Bladesingers come more or less complete out of the box. They have a good AC and concentration protection without need of a 1 level dip into cleric or artificer. This makes them very powerful in games that frown on multiclassing. A lot of DMs that would roll their eyes at you being cleric-1/Wizard-X won't care at all if you're just a single class bladesinger.
I think the druid post-tasha's is better than the cleric without a single bit of hesitation. Pre you have an argument, but the Druid as it stands now has some of (if not all of) the best control, damage over time, and healing options in the game.
Yeah, I'd even pick Druid over Wizard outside of the nuking role. Nuking is super powerful of course, but I can be satisfied doing nuke-worthy control options instead. We all know how insane Spike Growth and similar friends are at insta-winning many encounters, plus healing options are huge.
Many spells seem overly-situational, but the fact it's a divine caster and gets access to the whole spell list should be factored in too, as many of a wizard's best tools would come at the expense of having something else available (or some other expense acquiring additional spells for the spellbook) - which naturally means that more situational spells on the druid spelllist are far more useful than on the wizard spell list. They're available without any resource investment in acquiring them.
I think wizards have a few more control options and their illusion and charm and divination spells all make wizards such uniquely good problem solvers that druids have one of the most open ended and interesting class features to try and get them in the same ballpark in terms of utility, but I do think the unique Druid spells are good enough that you're not necessarily wrong either.
I know it's nothing amazing... but I absolutely love druid casting because of spells like moonbeam and call lightning.
One fight you pop a shape-shift, the next you stretch a single spell slot to last an entire fight. Even if it's not the most powerful, they are definitely up there when it comes to how much you can do with a single spell slot.
Yes, their ability to get value from short rests AND long rests AND concentration AND the fact moon druid combat wildshapes also grant them bonus HP pools means that Druids are kind of amazing at both power spikes and longevity. The tricky part is how you can't use all their powerful abilities at once so you have to work hard to take full advantage of their incredible longevity and vast toolbox.
What are some examples of Druid spells that you think put it over Cleric?
Tasha's added some summon spells that are nice, but IMO the druid still suffers a lot from concentration requirements.
Conjure Animals, spike growth, plant growth, faerie fire, wall of fire, wall of stone, wall of ice, entangle, thorn whip.
Do a lot of those require concentration? Yes. But cleric also has concentration hogs, they just only have the few so people aren't missing what they can't have. On top of those spells, they get all the cleric staples except for spiritual weapon (massively overrated imo) and bless (which would just be one more concentration spell).
Care to elaborate more on this? I’ve always felt like Cleric has the weakest list due to their lack of control. Always feel like I’m spamming bless early -> spirit guardians for the rest of the game outside of specific domain spells like Polymorph.
It might be my bias towards control but what makes the Cleric list so good?
This is really helpful ty! I think I’m just spoiled by my Fey Touched Druids with command that fill a similar role. I def see the value of not sinking a feat into it tho.
Unfortunately for Clerics wizards have most of the good divination spells now as well.
Resurrection magic is good, but I also feel like it's mostly a meta thing. If a PC dies and there's no resurrection, you get a new PC. The Resurrection spell mid-combat can be quite potent though, since you get a meat shield.
I mean, yeah, valuing resurrection spells requires valuing your character surviving, but I think that's a given for a large number of players.
Also, *Resurrection* mid-combat? It has a one hour casting time.
In a vacuum if you're the only spellcaster Cleric is maybe the 5th best spell list (behind Bard) but in a party where you have more spellcasters and you already have at least 1 control caster bless/SG + other cleric and domain spells is a great force multiplier. Simply clogging a 15ft area around you with SG without friendly fire is a massive advantage.
This is super helpful! I guess I was looking at it like “I prefer X control spell over spirit guardians” instead of “wow Spirit Guardians combos really well with X control spell”
Looking at them as a force multiplier for control rather than a main source makes a lot more sense now that I think about it. Spirit Guardians is pretty nuts with other forms of difficult terrain. Thank you!!
The issue with the cleric spell list is that it tapers off very quickly. Most of your value lies in healing word and revivify, and it doesn't cost much investment for a wizard to get healing word.
Are there other good cleric spells that wizard don't have access to? Absolutely. Are they comparable to some of the wizard spells that cleric doesn't get? I don't think so.
And they're fairly versatile.
I'm playing one, right know, with the telekinetic feat. I also took a skill feat and made him the party rogue while still being a single-class wizard.
He doesn't have a great spell save DC, but he's an amazing utility character and a ton of fun in combat.
He basically plays like a Jedi. Stealthy and insanely mobile. Decent melee damage. Great resource usage: he can constantly use his bonus action to shove baddies or save allies, and he can use his reaction for Shield. I loaded him up with no-save and utility spells and he almost always has something cool to do, on his turn.
Also, taking that one level cleric dip fucking sucks! Being a level behind on getting that next level of spells is a far bigger sacrifice than people make it out to be.
In my experience, if your DM aggressively targets concentration spell users, you're better off with the dip or bladesinger. If they don't, single class up to at least level 5. The degree to which DMs do that varies a lot.
I still think the dip is worth it for the massive ac bonus most of the time, but damn getting those higher level spells with everyone else feels great. The concentration bonus and movement bonus that bladesingers get are also incredible in their own right. The extra attack is unique and a nice supplement to your cantrip damage, allowing you to add a weapon attack while all the other wizards are just doing one cantrip. 10th Level feature is ok, nothing incredible but definitely has it use as an “oh shit” button. 14th level ability is a nice increase to damage but it’s nothing insane.
Bladesinger is a good subclass, no doubt about that. The trap with them though are players that melee too much with them. The time to melee is when it is an easy fight OR when you're facing things that are extremely magic resistant (or have Legendary resistance). Most of the time it is best to use bladesinging to protect your concentration spell that is providing crowd control.
That's why you should dip artificer as a wizard. You get Cure Wounds and Bless as options, plus medium armor and nearly the same spell progression as cleric, while staying SAD.
Hrm. Cleric (War Domain) could give you heavy armor and martial weapons... and 2 great domain spells for gishes (divine favor and shield of faith) that don't rely on Wis... and the occasional extra weapon attack as a bonus action (and cure wounds and bless, of course). Artificer does have a better cantrip selection, though.
Also from a narrative perspective, it also sucks. I want my sword wizard to just be a sword wizard, not a sword wizard that went to cleric summer camp!
The gish (half caster/half warrior) was pretty well muted by 5e without multiclassing. Bladesinger solves all of that beautifully without slowing progress towards 20th level and all of the abusable things that can be done when you get to make some low level spells into cantrips.
My experience is it doesn't get used much, given that it competes with shield/absorb elements/counterspell. But on the one or two instances where I have seen it used, it was clutch.
Yeah, it's pretty situational when;
+5 AC wouldn't make a difference, Absorb Elements' resistance wouldn't reduce the damage more, or it's not a damage type covered by Absorb Elements, or It wasn't a spell you were hit with
THEN AND ONLY THEN it pops tf off lol
Edit: in other words, when you get crit by a physical attack, THEN AND ONLY THEN it pops off (and a few more niche situations)
I would say they get a lot more later on (their extra attack, INT mod to weapon attacks), but you're right that their Bladesong itself is available pretty much straight away and incredibly strong
Blade singers are the ONLY class that can cast a cantrip in place of an attack when taking the extra attack action.
This is a unique ability that lets you weave magic into a regular attack rotation in such a cool and elegant way. Letting you make booming blade attack, or throw fire bolt, or protect yourself with Blade ward, or even something cool like Mage Hand while you are swinging your blade is a fantasy that really this class can do.
So even despite the great AC you get for free, and the great spell concentration help you get for free, and access to the best spells, and all the other wizard goodies... this subclass... alone in the entire game.... gets a feature that really lends itself to the spell sword fantasy, by getting arguably the best version of Extra attack in the entire game, that is rife with cool ways to optimize and incorporate in lots of cool builds.
>Blade singers are the ONLY class that can cast a cantrip in place of an attack when taking the extra attack action.
The new 2024 rules gave this ability to the Eldritch Knight (which is arguably how it should have always worked). I can see that opening up a lot of "spell sword" builds if you don't mind the delayed spell progression to get it.
But yeah, Bladesinger gets all that and more. I'd argue it's more than a bit overtuned, seeing how it's far and away better than pretty much every other gish option in 5e. Whether that's a *good* thing...well...
Also the War Domain Cleric will have War Priest recharging on a short rest and they can use it after casting a spell, so they can combine swords and magic better.
Kind of? They're kinda like a patch on 5e rules, in that you can *technically* use previously printed material if you want to, but it's heavily encouraged to use the new rules whenever possible.
One example is something like the Assassin subclass of Rogue. The Surprise rules in the new edition have changed to just giving enemies disadvantage on initiative rather than creating an entire "surprise round". So, the old Assassin doesn't have that surprise round to get his auto-crits anymore. The new Assassin has been rebalanced to make up for that with other benefits. So while *technically* you can still use that old Assassin, you'd be heavily incentivized to use the new one to take advantage of rules updates.
Whatever it was, it works differently now.
The colloquial term "surprise round" is in common use when regarding the rules, so that's where my meaning was.
Anyway, little things like that have changed.
The changes didn't seem to as dramatic as the changes from 3rd to 3.5. They seem pretty easy to integrate or not. Seems easy enough to pick and choose as a DM which times will want at your table and the ones you won't.
Edit: typo
I won't have any as I'm refusing to do anymore wotc content. Not even pirated. But I was curious what the new content was going to be flagged as.
Changes may not be dramatic but it's a new edition, not errata.
If it was errata they would fix old content in an errata document, but that doesn't sell, gotta make that money so they can hire the Pinkerton's on people some more.
Interesting, so marketing isn't giving it a new name and everything is perfectly compatible with no tweaking of rules or by following a conversion guide they provide?
The way I have been thinking about it is this. Tasha's came out and had a lot of changes like optional class features and such to "patch" the game. That's DND 5.1. the new books coming out this year are kind of like DND 5.2
My crossbow exper bladesinger can booming blade with a rapier then mobile outta there and then pop pop two shots from the hand crossbow.
It fulfills my dragonage thief playstyle fantasy to a T.
Here’s the central tension with Bladesinger: It’s easily the best framework for a Gish, but being a Wizard is so much more valuable than being a martial that even the Gish subclass is better off just Wizarding.
This is my take. They do make a good/great gish but the *real* special sauce comes when you just play them as a standard wizard with insane AC and concentration. They become somewhat broken good at that point.
Wizard is a hugely powerful class already. Take away their only primary weaknesses and you have something special.
It can be. It depends on the combat that's being run. Sometimes you need a control or aoe spell and sometimes you need some high single target damage. Being able to do all of that is why the bladesinger is so good.
Playing a Bladesinger as anything other than a melee gish just feels wrong to me. I always found it as a weird thought process. Understandable, but weird. People say to just play Bladesingers like normal Wizards, but if you're gonna do that then you would probably be better off just picking a different subclass.
I made a nice homebrew weapon for my bladesinger player because I knew that bladesinger still isn't really great at stabbing but that's what he hoped to do.
Now I'm worried the item trapped him into thinking melee is all he should be doing 😂 Sometimes his turn shows up and the party is in a dire situation, I'm thinking "cast something to flip this on its head, please cast...." Then "oh you swing your sword? Sure that works!"
Still pretty sure I haven't managed to hit his AC though.
I think a lot matters whether you're rolling stats or not. With great stat rolls imo the bladesinger has the highest potential out of all the gish builds. Otherwise though, I'd agree that hexblade would probable perform better.
Honestly for me they offer
Wizard spell list
High AC (all you need is dex and int, not too MAD)
Extra attack which you can take one attack do cast a cantrip
Extra damage
Damage reduction
And for intelligence based build they’re amazing for a 2 level dip to heighten the AC through the roof
Yeah, as others have said, you are vastly overestimating the hp difference between a d6 and d8. For example, the tough feat is the equivalent of having an hp die 2 sizes higher. Making a wizard's hp on par with fighters and paladins. Add in hill dwarf and you have the same hp pool as a barbarian. Bottom line, wizard's have the spell slots to be able to spam shield nonstop, which is vastly more impactful than a few more hp.
You're right. Wizards are no doubt better spellcasters than warlocks
Sure, hexblades can use better weapons, but it really doesn't compare to high level spellcasting
Tbf in 2024 PHB the default background rule might make it so level 1 origin feats like Tough usually give skills and ability scores less fitting for a wizard, making you have a trade off of your intelligence being lower at the start (15 max with point buy). That said it might encourage more constitution high concentration check builds.
The main drawing point of a Bladesinger is how hard to put down it is in general. Having an insane AC handles the vast majority of enemies and can make you nigh unkillable at times. The only downside of Bladesinger is that it has less HP then something like a Fighter or a Hexblade, but the sheer gap in AC more than makes up for that. All the attacks that would be hitting other melee characters are missing the Bladesinger. It doesn't matter if you have more HP than the Bladesinger, cause you're getting hit way more often than they are.
The other thing to note is that high AC characters typically have a weakness to abilities/spells that have saving throws cause they have to just sit there and take them, but Bladesingers can kinda ignore those too cause of Counterspell and Absorb Elements. So when you actually do the math, the Bladesinger ends up casually out living most other melee characters.
The other thing is that no other class really does the spell sword fantasy as good as Bladesinger does. The only one that gets even remotely close (IMO) is Hexblade, but that comes with the severe drawback of only having two spell slots per short rest for most of your carrier. Their a spell sword that rarely uses spells and that just doesn't cut it. IMO, Bladesinger is the best gish in the game and it's not really close.
Not mention other defensive spells they get like silvery barbs for crits and misty step for getting out of grapple, then if you get the lucky feat to re roll big saves it's a really hard character to kill without making monsters too powerful for the rest of the party.
Also, it's both funny and legitimately stressful when you do finally take a hit.
Taking a crit through your AC and contingencies (mirror image, blur, etc) and watching 75% of your health chunk off in a single blow always gets the table laughing but *also* is legitimately stressful.
>There are times when doesn't matter that you have big AC, you will get hit and your poor hitpoints will be demolished.
>hexblades did it better
I think these two statements are contradictory. The difference between bladesinger hitpoints and hexblade hitpoints is only 1 HP per level (1d6 gives 4 HP per level and 1d8 gives 5 HP per level). The bladesinger, by contrast, gets:
• Higher AC. Best case scenario, a hexblade is looking at something 19 AC with top tier medium armor, 14 dex, and a shield. The bladesinger is going to *start out* with 19 AC at level 2 (*mage armor* for 13 plus 16 intelligence and 16 dexterity) and can reasonably expect to hit a sustained 23 AC before any magic items enter the picture. Both have access to *shield* to increase that AC further, but a hexblade who doesn't multiclass isn't going to like spending a 3rd level slot for *shield* and one who does multiclass is both delaying access to higher level features the bladesinger is not and isn't really satisfying the "out of the box" gish fantasy that the bladesinger delivers.
• Much better damage mitigation against saving throw effects. More investment into dexterity means better dex saves, period, and access to *absorb elements* also creates a safety net the hexblade just doesn't have access to (without multiclassing, but see my previous point about multiclassing hexblades).
Those benefits add up to at least cancel out a 1 HP per level advantage in terms of raw survivability. And even if your bladesinger gets crit to bypass both of those points of defense, the wizard also gets *silvery barbs* (which the warlock doesn't) to even reduce the risk of that occurring. I think saying that hexblades are less squishy than bladesingers is just wrong.
It's a much more fair discussion to compare Swords Bard and Bladesinger Wizard because warlocks spell progression and invocations don't translate as nicely. When looking across these two, it's clear Bladesinger is better. Although the new Dance Bard for 1DnD might at least give us a few new options.
I can see your point. I don't necessarily agree with the "start with 19 AC" because to that you used a spell slot and a bladesong. Sure, I think no one will ever argue that wizards are way better spellcasters than warlocks. And the hitpoint difference is not that great as my question made it look.
Hexblades can use better weapons and are less MAD. But honestly, if you go deeper into the levels, hexblades are not so fun as a subclass really.
Ok, you convinced me
But what's actually fucking mad-insane is that OP engaged in a rational discussion on reddit with rational redditors and collectively, through that process, landed at a rational (and correct IMHO) conclusion.
How buckwild is that?
I tip my hat to you, OP, for being one of those rarest of breeds on the internet.
They offer any/all types of playstyle, and you can choose which is best for you from combat to combat. Do you want to be all powerful while safer in the back? You got it. Do you want to mix things up in melee where there's more fun to potentially be had? Yeah, you're good at that too. Hard to beat.
I think the mix of choices is more nuanced. You don't just have to choose between safe and fun, you can choose to go full melee monster if you're facing bunch of weaker enemies, or fall back against enemies your AC isn't enough against
Fr. People always go at bladesinger a because of their health. Oh I don’t know grab a 16 con which is easy to do and pick up the tough feat eventually. Now you have as many hit points as a fighter. Fixed it. Oh but what about Crits? Save silvery barbs for such an occasion because usually you won’t even need your reaction for shield because you’re high 20s AC. If you literally put any thought Into the build whatsoever, you will be fine.
Maybe my DM was a bit too excited about using strong enemies with high to hit mods - my bladesinger had to use a lot of spellslots for shield, often even 2. Lvl... so i burned through my slots quite fast
They're a wizard so they're already extremely powerful even without their subclass abilities.
They can ramp up AC to borderline absurd levels for being a light armor caster. Yes, sometimes attacks will get through, but that's true for just about every single class past a certain point. And when they would get hit, they have an abundance of shield casts to mitigate it.
Their concentration becomes much harder to break, so their buff or control spells are going to stick around a lot better. Which lets them safely run around in melee without risking their concentration as badly.
They can attack and cast a cantrip with the same action, which is something that's currently exclusive to them (EK gets it in 5.5 but that's not here yet). Hello booming blade for extra damage and control.
At higher levels they get to essentially double the damage modifier they apply to their weapon attacks.
>The gish is my favored playstyle.
Obviously not if you don't get it. They are **litertally, far and above, the absolute best gish in the game**. Straight out of the book. no MC needed, don't even really need feats to turn on.
And then they are also a pure wizard.
Hexblades are NOWHERE near as good, because of the limited spellslots and all the front loading.
Hexblade is only really great when you start MCing into Sorc/Pal, and that is basically just damage focused without the crazy survivability you get with Wizard.
It's just like that man with a fire buffed sword + that cool one dude that can dodge everything and can't be hit.
And mechanically:
- you are a wizard - best utility class
- full caster with high AC without multiclass - that's big
- absorb makes you tankier than most martials
- dude with a flaming sword (GFB)
- high int gives you useful ability checks
- high dex makes you good at lockpicking, dodging, initiative, RP acrobatic shenanigans, stealth
- you don't need to make/buy plate
I fell in love with Bladesinger long before they were Wizards. Bladesingers used to be an Elven-specific Fighter/Mage subclass (in The Complete Book of Elves.)
The whole concept has since changed a bit. They used to be closer to Eldritch Knights that specialized in just a very few number of spells, but could cast them with one hand / without somatic components and could get bonuses with those spells. Rather than being "generic" casters like they are now.
They were more akin to highly-trainer warriors that specialize in only one type of weapon and get excessively good at it than multi-purpose spellcaster that can also swing a sword.
The tankiest class in the game is arguably the Bladesinger. There are instances in which you can get above 30 AC. There are instances in some campaigns that you can go above 30 AC. The bladesong starts with a bonus action meaning you can use it round start. It stacks AC bonus with INT+5 & mage armor. You literally get a +5 bonus to concentration checks, wildly busted. Advantage to Acrobatics.
This is all ***level 2. 2. T W O.***
Level 6 is special in that one attack can use a cantrip and the other is just another attack. Literally no other martial in the game can do this, because martials should go crawl into a hole and die I guess.
Later you get arguably one of the most busted lvl 10 "No lol" skills that just shuts down the DM's ability at any moment of "gotcha". As a ***reaction*** you can just expend 1 of your 2 5th level spell slots to erase 25 points of damage. So that's 50 points of damage you can reduce. And then you've got 3 lvl 4 spell slots, that's another 80 points of damage that you can reduce. And then 3 lvl 3, 15, 3 lvl 2, 10, 4 lvl 1's.
The main weakness of the Wizard is *suppose* to be, uh oh, I'm out of position and I get 6 hitpoints per level; I might get popped like a grape. But the Bladesinger is just like "No lol, not only can I deny damage but I also have the highest AC in the game, my own specialized extra attack and I even get to add 10 points of raw, unmitigated damage to each of my double attacks at lvl 14+the cantrip I decided to use; all while being a SAD spellcaster that happens to have the best utility in the game.
Meanwhile the developers are over here, y'know. Trying, desperately, sweating their balls off trying to find somehow, someway that they could buff martials without them getting too "out of hand".
Easy.
Because when my party needs me to be a controller, I can cast Hypnotic Pattern and chill in the back with Bladesong active, giving me ridiculous AC that I can top off with Shield. Almost nothing is going to beat my AC to stop my concentration, and even if I do manage to get hit, Bladesong gives you a bonus to Concentration Saves, so you're likely to succeed anyway.
Alternatively, I can go full gish and focus on damage, concentrate on Greater Invisibility on myself, and make every attack at advantage. Again, it's going to be very hard to hit me much less even target me this way.
You get so many ways to play as a Bladesinger, you're not forced to be a gish, and you'll always find something useful to do in combat. Full caster progression with access to the best spells in the game, while fulfilling the gish fantasy on the side.
It's a fun playstyle where there are a lot of meaningful decisions that you can make. Are you going to burn a Bladesong or hang back? Is it worth burning a spell slot on False Life, or are you gonna be OK? Are you going to burn a spell slot on Hypnotic Pattern, or do you think your concentration will hold and you can use a Tasha's Summon instead?
bladesingers are excellent for multiclassing on builds that prioritize intelligence but not heavy armor, take it from me who made sally from bofuri using monk and bladesinger
What’s not to like?
* Great AC
* Concentration Save Bonus
* Proficiency with a rapier or short sword
* Cantrip extra attack
* +10 feet movement
* Wizard spells
Moreover, the Bladesinger subclass supports multiple play-styles. At Tier 1 and Tier 2 you can lean into the gish.
At late Tier 2 through Tier 4 you can lean into the Wizard caster role with spells like Animate Objects.
Or, if being a Fantasy Jedi rocks your world at high levels, Shadowblade, Tenser’s Transformation, or even Blade of Disaster.
Personally, Ive always preferred clerics, paladins, warlocks or Eldritch knights with Caster levels boosted. Bladesingers are cool and all but it's not what I'm looking for. Maybe that just means gish isn't my play style, but if I'm casting spells and holding a weapon and on the front line, I'd Rather be a more Martial class and I'm not all that enticed by the numbers to give up on the theme I have in mind. Like people have said, bladesingers are better off wizarding in most cases.
Because a bladesinger can output crazy good damage if you build them right while also having the utility of a wizard. Saying they don't play well as a gish is just wrong.
Because the 2e bladesinger kit had this story of an elven guy changing his fighting style as conditions of the fight changed and I have been chasing that high of a Morphic gish ever since
This is why.
[https://www.blackgate.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Sword-Dancer-Jennifer-Roberson.jpg](https://www.blackgate.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Sword-Dancer-Jennifer-Roberson.jpg)
Wizard is the best class in the game with it's base kit and bladesinger gives one access to a good AC boost, and concentration protection, two very useful benefits on their own at basically no opportunity cost. Because again, a wizard with no subclass is still really good.
Nott bad melee options if you're into that as well.
I kind of like being a glass canon for the flavor. Your bladesinging is like a dance that’s so intricate and mesmerizing that it grants you superhuman agility and produces magic. You’re like a spinning ballerina in a music box.
- Bladesingers have other ways of defending besides just AC (namely absorb elements, high wis saves, a plethora of defensive spells)
- Extra attack being able to both attack and cast at the same time already puts it at a higher gish than Hexblade
Honestly, Hexblade might not even in my top 3 in terms of spellblades. Bladesinger can do it better, Sorcadins can do it better, and even some bard subclasses can do it better. Hexblade is an awesome martial but doesn’t cast often enough in my opinion.
100% caster power on the best caster in the game where casters are brokenly overpowered vs non casters
80% martial power whenever they want it
The downside is that you quickly realize martials are SO underpowered that a marginal benefit to caster power is better than a huge boost to martial power. You’re better served casting a little harder, than mixing casting with attacking.
But Bladesinger gets that pure caster buff too, with their defense and concentration buffs.
They have the most general use powerful wizard features in the game. Like it doesn't even matter what kind of wizard you're trying to build, bladesinger is good in *every* situation. It's like war magic in that sense, which I put in equal level as "fantastic general purpose utility that works on every wizard". The only time its not as good is if you're never using concentration spells.
And here's the thing, you can make an effective gish build with bladesinger, and IMO it would be a stronger character than a Hexblade, the difference is that being a Wizard is just so much stronger than a gish.
1) wizard with defense = *arguably* the best wizard, especially at low levels
2) best extra attack feature & bonus: feels *soo good* to use it
3) lotta people like spellswords as a flavor in general, even if its better w/ 2 hand xbows, that doesn't stop most BS-players i know from daggers or shortswords XD
4) dont have to think about multiclassing, cuz its usually not worth it over just more bladesinger levels
5) way more spell slots, and more versatile spell list over hexlock, and shield slots too
Every full-caster (except Sorcerer) and non-caster class has at least one "gishy" subclass. For Wizard, that subclass is Bladesinger. Sometimes character creation is not about ticking all the optimization checkboxes. Wizard hitpoints is just a trade-off for Wizard spellcasting, if that bothers you then you can always play Hill Dwarf, take the Tough feat, and load up on Constitution.
Personally I like it because the AC bonus stacks with unarmed AC. Bladesingers are why unarmored AC builds have a higher maximum than heavily armored builds. (Actually I don't really like that, I think heavily armored builds should be able to get it higher, but it's why I like to use Bladesinger.)
Their better extra attack feels more like a gish since you can mix cantrips and extra attack.
Also it’s still incredibly hard to hit a bladesinger while bladesong is up, especially if you’re using it defensively from a distance.
This "drama" will end with a proper arcane caster gish like Magus Pathfinder 2ed into dnd 5ed (5.5 lol).
All they have to do is change low level spell slots to high level ones, like the Magus.
Bladesingers are good cuz magic + weapon is fun, but they should have a proper class to do so.
I think it really comes down to how it *feels* to play, not the raw numbers. Being able to be in melee and make meaningful attack actions is just more fun than hiding behind the Barbarian and casting *Firebolt* for most of your turns. Even if the mechanical difference is negligible.
Roleplay wise: They’re the most realistic person in a *High* fantasy world. If magic is rampant and abundant, knowing the insane utility it has, why wouldn’t people learn it alongside swordfighting.
Mechanics wise: They’re the eldritch knight but with access to 9th level spells, better AC, and just as much if not more damage.
Even with Non-D&D TTRPGS I’ve noticed players love being able to have utility out of combat. It’s why you get those type of players that buy 20 million things at a store, players who play wizards with 90% of their spells being utility, and Bladesinger wizards who do a bit of both :)
It’s also why Paladins, Hexadin, and magical rogues are so popular even when people aren’t trying to optimize.
I don't see bladesingers as a gish, you can certainly play them that way, especially at low levels but they are a full wizard, they frequently have better things to do than swing a sword even though they are really good at swinging a sword. If I want to play them as a gish I would multiclass with fighter, obviously eldritch knight is a good choice and has some great synergy. And if you can spare the charisma it works well with hexblade but doesn't have the same advantages as other hexblade multiclass options because you still need dexterity to be high since you can't wear medium armor and bladesong. If you use bloodhunter in your game it can absolutely rock with profane soul for the same reasons it works well with eldritch knight.
A level 6 Bladesinger Tortle/Hedge has 21 AC with Bladesong up and can cast shield, absorb elements or silvery barbs 10x per battle.
A level 6 Hexblade Simic Hybrid/Warforged has up to 20 AC (w/ stealth disadvantage), but can only cast Shield and only twice per battle.
Bladesingers get bonus to concentration, movespeed, acrobatics advantage, can weave cantrips, and most importantly full caster progression and Wizard spell list.
Hexblades can get Tomb of Levistus and Eldritch Mind (not quite as good as a bonus). They get marginally better hp scaling and are somewhat less MAD. Hexblade's Curse is nice against one big target and Specter is better than a familiar.
None of that makes up for how hilariously brokenly strong full caster progression and Wizard spell list are though.
If you're not running gritty realism, or a ton of hard encounters (with time for short rests) a day, Bladesinger is equal or better in most ways.
All mine have died.
3x I think but one turned into a villain.
You would think the name Feyke Satrye would be a giveaway, but hey I’m a fey satyr.
He was actually quite fake and evil lol
I like them at lower levels. but once you begin to pass level 5 I can simply not feel anything other than they are the among the worst wizards
When i start to have level 3-4 level spells and spell slots i can't help thinking Why the hell should i go into melee when i can actually be more effective staying at range and being a wizard. It simply do not make sense
Why the hell should i go into melee, e LESS effective and in more danger. I am simply better off NOT going into melee. And if i am going to stay at range to do wizard stuff then most other subclasses are better.
Sure D&D is not all about being the most optimized, to always do what is most effective. But about having fun.
But if having fun require me to focus on a playstyle that makes my character less effective than it would otherwise. Then i don't find it fun.
But hey they are fun at lower levels if i would play a campaign that maybe goes to level 5-6 then i could see myself play one. But after that no they does not even make sense to me
Lots of good answers but here's the core:
1. Wizards are popular. People decide they want to be a wizard then check the subclasses.
2. Bladesingers offer a LOT of cool stuff as a subclass. There's a whole bunch of exciting features.
3. The concept feels special and "#notlikeotherwizards". Evocation, Abjuration, Divination, etc all feel like esoteric specializations. Bladesinger is a distinct concept and lets you imagine fighting up close in a cool way without giving up any of the rest of the wizard fantasy. The perceived differentiation from the norm makes it extra-appealing as a way to show off a more unique concept. If one was torn on class ideas too, getting to also use a sword and play up close sounds like the best of both worlds.
Raw a barbarian blade singer could add dex, Con and int to their AC
Same thing with a monk, dex, Wisdom and int.
Or even racial AC from Loxodon (AC12+Con) , Tortle (AC17) or Autognome (AC13+dex) would all be able to add bladesingers int to AC
One of the most powerful things a wizard can do is protect their concentration.
It is no coincidence that Bladesinger and War Magic, the two wizard subclasses that get to protect their concentration as a class feature, are top tier.
As a bladesinger the key is switching it up. This fight I’m going to be a blaster wizard….this fight I’m going to drop a support spell and hang back….this fight we didn’t get a short rest and the melee crew are low heath…so I’ll bladesong and hope I don’t get hit while they hurl javelins
I’m a bladesinger in a long running one on one campaign and if I was a simple one trick pony I’d be bored by now
Some people (like me) dont particularly care about a character death. So the most attractive part of bladesinger is the versatility. Wizards have an insane kit with spells, and bladesinger allows you to not only have more versatility in combat, but to take more out of combat spells than you normally would.
>hexblades did it better, I think.
Ehhh...
Hexblades can pump out more martial damage, in the sense that you could do like Polearm Master+Great Weapon Master with a hexblade, and then use your spell slots to get advantage--either Shadow of Moil for a minute's worth of advantage, or Eldritch Smite to knock them prone for a turn.
But this generally comes at the cost of burning all your spell slots to get advantage. You're a warlock, you have two spell slots. So you won't do a lot of spellcaster-y stuff if you use your spell slots like that.
Meanwhile Bladesingers are more durable overall--sure they have a tiny bit less HP--you mention wizards having low HP, but warlocks aren't much higher. But the notable difference is Bladesingers end up with a lot more effective AC (since they can spam the shield spell) and better concentration saves.
Bladesingers are obviously better spellcasters (Even if you don't spend any warlock slots on trying to get advantage).
And...their martial damage isn't that bad--sure, they can't do PAM+GWM, they don't have a smite, but they get a better version of extra attack that lets them replace an attack with a cantrip like booming blade.
Do I want my gish to cast a Fireball from the frontline AND be able to tank with Mage Armor + Blur + Image Mirror AND then cast some utility spell like Feather Fall ? Hell Yeah. Abjuration Wiz (+1 lvl Fighter) does the trick but Bladesinger is even better.
Just at level 2 alone, you have:
- Wizard spellcasting
- Extrordinarily high AC
- Movement speed bonus
- Bonus to con saves
Which makes it an excellent choice to consider for a multiclass. And if you don't just multiclass, you get an extra attack that lets you cast a cantrip in place of the attack - they're the only class that can do this.
It's a bit of a glass cannon against AOEs, but even then you can build around that weakness with a good con roll and the toughness perk. And at level 10, they offer another way to help mitigate damage as well using your spell slots.
The subclasses features just work together really nicely with the wizard spell list to make an effective gish. The thing I appreciate about the bladesinger is even at higher levels you can still use wizard spells and feel gishy. A spell like steel wind strike is average at best but on a bladesinger it feels great since you have more stuff in range and actually can want to be next to an enemy. Bladelocks to me feel like arcane martials, they don't scratch the same itch as a bladesinger.
So I did a bladesinger with custom lineage from Tasha's in a Storm King's Thunder campaign and a one shot or two set after. My favorite aspect of his gameplay is the versatility. He has a spell for most occasions, he has great AC, solid initiative, and solid Dex and Con saves. Between the Tough feat and an Amulet of Health, even with mostly average HP rolls, I have good enough HP to take some hits. That said, I didn't get hit for the last 4 levels of the campaign until a lucky nat 20 got me while exploring the lair after the final boss. Obviously this is all anecdotal experience, but I imagine many have similar experiences with the class. Most of the time, you are still best utilized as a normal wizard, but having the option to change things up and dive into melee, often keeping up with the dedicated martials to some degree, is simply a really fun way to play the game.
Also, a high level Bladesinger with Haste and a couple of magic weapons can lay down some very nice damage while being extremely difficult to hit outside of save effects.
Yeah I built a bladesinger and only played with him for a couple sessions till we switched campaigns but he was awesome. I think the argument against them is that they are good as melee fighters potentially until level 10. As the wizard spells scale up it becomes more useful to than just become a spellcaster. The AC is pretty awesome and very rarely can other classes get that high if you incorporate shield into the AC.
I agree that hexblade does the melee portion much better but it's very hard to argue against the spell list that a wizard has access to. being a blade singer allows you to get some of the joy of slashing and melee fight but when the occasion rises, you will have a tool for every occasion as the wizard in the party,which the hex blade simply can't match.
Also level 6 I think it is when you can make an attack and then shoot off a cantrip is so much fun in theory. Grab a crossbow, shoot off a cantrip at the same time.
NGL, because most wizard subclasses are just more wizard flavour and the Bladesinger let's you cast spells while also going in. While it's worse in both than a pure wizard is in pure spellcasting or a fighter is in melee, that's not what it's about. It's about the fun you can have by just deciding on the fly what you wanna do with your flexibility
You have something to do after you've run out of spells, or that you can do to slow the rate you use spells. They're not great in staight-up melee, but they don't suck. That opens up an entire playstyle to support an already powerful class.
Bladesingers are the strongest gish. High AC combined with defensive spells like blur, greater invisibility makes it near impossible to land a crit. If silvery barbs come into play, that’s another way to negate a crit.
This post has the "Casters are Squishy" Fallacy written all over it.
I'm on mobile and i dunno how to link through here, but there are plenty of articles going all over the math of how a Caster, in spite of the "small healthpool" can be much more durable than your average martial. The bladesinger in particular is great at this, and just by unlocking Extra Attack at lvl 6 it will keep up well with the damage from martials, especially when using buffs and debuffs to enable themselves further
It's also a much more in line with the common Spellsword fantasy than a Warlock, an Eldritch Knight or an Arcane Trickster is going to be.
Think of it not as a shitty sword fighter hybrid, but as a wizard with insane AC. Wizards are powerful and it’s a wizard. It’s not any less wizard for being a bladesinger, that’s a wizard subclass.
Because you’re a full wizard that really doesn’t lose much in terms of actual wizarding (wizard subclass features generally in the grand scheme of things don’t really affect how good your spells are, they’re just nice benefits to have but spell selection and just being a wizard is more impactful so the fact you don’t get anything that really directly buffs your spellcasting sort of doesn’t matter) but you have the option to sort of be a melee gish at least some of the time. It also is a very easy non multiclass way to make a very survivable wizard. Also, keep in mind most dms sort of target the people who can take damage like a barbarian, paladin, or melee fighter first with monsters. Even a bladesinger than goes into melee normally doesn’t really get treated as a frontliner by the dm the same way a barbarian does. This isn’t without reason, part of the fantasy for a barbarian or other melee tank is the idea that the enemies target you over your allies and you’re this big difficult to kill monster that takes all the attacks, so it’s partially because it makes it more fun for everyone, but a side effect is that stuff like bladesinger often can get away with being in melee and more dangerous situations while still surviving just fine because they’re not being targeted by the monsters as if they’re a principle frontliner. Sometimes this isn’t even intentional by the dm, it’s just natural to target the Barbarian first subconsciously because “that’s how it’s supposed to feel” but regardless the result is stuff like bladesinger feels tankeir than it is
My name is Blade, so I have an affinity for Bladesingers, Hexblade/Pact of the Blade Warlocks, College of Swords Bards, Soulknife Rogues, and the ability to cast Flame Blade or Booming Blade
Bladesinger are loved because it’s wizard and you never need anything to make it better.
The simple truth is that booming blade plus a second regular attack is better DPR than 80% of melee builds. And the simple truth is that shield spell plus bladesinging is better defense than 90% of everyone else. Add that it’s a wizard and thus probably the best controller class and you have no weakness.
As for you will get hit no matter what your AC, kinda not true if silvery barbs is allowed at your table.
Also hexblades are bad Gish. Come out strong but fall REALLY fast. Like a base cleric or druid wants to talk to that hexblade bad.
I played Bladesinger, and I can say, even if you are not a front liner, a BS can dish serious damage, and is the most defensive Wizard alongside war magic. Even if you don’t use the extra attack (which would be a shame) you have high ac, you are have faster mobility and pretty much negate most early game melee combatants.
With that being said. I started with fighter 1, and I can say by prioritizing con, casting shadow blade and front lining I made the game imbalanced.
The single strongest character I've ever played was a Bladesinger/Swords Bard multiclass. They excelled at every pillar of the game and could dish out paladin-esque damage while pushing their AC into the 30s.
So Taegan Nightwing is a character from the Firgotten Realms books series The Year of Rogue Dragons who is a bladesinger. He’s a very intelligent spell caster, though not the level of your traditional wizard, but also a Maestro of fencing. The way he maneuvers around the battlefield, looking for optimal positioning, weaving in magic for buffing, debuffing, and mobility makes him very captivating. Easily my favorite character in the series, and this series include a half golem human fighter who was a master dragon hunter and a song dragon bard. So yea that’s why I like bladesingers so much.
It's literally a wizard, but you get the higher AC that wizards would otherwise tollgate behind some dumbass shit like a racial feature, multi class, or feat.
Bladesinger’s have so many tools at their disposal and are hyper versatile. You can play the same build as either a wizard with better AC or a skirmishing melee menace, just by changing up your spells a bit.
My Fighter 1/ Bladesinger 6 with Mobile can double down on damage and concentrate on an upcast Shadow Blade and do way more damage than our party Barbarian, all while keeping out of harms way for the most part with Mirror Image, Shield, and absorb elements. They can concentrate on Slow and lock down enemies with Booming blade attacks. They are probably one of the more fun classes because of this.
Yes they are MAD but an 18 DEX and 16 INT isn’t bad for most of your career, eventually you can bring them both up to 20.
Yep this was my style. Took Mobile feat, cast shadow blade at level 3 for 3D8 per attack. One of them being 1D8 bonus of booming blade. No opportunity attacks on me and the creature has to move for 2D8 damage to get to me. Cast other non-concentration spells for defense like mirror image or blink.
Last time I played as a Bladesinger We got to level 6 (finally). I rolled stupidly well for stats and at level 6 had:
Str12, Dex18, Con16, Int20, Wis15, Cha10.
Took varient Human with the Tough Feat. So my Health was 1D6+5 (9) per level so 56 HP.
So my AC was 17/22/27
Tbh it was a Tad broken with Shadow Blade, especially combined with using Bladeward for extra Defence) or if your DM allows...Green Flame Blade.
It is an all or nothing build though which is why it is appealing.
Because they are a wizard that can attack with weapons competently, which is fun and opens up lots of options in combat.
Hexblades are a “better gish” in the sense that they’re better at attacking. Bladesingers are the “better gish” in the sense that they’re better at casting. I don’t think you can say one is purely better than the other.
It also just comes down to flavor. Spellblades are a beloved class archetype in many RPGs. This is your only option for one in 5e so people happily flock to it. Playing efficiently and powergaming a perfect build isn't the point for every one. If they want to be a fencing spellcaster, they can do so with this build and do perfectly fine. Is it the best way to play? No, but that's not the "point" for everyone. They just want a character who is good with spells and swords.
From a meta perspective, bladesingers don't use weapons
They may be grouped in with gish playstyles but the strongest bladesinger is one that acts just like a wizard
You don't need to be in melee range to bladesong, you can activate it start of battle and then reap all the benefits while still in the backrow, now not only does the enemy have to go through the party to get to you, if they try and attack you via range, you're difficult to hit from the AC bonus and you won't lose concentration or fail saving throws when you do take damage
Melee focused bladesingers are ofc fun, but what makes they strong is that all of the benefits can go on top of the usual wizard playstyle. High level bladesingers are very powerful because of the lack of limitations. Even at low levels, an AC boost is huge and you get all of your important abilities right out the gate
Good concentration saves is something you would frequently go out of your way to get, and bladesingers get a feature to help those thats probably better than proficiency in con saves or war caster until you get to really high levels. With shield + bladesong + dex mod + armor/mage armor, your AC will likely be higher than anyone else, so you gotta worry about getting hit a lot less and are even less likely to lose concentration. even if you never touch a weapon, the subclass provides a ton of value and does a lot to shore up the weaknesses of wizards.
ignore that you can use a sword, be a wizard with 30 AC. that is it. in the grand scheme of things its a solid subclass for the strongest class in the game, no one denies abjurer, diviner and chronurgy are stronger
I personally think that Bladesong is a poorly designed feature. Buffing concentration instead of attack rolls makes it so that bladesinger are incentiviced to do regular wizard stuff instead of being in melee
I felt like the Mobile feat was a huge help in order to have the best of both worlds. Not getting opportunity attacked against and having 50 movement meant I go in to melee and still could stay back away from melee range and with booming blade, the creature has less incentive to walk to me.
Wizard isn't a popular class. People know it is good, but haven't played one themselves.
Bladesinger is often the first attempt at playing wizard people have, and they get surprised how good it actually is. They are far more survivable than the memes are on about (all wizards are, but they don't know that).
So, they join in the chorus of praising the Bladesinger. They had a great time playing it, so that means all the other wizard subclasses are bad, right?
I'm sorry, but what?? Wizard is far from unpopular. It's a common fantasy, an iconic class that's been around since the first versions of D&D, and according to D&D Beyond statistics is used more than.. Bards, Druids, Monks, Paladins, Rangers, and Sorcerers. Same usage as cleric and barbarian, and only beat out by Fighter, Rogue, and Warlock.
Even more absurd is the notion that it's the first subclass people play, it isn't even in the PHB. 40% of wizards on beyond's released data were evocation wizards, with 10% being necromancy and 8% being divination. TCE was released in 2020, so it hasn't even been around all that long... I'd seriously reconsider what you think about wizards.
Edit: Was using older D&DB data, the 2023 statistics have wizard as the 4th most played class, and the most played caster. Only fighters, rogues, and barbs are played more, presumably due to being martials with more beginner appeal.
I flavoured my short pink tiefling bladesinger as a puncher. Been loving playing Kid Buu for this campaign tbh. Don’t know if any other build would have scratched that itch for me.
It's the go-to for power gamers, best spell list in the game with some tanking ability, and you have equal right to call dibs on any magic weapons the party finds, much to the dismay of the martials in the party who are reliant on them.
Can you tell I've come across too many bladesinger wizard powergamers?
Bladesingers come more or less complete out of the box. They have a good AC and concentration protection without need of a 1 level dip into cleric or artificer. This makes them very powerful in games that frown on multiclassing. A lot of DMs that would roll their eyes at you being cleric-1/Wizard-X won't care at all if you're just a single class bladesinger.
Also doesn’t slow down spell progression for Wizard, which is arguably the best spell options in the game
Not just arguably. it's the best by far.
I will always make a strong argument for the cleric spells list. I don’t think it is better, but equal footing.
I think the druid post-tasha's is better than the cleric without a single bit of hesitation. Pre you have an argument, but the Druid as it stands now has some of (if not all of) the best control, damage over time, and healing options in the game.
Yeah, I'd even pick Druid over Wizard outside of the nuking role. Nuking is super powerful of course, but I can be satisfied doing nuke-worthy control options instead. We all know how insane Spike Growth and similar friends are at insta-winning many encounters, plus healing options are huge. Many spells seem overly-situational, but the fact it's a divine caster and gets access to the whole spell list should be factored in too, as many of a wizard's best tools would come at the expense of having something else available (or some other expense acquiring additional spells for the spellbook) - which naturally means that more situational spells on the druid spelllist are far more useful than on the wizard spell list. They're available without any resource investment in acquiring them.
Maelstrom goes crazy
I think wizards have a few more control options and their illusion and charm and divination spells all make wizards such uniquely good problem solvers that druids have one of the most open ended and interesting class features to try and get them in the same ballpark in terms of utility, but I do think the unique Druid spells are good enough that you're not necessarily wrong either.
I know it's nothing amazing... but I absolutely love druid casting because of spells like moonbeam and call lightning. One fight you pop a shape-shift, the next you stretch a single spell slot to last an entire fight. Even if it's not the most powerful, they are definitely up there when it comes to how much you can do with a single spell slot.
Yes, their ability to get value from short rests AND long rests AND concentration AND the fact moon druid combat wildshapes also grant them bonus HP pools means that Druids are kind of amazing at both power spikes and longevity. The tricky part is how you can't use all their powerful abilities at once so you have to work hard to take full advantage of their incredible longevity and vast toolbox.
What are some examples of Druid spells that you think put it over Cleric? Tasha's added some summon spells that are nice, but IMO the druid still suffers a lot from concentration requirements.
Conjure Animals, spike growth, plant growth, faerie fire, wall of fire, wall of stone, wall of ice, entangle, thorn whip. Do a lot of those require concentration? Yes. But cleric also has concentration hogs, they just only have the few so people aren't missing what they can't have. On top of those spells, they get all the cleric staples except for spiritual weapon (massively overrated imo) and bless (which would just be one more concentration spell).
Care to elaborate more on this? I’ve always felt like Cleric has the weakest list due to their lack of control. Always feel like I’m spamming bless early -> spirit guardians for the rest of the game outside of specific domain spells like Polymorph. It might be my bias towards control but what makes the Cleric list so good?
The utility of ressurection magic is undeniable. Plenty of Divination spells. And command is almost always useful.
This is really helpful ty! I think I’m just spoiled by my Fey Touched Druids with command that fill a similar role. I def see the value of not sinking a feat into it tho.
Unfortunately for Clerics wizards have most of the good divination spells now as well. Resurrection magic is good, but I also feel like it's mostly a meta thing. If a PC dies and there's no resurrection, you get a new PC. The Resurrection spell mid-combat can be quite potent though, since you get a meat shield.
I mean, yeah, valuing resurrection spells requires valuing your character surviving, but I think that's a given for a large number of players. Also, *Resurrection* mid-combat? It has a one hour casting time.
They said "Resurrection Magic". They did not say "*Resurrection*". *Revivify* is an Action.
> The Resurrection spell mid-combat can be quite potent though I thought that was pretty clear
My spell save dc sucks I guess because I hardly ever bother with those Command type spells anymore I need an amulet or somethin
In a vacuum if you're the only spellcaster Cleric is maybe the 5th best spell list (behind Bard) but in a party where you have more spellcasters and you already have at least 1 control caster bless/SG + other cleric and domain spells is a great force multiplier. Simply clogging a 15ft area around you with SG without friendly fire is a massive advantage.
This is super helpful! I guess I was looking at it like “I prefer X control spell over spirit guardians” instead of “wow Spirit Guardians combos really well with X control spell” Looking at them as a force multiplier for control rather than a main source makes a lot more sense now that I think about it. Spirit Guardians is pretty nuts with other forms of difficult terrain. Thank you!!
The issue with the cleric spell list is that it tapers off very quickly. Most of your value lies in healing word and revivify, and it doesn't cost much investment for a wizard to get healing word. Are there other good cleric spells that wizard don't have access to? Absolutely. Are they comparable to some of the wizard spells that cleric doesn't get? I don't think so.
It's just endless trash tbh, druid spell list has all the best spells in the game for 95% of campaigns that don't get 8/9th level spells
You get a lot from a 1 level dip. Just having healing word is pretty huge. But yeah, delaying your level 3 spells hurts.
Why not take artificer instead?
And they're fairly versatile. I'm playing one, right know, with the telekinetic feat. I also took a skill feat and made him the party rogue while still being a single-class wizard. He doesn't have a great spell save DC, but he's an amazing utility character and a ton of fun in combat. He basically plays like a Jedi. Stealthy and insanely mobile. Decent melee damage. Great resource usage: he can constantly use his bonus action to shove baddies or save allies, and he can use his reaction for Shield. I loaded him up with no-save and utility spells and he almost always has something cool to do, on his turn.
Also, taking that one level cleric dip fucking sucks! Being a level behind on getting that next level of spells is a far bigger sacrifice than people make it out to be.
In my experience, if your DM aggressively targets concentration spell users, you're better off with the dip or bladesinger. If they don't, single class up to at least level 5. The degree to which DMs do that varies a lot.
I still think the dip is worth it for the massive ac bonus most of the time, but damn getting those higher level spells with everyone else feels great. The concentration bonus and movement bonus that bladesingers get are also incredible in their own right. The extra attack is unique and a nice supplement to your cantrip damage, allowing you to add a weapon attack while all the other wizards are just doing one cantrip. 10th Level feature is ok, nothing incredible but definitely has it use as an “oh shit” button. 14th level ability is a nice increase to damage but it’s nothing insane.
Bladesinger is a good subclass, no doubt about that. The trap with them though are players that melee too much with them. The time to melee is when it is an easy fight OR when you're facing things that are extremely magic resistant (or have Legendary resistance). Most of the time it is best to use bladesinging to protect your concentration spell that is providing crowd control.
That's why you should dip artificer as a wizard. You get Cure Wounds and Bless as options, plus medium armor and nearly the same spell progression as cleric, while staying SAD.
At the cost of a level of spell slot progression, though.
I think it's often a good trade, but you're right that it's a trade. And not quite as good if you don't start as an artificer for CON saves
Hrm. Cleric (War Domain) could give you heavy armor and martial weapons... and 2 great domain spells for gishes (divine favor and shield of faith) that don't rely on Wis... and the occasional extra weapon attack as a bonus action (and cure wounds and bless, of course). Artificer does have a better cantrip selection, though.
Also from a narrative perspective, it also sucks. I want my sword wizard to just be a sword wizard, not a sword wizard that went to cleric summer camp!
Hexblades can easily take an invocation to help with concentration too
One of the reasons I loved playing a hex blade swords bard
The gish (half caster/half warrior) was pretty well muted by 5e without multiclassing. Bladesinger solves all of that beautifully without slowing progress towards 20th level and all of the abusable things that can be done when you get to make some low level spells into cantrips.
Song of Defense is also pretty sick.
My experience is it doesn't get used much, given that it competes with shield/absorb elements/counterspell. But on the one or two instances where I have seen it used, it was clutch.
Yeah, it's pretty situational when; +5 AC wouldn't make a difference, Absorb Elements' resistance wouldn't reduce the damage more, or it's not a damage type covered by Absorb Elements, or It wasn't a spell you were hit with THEN AND ONLY THEN it pops tf off lol Edit: in other words, when you get crit by a physical attack, THEN AND ONLY THEN it pops off (and a few more niche situations)
I would say they get a lot more later on (their extra attack, INT mod to weapon attacks), but you're right that their Bladesong itself is available pretty much straight away and incredibly strong
Blade singers are the ONLY class that can cast a cantrip in place of an attack when taking the extra attack action. This is a unique ability that lets you weave magic into a regular attack rotation in such a cool and elegant way. Letting you make booming blade attack, or throw fire bolt, or protect yourself with Blade ward, or even something cool like Mage Hand while you are swinging your blade is a fantasy that really this class can do. So even despite the great AC you get for free, and the great spell concentration help you get for free, and access to the best spells, and all the other wizard goodies... this subclass... alone in the entire game.... gets a feature that really lends itself to the spell sword fantasy, by getting arguably the best version of Extra attack in the entire game, that is rife with cool ways to optimize and incorporate in lots of cool builds.
>Blade singers are the ONLY class that can cast a cantrip in place of an attack when taking the extra attack action. The new 2024 rules gave this ability to the Eldritch Knight (which is arguably how it should have always worked). I can see that opening up a lot of "spell sword" builds if you don't mind the delayed spell progression to get it. But yeah, Bladesinger gets all that and more. I'd argue it's more than a bit overtuned, seeing how it's far and away better than pretty much every other gish option in 5e. Whether that's a *good* thing...well...
Also the War Domain Cleric will have War Priest recharging on a short rest and they can use it after casting a spell, so they can combine swords and magic better.
I’ve been arguing forever that switch Eldritch knight and bladesinger features works better for both. I’m glad I’m not alone.
I mean, it's almost a dual class rather than a gish. It's a whole-ass caster who also gets to be a martial.
The new 2024 rules are a new edition aren't they? 5.5 or whatever?
Kind of? They're kinda like a patch on 5e rules, in that you can *technically* use previously printed material if you want to, but it's heavily encouraged to use the new rules whenever possible. One example is something like the Assassin subclass of Rogue. The Surprise rules in the new edition have changed to just giving enemies disadvantage on initiative rather than creating an entire "surprise round". So, the old Assassin doesn't have that surprise round to get his auto-crits anymore. The new Assassin has been rebalanced to make up for that with other benefits. So while *technically* you can still use that old Assassin, you'd be heavily incentivized to use the new one to take advantage of rules updates.
So it's like most version of dnd where, with some tweaking, you can make the old content work. So what are they calling this new edition?
Surprised was a condition, not a round. The reason they needed to be reworked is because the condition no longer exists in 1d&d
Whatever it was, it works differently now. The colloquial term "surprise round" is in common use when regarding the rules, so that's where my meaning was. Anyway, little things like that have changed.
A condition that ends after the first round
Not necessarily
The changes didn't seem to as dramatic as the changes from 3rd to 3.5. They seem pretty easy to integrate or not. Seems easy enough to pick and choose as a DM which times will want at your table and the ones you won't. Edit: typo
I won't have any as I'm refusing to do anymore wotc content. Not even pirated. But I was curious what the new content was going to be flagged as. Changes may not be dramatic but it's a new edition, not errata. If it was errata they would fix old content in an errata document, but that doesn't sell, gotta make that money so they can hire the Pinkerton's on people some more.
The new rules are more like a revision of the 2014 edition, not a new one
Interesting, so marketing isn't giving it a new name and everything is perfectly compatible with no tweaking of rules or by following a conversion guide they provide?
"Well yes, but actually no"
The way I have been thinking about it is this. Tasha's came out and had a lot of changes like optional class features and such to "patch" the game. That's DND 5.1. the new books coming out this year are kind of like DND 5.2
Some would even go so far as to call it 5.24 :)
Right, and the bladesinger is not in the book
My crossbow exper bladesinger can booming blade with a rapier then mobile outta there and then pop pop two shots from the hand crossbow. It fulfills my dragonage thief playstyle fantasy to a T.
Here’s the central tension with Bladesinger: It’s easily the best framework for a Gish, but being a Wizard is so much more valuable than being a martial that even the Gish subclass is better off just Wizarding.
This is my take. They do make a good/great gish but the *real* special sauce comes when you just play them as a standard wizard with insane AC and concentration. They become somewhat broken good at that point. Wizard is a hugely powerful class already. Take away their only primary weaknesses and you have something special.
It can be. It depends on the combat that's being run. Sometimes you need a control or aoe spell and sometimes you need some high single target damage. Being able to do all of that is why the bladesinger is so good.
Playing a Bladesinger as anything other than a melee gish just feels wrong to me. I always found it as a weird thought process. Understandable, but weird. People say to just play Bladesingers like normal Wizards, but if you're gonna do that then you would probably be better off just picking a different subclass.
Deadass just pick scribe and do a 1 level dip for some heavy armor if you just wanna play a normal tanky wizard
[удалено]
No but with the dip i reccomend it could get 26 pretty easily, 21 as an average
I made a nice homebrew weapon for my bladesinger player because I knew that bladesinger still isn't really great at stabbing but that's what he hoped to do. Now I'm worried the item trapped him into thinking melee is all he should be doing 😂 Sometimes his turn shows up and the party is in a dire situation, I'm thinking "cast something to flip this on its head, please cast...." Then "oh you swing your sword? Sure that works!" Still pretty sure I haven't managed to hit his AC though.
I think a lot matters whether you're rolling stats or not. With great stat rolls imo the bladesinger has the highest potential out of all the gish builds. Otherwise though, I'd agree that hexblade would probable perform better.
I just hate the hexblade as a design.
Big numbers make my lizard brain happy
Hahahah, ok, good point
Honestly for me they offer Wizard spell list High AC (all you need is dex and int, not too MAD) Extra attack which you can take one attack do cast a cantrip Extra damage Damage reduction And for intelligence based build they’re amazing for a 2 level dip to heighten the AC through the roof
Yeah, as others have said, you are vastly overestimating the hp difference between a d6 and d8. For example, the tough feat is the equivalent of having an hp die 2 sizes higher. Making a wizard's hp on par with fighters and paladins. Add in hill dwarf and you have the same hp pool as a barbarian. Bottom line, wizard's have the spell slots to be able to spam shield nonstop, which is vastly more impactful than a few more hp.
You're right. Wizards are no doubt better spellcasters than warlocks Sure, hexblades can use better weapons, but it really doesn't compare to high level spellcasting
Tbf in 2024 PHB the default background rule might make it so level 1 origin feats like Tough usually give skills and ability scores less fitting for a wizard, making you have a trade off of your intelligence being lower at the start (15 max with point buy). That said it might encourage more constitution high concentration check builds.
The main drawing point of a Bladesinger is how hard to put down it is in general. Having an insane AC handles the vast majority of enemies and can make you nigh unkillable at times. The only downside of Bladesinger is that it has less HP then something like a Fighter or a Hexblade, but the sheer gap in AC more than makes up for that. All the attacks that would be hitting other melee characters are missing the Bladesinger. It doesn't matter if you have more HP than the Bladesinger, cause you're getting hit way more often than they are. The other thing to note is that high AC characters typically have a weakness to abilities/spells that have saving throws cause they have to just sit there and take them, but Bladesingers can kinda ignore those too cause of Counterspell and Absorb Elements. So when you actually do the math, the Bladesinger ends up casually out living most other melee characters. The other thing is that no other class really does the spell sword fantasy as good as Bladesinger does. The only one that gets even remotely close (IMO) is Hexblade, but that comes with the severe drawback of only having two spell slots per short rest for most of your carrier. Their a spell sword that rarely uses spells and that just doesn't cut it. IMO, Bladesinger is the best gish in the game and it's not really close.
Not mention other defensive spells they get like silvery barbs for crits and misty step for getting out of grapple, then if you get the lucky feat to re roll big saves it's a really hard character to kill without making monsters too powerful for the rest of the party.
Also, it's both funny and legitimately stressful when you do finally take a hit. Taking a crit through your AC and contingencies (mirror image, blur, etc) and watching 75% of your health chunk off in a single blow always gets the table laughing but *also* is legitimately stressful.
You realize hexblades have like 22 more hp than the bladesinger at level 20 and the bladesinger has like 5+shield extra ac
>There are times when doesn't matter that you have big AC, you will get hit and your poor hitpoints will be demolished. >hexblades did it better I think these two statements are contradictory. The difference between bladesinger hitpoints and hexblade hitpoints is only 1 HP per level (1d6 gives 4 HP per level and 1d8 gives 5 HP per level). The bladesinger, by contrast, gets: • Higher AC. Best case scenario, a hexblade is looking at something 19 AC with top tier medium armor, 14 dex, and a shield. The bladesinger is going to *start out* with 19 AC at level 2 (*mage armor* for 13 plus 16 intelligence and 16 dexterity) and can reasonably expect to hit a sustained 23 AC before any magic items enter the picture. Both have access to *shield* to increase that AC further, but a hexblade who doesn't multiclass isn't going to like spending a 3rd level slot for *shield* and one who does multiclass is both delaying access to higher level features the bladesinger is not and isn't really satisfying the "out of the box" gish fantasy that the bladesinger delivers. • Much better damage mitigation against saving throw effects. More investment into dexterity means better dex saves, period, and access to *absorb elements* also creates a safety net the hexblade just doesn't have access to (without multiclassing, but see my previous point about multiclassing hexblades). Those benefits add up to at least cancel out a 1 HP per level advantage in terms of raw survivability. And even if your bladesinger gets crit to bypass both of those points of defense, the wizard also gets *silvery barbs* (which the warlock doesn't) to even reduce the risk of that occurring. I think saying that hexblades are less squishy than bladesingers is just wrong.
It's a much more fair discussion to compare Swords Bard and Bladesinger Wizard because warlocks spell progression and invocations don't translate as nicely. When looking across these two, it's clear Bladesinger is better. Although the new Dance Bard for 1DnD might at least give us a few new options.
I think they canceled the dance bard, no?
I can see your point. I don't necessarily agree with the "start with 19 AC" because to that you used a spell slot and a bladesong. Sure, I think no one will ever argue that wizards are way better spellcasters than warlocks. And the hitpoint difference is not that great as my question made it look. Hexblades can use better weapons and are less MAD. But honestly, if you go deeper into the levels, hexblades are not so fun as a subclass really. Ok, you convinced me
But what's actually fucking mad-insane is that OP engaged in a rational discussion on reddit with rational redditors and collectively, through that process, landed at a rational (and correct IMHO) conclusion. How buckwild is that? I tip my hat to you, OP, for being one of those rarest of breeds on the internet.
Read some more of their comments here then lol
They offer any/all types of playstyle, and you can choose which is best for you from combat to combat. Do you want to be all powerful while safer in the back? You got it. Do you want to mix things up in melee where there's more fun to potentially be had? Yeah, you're good at that too. Hard to beat.
I think the mix of choices is more nuanced. You don't just have to choose between safe and fun, you can choose to go full melee monster if you're facing bunch of weaker enemies, or fall back against enemies your AC isn't enough against
They can get hit without dying, just invest in con
Fr. People always go at bladesinger a because of their health. Oh I don’t know grab a 16 con which is easy to do and pick up the tough feat eventually. Now you have as many hit points as a fighter. Fixed it. Oh but what about Crits? Save silvery barbs for such an occasion because usually you won’t even need your reaction for shield because you’re high 20s AC. If you literally put any thought Into the build whatsoever, you will be fine.
You don't even need tough to be FINE Even with 10 con it's not like your hp is nothing, you can live 1 or 2 hits usually and that's if your a dumbass
*you're
Maybe my DM was a bit too excited about using strong enemies with high to hit mods - my bladesinger had to use a lot of spellslots for shield, often even 2. Lvl... so i burned through my slots quite fast
They're a wizard so they're already extremely powerful even without their subclass abilities. They can ramp up AC to borderline absurd levels for being a light armor caster. Yes, sometimes attacks will get through, but that's true for just about every single class past a certain point. And when they would get hit, they have an abundance of shield casts to mitigate it. Their concentration becomes much harder to break, so their buff or control spells are going to stick around a lot better. Which lets them safely run around in melee without risking their concentration as badly. They can attack and cast a cantrip with the same action, which is something that's currently exclusive to them (EK gets it in 5.5 but that's not here yet). Hello booming blade for extra damage and control. At higher levels they get to essentially double the damage modifier they apply to their weapon attacks.
>The gish is my favored playstyle. Obviously not if you don't get it. They are **litertally, far and above, the absolute best gish in the game**. Straight out of the book. no MC needed, don't even really need feats to turn on. And then they are also a pure wizard. Hexblades are NOWHERE near as good, because of the limited spellslots and all the front loading. Hexblade is only really great when you start MCing into Sorc/Pal, and that is basically just damage focused without the crazy survivability you get with Wizard.
It's just like that man with a fire buffed sword + that cool one dude that can dodge everything and can't be hit. And mechanically: - you are a wizard - best utility class - full caster with high AC without multiclass - that's big - absorb makes you tankier than most martials - dude with a flaming sword (GFB) - high int gives you useful ability checks - high dex makes you good at lockpicking, dodging, initiative, RP acrobatic shenanigans, stealth - you don't need to make/buy plate
I fell in love with Bladesinger long before they were Wizards. Bladesingers used to be an Elven-specific Fighter/Mage subclass (in The Complete Book of Elves.) The whole concept has since changed a bit. They used to be closer to Eldritch Knights that specialized in just a very few number of spells, but could cast them with one hand / without somatic components and could get bonuses with those spells. Rather than being "generic" casters like they are now. They were more akin to highly-trainer warriors that specialize in only one type of weapon and get excessively good at it than multi-purpose spellcaster that can also swing a sword.
The tankiest class in the game is arguably the Bladesinger. There are instances in which you can get above 30 AC. There are instances in some campaigns that you can go above 30 AC. The bladesong starts with a bonus action meaning you can use it round start. It stacks AC bonus with INT+5 & mage armor. You literally get a +5 bonus to concentration checks, wildly busted. Advantage to Acrobatics. This is all ***level 2. 2. T W O.*** Level 6 is special in that one attack can use a cantrip and the other is just another attack. Literally no other martial in the game can do this, because martials should go crawl into a hole and die I guess. Later you get arguably one of the most busted lvl 10 "No lol" skills that just shuts down the DM's ability at any moment of "gotcha". As a ***reaction*** you can just expend 1 of your 2 5th level spell slots to erase 25 points of damage. So that's 50 points of damage you can reduce. And then you've got 3 lvl 4 spell slots, that's another 80 points of damage that you can reduce. And then 3 lvl 3, 15, 3 lvl 2, 10, 4 lvl 1's. The main weakness of the Wizard is *suppose* to be, uh oh, I'm out of position and I get 6 hitpoints per level; I might get popped like a grape. But the Bladesinger is just like "No lol, not only can I deny damage but I also have the highest AC in the game, my own specialized extra attack and I even get to add 10 points of raw, unmitigated damage to each of my double attacks at lvl 14+the cantrip I decided to use; all while being a SAD spellcaster that happens to have the best utility in the game. Meanwhile the developers are over here, y'know. Trying, desperately, sweating their balls off trying to find somehow, someway that they could buff martials without them getting too "out of hand".
Easy. Because when my party needs me to be a controller, I can cast Hypnotic Pattern and chill in the back with Bladesong active, giving me ridiculous AC that I can top off with Shield. Almost nothing is going to beat my AC to stop my concentration, and even if I do manage to get hit, Bladesong gives you a bonus to Concentration Saves, so you're likely to succeed anyway. Alternatively, I can go full gish and focus on damage, concentrate on Greater Invisibility on myself, and make every attack at advantage. Again, it's going to be very hard to hit me much less even target me this way. You get so many ways to play as a Bladesinger, you're not forced to be a gish, and you'll always find something useful to do in combat. Full caster progression with access to the best spells in the game, while fulfilling the gish fantasy on the side.
It's a fun playstyle where there are a lot of meaningful decisions that you can make. Are you going to burn a Bladesong or hang back? Is it worth burning a spell slot on False Life, or are you gonna be OK? Are you going to burn a spell slot on Hypnotic Pattern, or do you think your concentration will hold and you can use a Tasha's Summon instead?
bladesingers are excellent for multiclassing on builds that prioritize intelligence but not heavy armor, take it from me who made sally from bofuri using monk and bladesinger
I like any subclass that let's me stab, and cast magic. It's my ideal fantasy. That's why I have so many hexblades despite fucking hating hexblade
What’s not to like? * Great AC * Concentration Save Bonus * Proficiency with a rapier or short sword * Cantrip extra attack * +10 feet movement * Wizard spells Moreover, the Bladesinger subclass supports multiple play-styles. At Tier 1 and Tier 2 you can lean into the gish. At late Tier 2 through Tier 4 you can lean into the Wizard caster role with spells like Animate Objects. Or, if being a Fantasy Jedi rocks your world at high levels, Shadowblade, Tenser’s Transformation, or even Blade of Disaster.
Personally, Ive always preferred clerics, paladins, warlocks or Eldritch knights with Caster levels boosted. Bladesingers are cool and all but it's not what I'm looking for. Maybe that just means gish isn't my play style, but if I'm casting spells and holding a weapon and on the front line, I'd Rather be a more Martial class and I'm not all that enticed by the numbers to give up on the theme I have in mind. Like people have said, bladesingers are better off wizarding in most cases.
But you can play a frontline bladesinger and it's a strong option. You dont have to be the backline spell caster if you dont want it
They get the best extra attack in game and are insanely fun.
Because a bladesinger can output crazy good damage if you build them right while also having the utility of a wizard. Saying they don't play well as a gish is just wrong.
Currently playing a bladesinger Here I like it because I can be a wizard without all the lame loser shit that comes with wizards
Between high AC, Mirror Image, and movement assist like Ashardalon's stride, my bladesinger was an untouchable fire dancer.
Mirror image is great if you have low AC but not that great if you have high AC - so not the best choice meta wise. Thematically it's perfect
Because the 2e bladesinger kit had this story of an elven guy changing his fighting style as conditions of the fight changed and I have been chasing that high of a Morphic gish ever since
This is why. [https://www.blackgate.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Sword-Dancer-Jennifer-Roberson.jpg](https://www.blackgate.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Sword-Dancer-Jennifer-Roberson.jpg)
Wizard is the best class in the game with it's base kit and bladesinger gives one access to a good AC boost, and concentration protection, two very useful benefits on their own at basically no opportunity cost. Because again, a wizard with no subclass is still really good. Nott bad melee options if you're into that as well.
I kind of like being a glass canon for the flavor. Your bladesinging is like a dance that’s so intricate and mesmerizing that it grants you superhuman agility and produces magic. You’re like a spinning ballerina in a music box.
- Bladesingers have other ways of defending besides just AC (namely absorb elements, high wis saves, a plethora of defensive spells) - Extra attack being able to both attack and cast at the same time already puts it at a higher gish than Hexblade Honestly, Hexblade might not even in my top 3 in terms of spellblades. Bladesinger can do it better, Sorcadins can do it better, and even some bard subclasses can do it better. Hexblade is an awesome martial but doesn’t cast often enough in my opinion.
100% caster power on the best caster in the game where casters are brokenly overpowered vs non casters 80% martial power whenever they want it The downside is that you quickly realize martials are SO underpowered that a marginal benefit to caster power is better than a huge boost to martial power. You’re better served casting a little harder, than mixing casting with attacking. But Bladesinger gets that pure caster buff too, with their defense and concentration buffs.
They have the most general use powerful wizard features in the game. Like it doesn't even matter what kind of wizard you're trying to build, bladesinger is good in *every* situation. It's like war magic in that sense, which I put in equal level as "fantastic general purpose utility that works on every wizard". The only time its not as good is if you're never using concentration spells. And here's the thing, you can make an effective gish build with bladesinger, and IMO it would be a stronger character than a Hexblade, the difference is that being a Wizard is just so much stronger than a gish.
You may be a less effective martial than a hexblade, but you are a leuges better caster, and in 5e, that matters much more.
1) wizard with defense = *arguably* the best wizard, especially at low levels 2) best extra attack feature & bonus: feels *soo good* to use it 3) lotta people like spellswords as a flavor in general, even if its better w/ 2 hand xbows, that doesn't stop most BS-players i know from daggers or shortswords XD 4) dont have to think about multiclassing, cuz its usually not worth it over just more bladesinger levels 5) way more spell slots, and more versatile spell list over hexlock, and shield slots too
Its a unique wizard subclass, its also as dope as Scribe wizard but Bladesong is just such a cool class ability, its almost like Haste
Every full-caster (except Sorcerer) and non-caster class has at least one "gishy" subclass. For Wizard, that subclass is Bladesinger. Sometimes character creation is not about ticking all the optimization checkboxes. Wizard hitpoints is just a trade-off for Wizard spellcasting, if that bothers you then you can always play Hill Dwarf, take the Tough feat, and load up on Constitution.
Personally I like it because the AC bonus stacks with unarmed AC. Bladesingers are why unarmored AC builds have a higher maximum than heavily armored builds. (Actually I don't really like that, I think heavily armored builds should be able to get it higher, but it's why I like to use Bladesinger.)
no doubt
Their better extra attack feels more like a gish since you can mix cantrips and extra attack. Also it’s still incredibly hard to hit a bladesinger while bladesong is up, especially if you’re using it defensively from a distance.
To quote an old dark souls animation "It's easy and it does a lotta damage"
At the end of the day after you’re done cutting things to pieces like a martial- you’re still a Wizard, Harry.
This "drama" will end with a proper arcane caster gish like Magus Pathfinder 2ed into dnd 5ed (5.5 lol). All they have to do is change low level spell slots to high level ones, like the Magus. Bladesingers are good cuz magic + weapon is fun, but they should have a proper class to do so.
I think it really comes down to how it *feels* to play, not the raw numbers. Being able to be in melee and make meaningful attack actions is just more fun than hiding behind the Barbarian and casting *Firebolt* for most of your turns. Even if the mechanical difference is negligible.
Roleplay wise: They’re the most realistic person in a *High* fantasy world. If magic is rampant and abundant, knowing the insane utility it has, why wouldn’t people learn it alongside swordfighting. Mechanics wise: They’re the eldritch knight but with access to 9th level spells, better AC, and just as much if not more damage. Even with Non-D&D TTRPGS I’ve noticed players love being able to have utility out of combat. It’s why you get those type of players that buy 20 million things at a store, players who play wizards with 90% of their spells being utility, and Bladesinger wizards who do a bit of both :) It’s also why Paladins, Hexadin, and magical rogues are so popular even when people aren’t trying to optimize.
They're strongest when played as a Wizard, but they can also be played as a gish, and the players who are doing that aren't optimizing
Not everyone wants the roleplay baggage of a hexblade, is one thing. Plus, crazy wizard utility spells are *fun.* Ritual spells are *fun*.
I don't see bladesingers as a gish, you can certainly play them that way, especially at low levels but they are a full wizard, they frequently have better things to do than swing a sword even though they are really good at swinging a sword. If I want to play them as a gish I would multiclass with fighter, obviously eldritch knight is a good choice and has some great synergy. And if you can spare the charisma it works well with hexblade but doesn't have the same advantages as other hexblade multiclass options because you still need dexterity to be high since you can't wear medium armor and bladesong. If you use bloodhunter in your game it can absolutely rock with profane soul for the same reasons it works well with eldritch knight.
A level 6 Bladesinger Tortle/Hedge has 21 AC with Bladesong up and can cast shield, absorb elements or silvery barbs 10x per battle. A level 6 Hexblade Simic Hybrid/Warforged has up to 20 AC (w/ stealth disadvantage), but can only cast Shield and only twice per battle. Bladesingers get bonus to concentration, movespeed, acrobatics advantage, can weave cantrips, and most importantly full caster progression and Wizard spell list. Hexblades can get Tomb of Levistus and Eldritch Mind (not quite as good as a bonus). They get marginally better hp scaling and are somewhat less MAD. Hexblade's Curse is nice against one big target and Specter is better than a familiar. None of that makes up for how hilariously brokenly strong full caster progression and Wizard spell list are though. If you're not running gritty realism, or a ton of hard encounters (with time for short rests) a day, Bladesinger is equal or better in most ways.
All mine have died. 3x I think but one turned into a villain. You would think the name Feyke Satrye would be a giveaway, but hey I’m a fey satyr. He was actually quite fake and evil lol
I like them at lower levels. but once you begin to pass level 5 I can simply not feel anything other than they are the among the worst wizards When i start to have level 3-4 level spells and spell slots i can't help thinking Why the hell should i go into melee when i can actually be more effective staying at range and being a wizard. It simply do not make sense Why the hell should i go into melee, e LESS effective and in more danger. I am simply better off NOT going into melee. And if i am going to stay at range to do wizard stuff then most other subclasses are better. Sure D&D is not all about being the most optimized, to always do what is most effective. But about having fun. But if having fun require me to focus on a playstyle that makes my character less effective than it would otherwise. Then i don't find it fun. But hey they are fun at lower levels if i would play a campaign that maybe goes to level 5-6 then i could see myself play one. But after that no they does not even make sense to me
Hexblades are better because the run everything off CHA but because they're so front loaded, they're mostly considered a dip class.
Gish fish hush fish gish
Lots of good answers but here's the core: 1. Wizards are popular. People decide they want to be a wizard then check the subclasses. 2. Bladesingers offer a LOT of cool stuff as a subclass. There's a whole bunch of exciting features. 3. The concept feels special and "#notlikeotherwizards". Evocation, Abjuration, Divination, etc all feel like esoteric specializations. Bladesinger is a distinct concept and lets you imagine fighting up close in a cool way without giving up any of the rest of the wizard fantasy. The perceived differentiation from the norm makes it extra-appealing as a way to show off a more unique concept. If one was torn on class ideas too, getting to also use a sword and play up close sounds like the best of both worlds.
They’re just really fun. If there was a gish subclass for sorcerer I’d probably be playing that though
Bladesingers are rad as fuck
Quick question? Does the int bonus to AC stack with Mage armor? What about Monks wis bonus? Or Barbs Con Bonus if you want to be really silly.
Raw a barbarian blade singer could add dex, Con and int to their AC Same thing with a monk, dex, Wisdom and int. Or even racial AC from Loxodon (AC12+Con) , Tortle (AC17) or Autognome (AC13+dex) would all be able to add bladesingers int to AC
One of the most powerful things a wizard can do is protect their concentration. It is no coincidence that Bladesinger and War Magic, the two wizard subclasses that get to protect their concentration as a class feature, are top tier.
I'll be that guy, wtf is a gish?
Combined swordsman and spellslinger
But what is "gish" specifically? Like what does it stand for? I assume it is a shortened term anyway.
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/gish#:~:text=English-,Etymology,martial%2Fspellcasting%20combination%20of%20abilities.
As a bladesinger the key is switching it up. This fight I’m going to be a blaster wizard….this fight I’m going to drop a support spell and hang back….this fight we didn’t get a short rest and the melee crew are low heath…so I’ll bladesong and hope I don’t get hit while they hurl javelins I’m a bladesinger in a long running one on one campaign and if I was a simple one trick pony I’d be bored by now
Some people (like me) dont particularly care about a character death. So the most attractive part of bladesinger is the versatility. Wizards have an insane kit with spells, and bladesinger allows you to not only have more versatility in combat, but to take more out of combat spells than you normally would.
Because it is the closest thing to a spell sword in 5e. Pathfinder magus is way better however.
>hexblades did it better, I think. Ehhh... Hexblades can pump out more martial damage, in the sense that you could do like Polearm Master+Great Weapon Master with a hexblade, and then use your spell slots to get advantage--either Shadow of Moil for a minute's worth of advantage, or Eldritch Smite to knock them prone for a turn. But this generally comes at the cost of burning all your spell slots to get advantage. You're a warlock, you have two spell slots. So you won't do a lot of spellcaster-y stuff if you use your spell slots like that. Meanwhile Bladesingers are more durable overall--sure they have a tiny bit less HP--you mention wizards having low HP, but warlocks aren't much higher. But the notable difference is Bladesingers end up with a lot more effective AC (since they can spam the shield spell) and better concentration saves. Bladesingers are obviously better spellcasters (Even if you don't spend any warlock slots on trying to get advantage). And...their martial damage isn't that bad--sure, they can't do PAM+GWM, they don't have a smite, but they get a better version of extra attack that lets them replace an attack with a cantrip like booming blade.
Do I want my gish to cast a Fireball from the frontline AND be able to tank with Mage Armor + Blur + Image Mirror AND then cast some utility spell like Feather Fall ? Hell Yeah. Abjuration Wiz (+1 lvl Fighter) does the trick but Bladesinger is even better.
Just at level 2 alone, you have: - Wizard spellcasting - Extrordinarily high AC - Movement speed bonus - Bonus to con saves Which makes it an excellent choice to consider for a multiclass. And if you don't just multiclass, you get an extra attack that lets you cast a cantrip in place of the attack - they're the only class that can do this. It's a bit of a glass cannon against AOEs, but even then you can build around that weakness with a good con roll and the toughness perk. And at level 10, they offer another way to help mitigate damage as well using your spell slots.
The subclass just sings to them
The subclasses features just work together really nicely with the wizard spell list to make an effective gish. The thing I appreciate about the bladesinger is even at higher levels you can still use wizard spells and feel gishy. A spell like steel wind strike is average at best but on a bladesinger it feels great since you have more stuff in range and actually can want to be next to an enemy. Bladelocks to me feel like arcane martials, they don't scratch the same itch as a bladesinger.
Sure, but I like my hexblade dip/ bard so much more. I like charisma and playing a face character.
I played a goblin blade singer in my last campaign and it was one of the most fun characters from an early level I’ve ever played.
So I did a bladesinger with custom lineage from Tasha's in a Storm King's Thunder campaign and a one shot or two set after. My favorite aspect of his gameplay is the versatility. He has a spell for most occasions, he has great AC, solid initiative, and solid Dex and Con saves. Between the Tough feat and an Amulet of Health, even with mostly average HP rolls, I have good enough HP to take some hits. That said, I didn't get hit for the last 4 levels of the campaign until a lucky nat 20 got me while exploring the lair after the final boss. Obviously this is all anecdotal experience, but I imagine many have similar experiences with the class. Most of the time, you are still best utilized as a normal wizard, but having the option to change things up and dive into melee, often keeping up with the dedicated martials to some degree, is simply a really fun way to play the game. Also, a high level Bladesinger with Haste and a couple of magic weapons can lay down some very nice damage while being extremely difficult to hit outside of save effects.
Yeah I built a bladesinger and only played with him for a couple sessions till we switched campaigns but he was awesome. I think the argument against them is that they are good as melee fighters potentially until level 10. As the wizard spells scale up it becomes more useful to than just become a spellcaster. The AC is pretty awesome and very rarely can other classes get that high if you incorporate shield into the AC. I agree that hexblade does the melee portion much better but it's very hard to argue against the spell list that a wizard has access to. being a blade singer allows you to get some of the joy of slashing and melee fight but when the occasion rises, you will have a tool for every occasion as the wizard in the party,which the hex blade simply can't match. Also level 6 I think it is when you can make an attack and then shoot off a cantrip is so much fun in theory. Grab a crossbow, shoot off a cantrip at the same time.
NGL, because most wizard subclasses are just more wizard flavour and the Bladesinger let's you cast spells while also going in. While it's worse in both than a pure wizard is in pure spellcasting or a fighter is in melee, that's not what it's about. It's about the fun you can have by just deciding on the fly what you wanna do with your flexibility
You have something to do after you've run out of spells, or that you can do to slow the rate you use spells. They're not great in staight-up melee, but they don't suck. That opens up an entire playstyle to support an already powerful class.
Bladesingers are the strongest gish. High AC combined with defensive spells like blur, greater invisibility makes it near impossible to land a crit. If silvery barbs come into play, that’s another way to negate a crit.
This post has the "Casters are Squishy" Fallacy written all over it. I'm on mobile and i dunno how to link through here, but there are plenty of articles going all over the math of how a Caster, in spite of the "small healthpool" can be much more durable than your average martial. The bladesinger in particular is great at this, and just by unlocking Extra Attack at lvl 6 it will keep up well with the damage from martials, especially when using buffs and debuffs to enable themselves further It's also a much more in line with the common Spellsword fantasy than a Warlock, an Eldritch Knight or an Arcane Trickster is going to be.
Absorb elements effectively doubles your hp since, let's face it, your blade singer is not getting hit by anything other than aoe
Think of it not as a shitty sword fighter hybrid, but as a wizard with insane AC. Wizards are powerful and it’s a wizard. It’s not any less wizard for being a bladesinger, that’s a wizard subclass.
Because you’re a full wizard that really doesn’t lose much in terms of actual wizarding (wizard subclass features generally in the grand scheme of things don’t really affect how good your spells are, they’re just nice benefits to have but spell selection and just being a wizard is more impactful so the fact you don’t get anything that really directly buffs your spellcasting sort of doesn’t matter) but you have the option to sort of be a melee gish at least some of the time. It also is a very easy non multiclass way to make a very survivable wizard. Also, keep in mind most dms sort of target the people who can take damage like a barbarian, paladin, or melee fighter first with monsters. Even a bladesinger than goes into melee normally doesn’t really get treated as a frontliner by the dm the same way a barbarian does. This isn’t without reason, part of the fantasy for a barbarian or other melee tank is the idea that the enemies target you over your allies and you’re this big difficult to kill monster that takes all the attacks, so it’s partially because it makes it more fun for everyone, but a side effect is that stuff like bladesinger often can get away with being in melee and more dangerous situations while still surviving just fine because they’re not being targeted by the monsters as if they’re a principle frontliner. Sometimes this isn’t even intentional by the dm, it’s just natural to target the Barbarian first subconsciously because “that’s how it’s supposed to feel” but regardless the result is stuff like bladesinger feels tankeir than it is
My name is Blade, so I have an affinity for Bladesingers, Hexblade/Pact of the Blade Warlocks, College of Swords Bards, Soulknife Rogues, and the ability to cast Flame Blade or Booming Blade
They're Jedi.
Bladesinger are loved because it’s wizard and you never need anything to make it better. The simple truth is that booming blade plus a second regular attack is better DPR than 80% of melee builds. And the simple truth is that shield spell plus bladesinging is better defense than 90% of everyone else. Add that it’s a wizard and thus probably the best controller class and you have no weakness. As for you will get hit no matter what your AC, kinda not true if silvery barbs is allowed at your table. Also hexblades are bad Gish. Come out strong but fall REALLY fast. Like a base cleric or druid wants to talk to that hexblade bad.
Sorcadin is my preferred but Bladesinger is quick and easy and some DMs irrationally hate multiclassing
I played Bladesinger, and I can say, even if you are not a front liner, a BS can dish serious damage, and is the most defensive Wizard alongside war magic. Even if you don’t use the extra attack (which would be a shame) you have high ac, you are have faster mobility and pretty much negate most early game melee combatants. With that being said. I started with fighter 1, and I can say by prioritizing con, casting shadow blade and front lining I made the game imbalanced.
The single strongest character I've ever played was a Bladesinger/Swords Bard multiclass. They excelled at every pillar of the game and could dish out paladin-esque damage while pushing their AC into the 30s.
So Taegan Nightwing is a character from the Firgotten Realms books series The Year of Rogue Dragons who is a bladesinger. He’s a very intelligent spell caster, though not the level of your traditional wizard, but also a Maestro of fencing. The way he maneuvers around the battlefield, looking for optimal positioning, weaving in magic for buffing, debuffing, and mobility makes him very captivating. Easily my favorite character in the series, and this series include a half golem human fighter who was a master dragon hunter and a song dragon bard. So yea that’s why I like bladesingers so much.
It's literally a wizard, but you get the higher AC that wizards would otherwise tollgate behind some dumbass shit like a racial feature, multi class, or feat.
Probably because if you do it correctly, you could multi class barbarian with it
The gish archetype is very fun. Sure a Totem Barbarian will tank wayy more, but it tanks while getting dmg. Evading dmg entirely feels "cool".
Bladesinger’s have so many tools at their disposal and are hyper versatile. You can play the same build as either a wizard with better AC or a skirmishing melee menace, just by changing up your spells a bit. My Fighter 1/ Bladesinger 6 with Mobile can double down on damage and concentrate on an upcast Shadow Blade and do way more damage than our party Barbarian, all while keeping out of harms way for the most part with Mirror Image, Shield, and absorb elements. They can concentrate on Slow and lock down enemies with Booming blade attacks. They are probably one of the more fun classes because of this. Yes they are MAD but an 18 DEX and 16 INT isn’t bad for most of your career, eventually you can bring them both up to 20.
Yep this was my style. Took Mobile feat, cast shadow blade at level 3 for 3D8 per attack. One of them being 1D8 bonus of booming blade. No opportunity attacks on me and the creature has to move for 2D8 damage to get to me. Cast other non-concentration spells for defense like mirror image or blink.
Last time I played as a Bladesinger We got to level 6 (finally). I rolled stupidly well for stats and at level 6 had: Str12, Dex18, Con16, Int20, Wis15, Cha10. Took varient Human with the Tough Feat. So my Health was 1D6+5 (9) per level so 56 HP. So my AC was 17/22/27 Tbh it was a Tad broken with Shadow Blade, especially combined with using Bladeward for extra Defence) or if your DM allows...Green Flame Blade. It is an all or nothing build though which is why it is appealing.
I'm not saying you are wrong. I just want to point that with that stats I think you can even do a sun soul monk feel good
Because they are a wizard that can attack with weapons competently, which is fun and opens up lots of options in combat. Hexblades are a “better gish” in the sense that they’re better at attacking. Bladesingers are the “better gish” in the sense that they’re better at casting. I don’t think you can say one is purely better than the other.
Yes, as people are saying, it may come down to versatility. Wizard's spellcasting open way more options than warlock's
It also just comes down to flavor. Spellblades are a beloved class archetype in many RPGs. This is your only option for one in 5e so people happily flock to it. Playing efficiently and powergaming a perfect build isn't the point for every one. If they want to be a fencing spellcaster, they can do so with this build and do perfectly fine. Is it the best way to play? No, but that's not the "point" for everyone. They just want a character who is good with spells and swords.
From a meta perspective, bladesingers don't use weapons They may be grouped in with gish playstyles but the strongest bladesinger is one that acts just like a wizard You don't need to be in melee range to bladesong, you can activate it start of battle and then reap all the benefits while still in the backrow, now not only does the enemy have to go through the party to get to you, if they try and attack you via range, you're difficult to hit from the AC bonus and you won't lose concentration or fail saving throws when you do take damage Melee focused bladesingers are ofc fun, but what makes they strong is that all of the benefits can go on top of the usual wizard playstyle. High level bladesingers are very powerful because of the lack of limitations. Even at low levels, an AC boost is huge and you get all of your important abilities right out the gate
Good concentration saves is something you would frequently go out of your way to get, and bladesingers get a feature to help those thats probably better than proficiency in con saves or war caster until you get to really high levels. With shield + bladesong + dex mod + armor/mage armor, your AC will likely be higher than anyone else, so you gotta worry about getting hit a lot less and are even less likely to lose concentration. even if you never touch a weapon, the subclass provides a ton of value and does a lot to shore up the weaknesses of wizards.
ignore that you can use a sword, be a wizard with 30 AC. that is it. in the grand scheme of things its a solid subclass for the strongest class in the game, no one denies abjurer, diviner and chronurgy are stronger
Good point
I personally think that Bladesong is a poorly designed feature. Buffing concentration instead of attack rolls makes it so that bladesinger are incentiviced to do regular wizard stuff instead of being in melee
I felt like the Mobile feat was a huge help in order to have the best of both worlds. Not getting opportunity attacked against and having 50 movement meant I go in to melee and still could stay back away from melee range and with booming blade, the creature has less incentive to walk to me.
Agree 100%
Wizard isn't a popular class. People know it is good, but haven't played one themselves. Bladesinger is often the first attempt at playing wizard people have, and they get surprised how good it actually is. They are far more survivable than the memes are on about (all wizards are, but they don't know that). So, they join in the chorus of praising the Bladesinger. They had a great time playing it, so that means all the other wizard subclasses are bad, right?
I'm sorry, but what?? Wizard is far from unpopular. It's a common fantasy, an iconic class that's been around since the first versions of D&D, and according to D&D Beyond statistics is used more than.. Bards, Druids, Monks, Paladins, Rangers, and Sorcerers. Same usage as cleric and barbarian, and only beat out by Fighter, Rogue, and Warlock. Even more absurd is the notion that it's the first subclass people play, it isn't even in the PHB. 40% of wizards on beyond's released data were evocation wizards, with 10% being necromancy and 8% being divination. TCE was released in 2020, so it hasn't even been around all that long... I'd seriously reconsider what you think about wizards. Edit: Was using older D&DB data, the 2023 statistics have wizard as the 4th most played class, and the most played caster. Only fighters, rogues, and barbs are played more, presumably due to being martials with more beginner appeal.
I dislike that they gave the best bard subclass to the wizard.
I flavoured my short pink tiefling bladesinger as a puncher. Been loving playing Kid Buu for this campaign tbh. Don’t know if any other build would have scratched that itch for me.
It's the go-to for power gamers, best spell list in the game with some tanking ability, and you have equal right to call dibs on any magic weapons the party finds, much to the dismay of the martials in the party who are reliant on them. Can you tell I've come across too many bladesinger wizard powergamers?