This character (Morgram Frostbeard) was a trusted adviser of King Harbromm of Citadel Adbar who became the chief advisor when Harbromm's twin sons became the rulers upon the king's death. Things were fine until Bromm was killed by a dragon and Harnoth led the Knights of the Mithral Shield out to vent his rage and grief on orcs in the area in ill-advised assaults.
Long story short, Morgram chastised Harnoth in an effort to teach him that not all problems can be solved through warfare, Harnoth doesn't take kindly to the scolding, a social climber in the court sees the opportunity to ascend and whispers sweet nothings in Harnoth's ear. Morgram finds himself on the outside of Adbar's gates with a freshly shaven face and only the knowledge that the new chief advisor had him evicted. He finds refuge in Silverymoon with a retired Bladesong wizard, who wants to learn some masonry in an effort to become a Clan Crafter. In exchange, the elf teaches Morgram wizardry and the Bladesong.
Now Morgram's looking for a little vengeance and needs to do some adventuring to get some resources to help him do so.
The rolls were only average, with racial stats: strength 16, dexterity 12, constitution 13, Intelligence 15, Wisdom and Charisma 11. Clearly, Morgram got to his high position more through knowledge and competence, though he did learn some about insight and persuasion (courtier skills) along the way.
Keeping this in mind, I'm trying to determine how I should spend my ASIs. I'm thinking I might want to full ASIs and 3 feats. I'm pretty set on spell sniper as I could go with Booming Blade and sort of mimic the polearm/sentinel combo to a lesser degree. I like the idea of war caster, but some of its components don't seem to mix well with bladesong active (unless I go Dual Wielder, which I like for the concept, or decide I want to cast instead of bash for AoOs). I like the idea of Observant for the int bump and the added perception, since he's become a bit paranoid and thus ever vigilant, and it overcomes his +0 passive perception... it's definitely on flavor. But Keen Mind could also explain a little about why he was so successful (and would be an auto include as a human variant), still I think Observant is better for the character. Elemental Adept-Cold was a thought because his name is Frostbeard, and thus he takes a liking to cold damage spells... just not to the extreme. I'm thinking a +2 strength, a +2 intelligence (or maybe a +1 intelligence +1 constitution, if I can talk the DM into a free feat for everyone to allow me both Keen Mind and Observant), followed by Observant, and 2 of spell sniper, dual wielder, Elemental Adept, and war caster.
My biggest problem is that I don't have much playing experience (and it's mostly as DM), and no experience with feats outside of reading on forums and theorycrafting. Thus, I'd like to hear some suggestions.
While your DM may allow you to ignore this, I should point out the following.
Restriction: Elves Only
Only elves and half-elves can choose the bladesinger arcane tradition. In the world of Faerun, elves closely guard the secrets of bladesinging.
Your DM can lift this restriction to better suit the campaign. The restriction reflects the story of bladesinger in the Forgotten Realms, but it might not apply to your DM's setting or your DM's version of the Realms.
I think War Caster is a must for a Bladesinger. Picking up either Elemental Adept or Spell Sniper depends on what spells your going with.
If your going to be up close you'll want the Tough feat. Interesting to note is that the Booming Blade and Green-Flame Spells have you make a melee weapon attack as part of them, meaning that you can trigger things like the no opportunity attack of Moblie, the advantage of Mounted Combatant, the effects of Savage Attacker, and if you have War Caster you could use those spells with Sentinel.
The usefulness of Keen Mind is completely dependant on the DM. If I was your DM, 0 of the things in the Feat would be useful because all of them are things I either give my players or don't use for my campaigns.
Observant is fine enough, but some DMs don't use passive skills. You might want to consider the Alert Feat, it also fits that role-playing niche, but it's guaranteed to be useful with any DM.
"You can use a bonus action to start the Bladesong, which lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are incapacitated, if you don medium or heavy armor or a shield, or if you use two hands to make an attack with a weapon. You can also dismiss the Bladesong at any time you choose (no action required)."
Using two hands probably means a two handed weapon, but clarify with your DM. :)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Perpetually annoyed that Eldritch Knights can't use Eldritch Blast, Eldritch Smite, and Eldritch Sight.
While your DM may allow you to ignore this, I should point out the following.
Restriction: Elves Only
Only elves and half-elves can choose the bladesinger arcane tradition. In the world of Faerun, elves closely guard the secrets of bladesinging.
Your DM can lift this restriction to better suit the campaign. The restriction reflects the story of bladesinger in the Forgotten Realms, but it might not apply to your DM's setting or your DM's version of the Realms.
I’ve considered this restriction and tried to cover it with the background information that he was taught by a retired elf bladesinger who really wanted the knowledge of masonry (or perhaps smithing would be better for a retired bladesinger that wants to ensure that his fellow bladesingers have quality weapons) being his teacher. Since I’m not sure which person will be the DM for this adventure (there are a few possibilities and it hasn’t been decided yet), I’m not certain that they will allow bladesong for a dwarf. As a work around for that, I thought that the Elf could bluff and say that he’s teaching Morgram a new style called “Panda”. He’ll teach the dwarf about wizardry with some notes presented from a colleague from whichever school of wizardry Morgram ends up having and tells Morgram that a colleague will be teaching him the “Panda” bladesong, since he’s “the one that came up with it”. In reality, the non elf colleague will simply be an Eldritch Knight teaching him. Since this scenario is “The first rule of bladesong is that no one talks about bladesong”, no one in the know is going to tell him otherwise that it isn’t bladesong and other Eldritch Knights might buy into it or tell him otherwise. Morgram does think that everyone is trying to cheat him, so he might listen to them, but he might be so focused on his vengeance that he doesn’t bother to even listen to them. I do think that story wise, Morgram would be taught that he would have to do some funky stance when casting cantrips, particularly if War Magic comes into play, that would vary depending on if he was in melee or not, which would be the “components of Panda style” that he might be willing to believe are different enough from other EKs to differentiate from them. Plus, I’m thinking that the elf would probably warn him not to talk about bladesong mainly to prevent him from realizing that he’s been cheated.
A EK8/Wizard 12 would have the same extra attack that a bladesinger would have, but he’d only be a level 14 caster. I feel like this would work well with his storyline if the DM doesn’t green light bladesong. He would get an extra ASI, second wind, action surge, war magic, and access to Heavy Armor and shields that he wouldn’t have otherwise. The primary components of “Panda style” would include the usage of Heavy Armor and War Magic, and it could include the usage of shields. All of these are excluded by bladesong, in addition to the Medium armor proficiency that the Mountain Dwarf receives otherwise. This does solve some durability concerns that this character would have when not bladesinging and give him some larger hit dice. I do think that it would probably ease my concerns with getting a half intelligence feat as well, since being more observant in any way would probably lead to him realizing that he’s been cheated. In this case I could simply go a +2 strength, a +2 intelligence, a +1 intelligence and a +1 constitution or wisdom (there’s his increased perception from paranoia), along with war caster, spell sniper/elemental adept, and Resilient (Con)/Tough/Mobile.
I think War Caster is a must for a Bladesinger. Picking up either Elemental Adept or Spell Sniper depends on what spells your going with.
It's good to know that War Caster doesn't step on Bladesong's toes too much... or is that primarily because of the advantage on concentration saves? As for Elemental Adept, it would be for cold since I think it Morgram would want to semi specialize in cold spells because of the last name Frostbeard. He wouldn't just have cold spells though, so it does become a bit redundant and could probably be bypassed in favor of Spell Sniper, War Caster, or something else than doesn't otherwise make the cut. I would still have the semi specialization, just not the ability to ignore cold damage resistance, which won't be as critical. I do think that he would want to primarily be ranged but that he understands that he'll be a target once he starts lighting things up, particularly with his shorter legs and his lack of armor. He's intelligent enough to also realize that he'd not be agile enough to dodge reliably and wasn't able to take many blows before being too wounded to go on. I would make sure that I would have cantrips with attacks on them (aside from booming blade and green flame blade) to take advantage of the extra range and the ignore cover clause even if I did take booming blade with the feat (planning on green flame blade as one of the first cantrips, keeping the theme of light while replacing it as one of the PHB quick build recommendations since he has darkvision and only thinks about his own needs with stuff like that. He'd come around later on light if the party really needed it to succeed, which meant that He would need it to succeed since he fails if the party fails. Egocentric little snot.)
If your going to be up close you'll want the Tough feat. Interesting to note is that the Booming Blade and Green-Flame Spells have you make a melee weapon attack as part of them, meaning that you can trigger things like the no opportunity attack of Moblie, the advantage of Mounted Combatant, the effects of Savage Attacker, and if you have War Caster you could use those spells with Sentinel.
As noted, he'd want to try to stay back, but he would take Tough later if he felt like he was getting roughed up too much. With the aforementioned EK alternate, he would certainly consider tough earlier since he'd be more willing to get in an tussle that way instead of using Bladesong as the inevitable OS! button. I think with bladesong, he'd probably think some on Mobile as a defensive feat to increase his movement for moments when he wasn't using bladesong, and the mixing of the other parts along with Warcaster plus booming blade is really nice. That just might become my 1A option for the Resilient (Con)/Tough/Mobile option set for the EK because of the shenanigans that War Magic booming blade and it would play. Nice! It was in consideration before, but I had discounted it because of the bonus movement from bladesong before reading the other stuff. Mounted Combatant intrigued me when I read it and it's nice to know that it interacts well with those spells, but that wasn't the vision that I had while creating this character. I'll keep it in mind if the party decides to change my mind. I had a character concept that I was looking into Savage Attacker for, but I've read that overall it doesn't perform overly well, particularly if you aren't using a weapon with a larger spread. I'm assuming that the reroll would just account for the weapon attack portion of those spells and not with the spell damage portion. As for Sentinel, that combination would certainly be more highly considered with the EK build mentioned earlier, since I'd probably want to keep some targets closer to me than moving on to others. It's something to consider otherwise if I seem to take hits well enough and the DM plays the enemies more towards wanting to go after the healer or another caster that's somehow softer than me. Meanwhile, Booming Blade could at least make a reasonable pass at mimicking sentinel if the DM plays the creatures smart enough to not move after seeing it damage others or themselves often enough. Definitely a situational maybe.
The usefulness of Keen Mind is completely dependant on the DM. If I was your DM, 0 of the things in the Feat would be useful because all of them are things I either give my players or don't use for my campaigns.
Observant is fine enough, but some DMs don't use passive skills. You might want to consider the Alert Feat, it also fits that role-playing niche, but it's guaranteed to be useful with any DM.
I can see your point on Keen Mind and can definitely agree with you that it's DM dependant. It was primarily for flavor and the Intelligence boost, both of which can be accounted for in other ways. It might just be fluffy enough that the DM might agree to it and a select few other rather fluffy feats as freebies for flavor, at least if they have similar ideas about it as me.
Observant, if the DM didn't use passive skills, I would want to have the conversation of replacing the passive stat increase with advantage on those two skill rolls, which would have a similar effect (my understanding is the bonus would be slightly lower on average but that the application would be on all of those rolls instead of just the ones that would have been passive). I actually had Alert in the place where Observant ended up but thought that Observant fit it better, plus it had that +1. It's definitely something to consider once I open up the dialog with the DM to see how they plan to handle some of these things.
"You can use a bonus action to start the Bladesong, which lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are incapacitated, if you don medium or heavy armor or a shield, or if you use two hands to make an attack with a weapon. You can also dismiss the Bladesong at any time you choose (no action required)."
Using two hands probably means a two handed weapon, but clarify with your DM. :)
I saw that and checked on Sage Advice to see if I could get clarification. Apparently intent is that 2 handed weapons (including using the 2 hand versions of versatile) drops bladesong but not two weapon fighting. You're right that Sage Advice doesn't always equal DM ruling and I would certainly clarify prior to choosing this. It becomes a non issue if the DM doesn't allow a dwarf bladesinger, since I'd be more likely to go sword and board or 2 handed in that case.
EK 8/Wiz 12 possibly EK 6/Wiz 14 is my fallback in case the bladesinger isn't an option. I'm trying to keep it as close as possible to the bladesinger simply because I had my daughter help me make it.
I'm thinking that War Magic would be a good fall back in case bladesinger is a no go. Any other suggestions for keeping the flavor similar? Also, which would be better: the extra spell slots from being a higher level spellcaster and Deflecting Shroud (ek6/wiz14) or war magic and the extra ASI(ek8/wiz12)? I'm leaning towards the extra fighter levels for war magic and the extra ASI, primarily for reasons mentioned in my response to SladeTracey.
This character (Morgram Frostbeard) was a trusted adviser of King Harbromm of Citadel Adbar who became the chief advisor when Harbromm's twin sons became the rulers upon the king's death. Things were fine until Bromm was killed by a dragon and Harnoth led the Knights of the Mithral Shield out to vent his rage and grief on orcs in the area in ill-advised assaults.
Long story short, Morgram chastised Harnoth in an effort to teach him that not all problems can be solved through warfare, Harnoth doesn't take kindly to the scolding, a social climber in the court sees the opportunity to ascend and whispers sweet nothings in Harnoth's ear. Morgram finds himself on the outside of Adbar's gates with a freshly shaven face and only the knowledge that the new chief advisor had him evicted. He finds refuge in Silverymoon with a retired Bladesong wizard, who wants to learn some masonry in an effort to become a Clan Crafter. In exchange, the elf teaches Morgram wizardry and the Bladesong.
Now Morgram's looking for a little vengeance and needs to do some adventuring to get some resources to help him do so.
The rolls were only average, with racial stats: strength 16, dexterity 12, constitution 13, Intelligence 15, Wisdom and Charisma 11. Clearly, Morgram got to his high position more through knowledge and competence, though he did learn some about insight and persuasion (courtier skills) along the way.
Keeping this in mind, I'm trying to determine how I should spend my ASIs. I'm thinking I might want to full ASIs and 3 feats. I'm pretty set on spell sniper as I could go with Booming Blade and sort of mimic the polearm/sentinel combo to a lesser degree. I like the idea of war caster, but some of its components don't seem to mix well with bladesong active (unless I go Dual Wielder, which I like for the concept, or decide I want to cast instead of bash for AoOs). I like the idea of Observant for the int bump and the added perception, since he's become a bit paranoid and thus ever vigilant, and it overcomes his +0 passive perception... it's definitely on flavor. But Keen Mind could also explain a little about why he was so successful (and would be an auto include as a human variant), still I think Observant is better for the character. Elemental Adept-Cold was a thought because his name is Frostbeard, and thus he takes a liking to cold damage spells... just not to the extreme. I'm thinking a +2 strength, a +2 intelligence (or maybe a +1 intelligence +1 constitution, if I can talk the DM into a free feat for everyone to allow me both Keen Mind and Observant), followed by Observant, and 2 of spell sniper, dual wielder, Elemental Adept, and war caster.
My biggest problem is that I don't have much playing experience (and it's mostly as DM), and no experience with feats outside of reading on forums and theorycrafting. Thus, I'd like to hear some suggestions.
While your DM may allow you to ignore this, I should point out the following.
I think War Caster is a must for a Bladesinger. Picking up either Elemental Adept or Spell Sniper depends on what spells your going with.
If your going to be up close you'll want the Tough feat. Interesting to note is that the Booming Blade and Green-Flame Spells have you make a melee weapon attack as part of them, meaning that you can trigger things like the no opportunity attack of Moblie, the advantage of Mounted Combatant, the effects of Savage Attacker, and if you have War Caster you could use those spells with Sentinel.
The usefulness of Keen Mind is completely dependant on the DM. If I was your DM, 0 of the things in the Feat would be useful because all of them are things I either give my players or don't use for my campaigns.
Observant is fine enough, but some DMs don't use passive skills. You might want to consider the Alert Feat, it also fits that role-playing niche, but it's guaranteed to be useful with any DM.
You mentioned considering dual wielding...
"You can use a bonus action to start the Bladesong, which lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are incapacitated, if you don medium or heavy armor or a shield, or if you use two hands to make an attack with a weapon. You can also dismiss the Bladesong at any time you choose (no action required)."
Using two hands probably means a two handed weapon, but clarify with your DM. :)
Perpetually annoyed that Eldritch Knights can't use Eldritch Blast, Eldritch Smite, and Eldritch Sight.
I’ve considered this restriction and tried to cover it with the background information that he was taught by a retired elf bladesinger who really wanted the knowledge of masonry (or perhaps smithing would be better for a retired bladesinger that wants to ensure that his fellow bladesingers have quality weapons) being his teacher. Since I’m not sure which person will be the DM for this adventure (there are a few possibilities and it hasn’t been decided yet), I’m not certain that they will allow bladesong for a dwarf. As a work around for that, I thought that the Elf could bluff and say that he’s teaching Morgram a new style called “Panda”. He’ll teach the dwarf about wizardry with some notes presented from a colleague from whichever school of wizardry Morgram ends up having and tells Morgram that a colleague will be teaching him the “Panda” bladesong, since he’s “the one that came up with it”. In reality, the non elf colleague will simply be an Eldritch Knight teaching him. Since this scenario is “The first rule of bladesong is that no one talks about bladesong”, no one in the know is going to tell him otherwise that it isn’t bladesong and other Eldritch Knights might buy into it or tell him otherwise. Morgram does think that everyone is trying to cheat him, so he might listen to them, but he might be so focused on his vengeance that he doesn’t bother to even listen to them. I do think that story wise, Morgram would be taught that he would have to do some funky stance when casting cantrips, particularly if War Magic comes into play, that would vary depending on if he was in melee or not, which would be the “components of Panda style” that he might be willing to believe are different enough from other EKs to differentiate from them. Plus, I’m thinking that the elf would probably warn him not to talk about bladesong mainly to prevent him from realizing that he’s been cheated.
A EK8/Wizard 12 would have the same extra attack that a bladesinger would have, but he’d only be a level 14 caster. I feel like this would work well with his storyline if the DM doesn’t green light bladesong. He would get an extra ASI, second wind, action surge, war magic, and access to Heavy Armor and shields that he wouldn’t have otherwise. The primary components of “Panda style” would include the usage of Heavy Armor and War Magic, and it could include the usage of shields. All of these are excluded by bladesong, in addition to the Medium armor proficiency that the Mountain Dwarf receives otherwise. This does solve some durability concerns that this character would have when not bladesinging and give him some larger hit dice. I do think that it would probably ease my concerns with getting a half intelligence feat as well, since being more observant in any way would probably lead to him realizing that he’s been cheated. In this case I could simply go a +2 strength, a +2 intelligence, a +1 intelligence and a +1 constitution or wisdom (there’s his increased perception from paranoia), along with war caster, spell sniper/elemental adept, and Resilient (Con)/Tough/Mobile.
It's good to know that War Caster doesn't step on Bladesong's toes too much... or is that primarily because of the advantage on concentration saves? As for Elemental Adept, it would be for cold since I think it Morgram would want to semi specialize in cold spells because of the last name Frostbeard. He wouldn't just have cold spells though, so it does become a bit redundant and could probably be bypassed in favor of Spell Sniper, War Caster, or something else than doesn't otherwise make the cut. I would still have the semi specialization, just not the ability to ignore cold damage resistance, which won't be as critical. I do think that he would want to primarily be ranged but that he understands that he'll be a target once he starts lighting things up, particularly with his shorter legs and his lack of armor. He's intelligent enough to also realize that he'd not be agile enough to dodge reliably and wasn't able to take many blows before being too wounded to go on. I would make sure that I would have cantrips with attacks on them (aside from booming blade and green flame blade) to take advantage of the extra range and the ignore cover clause even if I did take booming blade with the feat (planning on green flame blade as one of the first cantrips, keeping the theme of light while replacing it as one of the PHB quick build recommendations since he has darkvision and only thinks about his own needs with stuff like that. He'd come around later on light if the party really needed it to succeed, which meant that He would need it to succeed since he fails if the party fails. Egocentric little snot.)
As noted, he'd want to try to stay back, but he would take Tough later if he felt like he was getting roughed up too much. With the aforementioned EK alternate, he would certainly consider tough earlier since he'd be more willing to get in an tussle that way instead of using Bladesong as the inevitable OS! button. I think with bladesong, he'd probably think some on Mobile as a defensive feat to increase his movement for moments when he wasn't using bladesong, and the mixing of the other parts along with Warcaster plus booming blade is really nice. That just might become my 1A option for the Resilient (Con)/Tough/Mobile option set for the EK because of the shenanigans that War Magic booming blade and it would play. Nice! It was in consideration before, but I had discounted it because of the bonus movement from bladesong before reading the other stuff. Mounted Combatant intrigued me when I read it and it's nice to know that it interacts well with those spells, but that wasn't the vision that I had while creating this character. I'll keep it in mind if the party decides to change my mind. I had a character concept that I was looking into Savage Attacker for, but I've read that overall it doesn't perform overly well, particularly if you aren't using a weapon with a larger spread. I'm assuming that the reroll would just account for the weapon attack portion of those spells and not with the spell damage portion. As for Sentinel, that combination would certainly be more highly considered with the EK build mentioned earlier, since I'd probably want to keep some targets closer to me than moving on to others. It's something to consider otherwise if I seem to take hits well enough and the DM plays the enemies more towards wanting to go after the healer or another caster that's somehow softer than me. Meanwhile, Booming Blade could at least make a reasonable pass at mimicking sentinel if the DM plays the creatures smart enough to not move after seeing it damage others or themselves often enough. Definitely a situational maybe.
I can see your point on Keen Mind and can definitely agree with you that it's DM dependant. It was primarily for flavor and the Intelligence boost, both of which can be accounted for in other ways. It might just be fluffy enough that the DM might agree to it and a select few other rather fluffy feats as freebies for flavor, at least if they have similar ideas about it as me.
Observant, if the DM didn't use passive skills, I would want to have the conversation of replacing the passive stat increase with advantage on those two skill rolls, which would have a similar effect (my understanding is the bonus would be slightly lower on average but that the application would be on all of those rolls instead of just the ones that would have been passive). I actually had Alert in the place where Observant ended up but thought that Observant fit it better, plus it had that +1. It's definitely something to consider once I open up the dialog with the DM to see how they plan to handle some of these things.
I saw that and checked on Sage Advice to see if I could get clarification. Apparently intent is that 2 handed weapons (including using the 2 hand versions of versatile) drops bladesong but not two weapon fighting. You're right that Sage Advice doesn't always equal DM ruling and I would certainly clarify prior to choosing this. It becomes a non issue if the DM doesn't allow a dwarf bladesinger, since I'd be more likely to go sword and board or 2 handed in that case.
If you really like the idea of a spell slinging fighter, you can always go Eldritch Knight - it would make better use of your high Strength.
If you can move your stats you can do Kensei Monk which has a mystic weapons expert feel.
Other GMs could be flexible with the Bladesinger thing but I wouldn't in my game.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
EK 8/Wiz 12 possibly EK 6/Wiz 14 is my fallback in case the bladesinger isn't an option. I'm trying to keep it as close as possible to the bladesinger simply because I had my daughter help me make it.
I'm thinking that War Magic would be a good fall back in case bladesinger is a no go. Any other suggestions for keeping the flavor similar? Also, which would be better: the extra spell slots from being a higher level spellcaster and Deflecting Shroud (ek6/wiz14) or war magic and the extra ASI(ek8/wiz12)? I'm leaning towards the extra fighter levels for war magic and the extra ASI, primarily for reasons mentioned in my response to SladeTracey.