Bladesinger, also known as “Bladesinger”, is a unique subclass in the Magic: The Gathering game. It allows players to cast spells and wield weapons simultaneously, even when not running Bladesong. However, they cannot cast any spells during their duration, which can lead to exhaustion if they roll poorly on a constitution save.
A Bladesinger Wizard can use the ability to soak up damage while their Bladesong is active, allowing them to spend a reaction and a spell slot to reduce the damage. This ability is unique to Bladesinger Wizards, as it allows them to cast spells with somatic components while wielding a weapon. Starting at 10th level, Bladesinger Wizards can direct their magic to absorb damage while their Bladesong is active, expending one spell slot to reduce the damage by an amount equal to five.
The Bladesinger general rule is a variation on the ability to cast multiple spells, but there is no specific exemption for this rule. It can be challenging to cast spells while two-weapon fighting due to both hands being full.
Bladesinger Wizards have been taught to grasp the flow of magic around them and turn it to their advantage. They can cast spells even while in the battle, entwine spells, and make melee attacks in the same turn. When taking the attack action while their Bladesong is active, they can cast one of their cantrips in place of one.
In summary, Bladesinger Wizards are skilled in using magic to their advantage, and their abilities can be used to cast spells and wield weapons simultaneously.
📹 Bladesinger Wizards are Super Fun in Dnd 5e! – Advanced guide to Bladesinging
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Can you cast spells while resting?
Rest casting is a strategy where a party can rest cast with their entire slate of spell slots after a day of downtime. The most common spells to rest cast are aid, death ward, and gift of alacrity. These spells are likely to be cast regardless of downtime, so a day of downtime may result in more death wards. However, these spells don’t allow for steamrolling encounters but rather provide a greater margin of error for encounter balance. Rest cast spells generally buff the whole party, and can be used to either hoard or spread them to support players who are deeply attached to their characters.
There’s not much difference between having a day of downtime and having an easy adventuring day in rest casting. However, some DMs still prefer using spell slots from a downtime day to increase survivability for the next adventuring day. A compromise could be treating rest cast slots as coming from the previous adventuring day, which is neither particularly game-breaking.
Can you cast spells while incapacitated?
In D and D 5e, incapacitated creatures are unable to concentrate on certain spells, which are considered “concentration” spells. PCs must focus on sustaining these spells in combat. Incapapacitated creatures cannot take actions or cast concentration spells. The incapacitated condition is a broad term meaning that a character cannot take any actions, reactions, or bonus actions until their incapacitation ends.
This can be a challenge to deal with in the middle of a fight, but it can also increase the stakes and make the fight more exciting. To remove the incapacitated condition, players must follow certain rules, apply the incapacitated condition, and get rid of it.
Can Bladesingers cast a cantrip with haste?
It is not possible for RAW players to utilise the Haste ability in order to employ a cantrip, given that it permits a single weapon attack per attack action. This is a more specific action than the general Attack action, which allows for multiple attacks on one’s turn. Moreover, it should be noted that JavaScript may be disabled or blocked by extensions, and that not all browsers support cookies.
Can you still cast spells while concentrating?
It should be noted that concentration spells can be used to cast other spells; however, the casting of another concentration spell will result in the cancellation of the previous spell. It appears that a bug exists whereby the effect persists until the game is reloaded, which causes problems in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Can you cast multiple spells?
A spell with a casting time of an Action may be cast using a Bonus Action or a Quickened Spell, thus extending the duration of the spell to that of an Action. The casting of cantrips with a one-action casting time is only permitted in the same turn as a bonus action.
Does Bladesinger get a fighting style?
The College of Swords has introduced the ability to use weapons as an arcane focus. Bladesong has been redesigned to focus on melee combat and create a unique Totem Spirit system for each bladesinger. This allows for different styles like Red Tiger or Raven. Cantrips from Extra Attack have been separated into Song of Celerity to prevent exploits. The Song of Victory damage bonus has been removed, as bladesinges already have high damage at high levels. Players can choose from Agility, Celerity, Defense, Evasion, Fury, and Valor to play as close as possible to a normal bladesinger.
Can mages cast while moving?
This command enables the user to cast their subsequent Mage spell with a cast time of less than 10 seconds while in motion, without being subject to the global cooldown and without interruption during the casting process.
Can you cast any spells while raging?
The four Elemental monks are endowed with abilities that are, in essence, spellcasting abilities, but which are reworked into class skills. This allows them to cast magic spells while raging.
Can a Bladesinger cast two spells?
It is forbidden for Bladesingers to wield two weapons simultaneously while performing a casting. Furthermore, only one additional weapon is required for dual casting.
Can cantrips be cast at any time?
A cantrip is a spell that can be cast at will without using a spell slot or being prepared in advance. Spellcasting is a common practice in fantasy gaming worlds, where magic often appears in the form of a spell. A spell is a discrete magical effect, shaping the energies that suffuse the multiverse into a specific, limited expression. Characters carefully pluck at invisible strands of raw magic, pin them in place, set them vibrating, and release them to unleash the desired effect, usually within seconds.
Does casting a spell interrupt rest?
The casting of spells constitutes an interruption to the long rest, yet unless the spell in question persists for a period exceeding one hour, the aforementioned rest may be resumed. This indicates that a period of rest lasting seven hours is permissible. A period of five hours may be spent casting a spell, after which the remaining half an hour may be spent resting in order to complete the long rest and enjoy its benefits.
📹 You Might Be a Bladesinger | Wizard Subclass Guide for DND 5e
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Played this in Curse of Strahd. It was awesome. My GM insisted on rolling for stats (witch I don’t like), I rolled two 17s. Half-elf, 17+1 DEX, 17+1 INT. 17 AC in Mage Armor. 21 with Bladesong. And then there goes Shield Spell. I was better at tanking than our tank – while still being full caster. Glorious.
Ashardalon’s Stride is an amazing spell for a bladesinger. Increased movement, free disengagements, and free fire damage without a save. As long as you plan your path right so you don’t hurt your party, you can deal a lot of damage in a single turn while also taking out the mob enemies faster. It pairs well with Booming Blade as it makes it easy for them to stay locked. Pairs super well with Mirror Image, Bladesong, and Shield as you make it nearly impossible for them to hit you to even break your concentration. Warcaster makes it even better as long as the creature you are melee’ing with is either a caster or somebody with low AC. Ashardalon’s Stride’s fire damage is enough to make them want to flee, but a Booming Blade opportunity attack reaction will punish them for it. Have an ally with Haste and… Look. There is a reason why my DM gave my character the nickname of Hellsinger lately.
I feel like many people forget Mountain Dwarves when they want to be an armored spellcaster. THEY GIVE YOU MEDIUM ARMOR. And dwarves already get a bunch of weapon proficiencies so they are perfectly set up to be great Gish builds. Not the best for Bladesingers specifically but I just wanted to mention it.
I’ve been playing a Bladsinger just about every weekend for over 2 years now. It has been one of the most fun character I’ve played in years. I’m level 16 now. Here’s what I’ve learned: The Tough feat is a very good pick up but only if you can get Warcaster and max both Int. and Dex. first, Song of Defense is almost never worth using, Warcaster + Booming Blade is a better movement punish then Polearm Master + Sentinel, Song of Victory is nice but it comes way too late in the classes life cycle to see much use, obtaining a Staff of Power breaks your AC even further and helps with saves, Moonblades are very heavily tied to the lore of Bladesingers in the FR, and finally a 2 level dip into Fighter is better than level 19 and 20 Wizard; however, you should NOT take that dip before level 19 because it slows your spell progression.
my absolute favorite wizard subclass by far. Nothing else compares to being a spell-blade of this caliber in D&D, especially when you’re able to act as controller, single-target damage dealer, and potentially even AC Tank for literally any combat. An absolute recommendation that I have for builds is to go a single level into Artificer right at the beginning for the following: – CON save Proficency for free – Armor & Shield Proficiency (good to have at low levels, but you can drop it once you get Bladesong) – More WEAPON proficiencies (Not much, but it’s still better than the wizard’s spread of weapons) – INT- Based Spellcasting (+2 extra cantrips = Guidance is a must-have for utility characters, the other one’s free. AND Cure Wounds as an emergency heal based on INT – everyone who can get healing of any kind definitely should for emergency purposes.) – FULL spellcasting (the way spellcaster levels are calculated, 1 level of Artificer technically counts as a full-caster class if you only have 1 level in it since they get spellcasting at level 1 anyway, so you’re not giving up 9th level spellcasting to get this stuff!) – BIGGER hit die at lower levels = more hit points starting out (you’re gonna be playing a wizard for most of the game, you’ll take what you can get for the most part.) – TOOL proficiencies so you can hog the spotlight even more outside of combat when it comes to doing downtime stuff (Thieves Tools, Tinker’s Tools, and one of your choice means you might just make the perfect back-up rogue!
I love this, I have a friend who his favorite wizard style is this one, even from older editions. Hilariously he actually built his to be a front line monster, while I’m not as rules savvy as most with D&D, my buddy is one of those terrifying lawful good rules lawyers. This mad lad made a literal glass tank, insane armor, insane damage, IF something did manage to get past his armor he’d just cast shield and make his armor even more disgusting, or bounce out of danger with one of his various spells, and of course melt entire fields of enemies at later levels cause freaking wizard. 😄
Hey Kobold, awesome article as always. I’m playing a bladesinger who fights with a blade that turns into a bow when he cast spells at range (like simons bowblade from bloodborne) and I reflavor all my spells into arrows. This class is massive fun 😀 However there is another class I would really like you to take a look at in terms of optimization. And that is the Astral Self Monk. I still can’t figure out what would be better. High Wisdom or Dexterity.
This is a fantastic guide, thanks for doing that. And extra kudos for continuing to clearly state “do what is fun, it’s ok to not be optimal, you will be fine”. The optimization community historically often shot itself in the foot while intending to hand out helpful advice, and it’s great to see the more positive focus of optimizers lately. This is your best article since the wholesome New Years article. 👍🏻
One trick you can do is start with three levels in Artificer, taking the Battle Smith specialty to get Battle Ready, which allows you to use your Intelligence modifier for your attack and damage rolls (that’s already better than the Bladesinger’s capstone, at level 3), and then multiclass into Bladesinger. Sure, you lose three levels of Wizard spell progression, but you’re basically a spellcaster version of the Hexblade Paladin. Another fun build is my “non-copyright samurai space wizard” (coughJedicough) in a Star-Wars-inspired campaign using the Dark Matter setting by Mage Hand Press (this build uses exactly none of the options from that setting). It’s a Variant Human with the Telekinetic feat, and started with 4 levels of Kensei Monk to get Unarmored Defense, Unarmored Movement, Agile Parry, Deflect Missiles, and some Ki Point tricks, then went straight Bladesinger for Bladesong and spells to use as my “Force powers”. Currently at level 12, not counting any magic items, my casual walking-around AC is 18 from Unarmored Defense, the same as if I’d cast mage armor, then I have Bladesong and potentially Agile Parry and shield for a possible total 29 AC (and my Bracers of Defense (+2 AC) and Ioun Stone of Insight (+2 Wisdom) boost that total to 32 AC), not to mention Deflect Missiles to potentially just say “no” to an attack. I’m a monster in melee; one of the other players started calling me “M’Lady Cuisinart”. Is this character optimal? Heck no. I’m 4 levels down in spell progression, only have 4 Ki Points and a 1d4 Martial Arts die, and if something does manage to hit me I can go down pretty quick (which to be fair is thematically appropriate, Jedi canonically tend to get taken out in one or two direct hits).
Level 11 Bladesinger with 3 levels Swashbuckler Rogue. Flametongue Rapier, with Greenflame Blade for Cantrip of choice. So for just the first attack I’m dealing 1d8+4 Piercing, 2d6 Fire, 2d6 Sneak, and 3d8 Fire (with limited AoE) Then add another 1d8+4 Piercing and 2d6 Fire for the second attack and I’d say that’s a pretty good chunk of damage for a single target. Not to mention the extra 10 damage from level 14 Bladesong. As fo being a “squishy wizard”, just take Tough. Your AC is going to be super high with Bladesong, Mage Armor, and Shield, so get Tough to flesh out your HP and get to gishing. I know Haste is a bad word, but add that and your AC shoots up again, and you get another attack to deal at minimum another 1d8+4 and 2d6 Fire. Not to mention Bladesong is built to keep concentration. Add War Caster and now you have even better concentration AND you can use Booming Blade to lock them down as a reaction for damage and CC. Gish may not be “optimal”, but it most certainly isn’t weak if you build a bit for it
It’s worth noting that you can’t use Shadow Blade with Booming Blade due to the lack of a monetary value on the conjured weapon. That said, if you want just pure damage output, try Summon Fey at 4th level for a fuming fey spirit. The fuming fey gets two attacks, one at advantage. Add Help from your familiar and you have advantage on Booming Blade each turn. Not only are you outpacing the melee at melee, you still have all the strengths any wizard would have and all the AC of a barbarian doing it.
If you play a bugbear, you can use their extra reach to make melee attacks and then back away to safety! If you get a hold of eldritch blast, you can combine it with a light crossbow to make a comedic amount of attacks each turn. I could see myself playing this subclass several times with different characters.
Something thing to note: eldritch knight’s 9th (11th?) level feature also works with blade singer extra attack since you can attack cantrip then bonus action attack. You might say it makes you a weaker bladesinger but I say it makes you a stronger eldritch knight. I had a player, incredible luck, rolled 3 17s and a 16 (plus other stuff), took human and a half feat (we started with one) level 3; wizard 2 monk 1 18 ac butt naked 22 with bladesong 27 with shield. It was an unprecedented build that only works if you roll crazy good (it also works with barbarian 1).
The best part about Bladesinger is that you are a Wizard, the best class in the game, that can also mix it up in melee competently. That by itself is awesome. You can build to be a melee striker as a primary role, but my favorite way is to play like a Wizard that can surprise enemies when they charge at the “vulnerable Wizard”.
Optimizing fun is how I make every character. If I make a multiclass character in 5e, I first look at the idea for what the kind of character it’ll be or their inspiration. Then how that inspiration or idea would translate to classes and subclasses, usually informed by RP ideas and then LASTLY I look at how I optimize the classes that combined while still keeping the OG feel or inspiration at the heart of the gameplay. It’s made all my multi classes and even mono class characters with unique feat/item combos REALLY fun in every aspect of the game usually. Love the articles, very informative and now I have ideas for a Bladesinger!
Bladesong’s uses per Long Rest is like Barbarian’s uses of Rage per Long Rest (until 20 when the latter gains unlimited power), so if you know how to effectively use the latter, you can handle the former as well. As a complete tangent that has nothing to do with that except Barbarians, you can get the highest HP in the game solely from the PHB if you take a Bear Totem Hill Dwarf Barbarian with the Tough Feat, 20 Constitution, and have the maximum die roll of HP per level. It’s 440 HP at level 20 since your Con is boosted to 24, but the total is effectively 880 during Rage against all but Psychic damage. Even before then, the hit point pool is monstrous, sometimes rivaling creatures of the CR you may find as bosses of those levels.
For the hasted action, JC has confirmed in a livestreamed sage advice panel that bladesinger’s extra attack does NOT change the casting time of mending. You can start casting mending with it, but you’ll need to concentrate and continue to cast it each turn afterward for the full casting time. Also, Haste has limited synergy with bladesinger’s extra attack. Haste is the specific feature limiting what you can do with the action, but there are a couple loopholes. Namely, that Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade are both… *drumroll*… weapon attacks. So yeah, you can cast THOSE spells with it for your hasted action, but you won’t be able to cast other cantrips that do not have a weapon attack.
It’s really fun on how the Bladesingers are able to pull a Barbarian/Monk to add their main Ability Score to their AC, mixing with Mage Armor at that too. It had me come up with a unique/fun Multiclass idea. What happens when you have a student with a fierce anger problem? Bladesinger Wizard with Barbarian Multiclass~? Casting Mage Armor first, can make the AC 13+Dex+Con, and when needing a boost, Int with Shield for extremes. That’s a Wizard that is NEVER getting hit outside of Nat 20’s~. Another one would be going Monk instead of Barbarian, since no spells while Raging. No double HP but still a nice boost
A solid combo, if multiclassing was on the table, would be the synergy of the Eldritch Knight Fighter with Bladesinger Levels, cause things like War Magic (paired with Bladesinger’s extra attack) and Eldritch Strike (causing disadvantage on spell saves to anyone you hit with your attacks) can be a fun blend overall.
grab a whip? it’s one handed, got reach and finesse, and 1/2 of the time it’s doing as much damage as a rapier without putting you into reaction range of certain enemies. add poison spray and you have a snake themed character who could use expedient retreat to move in, deal damage, and move out. then grab spell sniper and you can booming blade and attack with reach.
I don’t think the Mending bit would work as you described. Just because you can use it in place of one of your attacks, doesn’t mean the casting time would get reduced to the duration of one attack. Neither Actions nor Attacks have a specific durations set for them in the first place, as far as I’m aware anyways. Even if they did though, I don’t think there’s anything to indicate that the casting time of Mending would get reduced to the “casting time” of an attack.
• You can cast mending as part of the Attack action by replacing one of the attacks, but that doesn’t change the casting time. It still takes 1 minute to cast the spell. Quote: (PHB, Chapter 10) “When you cast a spell with a casting time longer than a single action or reaction, you must spend your action each turn casting the spell, and you must maintain your concentration while you do so.”
A good multiclass for bladesingers is the Battlesmith Artificer. It doesn’t slow down your spell progression too much, you don’t have to worry about taking the shield spell, and it allows you to use int for weapons, so you don’t have to focus on dex as much. I personally wouldn’t do more than a 3 level dip if you mainly want to be a Bladesinger, though I could see taking more levels in Bladesinger if you mainly want to be a Battlesmith (6 levels would be good).
actually getting proefficiency in shortsword is optimal because you can dual wield with a shadow blade while also meeting the requirement for booming blade. And melee is still very much viable if you use phantom steed. Move in 50ft, attack and disengage 50 ft. if your steed dies, who cares, you’re a wizard, you can fight at range and it’s only a ritual so you can recast-it right afterward at no ressource cost. A great way to economies bladesongs for non-important fights. Proefficiency in whip also allow you to attack away for enemy reach meaning you don’t need to disengaue you can dash away.
Oh I had a little halfling arcane trickster attending strixheaven I got headband of intellect and a dip in bladesinger. Got whip for that extra martial weapon proficiency. A booming blade/green flame blade, a whip, sneak attack, blurr/mirror image, 22AC + shield spell, expertise in arcana. Once that guy, started to whistle his Indiana jones tunes he was hard to shut up
I built a Bladesinger x Bloodhunter multiclass and it’s the most fun melee build I’ve ever had. Later on when I hit lvl 16 (which the campaign will get too), cause I chose wizard first, my saves for Cha will be the only ones beneath +6, my AC is “haha, try again”, I have silvery barbs AND Shield for further preventing dmg, and get to run around with two hammers and smash things. As a side note, I’m EXTREMELY happy for my stupid high AC… I ended up being party tank
Haste was my first thought when I read the Tasha’s bladesinger, but I was disappointed after the haste reading (though it is dm dependent). Though it is cool that I’m not the only one who thought of it Also it might just be me, but I think it’s hilarious that gator mentioned shadow blade and you just dismissed it. As a fan of d4: D&D Deep Dive I’ve always thought his shadow blade favoritism was way over the top
I loved my bladesinger. My spellbook was a mind flayer skull (that talked to him) total Jekyll and Hyde vibes. So when I would bladesong I would actually RP going insane. I would thunder step into combat and then melee it up! I eventually re-classed into Order of Mutant Blood hunter. I miss spells, but blood maladies are cool too.
What’s very fun is my player’s character who has 33 AC completely legally If curious: Wizard: Bladesinger Monk: kensei They rolled really good stats, have unarmored defense from monk, blade song bonus, +2 bonus from using kensei weapon, and +5 from shield spell. They still take damage from saving throws, and have a shit charisma, so they aren’t as OP as one might think.
I decided to play bladesinger because I like playing rangers usually. Since my party (3 players in total) already had two spellcasters, I decided that I didn’t want to be an offensive caster and specced into charm spells and crowd control. I’m having a blast playing a manipulative enchantress that is also the main dodgetank of the group. Very far from optimal, still mighty enjoyable. ^^
I love my bladesinger. Just a few things. I just double checked my character on d&d beyond. You lose bladesonger if you wear medium armor or use a shield. Other then that a great break down. Mine is disgusting with mage armor. Dex 20, Mirror image, bladesong. 13+5+4=22 . I’m generally the tank on the team. With shield bumping me to 27. Love the idea of 1 level of artificer I’ve been seeing
About the Mending part, that’s… wrong. Yes, Specific beats General, but you need to remember one thing: most cantrips work with the Extra Atttack interaction because they have a casting time of 1 Action, having both its start and ending at the same action. With Mending’s 1 minute, you will still need to keep going with the verbal and somatic components during its time. Replacing your extra attack with the casting replace it with the start of casting, not with the full casting of a spell, so in a game, you replace your melee attack with the casting Mending and then… you spend 10 rounds doing nothing while repairing an object. You can however replace the first attack with True Strike and get advantage on the second attack! It’s useless, but it’s better useless than True Strike in general!
But Kobold, mage armor is really only good in tier 1. The moment your DM starts putting out +1 studded leather it is now just as good as mage armor but doesn’t cost a spell slot, that’s a free shield/fog cloud/absorb elements. Plus if the armor has any benefit no matter how niche that is just free cheddar for the build, no matter how situational like +1 mariners armor, or how asthetic like +1 studded glamour leather, or even as silly as a free cape of billowing, or as great as a resistance to an element like fire, cold, or acid. Most games can reasonably see items like this starting to show up between levels 7 and 9.
Treantmonk’s Bladesinger build is also straight wizard, with a goblin for BA hide to protect concentration. I kinda like to get a level of rogue to start with for the expertises (esp stealth) and hand crossbow proficiency, and if you have decent dex then you can fill the party’s rogue skills as well.
You know, there are rules for spellcasting. Bladesingers feature doesn’t affect spellcasting time, it just says that you cast it. Just like in “Cast a spell” action. Because casting 1 spell can take several turns to cast, you must invest every turn’s action in to it. So even if you use an action to cast a spell, that doesn’t mean spell is done and takes effect – because some spells take longer than 1 action to cast. Bladesinger’s “Extra Attack” combines casting of a cantrip within 1 action. Even if you choose to cast mending with it, you have to continue to do so for next 9 turns on same thing to finish casting, just like with any other spell that has long casting time.
Gator sounds like one of the annoying kids from Home Movies. After carful consideration I decided that being a wizard is too good to try and make this a melee class. Sure you use melee, but it’s only part of your wizard kit. There’s a sweet spot around levels 6-10 where you use melee more, but once you can polymorph or shapechange then you can’t justify using bladesong as your bread and butter. Wizards are great and bladesinging is just another tool in your kit. Don’t try to make it your whole identity and expect to out DPS a REAL melee class like a fighter or paladin.
Tbh I kinda agree with gator, the excuse for not discussing shadow blade is kinda bull considering you discussed booming blade and haste for how they interact with the subclass, and you said it’s a spell not a feature but previous said the blade song feature is essentially ‘get durability AND full spell progression’ which would make spells that scale pretty well like shadow blade very much relevant to that
Half Elf Wizard Bladesinger 8/Warlock Hexblade Pact of the Blade 12 build. Standard array 8 12 13 15 10 14, +1 Con +1 Int +2 Cha. ASIs: Crossbow Expert, Sharpshooter, +2 Cha, +2 Cha, +2 Int. Get a hand crossbow (magic preferable, dragonwing optimal), make it your pact weapon. At level 8 (6/2) you’re doing hand crossbow and eldritch blast x2 (agonizing blast) plus bonus action hand crossbow every round, all at your Charisma modifier to attack and damage. With advantage with Devil’s Sight invocation under darkness spell. You’re welcome.
i am currently playing a bladesinger with a glamoured studded leather armor and an animated shield. i got an 18 on dexterity so my AC is 12+1 for the magic bonus of the armor+4 for my dexterity+4 for my itelligence in bladesong +2 of the shield that is floating around me without me holding it, making it a total of 23 base AC on bladesong, going to 25 if i use Tasha’s Otherwordly Guise reaching 30 with the shiled spell. i also cast animate object on 3 non-magical swords i always have on my back so i am going completely fucking insane at all times. but before all this i always give the samurai Haste to start the party faster
I see Bladesinger melee as being opportunistic. Using magic to soften up enemies for either yourself or your party to finish off. Preferably going into melee when it suits them or if they’re forced into melee. And even then it’s hard to even touch them. Some of my favorite spells for Bladesingers include Shocking Grasp, True Strike (no really), Slow, Ashardalon’s Stride, Steel Wind Strike, Tasha’s Otherworldly Guise, and Foresight.
I played a pre-Tasha’s Bladesinger in Tomb of Annihilation, and it was the most fun I’ve had as a player. At his strongest (level 15), he had an AC 26 with Disadvantage (16 Dex + studded leather armor + 20 INT + Shield + Ring of Defense + Cloak of Displacement) and +13 with Advantage on Concentration checks (14 Con + 20 Int + proficiency thanks to Resilient + Ring of Defense + Warcaster). There were also many options with damage mitigation to balance out the lackluster hit points associated with squishy wizards. Attack rolls? Shield rarely goes wrong. Elemental save-based damaging effects such as a red wizard’s Lightning Bolt or a red dragon’s fire breath? Absorb Elements halves it. Save-based damaging effects that bypass Absorb Elements such Valindra’s Disrupt Life? Song of Defense. There was a contingency for everything. The major challenge was option paralysis: you only get one reaction per turn and concentrate on one spell at a time, so I spent a lot of time weighing pros and cons as to whether or not I wanted to, for example, maintain concentration on Sunbeam against the atropol or drop it in favor of Telekinesis to save the Warlock who fell into the lava. If I used Absorb Elements against Valindra’s Fireball, I’m screwed if she decides to use her Legendary Action Disrupt Life, since I can’t use Song of Defense. But that’s the same drawback for any other wizard or spellcaster anyway. The way I played Bladesinger, and probably the most optimal way, is to focus a bit more on melee at lower levels in order to extend the longevity of your spell slots, and once you hit Level 5-7, start transitioning to being a dedicated caster.
In my games, players always get a replacement proficiency if a feature gives them a proficiency they already have. I also have some alternatives to the rapier on my weapons table, a finesse slashing weapon called a “saber” for example, and a finesse bludgeoning called a “chain”. I had a bladesinger once in my games, he was doing fantastic, but for some reason he was always dissatisfied with not being as good at melee combat as other players, it was strange.
I had made a zariel tiefling that was a Battle Smith Artificer Bladesinger, but I rolled some wacky stats, getting 6 Str/16 Dex/16 Con/18 Int/14 Wis and 18 Cha after modifiers. My backstory is that my Zariel tiefling comes from a family of bladesingers that use flametongue rapiers for their duels and performances, and are called the Fire Dancers. My bladesinger meanwhile was born with Muscular Dystrophy, so his family didn’t let them perform alongside them. So to prove how wrong they were to look down on him the way they did, he is setting out to be the best bladesinger anyone has ever seen. The multiclass itself is actually 3 Battlesmith/3 College of Swords/14 Bladesinger for even more AC and combat options. It also gives me expertise in acrobatics and performance so I can further play into the fantasy of a performer.
what you say is mostly correct from the pure optimazing, but if you want to stay a range and use your spell there are better subclasses to do that and more optimal, if you pick this class you pick it for his flavor (at least most people do)… and that mean use your wizard at mele but you never has to lose to that mind set because you are a full wizard and with that you may end an encounter early if you play smart with your spell slots…
I love this subclass a lot and I’d multi-class with it as an Arcane Trickster Rogue. It’s really good if your party have trouble getting through traps or chests. And you get tons of proficiencies that help with out of combat solutions. I could get my AC up to 28 with Shield. If you wanna be a more melee focused Bladesinger, multiclassing into rogue until you get Magical Ambush is neat! Do be warned! This is a late game build that comes online once you’ve hit between lvl 10-12. Don’t multiclass if the campaign will finish around those levels.
Bit of an error with the mending casting time; the bladesinging extra attack ability doesn’t say it changes the casting time of a spell, and things only do what they say they do. Spells with a casting time longer than 1 action require your action and each subsequent action to cast. You can satisfy using your action to initially cast it, because nothing in the rules says it has to be your whole action, just your action, which you’re using when you cast it as part of extra attack. It’s just the same as how the extra attack ability doesn’t let you cast bonus action or reaction spells; extra attack is an action and thus can only cast action spells using (part of) your action. Easy enough mistake to make, just remember that things do what they say and nothing more, nothing less. ;
Honestly, I really want to make a bladesinger just to be a melee wizard, I understand that wizards aren’t the best for it. Thats why it always tempts me to make a wizard that for first level picked artificer which means nothing for the character apart from armor prof and an actual starting weapon, also something something spell progression stays the same idk I read that somewhere
always loved how Drow actually interacts with Bladesingers, giving you hand crossbow which is technically one handed so Bladesong is usable with it. even crossbow expert is nice, giving you a bonus action attack at low level and once you have the spells to replace that, it still leaves you with that nice no disadvantage to ranged attack in melee range feature. (especially if your DM does like you take a feat at level one, it really helps with the whole “surviving being a low level wizard” thing)
Super Advantage is a house rule I used in my 4E game when you have two or more advantage sources: roll 2D20, keep higher, adding a fully-stacking +1D6 Mage Armor … why isn’t this a ritual spell? The idea that a wizard should use a crossbow rather than At-Will cantrips is one of my biggest problems with 5E: Casters don’t add their primary ability modifier to their damage … complaints about weak martials incoming … yeah, I fixed them up too.
You know, I think Gator has bit of a point. Should have talked a bit about the Shadowblade spell. Can be really powerful with a Bladesinger. How so? Its a spell that takes a Bonus action to cast and conjures a simple weapon for the deration (Concentration: 1 minute). The weapon has the Simple, Light, Finesse and THROWN properties. You have to use the Attack Action to attack with it and deals 2d8 (upcasting ads more d8s). Throwing it is an attack, but it disappears after the turn it is thrown, so how can you you make use of the Extra Attack? Replace second attack with ranged cantrip (Fire bolt for example.). Next turn, Bonus action to summon the blade back while spell persists and throw it again with another follow up cantrip. Maybe add the Sharpshooter Feat to throw the Shadowblade the full 60ft without disadvantage. But what if you get caught into melee after throwing it? Well, Shadowblade is a Light weapon, so have a second light weapon with you and use your Bonus Action to use Bladesong instead of summoning the blade back. You next turn, if still in melee, summon the Shadowblade and go to town on the pesky melee fighter with both your light and finesse melee weapons. Add in the Duel Wielder feat for that +1 to AC while dual wielding. All that said though, I do have one question about the Shadow Blade spell. Being a Weapon Attack to deal damage with it, does it add your ability mod to the attack and damage as with normal weapons. As in dealing 2d8+Dex, or is it just flat 2d8?
I played as a Bladesinger as a lord/noble. I’m a proud “minionmancer” and enjoyed roleplaying the caster/fencing prince archetype. Very Renaissance. A highlight of the build came from being directly challenged. Our party became THE boss fight. My character was wielding an actual army of NPC’s and eventually was challenged to a duel by the enemy Orc Warchief. My bladesinger laughed and went, “you seek to challenge me, a wizard, to a melee duel. A martial duel against the wizard? Alright, I accept and will give you a coward’s death!” After casting Foresight longstride mage armor and haste and at a level where I could cast shield for free, the Warchief learned a wizard with a base 30 AC, 100 ft of movement, 3 attacks, and a base +14 to hit, advantage on all rolls and giving disadvantage on everything against him, was not as much of a pushover as he thought. The war ended there on the field.
Here’s a fun little tank build. I dub it the tank singer. You can get this by level five. But only if you roll the dice and put an 18 into intelligence and pick up an extra two intelligence through varied races. Or just be a tortle and start with a 17 AC Blade singer+2 lvl Fighter battlemaster +3 lvl Maneuver evasive footwork 1d8 Shield+5 Blade singer +5 AC ( mage armor+2 dex) +15 Total 26-33 AC at lvl 5 Choose the tortle race bumps it up to 28-35 AC Choose the barrier tattoo. That’s an 18 AC 29-36 Battlemaster gives you action surge. That’s two spells you can cast. And other fighter maneuvers for extra damage. Also a bit more health Realistically not a lot of campaigns get to level 20. The chances of you getting 9th level spells kind of low. Even if you do get 9th level spells and this is just me. I think it’s better RP to get them at level 20. It allows you to enjoy the aspects of fighting up close and personal more often.
Multi-class 1 level into Monk and 2 to 5 levels into fighter. You gain the Monk’s Unarmored Defense, and the Fighter’s fighting style, second wind, and action surge. Sure, you will not get access to 8th or 9th level spells but you gain additional AC and those fighter HP. If you take the fighter up to 5th level, you gain the Martial Archetype, ASI and Extra Attack of the fighter. Yes, according to Jeremy Crawford, you gain the extra Attacks at level 5 for fighter and the extra attack at level 6 for the Bladesinger. It is a class feature and a sub-class feature that is gained at different levels. If the Bladesinger gained the Extra Attack at level 5, you wouldn’t get the extra attack feature for both. Sure, going all the way to 5th level fighter limits you to gaining access to 7th level spells, but you still gain the 8th and 9th level spell slots for up casting. So, a 14th level Bladesinge/1st level monk/5th level fighter would have a potential 14d6+1d8+5d10 hit dice and have access to 7th level wizard spells with a 20th level wizard’s spell slots, unarmored defense, the Fighter’s fighting style, second wind, martial archetype, 4 ASIs and 2 Extra Attacks, arcane recovery, arcane tradition, monk’s unarmed fighting, action surge and the class features for bladesinger and the martial archetype. If you Eldritch Knight you gain additional spell slots and cantrips, or Battle Master for the combat superiority. AC: 10+ Dexterity mod + Wisdom mod + Intelligence mod and then cast unarmored defense to start the equation at 13 and gain your Dexterity mod again (it is a magical source, so it doesn’t stack with your class feature) and you have 71 HP (using average dice rolls of 3.
I remember back when I was trying to work out how to make a kind of redmage character (like the class from ff14) and blade song is probably the closest you can get to a redmage in terms of single class but with multi-classing I found out that blades bard is probably your best to get this because of their flourish features as you can combine these with the martial attack of booming blade and using a push flourish, to not just push the target away from you but to also apply the booming blade’s second effect, honestly there are allot of different creative builds and character ideas you can get from bladesong if you want the kind of magical musketeer character
My favorite combo is 9 Bladesinger, 11 Eldritch Knight with the Armor of Shadows invocation from Eldritch Adept. With Warmagic, Haste, and Bladesinger’s extra attack. You have 3 attacks base, haste action, Action Surge, Catrips instead if attacks if you wanted, bonus action cantrip, etc. and if you’re playing an aasimar, or other race with flight you can freaking fly too. Basically making your character Superman. If you want to be an optimal gish, this is how you do it. But this combo is very high level. Some campaigns my never get even remotely this high. But even it’s nerfed cousin 6/7 for a 13th level character is still very powerful. With 2 attacks base, haste action, and attack cantrip. You may be playing with a make-shift d8, but it’ll be fine.
— Lennie — George’s Opposite “Behind him was his opposite, a huge man” Lennie is described as physically vast, heavily contrasting his partner, George. His description also focuses on him being ‘slow’, referencing his intellectual disability whilst contrastibg George’s quickness and intelligence. Lacks awareness “An… An I done it… An then he was dead”. The repitition of ellipsis and “an”, which is childish language, exemplifies his overall lack of awareness. He fails to understand the gravitas of the consequences of his actions. Innocent “Lennie covered his face with his giant paws and bleated in terror” Animalistic language like “paws” and “bleated” accentuate his innocence, metaphorically describing his attitude as that of a passive animal. Despite his aggressor, Curley, being much smaller than him, he refuses to attack back. Sweet “”You take a big drink” He smiled happily”” Despite having been shouted at by George, Lennie “smiles happily” when finding water. It is evident he is pleased by small things. Likes to pet things “I like to pet things… sof things.”
I’m combining Bladesinger with lvl 2 rogue right now, so I can disengage as a bonus action after attacking in melee range, but I’m taking spells that disallow opportunity attacks (cantrip shocking grasp, level 1 spells id insinuation, thunderwave and level 3 spell Ashardalon’s Stride) so that if I’m only in range of 1 enemy on my turn, I can use that to save my bonus action to hide instead. That way I have advantage on my next turn’s attack, which as a rogue, gives me extra damage output through Sneak Attack. Also, I’m a Tabaxi, so in total I have tons of speed. I can’t wait to get the level 3 spell Ashardalon’s Stride to weaponize that speed, or the level 2 spell Rope Trick to abuse my climb speed! I think the verbal-only cantrip Sword Burst (for when you’re restrained) and level 2 spell Mirror Image (to make enemies attack the air) also fits the bladesinger-rogue very well thematically.
My favourite character was a bladesinger wizard. At level 2, they had a functional AC of 24 (+3 dex, +3 int, mage armour, shield). The DM for the campaign which featured this character is the most brutal DM I have ever had. Combats were always fatal which brought both frustration and meaning to each of them. Fortunately, the AC on this character meant that they could act as the wall. There was a moment in a lvl 3 combat where I also prevented a counterspell with shocking grasp which was fun (DM was not happy, no opportunity attacks + no counterspell = unyielding rage). I ended up having to retire that character before it hit lvl 5 (where it would’ve gotten blur on top of mirror image) due to a scenario where he got trapped in a dungeon for 2 and a half months so justifiably went insane (DM basically said that I will never roll insight correctly again) and drank a suspicious liquid which gave me a permanent debuff to strength based rolls. Don’t blame the DM because my character was a little OP and could steal the party’s thunder a lot but kinda upset that he didn’t die a hero’s death
Nice article, but the line about mending is bullshit. I mean yes, you can use your attack action to start casting Mending, but have fun using 10 Rounds of battle to cast one single cantrip I mean, what do u expect? Pre battle: cast mage armor for 8hours Turn 1 cast shield – enemy dashes to get into melee turn 2 Bladesong started. Bumbs up AC to 25 (lets say, u have dex and Int 18, because it doesn*t matter) then u attack twice, where 1 is your cantrip instead. so 1 hit, and 1 time start casting mending. the enemy tries to hit u but misses to high ac. (because this is an example and noone cares for the enemy) turn 3-10 you are still casting mending aswhile the enemy tries to hit u and misses everything in all of these 8 turns. Turn 11: your cantrip is finaly finished to do nothing. I mean it`s mending… then your bladesong and your shieldspell runs out. your AC is “just” 18 now. The enemy starts hitting you to death (because he is able to hurt u now and I want to end this example) Sure mending is just an example here and could be swaped out to any cantrip. Even this example could be relevant. Maybe you required to mend something to free your friends from a cage, or something. It could be fluffy. But you had the alternative to hit the enemy 10 times + 10 cantrips of booming blade, or green flame blade instead…. I mean potentialy the encounter could have been alredy ended instead… The game has 29 Cantrips for wizard bladesingers, which can be completly casted within 1 action (exactly which the bladesinger skill gives to you, until the next combat round starts) Even using the messege cantrip to taunt or insult your oponent would be more usefull then mending (or any other multiple combatrounds cantrips)
There are only 3 ways to play a bladesinger. Bladesinger 6 arkane trickster 14 any spell above 3rd is kinda useless u have fireball counterspell and haste. Blade singer2 fighter 18 eldritch knight/psionic knight either is fine and let’s you feel like a jedi. You could also go into soul knife 3 as well this makes things awkward unless your starting at 10+ Battlesmithe 3/4 (depending if u want the extra asi or wish/meteor) Bladesinger16/17 This lets you only realy care about int and dex is more of a when I get it I get it, and you can make whatever sword u get +1 better and make it glow you get a litterly disposable toaster to eat a hit or 2 for you every fight or help you flank if u play with flanking. And at 14 wizard you actually get to add ur int twice to wepon attacks since 1 is a replacement effect and the other is a also effect as you can add it, and it doesn’t check what your first bonus was. Also take the feat to get dualing fighting style So if u hadn’t maxed ur dex your avarage damage would still be 4.5+10+2, and then you can booming blade or green flame blade your second attack to boost more damage then misty step away
Just commenting here to say that Bladesinger makes me upset because of their “use a cantrip with extra attack” privileges. Armourer artificer doesn’t get Bladesinger extra attack and it would really appreciate it! The entire fantasy of creating and wearing a tricked out power armour like that is unloading a barrage of different weapons into your enemies, but Armourer only gets Int to attack and damage with their specific armour weapons, and each armour only has one! The solution? Fire Bolt and other cantrips, since they’re all flavoured as gadgets and weapons built into your armour anyway. If they could use cantrips alongside their weapon, they’d be really fun and fit the fantasy they’re trying to portray much better. Also, why doesn’t Armourer get Int to concentration saves? They’re supposed to be a viable melee tank. Why don’t they get Shield? They’re supposed to be a viable melee tank. Why isn’t their temp HP feature usable more often? They’re supposed to be a viable melee tank. Why can’t they use Booming Blade with their thunder gauntlets? They’re supposed to be a viable melee tank. Armourer sucks, and I hate that DMs are never willing to give it the buffs it needs to function as a gish.
My favorite way to play this subclass is to dip twilight cleric and use twilight sanctuary to guarantee advantage on shadow blade. Since I’m mainly there for the dim light, I don’t care too much if DM nerfs the other parts of twilight cleric. Take elven accuracy and it’s pretty reliable damage. Obviously not optimal but super fun!
As someone who just finished a lvl13 campaign as Blade singer/artificer I’d just like to point out you still have low hp so consider false life as your highest spell slot. For example 6th level false life can save your life with about 30 extra hp so at least think about it. Especially if as a Blade singer you’re not actually back row but instead you’re middle row so that you can be in range for the Counter spell and Dispel magic arms race. In fact Most wizards cant be back row due to spell ranges of 30 ft being common. Back row is 120ft and beyond Emphasis on beyond if the party rouge has a longbow and sharpshooter. I personally went with a a multi class wizard 10 and artificer3 (battle smith) so i wasn’t the optimal Blade singer but i also had more hp so when the final boss room turned out to be very small and the tank Cleric needed support being out of the enemy monk/paladin’s mellee range wasn’t that much of an option. False life might be The most important Blade singer spell. If you can get it though contingency all the better. Also I’m pretty sure even the most flexible DMs wont let that mending thing slide due to RAI it’s meant for green flame blade and booming blade alternatively firebolt. They shouldn’t need to specifiy it has to be an action or less.
bladesinger with mobility wrecks against melee combatants. Go in, booming blade, get out with no AoO. They try to chase? Boom. If you started within 10ft of the opponent, you can even be 40ft away by the end of the turn. I could also see a rogue benefitting from a dip in bladesinger. Especially an arcane trickster who would get a solid spell slot boost from the caster levels and ironically be able to combine booming blade, sneak attack, and cunning action disengage for Massive poke damage.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned this but- play a bladesinging gunslinger- just max out your dex and int and you’re basically untouchable. If you’re using a revolver or pistol this works, even better- if you DO use a revolver you can cast any sort of cantrip once you use an attack action to reload. Let’s say you take magic initiate and get eldritch blast. If we’re going by the subclass gunslinger rules and you’ve got a pepperbox- fire all those shots and once you’ve gotta reload, do that then pop eldritch blast and hit 2-4 people. Not to mention if you’ve got hex and sharpshooter available. This is what I did with my reborn half-elf, he’s a drunkard and starts out as a gunslinger but as he goes further on he starts sobering up and studying wizardry. I promise you he’s a beast- all hail Gunsinger!
Melee sucks. Played a Gloomstalker/Death Cleric for a oneshot. And don’t get me wrong, it was very fun to decapitate basically everyone but the boss in a single swing. But I entered the Bossfight with 2 website Divinities, and I left it with 1. Damn bosses always have some movement option to make melee almost impossible, and then literally 0 defense against range.
I had a blade song once that had a +3 to intelligence and to dexterity (I rolled really good on stats) and one of my favorite things to do with him was to cast haste on him, because the AC bonus that haste gave I ended up having two actions, 80 ft of movement, and an AC of 21, 26 if I used Shield, with all the hit and run I was doing i was basically the Flash.
Get constitution modifier bonus equal to intelligence while maintaining concentration on a spell. Oh no. COncentration on mage hand would mean that while maintaining focus or what have you basically means oh, that stinking corpse show over there I threw up on? Try again while maintaing concentration on something random. (A spell still, but a spell.. Makes sence Oh now, going through a get beaten by crap and fall if fail constituion when hit> uh oh, better distract myself so I increase my chances of not failing down into the pit of cold and wetness. Makes little sence unless you can aruge that it’s the flinching that causes you to fall off, or responce to pain or what have you. I love it. A spell. Sounds to much like any spell. I can’t help but laugh.
I still think melee Bladesingers are better than the version with with crossbow expert. I actually recommend SpiritsHroud for concentration, since one can use it on any weapon or spell attack, alowing it to use it on ranged cantrips as well as on two-weapon fighting and works with magic weapons unlike shadow blade. Also even with sharpshooter, upcasting spirit shroud to 5th lvl is better than making ranged sharpshooter attacks. Also the capstone is actually amazing. On a melee focused Baldesinger it can add 15 dmg+ per round. it is only boring and bad ir you really want to go for the ranged version. But on most Bladesingeringers this capstone is acutally awesome.
Swashbuckler Rogue, Bladesinging Wizard, and with a 20 in Dex, you’re looking at at least 120 move speed (150 move speed with mobile, and even more if faster race). With sneak attack and shadowblade, this can be a very powerful burst, while you easily get out of range of any melee that would chase you (unless they can move faster than 80 (100 ) feet per turn and still attack). This is traumatizing if you also expertise stealth and seemingly just appear and disappear.
I think using shadow blade and booming blade and song of victory and mirror image and all this fun stuff is a good idea, you are right that melee attacks are worse than casting your disintegrates and fireballs and illusions and stuff, but if you are level 15 and there are 2 CR8 monsters guarding the entrance to the dungeon, you arent going to be doing anything more than sneaking up with pass without trace, and killing them fast with regular weapon attacks, and maybe just a couple class features or low level spell slots. Your melee options let you kill weak encounters on the cheap. Extra attack with booming blade is way, way better than firebolt. If a divination wizard wanted to get the job done fast for few resources, they would be casting shit like scorching ray or sleep or catapult. You do more damage without expending your precious spell slots. You can even get back your hp and low level spells with a short rest. But your high level stuff is just gone for the whole day.
I’m with you on Haste. 5e Haste is okay – but not great. Generally there are better spells for your concentration. Older editions’ Haste spells were much better. Only time 5e Haste is really good is when a sorcerer uses it with Twinning metamagic. Concentration to get Haste on one character? Meh. On two characters? Heck yeah!
So to explain the Lineage/racial restriction. It works in Sword Coast Adventures guide because that was a setting book and in the forgotten realms, Bladesinger is a specific drow tradition of goodly drow priestesses. Tasha’s is however setting agnostic and simply provides the classes and powers with no setting context. Such context is on the DMs to provide and I think Wizard’s is doing a poor job of maintaining their own lore and encouraging DMs to create their own because of book like Tasha’s. A better way to handle these changes is to show how they work in one setting and simply noting somewhere in the book that the racial/cultural restrictions are for a Lore/Setting reason than anything mechanical and players should feel free to ask their DM if these classes have any racial/cultural restrictions in their own settings.
Your snarky readings of RAW are always good for a chuckle but risk confusing new players. Crawford actually ruled that Bladesinger Extra Attack doesn’t change the casting time of the cantrip you sub in with it. What that means for Bonus Action cantrips, I don’t know. But it does mean that Mending isn’t cast any quicker.
Holy sht the bit about Mending helps me SO much I have a (Artifacer Battle Smith 3 / Bladesinger 6+) character for the flavor, CON save, Battle Ready (Hex Weapon for INT) and the Steel Defender that greatly aids your tankiness The only part of the Defender that doesnt scale with PB is its HP, so being able to use Mending as part of an Attack is going to be amazing for keeping it alive
Currently got a character i’m playing in a Strixhaven campaign. Starting off as a Rogue, and I’m planning to combine Swashbuckler and Bladesinging. The idea is to do hit and run attacks in combat, relying on the speed increase and bonus to AC from Bladesinging as well as Fancy Footwork from Swashbuckler, then combine it with the Mage armour, longstrider and shield spells. Also throw in haste down the line. Run in with 50ft movement, attack the enemy, likely with sneak attack, then bonus action dash away using Cunning Action and Fancy Footwork, not triggering an enemy Attack of Opportunity. and Spells wise I’m going to grab as many spells that would improve and stack with my normal attacks and Sneak attack, like Green Flame blade, grab find familiar so that my familiar can use the help action ensuring I get my sneak attack whenever and then just fill out the rest with spells that would keep me in the fight like False Life. Was also considering maybe dipping 2 levels into fighter for Second Wind and Action surge.
When i was creating my character i got really good rolls (18,18,16,14,10,8) and we started at 6 lvl so i went 18cha 18int 16con 14dex 10 wis 8str. You may ask why 18 cha? Because i wanted to go all in in multiclassing. Now at lvl 8 i have 6lvl bladesinger 1 lvl hexblade warlock and 1 lvl in rogue. With 1 asi (+2 to dex) so after that i will go 11 warlock 8 wiz and 1 rogue (i picked him only for expertise and thieves cant for rp reasons) so yeah i basically turn my wiz into full fledged gish but worse. Only hope for eldritch blast… Tho i really like him so yeah it may be a bad build but it’s fun.
Near the end of a given campaign, it’d be fun to use True Polymorph to turn into a Marileth (and potentially stay as one). Sticking with their multiattack (not using Extra Attack and so unable to using a cantrip in place of one of the attacks), you’ll be attacking 6 times with blades for 2d8+8 and with your tail for 2d10+8 damage. Assuming you decide to become a Marileth permanently, you could then also combine it with Foresight for advantage on basically everything plus all enemies having disadvantage against you. For additional bullshit and assuming you’re an elf or half-elf, you could have Elven Accuracy to have effectively double advantage on attacks that don’t use Strength, and considering how many attacks you’d have in this situation, I’d say it works out pretty well. Additionally, you could use a spell like Spirit Shroud (probably a good idea) or Tenser’s Transformation (probably a bad idea) to get even more damage on each attack.
I’m currently playing a strength based unarmed FISTSINGER wizard who breaks skulls with his bare hands. We play with rolled attributes, which is the only way to decently play this character, and the dm had to make an exception to let me pick the Fighting Initiate feat at level 1 (which isn’t so bad, since bladesingers get a martial proficiency at level 2), but it is a blast to play with.
Does anyone else have an issue with how he deals with criticism? What I’m referring to is the “I’m against melee but you should play how you want to play! It’s your character!” section starting at 7:44 . He explains to the viewer the negativity he gets for disapproving of melee, then puts the blame onto his fictional character Kobold before telling his audience not to follow his beliefs. Then by the next panel he begins telling his audience how to play optimally, completely contradicting what he said mere seconds ago in the article. I have rarely seen any sort of criticism on this website and if it does appear then it’s often about how he got the facts wrong, not how his beliefs are wrong. Whatever he thinks his audience is doing is not what we are doing, and delves into the world of hypocrisy to justify his actions. Nevertheless this website will continue to grow, but I feel as though if what he does doesn’t stop then it will only turn into an ugly reality.
This wasn’t brought up in the article, but don’t forget a 3 level dip into Battle Smith Artificer, makes Wizards hugely SAD because it lets you use Intelligence for your weapon attacks if using a magic weapon. Which you always will, because you’re an Artificer. If you’re really gunning for an up close and personal magic swordsman, this is a fair multiclass
My favorite bladesinger I ran was actually just a gunsinger Gunner feat and sharp shooter ofc Just flavor wise shooting firebolts and disintegrates out of a pistol was 10/10 fun. Also when you don’t feel like using more than one spell haste and dual wielding the pistols worked amazingly. Had my personal pistols enchanted with elemental weapon at level 20 each doing an extra 3d4+3 every shot It’s just fun so thought I’d mention it
Specific rules only trumps general if it contradicts a general rule, but Extra Attack doesn’t contradict the rules of spellcasting, because the general rule says that if you were to cast a spell with a casting time longer than an action using an action then said spell only begins being cast and eats up your concentration until you finish casting it. This means that if you attack, extra attack Mending, then the cantrip would not come up immediatly, only start being cast until it finishes 10 rounds later.
I would like your opinion on how arcane trickster rogue is low key one of the best assassins. Specifically these options. Chill touch is a ranged attack roll, and thus can apply sneak attack when they have advantage. Chill touch states that a ghostly hand appears in their square, unlike ray spells there is nothing to track it back to the player. (Optimize with subtle spell metamagic) this allows the player to attack an individual that they can see and are within range. You could literally be attending the ball and assassinate the king. Yay charismatic rogues. Second, abusing familiars. First gain advantage against the attack, then deliver touch spell with your familiar at up to 100 feet, coming from a different direction, deliver touch spell plus sneak attack. Finally, and assassin could take the feats metamagic adept, And magic initiate / picking one of the strixhaven backgrounds to add these tactics to their repertoire.
Alternate builds: start with paladin so you get that proficiency with a long sword AND lay on hands. OR even better start with fighter to also get Longsword proficiency- nevermind I just read the rules on bladesong and it’s doesn’t work while attacking with 2 handed weapons…oops. but other than That you get second wind
The fantasy I definetly have with this class at level 6 is duel weilding a rapier and a shadow blade. Use 1 attack with booming blade on the rapier and the other attack using shadow blade. If you need to cast any other spells with material components, you can sheeth your rapier with a free object interaction and then draw it on your next turn.
I am playing a bladesinger fighter warlock rn. very fun once you get the special extra attack. hexblade warlock allows you to use your melee weapon as an arcane focus with improved pact weapon. If you get the crossbow expert feat, you can just run to an enemy, punch them and throw eldritch blast at them over and over again. very fun would recommend
I’ll just say, as tough as it is not having access to higher level spells, a three level dip in arcane trickster gives you more consistent damage output with +2d6 sneak on your green flame or booming shadow blade cantrips, plus the addition of a bonus action disengage to kite for free while blade singing. The rest of arcane trickster is pretty useless (except for extra cantrips + some level 1 known spells) but it gets you a caster level and helps mitigate the loss of 3 caster levels to 2 for the upside of just a bunch more resources to draw from. Plus mage hand legardemain can still be situationally useful out of combat for sneak thievery or distracting a guard.