Bladesinger's cantrips

[spartan_ah]

Started playing a bladesinger and I find the firebolt unnecessary.
With a long bow a compete with damage for most of my career. Am I missing something?
What would you take as cantrips for a bladesinger?

[Mandragola]

Couple of things:

The cantrips in the sword coast book work pretty well with bladesinging.

And you can't use a longbow while bladesinging! It's a two-handed weapon, so using it ends bladesinging. It isn't bowsinging, it's bladesinging :)

That said, you can use it while not bladesinging - that's ok. It won't get your int added to damage, but that's probably not a huge issue.

[MeeposFire]

If you are not interested in the attacking cantrips just go for utility ones. Cantrips like minor illusion, prestidigitation, and the like are actually very fun and useful in many situations.

[BurchardOfEn]

There are some utilities granted to you indirectly by Firebolt. As Mandragola noted, a Longbow(or any non-Hand Crossbow) would end your Bladesong. You'd also have to use an action to put away your bow and get out one sword. The Firebolt doesn't exclude you from having one out sword if someone gets close, so you don't have to waste that action to get ready for melee combat. My personal recommendation for Cantrips would be Firebolt or Ray of Frost and either Green-Flame Blade or Booming Blade for combat cantrips. I'd personally lean towards Green-Flame Blade, but a Mobile Bladesinger could well make use of Booming Blade if you went for that.

[Mandragola]

I don't think you'd have to spend an action putting the bow away if you started bladesinging. You're allowed to hold a two-handed weapon in one hand, just not attack with it. So if someone gets close you can pull your rapier out and attack.

I still don't think a bow is all that needed for a bladesinger. The question is whether you put ASIs into int or dex - but personally I don't think there's any doubt that int must go up first. If you do that then your cantrips are going to hit more often, even if they do a bit less damage. Having said that, you don't need warcaster so much as a bladesinger, so that does save you an ASI to put into dex if you want.

Finally, it's possible that you could find a cool magic bow that nobody else needs. That would obviously change things quite a bit.

[BurchardOfEn]

The action to put away the bow was so that he'd still have a free hand to cast spells with.

[spartan_ah]

My assumption is that ranged cantrips are less likely to be used while bladesinging. I'd prefer entering the bladesong when I get into melee. Therefore I thought that while ranged I can use my long bow and when getting into melee enter bladesong.
And if the need occur I'm still a full caster so I can cast scorching ray and so forth...
I took GFB, minor illusion and still debating about the 3rd cantrip. If I'll changed my mind I can always take fire bolt at 4th level.

[Dalebert]

And you can't use a longbow while bladesinging! It's a two-handed weapon...

Crap! I can't believe this hasn't occurred to me. When I hear "two-handed weapon" my mind jumps to greatswords and greataxes; not bows. Thanks for the heads up. I'm trying to think back to whether I've violated this. I'm pretty sure I haven't as I probably did it while not BSing.

I was thinking the same as OP though. Up through tier 2 at least, a longbow competes pretty well with cantrips and is almost always better on damage, e.g. 1d8+3 and that x 2 after lvl 6. I still want an attack cantrip because I will likely never have a magic bow for resistant monsters.

You can throw daggers. Dual-wielding daggers isn't a bad idea for this reason. Range sucks though. It might be just enough to have something to do when you can't quite close the distance for an attack and you can throw offhand as a bonus action if you made the attack action. You can also drop one to cast a spell and then just draw another. Have multiples on your body.

This works better if you took Warcaster, of course. It's not "needed" but I find it's still pretty nice for a BS for the spells as opportunity attacks and so you can get away with dual-wielding more easily.

[Mandragola]

That all seems like quite a lot of hassle when you could just frost/firebolt people, probably with better accuracy.

There's nothing much wrong with the longbow for when you're not bladesinging. As you've said, it competes well for damage. It might fall behind if and when your int overtakes your dex, just because you'll be more likely to hit with the spell.

I tend to think of the combat abilities of bladesingers, and other similar classes like war priests and valour bards, as a bit of a distraction though. These classes are full casters. In combat, if the party is in danger, their job is to unleash real spells that change the game. The damage they do when they bash things with their "at will" abilities (to borrow a 4th edition phrase) is deliberately a step behind what the non-full casters can do.

So the main thing is to think of a bladesinger as a wizard first and a swordsman or bowman second. You're in the party for fireball, counterspell, fear and so on. Everyone else can stab things.

The big advantage a bladesinger has over other wizards might actually be that he's more survivable once his spells are running low, and he can contribute a bit more without blowing major spells. That int bonus to concentration helps a lot too. I guess you could play him with a greater focus on concentration effects and less on blasting for that reason.

[spartan_ah]

The thing is that spamming firebolt while bladesinging seems useless. I'm in melee already, unless I won't enter bladesong. For the few times I'm in melee and need a ranged spell I can use scorching Ray or flaming sphere. Is it worth the few cantrips I have?

[NecroDancer]

Take booming blade and greenfire blade

[Mandragola]

It might well not be worth it. If you're a high elf you get an extra one of course.

[spartan_ah]

Take booming blade and greenfire blade

Again, isn't a melee attack at level 6 makes it redundant?
Considering that I have a magical weapon?
(I have a +1)

[Chaosvii7]

Again, isn't a melee attack at level 6 makes it redundant?
Considering that I have a magical weapon?
(I have a +1)

Not with Greenflame Blade; The damage it deals exceeds the additional damage you get for just making a second weapon attack, and comes online a whole level before you even get Extra Attack.

[BurchardOfEn]

You want Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade still for when their conditions would be met. I would say that you could drop Booming Blade if you don't want to try to pull the Mobile Bladesinger that hits with BB, runs, and hopes the creature tries to chase or if you aren't going to use the Warcaster feat as those are the only places where Booming Blade really shines. GFB, on the other hand, is good with dealing slight AoE to tight crowds and should be on the list for any Melee Spellcaster that has access to the cantrip.

Edit: Chaosvii7 is also correct that GFB would be doing slightly more than the Extra Attack a level sooner.

[spartan_ah]

Ok, you sold me on GFB...
Minor illusion and....?
With bladesinger MAD it's hard to take feats

[Mandragola]

I don't rate GFB to be honest.

It barely does more damage than two attacks at lvl 6. If your rapier does D8+3 that's 7.5. 15 for two hits. GFB does 7.5+2x(4.5), so 16.5 damage. But it only does that if your attack hits, and if there are two targets next to each other. Even then, you don't have the option of focussing all your damage onto one target, which is what you want to do if you're a wizard and there's a guy next to you. If you have a +1 rapier then the difference comes down even further.

Needless to say, putting your wizard next to two opponents is rarely an ideal tactical move.

So on the whole I just wouldn't bother with any of the sword coast cantrips - especially not for a bladesinger. Just about the only classes I can think of that really benefits are arcane tricksters and eldritch knights. The Trickster only gets one attack anyway, so loses nothing, and the EK can have another attack after casting the cantrip. But even in those cases it's a very marginal benefit I think.

Edit: Actually, thinking about it those classes also benefit from the fact that they can use strength or dex to attack with, so they don't have to pump int. But a bladesinger will pump int, so a GFB will be less accurate than his firebolt and barely better than a rapier attack in melee.

[DivisibleByZero]

Swapping Extra Attack for War Magic at level 6 seems like a fairly common houserule. It's both more thematic and more fitting for the concept.
Honestly, I think the only reason they don't have it by the book is because that would make them get it a level earlier than the EK does.

[BurchardOfEn]

They didn't seem to care about that too much with the Theurgist. :tongue:

[JackPhoenix]

I don't rate GFB to be honest.

It barely does more damage than two attacks at lvl 6. If your rapier does D8+3 that's 7.5. 15 for two hits. GFB does 7.5+2x(4.5), so 16.5 damage. But it only does that if your attack hits, and if there are two targets next to each other. Even then, you don't have the option of focussing all your damage onto one target, which is what you want to do if you're a wizard and there's a guy next to you. If you have a +1 rapier then the difference comes down even further.

Needless to say, putting your wizard next to two opponents is rarely an ideal tactical move.

So on the whole I just wouldn't bother with any of the sword coast cantrips - especially not for a bladesinger. Just about the only classes I can think of that really benefits are arcane tricksters and eldritch knights. The Trickster only gets one attack anyway, so loses nothing, and the EK can have another attack after casting the cantrip. But even in those cases it's a very marginal benefit I think.

Edit: Actually, thinking about it those classes also benefit from the fact that they can use strength or dex to attack with, so they don't have to pump int. But a bladesinger will pump int, so a GFB will be less accurate than his firebolt and barely better than a rapier attack in melee.

Bladesinger who wants to melee would get more versatility from having both GFB and Extra attack. You can use both, depending on situation... single enemy? 2 attacks are better, 2 enemies, GFB is propably better, high AC boss and low AC mook? Hit the easy target with your sword and do automatic damage to the boss. If you want better single target damage, take BB instead of GFB and some source of extra mobility... Mobile feat or Expeditious Retreat, now you hit your enemy and he either moves and take more damage, uses likely more effective ranged attack, or stands and does nothing... win/win/win.

[Oramac]

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is the scaling of your attack bonus. Assuming you pump Int before Dex, your attack bonus for Firebolt will scale much better than your attack bonus for any kind of ranged weapon.