Would you allow the following combo? I'm playing an Arcane Trickster High Elf named Vanir Miharian, and when I reach level 7 I can get a level 2 spell slot. I'm obviously going for shadow blade because this might as well be labelled "For Rogue" Casting Shadow Blade and attacking with that shadow blade using Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade. In my table, we do allow it, but I wanted to hear more opinions My Argument to allow it: The spell says it creates a simple melee weapon. The cheapest simple Melee weapon, Club, is worth 1 sp, and the minimum for a bladed weapon, Dagger, is worth 2 gp. This is if we take that part of the spell specifically. We can also assume the price of spell scrolls as the value, definetly bumping that up. The reason this errata was made was to prevent spellcasters using their arcane focus or their component pouch for BB and GFB:
Would you allow the following combo? I'm playing an Arcane Trickster High Elf named Vanir Miharian, and when I reach level 7 I can get a level 2 spell slot. I'm obviously going for shadow blade because this might as well be labelled "For Rogue" Casting Shadow Blade and attacking with that shadow blade using Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade. In my table, we do allow it, but I wanted to hear more opinions My Argument to allow it: The spell says it creates a simple melee weapon. The cheapest simple Melee weapon, Club, is worth 1 sp, and the minimum for a bladed weapon, Dagger, is worth 2 gp. This is if we take that part of the spell specifically. We can also assume the price of spell scrolls as the value, definetly bumping that up. The reason this errata was made was to prevent spellcasters using their arcane focus or their component pouch for BB and GFB:
So, it might not work RAW, but is definetly RAI. Also rule for cool. Opinions?
I don't allow it, and I don't believe it is RAI. If RAI had been that any melee weapon could be used, it could have phrased differently to make it explicit. I believe that it is intentional that it not stack with summoned or manifested weapons like Shadow Blades or Pact of the Blade weapons, nor with improvised weapons. I do tend to take a harder line on this sort of thing; much as I like combining magic and melee, I think the trade offs implicit in the rules need to be maintained.
I forgot to say, this interaction worked fine and was intended pre TCoA. So there's that. Obviously some people won't allow it, but I think it's a neat interaction that's not too game breaking, since it only comes online at level 7 and you only get one 2nd spell slot for AT
Would you allow the following combo? I'm playing an Arcane Trickster High Elf named Vanir Miharian, and when I reach level 7 I can get a level 2 spell slot. I'm obviously going for shadow blade because this might as well be labelled "For Rogue" Casting Shadow Blade and attacking with that shadow blade using Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade. In my table, we do allow it, but I wanted to hear more opinions My Argument to allow it: The spell says it creates a simple melee weapon. The cheapest simple Melee weapon, Club, is worth 1 sp, and the minimum for a bladed weapon, Dagger, is worth 2 gp. This is if we take that part of the spell specifically. We can also assume the price of spell scrolls as the value, definetly bumping that up. The reason this errata was made was to prevent spellcasters using their arcane focus or their component pouch for BB and GFB:
So, it might not work RAW, but is definetly RAI. Also rule for cool. Opinions?
I don't allow it, and I don't believe it is RAI. If RAI had been that any melee weapon could be used, it could have phrased differently to make it explicit. I believe that it is intentional that it not stack with summoned or manifested weapons like Shadow Blades or Pact of the Blade weapons, nor with improvised weapons. I do tend to take a harder line on this sort of thing; much as I like combining magic and melee, I think the trade offs implicit in the rules need to be maintained.
Pact of the Blade weapons have the same value as the form it take so they should work with Booming and Green Flame Blade. This issue has being clarified by Crawford but I do not have time right now to dig it up. I will try link to it later when I get home.
Would you allow the following combo? I'm playing an Arcane Trickster High Elf named Vanir Miharian, and when I reach level 7 I can get a level 2 spell slot. I'm obviously going for shadow blade because this might as well be labelled "For Rogue" Casting Shadow Blade and attacking with that shadow blade using Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade. In my table, we do allow it, but I wanted to hear more opinions My Argument to allow it: The spell says it creates a simple melee weapon. The cheapest simple Melee weapon, Club, is worth 1 sp, and the minimum for a bladed weapon, Dagger, is worth 2 gp. This is if we take that part of the spell specifically. We can also assume the price of spell scrolls as the value, definetly bumping that up. The reason this errata was made was to prevent spellcasters using their arcane focus or their component pouch for BB and GFB:
So, it might not work RAW, but is definetly RAI. Also rule for cool. Opinions?
Absolutely not, because the spell didn't require a costly component, and then was specifically nerfed to do so, the only impact of which is stopping synergy with things like Shadow Blade (and that list of things is very small - almost nothing qualifies as a melee weapon that costs less than 1 sp). Given that WOTC went out of their way to specifically nerf this specific combination, I would only houserule the nerf away again with a very good reason, which you're not presenting here.
Note also that Jeremy Crawford's illiteracy aside, the spell, pre-nerf, a) never allowed you to use your component pouch instead (per the rules text of how the pouch works) and b) if used with your focus did significantly less damage because you'd have to swing a damage 1d4 weapon you're not proficient in instead of strictly more damage with anything else. It simply does not hold water that WOTC would nerf the spell to prevent a) a combo that was already illegal without the nerf or b) a combo that lets a spellcaster cripple their own damage output. The only plausible reason for the nerf is preventing Shadow Blade specifically.
That's a fair counterpoint. I presented my arguments here to my DM. He said that he would allow it. Thought I'd look for more opinions. All this does is increase your damage by 1d8 or 4.5 extra damage for a minute once a dau with AT at level 7. It also takes up your concentraion so you cant cast invisibility normally if you take the spell. Sure it allows dual wielding and is pretty good used that way, but not enough to be OP.By the time you can get more of this combo, there might be better ways to get damage. I think they nerfed the arcane focus thing because with BB it was a pretty good way to tell any martial attacking your squishy to flip off anf not follow you, a cantrip or a spell? Pretty good trade-off for me
I'd also allow the combo of Shadowblade with Booming Blade (BB) or Green-Flame Blade (GFB). I would interpret that the Shadowblade's value to be sufficient to act as a focus for the two cantrips, based on rulings of pact magic weapon.
But I'm also liberal with rules like that - I would even allow BB/GFB to work with Soulknives' Psy blades. And I like combos and high damage (from and to players).
The way I see it is that those cantrips simply require a weapon, primarily not as part of the spell's material component but rather as a mean to deliver its effect on target (the melee attack part of the cantrips).
I think the purpose of the changes to the blade cantrips were to stop twin spell metamagic from working with them.
I didn't know much of the changes and their effect. I found https://thinkdm.org/2020/11/14/blade-cantrips/ which kinda make a good exhaustive list, the twin spell metamagic feature being only one of them.
And while they states it shouldn't work on Shadowblade because of the weapon value (which I agree to disagree), they do give a couple good explanations. It did help me get the larger picture on other interaction I'm not familiar with...
I don't allow it; if you allow it for an Arcane Trickster you have to allow it for everything else as well, specifically full casters who could be rocking around with a high level Shadow Bladeplus either Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade for seriously high damage for just one spell slot.
Even on just the Arcane Trickster, who can only upcast Shadow Blade so much, you're still talking about adding a heft chunky of extra damage on top of Sneak Attack, it's just far too exploitable IMO. It's no longer RAW and I can't imagine it was ever RAI either.
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Outside of interaction with twin spell every other previous use has been mentioned as allowed (i.e. Warcaster, and even Crawford allows blade cantrips), so that is the only function that truly changed with the tasha updates.
Outside of interaction with twin spell every other previous use has been mentioned as allowed (i.e. Warcaster, and even Crawford allows blade cantrips), so that is the only function that truly changed with the tasha updates.
So you're suggesting the rule about requiring a minimum of 1sp for the cost of Booming Blade's component changes absolutely nothing? Why did they print it, then?
I don't allow it; if you allow it for an Arcane Trickster you have to allow it for everything else as well, specifically full casters who could be rocking around with a high level Shadow Bladeplus either Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade for seriously high damage for just one spell slot.
Even on just the Arcane Trickster, who can only upcast Shadow Blade so much, you're still talking about adding a heft chunky of extra damage on top of Sneak Attack, it's just far too exploitable IMO. It's no longer RAW and I can't imagine it was ever RAI either.
You are right, I didn't think of full casters. 7th slot for 5d8 + BB's ranging from 1 to 4d8s is a bit on the strong side, should a full caster be actually favouring the melee...
I guess it would depends on the table... I wouldn't see an issue in our settings/campaign, but it is pretty strong yeah... Guess Shadow Blade should not be combining like that for a reason...
I don't allow it; if you allow it for an Arcane Trickster you have to allow it for everything else as well, specifically full casters who could be rocking around with a high level Shadow Bladeplus either Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade for seriously high damage for just one spell slot.
Even on just the Arcane Trickster, who can only upcast Shadow Blade so much, you're still talking about adding a heft chunky of extra damage on top of Sneak Attack, it's just far too exploitable IMO. It's no longer RAW and I can't imagine it was ever RAI either.
You are right, I didn't think of full casters. 7th slot for 5d8 + BB's ranging from 1 to 4d8s is a bit on the strong side, should a full caster be actually favouring the melee...
I guess it would depends on the table... I wouldn't see an issue in our settings/campaign, but it is pretty strong yeah... Guess Shadow Blade should not be combining like that for a reason...
There are a couple of full casters that don't mind going melee. The various weapon oriented Bards for one and the Bladesinger Wizard for another. Although the other side of the argument is a 7th level spell can change the course of a combat encounter in a much more powerful way than a upcasted Shadowblade. Spells like Forcecage and Reverse Gravity come to mind. Personally I don't mind letting Shadowblade and the blade cantrips combine but I've played at tables where its not allowed because the DM considered it too strong and I see the merit of both sides of the argument.
The thing with full casters though is to remember that they are expending a high level slot, which should give some kind of benefit, and its a concentration spell. For a DM, it is totally valid for the first attack by that shadow blade to attract the attention of every enemy to break their concentration as the biggest threat.
Exactly, people think this is OP on casters, but if they go melee, they will draw too much attention. And the fact that it is concentration, makes it not the best combo
Exactly, people think this is OP on casters, but if they go melee, they will draw too much attention. And the fact that it is concentration, makes it not the best combo
If you consider it on a Bladesinger built for melee, then you're probably taking War Caster on top of Bladesong to make it practically impossible to lose concentration, especially since the layered AC you'll be rocking means you're hard to hit at all in the first place (and that's if you don't use Mirror Image or other shenanigans if you've the time to set them up), plus you can throw on some False Life if you're concerned about being relatively low on HP. Even once Bladesong is down, Wizards have other tricks to keep themselves safe if they need to.
For those you're talking minimum two attacks from the Shadow Blade itself, one of which is also a Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade. Full casters are powerful enough at the things they're good at, such as blasting and control, we don't really need them utterly destroying martials at melee damage as well, otherwise why would anyone play any other class?
While a lot of this is less applicable to the Arcane Trickster specifically, it's still adding a tonne of extra damage onto a class that already does a lot from a single hit, and shouldn't need to worry about concentration too much if you Disengage well or use Mobile (which you'll be wanting to do with Booming Blade). The Booming Blade sneak attack then disengage combo is already very powerful; pushing it further really should be the domain of party combos such as a party member giving you Crusader's Mantle, Elemental Weapon, Holy Weapon etc. IMO.
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I definetly see your point. Casters are already OP. But I dont thing blade cantrips work with extra attack, unless you mean the bonus action cantrip. And while I agree that it would be an OP combo, i dont think the time it would take is worth it. For example, lat's say you do the mirror image combo. You cast mirror image and upcast shadow blade to do let's say 4d8 damage. You need to wait to next turn for you to attack twice. And while mirror image will help, the concentration will break off at some point. Also, the monsters will notice the very powerful caster with a magical sword and target him. Also the thing is, this wont be the most damaging option for casters at high level. But hey, if you think this is OP, don't allow it. Fair enough.
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Would you allow the following combo?
I'm playing an Arcane Trickster High Elf named Vanir Miharian, and when I reach level 7 I can get a level 2 spell slot. I'm obviously going for shadow blade because this might as well be labelled "For Rogue"
Casting Shadow Blade and attacking with that shadow blade using Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade. In my table, we do allow it, but I wanted to hear more opinions
My Argument to allow it:
The spell says it creates a simple melee weapon. The cheapest simple Melee weapon, Club, is worth 1 sp, and the minimum for a bladed weapon, Dagger, is worth 2 gp. This is if we take that part of the spell specifically. We can also assume the price of spell scrolls as the value, definetly bumping that up. The reason this errata was made was to prevent spellcasters using their arcane focus or their component pouch for BB and GFB:
https://twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/1327132714013782017
https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/1326925328267177984
So, it might not work RAW, but is definetly RAI. Also rule for cool. Opinions?
Yes, rule of cool I would but I would also put a penalty like the hastes 1 round lethargy.
I don't allow it, and I don't believe it is RAI. If RAI had been that any melee weapon could be used, it could have phrased differently to make it explicit. I believe that it is intentional that it not stack with summoned or manifested weapons like Shadow Blades or Pact of the Blade weapons, nor with improvised weapons. I do tend to take a harder line on this sort of thing; much as I like combining magic and melee, I think the trade offs implicit in the rules need to be maintained.
I forgot to say, this interaction worked fine and was intended pre TCoA. So there's that. Obviously some people won't allow it, but I think it's a neat interaction that's not too game breaking, since it only comes online at level 7 and you only get one 2nd spell slot for AT
Pact of the Blade weapons have the same value as the form it take so they should work with Booming and Green Flame Blade. This issue has being clarified by Crawford but I do not have time right now to dig it up. I will try link to it later when I get home.
Absolutely not, because the spell didn't require a costly component, and then was specifically nerfed to do so, the only impact of which is stopping synergy with things like Shadow Blade (and that list of things is very small - almost nothing qualifies as a melee weapon that costs less than 1 sp). Given that WOTC went out of their way to specifically nerf this specific combination, I would only houserule the nerf away again with a very good reason, which you're not presenting here.
Note also that Jeremy Crawford's illiteracy aside, the spell, pre-nerf, a) never allowed you to use your component pouch instead (per the rules text of how the pouch works) and b) if used with your focus did significantly less damage because you'd have to swing a damage 1d4 weapon you're not proficient in instead of strictly more damage with anything else. It simply does not hold water that WOTC would nerf the spell to prevent a) a combo that was already illegal without the nerf or b) a combo that lets a spellcaster cripple their own damage output. The only plausible reason for the nerf is preventing Shadow Blade specifically.
That's a fair counterpoint. I presented my arguments here to my DM. He said that he would allow it. Thought I'd look for more opinions. All this does is increase your damage by 1d8 or 4.5 extra damage for a minute once a dau with AT at level 7. It also takes up your concentraion so you cant cast invisibility normally if you take the spell. Sure it allows dual wielding and is pretty good used that way, but not enough to be OP.By the time you can get more of this combo, there might be better ways to get damage. I think they nerfed the arcane focus thing because with BB it was a pretty good way to tell any martial attacking your squishy to flip off anf not follow you, a cantrip or a spell? Pretty good trade-off for me
I'd also allow the combo of Shadowblade with Booming Blade (BB) or Green-Flame Blade (GFB). I would interpret that the Shadowblade's value to be sufficient to act as a focus for the two cantrips, based on rulings of pact magic weapon.
But I'm also liberal with rules like that - I would even allow BB/GFB to work with Soulknives' Psy blades. And I like combos and high damage (from and to players).
The way I see it is that those cantrips simply require a weapon, primarily not as part of the spell's material component but rather as a mean to deliver its effect on target (the melee attack part of the cantrips).
Hyrkali
Full DNDBeyond.com in Dark Mode? Yes please!
I think the purpose of the changes to the blade cantrips were to stop twin spell metamagic from working with them.
I didn't know much of the changes and their effect. I found https://thinkdm.org/2020/11/14/blade-cantrips/ which kinda make a good exhaustive list, the twin spell metamagic feature being only one of them.
And while they states it shouldn't work on Shadowblade because of the weapon value (which I agree to disagree), they do give a couple good explanations. It did help me get the larger picture on other interaction I'm not familiar with...
Hyrkali
Full DNDBeyond.com in Dark Mode? Yes please!
I don't allow it; if you allow it for an Arcane Trickster you have to allow it for everything else as well, specifically full casters who could be rocking around with a high level Shadow Blade plus either Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade for seriously high damage for just one spell slot.
Even on just the Arcane Trickster, who can only upcast Shadow Blade so much, you're still talking about adding a heft chunky of extra damage on top of Sneak Attack, it's just far too exploitable IMO. It's no longer RAW and I can't imagine it was ever RAI either.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
That was a strange decision. Were there really powerful Sorceror gish builds out there doing this?
Outside of interaction with twin spell every other previous use has been mentioned as allowed (i.e. Warcaster, and even Crawford allows blade cantrips), so that is the only function that truly changed with the tasha updates.
So you're suggesting the rule about requiring a minimum of 1sp for the cost of Booming Blade's component changes absolutely nothing? Why did they print it, then?
You are right, I didn't think of full casters. 7th slot for 5d8 + BB's ranging from 1 to 4d8s is a bit on the strong side, should a full caster be actually favouring the melee...
I guess it would depends on the table... I wouldn't see an issue in our settings/campaign, but it is pretty strong yeah... Guess Shadow Blade should not be combining like that for a reason...
Hyrkali
Full DNDBeyond.com in Dark Mode? Yes please!
There are a couple of full casters that don't mind going melee. The various weapon oriented Bards for one and the Bladesinger Wizard for another. Although the other side of the argument is a 7th level spell can change the course of a combat encounter in a much more powerful way than a upcasted Shadowblade. Spells like Forcecage and Reverse Gravity come to mind. Personally I don't mind letting Shadowblade and the blade cantrips combine but I've played at tables where its not allowed because the DM considered it too strong and I see the merit of both sides of the argument.
The thing with full casters though is to remember that they are expending a high level slot, which should give some kind of benefit, and its a concentration spell. For a DM, it is totally valid for the first attack by that shadow blade to attract the attention of every enemy to break their concentration as the biggest threat.
Exactly, people think this is OP on casters, but if they go melee, they will draw too much attention. And the fact that it is concentration, makes it not the best combo
If you consider it on a Bladesinger built for melee, then you're probably taking War Caster on top of Bladesong to make it practically impossible to lose concentration, especially since the layered AC you'll be rocking means you're hard to hit at all in the first place (and that's if you don't use Mirror Image or other shenanigans if you've the time to set them up), plus you can throw on some False Life if you're concerned about being relatively low on HP. Even once Bladesong is down, Wizards have other tricks to keep themselves safe if they need to.
For those you're talking minimum two attacks from the Shadow Blade itself, one of which is also a Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade. Full casters are powerful enough at the things they're good at, such as blasting and control, we don't really need them utterly destroying martials at melee damage as well, otherwise why would anyone play any other class?
While a lot of this is less applicable to the Arcane Trickster specifically, it's still adding a tonne of extra damage onto a class that already does a lot from a single hit, and shouldn't need to worry about concentration too much if you Disengage well or use Mobile (which you'll be wanting to do with Booming Blade). The Booming Blade sneak attack then disengage combo is already very powerful; pushing it further really should be the domain of party combos such as a party member giving you Crusader's Mantle, Elemental Weapon, Holy Weapon etc. IMO.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I definetly see your point. Casters are already OP. But I dont thing blade cantrips work with extra attack, unless you mean the bonus action cantrip. And while I agree that it would be an OP combo, i dont think the time it would take is worth it. For example, lat's say you do the mirror image combo. You cast mirror image and upcast shadow blade to do let's say 4d8 damage. You need to wait to next turn for you to attack twice. And while mirror image will help, the concentration will break off at some point. Also, the monsters will notice the very powerful caster with a magical sword and target him. Also the thing is, this wont be the most damaging option for casters at high level. But hey, if you think this is OP, don't allow it. Fair enough.