he burns 2 rounds to set up those defenses in addition to the spell slots. So he has made himself very hard to hit at the expense of doing nothing else. The real solution to a character who is doing this is for the other characters to confront him about how he isn't contributing to fighting the battle. He is essentially spending half the combat not helping the party.
There are a lot of counters to high AC at your disposal as a DM. Fireball for dex save, hypnotic pattern, burning hands, heck you could even have someone collapse the ceiling in on him for a dex save or have a sinkhole open beneath him. Power gamers are a challenge, but totally able to be counteracted with the right tactics with all a DM has at their disposal. Throw a pack of intellect devourers on him at the bottom of the pot for good measure lol
So I like the Bladesinger and I never really thought about it as overpowered, but as a reminder Shield prevents all damage from Magic Missileand gives them +5 to their AC for the turn so I'm not sure that's the counter you think it is.
It's easy to burn through 4 Shields. The bonus to AC has already been rendered irrelevant if the strategy is to challenge the BS while ignoring or overcoming his AC.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
It's easy to burn through 4 Shields. The bonus to AC has already been rendered irrelevant if the strategy is to challenge the BS while ignoring or overcoming his AC.
Um, trading an action for a reaction that you know will make your target immune to your damage doesn't seem like great tactics.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
The point is to reduce his ability to defend himself. The BS will reasonably only have 4 shields. If you can't hit him with normal attacks anyway, the bonus to AC is moot. After the shields are gone, Magic Missiles will hit. They will also strip him of Mirror Images.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
It's easy to burn through 4 Shields. The bonus to AC has already been rendered irrelevant if the strategy is to challenge the BS while ignoring or overcoming his AC.
Um, trading an action for a reaction that you know will make your target immune to your damage doesn't seem like great tactics.
It actually is! The BS ends up using their reaction and a spell slot every turn.. on top of the actions & slots they are using to ramp up their defenses. With their reaction spent, they can no longer Counterspell that Hold Person from the second caster you put in the encounter. 😉
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
The point is to reduce his ability to defend himself. The BS will reasonably only have 4 shields. If you can't hit him with normal attacks anyway, the bonus to AC is moot. After the shields are gone, Magic Missiles will hit. They will also strip him of Mirror Images.
Just a quick comment but shield can be upcast even if it doesn't do anything more so the BS isn't limited to just 4 shield spells assuming they don't mind burning higher level slots for it.
However, as mentioned, the really useful effect of the bladesinger casting shield is that they have burned their reaction taking counterspell and any other reactions off the table. The BS has the choice, be hit by the magic missiles or be unable to counterspell the fireball/hypnotic pattern/cone of cold/synaptic static that fries both the BS and the rest of the party. Which do you choose?
It actually is! The BS ends up using their reaction and a spell slot every turn.. on top of the actions & slots they are using to ramp up their defenses. With their reaction spent, they can no longer Counterspell that Hold Person from the second caster you put in the encounter. 😉
That's a good point, but aren't there better choices than Magic Missile to accomplish the same thing?
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
It actually is! The BS ends up using their reaction and a spell slot every turn.. on top of the actions & slots they are using to ramp up their defenses. With their reaction spent, they can no longer Counterspell that Hold Person from the second caster you put in the encounter. 😉
That's a good point, but aren't there better choices than Magic Missile to accomplish the same thing?
Situationally? Possibly. In practice, this is the most efficient way to counter any caster relying (at least in part) on Shield and high AC. MM either completely bypasses their AC for guaranteed damage, or they have to burn their reaction/slot on Shield. You accomplish something no matter how the BS decides to respond. It's only a level 1 spell too, so it requires the least amount of resources to accomplish.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
The point is to reduce his ability to defend himself. The BS will reasonably only have 4 shields. If you can't hit him with normal attacks anyway, the bonus to AC is moot. After the shields are gone, Magic Missiles will hit. They will also strip him of Mirror Images.
Just a quick comment but shield can be upcast even if it doesn't do anything more so the BS isn't limited to just 4 shield spells assuming they don't mind burning higher level slots for it.
True, but that would use all of their lvl 2 spell slots (Mirror Image and Blur) and using a 3rd lvl+ spell slot to counter Magic Missile? That sounds pretty unlikely. Then again, I might on a full burn wand cast - 9 Magic Missiles would hurt.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
So...if I'm understanding the recent posts in this old dead resurrected zombie thread correctly, Bladesingers are considered overpowered because they get to add their Intelligence modifier to their armor class while retaining the benefits of regular light armor and/or Mage Armor, allowing them to stack their AC to the rafters and make it difficult for other characters to hit them. This can screw with certain encounters, such as the original poster's encounter patterned after the Twelve Labors of Heracles, in which the intent is to challenge the party with a dirty great beastie that relies on sheer force to overwhelm its targets. Discussion has since devolved into ways to jack over Bladesingers, principally with Magic Missile or by targeting its weaker saves, and DMs saying they shouldn't have to tailor every encounter they run into jacking over the Bladesinger.
If correct:
1.) A themed game should have imposed limits on character creation. If you're making a game that follows along the Greek epics, you should be looking for characters that resemble Greek heroes. Bladesingers are specifically an optional, at-DM-permission subclass; if you don't want them in your game, don't let them in your game.
2.) Bladesingers are strong against single creatures which rely on simple brute-force tactics, i.e. punch-it-till-it-dies, so long as their Bladesong is active. Given the fact that the singer gets two Songs per short rest, one can reasonably assume the song will be active in most fights. The Bladesinger has very high armor class but low HP and (generally) only moderate saves. Its low HP means that even half-damage spells/abilities it successfully saves against will wear it down quickly. If one is playing with standard array or point buy, the Bladesinger is also MAD and will have to compromise and be weak somewhere. if one is not playing with SA/PB, the DM is free to be mean.
Bladesingers are also weak to mob tactics; kobolds especially can threaten a bladesinger with a barrage of Pack Tactics strikes, only a few of which need to get through to seriously threaten the sword wizard, where a barbarian would simply swallow all those hits and continue wading gleefully through kobolds. When you pit your Bladesinger against exactly the sort of thing Bladesingers are good against, then complain that your Bladesinger was good against it, whose fault is that? Really?
3.) Not EVERY encounter needs to stuff the Bladesinger. Players are allowed to have fights where they excel; as a DM, you should be looking to actively encourage this, in fact. Sometimes the player needs to feel like they made the right decision, and a player who invests heavily in creating a character with very high AC should feel like that AC matters. DMs habitually tell players to shut up and deal when they drop critters with 25+ AC on the table and say "find a creative way to deal with this while I have fun pounding you lot into meat confetti." Turnabout is fair play, and you as a DM have far more options are your disposal for shaking things up than the players do.
Yes High AC at lower lvls is a kick in the nuts, since Monsters will have at max a +4 to hit.
At higher lvls when you can hit him with other stuff that doesn't hit AC, not so much.
Also someone talked about his adv. of Dex saves?, did they read it correctly?
It says Adv. on Dex Acrobatics checks...
Also Command make him drop his Bladesong (Command isn't a charm) and call it a day.
Use abilites/spells that drains his INT...
It would be just plain murder attempts at this point, just let the guy enjoy his character, if he's not acting like an arsehole and just plays the game fair, where's the problem, its not the Dm Vs the players, you play WITH the players to make the adventures.
Let the guy shine where he should, and let him be miserable and rely on others for stuff he can't do.
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"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Bladesingers have their own weakness. They are wizards. They suck at Dex save and HP. A few save-for-half damage spells will drop them pretty quick. I have a high stats bladesinger in my campaign. Yes he is powerful, but not game-breaking. I've dropped him a few times now.
When I first read this class I had a similar opinion of it so I had a friend come over and we did a little play testing. We rolled up a 5th level bladesinger with average stats and had him take on a displacer beast one v. one and though he had to use every tool in the toolbox he took it out. Then we rolled a berzerker barbarian at 5th level who took out the displacer beast without even breaking a sweat. I recently played a 4th level bladesinger in a dungeon crawl that had to keep running to the cleric to be healed every other round because the class is weak when it comes to endurance, i.e. they can't stand toe to toe with monsters encounter after encounter between rests. This is the factor that makes the class balanced. They can do amazing things, but they have to expend scarce resources to do them whereas a fighter or a barbarian at the same level can kick butt encounter after encounter.
The bladesinger is cheating. He can't have 2 20s at 2nd level, especially not with t he 18 and 17 being his highest rolls. Talk to them ooc about it. Additionally, bladesong is limited use. He only gets his busted AC for 2 fights, then he has to deal with his 18 from mage armor, which is managable
I am playing a bladesinger in a campaign, and yeah, it is really good. Bladesinger allows you to be both a powerful melee threat and a powerful caster. I could probably 1v1 any of the other characters and come out on top
If he is an Elf (as the book restricts but as this is a homebrew world you could have waived this) and you rolled 3d6's he should only be able to have a 19 INT at max. That is still pretty amazing but not as insane as what he currently has. The only race that could have 20 INT at level 2 would be the Gnome and even a Forest Gnome would not have two 20s if they started with a 17 and 18 as the highest. It sounds like shenanigans are going on or the player is new and confused. DKKaiser has a point.
But if he was willing to make changes for the sake of the game everything is good.
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So I like the Bladesinger and I never really thought about it as overpowered, but as a reminder Shield prevents all damage from Magic Missile and gives them +5 to their AC for the turn so I'm not sure that's the counter you think it is.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I had, or created rather, this same kind of problem in a game where I played an Open Hand Monk. The DM let us roll our stats and I rolled really really well and became untouchable in combat. He eventually asked that I reduce my stats and I had no problem with that because I felt bad that I was outperforming my teammates so much. I'm not convinced it's a problem with the School, but more with just how frustrating and boring it can be for someone to have godly AC.
That said, I don't think that having a godly AC 'breaks' a fight, really. For one thing, it takes a significant investment and should return something cool, which it does. All such similar investments (damage, utility, social, etc) should return things similarly cool. For another, reasonably intelligent opponents should simply pick different targets after failing to hit the speedy elf and then the Bladesinger can't tank for them anymore. Granted they are still a full caster and a half martial class, but their damage dealing capability has no synergy or buffs from their School.
My recommendation for a simple counter? Heat Metal. A smart Bladesinger will drop whatever it is, but if they can't or won't they take 2d8 fire every turn and have Disadvantage on all attacks and ability checks, negating much of their subclass benefits.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Sorry, I seriously thought you were posting on here looking for assistance... it being your first post and all.
Clearly though, you are just looking to vent - carry on sir.
... and for the record, I've probably had half a dozen Bladesingers at my table over the past few years (not to mention back in the 2e days), I honestly find the Barbarian more annoying... but have not had a "problem" with any of them. It' all in the DM style and the tone of the game I guess.
My D&D games are extremely lighthearted and among friends (unlike my Call of Cthulhu games), I guess I have never really felt I "had to do more damage" to someone... or "had to do damage" period... and it's not uncommon for me to have a goblin toss a rabid badger covered in sticky tree sap at one of my players just for the shits and giggles of it - in all in fun an games.
Oh, and PvP is nowhere near balanced. Never has been, and you'll always have problems when trying to run one as so.
...cryptographic randomness!
A Bladesingers AC isn't really any better than a barbarian. Yes the Bladesinger can stack mage armor on top of his dex and int to AC, but a barbarian can stack a shield with his Dex and con to achieve essentially the same AC. And the barbarians AC is persistent. The Bladesinger only has the higher AC for the 10 rounds or so that he is blade singing. And the barbarian, in addition to having a similar high AC is only taking half damage from weapons do to raging.
And the mirror images don't have the same AC as the Bladesinger. They only get his dex modifier. So they have at best an AC of 15.
The combination of mage armor, blur and mirror image comes at a cost of two 2nd level and one 1st level spell slot. At best he burns 2 rounds to set up those defenses in addition to the spell slots. So he has made himself very hard to hit at the expense of doing nothing else. The real solution to a character who is doing this is for the other characters to confront him about how he isn't contributing to fighting the battle. He is essentially spending half the combat not helping the party.
There are a lot of counters to high AC at your disposal as a DM. Fireball for dex save, hypnotic pattern, burning hands, heck you could even have someone collapse the ceiling in on him for a dex save or have a sinkhole open beneath him. Power gamers are a challenge, but totally able to be counteracted with the right tactics with all a DM has at their disposal. Throw a pack of intellect devourers on him at the bottom of the pot for good measure lol
It's easy to burn through 4 Shields. The bonus to AC has already been rendered irrelevant if the strategy is to challenge the BS while ignoring or overcoming his AC.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Um, trading an action for a reaction that you know will make your target immune to your damage doesn't seem like great tactics.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
The point is to reduce his ability to defend himself. The BS will reasonably only have 4 shields. If you can't hit him with normal attacks anyway, the bonus to AC is moot. After the shields are gone, Magic Missiles will hit. They will also strip him of Mirror Images.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
It actually is! The BS ends up using their reaction and a spell slot every turn.. on top of the actions & slots they are using to ramp up their defenses. With their reaction spent, they can no longer Counterspell that Hold Person from the second caster you put in the encounter. 😉
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Just a quick comment but shield can be upcast even if it doesn't do anything more so the BS isn't limited to just 4 shield spells assuming they don't mind burning higher level slots for it.
However, as mentioned, the really useful effect of the bladesinger casting shield is that they have burned their reaction taking counterspell and any other reactions off the table. The BS has the choice, be hit by the magic missiles or be unable to counterspell the fireball/hypnotic pattern/cone of cold/synaptic static that fries both the BS and the rest of the party. Which do you choose?
That's a good point, but aren't there better choices than Magic Missile to accomplish the same thing?
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Situationally? Possibly. In practice, this is the most efficient way to counter any caster relying (at least in part) on Shield and high AC. MM either completely bypasses their AC for guaranteed damage, or they have to burn their reaction/slot on Shield. You accomplish something no matter how the BS decides to respond. It's only a level 1 spell too, so it requires the least amount of resources to accomplish.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
True, but that would use all of their lvl 2 spell slots (Mirror Image and Blur) and using a 3rd lvl+ spell slot to counter Magic Missile? That sounds pretty unlikely. Then again, I might on a full burn wand cast - 9 Magic Missiles would hurt.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
So...if I'm understanding the recent posts in this old dead resurrected zombie thread correctly, Bladesingers are considered overpowered because they get to add their Intelligence modifier to their armor class while retaining the benefits of regular light armor and/or Mage Armor, allowing them to stack their AC to the rafters and make it difficult for other characters to hit them. This can screw with certain encounters, such as the original poster's encounter patterned after the Twelve Labors of Heracles, in which the intent is to challenge the party with a dirty great beastie that relies on sheer force to overwhelm its targets. Discussion has since devolved into ways to jack over Bladesingers, principally with Magic Missile or by targeting its weaker saves, and DMs saying they shouldn't have to tailor every encounter they run into jacking over the Bladesinger.
If correct:
1.) A themed game should have imposed limits on character creation. If you're making a game that follows along the Greek epics, you should be looking for characters that resemble Greek heroes. Bladesingers are specifically an optional, at-DM-permission subclass; if you don't want them in your game, don't let them in your game.
2.) Bladesingers are strong against single creatures which rely on simple brute-force tactics, i.e. punch-it-till-it-dies, so long as their Bladesong is active. Given the fact that the singer gets two Songs per short rest, one can reasonably assume the song will be active in most fights. The Bladesinger has very high armor class but low HP and (generally) only moderate saves. Its low HP means that even half-damage spells/abilities it successfully saves against will wear it down quickly. If one is playing with standard array or point buy, the Bladesinger is also MAD and will have to compromise and be weak somewhere. if one is not playing with SA/PB, the DM is free to be mean.
Bladesingers are also weak to mob tactics; kobolds especially can threaten a bladesinger with a barrage of Pack Tactics strikes, only a few of which need to get through to seriously threaten the sword wizard, where a barbarian would simply swallow all those hits and continue wading gleefully through kobolds. When you pit your Bladesinger against exactly the sort of thing Bladesingers are good against, then complain that your Bladesinger was good against it, whose fault is that? Really?
3.) Not EVERY encounter needs to stuff the Bladesinger. Players are allowed to have fights where they excel; as a DM, you should be looking to actively encourage this, in fact. Sometimes the player needs to feel like they made the right decision, and a player who invests heavily in creating a character with very high AC should feel like that AC matters. DMs habitually tell players to shut up and deal when they drop critters with 25+ AC on the table and say "find a creative way to deal with this while I have fun pounding you lot into meat confetti." Turnabout is fair play, and you as a DM have far more options are your disposal for shaking things up than the players do.
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Yes High AC at lower lvls is a kick in the nuts, since Monsters will have at max a +4 to hit.
At higher lvls when you can hit him with other stuff that doesn't hit AC, not so much.
Also someone talked about his adv. of Dex saves?, did they read it correctly?
It says Adv. on Dex Acrobatics checks...
Also Command make him drop his Bladesong (Command isn't a charm) and call it a day.
Use abilites/spells that drains his INT...
It would be just plain murder attempts at this point, just let the guy enjoy his character, if he's not acting like an arsehole and just plays the game fair, where's the problem, its not the Dm Vs the players, you play WITH the players to make the adventures.
Let the guy shine where he should, and let him be miserable and rely on others for stuff he can't do.
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
Bladesingers have their own weakness. They are wizards. They suck at Dex save and HP. A few save-for-half damage spells will drop them pretty quick. I have a high stats bladesinger in my campaign. Yes he is powerful, but not game-breaking. I've dropped him a few times now.
When I first read this class I had a similar opinion of it so I had a friend come over and we did a little play testing. We rolled up a 5th level bladesinger with average stats and had him take on a displacer beast one v. one and though he had to use every tool in the toolbox he took it out. Then we rolled a berzerker barbarian at 5th level who took out the displacer beast without even breaking a sweat. I recently played a 4th level bladesinger in a dungeon crawl that had to keep running to the cleric to be healed every other round because the class is weak when it comes to endurance, i.e. they can't stand toe to toe with monsters encounter after encounter between rests. This is the factor that makes the class balanced. They can do amazing things, but they have to expend scarce resources to do them whereas a fighter or a barbarian at the same level can kick butt encounter after encounter.
The bladesinger is cheating. He can't have 2 20s at 2nd level, especially not with t he 18 and 17 being his highest rolls. Talk to them ooc about it. Additionally, bladesong is limited use. He only gets his busted AC for 2 fights, then he has to deal with his 18 from mage armor, which is managable
I exist, and I guess so does this
I am playing a bladesinger in a campaign, and yeah, it is really good. Bladesinger allows you to be both a powerful melee threat and a powerful caster. I could probably 1v1 any of the other characters and come out on top
I exist, and I guess so does this
If he is an Elf (as the book restricts but as this is a homebrew world you could have waived this) and you rolled 3d6's he should only be able to have a 19 INT at max. That is still pretty amazing but not as insane as what he currently has. The only race that could have 20 INT at level 2 would be the Gnome and even a Forest Gnome would not have two 20s if they started with a 17 and 18 as the highest. It sounds like shenanigans are going on or the player is new and confused. DKKaiser has a point.
But if he was willing to make changes for the sake of the game everything is good.