Heh. No no Sposta, Blade Ward is the cantrip that gives you resistance to mundane weapon damage for a turn. True Strike is the one that gives you advantage on the next turn. Sadly, the only high-level spell that requires a spell attack actually doesn't require a spell attack (I will never not be pissed at WotC for making Disintegrate a saving throw despite it being a LITERAL FINGER LASER OF DOOM that does nothing on a failed save...JUST LIKE WIFFING A SPELL ATTACK...for the specific reason "we can't let our boss monsters take damage from Disintegrate! We're gonna make it a save so they can force you to automatically miss with legendary resistances!" No-balls move there, WotC), so there's still no point to True Strike. One of those spells that's just kind of an unfortunate remnant of older editions, vestigial and doomed to die.
Contagion being about the only spell I’d vaguely consider using with True Strike - applying the un-save-able poisoned condition can be very useful and it would be worth using an advantage on that roll. Beyond that… yeah. I got nothing. Unless maybe you couldn’t reach your target on round 1 and you have no ranged attacks?
I guess you could use True Strike if you wanted to upcast Chromatic Orb or Inflict Wounds.
Can't think of a good reason why you'd do that, but it's technically something you could do.
Yeah, all I could think of was being too far to use IW on the current turn, or perhaps you only had a High level spell slot left and you really didn’t want to miss with an upcasted version.
"it allows them to make an additional attack with a completely separate one-handed weapon held in a different hand"
So what you are saying is, making an attack with your left hand, followed by making an attack with your right hand is different to making an attack with each of your two hands....
The key part you are missing from Bladesong is the " if you use 2 hands to make an attack with a weapon" part. Emphasis on "a weapon" meaning ONE weapon. Two weapon fighting uses TWO weapons. That is the fundamental difference.
Nowhere in the description does it actually make that distinction. If they meant to say you can’t attack with a 2 handed or versatile weapon then they would have said that. They specifically avoided saying that. It’s a very badly worded sentence for sure, but as written it says if you use 2 hands to make an attack which is non specific and could equally include 2weapon fighting along with 2 handed / versatile weapons. The addition of a weapon has no impact because you wouldn’t have more than 1 weapon in a hand if you were attacking with it anyway.
Bladesingers can make use of using two hands to make a single attack with their extra attack feature and cantrip casting, they just can’t do it while keeping bladesong active. A lower level bladesinger with limited uses or out of uses might choose to hang back and make attacks with bows and fire bolts if they’ve gotten proficiency through a racial option.
Two weapon fighting is definitely allowed and compliments bladesong.
”…if you use two hands to make an attack with a weapon.” is definitely more clear than saying you can’t use bladesong while using heavy, versatile, or two handed weapons with a sentence that already had so many commas in it.
interestingly enough the unarmed fighting style that increases your damage die to 1d6 or 1d8 when hands are empty doesn’t stop bladesong, as the increased damage die from having both hands available doesn’t say you actually use both to attack.
interestingly enough the unarmed fighting style that increases your damage die to 1d6 or 1d8 when hands are empty doesn’t stop bladesong, as the increased damage die from having both hands available doesn’t say you actually use both to attack.
True (partially)! Hands don’t have to be empty, just not wielding a weapon or shield. Also, Unarmed Fighting says nothing about using your fists to attack. It limits your damage when hands are wielding things, but unarmed fighting can use headbutts, kicks, knees, elbows, anything.
This is why you grapple two people, shove them to the ground, and enjoy those 1d8 headbutts with advantage all day… 🩸 🩸
On the topic of blade ward as a cantrip as it is, I think this is underpowered compared to other fighting cantrip because it causes you one action to cas and you loose by the end of your next turn (duration 1 round) plus compared to other fighting cantrip it doesn't scale you d'ont additional benefit while hitting lvl 5, 11 and 17.
So I was thinking of instead having the ability to cast blade ward as a bonus action which is a bit strong make it scale such as other cantrip.
To do so the idea is that at lvl 5, 11 and 17 the duration of blade ward increases by 1 round (duration lvl 5 : 2 rounds, lvl 11 3 rounds, lvl 17 4 rounds) giving the possibility to do other thing in betweens rounds to do other actions than casting blade ward.
Blade Ward does scale with level as the amount of damage you are likely to take, and hence reduce increases my level.
In tier 1 blade ward might be most useful for something like a bandit captain 3 attacks dealing an average of 17 if all 3 hit (no crits) blade ward would reduce this by about 9
In tier 4 (and possibly tier 3) you might use it on a Marilith. 7 Attacks dealing an average of 93 damage if all 3 hit, blade w ward would reduce this by about 47 in a single round.
Blade Ward does scale with level as the amount of damage you are likely to take, and hence reduce increases my level.
In tier 1 blade ward might be most useful for something like a bandit captain 3 attacks dealing an average of 17 if all 3 hit (no crits) blade ward would reduce this by about 9
In tier 4 (and possibly tier 3) you might use it on a Marilith. 7 Attacks dealing an average of 93 damage if all 3 hit, blade w ward would reduce this by about 47 in a single round.
The actual average damage of those creatures and the damage reduction are a little off. They don’t capture the effect of rounding down fractions that damage resistance uses.
the bandit actually deals 18.5 average damage with its attacks, but the printed average has been rounded down. This is often done with printed monsters.
the everage damage if the marilith is actually 93 damage and was printed as such. The effect resistance brings to the marilith s attacks is a bit more pronounced since it has more attacks with the possibility of each potentially being an odd number. Since Odd numbers are rounded down in damage calculated the resistance not only halves the damage but reduces an odd damage roll further down to an even number. For example, if a marilith actually rolled each average damage, the reduction would be 43 instead of 47. This is roughly 46% of the original damage.
Here I am 7 years in the future pissed off because someone on you Tube put Blade Ward in a list of the 5 worst cantrips. In this one instance, it is solid gold. You have a bank of temp hit points from abjuration as well as the Armor of Agathis and you spend twice as many rounds damaging people who hit you because they take full damage until the armor is gone. At level 10, I get 25 points in arcane ward and 25 for 5th level Armor of Agathis. That means that with Blade Ward I can take 100 HP in damage before I stop dealing 25 HP damage to everyone who hits me. Plus, I will counter spell anything cast at my party to recharge the arcane ward giving me even longer to do the damage.
For instance, if I am attacked by a triceratops. He hits me every turn for 24 damage, but I take 12. That means he has to hit me 4 times, taking 100 damage before my shields go down. That is pretty sweet. If instead, I am swarmed by goblins, 20 of them would die before my wards dropped.
When your scenario for making Blade Ward useful involves combining a wizard subclass feature with a warlock spell, it's kind of an admission that Blade Ward is terrible.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Blade Ward has worked great for my Battle Master Fighter. I try to spam it outside of combat (it's a concentration spell, so my character knows when it goes away and I will cast it as soon as I enter a new room and/or area), so I don't have to us an action for it (my DM allows it most of the time, though the verbal component makes our presence known). It's essentially my own personal Bane as long as I maintain concentration. It saved my ass in battle a couple of months ago, when I ended being attacked by 6 Vampire Spawn and 4 Bat Swarms inside a Church in Vallaki. It's criminally underrated IMO. It requires an action (a bonus action to cast would make it S tier IMO) to cast, but so does Bane and it doesn't use a spell slot and require a saving throw to be effective. I think Blade Ward is an A cantrip, especially for characters who don't have anything else or much else to use their concentration on.
The original lasted one round and did not require concentration. And it gave resistance to weapon damage, it didn't impose a penalty on weapon attack rolls against you.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
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I actually never noticed that it has the same duration as Countercharm. You can use it right before opening a door, maybe.
Yeah, all I could think of was being too far to use IW on the current turn, or perhaps you only had a High level spell slot left and you really didn’t want to miss with an upcasted version.
Nowhere in the description does it actually make that distinction. If they meant to say you can’t attack with a 2 handed or versatile weapon then they would have said that. They specifically avoided saying that. It’s a very badly worded sentence for sure, but as written it says if you use 2 hands to make an attack which is non specific and could equally include 2weapon fighting along with 2 handed / versatile weapons. The addition of a weapon has no impact because you wouldn’t have more than 1 weapon in a hand if you were attacking with it anyway.
Bladesingers can make use of using two hands to make a single attack with their extra attack feature and cantrip casting, they just can’t do it while keeping bladesong active. A lower level bladesinger with limited uses or out of uses might choose to hang back and make attacks with bows and fire bolts if they’ve gotten proficiency through a racial option.
Two weapon fighting is definitely allowed and compliments bladesong.
”…if you use two hands to make an attack with a weapon.” is definitely more clear than saying you can’t use bladesong while using heavy, versatile, or two handed weapons with a sentence that already had so many commas in it.
interestingly enough the unarmed fighting style that increases your damage die to 1d6 or 1d8 when hands are empty doesn’t stop bladesong, as the increased damage die from having both hands available doesn’t say you actually use both to attack.
interestingly enough the unarmed fighting style that increases your damage die to 1d6 or 1d8 when hands are empty doesn’t stop bladesong, as the increased damage die from having both hands available doesn’t say you actually use both to attack.
True (partially)! Hands don’t have to be empty, just not wielding a weapon or shield.
Also, Unarmed Fighting says nothing about using your fists to attack. It limits your damage when hands are wielding things, but unarmed fighting can use headbutts, kicks, knees, elbows, anything.
This is why you grapple two people, shove them to the ground, and enjoy those 1d8 headbutts with advantage all day… 🩸 🩸
On the topic of blade ward as a cantrip as it is, I think this is underpowered compared to other fighting cantrip because it causes you one action to cas and you loose by the end of your next turn (duration 1 round) plus compared to other fighting cantrip it doesn't scale you d'ont additional benefit while hitting lvl 5, 11 and 17.
So I was thinking of instead having the ability to cast blade ward as a bonus action which is a bit strong make it scale such as other cantrip.
To do so the idea is that at lvl 5, 11 and 17 the duration of blade ward increases by 1 round (duration lvl 5 : 2 rounds, lvl 11 3 rounds, lvl 17 4 rounds) giving the possibility to do other thing in betweens rounds to do other actions than casting blade ward.
Can I have your thoughts on this pliz ?
Blade Ward does scale with level as the amount of damage you are likely to take, and hence reduce increases my level.
In tier 1 blade ward might be most useful for something like a bandit captain 3 attacks dealing an average of 17 if all 3 hit (no crits) blade ward would reduce this by about 9
In tier 4 (and possibly tier 3) you might use it on a Marilith. 7 Attacks dealing an average of 93 damage if all 3 hit, blade w ward would reduce this by about 47 in a single round.
The actual average damage of those creatures and the damage reduction are a little off. They don’t capture the effect of rounding down fractions that damage resistance uses.
the bandit actually deals 18.5 average damage with its attacks, but the printed average has been rounded down. This is often done with printed monsters.
the everage damage if the marilith is actually 93 damage and was printed as such. The effect resistance brings to the marilith s attacks is a bit more pronounced since it has more attacks with the possibility of each potentially being an odd number. Since Odd numbers are rounded down in damage calculated the resistance not only halves the damage but reduces an odd damage roll further down to an even number. For example, if a marilith actually rolled each average damage, the reduction would be 43 instead of 47. This is roughly 46% of the original damage.
Here I am 7 years in the future pissed off because someone on you Tube put Blade Ward in a list of the 5 worst cantrips. In this one instance, it is solid gold. You have a bank of temp hit points from abjuration as well as the Armor of Agathis and you spend twice as many rounds damaging people who hit you because they take full damage until the armor is gone. At level 10, I get 25 points in arcane ward and 25 for 5th level Armor of Agathis. That means that with Blade Ward I can take 100 HP in damage before I stop dealing 25 HP damage to everyone who hits me. Plus, I will counter spell anything cast at my party to recharge the arcane ward giving me even longer to do the damage.
For instance, if I am attacked by a triceratops. He hits me every turn for 24 damage, but I take 12. That means he has to hit me 4 times, taking 100 damage before my shields go down. That is pretty sweet. If instead, I am swarmed by goblins, 20 of them would die before my wards dropped.
Stupid, yes, but fun.
When your scenario for making Blade Ward useful involves combining a wizard subclass feature with a warlock spell, it's kind of an admission that Blade Ward is terrible.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Blade Ward has worked great for my Battle Master Fighter. I try to spam it outside of combat (it's a concentration spell, so my character knows when it goes away and I will cast it as soon as I enter a new room and/or area), so I don't have to us an action for it (my DM allows it most of the time, though the verbal component makes our presence known). It's essentially my own personal Bane as long as I maintain concentration. It saved my ass in battle a couple of months ago, when I ended being attacked by 6 Vampire Spawn and 4 Bat Swarms inside a Church in Vallaki. It's criminally underrated IMO. It requires an action (a bonus action to cast would make it S tier IMO) to cast, but so does Bane and it doesn't use a spell slot and require a saving throw to be effective. I think Blade Ward is an A cantrip, especially for characters who don't have anything else or much else to use their concentration on.
That's the 2024 updated version of the spell.
The original lasted one round and did not require concentration. And it gave resistance to weapon damage, it didn't impose a penalty on weapon attack rolls against you.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.