Bladesinger and team advice

[Bahamut7]

I had a better written post, but the internet ate it.

My party will be a Knight, Bladesinger, Thief, Invoker, Mage and an occasional Warlord (DMPC) on a high seas pirate adventure.

The Knight is an experienced player and is very happy with his choice and intends to pull off some forced movement shenanigans with me.

The Bladesinger (myself) has a few concerns. I love the class except for a few issues. The DM has already approved for me to treat my spells as encounter powers and not dailies as the class dictates. While I see the potential with Arcane Strike and Bladespells, is there any other feature I should discuss with my DM on altering?

The Invoker is happy with her class and should be fine.

The Thief doesn't have any complaints but lacked another striker to compare with. I know how powerful a Thief can be especially with the Charging Chassis, but I see the potential with the Bladesinger and might make her class choice seem weak. How can I help her make the class seem more exciting?

The mage (not sure what type) is one of the new players who tried a defender at first. He seems to be leaning towards a mage. Any potential advice I could have for him to help expand his characters potential (not much experience with a pure caster). More so with team tactics?

On a side note, I was playing a Bard originally, but the DM asked me to switch to help the party. Thanks guys!

[darkbard]

The Thief doesn't have any complaints but lacked another striker to compare with. I know how powerful a Thief can be especially with the Charging Chassis, but I see the potential with the Bladesinger and might make her class choice seem weak. How can I help her make the class seem more exciting?

[snip]

On a side note, I was playing a Bard originally, but the DM asked me to switch to help the party. Thanks guys!

Addressing both of these at once: Why has your DM suggested swapping out a Bard (or enabling leader like a Warlord) for a generally despised class? Is it to shoehorn in his own DMPC?

If you want to help the Thief shine, get a leader in there who can grant attacks (particularly charges) and buff those attacks!



The mage (not sure what type) is one of the new players who tried a defender at first. He seems to be leaning towards a mage. Any potential advice I could have for him to help expand his characters potential (not much experience with a pure caster). More so with team tactics?

Why another controller with an invoker already in the party? A second striker would seem far easier for a new player.

[Kurald Galain]

The Thief doesn't have any complaints but lacked another striker to compare with. I know how powerful a Thief can be especially with the Charging Chassis, but I see the potential with the Bladesinger and might make her class choice seem weak.
Wait, what? :smallconfused:

Thieves are not very powerful at all, but they're still a mile ahead of the bladesinger; the BS is one of the weakest classes in the books. About the best thing you can say for them is that "at least they're not the binder". So the DM asked you to switch from a powerful class (bard) to a very weak one (BS) and this is supposed to help the party how?

While the charge package helps, every class up to and including the wizard can be decent at melee with the charging package. More importantly, the charge package is heavily item-dependent so it won't work unless your DM lets you buy exactly the items you want.

The thief will likely upstage the BS, but if you want advice then the thief should switch to Rogue and the BS should switch to Swordmage.

The mage should probably go for a blaster build, first because it doesn't overlap with the invoker too much, and second because your party appears to be lacking in damage output.

[masteraleph]

Also, how is getting rid of the one leader in the party supposed to help the party?

[Bahamut7]

Ok, there seems to be some confusion.

First of all, the DM is retaining the Warlord as it will help grant the Thief multiple attacks (plus one of the coolest leaders in my opinion). I would have remained the Bard or switched to the Warloord if it were appropriate and with my experience I can play a support class or role. The Invoker is being played by my friend's 8 year old daughter who may not keep playing.

As for my choice in the Bladesinger, it was my choice. I have wanted to try this class out for a long time and with Unseen hand I can use it to "OHK" opposing crew members since we will be on ships at sea. Also, one should always think three dimensionally when using unseen hand (fall damage anyone?). I don't expect to be rolling 8d8 every attack, but can assist the controller and striker(s) as needed. It makes me more of a flex team member. Though with certain powers and spells it was so hard not to make a Jedi. Lol

Once the Thief starts to upstage me, I will be fine with that, I just know how boring it may come off as for a lot of players, so I was looking for RP tricks to help shake it up a bit.

I will encourage the Mage to go for a blaster build as he was getting frustrated as a Defender when he would hit things and they didn't die, granted he targeted the big guy and overlooked the minions, which was his job, but the Knight feels he can handle the Defender role quite well. Plus, I personally believe it is easier to get players new to 4e to try strikers first as it is the role that beginners "feel" do the most work.

All advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Kurald Galain]

Ok, there seems to be some confusion.
Yes, that's our point :smallamused:

For example, did you know that sliding somebody off a cliff gives a saving throw (so this only works 45% of the time) and that most ships have railings to prevent people falling off (meaning this works 0% of the time)? Oh, and quite a lot of other classes are better at forced movement than the ol' BS, and of course falling off a ship doesn't deal 8d8 damage anyway (more like zero, since you're falling only a couple feet and landing in water). Yeah, I'd say there's some confusion here.


First of all, the DM is retaining the Warlord as it will help grant the Thief multiple attacks
Looks like Darkbard was right on the money that the DM wants to shoehorn in his own DMPC.

[Tiadoppler]

Playing Devil's Advocate here: if you're going to have a DMPC, a lazylord is pretty much the best option for letting your players shine.


Is the Thief getting bored with the class being too simple? A switch to a generic Rogue might work, keeping all the character and flavor.


This doesn't seem to be a super combat-optimized group, but that's fine. It's fun to play underpowered classes and strange group mixes sometimes. The game, party and campaign can still work as long as the DM is paying attention and not making the combats too challenging.

[Bahamut7]

Kurald, you gotta think 3D, they can't grab a rail if they are 15 ft in the air, granted the DM would most likely use the rope ladders part of the time, but thats fine. It makes the combat more dynamic.

tiadoppler, thank you. You see what my DM is actually trying to do. We have a party of 3 new players. One may get bored (she's 8 so understandable) and the other mage may drop in the future. My group has a hard time keeping reliable people due to so many different work schedules.

The fact that we are playing a n00b friendly campaign is one of the reasons I wanted to test out the Bladesinger. My group can survive, if it falls flat and I have backup characters I can always bring when an untimely death occurs.

As for the Thief, she isn't bored yet, but I remember one of the things that happened to me combats became boring to me (I was one-shotting almost everything). The only times they were interesting was when the environment reduced my damage output (charging chassis problems lol) or when I got possessed or a cursed weapon. Granted this allowed me to focus more on RP.

As for my original post, I was just asking you guys for advice to help prevent issues that I know can happen. As for the Bladesinger, I was curious what people had done to fix the obvious faults with the class such as the encounters as daily silliness (which I have already fixed).

[Tegu8788]

Kurald, you gotta think 3D, they can't grab a rail if they are 15 ft in the air.

How? You can't push/slide/pull anything into the air unless it is already flying. Same for teleports. Thinking 3D is important, but so are following the basic rules.

Now if your DM is homeruling stuff, like drastically buffing your bladesinger, DMPCing, and dealing with an 8 year old player, then that's another matter.

[tiornys]

How? You can't push/slide/pull anything into the air unless it is already flying. Same for teleports.
I was under the impression that a forced teleport could put an enemy up in the air, but if you tried then the enemy got a save to resist the teleportation. Is there something that says otherwise?

edit: to be clear, I'm only disputing the idea of teleporting in 3 dimensions. I agree that you can't push/slide/pull a ground-based enemy into the air.

[Bahamut7]

How? You can't push/slide/pull anything into the air unless it is already flying. Same for teleports. Thinking 3D is important, but so are following the basic rules.

Player's handbook page 285:

"Slide: When you slide a creature, there's no restriction on the direction you can move it."

Unseen Hand allows you to slide a target up to 3 squares.

Edit: I had never noticed the part in the next section under distance in squares. "You can't move a target vertically." That is a bummer. Takes a little flavor out of it. While I could ask for Dm fiat, I don't want to. I tend to try new classes by the book as much as possible. The only exception here is not treating encounter powers as dailies.

Thank you tegu for pointing that out.

[ThePurple]

Thieves are not very powerful at all, but they're still a mile ahead of the bladesinger; the BS is one of the weakest classes in the books.

While I don't think that BSs are totally top tier, I find the assertion that they're total junk to be somewhat annoying. Of course, I don't really see them as controllers; I see them more as strikers, though they take a bit of work and coordination to start really putting out numbers.

Starting at level 3, when you use a bladesinger daily attack power on your turn, you can make a melee basic attack as a minor action. It isn't limited to "once" so the way I've always run it is that a bladesinger is capable of making 2 minor action MBAs (which also get Bladespells) after using a daily, if they're properly placed (since they need to be adjacent to the target because they're sacrificing their move action). Combine it with some prone optimization (since Bladesingers are insanely good at knocking prone; Headsman's Chop provides 5 additional damage on melee attacks and Grounding Shot provides 2 additional damage on your Bladespells since they're still technically attacks) and an artificer (Burning Weapons augments both weapon and fire attacks, which allows you to double dip and use it for both your MBA and Dancing Fire or any other bladespell if you also did Eldritch Admixture).

Another really cool trick is MCing Swordmage (Swordmage Initiate allows you to double dip with an empty offhand), especially as an Eladrin since it gets you Eladrin Swordmage Advance (MBA with Fey Step, which is basically a move action attack; since it's during your turn, it also lets you use a Bladespell).

One of my games includes a Bladesinger that routinely does more damage than anyone else in the party (it's a fairly well optimized group too) each combat through an absolutely insane (but highly coordinated) nova round: flail using defender keeps the target constantly prone, he preps for it with Bladesong>Fey Step>MBA on Round 0, artificer buffs him with Burning Weapons and potentially a daily sigil, and then, during his turn, he does Fire Shroud>MBA>MBA. You get 4 MBAs (2 buffed by Burning Weapons, 2 not; all 4 buffed by Bladesong and all 4 buffed by prone) and Flame Shroud (buffed by Burning Weapons).

[Bahamut7]

While I don't think that BSs are totally top tier, I find the assertion that they're total junk to be somewhat annoying. Of course, I don't really see them as controllers; I see them more as strikers, though they take a bit of work and coordination to start really putting out numbers.

Starting at level 3, when you use a bladesinger daily attack power on your turn, you can make a melee basic attack as a minor action. It isn't limited to "once" so the way I've always run it is that a bladesinger is capable of making 2 minor action MBAs (which also get Bladespells) after using a daily, if they're properly placed (since they need to be adjacent to the target because they're sacrificing their move action). Combine it with some prone optimization (since Bladesingers are insanely good at knocking prone; Headsman's Chop provides 5 additional damage on melee attacks and Grounding Shot provides 2 additional damage on your Bladespells since they're still technically attacks) and an artificer (Burning Weapons augments both weapon and fire attacks, which allows you to double dip and use it for both your MBA and Dancing Fire or any other bladespell if you also did Eldritch Admixture).

Another really cool trick is MCing Swordmage (Swordmage Initiate allows you to double dip with an empty offhand), especially as an Eladrin since it gets you Eladrin Swordmage Advance (MBA with Fey Step, which is basically a move action attack; since it's during your turn, it also lets you use a Bladespell).

One of my games includes a Bladesinger that routinely does more damage than anyone else in the party (it's a fairly well optimized group too) each combat through an absolutely insane (but highly coordinated) nova round: flail using defender keeps the target constantly prone, he preps for it with Bladesong>Fey Step>MBA on Round 0, artificer buffs him with Burning Weapons and potentially a daily sigil, and then, during his turn, he does Fire Shroud>MBA>MBA. You get 4 MBAs (2 buffed by Burning Weapons, 2 not; all 4 buffed by Bladesong and all 4 buffed by prone) and Flame Shroud (buffed by Burning Weapons).

I might take a second look at MC swordmage, thanks for the advice, while I am playing a Genasi with Stormsoul, I am glad I wasn't the only person to see some of the potential there.

[Kurald Galain]

While I don't think that BSs are totally top tier, I find the assertion that they're total junk to be somewhat annoying. Of course, I don't really see them as controllers; I see them more as strikers, though they take a bit of work and coordination to start really putting out numbers.
Everybody sees them more as strikers, they clearly were never a controller in the first place.


It isn't limited to "once"
Yeah, by RAW it totally is.

See, there's nothing wrong with making sweeping changes like that to a badly written class. But doing so doesn't change the fact that it was badly written in the first place. Anything the BS can do, the Swordmage does better.

[ThePurple]

Yeah, by RAW it totally is.

How so? The wording on the feature is "When you use a bladesinger daily attack power on your turn, you can make a melee basic attack as a minor action." It doesn't say "once" anywhere in there.

[Kurald Galain]

How so? The wording on the feature is "When you use a bladesinger daily attack power on your turn, you can make a melee basic attack as a minor action." It doesn't say "once" anywhere in there.

Because triggered events happen once per trigger, not multiple times for the same trigger. That's why it says you can make "a melee basic attack" (singular).

But yeah, there are numerous fixes like this, that serve to make the BS more playable (or the vampire, or the ossassin). But the easiest fix is the straightforward "just play a Swordmage already" (or a non-class vamp, or a rogue). 4E just has a couple of redundant classes, that's why such responses tend to come up in threads asking for advice.

[Dimers]

Bladespells are triggered, but Arcane Strike is simply a condition. It was written as a class ability rather than a power -- why would it use the rules that apply to powers? WotC had every right to create or update Arcane Strike as a power with a trigger, and they chose not to.

I mean, sure, a reasonable DM might believe the intention was just one minor MBA per bladesinger daily, but a reasonable DM might also believe that ThePurple's interpretation was the intention, too.

Not that a bladesinger has much chance of surviving to Epic tier, but the Master Of Moments ED would be kinda nice for 'em at that point -- why stop at two minor-action MBAs? :smallsmile:

[MwaO]

How so? The wording on the feature is "When you use a bladesinger daily attack power on your turn, you can make a melee basic attack as a minor action." It doesn't say "once" anywhere in there.

'a' is singular. As opposed to 'you can make melee basic attacks as a minor action until the end of the turn' or something similar.

[Tiadoppler]

I disagree with that interpretation. The phrasing is:

"you can make a melee basic attack as a minor action."

It's not plural, it's singular: "a melee basic attack". This is pretty critical because there are many other effects and abilities that use the same phrasing, but with Free Actions.

The Warlord level 1 encounter power "Powerful Warning", for example, has the effect:

"The target can make a melee basic attack against the enemy as a free action."

That certainly doesn't mean that they can make unlimited Free MBAs against the enemy until it dies. It's a trigger for a single attack.



If Arcane Strike had been meant to grant multiple attacks, it would have been phrased more like "If you have used a bladesinger daily attack power during your turn, you may make melee basic attacks as a minor action until the end of your turn."



The above is all RAW interpretation. If you want to give the bladesinger some houserule love to increase viability, I'd like to see what you come up with. I think your interpretation of Arcane Strike is reasonable, it's just not the way the class was written.


Edit: TL;DR: I agree with MwaO, who is more succinct than I am.

[Dimers]

Free actions are unlimited; wording would have to be different for them anyway. (And free-action attacks have been limited to one per turn by a later rule addition, as it turns out.) But a character only has a certain limited number of minor actions to spend. So when you can make a MBA as a minor action, unless there's a limit to how often the MBA power can be used, it's simply limited to however many minor actions you have available.

Again, that's a reasonable English-language interpretation which isn't clearly ruled one way or another as far as I've seen. I'm not claiming it's the only reasonable interpretation. If the wording was "make one MBA" or "make a single MBA", I'd lean the other direction ... if it were "Once during this turn, you make a melee basic attack as a minor action", there would be no question. But it's not cut-and-dried the way it stands.

[Kurald Galain]

(And free-action attacks have been limited to one per turn by a later rule addition, as it turns out.)

That is a good point to consider: every single time that fans asked "is this-and-this ability intended to trigger once or multiple times", the dev team has always firmly answered "ONCE". They were sometimes slow to answer and slower to write clarifications, but the intent has been made abundantly clear on this ever since the PHB1 came out.

[MwaO]

That is a good point to consider: every single time that fans asked "is this-and-this ability intended to trigger once or multiple times", the dev team has always firmly answered "ONCE". They were sometimes slow to answer and slower to write clarifications, but the intent has been made abundantly clear on this ever since the PHB1 came out.

Right. 4e is a specific vs. general system. You need to be told you can use an option multiple times. If it is at all ambiguous(and the use of 'a melee basic attack' is at best that), then you can't.

[Tiadoppler]

Bladesinger is an Essentials class that's built around melee basic attacks with a ranged auto-hit damage and control rider. These at-will basic melee attacks do decent damage, and can automatically cause an enemy to go Prone or grant Combat Advantage (among other effects).

Bladesinger Daily attack powers are Wizard Encounter powers. The class is written to receive one 'daily attack' per day from levels 1-4, two 'daily attack's per day from level 5-8, and three 'daily attack's per day for levels 9-30.

At level 3, Bladesinger Daily attack powers also grant the ability to use a (single) melee basic attack as a minor action on that turn.

4e encounters are usually designed to last around 4 rounds


If you're houseruling Bladesinger Daily attack powers into encounter powers, AND adding multiple melee basic attacks after each encounter power, I think you'll end up going too far. Instead of balancing the Bladesinger better with other classes, you'll end up with a character that has too much power.

For example: at level 3, the houseruled Bladesinger will have one 'daily' per encounter, and fairly high DEX, for a high initiative.

Standard: Charge into position (melee basic attack + bladesinger rider)
Action point
Standard: Wizard encounter power (maybe Burning Hands, a nice big blast for multiple attacks)
Minor: melee basic attack + bladesinger rider
Minor: melee basic attack + bladesinger rider


That's three melee basic attacks, three auto-hit controller/striker riders, and a wizard encounter power. I'm having trouble estimating damage, but it looks like with an action point:

3[W] + 3(INT mod) + 3(Weapon Bonus) + 3(DEX mod) + (Prone, Grant CA, -2 Attack rolls) + a wizard encounter power.

Probably a total of 7-8 attacks?


That's quite a lot of damage for a combo that can be done at the start of most encounters. Even without an action point, and taking a turn to get into position, an encounter power that does

2[W] + 2(INT mod) + 2(Weapon Bonus) + 2(DEX mod) + (Grant CA, -2 Attack rolls) + a wizard encounter power

is a bit too much. Also consider that at level 5, that will happen TWO rounds per encounter, and at level 9, THREE rounds per encounter. Three rounds per encounter is almost an at-will!

Wizard encounter powers are not so weak that they need a couple of striker attacks added on to them to make them viable.




Edit: One additional point.

If you're confident in your own ability to play strategically, and worried about the other players' enjoyment of a game they don't know well, don't make a heavy-hitting multi-attacking complicated character. Nothing kills a new player's enjoyment like seeing someone else utterly outshine them.

If you're taking ten minutes per turn, and rolling handfuls of d20s for all of your attacks, and probably getting critical hits every couple turns (multi-attack does that), how do you think a new player with a normal, unmodified class will feel about rolling only one or two attacks per turn, and going through encounter after encounter without a crit?

[Bahamut7]

If you're houseruling Bladesinger Daily attack powers into encounter powers, AND adding multiple melee basic attacks after each encounter power, I think you'll end up going too far. Instead of balancing the Bladesinger better with other classes, you'll end up with a character that has too much power.

[snip]

Edit: One additional point.

If you're confident in your own ability to play strategically, and worried about the other players' enjoyment of a game they don't know well, don't make a heavy-hitting multi-attacking complicated character. Nothing kills a new player's enjoyment like seeing someone else utterly outshine them.

If you're taking ten minutes per turn, and rolling handfuls of d20s for all of your attacks, and probably getting critical hits every couple turns (multi-attack does that), how do you think a new player with a normal, unmodified class will feel about rolling only one or two attacks per turn, and going through encounter after encounter without a crit?

Thank you tiadoppler for the response. While the potential multiple minor action attacks is not something I had considered being a possibility, this is exactly why I had asked about the Bladesinger to begin with.

What is your recommendation? Encounters as encounters with 1 single attack as a minor or encounters as dailies with potential multiple minor action attacks? Or something else altogether?

As for the other players, they aren't completely new (except the invoker) but are still novice players especially to 4e. While I don't intend to Nova every time I can, I like the possibility just in case an encounter gets too hairy or that I can help them develop their own characters and show them what can be done. Hence why earlier I stated that I am playing a flex team member.

[Tiadoppler]

Reading the class abilities of Bladesinger and Swordmage, I noticed that there's a very significant difference in how their off-hand defense works.

A Swordmage's warding grants a +3AC if the off-hand is EMPTY.

A Bladesinger's Guarded Flourish (+2AC), Bladesong, and all the Bladespells specify that the off-hand can't have Weapons or Shields. The Bladesinger's description even mentions that they can use a wand (or other implement) in the off-hand. Dual Implement Spellcasting gives a nice boost to your 'Daily' powers. Using the Off-hand as your primary casting tool also lets you use Superior Implements, while still getting the boost from the Weapon enchantment.

Use White Lotus Dueling Expertise feat at low levels: +1 per tier to all of your spells and basic attacks, no matter what implement or weapon you're using. No need to specialize yet.


What would a RAW Bladesinger nova round look like (at level 3+)?

Turn 1:
Minor: Bladesong (+2 attacks, +2 defenses, +5 damage, until end of next turn)
Standard: Charge (for positioning) + Bladespell
Action Point
Standard: Daily (Wizard Encounter Power) use a multi-attack to take advantage of Bladesong buff
Minor: Melee Basic Attack (from Arcane Strike) + Bladespell

Turn 2:
Standard: Melee Basic Attack + Bladespell



I really think a Bladesinger's nova is okay as written. It's the fact that the class doesn't have encounter powers of it's own is what makes it weak. The bladesinger has two main options each turn:
Melee basic attack
or
Nova combo (Bladesong+Daily+MBA)

If you want to add some ability or feature, I'd focus on something intermediate that you can do every encounter, but doesn't combo into a nova with Arcane Strike.

How about this houserule: Start with RAW (encounters are dailies, Arcane Strike triggers once), but you can use Bladesong twice per encounter at level 11 and three times at level 21? The bonuses wouldn't stack with each other.




This is an Essentials class, so it's meant to be simple to play and use lots of basic attacks. If you try houserule it into a pure spellcaster or hybrid swordmage/wizard, it'd probably be easier to start from scratch on a new class to get the math right.

[Bahamut7]

Thanks, I will run the responses in this thread by my DM and see what he would like to do. Either way, I look forward to playing with the class and see how it operates first hand regardless of what tweaks we do or don't do.

[Pramxnim]

Even if Arcane Strike doesn't let you use multiple Minor Action MBAs in a turn, it's still possible to do the following sequence:

Turn 1:
Minor: Bladesong
Move: Move into position
Standard: MBA into Bladespell

Turn 2:
Standard: Daily Attack
Minor: MBA -> Bladespell
Action Point -> Standard: Daily Attack
Move -> Minor: MBA -> Bladespell

If you're an Eladrin who MC'd into Swordmage and took the Eladrin Swordmage Advance feat, you can also squeeze in an extra MBA on the setup turn by using Fey Step.

[Tiadoppler]

At level 9+ you can also do

Turn 1:
Minor: Bladesong
Standard: Daily
Minor: MBA

Turn 2:
Standard: Daily
Minor: MBA
AP
Standard: Daily
Minor: MBA

It's just pretty rare that you'll want to dump all of your dailies that quickly. Awesome, when you do it, but not a normal tactic. I think it's more typical to plan on using roughly one daily per encounter.

[ScrivenerofDoom]

While I don't think that BSs are totally top tier, I find the assertion that they're total junk to be somewhat annoying. Of course, I don't really see them as controllers; I see them more as strikers, though they take a bit of work and coordination to start really putting out numbers. (snip)

Another really cool trick is MCing Swordmage

(snip) One of my games includes a Bladesinger that routinely does more damage than anyone else in the party (snip)

One of my early campaigns included a thaneborn barbarian and an eladrin bladesinger. The bladesinger was tougher (better AC), more accurate, and far more damaging. Part of that was because the barbarian was badly built - he was later rebuilt for fullblade-and-charge-cheese to bring him up to scratch - but it didn't take any effort to make that bladesinger work.

The only house rule I implemented was that a bladespell triggered off any MBA by the bladesinger, including those not on his turn. Even without that, he was a rather effective striker with some good melee control. Don't forget the White Lotus feats to add in some extra damage.

MC swordmage is good advice: The daily +3 to AC from swordmage warding is definitely worth the price of a feat.

(Once he hit level 6, though, he was rebuilt as a longsword-wielding wizard because the party was missing a real controller and that made a huge difference to the party dynamics, especially as the barbarian's rebuild had kicked in by that point.)

[NomGarret]

In my games, bladesingers are a swordmage subclass and get swordmage dailies as dailies.

[Bahamut7]

Thank you everyone for the solid advice and insight.

As an update. The mage player had apparently decided on a vampire (class) and he seems really happy with it. I am still testing out the bladesinger as i had many crap rolls, but when he did work...I was quite happy with it. We are borderline level 3 so no Arcane Strike ability yet, will discuss with DM when i get the level as we are treating my spells as encounter spells so far.

[Dimers]

In my games, bladesingers are a swordmage subclass and get swordmage dailies as dailies.

I like that idea. Have you homebrewed a 'bladesinger aegis'?

[dadada]

I'm sorry, did someone say that the forced movement was sucky? Because that's just not true at all. First of all, pirates board in 2 ways: 1. Using ropes, in which you can just slice them and down go the boarders! 2. Planks,in which you can just shove them off with forced movement. Second, the fact that you can simply bull rush them off the railing by pining them and bull rushing.

[NomGarret]

I like that idea. Have you homebrewed a 'bladesinger aegis'?

Not yet. It's only seen sporadic use, as I don't get to play that often.

[Tiadoppler]

I'm sorry, did someone say that the forced movement was sucky? Because that's just not true at all. First of all, pirates board in 2 ways: 1. Using ropes, in which you can just slice them and down go the boarders! 2. Planks,in which you can just shove them off with forced movement. Second, the fact that you can simply bull rush them off the railing by pining them and bull rushing.

No, nobody said forced movement was sucky. Forced movement is very useful, but has a bit of errata to lower it's power: you can't levitate and drop enemies with slide/push/pull, and everyone get a saving throw to avoid hazardous terrain.



Second, pirates in D&D board in N ways, where N is equal to the imagination score of the DM.

Throwing ropes
Placing planks
Jumping
Teleporting
Flying
Swimming and climbing the sides
Swimming and smashing/digging/drilling/burrowing/phasing through the hull
Entangling the two ships' rigging and climbing across
Freezing the target ship in ice and engaging in a 'land' battle
Levitating the target ship up to the pirate's airship base
Pulling the target ship underwater to take advantage of the pirate's water-breathing anatomy (as applicable)
Et cetera.

[Bahamut7]

Yea as Tiadoppler stated, the errated causes it to lose some of its potential by removing the 3rd dimension, while I am fine with a saving throw when appropriate, the loss of the third dimension does take away some of the fun. Of course you can always request if the DM to remove that restriction.

[dadada]

I never said that forced movement was sucky. I said that the forced movement in this particular situation was mentioned and dismissed as sucky. Please try and read my post correctly. On another note, this is exactly why I should never DM a high seas campaign. My ideas all come from viking novels:smallwink:

[Sol]

Well if no one else wants to say it, I'm happy to hop in and say:

forced movement is sucky.

Specifically, single-target forced movement of....really anything under a full stat mod of squares. A slide 1, by itself, is near-meaningless. A slide 3 may put something adjacent to a defender, or away from your wizard, but also may not, and depending on initiative order, you may have just put that enemy back into ideal charging position of your squishies.

It gets less sucky if you can attach other things to it -- polearm momentum, deadly draw, flail expertise.

It gets less sucky if your allies can attach other things to it, such as Agile Opportunist or any number of "an enemy enters a square adjacent to you" triggers.

It gets less sucky if you hold off on using the power, or at least opt out of using the slide, unless there's a sound tactical reason to slide the target.

It gets less sucky if you can combine it with a slow or a prone or a daze. An enemy 1 square away from your front line and prone or dazed cannot charge your front line, so unless they have reach or a ranged attack, its only options are to (if proned) crawl and attack at a penalty or to charge past provoking an OA. That said, knowingly setting up an enemy to charge past your front line and into your squishies, even at the threat of an OA, is not always a good decision.

It gets less sucky if you can combine it with immobilize, at which point a melee-only enemy is out of the fight until one of your idiot party members inevitably charges right up to it, ironically making you feel like the dumb one for wasting your control.

It gets less sucky if you can extend the movement to at least 5 squares and combine it with a slow, at which point once again you've removed the threat of a melee combatant for either a round or until one of your party members does something stupid.

It gets less sucky if it's a non-standard action that can be used to add at least one extra target to the area of a burst or blast power, or if (like the Bladesinger power in question) the slide comes at no real opportunity cost to you to aid an ally's enemy positioning. (note: being a bladesinger is itself a large opportunity cost)

If gets less sucky if you can move more than one target -- probably still to set up harder AoE control/damage, or at least to put them next to your defender.

But on its own? Slide 1-3 is pretty bad.

There's a (probably lost to time) hilarious battlemind polearm momentum hindering shield build that uses Concussive Spike to launch everything but the primary target 9 squares slowed and prone. That is awesome. Slide 3 is not.

3 is not enough to substantially reposition an enemy in a detrimental fashion. It doesn't meaningfully move an enemy artillery closer. It doesn't meaningfully move an enemy soldier off of your wizard. It just...disengages them slightly and leaves them more choices on how to re-engage than they would have had if you'd never moved them. Can it sometimes disrupt enemy positioning and help control the battle? Sure. Can it sometimes disrupt the party's ideal positioning and give an advantage to the enemy you just slid 3 squares? Also sure, and those two scenarios occur with equal frequency, with the most common scenario being neither -- slide 3 happened, and it had no mechanical benefit or penalty to anyone.

[Yakk]

Those builds with "charge then minor minor" don't work; charging ends your turn. Action point just gives you a standard, not a standard and a move and a minor back.

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Encounter encounter wizard powers will do a lot to boost the bladesinger. You'll be able to nova *every combat*.

After the nova you'll be expended.

Eladrin into MC Swordmage -> ESA is tempting.

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Note that the int-dumping bladesinger is a thing. Pump dex and str. Pick wizard encounter powers that don't use int.

Multiclass fighter maybe (1 interrupt MBA/encounter). Get surprising charge (+[W] on charge) and other fighter toys.

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The swordmage homebrew is an interesting idea.

Bladesinger (swordmage and wizard subclass).

Bladesinger Warding:
You gain a +1 bonus to AC when wielding a light or heavy blade and are wearing cloth or no armor. This increases to +3 if you have an empty hand. This counts as Swordmage Warding for the purpose of feats, paragon paths, and features.

Bladesinger Spells:
At level 1 5 and 9, 15, 19, 25, 29 you gain a Swordmage Daily Attack Spell of that level or less. You may not gain the same spell twice. Once per day you may use one of these spells, increasing to twice at level 5 and three times at level 29. Once a spell is expended, you may not use it again unless you recover it. If you recover one of these spells, it also adds to your daily use of these spells (so if you use 3 spells at level 10 and recover one, you can use it again.)

At level 1 3 7 13 17 23 27 you learn two Wizard Encounter Attack Spells of that level or less. At the end of a long rest you can choose one spell of each level to prepare. You may use 1 of these spell per encounter, increasing to two at level 3 and three at level 7. Once a spell has been expended, you may not use it again unless it is recovered. When you recover one of these spells, you gain another encounter use of these spells during that encounter.

(This gives you some bonus flexibility; you have a pool of dailies you can pick from at-use, and a pool of encounters you can pick between at the end of rests and then pick again when you use them, at the cost of using lower level versions).

Bladesong
As the original Bladesinger, including upgrades.

Wizard Cantrips
As the original Bladesinger, including upgrades.

Bladesinger Aegis:
Select an Aegis from Aegis of Harmony, Aegis of Rhythm, Choral Aegis, Aegis of Tempo.

Aegis of Harmony:
Minor action, Burst 3, 1 creature in burst, encounter
The target creature is marked with the Aegis of Harmony. Creatures marked by the Aegis of Harmony suffer a -2 penalty to attacks until they hit you or an ally, then the mark is removed. As an immediate interrupt when the creature under the Aegis hits you or an ally, you may grant the target creature temporary HP equal to 5 plus half your level plus your Charisma modifier (increasing to double your charisma modifier at level 21). If the creature removes those temporary HP in this attack, you gain a bonus to damage equal to the temporary HP removed the next time you damage the creature before the end of your next turn.

Aegis of Rhythm
Minor action, Burst 3, 1 creature in burst, encounter
The target creature is marked with the Aegis of Rhythm. Creatures marked by the Aegis of Rhythm suffer a -2 penalty to attacks until they hit you or an ally, then the mark is removed. As an immediate reaction when the creature under the Aegis hits you or an ally, you may charge the creature or make a basic melee attack on the creature. During this charge or attack you gain a power bonus to all defences equal to your 2+your Constitution modifier.

Choral Aegis
Minor action, Burst 3, 1 creature in burst, encounter
The target creature is marked with the Choral Aegis. Creatures marked by the Choral Aegis suffer a -2 penalty to attacks until they hit you or an ally, then the mark is removed. As an immediate reaction when the creature under the Aegis hits you or an ally, you may grant you and your allies a power bonus to their next attack on the target before the end of you or their next turn equal to your Charisma modifier and a power bonus to the damage of that attack equal to half (round down) your Intelligence modifier.

Aegis of Tempo
Minor action, Burst 3, 1 creature in burst, encounter
The target creature is marked with the Aegis of Rhythm. Creatures marked by the Aegis of Tempo suffer a -2 penalty to attacks until they hit you or an ally, then the mark is removed. As an immediate reaction when the creature under the Aegis hits you or an ally, you may gain the ability to take an additional Standard Action on your next turn. If you do so, this additional Standard Action may only be spent on at-will abilities and powers.

These are striker-like marks (so they interact with Mark mechanics of Swordmage abilities). You get 1 use/encounter, not at-will like normal Aegis, and they don't come back when overwritten/foe defeated like Hybrid Aegis does. They go away once the creature hits, and you get nice payoff. Note they apply a -2 penalty to attacks *including attacks on you*, unlike typical marks.

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I think the overall effect will be pretty strong. Possibly too strong.

[Bahamut7]

I will have to test these out in a side session, but I do like them.