I did not say it was bad, but three blessed rolls at character creation is objectively an outlier, which affects how much weight that particular data point has in an assessment of overall trends.
What are you talking about? This character wouldn't have been a better frontliner with those rolls as a fighter. They were as effective as they were specifically by being a wizard with careful spell and feat selection. Aka the thing we're talking about.
Feat selection that was enabled/enhanced by not needing to spend ASI’s on INT or DEX, plus a high CON propping up your Concentration saves. Yes, this was a strong build, but it’s not one that can be consistently reproduced, and thus is of limited value in assessing the baseline of front row survivability for a Wizard.
I did not say it was bad, but three blessed rolls at character creation is objectively an outlier, which affects how much weight that particular data point has in an assessment of overall trends.
What are you talking about? This character wouldn't have been a better frontliner with those rolls as a fighter. They were as effective as they were specifically by being a wizard with careful spell and feat selection. Aka the thing we're talking about.
Feat selection that was enabled/enhanced by not needing to spend ASI’s on INT or DEX, plus a high CON propping up your Concentration saves. Yes, this was a strong build, but it’s not one that can be consistently reproduced, and thus is of limited value in assessing the baseline of front row survivability for a Wizard.
Those feats have ASIs. They're both half feats.
The same build with point buy is perfectly achievable. Just because it wouldn't be "The most busted front line character I've seen in over 30 years of playing d&d" doesn't mean it wouldn't still be "The 2nd most busted front line character I've seen in over 30 years of playing d&d" if they had 2 less AC...
The reality of 5e is that your "front line" should be zoning spells (web, spike growth, wall of fire, etc) -- "the enemy can't attack anyone" is vastly superior to "the enemy is only able to attack the tanks", and zoning spells are also much better at protecting the back line than 'front line' characters. However, given a desire to be a front line combatant, I expect bladesinger will do the best job of being what the player wants.
I did not say it was bad, but three blessed rolls at character creation is objectively an outlier, which affects how much weight that particular data point has in an assessment of overall trends.
What are you talking about? This character wouldn't have been a better frontliner with those rolls as a fighter. They were as effective as they were specifically by being a wizard with careful spell and feat selection. Aka the thing we're talking about.
Feat selection that was enabled/enhanced by not needing to spend ASI’s on INT or DEX, plus a high CON propping up your Concentration saves. Yes, this was a strong build, but it’s not one that can be consistently reproduced, and thus is of limited value in assessing the baseline of front row survivability for a Wizard.
Those feats have ASIs. They're both half feats.
The same build with point buy is perfectly achievable. Just because it wouldn't be "The most busted front line character I've seen in over 30 years of playing d&d" doesn't mean it wouldn't still be "The 2nd most busted front line character I've seen in over 30 years of playing d&d" if they had 2 less AC...
That's really what you're quibbling over.
I suspect the real reason for that build’s excellent performance was the combination of spirit guardians with the wizard.
After all, all the cleric needs to be an excellent frontliner is spirit guardians, spiritual weapon, and a decent AC (from armour in their case). Booming Blade fills in for spiritual weapon, and wizard, I suspect, has many more control and lockdown spells to take advantage of.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I can’t remember what’s supposed to go here.
Miley Cyrus music should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
I did not say it was bad, but three blessed rolls at character creation is objectively an outlier, which affects how much weight that particular data point has in an assessment of overall trends.
What are you talking about? This character wouldn't have been a better frontliner with those rolls as a fighter. They were as effective as they were specifically by being a wizard with careful spell and feat selection. Aka the thing we're talking about.
Feat selection that was enabled/enhanced by not needing to spend ASI’s on INT or DEX, plus a high CON propping up your Concentration saves. Yes, this was a strong build, but it’s not one that can be consistently reproduced, and thus is of limited value in assessing the baseline of front row survivability for a Wizard.
Those feats have ASIs. They're both half feats.
The same build with point buy is perfectly achievable. Just because it wouldn't be "The most busted front line character I've seen in over 30 years of playing d&d" doesn't mean it wouldn't still be "The 2nd most busted front line character I've seen in over 30 years of playing d&d" if they had 2 less AC...
That's really what you're quibbling over.
I suspect the real reason for that build’s excellent performance was the combination of spirit guardians with the wizard.
After all, all the cleric needs to be an excellent frontliner is spirit guardians, spiritual weapon, and a decent AC (from armour in their case). Booming Blade fills in for spiritual weapon, and wizard, I suspect, has many more control and lockdown spells to take advantage of.
Exactly! Telekinetic is arguably better than spiritual weapon. You yank people into the spirit guardians and they take the 3d8 damage. Even if they save for half thats about what the spiritual weapon woulda done. And if they fail the save it just deals more than SW. Plus it doesn't use a spell slot. And is more flexible and has other utility.
Spirit Guardians paired with a BA shove, and using your Action for Wizard spellcasting? Just crazy good. Like, you can totally be casting fireball or rimes or whatever aoe you like while also aoing with spirit guardians. It's just the best.
Wanna go low resource mode? Easy. One spirit guardians is all you need to cast to be super effective out the jump. BA shove doesn't use resources. And you can cantrip+attack as an action starting at 6.
Like I said, I tried it with stellar stats because I wanted to see how broken OP a build I could make with them. But with point buy this would still clean house in the battlefield.
I reckon the best thing for you would be to multiclass Artificer 3 and take the Armorer or Battlesmith subclass, and take Bladesinger or War Magic the rest of the way.
Armorer - Extra defensive perks, strong tanking and control, decent damage.
Battlesmith - SAD, better weapons, also Steel Defender, won’t scale (well) unless you take more artificer.
Bladesinger - Big AC, MAD (unless you Battlesmith), good skirmishing in general, so if you front line you can use that to get out if you need to, decent concentration checks. Of course, the best Extra Attack in the game, some damage reduction and extra damage perks.
War Magic - Gain a bonus to AC and Saves in exchange for weaker spells, extra initiative bonus, earlier damage buffs when you counterspell, some extra AC when concentrating, and you can make your defence offensive.
Armorer / Bladesinger - Doesn’t work, need to be armorless to bladesing
Armorer / War Magic - This is peak tanking, you are able to hit people when desired, drawing their blows, and being able to cast strong spells, this is my reccomendation
Battlesmith / Bladesinger - Less MAD then the other builds, having a steel defender as some cover once or twice each day is kinda handy, but overall not a great set up.
Battlesmith / War Magic - Completely SAD, which is very nice, works well as a defensive build early on, but falls off at later levels. Not too shabby shorter campaigns.
Armorer / Bladesinger - Doesn’t work, need to be armorless to bladesing
Incorrect. Bladesinging works while wearing light armor and the Armorer's class features can use any type of armor. It's not the most ideal choice but it can work.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
You need a really strong reason to multiclass out of the strongest class in the game. Artificer isn't doing much for you but slowing your spell progression down.
Bladesinging... better AC, use of weapon attacks blended with spells. Order of Scribes... able to switch damage types of close quarter spells like Burning Hands and Thunderwave just to mention a few. School of Abjuration... has the extra defensive layer of the ward. School of Divination... able to portent up to two different rolls during combat, helping allies hit and enemies miss. School of Enchantment... able to lock an enemy down with hypnotic gaze until the party deals with the others or are ready to deal with it. School of Evocation... able to sculpt spells like Burning Hands and Thunderwave to not target allies. School of Illusion... illusions, even the cantrip Minor Illusion can affect the outcome of many fights, even if it's only a momentary distraction. School of Necromancy... using grim harvest in close quarters will give enemies a target other than your allies and it helps keep you alive longer. School of Transmutation... changing an iron weapon into a silver one before the fight means you can get around certain resistances and tempt greedy enemies to try and get their hands on a solid silver weapon. War Magic... higher AC and saving throws help a lot on the front line where they are probably in need more. Blood Magic... rerolling damage of Burning Hands and Thunderwave to possibly get higher results. Chronurgy Magic... maybe going first (or close to it) and having enemies reroll certain attacks to miss, or allies reroll misses and maybe hit now. Graviturgy Magic... having an enemies weight become half or double and the resulting effects from that can greatly influence the outcome of a fight, or even affecting an ally is some beneficial way.
These are some of the best subclasses of wizard that would make a good front-line wizard for a large party. If any others (all) come out in future books I will add those (all) that apply.
Also, if your game allows homebrew... then any and all of those also would make good front-liners.
You basically listed all the wizards, including the ones that are HORRIBLE front liners. The following are the good ones:
Bladesinger
War Wizard
Abjurer
The rest should NOT be front liners. While they have good abilities, particularly chrono and diviners, their abilities work best from the back line.
I agree mostly, though I am strongly tempted to add Enchanter to the list with instinctive charm.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
I did not say it was bad, but three blessed rolls at character creation is objectively an outlier, which affects how much weight that particular data point has in an assessment of overall trends.
What are you talking about? This character wouldn't have been a better frontliner with those rolls as a fighter. They were as effective as they were specifically by being a wizard with careful spell and feat selection. Aka the thing we're talking about.
I think Ace is saying the rolls made the character busted more than the particular abilities did. And that is the truth.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Armorer / Bladesinger - Doesn’t work, need to be armorless to bladesing
Incorrect. Bladesinging works while wearing light armor and the Armorer's class features can use any type of armor. It's not the most ideal choice but it can work.
Oh! My bad, huh… could be a pretty neat build then? Bladesinger’s extra attack with a thunder gauntlet punch could be very very nice!
Bladesinging... better AC, use of weapon attacks blended with spells. Order of Scribes... able to switch damage types of close quarter spells like Burning Hands and Thunderwave just to mention a few. School of Abjuration... has the extra defensive layer of the ward. School of Divination... able to portent up to two different rolls during combat, helping allies hit and enemies miss. School of Enchantment... able to lock an enemy down with hypnotic gaze until the party deals with the others or are ready to deal with it. School of Evocation... able to sculpt spells like Burning Hands and Thunderwave to not target allies. School of Illusion... illusions, even the cantrip Minor Illusion can affect the outcome of many fights, even if it's only a momentary distraction. School of Necromancy... using grim harvest in close quarters will give enemies a target other than your allies and it helps keep you alive longer. School of Transmutation... changing an iron weapon into a silver one before the fight means you can get around certain resistances and tempt greedy enemies to try and get their hands on a solid silver weapon. War Magic... higher AC and saving throws help a lot on the front line where they are probably in need more. Blood Magic... rerolling damage of Burning Hands and Thunderwave to possibly get higher results. Chronurgy Magic... maybe going first (or close to it) and having enemies reroll certain attacks to miss, or allies reroll misses and maybe hit now. Graviturgy Magic... having an enemies weight become half or double and the resulting effects from that can greatly influence the outcome of a fight, or even affecting an ally is some beneficial way.
These are some of the best subclasses of wizard that would make a good front-line wizard for a large party. If any others (all) come out in future books I will add those (all) that apply.
Also, if your game allows homebrew... then any and all of those also would make good front-liners.
You basically listed all the wizards, including the ones that are HORRIBLE front liners. The following are the good ones:
Bladesinger
War Wizard
Abjurer
The rest should NOT be front liners. While they have good abilities, particularly chrono and diviners, their abilities work best from the back line.
I agree mostly, though I am strongly tempted to add Enchanter to the list with instinctive charm.
Enchanter as a whole is a fantastically strong subclass, particularly its tenth level feature when you take into account some of the spells which are really oddly labelled enchantments. Like Raulothim’s Psychic Lance. It doubles the value on a lot of control spells, which is really handy.
You need a really strong reason to multiclass out of the strongest class in the game. Artificer isn't doing much for you but slowing your spell progression down.
A 1 level dip will not slow your spell progression and give you medium armor and shield. Wouldn’t help Bladesinger but if you went with a different wizard subclass it would help
I did not say it was bad, but three blessed rolls at character creation is objectively an outlier, which affects how much weight that particular data point has in an assessment of overall trends.
What are you talking about? This character wouldn't have been a better frontliner with those rolls as a fighter. They were as effective as they were specifically by being a wizard with careful spell and feat selection. Aka the thing we're talking about.
I think Ace is saying the rolls made the character busted more than the particular abilities did. And that is the truth.
No, it isn't the truth. As discussed earlier the difference is like 2 AC from pointbuy.
You need a really strong reason to multiclass out of the strongest class in the game. Artificer isn't doing much for you but slowing your spell progression down.
A 1 level dip will not slow your spell progression and give you medium armor and shield. Wouldn’t help Bladesinger but if you went with a different wizard subclass it would help
You're ignoring the context of the previous posts detailing how "great" an idea it is to dip 3 levels into artificer and exactly which combinations to do it in.
No one was talking about a 1 level dip into artificer. They were talking about full on artificer subclasses and how well they work comboed with wizard subsclasses.
So at minimum a L5 character. Art3/Wiz2.
But no feature you have as that monstrosity of a multiclass is going outmatch a fireball from a regular wizard.
I did not say it was bad, but three blessed rolls at character creation is objectively an outlier, which affects how much weight that particular data point has in an assessment of overall trends.
What are you talking about? This character wouldn't have been a better frontliner with those rolls as a fighter. They were as effective as they were specifically by being a wizard with careful spell and feat selection. Aka the thing we're talking about.
I think Ace is saying the rolls made the character busted more than the particular abilities did. And that is the truth.
No, it isn't the truth. As discussed earlier the difference is like 2 AC from pointbuy.
And about a +2 CON mod unless you heavily min-maxed, all of which makes it more effective to take a feat early, and as noted the Strixhaven feats are also somewhat overtuned and technically restrained to that campaign unless the DM allows otherwise. It’s a good build, but dependent on getting at least two notable breaks in its favor at character creation.
I did not say it was bad, but three blessed rolls at character creation is objectively an outlier, which affects how much weight that particular data point has in an assessment of overall trends.
What are you talking about? This character wouldn't have been a better frontliner with those rolls as a fighter. They were as effective as they were specifically by being a wizard with careful spell and feat selection. Aka the thing we're talking about.
I think Ace is saying the rolls made the character busted more than the particular abilities did. And that is the truth.
No, it isn't the truth. As discussed earlier the difference is like 2 AC from pointbuy.
And about a +2 CON mod unless you heavily min-maxed, all of which makes it more effective to take a feat early, and as noted the Strixhaven feats are also somewhat overtuned and technically restrained to that campaign unless the DM allows otherwise. It’s a good build, but dependent on getting at least two notable breaks in its favor at character creation.
No. I don't know why you're arguing with me. I did an mock up and compared the difference. Constitution wasn't one of the differences. The differences are extremely small.
The build itself is what is powerful.
Using spirit guardians on a bladesinger is legit terrifying. Adding telekinetic so you can shove people around takes it to a whole extra level.
No rolled stats required.
(Just a general tip, if you use point buy to make a bladesinger you shouldn't be happy with a 11 Constitution. I have no idea why you settled on that as "normal")
Feat selection that was enabled/enhanced by not needing to spend ASI’s on INT or DEX, plus a high CON propping up your Concentration saves. Yes, this was a strong build, but it’s not one that can be consistently reproduced, and thus is of limited value in assessing the baseline of front row survivability for a Wizard.
Those feats have ASIs. They're both half feats.
The same build with point buy is perfectly achievable. Just because it wouldn't be "The most busted front line character I've seen in over 30 years of playing d&d" doesn't mean it wouldn't still be "The 2nd most busted front line character I've seen in over 30 years of playing d&d" if they had 2 less AC...
That's really what you're quibbling over.
I got quotes!
The reality of 5e is that your "front line" should be zoning spells (web, spike growth, wall of fire, etc) -- "the enemy can't attack anyone" is vastly superior to "the enemy is only able to attack the tanks", and zoning spells are also much better at protecting the back line than 'front line' characters. However, given a desire to be a front line combatant, I expect bladesinger will do the best job of being what the player wants.
I suspect the real reason for that build’s excellent performance was the combination of spirit guardians with the wizard.
After all, all the cleric needs to be an excellent frontliner is spirit guardians, spiritual weapon, and a decent AC (from armour in their case). Booming Blade fills in for spiritual weapon, and wizard, I suspect, has many more control and lockdown spells to take advantage of.
I can’t remember what’s supposed to go here.
Miley Cyrus music should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
Exactly! Telekinetic is arguably better than spiritual weapon. You yank people into the spirit guardians and they take the 3d8 damage. Even if they save for half thats about what the spiritual weapon woulda done. And if they fail the save it just deals more than SW. Plus it doesn't use a spell slot. And is more flexible and has other utility.
Spirit Guardians paired with a BA shove, and using your Action for Wizard spellcasting? Just crazy good. Like, you can totally be casting fireball or rimes or whatever aoe you like while also aoing with spirit guardians. It's just the best.
Wanna go low resource mode? Easy. One spirit guardians is all you need to cast to be super effective out the jump. BA shove doesn't use resources. And you can cantrip+attack as an action starting at 6.
Like I said, I tried it with stellar stats because I wanted to see how broken OP a build I could make with them. But with point buy this would still clean house in the battlefield.
I got quotes!
This sounds to me less like a unique Wizard build and more just a display of how powerful Spirit Guardians is.
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And how broken the Strixhaven feats are.
I reckon the best thing for you would be to multiclass Artificer 3 and take the Armorer or Battlesmith subclass, and take Bladesinger or War Magic the rest of the way.
Armorer - Extra defensive perks, strong tanking and control, decent damage.
Battlesmith - SAD, better weapons, also Steel Defender, won’t scale (well) unless you take more artificer.
Bladesinger - Big AC, MAD (unless you Battlesmith), good skirmishing in general, so if you front line you can use that to get out if you need to, decent concentration checks. Of course, the best Extra Attack in the game, some damage reduction and extra damage perks.
War Magic - Gain a bonus to AC and Saves in exchange for weaker spells, extra initiative bonus, earlier damage buffs when you counterspell, some extra AC when concentrating, and you can make your defence offensive.
Armorer / Bladesinger - Doesn’t work, need to be armorless to bladesing
Armorer / War Magic - This is peak tanking, you are able to hit people when desired, drawing their blows, and being able to cast strong spells, this is my reccomendation
Battlesmith / Bladesinger - Less MAD then the other builds, having a steel defender as some cover once or twice each day is kinda handy, but overall not a great set up.
Battlesmith / War Magic - Completely SAD, which is very nice, works well as a defensive build early on, but falls off at later levels. Not too shabby shorter campaigns.
Incorrect. Bladesinging works while wearing light armor and the Armorer's class features can use any type of armor. It's not the most ideal choice but it can work.
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.
You need a really strong reason to multiclass out of the strongest class in the game. Artificer isn't doing much for you but slowing your spell progression down.
I got quotes!
I agree mostly, though I am strongly tempted to add Enchanter to the list with instinctive charm.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I think Ace is saying the rolls made the character busted more than the particular abilities did. And that is the truth.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Oh! My bad, huh… could be a pretty neat build then? Bladesinger’s extra attack with a thunder gauntlet punch could be very very nice!
Enchanter as a whole is a fantastically strong subclass, particularly its tenth level feature when you take into account some of the spells which are really oddly labelled enchantments. Like Raulothim’s Psychic Lance. It doubles the value on a lot of control spells, which is really handy.
A 1 level dip will not slow your spell progression and give you medium armor and shield. Wouldn’t help Bladesinger but if you went with a different wizard subclass it would help
No, it isn't the truth. As discussed earlier the difference is like 2 AC from pointbuy.
I got quotes!
You're ignoring the context of the previous posts detailing how "great" an idea it is to dip 3 levels into artificer and exactly which combinations to do it in.
No one was talking about a 1 level dip into artificer. They were talking about full on artificer subclasses and how well they work comboed with wizard subsclasses.
So at minimum a L5 character. Art3/Wiz2.
But no feature you have as that monstrosity of a multiclass is going outmatch a fireball from a regular wizard.
My point stands.
I got quotes!
And about a +2 CON mod unless you heavily min-maxed, all of which makes it more effective to take a feat early, and as noted the Strixhaven feats are also somewhat overtuned and technically restrained to that campaign unless the DM allows otherwise. It’s a good build, but dependent on getting at least two notable breaks in its favor at character creation.
I brought up several 1 level dips and a few lineage options last page.
whats the point of you clarifying how bad you think a 3 level artificer dip is to someone else who brought up a 1 level dip?
I agree that more levels I artificer doesn’t like a good idea btw.
No. I don't know why you're arguing with me. I did an mock up and compared the difference. Constitution wasn't one of the differences. The differences are extremely small.
The build itself is what is powerful.
Using spirit guardians on a bladesinger is legit terrifying. Adding telekinetic so you can shove people around takes it to a whole extra level.
No rolled stats required.
(Just a general tip, if you use point buy to make a bladesinger you shouldn't be happy with a 11 Constitution. I have no idea why you settled on that as "normal")
I got quotes!