D&D 5E Totally underwhelmed by 5e bladesinger, am I missing something?

[FormerlyHemlock]

Multi-class slows spell progression.

How do I think it's overpowered? OK I'll take my character for example at level 8.
+2 studded leather with an 18 in both DEX and INT. He has a natural AC of 17, bladesong 21, shield, 26. I reserve all 4 1st lvl slots for shield, and 2nd lvl if the need arises (never actually happened). I do have mirror image and blink, neither requires concentration which means I can make it impossible to hit me, or even target me. If need be I can also stack protection from evil and good to give disadvantage to the rolls. In other words, I have no problem in melee combat. I do have offensive spells if the need arises to sit back and not melee, but why do that when it's so much fun frustrating the DM who can't hit you? BTW my sword attacks do 1d8+5 each, which isn't too bad.

AC 21 with Bladesong (with Shield on tap) isn't an outlier. A pure Eldritch Knight can do exactly the same thing with Defense Style, except he has AC 21 all the time, including before his first round of combat. A Paladorc (e.g. Paladin 6/Sorcerer 2) would have an AC of 23 at level 8, right on the verge of being able to cast Quickened Mirror Image/Blur/Web if he needs it.

The theoretical advantage on a Bladesinger over the Paladorc is that he's got access to more and better wizard spells, but if you're saving all of your spell slots for defensive use it winds up not being much different in practice.

BTW, an 8th level Necromancer will dominate both the Paladorc and the Bladesinger. 30 skeleton archers = 30 attacks at +4 for d6+5 damage each. Likely to be 120-160 points of damage per round against idiomatic/level-appropriate foes. (Not that I believe in "level-appropriate" anything in the first place.) Even against an adult white dragon it would still be 94 points of damage per round (only 31/round if the skeletons are at disadvantage due to fear or at long range).

Therefore, as a DM, the Bladesinger doesn't even impress me, let alone cause indigestation. It's not even an outlier in terms of the PCs I am prepared to deal with.

 

[Mort]

^^^
Very much this!

I tend to think of it as fractions (perhaps because of how they do the spell slots with multiclassing). A fighter is 100% fight. An EK is 2/3 fight and 1/3 magic. A Bladesinger doesn't actually give up slots, but they play like a 1/3 fight, 2/3 magic class. I think they do this just fine. What they give up is roughly equivalent to the other "good" wizardly specializations, but probably not the best. I think to the OP's dissatisfaction, the real problem I think is that there needs to be a 50:50 arcane class, similar to the paladin/ranger. That will not be easy to craft, however, and I can see why they aren't just making it as a sub-class.

I think you nailed it there - too much mage not enough fighter.

Seems to be just a personal preference - not complaining about the power level.

And yeah, I REALLY like the 5e Paladin - I think it hits on all levels from power level to flavor.

 

[Pathkeeper24601]

BTW, an 8th level Necromancer will dominate both the Paladorc and the Bladesinger. 30 skeleton archers = 30 attacks at +4 for d6+5 damage each. Likely to be 120-160 points of damage per round against idiomatic/level-appropriate foes. (Not that I believe in "level-appropriate" anything in the first place.) Even against an adult white dragon it would still be 94 points of damage per round (only 31/round if the skeletons are at disadvantage due to fear or at long range).

Good thing it is difficult for a Necro to be running around with 30 Skeleton archers, or I should say an easy thing to keep one from running around with a small army of undead. The one I've DMed and played with never went beyond 4. Usually could get away with disguising 2 while in town, and could pick up a few on the way if they faced humanoids. Beyond 4 it seem to become a negative to the enjoyment for the party as a whole.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

^^^
Very much this!

I tend to think of it as fractions (perhaps because of how they do the spell slots with multiclassing). A fighter is 100% fight. An EK is 2/3 fight and 1/3 magic. A Bladesinger doesn't actually give up slots, but they play like a 1/3 fight, 2/3 magic class. I think they do this just fine. What they give up is roughly equivalent to the other "good" wizardly specializations, but probably not the best. I think to the OP's dissatisfaction, the real problem I think is that there needs to be a 50:50 arcane class, similar to the paladin/ranger. That will not be easy to craft, however, and I can see why they aren't just making it as a sub-class.

I like the fraction analogy. The 50:50 arcane class seems like a good niche for an artificer class (or maybe an alchemist if they focus on the Jekyll/Hyde aspect), but I don't know that that would give anyone the bladesinger feel.....

 

[flametitan]

BTW, an 8th level Necromancer will dominate both the Paladorc and the Bladesinger. 30 skeleton archers = 30 attacks at +4 for d6+5 damage each. Likely to be 120-160 points of damage per round against idiomatic/level-appropriate foes. (Not that I believe in "level-appropriate" anything in the first place.) Even against an adult white dragon it would still be 94 points of damage per round (only 31/round if the skeletons are at disadvantage due to fear or at long range).

Therefore, as a DM, the Bladesinger doesn't even impress me, let alone cause indigestation. It's not even an outlier in terms of the PCs I am prepared to deal with.

Yeah, bladesinger's probably not what you want if you want "crazy overpowered" as far as wizards go. As you point out, a necromancer that's given plenty of bones can reasonably break the action economy and outdo anyone.

That said, the bladesinger isn't "bad" as long as you respect that it's primarily a wizard. It can do everything every other wizard can do, even a worse version of a necromancer (though hardly to the same extent). Bladesinger doesn't turn it into a finely honed half caster/half fighter.

(incidentally, I've been reading up on animate dead, and I'm working out if the rules have a means of combating the 30 skeleton work days. I have something but it's relatively easily circumvented, at least for a decent amount of time.)

 

[Willie the Duck]

I like the fraction analogy. The 50:50 arcane class seems like a good niche for an artificer class (or maybe an alchemist if they focus on the Jekyll/Hyde aspect), but I don't know that that would give anyone the bladesinger feel.....

To be honest, I'm not sure there is 'a' or 'the' bladesinger feel. I'm pretty sure that the Bladesinger concept is one of those things that is mostly made up by its' own fanbase because every actual incarnation has been problematic.

Bladesinger started as a kit from the Complete Book of Elves in 2e. What most people remember about it is

• It was iconic as an example of CBoE giving elves more powers for no particular reason except that elves are awesome
• It balanced rule benefits with roleplay penalties, which people apparently hate.
• While not exactly overpowered (because it is a fighter-mage kit, and f-ms are not all that awesome in 2e), it was strictly better than other f-ms in every way

In 3e, Bladesingers were a gish PrC that I never remember the OP boards every including in gish builds

I'm not familiar enough with 4e, but my understanding is that Bladesingers were sold as controllers, but ended up as strikers.

So it sounds like in each incarnation, people have "loved the idea of" the bladesinger, but either hated the outcome or just expected something different from what they got. I guess it doesn't surprise me that everyone's expectations haven't been met.

Back to my fraction analogy--I think there absolutely should be an arcane 50:50 class, but I have no reason to think that it has to be called bladesinger. Duskblade, hexblade, spellsword if it hasn't been used.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Good thing it is difficult for a Necro to be running around with 30 Skeleton archers, or I should say an easy thing to keep one from running around with a small army of undead. The one I've DMed and played with never went beyond 4. Usually could get away with disguising 2 while in town, and could pick up a few on the way if they faced humanoids. Beyond 4 it seem to become a negative to the enjoyment for the party as a whole.

I don't think I'd say it's an easy thing to "keep" one from running around with a skeleton army, because "preventing" things isn't my style as a DM. I just run the world, I don't have a stake in the outcome. In my observation, players are more likely to self-limit themselves to a small handful of skeletons, without DM coercion, unless they're headed into something which actually needs extreme firepower (warzone or Tomb of Horrors).

That doesn't change the fact that Necromancers have far more raw power than Bladesingers, even when they choose not to exercise it. Ergo I have no quarrels with the Bladesinger class as a DM.

Although, really anyone with a pocketfull of gold has access to the same amount of power as Necromancers do. My first real 5E experience saw my 8th level party first ambushing a party of a dozen hobgoblins fleeing from something (I don't know why we ambushed them, we just did), then seven wraiths came along (mounted on Perytons) and turned all the hobgoblin corpses into spectres, which then attacked us all en masse--and it turned out that this DM liked for necrotic damage from wraiths/spectres to inflict permanent HP loss. My PC lost an old (NPC) friend that day to permanent HP loss, and the obvious lesson was: "we should have allied with those hobgoblins to help us instead of attacking them." The fight with the wraiths would have been a cake walk instead of a brutally punishing affair.

If you support your minions with Inspiring Leader they will even be durable too (and therefore more loyal because low casualty rates + success + loot = loyal troops).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

(incidentally, I've been reading up on animate dead, and I'm working out if the rules have a means of combating the 30 skeleton work days. I have something but it's relatively easily circumvented, at least for a decent amount of time.)

Yes. Missile weapons and focus fire. Also stealth is good.

My players' first encounter with drow was when they ventured into the caverns below the surface and ran into eight or nine drow (one Elite Warrior and eight regular drow IIRC) in the dark. The drow had 120' darkvision so advantage on all their attacks (which cancelled out disadvantage for being at long range on their crossbows) and the Necromancer's dozen or so skeletons had disadvantage to shoot back. The drow wound up knocking out both the Necromancer 9 and the Shadow Monk 6/Druid 3(ish) with their sleep poison and hand crossbows; they took enough casualties that they didn't stick around long enough to finish off the downed PCs in the face of skeleton archer counterfire, so the Necromancer lived (made enough death saves) while the monk died (failed three death saves).

Other things that necromancers hate include bad terrain (have to jump this 15' canyon or take 4d6 falling damage? 4d6 is nothing to a PC, but 4d6 to each skeleton really hurts), infiltrating populated areas (trying to sneak 4 PCs into the Mind Flayer citadel is far easier than sneaking in 30 skeletons or 30 mercenaries), and monsters who are good at hit-and-run attacks (a white dragon who smashes 12 of your skeletons and then flies off to short rest and regain HP). Having skeletons means you're basically giving up the logistics of a PC Special Ops team in exchange for the logistics of a platoon or small company. If you as a DM design your adventures in such a way that a Special Ops team is the logical way to approach problems, necromancers and other minion-oriented PCs will self-limit. And you'll have a better game, because you'll finally have an answer to the question "Why is the King giving this quest to me instead of to his army?" This approach isn't really compatible with the "lots of easy encounters" Combat As Sport adventuring day meme, but it's perfectly compatible with the Combat As War paradigm.

 

[Chaosmancer]

At level 8 an EK can have 1d8+7 (likely not, let's say 1d8+5) x2 + 1d8 + 1d8+int to a second target/2d8 on conditional activation. And an extra Feat/ASI to increase damage.

So no, not really at best... and i do not even know if this is at best, really.

Kinda undermining your point, but i agree that 1d8+5 is not "bad damage". Just a bit "meh" ihmo.

So... I'm away from my books currently, but how is a straight sword and board fighter getting all those extra dice?

I get the 1d8+5 x2 is the 2 main attacks

Then we have a floating 1d8
A floating 1d8+int (or is that a 1d8 with Int to a second target?)
And a 2d8 somtimes?

Which reads to me like they are somehow hitting 5 different attacks in one turn... which is possible I suppose, but misses the point

My best guess is that you are allowing cantrips into this somehow. Am I forgetting a Eldritch knight ability that allows them to cantrip as a bonus action by level 8? I guess Warcaster gets around the fact they are holding a shield in the off-hand.

Here is the point I was making though.

They said 1d8+5 twice is bad damage for a frontline character. This was not phrased in that it is bad for a frontline using daily resources, or activating class specific abilites, simply that 1d8+5 is not good basic attack damage.

Now, I might have misinterpreted that statement, but looking at the fighter who does not use 2-handed weapons, with just stats and passive bonuses, you max at 1d8+7, which is not significantly better than 1d8+5

I respond to the EK layout below.

Fighters get action surge and more feats, the other weapon users get things like rage. The fighter will likely have things like shield master or sentinel to up the damage.Its like the valor bard its not that good at fighting despite martial weapons and two attacks. The arcane Paladin (50/50 caster) is a multiclass warlock combined with the fighter 1-2 level dip.

And the Bladesinger wizard is still a wizard.

Valor Bards lack a way to increase their damage, which bladesingers get later on, but mostly, Bards don't have a highly aggressive spell list. Wizards have more than enough damage options if something needs to go down, and activating mage armor or shield (which most wizards will anyways) stacked with the AC and Con save bonuses of Bladesinging lets you threaten creatures in melee while still blasting them with spells.

I'm not saying they are the best, far from it, but they seem to be a better Gish caster base than the Bladelock or the Valor Bard, and if you've got the stats, they can be very scary.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

So... I'm away from my books currently, but how is a straight sword and board fighter getting all those extra dice?

I get the 1d8+5 x2 is the 2 main attacks

Then we have a floating 1d8
A floating 1d8+int (or is that a 1d8 with Int to a second target?)
And a 2d8 somtimes?

Which reads to me like they are somehow hitting 5 different attacks in one turn... which is possible I suppose, but misses the point

My best guess is that you are allowing cantrips into this somehow. Am I forgetting a Eldritch knight ability that allows them to cantrip as a bonus action by level 8? I guess Warcaster gets around the fact they are holding a shield in the off-hand.

Eldritch Knight 7 gets to make a bonus melee weapon attack when you cast a cantrip. Booming Blade cantrip and Greenflame Blade cantrip both include both a melee weapon attack, some extra damage (1d8 at 5th-10th level), and a rider (2d8 in the case of Booming Blade, triggered on movement; splash damage for Greenflame Blade but I forget exactly how much, might be d8+Int mod).

Valor Bards lack a way to increase their damage, which bladesingers get later on, but mostly, Bards don't have a highly aggressive spell list.

It's really really difficult to make generalizations about bardic spells, because they have access to ALL THE SPELLS via Magical Secrets.

Valor Bards are late bloomers, but they are still really interesting. And Athletics Expertise + two attacks + Enhanced Ability is a great way to become really, really good at physical control.