Spell is fine. Reactions are a resource meant to be used. Getting upset that casters might actually get a valid reaction that doesn't cost them anything but an exceptionally valuable known-cantrip slot doesn't make any sense. People freak out like this every single time spellcasters get a reaction spell.
In my experience, that's only because Wotzy's trash at not making new low-level reaction spells OP.
Nobody complains that martials get "free" reactions with attacks of opportunity... Spell does dick monkey bupkis against ranged attacks, which is the type of attack a backline mage is most likely to be targeted by in the first place.
Because literally every monster and character has access to Opportunity Attacks as well, the monsters know that they'll be allowing this when they move away, and the spell is way less situational. Also, not only does it's usefulness and impact at every level plus the fact that it's a cantrip - easily make up for it being more focused on melee, but monsters when run correctly should be up in the face of casters. And abilities like this can be quite detrimental to the potency of semi-intelligent enemies.
The backline mage, in 90% of combats, shouldn't just be able to sit there and play the range game. If that's happening, that's not great encounter design and it's one of the primary reasons why we have the Caster VS. Martial imbalance.
It's no more a "must pick" than Fire Bolt or whatever the 'best' attacky cantrip is. Will combat-oriented players who focus on battle spellcasting strongly favor it? Sure - but those players deserve cool tools that're fun for them to use as much as the Roleplaying Thespians do.
I don't think any spell is a must pick, but this one seems to need to be redesigned.
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You say that, but I reckon Rogue players are going to be super pissed when the DM gets to say "Actually you don't get sneak attack because the enemy uses Blade Ward."
Speaking as a frequent rogue player: why would I be pissed? The enemy's using their abilities to defend themselves against my attack. Is it frustrating to lose SnekAtak? Sure, but that just gives me reason to have backup plans for getting my damage back, and it's a moment that shows the enemy knows how to handle themselves in a fight.
Rogues in general are pretty vulnerable to anything that negates a single attack because they're built on one big attack rather than multiple small attacks, but it's no different from your attack being entirely negated by shield, or halved by uncanny dodge.
... I don't think any spell is a must pick, but this one seems to need to be redesigned.
Why does it need to suck?
Every redesign I've seen in this thread and every other makes the spell suck. Arguably worse than it already did. 2014 Blade Ward is useless. So is "use your reaction to reduce one incoming nonmagical melee attack's damage by 1d4-3 if the attacker fails five Strength saves in a row and then five Dexterity saves in a row". Same with all the Absorb Elements/Shield rebakes I've seen that go well out of their way to make sure the spells are absolutely atrocious hog spit that fail to do their jobs so completely they become wastes of a spell-known pick.
Part of being a mage is being able to use your magic to defend yourself. People keep trying to find ways to force mages out of wearing armor or other mundane protectives with claims that the mage should be forced to use their magic to defend themselves instead, and then seek to take away or nerf into uselessness every single option the mage has to defend themselves with their magic. How the hell is a mage supposed to defend themselves if all their defensive spells suck and they're not allowed to defend themselves any other way?
DO NOT say "they need to let their friends do it!" because that's terrible for the health of the game and you know it. Forcing a player to be utterly helpless if their resident meat mountain isn't personally babysitting them is not "teamwork". Teamwork is combining your abilities to accomplish things none of you can accomplish alone, it is not giving up basic competencies in things you should damn well be able to accomplish yourself to the detriment of your allies that need to cover for your lack of basic adventuring and surival skills.
DO NOT say "they need to let their friends do it!" because that's terrible for the health of the game and you know it. Forcing a player to be utterly helpless if their resident meat mountain isn't personally babysitting them is not "teamwork". Teamwork is combining your abilities to accomplish things none of you can accomplish alone, it is not giving up basic competencies in things you should damn well be able to accomplish yourself to the detriment of your allies that need to cover for your lack of basic adventuring and surival skills.
Casters should feel vulnerable. They should be afraid of going into melee. They should be hiding behind corners, ducking behind doors, and running away in a panic if their battlefield control spell fails. The way casters should be defending themselves with magic is by crippling the enemy not by just not getting hurt when the enemy attacks them. That is how you ensure there is a fundamentally different playstyle between martials and casters - because without that then what's the point of martials? If the caster can do everything the martial do better.
... I don't think any spell is a must pick, but this one seems to need to be redesigned.
Why does it need to suck?
Every redesign I've seen in this thread and every other makes the spell suck. Arguably worse than it already did. 2014 Blade Ward is useless. So is "use your reaction to reduce one incoming nonmagical melee attack's damage by 1d4-3 if the attacker fails five Strength saves in a row and then five Dexterity saves in a row". Same with all the Absorb Elements/Shield rebakes I've seen that go well out of their way to make sure the spells are absolutely atrocious hog spit that fail to do their jobs so completely they become wastes of a spell-known pick.
I've seen decent redesigns for defensive spells. Not specifically in this thread because I haven't read through its entirety, but just because you don't like the options presented here A) Doesn't mean they're terrible and B) Doesn't mean Wizards can make a good version with all their employees with way more experience than the average rando on the Internet.
Part of being a mage is being able to use your magic to defend yourself. People keep trying to find ways to force mages out of wearing armor or other mundane protectives with claims that the mage should be forced to use their magic to defend themselves instead, and then seek to take away or nerf into uselessness every single option the mage has to defend themselves with their magic. How the hell is a mage supposed to defend themselves if all their defensive spells suck and they're not allowed to defend themselves any other way?
DO NOT say "they need to let their friends do it!" because that's terrible for the health of the game and you know it. Forcing a player to be utterly helpless if their resident meat mountain isn't personally babysitting them is not "teamwork". Teamwork is combining your abilities to accomplish things none of you can accomplish alone, it is not giving up basic competencies in things you should damn well be able to accomplish yourself to the detriment of your allies that need to cover for your lack of basic adventuring and surival skills.
I never said mages can't wear armor or have defensive spells, literally all I said is that I think this particular version of Blade Ward does too much. Most of your post isn't even conjecture, it's just blatantly ignoring the actual information on my opinion that I presented.
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Since Yurei thinks we all just want to kill Blade Ward, this is what I would like to see:
Blade Ward Casting Time: 1 Bonus Action [Making it a bonus action prevents it from being cast at the same time as a levelled spell, limiting it's spamability so it isn't fundamentally changing the action economy in favour of casters] Duration: 1 Round Description: When you cast this spell a shimmering aura of magic surrounds you, protecting you from danger. The next time you are hit by an attack, the damage of that attack is reduced by 1d6. [Having it trigger when you are hit actually makes it more reliably useful than the UA8 version, this is balanced by a less powerful effect and more costly to set up]
This spell's damage reduction increases when you reach 5th level (2d6), 11th level (3d6), 17th level (4d6) [A flat damage reduction is more evenly balanced than DA since some monsters do one very powerful attack and others do many smaller attacks]
Yurei thinks people freak out and scream and rant and squeal about OVERPOWERED(!!!) any time any spellcaster gets any reaction spell, no matter what that spell does. Spellcasters being able to cast spells is apparently overpowered.
Yurei also thinks people's mania with using flat reductions or other flat numbers to "fix" defensive reaction spells (i.e. make them useless so casters "feel vulnerable", i.e. require their team to babysit them because they're incapable of defending themselves from aggression) is misguided. Nobody with any sense is going to give up their whole-ass turn - and yes, Blade Ward as a bonus action is giving up your whole-ass turn because you're specifically demanding they give up any other spellcasting to do it, what're you going to do with an Action you can't cast spells with as a spellcaster? - for one whole entire d6 of damage reduction. Anyone with a brain in their skull would just take the 2014 version instead that actually offers a modicum of real defensive benefit.
If you want to neuter the spell and force it to offer a pitiful pittance of flat mitigation instead of ACTUAL defensive benefit, it gets to be a freely usable reaction. If you want to neuter the spell and force the caster to sacrifice their entire turn to casting a single defensive spell, that spell needs to offer a real, respectable defensive benefit.
You don't get to remove any actual defensive benefit and also make the spell require someone's entire turn to cast. At that point, just stick with the current garbage 2014 model literally no one uses other than Bladesingers.
Blade Ward as a bonus action is giving up your whole-ass turn because you're specifically demanding they give up any other spellcasting to do it, what're you going to do with an Action you can't cast spells with as a spellcaster?
Sorry but I thought your table goes through 8 combats per day while never ever taking a short rest, so how are your spellcasters managing to cast a levelled spell every turn? Surely they have turns where they only cast a cantrip with their Action in which cast they could use this as a BA at the same time.
Yurei also thinks people's mania with using flat reductions or other flat numbers to "fix" defensive reaction spells (i.e. make them useless so casters "feel vulnerable", i.e. require their team to babysit them because they're incapable of defending themselves from aggression) is misguided.
That's mostly an issue of spell level. A level 1 spell should be good protection against level 1 attacks, but not good protection against a level 20 attack, and the way you do that is flat damage reduction -- if shield stops 10 damage, that's great protection against level 1 attacks (most CR 1 and lower don't even do 10 damage per attack), not that much against a CR 20 that's doing 100 damage per round.
Cantrips, however, are a special case because they don't expend resources other than action economy, so they need to be balanced based on opportunity cost. Which really isn't all that high for a reaction.
I don't see why it's to strong. It's using your reaction so no counter spell, shield or silvery barbs.
It must be used when targeted not after dice are rolled so it's not like shield where you only need to use your reaction when you know your going to be hit
It only works in melee so this does nothing against any kind of ranged attack
It only works on visible targets so nothing against invisible creatures, ambushes, attacks from hiding or situations where the caster is blinded like darkness.
It only works against a single attack vs entire actions
It's fine.. even if most casters pick it up its not to much and isn't comparable at all to shield or silvery barbs like the OP tries to draw a reference to
BLADE WARD Abjuration Cantrip (Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Casting Time: Reaction, which you take in response to a visible creature targeting you with a melee attack Range: Self Components: V, S Duration: Instantaneous
You trace a sigil of warding, imposing Disadvantage on the creature’s attack roll against you.
Silvery Barbs and Shield are problematic lvl 1 spells and now we get this as cantrip. It's super potent and I can't see a reason why anyone who learns it wouldn't pick it. For many classes and situations there is almost no cost attached since you can use it reactively. In most turns you will not have anything competing with your reaction as caster anyway.
In the video it was also mentioned that the range increases with your level, but that's missing in the actual PDF, maybe since Silvery Barbs at that point would just be "1 advantage attack" for a level 1 slot.
What are your thoughts?
It's not. The game is not designed around players dying or nearly dying. And unless you're a Rogue your AoO is damn near worthless.
If anything I'm a little frustrated this was made a Cantrip. Disadvantage as a reaction really should be a general martial ability.
Inflicting disadvantage as a reaction when your character sees they're the target of an attack is fine.
It's once per turn, against one attack, and has to be declared before the attack is made. Disadvantage is easy to calculate, just roll two dice, pick the lowest, and if a Rogue wants to get Sneak Attack they'll have to sneak up behind people, and... well... "sneak attack".
At first blush I thought it was really strong, but it being melee only and working on only one attack does mitigate that.
The ability to negate a crit is really nice though, and is functionality that even Shield doesn't confer.
The condition for the reaction to be used and cast blade ward is when something targets you. That means you have to use it before the attack roll is called officially. So you cannot negate a crit unless you happen to call it ahead of time before you know it's a Crit.
At first blush I thought it was really strong, but it being melee only and working on only one attack does mitigate that.
The ability to negate a crit is really nice though, and is functionality that even Shield doesn't confer.
The condition for the reaction to be used and cast blade ward is when something targets you. That means you have to use it before the attack roll is called officially. So you cannot negate a crit unless you happen to call it ahead of time before you know it's a Crit.
True, but it still can negate some crits. Shield is completely powerless against any of them. due to the fact that they authohit and the spell only boosts your AC.
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True, but it still can negate some crits. Shield is completely powerless against any of them. due to the fact that they authohit and the spell only boosts your AC.
On average, out of 20 uses, it's going to negate about 1 crit and 4 hits; in the remaining cases it will be useless, either because the attack wouldn't have hit anyway, or because the attack hits anyway.
True, but it still can negate some crits. Shield is completely powerless against any of them. due to the fact that they authohit and the spell only boosts your AC.
On average, out of 20 uses, it's going to negate about 1 crit and 4 hits; in the remaining cases it will be useless, either because the attack wouldn't have hit anyway, or because the attack hits anyway.
Still, that's very good if you can pretty much use it with no cost almost every round.
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At first blush I thought it was really strong, but it being melee only and working on only one attack does mitigate that.
The ability to negate a crit is really nice though, and is functionality that even Shield doesn't confer.
The condition for the reaction to be used and cast blade ward is when something targets you. That means you have to use it before the attack roll is called officially. So you cannot negate a crit unless you happen to call it ahead of time before you know it's a Crit.
True, but it still can negate some crits. Shield is completely powerless against any of them. due to the fact that they authohit and the spell only boosts your AC.
How do you reckon that? At level 5, AC 16 = 50% chance the enemy hit = 25% chance for Blade Ward to turn a hit into a miss. A 50% reduction in damage taken is pretty damn good for a cantrip.
How do you reckon that? At level 5, AC 16 = 50% chance the enemy hit = 25% chance for Blade Ward to turn a hit into a miss. A 50% reduction in damage taken is pretty damn good for a cantrip.
It's nowhere near 50%; at level 5 you're almost certainly being attacked multiple times, either because multiattack or multiple foes, and it only applies to one of those attacks. Also, it doesn't apply at all against ranged attacks, and if the monster had advantage for some reason, going from advantage to no advantage isn't -50%.
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In my experience, that's only because Wotzy's trash at not making new low-level reaction spells OP.
Because literally every monster and character has access to Opportunity Attacks as well, the monsters know that they'll be allowing this when they move away, and the spell is way less situational. Also, not only does it's usefulness and impact at every level plus the fact that it's a cantrip - easily make up for it being more focused on melee, but monsters when run correctly should be up in the face of casters. And abilities like this can be quite detrimental to the potency of semi-intelligent enemies.
The backline mage, in 90% of combats, shouldn't just be able to sit there and play the range game. If that's happening, that's not great encounter design and it's one of the primary reasons why we have the Caster VS. Martial imbalance.
I don't think any spell is a must pick, but this one seems to need to be redesigned.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
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HERE.Speaking as a frequent rogue player: why would I be pissed? The enemy's using their abilities to defend themselves against my attack. Is it frustrating to lose SnekAtak? Sure, but that just gives me reason to have backup plans for getting my damage back, and it's a moment that shows the enemy knows how to handle themselves in a fight.
Please do not contact or message me.
Rogues in general are pretty vulnerable to anything that negates a single attack because they're built on one big attack rather than multiple small attacks, but it's no different from your attack being entirely negated by shield, or halved by uncanny dodge.
Why does it need to suck?
Every redesign I've seen in this thread and every other makes the spell suck. Arguably worse than it already did. 2014 Blade Ward is useless. So is "use your reaction to reduce one incoming nonmagical melee attack's damage by 1d4-3 if the attacker fails five Strength saves in a row and then five Dexterity saves in a row". Same with all the Absorb Elements/Shield rebakes I've seen that go well out of their way to make sure the spells are absolutely atrocious hog spit that fail to do their jobs so completely they become wastes of a spell-known pick.
Part of being a mage is being able to use your magic to defend yourself. People keep trying to find ways to force mages out of wearing armor or other mundane protectives with claims that the mage should be forced to use their magic to defend themselves instead, and then seek to take away or nerf into uselessness every single option the mage has to defend themselves with their magic. How the hell is a mage supposed to defend themselves if all their defensive spells suck and they're not allowed to defend themselves any other way?
DO NOT say "they need to let their friends do it!" because that's terrible for the health of the game and you know it. Forcing a player to be utterly helpless if their resident meat mountain isn't personally babysitting them is not "teamwork". Teamwork is combining your abilities to accomplish things none of you can accomplish alone, it is not giving up basic competencies in things you should damn well be able to accomplish yourself to the detriment of your allies that need to cover for your lack of basic adventuring and surival skills.
Please do not contact or message me.
Casters should feel vulnerable. They should be afraid of going into melee. They should be hiding behind corners, ducking behind doors, and running away in a panic if their battlefield control spell fails. The way casters should be defending themselves with magic is by crippling the enemy not by just not getting hurt when the enemy attacks them. That is how you ensure there is a fundamentally different playstyle between martials and casters - because without that then what's the point of martials? If the caster can do everything the martial do better.
I've seen decent redesigns for defensive spells. Not specifically in this thread because I haven't read through its entirety, but just because you don't like the options presented here A) Doesn't mean they're terrible and B) Doesn't mean Wizards can make a good version with all their employees with way more experience than the average rando on the Internet.
I never said mages can't wear armor or have defensive spells, literally all I said is that I think this particular version of Blade Ward does too much. Most of your post isn't even conjecture, it's just blatantly ignoring the actual information on my opinion that I presented.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
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HERE.Since Yurei thinks we all just want to kill Blade Ward, this is what I would like to see:
Blade Ward
Casting Time: 1 Bonus Action [Making it a bonus action prevents it from being cast at the same time as a levelled spell, limiting it's spamability so it isn't fundamentally changing the action economy in favour of casters]
Duration: 1 Round
Description: When you cast this spell a shimmering aura of magic surrounds you, protecting you from danger. The next time you are hit by an attack, the damage of that attack is reduced by 1d6. [Having it trigger when you are hit actually makes it more reliably useful than the UA8 version, this is balanced by a less powerful effect and more costly to set up]
This spell's damage reduction increases when you reach 5th level (2d6), 11th level (3d6), 17th level (4d6) [A flat damage reduction is more evenly balanced than DA since some monsters do one very powerful attack and others do many smaller attacks]
Yurei thinks people freak out and scream and rant and squeal about OVERPOWERED(!!!) any time any spellcaster gets any reaction spell, no matter what that spell does. Spellcasters being able to cast spells is apparently overpowered.
Yurei also thinks people's mania with using flat reductions or other flat numbers to "fix" defensive reaction spells (i.e. make them useless so casters "feel vulnerable", i.e. require their team to babysit them because they're incapable of defending themselves from aggression) is misguided. Nobody with any sense is going to give up their whole-ass turn - and yes, Blade Ward as a bonus action is giving up your whole-ass turn because you're specifically demanding they give up any other spellcasting to do it, what're you going to do with an Action you can't cast spells with as a spellcaster? - for one whole entire d6 of damage reduction. Anyone with a brain in their skull would just take the 2014 version instead that actually offers a modicum of real defensive benefit.
If you want to neuter the spell and force it to offer a pitiful pittance of flat mitigation instead of ACTUAL defensive benefit, it gets to be a freely usable reaction.
If you want to neuter the spell and force the caster to sacrifice their entire turn to casting a single defensive spell, that spell needs to offer a real, respectable defensive benefit.
You don't get to remove any actual defensive benefit and also make the spell require someone's entire turn to cast. At that point, just stick with the current garbage 2014 model literally no one uses other than Bladesingers.
Please do not contact or message me.
Sorry but I thought your table goes through 8 combats per day while never ever taking a short rest, so how are your spellcasters managing to cast a levelled spell every turn? Surely they have turns where they only cast a cantrip with their Action in which cast they could use this as a BA at the same time.
That's mostly an issue of spell level. A level 1 spell should be good protection against level 1 attacks, but not good protection against a level 20 attack, and the way you do that is flat damage reduction -- if shield stops 10 damage, that's great protection against level 1 attacks (most CR 1 and lower don't even do 10 damage per attack), not that much against a CR 20 that's doing 100 damage per round.
Cantrips, however, are a special case because they don't expend resources other than action economy, so they need to be balanced based on opportunity cost. Which really isn't all that high for a reaction.
I don't see why it's to strong. It's using your reaction so no counter spell, shield or silvery barbs.
It must be used when targeted not after dice are rolled so it's not like shield where you only need to use your reaction when you know your going to be hit
It only works in melee so this does nothing against any kind of ranged attack
It only works on visible targets so nothing against invisible creatures, ambushes, attacks from hiding or situations where the caster is blinded like darkness.
It only works against a single attack vs entire actions
It's fine.. even if most casters pick it up its not to much and isn't comparable at all to shield or silvery barbs like the OP tries to draw a reference to
It's not. The game is not designed around players dying or nearly dying. And unless you're a Rogue your AoO is damn near worthless.
If anything I'm a little frustrated this was made a Cantrip. Disadvantage as a reaction really should be a general martial ability.
Inflicting disadvantage as a reaction when your character sees they're the target of an attack is fine.
It's once per turn, against one attack, and has to be declared before the attack is made. Disadvantage is easy to calculate, just roll two dice, pick the lowest, and if a Rogue wants to get Sneak Attack they'll have to sneak up behind people, and... well... "sneak attack".
The condition for the reaction to be used and cast blade ward is when something targets you. That means you have to use it before the attack roll is called officially. So you cannot negate a crit unless you happen to call it ahead of time before you know it's a Crit.
You can find my published homebrew Spells here.
True, but it still can negate some crits. Shield is completely powerless against any of them. due to the fact that they authohit and the spell only boosts your AC.
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HERE.On average, out of 20 uses, it's going to negate about 1 crit and 4 hits; in the remaining cases it will be useless, either because the attack wouldn't have hit anyway, or because the attack hits anyway.
Still, that's very good if you can pretty much use it with no cost almost every round.
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HERE.It's better than nothing, because something is always better than nothing, but it's still not all that good.
How do you reckon that? At level 5, AC 16 = 50% chance the enemy hit = 25% chance for Blade Ward to turn a hit into a miss. A 50% reduction in damage taken is pretty damn good for a cantrip.
It's nowhere near 50%; at level 5 you're almost certainly being attacked multiple times, either because multiattack or multiple foes, and it only applies to one of those attacks. Also, it doesn't apply at all against ranged attacks, and if the monster had advantage for some reason, going from advantage to no advantage isn't -50%.