The Fighter class delays the choice of Archetype subclass until level 3. The delay is especially problematic for the character concept of magical warrior trained since childhood, when inexplicably there is no magic at level 1. Consider the high elven armies who train in magical warfare since birth. What is true for the Eldritch Knight is also true for the Psi Warrior.
Fighting Styles are available to the Fighter at level 1, and can easily offer magical features that represent a warrior of magic. The following is my creation that I originally intended for the Eldritch Knight, but it is equally suitable for the Psi Warrior in Tashas as well. I originally called it the Elven Chain Fighting Style, but rename it with the PsiWar in mind.
Mage Armor Fighting Style You swap out proficiency with Medium and Heavy armors. Instead, you know the Mage Armor spell, and can cast and dispel it at will as a reaction, as an innate spell without spell components. The armor appears in any style you wish, or as an invisible force around your body. According to high elf decorum, the Mage Armor appears as a fine-mesh chain shirt, worn over or under a fabric tunic of a solid bold color and intricate embroidery. In addition, you can use Intelligence instead of Dexterity for your AC bonus, and can use Intelligence instead for weapon attacks that rely on Strength or Dexterity. You know one cantrip of your choice, such as Eldritch Blast, Mage Hand, or Resistance. You can the cantrip at will as an innate spell without spell components.
Doesn't that just create a better Hexblade, but with INT? It may not have spellcasting, but otherwise it seems to steal a lot of the features of that subclass.
Doesn't that just create a better Hexblade, but with INT? It may not have spellcasting, but otherwise it seems to steal a lot of the features of that subclass.
Two points.
• When guiding a weapon magically, it is a normal mechanic to substitute a mental ability for the physical ability. For example, the Shillelach cantrip also uses the "spellcasting ability" instead of Strength. In the case of the Fighter, to wield a weapon magically is the Fighting Style.
• The Mage Armor Fighting Style doesnt really do anything that the typical Fighter couldnt already do. Every Fighter can already get great AC and hit hard with weapons, whether investing in Strength or Dexterity. This Fighting Style that invests in Intelligence merely allows the Fighter to do AC and weapons in a flavorful way that is more appropriate to the character concept.
The main mechanical advantage of the Mage Armor Fighting Style is to reduce Multiple-Ability-Dependence, while being genuinely good at Intelligence spellcasting. After prioritizing Intelligence and still remaining an effective Fighter "tank", Constitution remains the secondary ability for hit points and Fortitude saves.
But after Intelligence and Constitution, the other abilities remain open. A character might invest in Strength for Athletics, or in Dexterity for the Reflex save and ranged weapons, or Charisma for social encounters, or Wisdom for the Will save and Perception. All of these other abilities remain viable tertiary options.
Consider the high elven armies who train in magical warfare since birth.
I figured the high elf option to start with a cantrip covered this.
D&D assumes that your adventurer is at the very beginning of their hero's journey. The levels you gain represent a massive increase in power above and beyond everything they used to be. If you're wanting to start out as someone who's already been thoroughly trained, starting at 3 is probably a good option. Otherwise you could spin it like you had to drop out of army training because your prodigal mind just didn't work the same, or you had behavioral issues relating to being a rank-and-file soldier when you knew you were destined for greatness.
There's a lot of ways to spin it, but if you're starting out at level 1, you're just not that great yet. Your fighting style makes sense for what you're trying to do, but I agree that it's too strong. But instead of arguing the balance points I'm going to argue the issue behind it - a level one character can't be a the equivalent of an enemy you might not face until level 5 or later. You're a humble beginner, even if you want to say you've been in the army for 100 years. That moment it really clicked for you and you learned to harness magic alongside your martial prowess? That's supposed to be an in-game revelation - an awesome moment in the active story of your character - not something that happened in one sentence of your backstory.
This has always been somewhat of an issue in D&D. Why can't my 300-year old wizard scholar start with 10 languages and 15 spells? Why does my rigorously trained and devout monk have no access to ki? It's just a built-in mechanism to ensure that the most exciting parts of your life play out in the game rather than offscreen in your backstory. This is your adventure. This is the story of how you became a badass. It's endlessly tempting to cover this in your backstory, but all this is just supposed to be the groundwork laid for the real story.
Notice, the Mage Armor Fighting Style includes a swap.
The Fighter loses proficiency with Medium and Heavy armors. Instead, the Fighter gets Mage Armor and can swap Intelligence for Dexterity bonus. The end result is an AC of 13+Intelligence, maxing at AC 18, identical to a suit of Plate Armor.
So there is no boost to power. It is a fair trade. Indeed, where the Plate requires an investment of Strength 15, the Mage Armor requires an even higher investment of Intelligence 20, in order to gain the same AC. The Fighting Style makes the investment in Intelligence an appealing option, so a 20 seems likely at higher levels. But the AC for Plate and Strength 15 would happen at level 1. Again, there is no boost to power here. It is a swap. One kind of armor for a magical kind of armor whose flavor is more appropriate.
What the Fighting Style offers as an actual gain is: • The ability to substitute Intelligence for Strength, for weapon attacks that rely on Strength. So a High Elf knight can wield a longsword well, by means of magic. • One cantrip of your choice, which is equivalent in power to about one martial weapon proficiency or one skill proficiency. Mainly the minor perk is to grant magical or psionic flavor to a level 1 Fighter.
In sum, because of the requirement to swap, the Fighting Style is only a modest gain in power. Its main benefit, by design, is to help the Eldritch Knight and the Psi Warrior to avoid Multiple-Ability-Dependence. Moreover, without this Fighting Style, the mage warrior is almost forced to invest in Dexterity because of the M-A-D. This Mage Armor Fighting Style makes more options
No, this further devalues the strength stat. Elves and Half Elves can obtain cantrips at character creation, variant humans can get it with their starting feat, many other races can also start with cantrips. Seems to me that this is just another attempt at power gaming.
This would create a SAD gish as I see it. I mean, I'm cool with that - but what about gishes with a strength focus?
The Single-Ability-Dependence is on purpose. But even so, the Mage-Armor Fighter must still have high Constitution. And the Fighter will probably also want high Dexterity and Wisdom because of the saving throws.
The S-A-D is only enough to make the M-A-D bearable.
No, this further devalues the strength stat. Elves and Half Elves can obtain cantrips at character creation, variant humans can get it with their starting feat, many other races can also start with cantrips. Seems to me that this is just another attempt at power gaming.
I agree that we need to see more Strength in the game, generally. Essentially, Dexterity has made Strength worthless, and the six abilities are wildly uneven in value.
Regarding the Mage Armor Fighting Style, I am tempted to remove the Intelligence for weapon attacks, if only to force investment in Strength.
The problems are, mechanically the necessity of Strength causes excessive M-A-D, and flavorwise this forces the high elf to rely on Strength in order to wield a longsword effectively. The design of the high elf to favor the longsword but be substandard at Strength, is one of the less satisfying aspects of D&D. At least the high elf is known for (human) average Intelligence, so Mage Armor Fighting Style wielding a longsword magically by means of Intelligence is somewhat consonant with high elf flavor.
Essentially, Dexterity has made Strength worthless, and the six abilities are wildly uneven in value.
DEX is super powerful, yes. Now imagine you could also cast spells with it - that's kind of what your fighting style is. This is one reason why Mage Armor isn't 13+INT even though that would make perfect sense. I think a build that still needs DEX or STR to attack would be a lot more reasonable.
Essentially, Dexterity has made Strength worthless, and the six abilities are wildly uneven in value.
DEX is super powerful, yes. Now imagine you could also cast spells with it - that's kind of what your fighting style is. This is one reason why Mage Armor isn't 13+INT even though that would make perfect sense. I think a build that still needs DEX or STR to attack would be a lot more reasonable.
Remember, a Fighter must have high Constitution. So the Int-Con build is at least Two-Ability-Dependent.
Heh, I definitely dont want an other Dex build!
I am tempted to gently encourage an Int-Con-Str build for the Mage Armor, meaning that the Mage Armor will be AC 13+Int so as to dump Dex hard. The Dex reflex save will however remain a nagging temptation. The Eldritch Knight and Psiwar might want Strength for high damage weapons. As a bonus, the combination of Strength and no heavy armor makes the Mage Armor Fighting Style especially athletic and agile.
Regarding the high elf. The best solution is probably rethinking the longsword itself. The longsword conflates two separate kinds of historical weapons. • Sword (1d8 slashing/piercing, finesse) − bladelength between 2 and 3 feet. • Longsword (1d8 slashing, versatile) − bladelength between 3 and 4 feet.
As such, the high elf is proficient with the sword (which is finesse) but nonproficient with the longsword (which requires Strength).
By the way, I appreciate the artwork in Tashas that includes the Psi Warrior as a masculine muscular high elf. The muscular elf is closer to reallife Nordic archetype that I relate to more.
This would fit much more with Bladesinging, but they already get almost all of the benefits already.
In an other website, someone created their own version of the Bladesinger that was a Wizard whose school simply granted full-on melee combat. Proficiencies with a martial weapon, extra attacks from leveling, and so on. (I forget how hit points worked. Maybe temp hp.)
It turned out to be balanced. Surprisingly.
In earlier editions of D&D, such a gestalt would be impossible.
However, because 5e made the Wizard a reasonably balanced class, the swapped features remained balanced too.
We have Bard, Cleric, Druid, and Hexblade who are melee-competent fullcasters. These are solid classes, or even strong, but few if any complain about brokenness.
I know there is mutual envy between Wizard and Fighter in 5e. The Wizard envies the amount of damage-deal, while the Fighter envies the gamechanging spells. Heh, compared to earlier editions, these 5e classes look solidly balanced.
When D&D 5e severely tapered off the high level spell slot schedule, it turned out to be a change that helped the gaming system. Also the Concentration requirement seems to be working generally, even if certain spells seem off. Likewise, attunement controlling the amount of magic items available at any one time, helps balance.
Remember, a Fighter must have high Constitution. So the Int-Con build is at least Two-Ability-Dependent.
Nobody "must" have high CON. It has the same benefit for Fighters as it does for any other class except for the few subclasses that key abilities off CON (most Fighter subclasses do not). It's universal gravy. Yes, a Fighter can go STR/CON. Part of the cost of that is being pretty bad at every facet of the game outside of combat, where INT/CON opens up a lot more doors.
In an other website, someone created their own version of the Bladesinger that was a Wizard whose school simply granted full-on melee combat. Proficiencies with a martial weapon, extra attacks from leveling, and so on. (I forget how hit points worked. Maybe temp hp.)
It turned out to be balanced. Surprisingly.
According to who? The person who made it? Cause the devs who made the game would clearly beg to differ based on their own Bladesinger.
Swapping out proficiencies is practically a non-issue given the convenience of multiclassing. Pick up a level of Artificer and you’ve got medium armor back while losing out only a little bit on spell progression and not at all on slots, while also gaining access to a couple of nice extra spells like Cure Wounds. Not that you’d really care about medium or heavy armor anyway, the cap on Dex to AC (which I assume would translate to Int as well) means you can pick up studded leather for those days you don’t want to expend spell slots on Mage Armor and will just slum it with one point less of AC but won’t care one bit about the heavier stuff unless you should happen across something magical. With a shield on your arm you’ll be looking at an AC of 20 pretty soon, and you can toss in the Shield spell to pump that to 25 for a round via a reaction a couple of times per day as necessary.
Keep in mind the Battlesmith gets something similar, but only for magical weapons (which he can admittedly provide himself), not for AC, without the Mage Armor or the free cantrip (incidentally, Eldritch Blast? No, leave the Warlocks their shiny and stick with more general stuff) bit and as part of his subclass benefits at lvl 3, not at lvl 1. No offense, but this is more than a little bit too good.
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Swapping out proficiencies is practically a non-issue given the convenience of multiclassing. Pick up a level of Artificer and you’ve got medium armor back while losing out only a little bit on spell progression and not at all on slots, while also gaining access to a couple of nice extra spells like Cure Wounds. Not that you’d really care about medium or heavy armor anyway, the cap on Dex to AC (which I assume would translate to Int as well) means you can pick up studded leather for those days you don’t want to expend spell slots on Mage Armor and will just slum it with one point less of AC but won’t care one bit about the heavier stuff unless you should happen across something magical. With a shield on your arm you’ll be looking at an AC of 20 pretty soon, and you can toss in the Shield spell to pump that to 25 for a round via a reaction a couple of times per day as necessary.
Keep in mind the Battlesmith gets something similar, but only for magical weapons (which he can admittedly provide himself), not for AC, without the Mage Armor or the free cantrip (incidentally, Eldritch Blast? No, leave the Warlocks their shiny and stick with more general stuff) bit and as part of his subclass benefits at lvl 3, not at lvl 1. No offense, but this is more than a little bit too good.
I probably need to rephrase the Fighting Style to make the Rules-As-Intended clearer. The Fighting Style Mage Armor is effectively always on, being cast "at will" (meaning without a spell slot). Int AC bonus is magical and was meant only for the Mage Armor, so wouldnt work for other armors.
Eldritch Blast is pertinent because it deals force damage, especially for the telekinetic Psi Warrior, but also for the Eldritch Knight. The Mage Armor itself is a force construct, and likewise Mage Hand, a kind of telekinetic force.
If choosing a damage-dealing cantrip, the Fighter needs a viable alternative to the martial weapon damage. Eldritch Blast is appropriate.
Eldritch Blast is less good for the Fighter. It is the Warlock class that makes it good because of the way it synergizes with other Warlock features, including Hex and Invocations.
The Mage Armor Fighting Style is fine balancewise, and the focus is flavor.
Remember, a Fighter must have high Constitution. So the Int-Con build is at least Two-Ability-Dependent.
Nobody "must" have high CON. It has the same benefit for Fighters as it does for any other class except for the few subclasses that key abilities off CON (most Fighter subclasses do not). It's universal gravy. Yes, a Fighter can go STR/CON. Part of the cost of that is being pretty bad at every facet of the game outside of combat, where INT/CON opens up a lot more doors.
In an other website, someone created their own version of the Bladesinger that was a Wizard whose school simply granted full-on melee combat. Proficiencies with a martial weapon, extra attacks from leveling, and so on. (I forget how hit points worked. Maybe temp hp.)
It turned out to be balanced. Surprisingly.
According to who? The person who made it? Cause the devs who made the game would clearly beg to differ based on their own Bladesinger.
The website happens to have many active posters who are veteran D&D players and character optimizers. When critiquing the gestalt-like homebrew, there was a collective surprise that this was actually balanced under scrutiny. A surprise, because only in the 5e gaming engine could such a thing work. There was a detailed comparison between this homebrew "Swordmage" and the official Sword Coast Bladesinger, and the result was a wash, with about the same damage output and spell access, etcetera.
Swapping out proficiencies is practically a non-issue given the convenience of multiclassing. Pick up a level of Artificer and you’ve got medium armor back while losing out only a little bit on spell progression and not at all on slots, while also gaining access to a couple of nice extra spells like Cure Wounds. Not that you’d really care about medium or heavy armor anyway, the cap on Dex to AC (which I assume would translate to Int as well) means you can pick up studded leather for those days you don’t want to expend spell slots on Mage Armor and will just slum it with one point less of AC but won’t care one bit about the heavier stuff unless you should happen across something magical. With a shield on your arm you’ll be looking at an AC of 20 pretty soon, and you can toss in the Shield spell to pump that to 25 for a round via a reaction a couple of times per day as necessary.
Keep in mind the Battlesmith gets something similar, but only for magical weapons (which he can admittedly provide himself), not for AC, without the Mage Armor or the free cantrip (incidentally, Eldritch Blast? No, leave the Warlocks their shiny and stick with more general stuff) bit and as part of his subclass benefits at lvl 3, not at lvl 1. No offense, but this is more than a little bit too good.
I probably need to rephrase the Fighting Style to make the Rules-As-Intended clearer. The Fighting Style Mage Armor is effectively always on, being cast "at will" (meaning without a spell slot). Int AC bonus is magical and was meant only for the Mage Armor, so wouldnt work for other armors.
Eldritch Blast is pertinent because it deals force damage, especially for the telekinetic Psi Warrior, but also for the Eldritch Knight. The Mage Armor itself is a force construct, and likewise Mage Hand, a kind of telekinetic force.
If choosing a damage-dealing cantrip, the Fighter needs a viable alternative to the martial weapon damage. Eldritch Blast is appropriate.
Eldritch Blast is less good for the Fighter. It is the Warlock class that makes it good because of the way it synergizes with other Warlock features, including Hex and Invocations.
The Mage Armor Fighting Style is fine balancewise, and the focus is flavor.
No offense but again, it really isn’t. Just compare to any of the other fighting styles if you want to make it easy. Compared to 2 points of damage, one point of AC or a bit more damage on off-hand attacks only, this is massive. The free Mage Armor alone is better than any of those, and that’s not even the most powerful benefit on the list.
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Swapping out proficiencies is practically a non-issue given the convenience of multiclassing. Pick up a level of Artificer and you’ve got medium armor back while losing out only a little bit on spell progression and not at all on slots, while also gaining access to a couple of nice extra spells like Cure Wounds. Not that you’d really care about medium or heavy armor anyway, the cap on Dex to AC (which I assume would translate to Int as well) means you can pick up studded leather for those days you don’t want to expend spell slots on Mage Armor and will just slum it with one point less of AC but won’t care one bit about the heavier stuff unless you should happen across something magical. With a shield on your arm you’ll be looking at an AC of 20 pretty soon, and you can toss in the Shield spell to pump that to 25 for a round via a reaction a couple of times per day as necessary.
Keep in mind the Battlesmith gets something similar, but only for magical weapons (which he can admittedly provide himself), not for AC, without the Mage Armor or the free cantrip (incidentally, Eldritch Blast? No, leave the Warlocks their shiny and stick with more general stuff) bit and as part of his subclass benefits at lvl 3, not at lvl 1. No offense, but this is more than a little bit too good.
I probably need to rephrase the Fighting Style to make the Rules-As-Intended clearer. The Fighting Style Mage Armor is effectively always on, being cast "at will" (meaning without a spell slot). Int AC bonus is magical and was meant only for the Mage Armor, so wouldnt work for other armors.
Eldritch Blast is pertinent because it deals force damage, especially for the telekinetic Psi Warrior, but also for the Eldritch Knight. The Mage Armor itself is a force construct, and likewise Mage Hand, a kind of telekinetic force.
If choosing a damage-dealing cantrip, the Fighter needs a viable alternative to the martial weapon damage. Eldritch Blast is appropriate.
Eldritch Blast is less good for the Fighter. It is the Warlock class that makes it good because of the way it synergizes with other Warlock features, including Hex and Invocations.
The Mage Armor Fighting Style is fine balancewise, and the focus is flavor.
No offense but again, it really isn’t. Just compare to any of the other fighting styles if you want to make it easy. Compared to 2 points of damage, one point of AC or a bit more damage on off-hand attacks only, this is massive. The free Mage Armor alone is better than any of those, and that’s not even the most powerful benefit on the list.
Again, the Mage Armor is less good than a Strength Plate Armor build, and way less good than Dexterity build.
Honest and polite, and specific critiques are highly valuable. I appreciate that you care about this. If you can show a real problem or offer a comparable alternative, all of that is valuable.
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he / him
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The Fighter class delays the choice of Archetype subclass until level 3. The delay is especially problematic for the character concept of magical warrior trained since childhood, when inexplicably there is no magic at level 1. Consider the high elven armies who train in magical warfare since birth. What is true for the Eldritch Knight is also true for the Psi Warrior.
Fighting Styles are available to the Fighter at level 1, and can easily offer magical features that represent a warrior of magic. The following is my creation that I originally intended for the Eldritch Knight, but it is equally suitable for the Psi Warrior in Tashas as well. I originally called it the Elven Chain Fighting Style, but rename it with the PsiWar in mind.
Mage Armor Fighting Style
You swap out proficiency with Medium and Heavy armors. Instead, you know the Mage Armor spell, and can cast and dispel it at will as a reaction, as an innate spell without spell components. The armor appears in any style you wish, or as an invisible force around your body. According to high elf decorum, the Mage Armor appears as a fine-mesh chain shirt, worn over or under a fabric tunic of a solid bold color and intricate embroidery. In addition, you can use Intelligence instead of Dexterity for your AC bonus, and can use Intelligence instead for weapon attacks that rely on Strength or Dexterity. You know one cantrip of your choice, such as Eldritch Blast, Mage Hand, or Resistance. You can the cantrip at will as an innate spell without spell components.
he / him
Doesn't that just create a better Hexblade, but with INT? It may not have spellcasting, but otherwise it seems to steal a lot of the features of that subclass.
Two points.
• When guiding a weapon magically, it is a normal mechanic to substitute a mental ability for the physical ability. For example, the Shillelach cantrip also uses the "spellcasting ability" instead of Strength. In the case of the Fighter, to wield a weapon magically is the Fighting Style.
• The Mage Armor Fighting Style doesnt really do anything that the typical Fighter couldnt already do. Every Fighter can already get great AC and hit hard with weapons, whether investing in Strength or Dexterity. This Fighting Style that invests in Intelligence merely allows the Fighter to do AC and weapons in a flavorful way that is more appropriate to the character concept.
The main mechanical advantage of the Mage Armor Fighting Style is to reduce Multiple-Ability-Dependence, while being genuinely good at Intelligence spellcasting. After prioritizing Intelligence and still remaining an effective Fighter "tank", Constitution remains the secondary ability for hit points and Fortitude saves.
But after Intelligence and Constitution, the other abilities remain open. A character might invest in Strength for Athletics, or in Dexterity for the Reflex save and ranged weapons, or Charisma for social encounters, or Wisdom for the Will save and Perception. All of these other abilities remain viable tertiary options.
he / him
I figured the high elf option to start with a cantrip covered this.
D&D assumes that your adventurer is at the very beginning of their hero's journey. The levels you gain represent a massive increase in power above and beyond everything they used to be. If you're wanting to start out as someone who's already been thoroughly trained, starting at 3 is probably a good option. Otherwise you could spin it like you had to drop out of army training because your prodigal mind just didn't work the same, or you had behavioral issues relating to being a rank-and-file soldier when you knew you were destined for greatness.
There's a lot of ways to spin it, but if you're starting out at level 1, you're just not that great yet. Your fighting style makes sense for what you're trying to do, but I agree that it's too strong. But instead of arguing the balance points I'm going to argue the issue behind it - a level one character can't be a the equivalent of an enemy you might not face until level 5 or later. You're a humble beginner, even if you want to say you've been in the army for 100 years. That moment it really clicked for you and you learned to harness magic alongside your martial prowess? That's supposed to be an in-game revelation - an awesome moment in the active story of your character - not something that happened in one sentence of your backstory.
This has always been somewhat of an issue in D&D. Why can't my 300-year old wizard scholar start with 10 languages and 15 spells? Why does my rigorously trained and devout monk have no access to ki? It's just a built-in mechanism to ensure that the most exciting parts of your life play out in the game rather than offscreen in your backstory. This is your adventure. This is the story of how you became a badass. It's endlessly tempting to cover this in your backstory, but all this is just supposed to be the groundwork laid for the real story.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Notice, the Mage Armor Fighting Style includes a swap.
The Fighter loses proficiency with Medium and Heavy armors. Instead, the Fighter gets Mage Armor and can swap Intelligence for Dexterity bonus. The end result is an AC of 13+Intelligence, maxing at AC 18, identical to a suit of Plate Armor.
So there is no boost to power. It is a fair trade. Indeed, where the Plate requires an investment of Strength 15, the Mage Armor requires an even higher investment of Intelligence 20, in order to gain the same AC. The Fighting Style makes the investment in Intelligence an appealing option, so a 20 seems likely at higher levels. But the AC for Plate and Strength 15 would happen at level 1. Again, there is no boost to power here. It is a swap. One kind of armor for a magical kind of armor whose flavor is more appropriate.
What the Fighting Style offers as an actual gain is:
• The ability to substitute Intelligence for Strength, for weapon attacks that rely on Strength. So a High Elf knight can wield a longsword well, by means of magic.
• One cantrip of your choice, which is equivalent in power to about one martial weapon proficiency or one skill proficiency. Mainly the minor perk is to grant magical or psionic flavor to a level 1 Fighter.
In sum, because of the requirement to swap, the Fighting Style is only a modest gain in power. Its main benefit, by design, is to help the Eldritch Knight and the Psi Warrior to avoid Multiple-Ability-Dependence. Moreover, without this Fighting Style, the mage warrior is almost forced to invest in Dexterity because of the M-A-D. This Mage Armor Fighting Style makes more options
he / him
This would create a SAD gish as I see it. I mean, I'm cool with that - but what about gishes with a strength focus?
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
No, this further devalues the strength stat. Elves and Half Elves can obtain cantrips at character creation, variant humans can get it with their starting feat, many other races can also start with cantrips. Seems to me that this is just another attempt at power gaming.
The Single-Ability-Dependence is on purpose. But even so, the Mage-Armor Fighter must still have high Constitution. And the Fighter will probably also want high Dexterity and Wisdom because of the saving throws.
The S-A-D is only enough to make the M-A-D bearable.
he / him
I agree that we need to see more Strength in the game, generally. Essentially, Dexterity has made Strength worthless, and the six abilities are wildly uneven in value.
Regarding the Mage Armor Fighting Style, I am tempted to remove the Intelligence for weapon attacks, if only to force investment in Strength.
The problems are, mechanically the necessity of Strength causes excessive M-A-D, and flavorwise this forces the high elf to rely on Strength in order to wield a longsword effectively. The design of the high elf to favor the longsword but be substandard at Strength, is one of the less satisfying aspects of D&D. At least the high elf is known for (human) average Intelligence, so Mage Armor Fighting Style wielding a longsword magically by means of Intelligence is somewhat consonant with high elf flavor.
he / him
DEX is super powerful, yes. Now imagine you could also cast spells with it - that's kind of what your fighting style is. This is one reason why Mage Armor isn't 13+INT even though that would make perfect sense. I think a build that still needs DEX or STR to attack would be a lot more reasonable.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Remember, a Fighter must have high Constitution. So the Int-Con build is at least Two-Ability-Dependent.
Heh, I definitely dont want an other Dex build!
I am tempted to gently encourage an Int-Con-Str build for the Mage Armor, meaning that the Mage Armor will be AC 13+Int so as to dump Dex hard. The Dex reflex save will however remain a nagging temptation. The Eldritch Knight and Psiwar might want Strength for high damage weapons. As a bonus, the combination of Strength and no heavy armor makes the Mage Armor Fighting Style especially athletic and agile.
Regarding the high elf. The best solution is probably rethinking the longsword itself. The longsword conflates two separate kinds of historical weapons.
• Sword (1d8 slashing/piercing, finesse) − bladelength between 2 and 3 feet.
• Longsword (1d8 slashing, versatile) − bladelength between 3 and 4 feet.
As such, the high elf is proficient with the sword (which is finesse) but nonproficient with the longsword (which requires Strength).
By the way, I appreciate the artwork in Tashas that includes the Psi Warrior as a masculine muscular high elf. The muscular elf is closer to reallife Nordic archetype that I relate to more.
he / him
This would fit much more with Bladesinging, but they already get almost all of the benefits already.
In an other website, someone created their own version of the Bladesinger that was a Wizard whose school simply granted full-on melee combat. Proficiencies with a martial weapon, extra attacks from leveling, and so on. (I forget how hit points worked. Maybe temp hp.)
It turned out to be balanced. Surprisingly.
In earlier editions of D&D, such a gestalt would be impossible.
However, because 5e made the Wizard a reasonably balanced class, the swapped features remained balanced too.
We have Bard, Cleric, Druid, and Hexblade who are melee-competent fullcasters. These are solid classes, or even strong, but few if any complain about brokenness.
I know there is mutual envy between Wizard and Fighter in 5e. The Wizard envies the amount of damage-deal, while the Fighter envies the gamechanging spells. Heh, compared to earlier editions, these 5e classes look solidly balanced.
When D&D 5e severely tapered off the high level spell slot schedule, it turned out to be a change that helped the gaming system. Also the Concentration requirement seems to be working generally, even if certain spells seem off. Likewise, attunement controlling the amount of magic items available at any one time, helps balance.
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Nobody "must" have high CON. It has the same benefit for Fighters as it does for any other class except for the few subclasses that key abilities off CON (most Fighter subclasses do not). It's universal gravy. Yes, a Fighter can go STR/CON. Part of the cost of that is being pretty bad at every facet of the game outside of combat, where INT/CON opens up a lot more doors.
According to who? The person who made it? Cause the devs who made the game would clearly beg to differ based on their own Bladesinger.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Swapping out proficiencies is practically a non-issue given the convenience of multiclassing. Pick up a level of Artificer and you’ve got medium armor back while losing out only a little bit on spell progression and not at all on slots, while also gaining access to a couple of nice extra spells like Cure Wounds. Not that you’d really care about medium or heavy armor anyway, the cap on Dex to AC (which I assume would translate to Int as well) means you can pick up studded leather for those days you don’t want to expend spell slots on Mage Armor and will just slum it with one point less of AC but won’t care one bit about the heavier stuff unless you should happen across something magical. With a shield on your arm you’ll be looking at an AC of 20 pretty soon, and you can toss in the Shield spell to pump that to 25 for a round via a reaction a couple of times per day as necessary.
Keep in mind the Battlesmith gets something similar, but only for magical weapons (which he can admittedly provide himself), not for AC, without the Mage Armor or the free cantrip (incidentally, Eldritch Blast? No, leave the Warlocks their shiny and stick with more general stuff) bit and as part of his subclass benefits at lvl 3, not at lvl 1. No offense, but this is more than a little bit too good.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I probably need to rephrase the Fighting Style to make the Rules-As-Intended clearer. The Fighting Style Mage Armor is effectively always on, being cast "at will" (meaning without a spell slot). Int AC bonus is magical and was meant only for the Mage Armor, so wouldnt work for other armors.
Eldritch Blast is pertinent because it deals force damage, especially for the telekinetic Psi Warrior, but also for the Eldritch Knight. The Mage Armor itself is a force construct, and likewise Mage Hand, a kind of telekinetic force.
If choosing a damage-dealing cantrip, the Fighter needs a viable alternative to the martial weapon damage. Eldritch Blast is appropriate.
Eldritch Blast is less good for the Fighter. It is the Warlock class that makes it good because of the way it synergizes with other Warlock features, including Hex and Invocations.
The Mage Armor Fighting Style is fine balancewise, and the focus is flavor.
he / him
The website happens to have many active posters who are veteran D&D players and character optimizers. When critiquing the gestalt-like homebrew, there was a collective surprise that this was actually balanced under scrutiny. A surprise, because only in the 5e gaming engine could such a thing work. There was a detailed comparison between this homebrew "Swordmage" and the official Sword Coast Bladesinger, and the result was a wash, with about the same damage output and spell access, etcetera.
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No offense but again, it really isn’t. Just compare to any of the other fighting styles if you want to make it easy. Compared to 2 points of damage, one point of AC or a bit more damage on off-hand attacks only, this is massive. The free Mage Armor alone is better than any of those, and that’s not even the most powerful benefit on the list.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Again, the Mage Armor is less good than a Strength Plate Armor build, and way less good than Dexterity build.
he / him
By the way, no offense.
Honest and polite, and specific critiques are highly valuable. I appreciate that you care about this. If you can show a real problem or offer a comparable alternative, all of that is valuable.
he / him