Battle Smith vs Hexblade

[Farias123]

Well, I have a couple of questions about which of these two SAD(single ability dependant) gish classes deal more damage, puting in comparison things like Arcane Jolt and Eldritch Smite, can anyone help me pls?

[Dork_Forge]

A Pact of the Blade Hexblade will do more damage, by the time you get Arcane Jolt (9th level) you'd have 5th level slots as a Warlock. Arcane Jolt is 2d6 so average 7 extra damage, whereas at that level Eldritch smite would be 6d8 (With prone rider) for 27 damage on average. The Warlock also has access to Hex and Hexblades curse and since we're discussing Arcane Jolt, then Life Drinker (Cha to damage) is only a few levels away.

You'd be getting more support/utility and durability out of the Battle Smith, so it's a case of what you personally want out of the build.

Edit: It's also worth keeping in mind that Eldritch Smite is comsuming your very limited Warlock slots, but Arcane Jolt you get for free up to five times per day. You could take the saved slots and use them on Smite spells to compensate for the damage difference.

[Farias123]

A Pact of the Blade Hexblade will do more damage, by the time you get Arcane Jolt (9th level) you'd have 5th level slots as a Warlock. Arcane Jolt is 2d6 so average 7 extra damage, whereas at that level Eldritch smite would be 6d8 (With prone rider) for 27 damage on average. The Warlock also has access to Hex and Hexblades curse and since we're discussing Arcane Jolt, then Life Drinker (Cha to damage) is only a few levels away.

You'd be getting more support/utility and durability out of the Battle Smith, so it's a case of what you personally want out of the build.

Edit: It's also worth keeping in mind that Eldritch Smite is comsuming your very limited Warlock slots, but Arcane Jolt you get for free up to five times per day. You could take the saved slots and use them on Smite spells to compensate for the damage difference.

Hmm, understood, yeah the Battle Smith is more tanky as well, since probably you'd use your spell slots more for things like shield and Absorb Elements. But I mean, even on level 20 taking on account the Defender the Hexblade still beats the Battle Smith?

[Christew]

In terms of DPR, absolutely (and there's really no contest). Hexblade is a striker class and therefore synergizes for damage output, Battle Smith is a support class and therefore synergizes for utility. Both are solid at what they do, but in a straight damage comparison Hexblade is at a clear advantage.

[MaxWilson]

In terms of DPR, absolutely (and there's really no contest). Hexblade is a striker class and therefore synergizes for damage output, Battle Smith is a support class and therefore synergizes for utility. Both are solid at what they do, but in a straight damage comparison Hexblade is at a clear advantage.

Plus, Hexblade gets 9th level spells like Foresight and True Polymorph. (Never both on the same PC of course.)

[Dork_Forge]

Hmm, understood, yeah the Battle Smith is more tanky as well, since probably you'd use your spell slots more for things like shield and Absorb Elements. But I mean, even on level 20 taking on account the Defender the Hexblade still beats the Battle Smith?

Oh if you go to 20th level then things narrow a bit, I'll assume no use of Sharpshooter/Great Weapon Master here for my own ease mostly, but if you want to factor that in Battle Master is better at is than the Warlock. At 20th level assuming both hit (I'm not entirely sure how to count accuracy and it shouldn't matter much in this comparison) at average damage:

Hexblade (Improved Pact Weapon, Eldritch Smite, Hexblade's Curse, Hex, Life Drinker, using a Great Sword): 6d6+34+6d8=82

Battle Smith (Enhanced Weapon, Arcane Jolt, Great Sword, Steel Defender Attack, Banishing Smite, Gauntlets of Ogre Strength [for the Defender]): 8d6+23+5d10+1d8=83

So if we're talking burst damage the Battle Smith wins out by 1 point on average if we're talking about weapon damage. If the comparison goes to ranged combat that shifts a little more as the Artificer can have Bracers of Archery and would be a little more accurate using Sharpshooter. This just compares their DPR in weapon combat, it doesn't factor in Mystic Arcanum spells.

[Alucard89]

Oh if you go to 20th level then things narrow a bit, I'll assume no use of Sharpshooter/Great Weapon Master here for my own ease mostly, but if you want to factor that in Battle Master is better at is than the Warlock. At 20th level assuming both hit (I'm not entirely sure how to count accuracy and it shouldn't matter much in this comparison) at average damage:

Hexblade (Improved Pact Weapon, Eldritch Smite, Hexblade's Curse, Hex, Life Drinker, using a Great Sword): 6d6+34+6d8=82

Battle Smith (Enhanced Weapon, Arcane Jolt, Great Sword, Steel Defender Attack, Banishing Smite, Gauntlets of Ogre Strength [for the Defender]): 8d6+23+5d10+1d8=83

So if we're talking burst damage the Battle Smith wins out by 1 point on average if we're talking about weapon damage. If the comparison goes to ranged combat that shifts a little more as the Artificer can have Bracers of Archery and would be a little more accurate using Sharpshooter. This just compares their DPR in weapon combat, it doesn't factor in Mystic Arcanum spells.

That is because you dont build PAM on Hexblade. If Hexblade is melee he will go for PAM. Also Banishing Smite and Steel Defender are both bonus actions. Once you add PAM to Hexblade he will win hands down. Not to mention that Hexblade attacks with Advantage 90% of time and incraesed accuracy is more DPR. Your DPR on Battle Smith is potential DPR, not actual DPR as you don't count misses. Hexblade will have less misses and therefore bigger DPR.

[Farias123]

That is because you dont build PAM on Hexblade. If Hexblade is melee he will go for PAM. Also Banishing Smite and Steel Defender are both bonus actions. Once you add PAM to Hexblade he will win hands down. Not to mention that Hexblade attacks with Advantage 90% of time and incraesed accuracy is more DPR. Your DPR on Battle Smith is potential DPR, not actual DPR as you don't count misses. Hexblade will have less misses and therefore bigger DPR.

I've never played as a Hexblade, but from my experience of playing a Battle Smith I usually do have advantage by flanking with my Steel defender. But I'm curious, where does the Hexblade's advantage come from?

[Farias123]

Oh if you go to 20th level then things narrow a bit, I'll assume no use of Sharpshooter/Great Weapon Master here for my own ease mostly, but if you want to factor that in Battle Master is better at is than the Warlock. At 20th level assuming both hit (I'm not entirely sure how to count accuracy and it shouldn't matter much in this comparison) at average damage:

Hexblade (Improved Pact Weapon, Eldritch Smite, Hexblade's Curse, Hex, Life Drinker, using a Great Sword): 6d6+34+6d8=82

Battle Smith (Enhanced Weapon, Arcane Jolt, Great Sword, Steel Defender Attack, Banishing Smite, Gauntlets of Ogre Strength [for the Defender]): 8d6+23+5d10+1d8=83

So if we're talking burst damage the Battle Smith wins out by 1 point on average if we're talking about weapon damage. If the comparison goes to ranged combat that shifts a little more as the Artificer can have Bracers of Archery and would be a little more accurate using Sharpshooter. This just compares their DPR in weapon combat, it doesn't factor in Mystic Arcanum spells.

I tried to math a bit about it, if I put anything wrong tell me please, I just made it hypothetically if both of them expended all possible resources on Smites and Arcane Jolt. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Vb9FIcH9qA_747qt01eRy6GZsR9vDe3dUqAW_VNFwOs/edit?usp=drivesdk

[Dork_Forge]

That is because you dont build PAM on Hexblade. If Hexblade is melee he will go for PAM. Also Banishing Smite and Steel Defender are both bonus actions. Once you add PAM to Hexblade he will win hands down. Not to mention that Hexblade attacks with Advantage 90% of time and incraesed accuracy is more DPR. Your DPR on Battle Smith is potential DPR, not actual DPR as you don't count misses. Hexblade will have less misses and therefore bigger DPR.


This just seems like you favour the Hexblade but I'll address what you've said:

-PAM is not universal on Hexblades, I'm not sure where that assumption came from.
-Banishing Smite and SD attacks are both bonus actions, so is Hex and Hexblade's Curse, I didn't say this was round one damage and tried to account for both sides getting all possible buffs up to make it a fair competition.
-I very clearly said I was not counting accuracy, if we were then if anything it would skew towards the Battle Smith as they're using a +2 weapon instead of a +1 in this example.
-You really need to give where that "advantage 90% of the time" is coming from. If it's from a spell like Darkness or Greater Invisibility then you can subtract the Hex damage and lose a full turn of attacks in the build up.


I tried to math a bit about it, if I put anything wrong tell me please, I just made it hypothetically if both of them expended all possible resources on Smites and Arcane Jolt. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Vb9FIcH9qA_747qt01eRy6GZsR9vDe3dUqAW_VNFwOs/edit?usp=drivesdk

Your doc is private, you want to go to share>get shareable link

[Alucard89]

I've never played as a Hexblade, but from my experience of playing a Battle Smith I usually do have advantage by flanking with my Steel defender. But I'm curious, where does the Hexblade's advantage come from?

Flanking is optional rule and most people dont use it because it's broken as hell. Advantage is something that is desiged to be hard to get and cost resources (spells, class features like VoE, Reckless Attack etc.) and not be free just because you stand next to someone. So don't count flanking in DPR measures here on forum as it's optional rule and rightly said by 99% of people here as totally broken.

[Alucard89]

This just seems like you favour the Hexblade but I'll address what you've said:

-PAM is not universal on Hexblades, I'm not sure where that assumption came from.
-Banishing Smite and SD attacks are both bonus actions, so is Hex and Hexblade's Curse, I didn't say this was round one damage and tried to account for both sides getting all possible buffs up to make it a fair competition.
-I very clearly said I was not counting accuracy, if we were then if anything it would skew towards the Battle Smith as they're using a +2 weapon instead of a +1 in this example.
-You really need to give where that "advantage 90% of the time" is coming from. If it's from a spell like Darkness or Greater Invisibility then you can subtract the Hex damage and lose a full turn of attacks in the build up.



Your doc is private, you want to go to share>get shareable link

Your math is as bad as possible. Advantage gives waaaay more than +2 weapon. Also Hexblade uses +1 weapon. Advantage on average gives +4 to +5 to attack, not to mention it increases chance to crit which combos great with Curse 19 crit range.

I will give you fast example cause I don't have time to explain to you basics of 5e system.

Enemy AC: 19

Person A: Level 8, 18 STR, +2 Weapon, 3 attacks, 1d10 each. Just for example

Person B: Level 8, 18 STR, +1 Weapon, 3 attacks, 1d10 each, Advantage to all attacks.

DPR vs AC 19:

Person A: 22 DPR vs AC 19

Person B: 29.9 DPR vs AC 19.

Person A DPR will also be lower and lower the higehr enemy AC is while Person B will hold better decrease in DPR because of increased accuracy from advantage.

Also melee Hexblades have pretty much always take either PAM or EA at first. Sure you don't have to take them - but then why even try to build melee Hexblade? Both will increase DPR vs Battle Master by a lot especially vs higher AC.

[Dork_Forge]

Your math is as bad as possible. Advantage gives waaaay more than +2 weapon. Also Hexblade uses +1 weapon. Advantage on average gives +4 to +5 to attack, not to mention it increases chance to crit which combos great with Curse 19 crit range.

I will give you fast example cause I don't have time to explain to you basics of 5e system.

Enemy AC: 19

Person A: Level 8, 18 STR, +2 Weapon, 3 attacks, 1d10 each. Just for example

Person B: Level 8, 18 STR, +1 Weapon, 3 attacks, 1d10 each, Advantage to all attacks.

DPR vs AC 19:

Person A: 22 DPR vs AC 19

Person B: 29.9 DPR vs AC 19.

Person A DPR will also be lower and lower the higehr enemy AC is while Person B will hold better decrease in DPR because of increased accuracy from advantage.

Also melee Hexblades have pretty much always take either PAM or EA at first. Sure you don't have to take them - but then why even try to build melee Hexblade? Both will increase DPR vs Battle Master by a lot especially vs higher AC.

You're being very rude for no real reason.

I have a pretty good grasp on 5e thank you. Advantage is worth roughly +5. I know that the Hexblade would be using a +1, I said as much in the comparison and the post you just replied to.

You've still not said how Hexblades are getting advantage 90% of the time, or adjusted the damage calculation to lose Hex damage if it's from a spell.

Your examples are pretty meaningless unless you post the maths supporting them, you're just saying DPR numbers without saying how you got there.

I don't know if you just typo'd or you think we're talking about a Battle Master.

[Alucard89]

You're being very rude for no real reason.

I have a pretty good grasp on 5e thank you. Advantage is worth roughly +5. I know that the Hexblade would be using a +1, I said as much in the comparison and the post you just replied to.

You've still not said how Hexblades are getting advantage 90% of the time, or adjusted the damage calculation to lose Hex damage if it's from a spell.

Your examples are pretty meaningless unless you post the maths supporting them, you're just saying DPR numbers without saying how you got there.

I don't know if you just typo'd or you think we're talking about a Battle Master.

Ok, I will give you better example. You use Banishing Smite, which on 5th level spell. I will remind you that Artificer is HALF CASTER. He won't get that till level 17!

I will give you quick DPR comparion on level 9 Between Battle Smith and typical PAM GWM Hexblade (I can also give you non GWM with EA if you want, won't change anything).

Battle Smith level 9: 19 STR, +2 Greatsword, Jolt 2d6 on hit, bonus action Steel Defender.

Enemy: AC 19

DPR first turn: 28.76 DPR
DPR second turn: 28.76 DPR
DPR third turn: 28.76

Total DPR in 3 turns: 86, 28

Hexblade Vuman PAM GWM level 9: 18 CHA, +1 Pact Glaive, Shadow of Moil as action + bonus action Curse. To be fair lets say we didn't have time to pre-buff ourselfs so we have to use 1st turn on it. Let's say it's a boss so we use Smite. We use GWM so -5 to hit, but +10 dmg and +4 from Curse.

First Turn DPR: 0 DPR
Second Turn DPR: 71
Second Turn DPR if PAM reaction attack was used: 87 DPR
Third turn DPR: 40 DPR (not smite, just 3 attacks)

Total DPR in 3 turns: 111 - 127 DPR.

Hexblade Half-Elf EA + GWM level 9: 18 CHA, +1 Pact Greatsword, Shadow of Moil as Action + Bonus Action Curse. Smite (let's say we didn't crit even though we have around 47% crit chance here)

First Turn DPR: 0
Second turn DPR: 80 DPR
Third Turn: 46 DPR.

Total DPR in 3 turn: 126 DPR. If we burn smite on crit it will increase to around 148 DPR.

Please remember this is without +5/6 from Curse and without Life Drinker +5 and without Foresight which will eliminate need to pre-buff with Hexblade on level 17 when you get Banishing Smite. Then Hexblade will have even greater DPR because he will have perma-advantage all day which will allow him to go full out from turn 1. Not to mention by level 17 Half-Elf Hexblade will have both PAM and GWM and EA giving him absolutely riddiculous DPR. Also on level 17 you have only 1x Banishing Smite for whole day, while Hexblade will have around 3-9 Smites per day (2 short rests) and 3x Curses to use on enemy which he can by that level transfer during on encounter from one target to another with bonus action if he wants. I can give you full DPR comparsion between level 17 BS and Hex if they both go full out. I will even give BS +3 Greatsword with extra 1d6 damage. The "full out" round of level 17 Hexblade will be devastating.

Battle Smith is not your top DPR gish by any stretch.

[Farias123]

Your doc is private, you want to go to share>get shareable link

Oh sorry, just fixed it https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Vb9FIcH9qA_747qt01eRy6GZsR9vDe3dUqAW_VNFwOs/edit?usp=drivesdk

[Farias123]

Ok, I will give you better example. You use Banishing Smite, which on 5th level spell. I will remind you that Artificer is HALF CASTER. He won't get that till level 17!

I will give you quick DPR comparion on level 9 Between Battle Smith and typical PAM GWM Hexblade (I can also give you non GWM with EA if you want, won't change anything).

Battle Smith level 9: 19 STR, +2 Greatsword, Jolt 2d6 on hit, bonus action Steel Defender.

Enemy: AC 19

DPR first turn: 28.76 DPR
DPR second turn: 28.76 DPR
DPR third turn: 28.76

Total DPR in 3 turns: 86, 28

Hexblade Vuman PAM GWM level 9: 18 CHA, +1 Pact Glaive, Shadow of Moil as action + bonus action Curse. To be fair lets say we didn't have time to pre-buff ourselfs so we have to use 1st turn on it. Let's say it's a boss so we use Smite. We use GWM so -5 to hit, but +10 dmg and +4 from Curse.

First Turn DPR: 0 DPR
Second Turn DPR: 71
Second Turn DPR if PAM reaction attack was used: 87 DPR
Third turn DPR: 40 DPR (not smite, just 3 attacks)

Total DPR in 3 turns: 111 - 127 DPR.

Hexblade Half-Elf EA + GWM level 9: 18 CHA, +1 Pact Greatsword, Shadow of Moil as Action + Bonus Action Curse. Smite (let's say we didn't crit even though we have around 47% crit chance here)

First Turn DPR: 0
Second turn DPR: 80 DPR
Third Turn: 46 DPR.

Total DPR in 3 turn: 126 DPR. If we burn smite on crit it will increase to around 148 DPR.

Please remember this is without +5/6 from Curse and without Life Drinker +5 and without Foresight which will eliminate need to pre-buff with Hexblade on level 17 when you get Banishing Smite. Then Hexblade will have even greater DPR because he will have perma-advantage all day which will allow him to go full out from turn 1. Not to mention by level 17 Half-Elf Hexblade will have both PAM and GWM and EA giving him absolutely riddiculous DPR. Also on level 17 you have only 1x Banishing Smite for whole day, while Hexblade will have around 3-9 Smites per day (2 short rests) and 3x Curses to use on enemy which he can by that level transfer during on encounter from one target to another with bonus action if he wants. I can give you full DPR comparsion between level 17 BS and Hex if they both go full out. I will even give BS +3 Greatsword with extra 1d6 damage. The "full out" round of level 17 Hexblade will be devastating.

Battle Smith is not your top DPR gish by any stretch.

Man I understood all your math, but I just don't get it, like, where does the advantage come from?

[Alucard89]

Man I understood all your math, but I just don't get it, like, where does the advantage come from?

I wrote in Hexblade descriptions that we use action for Shadow of Moil spell in first turn, which gives us advantage. Before that we use Darkness and from level 17 we will use Faresight at the beginning of every day.

If you don't know how Hexblades get advantage I don't really think, with all due respect, you should try to advice someone if Hexblade is better/worse than other build/class since easy advantage generation is main strength/feature of Hexblade.

OP - Battle Smith is about utility with okish DPR potential if needed so he can hold his own in combat. He is less of a Paladin burst/nova damage but more utility side and team support. There are tons of better DPR gish builds out there like Hexblades, Hexbards, Paladin builds, Eldricht Knights etc. If damage is what you are looking for OP.

You also have to remember that Battle Smith only get's 5 level spells.

Gishes like Hexblades or Bard-based builds or Bladesinger can get up to 9th level spells. One high level spell slot is many times more devastating than all DPR in the world.

Gishes like Paladins can generate way more damage while also getting 5th level spells, while builds like Sorcadins, Hexadins or EK/Wizard etc. can still get higher than 5 slots while having better damage potential.

Conclusion: if melee/range damage is what you are looking for then Hexblade > Battle Smith hands down, especially properly build. If you would prefer to be more of utility/team support player then Battle Smith > Hexblades since Hexblades have very very selfish gameplay due to their mechanics and low slot counts per encounter.

[Farias123]

If you don't know how Hexblades get advantage I don't really think, with all due respect, you should try to advice someone if Hexblade is better/worse than other build/class since easy advantage generation is main strength/feature of Hexblade.

Actually I ain't advising anyone, I was actually asking man, calm down haha.



Gishes like Hexblades or Bard-based builds or Bladesinger can get up to 9th level spells. One high level spell slot is many times more devastating than all DPR in the world.

Actually imo gishes like Paladins, Eldritch Knights and the Battle Smith itself trade higher level spells for more survivability and some kind of exclusive abillites of their own, like the defender or War Magic and even the high AC and saves of a Paladin for example. That's what I don't like on a Bladesinger, because he has a monstrous AC but he's always one crit away to go down.

[Farias123]

I wrote in Hexblade descriptions that we use action for Shadow of Moil spell in first turn, which gives us advantage. Before that we use Darkness and from level 17 we will use Faresight at the beginning of every day.

But this spell is concentration, so you couldn't hex anyone

[Alucard89]

But this spell is concentration, so you couldn't hex anyone

Where did I write that I hex someone?





Actually imo gishes like Paladins, Eldritch Knights and the Battle Smith itself trade higher level spells for more survivability and some kind of exclusive abillites of their own, like the defender or War Magic and even the high AC and saves of a Paladin for example. That's what I don't like on a Bladesinger, because he has a monstrous AC but he's always one crit away to go down.

True but Hexblades defenses are not really bad. First of all they are medium armor so min. 17 AC here without magic items. Second - when they use their best spells for advantage they also give enemies disadvatage on all attacks agaist them + they can't be targeted by spell that require seeing target (tons of spells). Also with Armor of Hexes they avoid any attack (even crits) from cursed targets on roll 5 and 6 on d6 dice. They also have Tomb of Levistus for "ow hell!" situations and they are very mobile because mostly they don't provoke Opportunity Attacks. They are not as tanky as Paladins but they can hold their own.

[Citadel97501]

I do see these 2 classes as very similar in actual play with a very slightly higher damage increase for the Hexblade, but a better defense is available for the Battlesmith. It should also be noted that the true benefit of the Hexblade is that its an extremely easy dip as it only takes 1 level to give someone a SAD build, and medium armor proficiency. A Battlesmith would need 3 levels for that, but frankly is another extremely effective multi-class dip.

Offense IE DPR for single classes:
All Hexblade with Pact of the Blade: 19-20 due to Hexblade's Curse, Eldritch Smite: This is not actually that good as it will heavily reduce your defense. Advantage through darkness + devil sight, or Dim Light + Shadow Blade. Elven Accuracy is also very common due to the Half-Elf race being so utterly perfect for this class/sub-class, which makes this an extremely powerful critical fishing build ie 27% critical hits. Shield is available for both but the Hexblade will be short on spell slots if using any of its solo advantage tricks or Eldritch Smite.

Average DPR
Hexblade
1 attack with Shadow Blade & Booming Blade: 6d8 + 3/5 = 38.1 DPR counting crits if everything hits.
2 Long Sword Attacks with improved pact weapon, lifedrinker, thirsting blade: 2 x 1d8 + 11 if using Charisma: 44.8 DPR.

Great Weapon Mastery or Eldritch Smite would sky rocket this again due to the critical hits giving another attack as a bonus action but I don't want to do the math...

Battlesmith:
Advantage through flanking by the Iron Defender. Attacks from the iron defender as a bonus action, extra attack doesn't cost an infusion/invocation, easy access to magical weapons. Damage boosts from Arcane Jolt are relatively inexpensive but limited to 5 per day. More spell slots ie 10 at level 11. Tiny Servants operating Spell Storing items will massively increase dpr depending on DM's interpretation.

-Lets not count in elven accuracy as a sufficient method of critical fishing since they don't have a 19-20 critical hit range, but I will include the normal advantage crits IE 9%.

Artificer Average DPR
2 attacks with a Greatsword & ID: 2 x 2d6 + 7, 1d8+ 4 = 38.16
2 attacks with a Long Sword/Shield & ID: 2 x 1d8+7, 1d8+4 = 32.7
Spell Storing Item for Dragon's Breath on Tiny Servant getting one target per round: 3d6 per round = 10
Total Damage: 48.16 or 42.7

Defense
Warlocks: Shield usually only 1 or 2 spell slots at most per short rest...
Artificer: More Spell slots for Shield, Magical Armor, Magical Weapons...

[Alucard89]

Actually I ain't advising anyone, I was actually asking man, calm down haha.

Apologize I mistook you for another person in this thread. My apologizes.

[Farias123]

Where did I write that I hex someone?


Oh, sorry, I misread it, it was Hexblade's curse that you mentioned before

[Dork_Forge]

Ok, I will give you better example. You use Banishing Smite, which on 5th level spell. I will remind you that Artificer is HALF CASTER. He won't get that till level 17!

I will give you quick DPR comparion on level 9 Between Battle Smith and typical PAM GWM Hexblade (I can also give you non GWM with EA if you want, won't change anything).

Battle Smith level 9: 19 STR, +2 Greatsword, Jolt 2d6 on hit, bonus action Steel Defender.

Enemy: AC 19

DPR first turn: 28.76 DPR
DPR second turn: 28.76 DPR
DPR third turn: 28.76

Total DPR in 3 turns: 86, 28

Hexblade Vuman PAM GWM level 9: 18 CHA, +1 Pact Glaive, Shadow of Moil as action + bonus action Curse. To be fair lets say we didn't have time to pre-buff ourselfs so we have to use 1st turn on it. Let's say it's a boss so we use Smite. We use GWM so -5 to hit, but +10 dmg and +4 from Curse.

First Turn DPR: 0 DPR
Second Turn DPR: 71
Second Turn DPR if PAM reaction attack was used: 87 DPR
Third turn DPR: 40 DPR (not smite, just 3 attacks)

Total DPR in 3 turns: 111 - 127 DPR.

Hexblade Half-Elf EA + GWM level 9: 18 CHA, +1 Pact Greatsword, Shadow of Moil as Action + Bonus Action Curse. Smite (let's say we didn't crit even though we have around 47% crit chance here)

First Turn DPR: 0
Second turn DPR: 80 DPR
Third Turn: 46 DPR.

Total DPR in 3 turn: 126 DPR. If we burn smite on crit it will increase to around 148 DPR.

Please remember this is without +5/6 from Curse and without Life Drinker +5 and without Foresight which will eliminate need to pre-buff with Hexblade on level 17 when you get Banishing Smite. Then Hexblade will have even greater DPR because he will have perma-advantage all day which will allow him to go full out from turn 1. Not to mention by level 17 Half-Elf Hexblade will have both PAM and GWM and EA giving him absolutely riddiculous DPR. Also on level 17 you have only 1x Banishing Smite for whole day, while Hexblade will have around 3-9 Smites per day (2 short rests) and 3x Curses to use on enemy which he can by that level transfer during on encounter from one target to another with bonus action if he wants. I can give you full DPR comparsion between level 17 BS and Hex if they both go full out. I will even give BS +3 Greatsword with extra 1d6 damage. The "full out" round of level 17 Hexblade will be devastating.

Battle Smith is not your top DPR gish by any stretch.

{Scrubbed} I initially gave a comparison at 9th level and the OP then specifically asked about going to 20th.

You're still not giving any maths behind your calculations, seeing how you're being about this and the very high DPR with GWM you're getting, I'd rather you include it please.

Why is Battle Smith using strength at all? There's no reason why at 9th level they shouldn't have Int at 20 and be using that exclusively.


Is there any particular reason why you're now comparing a Warlock build using two feats and spells vs a Battle Smith that's just going in swinging?

Something to consider: Using your strategy the Hexblade is out of slots with SoM and a single Smite. The Battle Smith can use Arcane Jolt every turn for a total of 6d6 (21), bringing it closer to Eldritch Smite (6d8=27).

Your own statement is a little misleading, you say it's without +5/+6 from Curse, but you ARE using HBC it's just a +4, how you have it written makes it seem like it could contribute 5/6 on top of what you calculated.


I wrote in Hexblade descriptions that we use action for Shadow of Moil spell in first turn, which gives us advantage. Before that we use Darkness and from level 17 we will use Faresight at the beginning of every day.

If you don't know how Hexblades get advantage I don't really think, with all due respect, you should try to advice someone if Hexblade is better/worse than other build/class since easy advantage generation is main strength/feature of Hexblade.

OP - Battle Smith is about utility with okish DPR potential if needed so he can hold his own in combat. He is less of a Paladin burst/nova damage but more utility side and team support. There are tons of better DPR gish builds out there like Hexblades, Hexbards, Paladin builds, Eldricht Knights etc. If damage is what you are looking for OP.

You also have to remember that Battle Smith only get's 5 level spells.

Gishes like Hexblades or Bard-based builds or Bladesinger can get up to 9th level spells. One high level spell slot is many times more devastating than all DPR in the world.

Gishes like Paladins can generate way more damage while also getting 5th level spells, while builds like Sorcadins, Hexadins or EK/Wizard etc. can still get higher than 5 slots while having better damage potential.

Conclusion: if melee damage is what you are looking for then Hexblade > Battle Smith hands down, especially properly build. If you would prefer to be more of utility/team support player then Battle Smith > Hexblades since Hexblades have very very selfish gameplay due to their mechanics and low slot counts per encounter.

You were replying to the OP, not me. And I never made any claim about Battle Smith being the best Gish or even better than a Hexblade, if you were actually reading the thread carefully you'd have seen my first comparison was not only at level 9 (before the OP requested 20th), but I actually said Hexblade would do more damage. I took issue with a bunch of unsubstantiated claims that seemed to heavily favour one side.

[Alucard89]

I do see these 2 classes as very similar in actual play with a very slightly higher damage increase for the Hexblade, but a better defense is available for the Battlesmith. It should also be noted that the true benefit of the Hexblade is that its an extremely easy dip as it only takes 1 level to give someone a SAD build, and medium armor proficiency. A Battlesmith would need 3 levels for that, but frankly is another extremely effective multi-class dip.

Offense IE DPR for single classes:
All Hexblade with Pact of the Blade: 19-20 due to Hexblade's Curse, Eldritch Smite: This is not actually that good as it will heavily reduce your defense. Advantage through darkness + devil sight, or Dim Light + Shadow Blade. Elven Accuracy is also very common due to the Half-Elf race being so utterly perfect for this class/sub-class, which makes this an extremely powerful critical fishing build ie 27% critical hits. Shield is available for both but the Hexblade will be short on spell slots if using any of its solo advantage tricks or Eldritch Smite.

Average DPR
Hexblade
1 attack with Shadow Blade & Booming Blade: 6d8 + 3/5 = 38.1 DPR counting crits if everything hits.
2 Long Sword Attacks with improved pact weapon, lifedrinker, thirsting blade: 2 x 1d8 + 11 if using Charisma: 44.8 DPR.

Great Weapon Mastery or Eldritch Smite would sky rocket this again due to the critical hits giving another attack as a bonus action but I don't want to do the math...

Battlesmith:
Advantage through flanking by the Iron Defender. Attacks from the iron defender as a bonus action, extra attack doesn't cost an infusion/invocation, easy access to magical weapons. Damage boosts from Arcane Jolt are relatively inexpensive but limited to 5 per day. More spell slots ie 10 at level 11. Tiny Servants operating Spell Storing items will massively increase dpr depending on DM's interpretation.

-Lets not count in elven accuracy as a sufficient method of critical fishing since they don't have a 19-20 critical hit range, but I will include the normal advantage crits IE 9%.

Artificer Average DPR
2 attacks with a Greatsword & ID: 2 x 2d6 + 7, 1d8+ 4 = 38.16
2 attacks with a Long Sword/Shield & ID: 2 x 1d8+7, 1d8+4 = 32.7
Spell Storing Item for Dragon's Breath on Tiny Servant getting one target per round: 3d6 per round = 10
Total Damage: 48.16 or 42.7

Defense
Warlocks: Shield usually only 1 or 2 spell slots at most per short rest...
Artificer: More Spell slots for Shield, Magical Armor, Magical Weapons...

You ignore a lot of defense of hexblade like mobility, not provoking OAs, being untargatable by tons of spells, giving disadvantage to enemies, having armor of hexes, Levistus tomb etc. Also there is no point for Hexblade to use Long Sword if he can use Greatsword and your DPR calculations (again, same mistake as other people in this thread) only consider average damage without considering target AC and accuracy increase because of advantage (or super advantage with EA). Also the higher levels go the more and more DPR of Hexblade increase because:

1. More slots = more smites, recharge on short rest, can be use on crits for double damage.
2. Life Drinker = flat +5 to every attack.
3. Curse scalling = up to +6 to every attack
4. Higher level spells which can affect your DPR depending on your choices.

[Farias123]

I do see these 2 classes as very similar in actual play with a very slightly higher damage increase for the Hexblade, but a better defense is available for the Battlesmith. It should also be noted that the true benefit of the Hexblade is that its an extremely easy dip as it only takes 1 level to give someone a SAD build, and medium armor proficiency. A Battlesmith would need 3 levels for that, but frankly is another extremely effective multi-class dip.

Offense IE DPR for single classes:
All Hexblade with Pact of the Blade: 19-20 due to Hexblade's Curse, Eldritch Smite: This is not actually that good as it will heavily reduce your defense. Advantage through darkness + devil sight, or Dim Light + Shadow Blade. Elven Accuracy is also very common due to the Half-Elf race being so utterly perfect for this class/sub-class, which makes this an extremely powerful critical fishing build ie 27% critical hits. Shield is available for both but the Hexblade will be short on spell slots if using any of its solo advantage tricks or Eldritch Smite.

Average DPR
Hexblade
1 attack with Shadow Blade & Booming Blade: 6d8 + 3/5 = 38.1 DPR counting crits if everything hits.
2 Long Sword Attacks with improved pact weapon, lifedrinker, thirsting blade: 2 x 1d8 + 11 if using Charisma: 44.8 DPR.

Great Weapon Mastery or Eldritch Smite would sky rocket this again due to the critical hits giving another attack as a bonus action but I don't want to do the math...

Battlesmith:
Advantage through flanking by the Iron Defender. Attacks from the iron defender as a bonus action, extra attack doesn't cost an infusion/invocation, easy access to magical weapons. Damage boosts from Arcane Jolt are relatively inexpensive but limited to 5 per day. More spell slots ie 10 at level 11. Tiny Servants operating Spell Storing items will massively increase dpr depending on DM's interpretation.

-Lets not count in elven accuracy as a sufficient method of critical fishing since they don't have a 19-20 critical hit range, but I will include the normal advantage crits IE 9%.

Artificer Average DPR
2 attacks with a Greatsword & ID: 2 x 2d6 + 7, 1d8+ 4 = 38.16
2 attacks with a Long Sword/Shield & ID: 2 x 1d8+7, 1d8+4 = 32.7
Spell Storing Item for Dragon's Breath on Tiny Servant getting one target per round: 3d6 per round = 10
Total Damage: 48.16 or 42.7

Defense
Warlocks: Shield usually only 1 or 2 spell slots at most per short rest...
Artificer: More Spell slots for Shield, Magical Armor, Magical Weapons...
Thanks for your response, I really appreciate it, it actually matches really well with what I had in mind.

[Alucard89]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote} I initially gave a comparison at 9th level and the OP then specifically asked about going to 20th.

You're still not giving any maths behind your calculations, seeing how you're being about this and the very high DPR with GWM you're getting, I'd rather you include it please.

Why is Battle Smith using strength at all? There's no reason why at 9th level they shouldn't have Int at 20 and be using that exclusively.


Is there any particular reason why you're now comparing a Warlock build using two feats and spells vs a Battle Smith that's just going in swinging?



Dude, you can use INT, doesn't matter. Both had 18 in attack stat. You can swap both to 20, swap them from INT to CHA/DEX/WIS - it won't affect calculation.

I was using LudicSavant DPR calculator and I won't paste you 2 pages worth of each calculation/screenshot. You can calculate everything yourself there. You won't believe my calculations - be my guest, it's not me who will play this class here.

Very high DPR with GWM is because of advantage, GWM bonus attack on crit + 19 crit range. I told already that advantage is big DPR increase because accuracy > flat damage numbers.

As for Feats - what kind of "battle feats" you want to take on Battle Smith, huh? You won't take GWM because you have no way to get advantage so you won't benefit from it. You won't take PAM as you already have bonus attack from Steel Defender so it's kind of waste to just not use one of your class features, right? Because if you take PAM you don't use your Steel Defender bonus attack, so you can as well just take different class, yes? Best you can do on Battle Smith is just for for 20 INT, which won't affect his DPR by a lot.

So what is left? Shield Master? Again - bonus action instead of Steel Defender. Reason why Hexblade takes PAM and GWM or GWM + EA is because he actually benefits from those feats. Battle Smith does not use them optimally in any way.

You can also dual wield as Battle Smith but again - you don't use Steel Defender bonus attack so why even take Battle Smith then.

[Farias123]

As for Feats - what kind of "battle feats" you want to take on Battle Smith, huh?
Actually on my Battle Smith which is level 9, I took resilient: Dexterity on 4, and I'm going to take Tough next level (I have 2 levels of War Wizard). So imo there are options for feats as a Battle Smith.

[Alucard89]

Actually on my Battle Smith which is level 9, I took resilient: Dexterity on 4, and I'm going to take Tough next level (I have 2 levels of War Wizard). So imo there are options for feats as a Battle Smith.

Of course, I am just saying that form pure DPR perspective. As I already told you - Battle Smith is best as utility class. You have a lot of support spells, you can create magic items for party, you have ok DPR with 2 attacks + Steel Defender + SAD INT + good AC, so you can hold your own in combat and since you do not benefit from standard combat feats like GWM, EA or PAM - you can just go for more utility.

Magic Initiate is great for Battle Smith, so is Lucky or Mobile or War Caster etc.

If what you want is having tons of things to do and support your party on many levels - Battle Smith all the way.

But when it comes to damage- Hexblade hands down. But way less utility than Battle Smith, though having strong social present is always good.

[HappyDaze]

Flanking is optional rule and most people dont use it because it's broken as hell. Advantage is something that is desiged to be hard to get and cost resources (spells, class features like VoE, Reckless Attack etc.) and not be free just because you stand next to someone. So don't count flanking in DPR measures here on forum as it's optional rule and rightly said by 99% of people here as totally broken.

I wish the bolded part above was more true with skill checks too.

[Dork_Forge]

Dude, you can use INT, doesn't matter. Both had 18 in attack stat. You can swap both to 20, swap them from INT to CHA/DEX/WIS - it won't affect calculation.

I was using LudicSavant DPR calculator and I won't paste you 2 pages worth of each calculation/screenshot. You can calculate everything yourself there. You won't believe my calculations - be my guest, it's not me who will play this class here.

Very high DPR with GWM is because of advantage, GWM bonus attack on crit + 19 crit range. I told already that advantage is big DPR increase because accuracy > flat damage numbers.

As for Feats - what kind of "battle feats" you want to take on Battle Smith, huh? You won't take GWM because you have no way to get advantage so you won't benefit from it. You won't take PAM as you already have bonus attack from Steel Defender so it's kind of waste to just not use one of your class features, right? Because if you take PAM you don't use your Steel Defender bonus attack, so you can as well just take different class, yes? Best you can do on Battle Smith is just for for 20 INT, which won't affect his DPR by a lot.

So what is left? Shield Master? Again - bonus action instead of Steel Defender. Reason why Hexblade takes PAM and GWM or GWM + EA is because he actually benefits from those feats. Battle Smith does not use them optimally in any way.

You can also dual wield as Battle Smith but again - you don't use Steel Defender bonus attack so why even take Battle Smith then.

No, they don't both have an 18. If you took two feats as a Hexblade and none as an Artificer (or just one and took V. Human), then it's 18 Cha for the Warlock and 20 Int for the Artificer. So without seeing your maths there's already one inaccuracy in your variables, it doesn't matter how good a calculator is, it won't help you if you don't use the right numbers.

I'm very interested in the math for such high DPR seeing as you're taking that -5 to your accuracy and sacrificing an entire turn of damage.

As for feats, Magic initiate (Warlock) for Hex comes to mind and yields an extra 6d6 damage (over the 3 rounds you presented) in exchange for a single SD attack.

You still haven't accounted (as far as I can see) for Arcane Jolt being multi use during the fight. I don't dispute that Hexblade puts out more damage in a burst scenario, but I really don't think the gap is as great as you claim it is and your posts seem to very heavily bias the Hexblade (or negative bias towards the Artificer).

[Alucard89]

No, they don't both have an 18. If you took two feats as a Hexblade and none as an Artificer (or just one and took V. Human), then it's 18 Cha for the Warlock and 20 Int for the Artificer. So without seeing your maths there's already one inaccuracy in your variables, it doesn't matter how good a calculator is, it won't help you if you don't use the right numbers.

I'm very interested in the math for such high DPR seeing as you're taking that -5 to your accuracy and sacrificing an entire turn of damage.

As for feats, Magic initiate (Warlock) for Hex comes to mind and yields an extra 6d6 damage (over the 3 rounds you presented) in exchange for a single SD attack.

You still haven't accounted (as far as I can see) for Arcane Jolt being multi use during the fight. I don't dispute that Hexblade puts out more damage in a burst scenario, but I really don't think the gap is as great as you claim it is and your posts seem to very heavily bias the Hexblade (or negative bias towards the Artificer).

I did include everything, including Arcane Jolt each turn as you can only use it once per turn and I did include -5 to hit to all attacks as well as give +2 Greatsword to Battle Smith. Everything using LudicSavant DPR calculator. Also it doesn't really concern me if you don't believe me, everyone can do math by themselfs. My info was just for OP, he can do what he sees fit with it.

And I am not biased toward any class, those are just facts. If anything I am number cruncher and min-maxer so I am biased towards maximing damage and Battle Smith is not good candidate for that. Simple as that. He doesn't have enough mechanic behind him. If it was Battle Smith vs Battle Master, Paladin, Bladesinger, Eldricht Knight etc. all my posts would be the same, just replacing Hexblade with them. Fact is - Hexblade (and other gish subclasses/classes) is much higher and better DPR because that is his design.

Battle Smith and whole Artificer class is utility based.

Believe me if there would be min-max huge damage potential with Battle Smith, this forum and 3d6 reddit would be flooded in min-max builds for him like for other high DPR gish build. But again - he is just average class/subclass when it comes to damage. Nothing too special about it. It's good, but it's not the class to maximize DPR/damage output.

[Farias123]

He doesn't have enough mechanic behind him. If it was Battle Smith vs Battle Master, Paladin, Bladesinger, Eldricht Knight etc. all my posts would be the same, just replacing Hexblade with them. Fact is - Hexblade (and other gish subclasses/classes) is much higher and better DPR because that is his design.

I understood your opinion about it, but don't you think that for example the Bladesinger is worse than the Battle Smith in damage, because if you're going to take Bladesinger, then probably you want to be in melee, and you can't use those feats on him as well, because there are a lot of restrictions to even get to use its main ability that just give you some power that the Battle Smith essentially already haves, like the high AC, the bonus to concentration(con proficiency). Whatcha think? If I'm wrong feel free to correct me.

[Alucard89]

I understood your opinion about it, but don't you think that for example the Bladesinger is worse than the Battle Smith in damage, because if you're going to take Bladesinger, then probably you want to be in melee, and you can't use those feats on him as well, because there are a lot of restrictions to even get to use its main ability that just give you some power that the Battle Smith essentially already haves, like the high AC, the bonus to concentration(con proficiency). Whatcha think? If I'm wrong feel free to correct me.

Bladesinger has it's own merits in melee like for Elven Accuracy + Shadow Blade. Later he can add INT to his damage boosting that DPR and can use higher level slots for Shadow Blade, which also give him triple advantage in a lot of scenarios. Shadow Blade is very solid option paired with some other good off-hand weapon.

The full power of Bladesinger comes on level 11 when you get Tenser Transformation, something that makes him a combat monster, allowing him to attack with advantage (take Elven Accuract for triple advantage), dealing extra 2d12 force damage etc.

You also have to understand that Bladesinger is still a FULL CASTER WIZARD. He has fireball, Crown of Stars, Cone of Cold, Disintegration, Haste, Wall of Force, Wall of Ice, Faresight, Wish, Dark Star, Reverse Gravity and Simulacrum.

You know what Battle Smith can't do: have 2x Bladesingers with Tenser Transformation on, dealing 6x (1d8/6 + 2d12 + 10) with Elven Accuracy triple advantage or Simulacrum keeping Haste on Bladesinger Tenser, making him attack with 4x (1d8/6 + 2d12 + 10). And once level 17 hits that Bladesinger is riding Greater Steed Pegasus or can Wish for any spell in game.

Level 11 EA Tenser Bladesinger will deal vs AC 19 enemy (assuming EA and +2 INT feats): 60.12 DPR

Level 14 EA Tenser Bladesinger will deal vs AC 19 enemy: 72.4 DPR

Level 14 Hasted (by Simulacrum) EA Tenser Bladesinger will deal vs AC 19 enemy: 105 DPR

Two EA Tensered Bladesingers (using Simulacrum) will deal vs AC 19 enemy: 157 DPR

That is all on just one full on turn.

And on top of that Bladesinger has all the stuff full Wizard has as I mentioned already so he doesn't even have to go in melee if he can just end fight with one spell before he has to sweat on front line.

Bladesinger can easly outdamage Battle Smith with just spells alone. For example your DPR might be on level 9 as Battle Smith ~29 DPR. But if there is at least 4 enemies and Bladesinger will drop upcasted Fireball he will deal 4x 10d6 damage, dealing on average 132 damage in one turn. That is just one example what Wizard can do anyway when it comes to damage without having to go melee. The point of bladesinger is that he can go to melee and deal solid (and later great) damage without having to spend whole encounter just casting spells.

Bladesinger on level 9 with EA + upcasted Shadow Blade and simple short sword in off hand can deal vs AC 19 enemy 38 DPR if he has advantage (and you should only use Shadow Blade if you can get one). That's another example. And that is without using any magical weapon with bonus to hit.

Not to even mention summoning spells.

Also with addition of Artificer now Bladesinger has easy access to CON save from start. Just start as level 1 Artificer and put rest levels into Bladesinger. 1 Artificer/19 Bladesinger is super strong gish with CON save + Bladesong giving him superb concentration saving throws. Also it gives Bladesinger Fearie Fire spell which combos very well with his high concentration save throws and Elven Accuracy.

[MaxWilson]

So if we're talking burst damage the Battle Smith wins out by 1 point on average if we're talking about weapon damage. If the comparison goes to ranged combat that shifts a little more as the Artificer can have Bracers of Archery and would be a little more accurate using Sharpshooter. This just compares their DPR in weapon combat, it doesn't factor in Mystic Arcanum spells.

Common misconception: Bracers of Archery add +2 to damage, not to hit.

[Dork_Forge]

Common misconception: Bracers of Archery add +2 to damage, not to hit.

Rereading that I completely butchered my intent, I meant to say that they can stack Bracers of Archery onto damage and their +2 Weapon would make them more accurate with Sharpshooter in general in comparison to a Bladelock doing the same thing.

[Alucard89]

Rereading that I completely butchered my intent, I meant to say that they can stack Bracers of Archery onto damage and their +2 Weapon would make them more accurate with Sharpshooter in general in comparison to a Bladelock doing the same thing.

Hexblade will be more accurate with SS once he has advantage, which again is something that Hexblade can easly do. Also you can dip 1 level Fighter for Archery style for +2 to hit btw if you want that or any range build you plan. Advantage is king of DPR and accuracy as it gives on average more than +1 or +2 weapon. And if want to use stuff like SS or GWM - you need advantage or it just won't work well. Or something like Sacred Weapon to offset that flat penalty with flat bonus. Battle Smith won't work well with -5 penalty to hit because he has no way to offset that. Sure, +2 weapon is great, but it's not advantage. Also value of +1/2 weapon highly depends on DM and campaign. If everyone will have +1 weapon by level 4/5 or +2 by level 8-10 it's not that big of deal. Plus Pact Weapon is +1 for Hexblades, so de facto difference is just +1 while Battle Smith has no reliable way to get advantage.

His best way is Fearie Fire which is: save spell so it can work on not, but still takes action and has friendly fire.

[Dork_Forge]

Hexblade will be more accurate with SS once he has advantage, which again is something that Hexblade can easly do. Also you can dip 1 level Fighter for Archery style for +2 to hit btw. if you want that. Advantage is kind of DPR and accuracy as it gives on average more than +1 or +2 weapon. And if want to use stuff like SS or GWM - you need advantage or it just won't work. Or something like Sacred Weapon to offset that flat penalty with flat bonus.

I know about dipping Fighter, I do it frequently, I didn't mention multiclassing at all during this because I thought the intent was comparing single classed Battle Smith to Hexblade. I also didn't include any spell buff like that because the focus of my initial comparison was raw featless DPR and didn't factor in accuracy. The Hexblade can easily get advantage, providing the bag guy(s) don't have anything like blindsight etc., and assuming they only use their slots to pull that same combo for one encounter every short rest.

Advantage certainly helps SS/GWM, but no you don't need it at all to use those feats, as long as you have other sources of bonuses (+x weapons/Archery) and don't unwisely choose to power attack a High AC.

Edit: Saw you edited your post after I started replying: Yes, he does have a way to at least partially offset it, how common in the party a +x weapon is has zero bearing on how useful said item is for offsetting the -5. Other sources of advantage: SD Help action, Web Tiny Servant Help Action

[Farias123]

You know what Battle Smith can't do: have 2x Bladesingers with Tenser Transformation on, dealing 6x (1d8/6 + 2d12 + 10) with Elven Accuracy triple advantage or Simulacrum keeping Haste on Bladesinger Tenser, making him attack with 4x (1d8/6 + 2d12 + 10). And once level 17 hits that Bladesinger is riding Greater Steed Pegasus or can Wish for any spell in game.


Actually you could only attack 3 times cause Tenser Transformation specifies that if you have extra attack you don't gain another one



Level 11 EA Tenser Bladesinger will deal vs AC 19 enemy (assuming EA and +2 INT feats): 60.12 DPR


If you have a Bladesinger with a +5 to DEX on level 11 the damage would be on average 45 (2×(1d8(4,5)+2d12(13)+5). Whereas the average damage of a Battle Smith on level 11 that is concentrating on haste and his defender concentrating on heat metal(spell storing item) is
52(3×(1d8(4,5)+7)+1d8(4,5)+4+2d8(9)) or 59 with Arcane Jolt (+2d6(7))
Without mentioning that on the turn that haste is cast you can even do an attack because of your haste action, and the enemy will take the damage of heat metal already.



Level 14 EA Tenser Bladesinger will deal vs AC 19 enemy: 72.4 DPR


Isn't it 55? 2d8(9)+4d12(26)+20. Anyway, with the Battle Smith, if he uses haste, and before Battle he uses tiny servant with a spell slots of level 4, as he would have 3 of them, he could give them the spell storing item with enlarge reduce so they could concentrate on it to make you and your defender bigger( you defender can concentrate too), so if they attack too(two of them are going to be enlarged as well) the damage will be 75,5 (3d8(13,5)+3d4(7,5)+21)+1d8(4,5)+1d4(2,5)+5+5d4(12 ,5)+9) or 82,5 if you use Arcane Jolt.

[GearsX]

if we are talking lvl 20 I wouldn't even be taking the Steel defenders attack into consideration since its not that great, i would only use him to place him somewhere to get advantage then use animate object and attack with that with bonus action over the SD for 10d4 extra dmg.

Althought it would also depend on the situation.

[MaxWilson]

Actually you could only attack 3 times cause Tenser Transformation specifies that if you have extra attack you don't gain another one

You can get three attacks (four when Hasted) by dual-wielding. You don't really need TWF fighting style if you're Bladesinging w/ Tenser's, all that does is add a tiny bit of damage.

However, Bladesingers are much more interesting when Shapechanged rather than Tenser'ed. Marilith anyone?

[Farias123]

if we are talking lvl 20 I wouldn't even be taking the Steel defenders attack into consideration since its not that great, i would only use him to place him somewhere to get advantage then use animate object and attack with that with bonus action over the SD for 10d4 extra dmg.

Althought it would also depend on the situation.
Of course, and all of the objects could concentrate on enlarge on themselves, for 10d4 extra for a total of 20d4+40 with your bonus action

[Farias123]

You can get three attacks (four when Hasted) by dual-wielding. You don't really need TWF fighting style if you're Bladesinging w/ Tenser's, all that does is add a tiny bit of damage.

Got it, but even this way, the Bladesinger doesn't win by a lot of damage, actually, if you decided to put your INT up instead of your DEX on level 4 or 8, your damage is 57,5 (3d8+6d12+8) which is less than the Battle Smith's

[Dork_Forge]

Got it, but even this way, the Bladesinger doesn't win by a lot of damage, actually, if you decided to put your INT up instead of your DEX on level 4 or 8, your damage is 57,5 (3d8+6d12+8) which is less than the Battle Smith's

Bladesinger is a fun subclass, but it really struggles with being MAD unless you have really good rolls or are comfortable dumping half of your stats it really benefits from multiclassing into Battle Smith.

[Alucard89]

Got it, but even this way, the Bladesinger doesn't win by a lot of damage, actually, if you decided to put your INT up instead of your DEX on level 4 or 8, your damage is 57,5 (3d8+6d12+8) which is less than the Battle Smith's

But why would you do that? Any Bladesinger worth his money who chose elf race (which should be) will take Elven Accuracy to even DEX first and have triple advantage and then boost INT. If you want to be gish you have to build like gish.

And how is that lower than Battle Smith of the same level? Where did you get your Battle Smith numbers?

Again, you totally calculate that wrong. You can't compare flat dmg vs flat damage without counting accuracy and hit chance.

What will 10d10 per hit give you if you won't hit anything? You understand that? Probability is huge factor in d20 system and things like advantage, bonus to hit, number of attacks, elven accuracy, crit chance etc all increase damage. You can't just simply ignore that.

I showed you what DPR can achieve EA Bladesinger which is way higher than Battle Smith can achieve.

Please give me your Battle Smith damage numbers, weapon, main stat/feat and level and I will calculate you this vs same AC.

I tried to explain you for 2 whole pages that damage IS NOT FLAT AVERAGE number. You need to also count accuracy there.

Also I don't know how many more pages I will need to finally show you that Battle Smith is not top damage gish, nowhere near. It's not subclass for that.

[Alucard89]

Of course, and all of the objects could concentrate on enlarge on themselves, for 10d4 extra for a total of 20d4+40 with your bonus action

Objects can't enlarge themselfs and enlarge spell only works on single object and requires concentration and Animate Objects already require concentration.

[Dork_Forge]

But why would you do that? Any Bladesinger worth his money who chose elf race (which should be) will take Elven Accuracy to even DEX first and have triple advantage and then boost INT. If you want to be gish you have to build like gish.

Again, you totally calculate that wrong. You can't compare flat dmg vs flat damage without counting accuracy and hit chance.

What will 10d10 per hit give you if you won't hit anything? You understand that? Probability is huge factor in d20 system and things like advantage, bonus to hit, number of attacks, elven accuracy, crit chance etc all increase damage. You can just simply ignore that.

I showed you what DPR can achieve EA Bladesinger which is way higher than Battle Smith can achieve.

Please give me your Battle Smith damage numbers, weapon, main stat/feat and level and I will calculate you this vs same AC.

I tried to explain you for 2 whole pages that damage IS NOT FLAT AVERAGE number. You need to also count accuracy there.

It looks like you're repeatedly confusing the OP and myself but I will point out that there is nothing wrong with doing it as flat average damage as long as you acknowledge you're not accounting for accuracy. At the end of the day accounting for accuracy is nice, but some people just want to know what a build is capable of and in real play, sometimes you just roll terribly and those accuracy calculations mean nothing to you. Both types of calcs have value, just because one person prefers one way doesn't mean they're doing it wrong as long as they're aware of the pros and cons of how they are doing it.

Edit: In regards to objects not being able to enlarge themselves, once animated they are creatures and can use the Spell Storing Object like any other creature.

[Alucard89]

It looks like you're repeatedly confusing the OP and myself but I will point out that there is nothing wrong with doing it as flat average damage as long as you acknowledge you're not accounting for accuracy. At the end of the day accounting for accuracy is nice, but some people just want to know what a build is capable of and in real play, sometimes you just roll terribly and those accuracy calculations mean nothing to you. Both types of calcs have value, just because one person prefers one way doesn't mean they're doing it wrong as long as they're aware of the pros and cons of how they are doing it.

Edit: In regards to objects not being able to enlarge themselves, once animated they are creatures and can use the Spell Storing Object like any other creature.

I adressed correct person in my response.

It's not about preference, it's about being accurate. Build is not "capable" of X damage in real play if he won't hit anything. It's only capable of something that it can pull off.

For example a guy with 2d10 + 2d12 + 20 per attack x 3 can average deal 132 DPR. But if his to hit bonus is +4 only? Suddenly vs AC 17 that DPR is 56 DPR so MORE THAN HALF less.

Now we take a guy who has 1d8 + 1d10 + 10 per attack x 3. His average damage is only 60 DPR which is more than 2x less than above. However he has +9 to hit and can generate advantage. Suddenly damage vs AC 17 here is 55 DPR. With Elven Accuracy is 61 DPR. So he can get same DPR or even higher while having "potential" damage 2 times lower.

My point is that accuracy matters A LOT because it actually show what you will get in actual gameplay at table, instead of power-fantasy that will never happen.

Also once enemies start to get AC of 18-25 - Accuracy out DPS any flat potential numbers as the bigger damage per hit - the bigger is DPR loss on miss.

[Farias123]

Objects can't enlarge themselfs and enlarge spell only works on single object and requires concentration and Animate Objects already require concentration.
Spell storing item

[Alucard89]

Spell storing item

Am I missing something or it would take enormous amount of preparation time to pull off? Summoning Animate Objects, passing Spell Storing item to each one of them, having them cast it (which takes action) and then track each object seperately for concentration check? That doesn't seem practical at all at first glance.

[Farias123]

Please give me your Battle Smith damage numbers, weapon, main stat/feat and level and I will calculate you this vs same AC.


Weapon: longsword(1d8)(enhanced weapon +2)
INT:20(+5)
Extra Attack+Haste
Replicate Magic Item: Gauntlets of Ogre Power to Defender
Level 11
Spell Storing item(Heat Metal, which the defender will use)
So
My action 3 attacks(+11 to hit) damage 3×(1d8+7)
Bonus action command defender to attack as action(+8 to hit), damage(1d8+6) and deal heat metal damage as bonus action (2d8)
And preferably will use Arcane Jolt on a crit, but if all of them are normal hits I will use as well.

[Dork_Forge]

I adressed correct person in my response.

It's not about preference, it's about being accurate. Build is not "capable" of X damage in real play if he won't hit anything. It's only capable of something that it can pull off.

For example a guy with 2d10 + 2d12 + 20 per attack x 3 can average deal 132 DPR. But if his to hit bonus is +4 only? Suddenly vs AC 17 that DPR is 56 DPR so MORE THAN HALF less.

Now we take a guy who has 1d8 + 1d10 + 10 per attack x 3. His average damage is only 60 DPR which is more than 2x less than above. However he has +9 to hit and can generate advantage. Suddenly damage vs AC 17 here is 55 DPR. With Elven Accuracy is 61 DPR. So he can get same DPR or even higher while having "potential" damage 2 times lower.

My point is that accuracy matters A LOT because it actually show what you will get in actual gameplay at table, instead of power-fantasy that will never happen.

Also once enemies start to get AC of 18-25 - Accuracy out DPS any flat potential numbers as the bigger damage per hit - the bigger is DPR loss on miss.

You can't claim any prediction is what you'll get in game because we play this game using dice. Last session I ran the party Paladin rolled great to hit and absolutely terrible on damage, rolling low on so many dice so consistently it was against what your version of accurate would say he should be getting. It IS a preference whether or not you include accuracy in a calculation, if you don't like doing it that way then don't. In reality there's no big gap in to hit bonus here like you're portraying, so accuracy isn't as relevant to the comparison as you're making it seem. You are the one that injected -5/+10 feats into the mix to begin with, that suits your way of doing things, and that's okay. It's also okay to say 'this is the average damage assuming you hit', if you're using a power attack feat and using it would mean you're very unlikely to hit, you just wouldn't use it, not persist in trying and end up with a lower DPR because of lower accuracy.

[Farias123]

Am I missing something or it would take enormous amount of preparation time to pull off? Summoning Animate Objects, passing Spell Storing item to each one of them, having them cast it (which takes action) and then track each object seperately for concentration check? That doesn't seem practical at all at first glance.
It would take about to one minute before Battle or even less if your DM thinks that they can pass the object fast enough to two of them get to use it on one turn.

[Skylivedk]

I know about dipping Fighter, I do it frequently, I didn't mention multiclassing at all during this because I thought the intent was comparing single classed Battle Smith to Hexblade. I also didn't include any spell buff like that because the focus of my initial comparison was raw featless DPR and didn't factor in accuracy. The Hexblade can easily get advantage, providing the bag guy(s) don't have anything like blindsight etc., and assuming they only use their slots to pull that same combo for one encounter every short rest.

Advantage certainly helps SS/GWM, but no you don't need it at all to use those feats, as long as you have other sources of bonuses (+x weapons/Archery) and don't unwisely choose to power attack a High AC.

Edit: Saw you edited your post after I started replying: Yes, he does have a way to at least partially offset it, how common in the party a +x weapon is has zero bearing on how useful said item is for offsetting the -5. Other sources of advantage: SD Help action, Web Tiny Servant Help Action

I'm not a master of the artificer, but I can testify to not having to use a slot for Darkness for every encounter. It usually lasts two encounters due to the 10 minute concentration time. If you optimise, you probably pick half-drow and hence get two more advantage generators pretty long rest.

About the +X - if everybody gets something similar it's obviously not adding to your relative strength in combat (but instead frees up your magic items to other things).


Actually you could only attack 3 times cause Tenser Transformation specifies that if you have extra attack you don't gain another one

Twf, bog standard on melee bladesingers




If you have a Bladesinger with a +5 to DEX on level 11 the damage would be on average 45 (2×(1d8(4,5)+2d12(13)+5). Whereas the average damage of a Battle Smith on level 11 that is concentrating on haste and his defender concentrating on heat metal(spell storing item) is
52(3×(1d8(4,5)+7)+1d8(4,5)+4+2d8(9)) or 59 with Arcane Jolt (+2d6(7))
Without mentioning that on the turn that haste is cast you can even do an attack because of your haste action, and the enemy will take the damage of heat metal already.

I'm with Alucard on this one. Comparing without accuracy makes very little sense especially one of the two builds has triple advantage and the other doesn't.



It looks like you're repeatedly confusing the OP and myself but I will point out that there is nothing wrong with doing it as flat average damage as long as you acknowledge you're not accounting for accuracy. At the end of the day accounting for accuracy is nice, but some people just want to know what a build is capable of and in real play, sometimes you just roll terribly and those accuracy calculations mean nothing to you. Both types of calcs have value, just because one person prefers one way doesn't mean they're doing it wrong as long as they're aware of the pros and cons of how they are doing it.

Edit: In regards to objects not being able to enlarge themselves, once animated they are creatures and can use the Spell Storing Object like any other creature.
Depends on your definition of wrong. If you think it's wrong to post something that is potentially very misleading, then yes, posting without accuracy is wrong.

If you believe that your audience can apply those filters for themselves (ie like in business it's standard not to include VAT when you talk prices in a negotiation) or you have another reason to disregard accuracy (ie both are hitting a giant/wall) then it might be fine.

I find this phrase to be highly misleading:
"but some people just want to know what a build is capable of and in real play, sometimes you just roll terribly and those accuracy calculations mean nothing to you"

Because my phrase when reading it is that I somehow have a better understanding of real play when disregarding accuracy. That doesn't connect in the slightest with anything I consider accurate or helpful.

[Dork_Forge]

I'm not a master of the artificer, but I can testify to not having to use a slot for Darkness for every encounter. It usually lasts two encounters due to the 10 minute concentration time. If you optimise, you probably pick half-drow and hence get two more advantage generators pretty long rest.

About the +X - if everybody gets something similar it's obviously not adding to your relative strength in combat (but instead frees up your magic items to other things).

That is a playstyle difference, in games that I have ran and played in (both homebrew and WoTC published), having two encounters within ten minutes is far from the norm. Personally I see the 10 minute time as reasonable for precasting if you have an inkling combat is imminent, rather than spending a full turn doing nothing but powering yourself up (and potentially hindering your party).

Alucard essentially dismissed Faerie Fire in this discussion already as it's not only available to the Artificer, but the Artificer has the slots to actually use it regularly. (edit: to clarify that is the context it came up, not their reason for dismissing it, which as far as I can see is that it requires a save and you can hit party members if you aim badly)


Depends on your definition of wrong. If you think it's wrong to post something that is potentially very misleading, then yes, posting without accuracy is wrong.

If you believe that your audience can apply those filters for themselves (ie like in business it's standard not to include VAT when you talk prices in a negotiation) or you have another reason to disregard accuracy (ie both are hitting a giant/wall) then it might be fine.

I consider nothing wrong of misleading about posting damage without accuracy factored as long as you are transparent that it is not being accounted for (as i did when I presented my calculations).


I find this phrase to be highly misleading:
"but some people just want to know what a build is capable of and in real play, sometimes you just roll terribly and those accuracy calculations mean nothing to you"

Because my phrase when reading it is that I somehow have a better understanding of real play when disregarding accuracy. That doesn't connect in the slightest with anything I consider accurate or helpful.

DPR calculations that factor in accuracy are very useful, they also do nothing when the dice go for or against you as they are want to do. I didn't say nor mean that you gain a better understanding of real play by disregarding accuracy, but you certainly have a better idea of it when acknowledging that sometimes you just roll well or terribly. It's a thing that happens to everyone and can end up making accuracy based DPR calculations meaningless because you can only statistically model real life to a certain extent and expect it to hold true.

My personal preference is to say your DPR is x assuming you hit, rather than say accounting for accuracy your DPR is y. One invites the understanding that if you don't hit you will do less, whereas the other invites the assumption of this will be the damage you do, because we factored in the misses.

[GorogIrongut]

I have no interest getting dragged into a lot of what's being discussed here.

I've played both classes. Multiple times.

1. I think you will find that Artificer suffers slightly from being the newer class. Just compare the amount of Invocations to the amount of Infusions and you'll see what I'm talking about.
Combine that with the fact that the Artificer is a very magic item heavy kind of build. None of which are factored into these discussions.

2. Devil's Sight/Darkness as a combo has it's weaknesses. It's very susceptible to dispel magic. VERY susceptible. Considering the lack of spell slots a warlock has... and your source of Advantage (and the Elven Accuracy that has been occasionally postulated) disappears. In fact, if the Battle Smith still has their Steel Defender, the Hexblade will be attacking with Disadvantage atleast one of their attacks.

3. Continuing to discuss the defensive responses of the Battle Smith, Radiant Weapon is a very easy way of removing ALL Advantage that the Hexblade has. For a minute. Sure it's a Con Save, but according to the majority of builds postulated here, the Hexblade will already be very feat heavy. Which leaves minimal room for Con boosts. And considering that unlike the Battle Smith, it doesn't come with Con Save Proficiency... there's a very real chance they will fail it. Blindness would destroy the Hexblade.

4. I'm one of those horrible people who's BattleSmith is Svirfneblin and rides his Steel Defender. Which means I move faster than the Hexblade. If I'm out of level 3 spell slots, I'm not stupid. I put away my Melee infused weapon and pull out my Ranged Infused Weapon. I ride around baiting the Hexblade until their Darkness has expired. If they cast it again, then you know they no longer have any slots to Smite (until the end).
The point is, not every fight is a straight forward hack and slash. Play tactically and the Hexblade has quite a few weaknesses to exploit. Especially as being a melee-focused Hexblade takes up most of your Feats and Invocations. It becomes more difficult to sling around Eldritch Blast as if it was the strongest ranged cantrip in the game.

5. My homunculus usually has an item of spell storing on it that casts Faerie Fire. So it can get the spell off successfully against the target in question. And then it hides so it has no difficulty maintaining concentration. This means that barring Darkness, the Battle Smith (and anyone else in the party) will be hitting with Advantage all of the time.


There are a lot of definitive postulations being thrown about on this thread. In my experience, nothing about this fight is straight-forward.

[Farias123]

I have no interest getting dragged into a lot of what's being discussed here.

I've played both classes. Multiple times.

1. I think you will find that Artificer suffers slightly from being the newer class. Just compare the amount of Invocations to the amount of Infusions and you'll see what I'm talking about.
Combine that with the fact that the Artificer is a very magic item heavy kind of build. None of which are factored into these discussions.

2. Devil's Sight/Darkness as a combo has it's weaknesses. It's very susceptible to dispel magic. VERY susceptible. Considering the lack of spell slots a warlock has... and your source of Advantage (and the Elven Accuracy that has been occasionally postulated) disappears. In fact, if the Battle Smith still has their Steel Defender, the Hexblade will be attacking with Disadvantage atleast one of their attacks.

3. Continuing to discuss the defensive responses of the Battle Smith, Radiant Weapon is a very easy way of removing ALL Advantage that the Hexblade has. For a minute. Sure it's a Con Save, but according to the majority of builds postulated here, the Hexblade will already be very feat heavy. Which leaves minimal room for Con boosts. And considering that unlike the Battle Smith, it doesn't come with Con Save Proficiency... there's a very real chance they will fail it. Blindness would destroy the Hexblade.

4. I'm one of those horrible people who's BattleSmith is Svirfneblin and rides his Steel Defender. Which means I move faster than the Hexblade. If I'm out of level 3 spell slots, I'm not stupid. I put away my Melee infused weapon and pull out my Ranged Infused Weapon. I ride around baiting the Hexblade until their Darkness has expired. If they cast it again, then you know they no longer have any slots to Smite (until the end).
The point is, not every fight is a straight forward hack and slash. Play tactically and the Hexblade has quite a few weaknesses to exploit. Especially as being a melee-focused Hexblade takes up most of your Feats and Invocations. It becomes more difficult to sling around Eldritch Blast as if it was the strongest ranged cantrip in the game.

5. My homunculus usually has an item of spell storing on it that casts Faerie Fire. So it can get the spell off successfully against the target in question. And then it hides so it has no difficulty maintaining concentration. This means that barring Darkness, the Battle Smith (and anyone else in the party) will be hitting with Advantage all of the time.


There are a lot of definitive postulations being thrown about on this thread. In my experience, nothing about this fight is straight-forward.
Wow, thanks for replying man, I like your way of thinking as it is similar to mine in a lot of points, but we weren't discussing as a Battle one against the other(even though I still think the Battle Smith would win) but which one can deal more damage, but I appreciate your response.

[Citadel97501]

You ignore a lot of defense of hexblade like mobility, not provoking OAs, being untargatable by tons of spells, giving disadvantage to enemies, having armor of hexes, Levistus tomb etc. Also there is no point for Hexblade to use Long Sword if he can use Greatsword and your DPR calculations (again, same mistake as other people in this thread) only consider average damage without considering target AC and accuracy increase because of advantage (or super advantage with EA). Also the higher levels go the more and more DPR of Hexblade increase because:

1. More slots = more smites, recharge on short rest, can be use on crits for double damage.
2. Life Drinker = flat +5 to every attack.
3. Curse scalling = up to +6 to every attack
4. Higher level spells which can affect your DPR depending on your choices.

A couple notes:
As far as I can tell a Hexblade can't use a great sword as his pact weapon, unless he is able too for the purposes of the infusions, but doesn't get the charisma SAD benefit of the Hexblade, which will majorly penalize him enough that just sticking with a long sword is likely worth it.

1: Smite is bad, even on the crit fishing builds as it ends up being a waste of an infusion as you just don't have the spell slots to do that any any of your other tricks. 4 or 5 infusions, that all vie for the same resource is just awful...
2: Once again if your able to use a heavy weapon as your pact weapon, you still can't get the charisma as the primary so your going to be more MAD than a Hexblade is intended to be. This is also the problem with a shadow blade hexblade build, the damage is good but you only get one swing.
3: Your right I missed that part as I forget it all the time.
4: There aren't many bonus action spells that could actually increase your dps, and once again you run into the finite spell slot problem.

The Hexblade gets 3 spell slots at 11, but by level 11 an Artificer has 10 spell slots which individually are weaker but quantity is its own quality especially when it comes to power house spells like shield, abjure elements, web, or a number of others. Frankly that is the major reason they tossed the Archivist sub-class as the hexblade quality smite with much more spell slots just trounced the battlesmith.

[Chaos Jackal]

As far as I can tell a Hexblade can't use a great sword as his pact weapon, unless he is able too for the purposes of the infusions, but doesn't get the charisma SAD benefit of the Hexblade, which will majorly penalize him enough that just sticking with a long sword is likely worth it.

Not really interested in taking a side here. However, you're wrong in this. Pact of the Blade allows you to create or bind a greatsword or a polearm or any other weapon, as long as it's melee, non-sentient and not an artifact. Hex Warrior gives Cha to attacks to a weapon you touch, plus whatever weapon you create or bind with Pact of the Blade, regardless of type.

A Hexblade is very much SAD.

[Farias123]

Frankly that is the major reason they tossed the Archivist sub-class as the hexblade quality smite with much more spell slots just trounced the battlesmith.
Sorry, but I am not familiar with the Archivist, what can it do?

[Hael]

For lvl 20, feel free to correct and doublecheck (using Ludic's calculator).

Standard half-elf EA/PAM/GWM/Res build (standard array, no magic items)
(1d10 + 11) *2 + 1d4 +11 with tohit: 12
Resourceless dpr (with foresight/ea/gwm/pam) vs AC17: 72.29 dpr

Dpr after buff round (so after 1st turn elemental weapon + curse)
(1d10 +2d4 +17) *2 + (3d4 +17) with tohit:13 (with foresight/ea/gwm/pam) vs AC17: 111.9 dpr

BattleSmith (standard array, no magic items other than the +5 str gauntlets for the construct and the spell storing, no damage feats)

(1d8 + 7) * 2 (to hit 13)
ba: (1d8 + 11) (to hit 11)
Resourceless DPR: 31.8 DPR

DPR after buff round (1st turn haste and bonus action heat metal)
(1d8 + 7) * 3 (to hit 13)
ba: (1d8 + 11) (to hit 11) (heat metal adds 2d8 only one time per day b/c of ba economy))
Resource using DPR: 41.85 DPR

(alternatively with enlarge + animate objects)
(1d8+7) *2 (to hit 13)
ba: 10 * (1d8 + 2) with tohit:6 DPR:54.75 (much less of an increase than you would think b/c of accuracy, you take the 'small' value for AO)

Now, the Artificer has an extra 4d6 (which is really 8d6 b/c we critfish with it) of damage 5 times per day so about 140 damage per day extra.

The Hexblade (having used 1 slot) now has 3 5th lvl slots for eldritch smites, which are 6d8 each that he critfishes for 12d8 or 36d8 total ~ 162 extra damage per short rest. Alternatively he could cast aoes for potentially more dpr and of course he has his lvl 6,7,8 arcanums.

The smith will have his full slots (minus above spell) for defense, but they're not going to give him more offense than above. Of course, the extra attunements will go some way to mitigating all of this, but that's hard to quantify.

TLDR: A typical optimized Smith build is going to be well behind a Hexblade in DPR b/c of the lack of great damage feats available to him and b/c of the broken interaction of advantage with EA/GWM. It seems somewhat better for the Smith in earlier lvls. A xbow build is also probably a bit better, but end of the day any sane smith build is going to be about versatile buff auras, utility, defense and good but not great damag

[Christew]

A couple notes:
As far as I can tell a Hexblade can't use a great sword as his pact weapon, unless he is able too for the purposes of the infusions, but doesn't get the charisma SAD benefit of the Hexblade, which will majorly penalize him enough that just sticking with a long sword is likely worth it.
...
The Hexblade gets 3 spell slots at 11, but by level 11 an Artificer has 10 spell slots which individually are weaker but quantity is its own quality especially when it comes to power house spells like shield, abjure elements, web, or a number of others. Frankly that is the major reason they tossed the Archivist sub-class as the hexblade quality smite with much more spell slots just trounced the battlesmith.
You are thinking of only Hex Warrior. At level 3, Pact of the Blade opens up Heavy weapons.
...
Yeah, except that you are comparing a short rest caster and a long rest caster. Hexblade only has 3 spell slots (but they are at 5th level and recharge on a short rest), Artificer has a whopping 10 spell slots (but only 3 of them are at 3rd level and they recharge on a long rest). With only two short rests you are comparing 9 5th level slots to 3 3rd, 3 2nd, and 4 1st (45 vs 19 spell levels).

[Dork_Forge]

Yeah, except that you are comparing a short rest caster and a long rest caster. Hexblade only has 3 spell slots (but they are at 5th level and recharge on a short rest), Artificer has a whopping 10 spell slots (but only 3 of them are at 3rd level and they recharge on a long rest). With only two short rests you are comparing 9 5th level slots to 3 3rd, 3 2nd, and 4 1st (45 vs 19 spell levels).

Not the whole picture, the Hexblade as presented in this thread is burning a slot on something for advantage (Shadow of Moil/Darkness) and the rest on Smiting. This gives the Hexblade a go to strategy as long as they don't hit a second encounter before their next short rest or need to recast their source of advantage, or need a defensive/utility spell. In comparison the Battle Smith's version of a Smite (Arcane Jolt) is slot agnostic (being its own resource pool) just like the Artificer's defensive ability (Flash of Genius, also a separate resource pool) and then there's Spell Storing Item. Loading the SSI with a second level spell (Web, Shatter, Enlarge/Reduce, Dragons Breath etc.) turns your comparison into: 45 vs 39 spell levels (though I'm not really sure why spell levels is a relevant comparison for anything). If you start to factor in infused items (some of which just straight up let you cast certain spells) then it tips further in the Artificer's direction. This would normally be offset by invocations in a Warlock, but a Hexblade needs to dedicate a large chunk of their invocations to becoming melee centric (Thirsting Blade, Eldritch Smite, Life Drinker).

The Warlock's short rest recharge certainly has it's own value, but saying they get 9 5th level slots is misleading as 1) they don't get them all at once, making resource management a lot harder. 2) They're dependent on getting two short rests to get that many slots, where as long rest recharge casters get the same amount of slots regardless the amount of short rests.

[Farias123]

You are thinking of only Hex Warrior. At level 3, Pact of the Blade opens up Heavy weapons.
...
Yeah, except that you are comparing a short rest caster and a long rest caster. Hexblade only has 3 spell slots (but they are at 5th level and recharge on a short rest), Artificer has a whopping 10 spell slots (but only 3 of them are at 3rd level and they recharge on a long rest). With only two short rests you are comparing 9 5th level slots to 3 3rd, 3 2nd, and 4 1st (45 vs 19 spell levels).
Although you're right on your comparison about recovering everything on short rests, I don't think it's a very common situation to get to make 2 short rests, because it's way more common to do 1 short between 2 longs.
But even if you take in consideration the short rests, you actually shouldn't take into account "spell levels" because probably the Hexblade is going to need to use a couple of spells that doesn't get better when upcasted, such as shield, a level 1 spell that the Battle Smith has a pool of 4 slots just for this level.

[Alucard89]

I have no interest getting dragged into a lot of what's being discussed here.

I've played both classes. Multiple times.

1. I think you will find that Artificer suffers slightly from being the newer class. Just compare the amount of Invocations to the amount of Infusions and you'll see what I'm talking about.
Combine that with the fact that the Artificer is a very magic item heavy kind of build. None of which are factored into these discussions.

2. Devil's Sight/Darkness as a combo has it's weaknesses. It's very susceptible to dispel magic. VERY susceptible. Considering the lack of spell slots a warlock has... and your source of Advantage (and the Elven Accuracy that has been occasionally postulated) disappears. In fact, if the Battle Smith still has their Steel Defender, the Hexblade will be attacking with Disadvantage atleast one of their attacks.

3. Continuing to discuss the defensive responses of the Battle Smith, Radiant Weapon is a very easy way of removing ALL Advantage that the Hexblade has. For a minute. Sure it's a Con Save, but according to the majority of builds postulated here, the Hexblade will already be very feat heavy. Which leaves minimal room for Con boosts. And considering that unlike the Battle Smith, it doesn't come with Con Save Proficiency... there's a very real chance they will fail it. Blindness would destroy the Hexblade.

4. I'm one of those horrible people who's BattleSmith is Svirfneblin and rides his Steel Defender. Which means I move faster than the Hexblade. If I'm out of level 3 spell slots, I'm not stupid. I put away my Melee infused weapon and pull out my Ranged Infused Weapon. I ride around baiting the Hexblade until their Darkness has expired. If they cast it again, then you know they no longer have any slots to Smite (until the end).
The point is, not every fight is a straight forward hack and slash. Play tactically and the Hexblade has quite a few weaknesses to exploit. Especially as being a melee-focused Hexblade takes up most of your Feats and Invocations. It becomes more difficult to sling around Eldritch Blast as if it was the strongest ranged cantrip in the game.

5. My homunculus usually has an item of spell storing on it that casts Faerie Fire. So it can get the spell off successfully against the target in question. And then it hides so it has no difficulty maintaining concentration. This means that barring Darkness, the Battle Smith (and anyone else in the party) will be hitting with Advantage all of the time.


There are a lot of definitive postulations being thrown about on this thread. In my experience, nothing about this fight is straight-forward.

Dude, Darkness you only use till level 6... After that you have Shadow Of Moil instead.

Also why do you post Radiant Weapon as tool that can affect Hexblade advantage? Did you see anywhere in this thread that this is PvP thread? This is not Battle Smith vs Hexbade duel but Battle Smith vs Hexblade as playing in normal table adventures. What the hell...

Your homunculus castsing spell from item has his DC as opposing to enemy save and he doesn't have hig mind stats. So that Fearie Fire has even less chance to apply to enemies. It's not reliable way to get advantage.

Besides I have no idea what this discussion is still about since people now are bringing is some strange things like Radiant Weapon working vs Hexblade Darkness where we were totally not talking any PvP duels or people starting to bring some tactics like Enlarge Animate Objects which are impractical as it takes tons of time to set up everything and are UNUSABLE once combat starts and I higly doubt any DM will be kind enough to say "Ow, look there will be combat soon, if you want to take a stop and pre-buff yourself and summon objcests, and pass sorting item and let each object cast item- this is the moment".

Also every damage calculation I made so far was without making any "free time to buff myself before combat" because that is not reliable way to calculate damage and that would bring my Hexblade calculations even higher if I can just pre-buff myself...

Because going by the same logic I will take my Bladesinger, have my dimension ready and prepare there Glyphs will all possible buff spells like Haste, Blur, Mirror Image, Shadow Blade, Tenser etc. and use that before combat. I will step in on my Glyphs just before combat and pre-buff myself.

Now I am God and you can you can all bow to me.

It doesn't work that way in normal gameplay unless you play some sort of cRPG simulator where DM warns you that "hey, combat is coming, here is combat music".

Anyway, I think damage potential for both has been already explained and proven with proper calculations instead of some estimated out of nowhere values without anything to back them up.

[Alucard89]

Although you're right on your comparison about recovering everything on short rests, I don't think it's a very common situation to get to make 2 short rests, because it's way more common to do 1 short between 2 longs.
But even if you take in consideration the short rests, you actually shouldn't take into account "spell levels" because probably the Hexblade is going to need to use a couple of spells that doesn't get better when upcasted, such as shield, a level 1 spell that the Battle Smith has a pool of 4 slots just for this level.

No. According to RAW there should be 2 short rests per long rest and 6-8 encounters per adventuring day.

How you and your table run encounters, long rest and short rest is your own policy.

However when we compare anything to anything here on forum we follow RAW because only then you can get actual results without people bringing their homebrew rules/style which would make everything unclear.

So yes, you should get 2 short rests per long rest and that is how majority people play and that is also how it's played at Adventures League.

You also ignore fact that Hexblade poses disadvantage on enemies all the time for the whole encounter if he has active his Shadow of Moil spell + he can't be targeted by spells. Disadvantage gives on average arond -4.5 to hit while Shield gives +5 AC. But SoM lasts for whole encounter. There is also Armor of Hex and fact that Hexblade surrounded by SOM or Darkness does not provoke OA attacks, so he can run in, hit and run out of enemy, while you as Battle Master (unless you will take Mobile feat) need to stick more in melee. He also has Tomb of Levistus allowing him to eat huge Nova damage from enemy. Hexblades have enough defensive options.

So yes, you can use Shield spell more often but you can't impose disadvantage on enemies around you and you will also be attacked more because you are still targatable by spells and you can't move freely once engaged without risking OAs.

So Hexblade has enough slots for whole adventuring day following normal rules. I never had problem with slots on Hexblades with 2 short rests and I could also use my spells more liberately since I regen them on short rest.

I get the feeling you try very hard to prove something here but all I have seen from you is some average damage numbers which I don't know where it comes from and no actually proper damage calculations for any particular level/AC range. Wanna prove something - give me math. DnD 5e is not abstract system when it comes to damage. It's math based.

[Zalabim]

I just want to add, when you're coming up with strategies, neither the Steel Defender not the Homunculus can cast spells. It is not something they do on their own and it is not something you can order them to do.

[Dork_Forge]

Your homunculus castsing spell from item has his DC as opposing to enemy save and he doesn't have hig mind stats. So that Fearie Fire has even less chance to apply to enemies. It's not reliable way to get advantage.

No, the SSI uses the Artificers casting stat no matter who is using it.


Besides I have no idea what this discussion is still about since people now are bringing is some strange things like Radiant Weapon working vs Hexblade Darkness where we were totally not talking any PvP duels or people starting to bring some tactics like Enlarge Animate Objects which are impractical as it takes tons of time to set up everything and are UNUSABLE once combat starts and I higly doubt any DM will be kind enough to say "Ow, look there will be combat soon, if you want to take a stop and pre-buff yourself and summon objcests, and pass sorting item and let each object cast item- this is the moment".

Not the way I would use it, but why is that taking any longer that the Hexblade's set up round? Free action drop SSI, Action cast Animate Objects, bonus action instruct them to Enlarge themselves (each object becomes a creature with full action economy so: interact (pick up), cast Enlarge, drop and repeat), one turn of doing nothing but setting up but now you have 10 small constructs with an extra d4 damage.




You also ignore fact that Hexblade poses disadvantage on enemies all the time for the whole encounter if he has active his Shadow of Moil spell + he can't be targeted by spells. Disadvantage gives on average arond -4.5 to hit while Shield gives +5 AC. But SoM lasts for whole encounter. There is also Armor of Hex and fact that Hexblade surrounded by SOM or Darkness does not provoke OA attacks, so he can run in, hit and run out of enemy, while you as Battle Master (unless you will take Mobile feat) need to stick more in melee. He also has Tomb of Levistus allowing him to eat huge Nova damage from enemy. Hexblades have enough defensive options.

So yes, you can use Shield spell more often but you can't impose disadvantage on enemies around you and you will also be attacked more because you are still targatable by spells and you can't move freely once engaged without risking OAs.

So Hexblade has enough slots for whole adventuring day following normal rules. I never had problem with slots on Hexblades with 2 short rests and I could also use my spells more liberately since I regen them on short rest.

I get the feeling you try very hard to prove something here but all I have seen from you is some average damage numbers which I don't know where it comes from and no actually proper damage calculations for any particular level/AC range. Wanna prove something - give me math. DnD 5e is not abstract system when it comes to damage. It's math based.

Dispel Magic, Counter Spell on casting, failing a concentration check, antimagic fields, Blindsight, Tremorsense, Truesight- all ways that SoM fails, its a nice tactic but it's nowhere near as robust as you claim.

Tomb of levistus is also nice, but it also incapacitates you, so if you did have SoM up, it's now gone and you likely won't have the slots to recast it and still smite.

Armor of Hexes is nice, providing that you have whatever is attacking you cursed and then you also roll a 4 or higher. If the enemy goes before you in combat, AoH and SoM are meaningless as defense options, if this is the second encounter before the next short rest? Well the Hexblade has no resources left so their entire strategy falls apart in encounter 2 anyway.

You can impose disadvantage every round on one attack with your Steel Defender as a Battle Smith, you can also just use it as a mount as a small PC and have the Steel Defender disengage if you really want to do hit and run attacks.

I'm not seeing how you're liberally using your spells if every encounter you're casting Darkness/SoM and smiting? Even at 17th level when Warlocks get 4 slots you just about have enough to pull that combo off (SoM+single smite) once per encounter.

D&D is maths based, your version of providing maths as back up is saying you used a calculator and posting some numbers whilst also at least once showing that you used a wrong variable (assuming both the BS and the HB had 18 primary stats at 9th). The most math we have seen so far from your position is actually from another user using the same calcualator that also seems drastically stacked in favour of the Hexblade (I mean, resourceless damage that is using a 9th level spell... No magic items on the Battle Smith (besides Gauntlets) when a core class feature is magic item creation...).

I'm not even saying the Hexblade doesn't do more damage, I even like Warlocks (I'm playing one now, though I don't like what hexblade has done to the game), but all of these comparisons seem to favour the Warlock whilst overlooking it's short comings and underselling the full kit available to the Battle Smith.


I just want to add, when you're coming up with strategies, neither the Steel Defender not the Homunculus can cast spells. It is not something they do on their own and it is not something you can order them to do.
There's nothing limiting their actions outside of combat, so some buffs the can concentrate on before initiative. Otherwise you're better off handing it to a familiar or something.

[Farias123]

Wanna prove something - give me math. DnD 5e is not abstract system when it comes to damage. It's math based.
So, I did it, sincerely I thought it would be worse, and about the animate objects idea, I just thought about it at the moment, I didn't even knew if it would work, so, disconsider please.
Anyway, here it is:


Battle Smith level 11 against CA 19
(+11 to hit, 20 INT, enhanced weapon)
First attack with Arcane Jolt:
E=(P-C)×DPH+C×DPC
E=(0,65-0,05)×(1d8+7+2d6)+0,05×(2d8+4d6+7)
E=0,6×(4,5+7+7)+0,05×(9+14+7)
E=0,6×(18,5)+0,05×(30)
E=12,6
Extra and Haste attacks:
E'=0,6×11,5+0,05×16
E'=7,7
7,7×2=15,4+12,6=28
Total=28
Steel Defender(Spell Storing Item:Heat Metal + Replicate Magic Item: Gauntlets of Ogre Power)(+8 to hit, +6 to damage)
E=(0,5-0,05)×(1d8+6)+0,05×(2d8+6)+1×2d8(Heat Metal)
E=0,45×10,5+0,05×15+9
E=14,475
Battle Smith + Steel Defender= 42,475

Battle Smith level 15 against CA 19
(+12 to hit, 20 INT, enhanced Weapon)
(Tiny servants with spell storing item concentrating on enlarge on steel defender and the Battle Smith)
First attack with Arcane Jolt
E=0,65×(1d8+4d6+1d4+7)+0,05×(2d8+8d6+2d4+7)
E=0,65×(4,5+14+2,5+7)+0,05×(9+28+5+7)
E=18,2+2,45
E=20,65

Extra and Haste attacks:
E'=0,65×(4,5+2,5+7)+0,05×(9+5+7)
E'=9,1+1,05
E'=10,15
10,15×2=20,3
20,3+20,65=40,95

Steel Defender (Replicate Magic Item: Belt of Hill Giant Strength)(+10 to hit; +8 damage):
E=(0,6-0,05)×(1d8+1d4+8)+0,05×(2d8+2d4+8)
E=0,55×(4,5+2,5+8)+0,05×(9+5+8)
E=8,25+1,1
E=9,35
Battle Smith + Steel Defender= 50,3

I used the same method you used hehe, thanks, I didn't knew it before, and also, sorry for not being impartial, even though I was trying to. :)

[Hael]

The most math we have seen so far from your position is actually from another user using the same calcualator that also seems drastically stacked in favour of the Hexblade (I mean, resourceless damage that is using a 9th level spell... No magic items on the Battle Smith (besides Gauntlets) when a core class feature is magic item creation...).


I gave the art a +2 weapon in that example, the maximum amount of offensive items I believe and yea a lvl 20 Hex is going to always have foresight up during an adventure day unless he walks through an anti magic field. In practice lvl 20s are not going to be using artificer trinkets either, they’ll be using staffs of power and other ridiculous items that don’t necessarily give them a few more irrelevant d6s of damage, and as a general rule the Hexblade will always use damage better (eg a flame tongue weapon will increase his dps by a larger factor).

As far as I’m concerned, even trying to compete in a dpr war with the Hex is a serious build faux pas. You want to focus on defense, and items that increase your buffing capacity, all things which the class is built for to a far greater extent than a primary damage dealer. (I mean your haste and enlarge will be far better used on the berserker).

[Dork_Forge]

I actually agree that Hexblades do more damage, but the comparisons seemed a bit stacked in the HB favour.


I gave the art a +2 weapon in that example, the maximum amount of offensive items I believe

Making the most offensively, it'd probably be a +2 longbow, Bracers of Archery, Belt of Hill Giant Strength (for the SD) and the Sharpshooter feat.



and yea a lvl 20 Hex is going to always have foresight up during an adventure day unless he walks through an anti magic field.

You put Foresight under resourceless damage, how is your only 9th level casting of the day not a resource?

Foresight also lasts 8 hours, at best that's half an adventuring day.



In practice lvl 20s are not going to be using artificer trinkets either, they’ll be using staffs of power and other ridiculous items that don’t necessarily give them a few more irrelevant d6s of damage, and as a general rule the Hexblade will always use damage better (eg a flame tongue weapon will increase his dps by a larger factor).

There's no way to account for DM given magic items in these discussions.


As far as I’m concerned, even trying to compete in a dpr war with the Hex is a serious build faux pas. You want to focus on defense, and items that increase your buffing capacity, all things which the class is built for to a far greater extent than a primary damage dealer. (I mean your haste and enlarge will be far better used on the berserker).

And Foresight would be better spent on the Half Orc Paladin and both classes would benefit from multiclassing for this.

Hexblade definitely wins out in burst damage, but I don't think it's as distant a contest as some portray and it certainly narrows after their very limited slots are gone.

[MaxWilson]

No, the SSI uses the Artificers casting stat no matter who is using it.

Yep, but apparently no proficiency bonus.

[Dork_Forge]

Yep, but apparently no proficiency bonus.

I do hope that's an errata waiting to happen because that makes no sense from a balance or lore point of view. It's best used for buffs/Heat Metal anyway, but still annoying.

[MaxWilson]

I do hope that's an errata waiting to happen because that makes no sense from a balance or lore point of view. It's best used for buffs/Heat Metal anyway, but still annoying.

I think if it were intended for everyone to use your DC the spell would say so. Instead I think it's like Magic Stone: they use your ability score but their own proficiency bonus, which could be zero if they don't know how to use a sling (Magic Stone) or how to cast spells (spell storing item).

Anyway, from a lore and balance point of view I'm fine with status quo. There's precedent.

[Dork_Forge]

I think if it were intended for everyone to use your DC the spell would say so. Instead I think it's like Magic Stone: they use your ability score but their own proficiency bonus, which could be zero if they don't know how to use a sling (Magic Stone) or how to cast spells (spell storing item).

Anyway, from a lore and balance point of view I'm fine with status quo. There's precedent.

Lore wise it makes no sense to me that they can use your intelligence, but not your proficiency on spells you stored in an item, it'd make more sense to work like a Ring of Spell Storing. Still a good ability but that's taken the shine off it for me.

[Tes]

The first thing I'd throw out of the window when comparing anything to Hexblade is Curse.
The second thing is perma Advantage from Darkness + Devil's Sight or Shadow of Moil.

Why? Because both of those eat a very precious resource and they cost you a full turn to set up. And both randomly stop working when you get dropped because you're pretty squishy, don't excatly have an easy way to maintain concentration and have the habit of randomly not working (Tremor Sense, Devils sight on the other team, good old AoE Spells or just stuff not targeting your AC in general).
Most things have completed a full round by the time you're finished buffing, if you want to blow your 1/Short Rest Curse, can stick it on the target you want and want to blow your Spellslots on Darkness/SoM/Smites.

Hexblade is completely valid without those things and ignoring them makes for a much better realistic comparison.
You'll end up with a more accurate calculation and you don't have to calculate for the turn you missed setting up or losing Concentration right away. What's gonna be low are your defenses. Stuck at Medium Armor without Defense FS and only 2 Spellslots per Combat for a long time to cast Shield/Protection from Elements with, the Battlesmith is a lot more survivable. Everyone does more damage than the guy bleeding out on the floor.
What the Hexblade does and does better is excellent single target DPR. Decent utility by basically being a (somewhat limited) Full Caster on top.

Battlesmith gives you an extra (expendable) HP pool for the party and all the usual Artificer stuff. It's also pretty handy to have at least one INT class around for doing INT stuff. Talking only gets you so far when you're trying to figure out if that archway will blow you to smithereens and would like to make that Arcana check. Full casters are pretty neat in general, but somewhat interchangeable. If your party already has i.e. a Bard or Sorcerer, the Artificier whipping up a Bag of Holding, Cloak of Elvenkind or whatever you party hasn't found a way to deal with by now is different from the usual full caster utility (and he's still a 2/3s caster).

They're pretty much never going to compete directly at the same thing.

[Farias123]

Everyone does more damage than the guy bleeding out on the floor.

Actually that's a point that I wanted to get, because me and my friends did a Battle Royale, and it was 2v2, me with Battle Smith 8/ War Wizard 2, while my friend was with Hexblade 8/ Shadow Sorcerer 2.
We thought it would be easy.
He died on the second round, I used Revivify, died again. Of course I didn't win alone, but I didn't die for about to 7 or 8 rounds after he died for real.
So he didn't even got to use all his Smites.

[Alucard89]

So, I did it, sincerely I thought it would be worse, and about the animate objects idea, I just thought about it at the moment, I didn't even knew if it would work, so, disconsider please.
Anyway, here it is:


Battle Smith level 11 against CA 19
(+11 to hit, 20 INT, enhanced weapon)
First attack with Arcane Jolt:
E=(P-C)×DPH+C×DPC
E=(0,65-0,05)×(1d8+7+2d6)+0,05×(2d8+4d6+7)
E=0,6×(4,5+7+7)+0,05×(9+14+7)
E=0,6×(18,5)+0,05×(30)
E=12,6
Extra and Haste attacks:
E'=0,6×11,5+0,05×16
E'=7,7
7,7×2=15,4+12,6=28
Total=28
Steel Defender(Spell Storing Item:Heat Metal + Replicate Magic Item: Gauntlets of Ogre Power)(+8 to hit, +6 to damage)
E=(0,5-0,05)×(1d8+6)+0,05×(2d8+6)+1×2d8(Heat Metal)
E=0,45×10,5+0,05×15+9
E=14,475
Battle Smith + Steel Defender= 42,475

Battle Smith level 15 against CA 19
(+12 to hit, 20 INT, enhanced Weapon)
(Tiny servants with spell storing item concentrating on enlarge on steel defender and the Battle Smith)
First attack with Arcane Jolt
E=0,65×(1d8+4d6+1d4+7)+0,05×(2d8+8d6+2d4+7)
E=0,65×(4,5+14+2,5+7)+0,05×(9+28+5+7)
E=18,2+2,45
E=20,65

Extra and Haste attacks:
E'=0,65×(4,5+2,5+7)+0,05×(9+5+7)
E'=9,1+1,05
E'=10,15
10,15×2=20,3
20,3+20,65=40,95

Steel Defender (Replicate Magic Item: Belt of Hill Giant Strength)(+10 to hit; +8 damage):
E=(0,6-0,05)×(1d8+1d4+8)+0,05×(2d8+2d4+8)
E=0,55×(4,5+2,5+8)+0,05×(9+5+8)
E=8,25+1,1
E=9,35
Battle Smith + Steel Defender= 50,3

I used the same method you used hehe, thanks, I didn't knew it before, and also, sorry for not being impartial, even though I was trying to. :)

Spell Sorting Item: Heat Metal is only useful when fighting enemy with metal armor. Also it's action to Cast. It's not universal damage that will be dealt every time. It's situational.

Also, RAW I don't see that Steel Defender can use Magic Items to cast spells. RAW they can only use the following actions in combat:

"In combat, the steel defender shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. It can move and use its reaction on its own, but the only action it takes on its turn is the Dodge action, unless you take a bonus action on your turn to command it to take one of the actions in its stat block or the Dash, Disengage, Help, Hide, or Search action."

Stat block only has the following actions to use in combat: Rend or Repair.
__________________________________________________ ________________

But at least I know now what you want from your Battle Smith, so let's do DPR using proper Calculator from Ludic:

BattleSmith, level 11, AC 19 enemy, Greatsword +2, Arcane Jolt 2d6.

Steel Defender with Ogre Gloves

Turn 1:

Action: Haste
Haste Action Attack: 2d6 + 7
Bonus Action: Rend from Steel Defender (+10 to hit, 1d8 + 8 damage)
Damage First round: 23 DPR

Turn 2:
Action: 3x (2d6 + 7) + 2d6. Bonus to hit: 11
Bonus Action: Rend From Steel Defender (+10 to hit, 1d8 + 8 damage)
Damage Second round: 43 DPR

https://i.imgur.com/io7CmaH.png

Total DPR done in 2 turns: 66


And now we have proper DPR.

Thanks for info, now we could calculate everything properly for level 11.

EDIT: Corrected first turn damage as one sequence.

[Dork_Forge]

But at least I know now what you want from your Battle Smith, so let's do DPR using proper Calculator from Ludic:

BattleSmith, level 11, AC 19 enemy, Greatsword +2, Arcane Jolt 2d6.

Steel Defender with Ogre Gloves

Turn 1:

Action: Haste
Haste Action Attack: 14 DPR
Bonus Action: Rend from Steel Defender (+10 to hit, 1d8 + 8 damage) 7.75 DPR
Damage First round: 21.75 DPR

Turn 2:
Action: 3x (2d6 + 7) + 2d6. Bonus to hit: 11
Bonus Action: Rend From Steel Defender (+10 to hit, 1d8 + 8 damage)
Damage Second round: 43 DPR


Total DPR done in 2 turns: 64.75



Hopefully you can clarify some of the maths here, if you're accounting for accuracy with every hit, then surely you'd just multiply the Haste attack DPR from turn 1 to get turn 2? But the Haste attack is listed as 14, so why isn't turn 2 49.75 instead of 43? Did you include Arcane Jolt in round 1 and not just list it and that's what's skewing the numbers?

In regards to accuracy vs average damage calcs I have no idea how this is meant to be more clear, the DPR listed for the Steel Defender is 1.25 less than it's minimum damage. Why wouldn't it just be clearer to list average damage alongside percentage to hit chance? So for Steel Defender it'd be 12.5 avg dmg with a 55% chance to hit.

[Alucard89]

Hopefully you can clarify some of the maths here, if you're accounting for accuracy with every hit, then surely you'd just multiply the Haste attack DPR from turn 1 to get turn 2? But the Haste attack is listed as 14, so why isn't turn 2 49.75 instead of 43? Did you include Arcane Jolt in round 1 and not just list it and that's what's skewing the numbers?

In regards to accuracy vs average damage calcs I have no idea how this is meant to be more clear, the DPR listed for the Steel Defender is 1.25 less than it's minimum damage. Why wouldn't it just be clearer to list average damage alongside percentage to hit chance? So for Steel Defender it'd be 12.5 avg dmg with a 55% chance to hit.

Probability my man - you have to count in DPR calculation probablity. Less attacks - more chance of dealing 0 damage.

But you are correct that number was slightly off in 1st turn because I counted two attacks sperately instead of as one sequence so DPR in Turn 1 is 23 (because at first I forgot you can still attack after casting Haste RAW). I will edit now.

And I did include Arcane Jolt in numbers for both turns. 2nd turn if full sequence of 4 attacks, and that is it's DPR.

Ludic Savant calculator does not lie. Guy is the biggest math brain on this forum. You can go and check calculator yourself.

As for chance to hit for full sequence of attacks (3 + Steel) is 65% base.

[Tes]

Turn 1:
Action: Haste
Haste Action Attack: 14 DPR
Bonus Action: Rend from Steel Defender (+10 to hit, 1d8 + 8 damage) 7.75 DPR
Damage First round: 21.75 DPR

Turn 2:
Action: 3x (2d6 + 7) + 2d6. Bonus to hit: 11
Bonus Action: Rend From Steel Defender (+10 to hit, 1d8 + 8 damage)
Damage Second round: 43 DPR

Total DPR done in 2 turns: 64.75


And now we have proper DPR.

Thanks for info, now we could calculate everything properly for level 11.
Since it irks me:

Total DPR done in 2 turns: 64.75 32.375
If we're using DPR as proper DPR rather than damage totals.

From what I've seen this is also what messes up most of the calculations for your Hexblade numbers.
Your buffing round 1 is 0 DPR. DPR by round 2 is 1/2 the number you are using as metric, Frontloading damage to reduce the damage that comes back is usually more desireable than slightly higher damage in round 3+. The encounter will pretty much be decided by the time you break even using the example you're using to argue for Hexblade.
Not to mention that you'll generally do comparable damage in a 3 round fight by not using Short Rest resources at all and just straight up attacking for 3 rounds over of 2 with Advantage.

[Alucard89]

Since it irks me:

Total DPR done in 2 turns: 64.75 32.375
If we're using DPR as proper DPR rather than damage totals.

From what I've seen this is also what messes up most of the calculations for your Hexblade numbers.
Your buffing round 1 is 0 DPR. DPR by round 2 is 1/2 the number you are using as metric, Frontloading damage to reduce the damage that comes back is usually more desireable than slightly higher damage in round 3+. The encounter will pretty much be decided by the time you break even using the example you're using to argue for Hexblade.
Not to mention that you'll generally do comparable damage in a 3 round fight by not using Short Rest resources at all and just straight up attacking for 3 rounds over of 2 with Advantage.

Correct about DPR. I should have called it "total damage in 2 turns" instead of DPR. Point taken.

[Dork_Forge]

Probability my man - you have to count in DPR calculation probablity. Less attacks - more chance of dealing 0 damage.

But you are correct that number was slightly off in 1st turn because I counted two attacks sperately instead of as one sequence so DPR in Turn 1 is 23 (because at first I forgot you can still attack after casting Haste RAW). I will edit now.

And I did include Arcane Jolt in numbers for both turns. 2nd turn if full sequence of 4 attacks, and that is it's DPR.

Ludic Savant calculator does not lie. Guy is the biggest math brain on this forum. You can go and check calculator yourself.

As for chance to hit for full sequence of attacks (3 + Steel) is 65% base.

Actually your numbers just seem off, Steel Defender should have a +8 to hit (4 Str+4Prof) and a +6 to damage.

If I had any interest in using said calculator then I would have initially, I don't like those kinds of damage calcs so they're not the ones I use. If you are however inclined to use said calculator, it doesn't matter how good it is if you input the wrong variables.

[Alucard89]

Actually your numbers just seem off, Steel Defender should have a +8 to hit (4 Str+4Prof) and a +6 to damage.

If I had any interest in using said calculator then I would have initially, I don't like those kinds of damage calcs so they're not the ones I use. If you are however inclined to use said calculator, it doesn't matter how good it is if you input the wrong variables.

Numbers are accurate. Steel Defender even got +10 to hit in my calculations, because +4 to hit, +4 prof and +2 from Ogre Gloves giving him 19 STR (so from +2 to +4).

You may not want to use it but it's accurate. All damage and to hit data are accurate: 3 attacks with +11 to hit with 2d6 + 7 each (5 INT and +2 Greatsword) and 2d6 Arcane Jolt on first hit and bonus action Rend attack 1d8 + 8 (2 + 4 prof + 2 Ogre Gloves). Enemy AC 19. Normal DPR 43

https://i.imgur.com/DGTeTp3.png

[Dork_Forge]

Numbers are accurate. Steel Defender even got +10 to hit in my calculations, because +4 to hit, +4 prof and +2 from Ogre Gloves giving him 19 STR (so from +2 to +4).

You may not want to use it but it's accurate. All damage and to hit data is accurate:


You don't stack those together, the original +4 is from +2 Str and +2 prof, at level 11 with the gauntlets those should both change to +4 for a total of +8. And you don't add full proficiency to the Rend damage, you just increment it by one every time your prof increases, so at level 11 +2 not +4 from prof.

[Alucard89]

You don't stack those together, the original +4 is from +2 Str and +2 prof, at level 11 with the gauntlets those should both change to +4 for a total of +8. And you don't add full proficiency to the Rend damage, you just increment it by one every time your prof increases, so at level 11 +2 not +4 from prof.

With +8 to hit and +6 to damage DPR will be 41.20 for AC 19.

Thanks for correction. I actually missed that prof bonuses increase only when it increase by 1. Good catch and I admit mistake here.

Here is DPR with corrected values for Steed Defender:

https://i.imgur.com/zmviDd9.png

[Farias123]

Also, RAW I don't see that Steel Defender can use Magic Items to cast spells. RAW they can only use the following actions in combat:

"In combat, the steel defender shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. It can move and use its reaction on its own, but the only action it takes on its turn is the Dodge action, unless you take a bonus action on your turn to command it to take one of the actions in its stat block or the Dash, Disengage, Help, Hide, or Search action."

EDIT: Corrected first turn damage as one sequence.
I mean, RAW to activate the spell storing item, you don't need to cast spells, cause it's using, the Artificer's stats, and you just need to be able to make an action on your turn, it's not a use object action, I think it's a case of specific beats general

While holding the object, a creature can take an action to produce the spell's effect from it using your spellcasting ability modifier.

[Farias123]

So, I don't think it's fair to use Heat Metal cause it's not certain that you will fight someone that uses armor.
But I think it's fair to Steel Defender use Spell Storing Item on the Battle Smith on the First Round.
So, for maximum damage and a fair competition, let's say both of them are at level 11, and always using Arcane Jolt and Eldritch Smite on the first attacks.
So, we should see the 4 first rounds so everything is being counted, like this(Hexblade);(Battle Smith)
Round 1-Preparation Round(SoM+HBC);(Haste+SD SSI Enlarge+Haste Attack+ Jolt)
Round 2-(Attack+Smite+PAM Atack);(Attack+SD Attack+ Haste Attack+ Jolt)
Round 3-(Equal)(Equal)
Round 4-(Mystic Arcanum 6)(Equal)
And would be there still one Jolt left that could be counted on a fifth round

Invocations:
Life Drinker
Thirsting Blade
Eldritch Smite
And 2 more that I don't know which to pick :D haha

Infusions:
Enhanced Weapon(+2)
Replicate Magic Item(Gauntlets of Ogre Power-SD)
And 2 that I don't know which are better for damage haha

[Alucard89]

Round 1-Preparation Round(SoM+HBC);(Haste+SD SSI Enlarge+Haste Attack+ Jolt)


How do you want to use SSI? Your action goes to Haste, and if you want to attack with haste that is all your action. Your bonus action goes to Steel Defender OR to activate SSI for Enlarge. If you activate SSI you can't keep concentration on both haste and Enlarge.

And SD can't activate SSI because he can't do any other actions in combat then those mentioned + even if he could - it would take his action (your bonus action) to do it so no attack from him

Too much in 1st turn.


I mean, RAW to activate the spell storing item, you don't need to cast spells, cause it's using, the Artificer's stats, and you just need to be able to make an action on your turn, it's not a use object action, I think it's a case of specific beats general

While holding the object, a creature can take an action to produce the spell's effect from it using your spellcasting ability modifier.

Actually imo specific is SD actions restriction here and general is that anyone can use action to produce the spell effect.

Going by that there is nothing to prevent mounts/steeds etc. to wear magic items (like one that can shot fireballs) and use their action to hurl fireballs/concentration spells around. But mounts have very specific restrictions of what kind of actions they can take to prevent such exploit/rules abusement. I think for the same reason they made very specific list of what Steed Defender can use his actions for.

[Farias123]

And SD can't activate SSI because he can't do any other actions in combat then those mentioned + even if he could - it would take his action (your bonus action) to do it so no attack from him.

Ok, anyway, I could have the same effect by using Tiny servant before, cause it has a 8 hour time duration, it takes the same bonus action and there are no restrictions to its actions.

But that's not the point, the point is that to we find out their average DPR, we need to use the calculator, and since you seem to be the most experienced about it in here, could you help me with this?

[GorogIrongut]

Dude, Darkness you only use till level 6... After that you have Shadow Of Moil instead.

Also why do you post Radiant Weapon as tool that can affect Hexblade advantage? Did you see anywhere in this thread that this is PvP thread? This is not Battle Smith vs Hexbade duel but Battle Smith vs Hexblade as playing in normal table adventures. What the hell...

Your homunculus castsing spell from item has his DC as opposing to enemy save and he doesn't have hig mind stats. So that Fearie Fire has even less chance to apply to enemies. It's not reliable way to get advantage.

Dude...

1. Go ahead and use Shadow of Moil. It means that any creature with Darkvision can see you just fine and you get know Advantage against them. Their counterattacks are also unaffected. And it only lasts a minute. For a class that only has 2ish slots, Shadow of Moil is a poor choice.
I personally find a level 5 Armor of Agathys is a better pay off. And that riding the Devil's Sight/Darkness combo is a fool's errand at most levels of play, and a sure way to piss off other party members.

2. As for the Radiant Weapon...
'The weapon has 4 charges. As a reaction immediately after being hit by a melee attack, the wielder can expend 1 charge and cause the attacker to be blinded until the end of the attacker’s next turn, unless the attacker succeeds on a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC. The weapon regains 1d4 expended charges daily at dawn.'
Darkness only nullifies magical light created by a spell. Which means that Radiant Weapon is unaffected. Which means that the artificer is able to potentially blind any attacker. Said blindness grants the artificer Advantage for a minute.

3. As I said, I had no interest in discussing many of the variables being bandied about in this thread. I measure a characters effectiveness against other PC's. Because in the games I play in, if a PC can do it. Then so can an NPC/monster/etc. We like our opponents to be challenging. Not some boring 17 ac mook.

To each their own.

4. Homunculus does have a feature that enables it to cast your spells. I've yet to have a DM differentiate between you casting the spell or using a spell storing item that you created.


As for why I responded to any of this... It's because there were quite a few people being strident in their arguments. Yes in a blind simulator against low level mooks where nothing complicated is allowed to happen, then the Hexblade wins. But I would also argue that that's a poor facsimile of how real gameplay occurs. Because some of the comments bordered on condescension, I felt obligated to respond. It's not straightforward. But you don't have to listen to me. I'm unimportant.


The metric by which I measure a class, is how difficult I find it to multi class out of said class. And by that measure I actually find the Artificer to be one of the best designed classes in the game. Because I struggle to find a point where dipping even into a War Wizard gives me more bang for my buck than staying Artificer.

I'll still multiclass for roleplaying purposes. For example, the current Artificer I have on the go, dipped 1 level into the new Genie Warlock. Because I LOVE the flavour. A cranky old mechanic type who has a hidden room where he has shelves and shelves of random parts that he can dip into once a day to carry out all of his repairs/mad scientist creations. That concept tickles me.

Now, I'm personally done with this thread. I wish you all well.

[Skylivedk]

Dude...

1. Go ahead and use Shadow of Moil. It means that any creature with Darkvision can see you just fine and you get know Advantage against them. Their counterattacks are also unaffected. And it only lasts a minute. For a class that only has 2ish slots, Shadow of Moil is a poor choice.
I personally find a level 5 Armor of Agathys is a better pay off. And that riding the Devil's Sight/Darkness combo is a fool's errand at most levels of play, and a sure way to piss off other party members.

2. As for the Radiant Weapon...
'The weapon has 4 charges. As a reaction immediately after being hit by a melee attack, the wielder can expend 1 charge and cause the attacker to be blinded until the end of the attacker’s next turn, unless the attacker succeeds on a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC. The weapon regains 1d4 expended charges daily at dawn.'
Darkness only nullifies magical light created by a spell. Which means that Radiant Weapon is unaffected. Which means that the artificer is able to potentially blind any attacker. Said blindness grants the artificer Advantage for a minute.

3. As I said, I had no interest in discussing many of the variables being bandied about in this thread. I measure a characters effectiveness against other PC's. Because in the games I play in, if a PC can do it. Then so can an NPC/monster/etc. We like our opponents to be challenging. Not some boring 17 ac mook.

To each their own.

4. Homunculus does have a feature that enables it to cast your spells. I've yet to have a DM differentiate between you casting the spell or using a spell storing item that you created.


As for why I responded to any of this... It's because there were quite a few people being strident in their arguments. Yes in a blind simulator against low level mooks where nothing complicated is allowed to happen, then the Hexblade wins. But I would also argue that that's a poor facsimile of how real gameplay occurs. Because some of the comments bordered on condescension, I felt obligated to respond. It's not straightforward. But you don't have to listen to me. I'm unimportant.


The metric by which I measure a class, is how difficult I find it to multi class out of said class. And by that measure I actually find the Artificer to be one of the best designed classes in the game. Because I struggle to find a point where dipping even into a War Wizard gives me more bang for my buck than staying Artificer.

I'll still multiclass for roleplaying purposes. For example, the current Artificer I have on the go, dipped 1 level into the new Genie Warlock. Because I LOVE the flavour. A cranky old mechanic type who has a hidden room where he has shelves and shelves of random parts that he can dip into once a day to carry out all of his repairs/mad scientist creations. That concept tickles me.

Now, I'm personally done with this thread. I wish you all well.

Are you sure on #1? What I have seen from game developers seem to indicate that neither darkvision nor true sight helps. As for not using Darkness... I don't know why you wouldn't.

At 17th level I still have Devil's Sight. A 10 minute advantage/disadvantage, LoS blocker that works with summons and the Druid is still a great option to have. Pretty often it means the party can steamroll 1-3 encounters using a minimum of resources.

Even against special senses, it's nice to have your formation etc secret until you are in range.

@to the guy who had the Hexblade friend drop: no Armour of Agathys? Personal experience is that the Hexblade is deceptively tanky with AoE, the level 10 ability (50% miss chance), HP on kill, counterspell and dispel magic. Since creation, I think my character has been at 0 hp two or three times. Every other character has been killed (barring the newest reroll). Not as tanky as the Artificer (which is top-2, maybe 1 IMO).

Other things to consider is the campaign type. Longer rest variants will favour the Hexblade and so will combat as war/sandbox-style later due to the power of stuff like true polymorph (in reality struggling between True Polymorph and Foresight)

[Damon_Tor]

Well, I have a couple of questions about which of these two SAD(single ability dependant) gish classes deal more damage, puting in comparison things like Arcane Jolt and Eldritch Smite, can anyone help me pls?

It's important to consider TSARs. An artificer that wants to deal burst damage can assign 10 Tiny Servants to a Spell Storage Item loaded with a damage dealing spell. If you want sustained damage instead (or want to do something else with your SSI, like a Warding Bond TSAR for personal defense) you can instead keep three Tiny Servants to use with Magic Stone. Being able to use Magic Stone every turn as a bonus action while attacking twice (or three times via haste) is pretty great, that's 5 (or 6) attacks per turn.

[Hael]

Darkvision does not see through Shadow of Moil and neither does True Sight. You need something like Tremorsense. Crawford has explicitly stated as much and this is not in dispute. Likewise, the light from Radiant weapon would not pierce shadow of Moil b/c its not about lighting but rather about the obscurement from 'flame like shadows', however I think the blindness reaction would probably be applicable even though you can't technically 'see' the attacker b/c specific trumps general, but that would be a DM ruling.

Regarding Heat metal.. We're already in sketch land with the double concentration (my DM does not allow familiars to break the single concentration for instance), but the way I would rule (as a RAI) it is that you can use your BA to command the construct to heat metal, and then on the next turn during the rend attack the constructs attack will have the onhit effect. This 'acts' to cool the metal, and you would need to reuse a BA to reheat the metal. So its useful as a prebuff or on turns where the construct isn't in range. RAW, the construct doesn't have a bonus action so he wouldn't be able to use it at all.

Regarding DPR comparisons. I like to separate limited resources using onhit effects like Smite/Jolt from damage calculations and just apply it as extra free damage over the course of the day. This is b/c in practise you will often critfish, and so simply looking at a spreadsheet will undersell the utility of the onhit effect. Also, as a general practise having a buff round isn't completely erroneous, there are many encounters that take place after a 'big door opens' or where enemies are simply not in range. Also with spells like elemental weapon or holy weapon that are 1 hr long, you will frequently have them still up between combat encounters.

In any event in the Smith vs Hex comparison this is moot as they both necessitate a buff round (the smith casts haste and heat metal or animate object and enlarge), the Hexblade casts (darkness/hex and ba curse). The rule of thumb for the Hexblade is you want to buff if you know you will spend more than 3 turns in combat (the buffing is either slightly ahead at the end of the third round or about even) and of course that the enemies necessitate large damage ranges (it is not worth casting curse against enemies that have eg 10 hp). In practise, the overwhelming DPR loss for the battlesmith isn't even going to come from the pure math dpr differential, but rather from being out of combat range while the Hexblade will always have devilsight + eldritch blast at 120feet. This is why even normal warlocks frequently have very large total damage numbers (if someone actually counts total damage over the course of a day), and that's just b/c they're almost never with dead rounds and frequently have nothing better to do (this isn't always a good thing).

[Alucard89]

Dude...

1. Go ahead and use Shadow of Moil. It means that any creature with Darkvision can see you just fine and you get know Advantage against them. Their counterattacks are also unaffected. And it only lasts a minute. For a class that only has 2ish slots, Shadow of Moil is a poor choice.
I personally find a level 5 Armor of Agathys is a better pay off. And that riding the Devil's Sight/Darkness combo is a fool's errand at most levels of play, and a sure way to piss off other party members.



What are you talking about? Did you even read rules once? Darkvision does not work against Shadow of Moil. Shadow of moil reads like that: Flame-like shadows wreathe your body until the spell ends, causing you to become heavily obscured to others. BUM! Full STOP! That is the main effect of Shadow of Moil. You are heavy obstructed by flame-like shadows. Then you have SECOND effect of Shadow of Moil: The shadows turn dim light within 10 feet of you into darkness, and bright light in the same area to dim light. And darkvision only helps vs this part. So with darkvision you see through darkness but only to still see caster obsctruced by flame-slike shadows and darkvision doesn't help vs that. Hell, even True Sight does not work vs Shadow of Moil. The only 2 things that work vs it is Blindsight and Tremorsense.

How you can even post nonsense like that if you don't know basic mechanics? Seriously....

And here you have even Quoite from Jeremy Crawford tweet:

"Jeremy Crawford
@JeremyECrawford
Shadow of Moil heavily obscures you, full stop. The spell also dims the light around you.

The fact that you're heavily obscured is a result of the flame-like shadows surrounding you, not the result of being in darkness. This means you're heavily obscured even to darkvision"

And here is link : https://twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/1084904730789212160

Jesus Christ....

[Spacehamster]

Well, I have a couple of questions about which of these two SAD(single ability dependant) gish classes deal more damage, puting in comparison things like Arcane Jolt and Eldritch Smite, can anyone help me pls?

Bit off topic but, which book is battle smith from? :)

[Farias123]

The metric by which I measure a class, is how difficult I find it to multi class out of said class. And by that measure I actually find the Artificer to be one of the best designed classes in the game. Because I struggle to find a point where dipping even into a War Wizard gives me more bang for my buck than staying Artificer.
Oh, I just did it because of backstory, bigger initiative and the war wizard reaction that I don't lose anything cause I wouldn't be casting a spell anyway.


Bit off topic but, which book is battle smith from? :)
It's from Eberron: Rising from the last War :D

[Hael]

OT but regarding PvP. In my experience, its almost completely dominated by full casters. Classes like the artificer have very little (outside of attuned magic items) they can use against cheesy combos like forcecage + sickening radiance. Melee is all about cheesy kiting tactics (often using sentinel), and who has the most ranged and potentially fight ending save or suck effects.

In any event the builds that are useful for PvP are entirely different than what you would use for PvE.

[Farias123]

you can instead keep three Tiny Servants to use with Magic Stone. Being able to use Magic Stone every turn as a bonus action while attacking twice (or three times via haste) is pretty great, that's 5 (or 6) attacks per turn.
I think that this would end up being less damage than just atacking with the steel defender for 2 turns, unless you have already "commanded" your tiny servants before and you don't need to do it anymore.

[Farias123]

Regarding DPR comparisons. I like to separate limited resources using onhit effects like Smite/Jolt from damage calculations and just apply it as extra free damage over the course of the day. This is b/c in practise you will often critfish, and so simply looking at a spreadsheet will undersell the utility of the onhit effect.


That seems fair to me, so, this way, I think it would give the Battle Smith a bit of advantage, since the Hexblade burns spell slots, but the Battle Smith has a pool of extra dice.

[Cry Havoc]

A Pact of the Blade Hexblade will do more damage, by the time you get Arcane Jolt (9th level) you'd have 5th level slots as a Warlock. Arcane Jolt is 2d6 so average 7 extra damage, whereas at that level Eldritch smite would be 6d8 (With prone rider) for 27 damage on average. The Warlock also has access to Hex and Hexblades curse and since we're discussing Arcane Jolt, then Life Drinker (Cha to damage) is only a few levels away.

You'd be getting more support/utility and durability out of the Battle Smith, so it's a case of what you personally want out of the build.

Edit: It's also worth keeping in mind that Eldritch Smite is comsuming your very limited Warlock slots, but Arcane Jolt you get for free up to five times per day. You could take the saved slots and use them on Smite spells to compensate for the damage difference.

Not sure I entirely agree with that, seeing as the Battle Smith is likely to be using his Smite spells more often than the Warlock.

[Dork_Forge]

Not sure I entirely agree with that, seeing as the Battle Smith is likely to be using his Smite spells more often than the Warlock.

This was more about burst damage, but you also have to consider every round you set up a Smite spell you lose a SD attack, so that's less chances to hit (and get Arcane Jolt off) and you're trading the more reliable damage of the SD for dice.

[Farias123]

Not sure I entirely agree with that, seeing as the Battle Smith is likely to be using his Smite spells more often than the Warlock.
Actually, I don't think that it compensates, because it's concentration, so, no haste, and you're gonna waste a lot of spell slots, and on average deal less damage than with haste.

[Cry Havoc]

This was more about burst damage, but you also have to consider every round you set up a Smite spell you lose a SD attack, so that's less chances to hit (and get Arcane Jolt off) and you're trading the more reliable damage of the SD for dice.

The SD attack is pretty meh.

The reaction defence is where the money is at.

[Farias123]

The SD attack is pretty meh.

The reaction defence is where the money is at.
Although the defender's reaction is pretty great, I don't think its attack is trash:
1d8+2+(Proficiency above level 1) is better than 2d6, starting on level 5, because 1d8+3(7,5)>2d6(7)

[Dork_Forge]

The SD attack is pretty meh.

The reaction defence is where the money is at.

The reaction is great, but your point is kind of moot since those aren't competing things, you can take the attack and still have the Defensive Pounce available.

If you use Searing Smite (the only smite spell available to us until level 17) you'd be doing 1.5 less damage on average (1d8+4 [8.5] vs 2d6[7], using your concentration which could be on a few different spells, opening yourself up to Counter Spell or just losing concentration and wasting the slot and giving yourself one less chance to trigger Arcane Jolt. Unless your Steel Defender is dead, not in range of the enemy you want to attack (and you don't want to move it into position) or you're targeting a higher AC the Defender would struggle to hit, it's just worse to use a Smite. Things get a little different when you get to 17 and can Banishing Smite, but it still retains every con besides lower damage and takes up your highest level slots.

[Farias123]

You can instead keep three Tiny Servants to use with Magic Stone. Being able to use Magic Stone every turn as a bonus action while attacking twice (or three times via haste) is pretty great, that's 5 (or 6) attacks per turn.
That's actually a great ideia, changing your bonus action attack from 1d8+2+prof above 2 to 3d6+15 is a heck of a great deal.

Edit: Isn't it actually better to command the 3 tiny servants to "kill the guy I attack", and since "Once given an order, the servant continues to follow that order until its task is complete." You could attack with them and with the defender as well, what would deal more damage and give you more chances to apply Arcane Jolt. What do you think?

[Chronic]

Shadow of moil isn't countered by an effect granted by a spell 2 levels higher that exactly state that it can...yeahhhh sure...
Crawford may be lead designer but should either:
-think before typing.
-or reconsider his ability to fulfill the prerequisite of his job description.

I personally lean toward the first option but hey, I don't know the man after all.

[Alucard89]

Shadow of moil isn't countered by an effect granted by a spell 2 levels higher that exactly state that it can...yeahhhh sure...
Crawford may be lead designer but should either:
-think before typing.
-or reconsider his ability to fulfill the prerequisite of his job description.

I personally lean toward the first option but hey, I don't know the man after all.

You can rule as you want at your table, but RAW is RAW.

[Chronic]

I would argue that by raw the heavily obscured is derived from the darkness emitted and that nothing prevent someone with darkvision to see through.
Raw is raw means nothing when a rule is poorly written. The only reason people say it's two different effect is because otherwise it would be so useless that people prefer to believe it works that way. My opinion based upon how this spell is written is that this spell was written by someone who didn't even think about how it would actually interact with what is already the worst system in dnd in terms of design, aka the lighting system.

[RSP]

Shadow of moil isn't countered by an effect granted by a spell 2 levels higher that exactly state that it can...yeahhhh sure...
Crawford may be lead designer but should either:
-think before typing.
-or reconsider his ability to fulfill the prerequisite of his job description.

I personally lean toward the first option but hey, I don't know the man after all.

Likewise, True Seeing doesn’t see through a Wall of Fire, which is also a spell two levels lower. Why? Because it doesn’t see through flames. Same with SoM: the effect isn’t darkness, it’s weird magic stuff that actually puts itself between the caster and the viewer.

And True Seeing doesn’t provide X-ray vision.

[MaxWilson]

Likewise, True Seeing doesn’t see through a Wall of Fire, which is also a spell two levels lower. Why? Because it doesn’t see through flames. Same with SoM: the effect isn’t darkness, it’s weird magic stuff that actually puts itself between the caster and the viewer.

And True Seeing doesn’t provide X-ray vision.

No, it's explicitly "shadows", not flames, and shadows and darkness are what darkvision works against.

[Alucard89]

No, it's explicitly "shadows", not flames, and shadows and darkness are what darkvision works against.

Shadows are not darkness. Shadows are not "light effect" presented in 5e. It's not Dim Light and not Darkness. Therefore Darkvision does not work against it. Not to mention it's magical effect of 4th level spell and Crawford also confirmed that that darkvision does not work against Shadow of Moil. Shadow is not the same as darkness. Besides this is just a fluff "Flame-like Shadows" that appear without any light source caused by magic is not the same as mere shadow on floor.

"Jeremy Crawford
@JeremyECrawford
Shadow of Moil heavily obscures you, full stop. The spell also dims the light around you.

The fact that you're heavily obscured is a result of the flame-like shadows surrounding you, not the result of being in darkness. This means you're heavily obscured even to darkvision"

And here is link : https://twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/1084904730789212160

[RSP]

No, it's explicitly "shadows", not flames, and shadows and darkness are what darkvision works against.

It’s explicitly heavy obscurement, not light obscurement, which is what normal shadows would be. Darkvision does nothing against flame-like shadows of necromantic magic.

[Chronic]

True seeing allows à character to see the real form of a creature, it works against any kind of illusion, any form of shape changer or polymorph and and classic and magical darkness. It's an effect so powerful that it require a 6 level spell, competing with very good spell and only last an hour., or require and epic boon after level 20 to get permanently, albeit at reduced distance. So the ultimate spell to see through disguise and illusion cannot piece some magique shadow flame (like) from a level 4 spell, or for what it's worth by a more powerful magical light spell. It doesn't make sense in terms of gamedesign. Truth is, as written the spell is either too powerful or way too weak, depending on how to interpret raw, the dev team made a bad job when creating the spell, then a bad job when testing the spell, then Crawford made a bad job when reflecting on it, so it's infortunately up to gms to restore a balance to the force.

[Alucard89]

True seeing allows à character to see the real form of a creature, it works against any kind of illusion, any form of shape changer or polymorph and and classic and magical darkness. It's an effect so powerful that it require a 6 level spell, competing with very good spell and only last an hour., or require and epic boon after level 20 to get permanently, albeit at reduced distance. So the ultimate spell to see through disguise and illusion cannot piece some magique shadow flame (like) from a level 4 spell, or for what it's worth by a more powerful magical light spell. It doesn't make sense in terms of gamedesign. Truth is, as written the spell is either too powerful or way too weak, depending on how to interpret raw, the dev team made a bad job when creating the spell, then a bad job when testing the spell, then Crawford made a bad job when reflecting on it, so it's infortunately up to gms to restore a balance to the force.

Again, houserules are right of every DM/table. You can nerf and buff what you want there if you somehow feels it's unbalanced. But RAW it's like that and when we speak about things here on forum (unless stated otherwise by OP) - we talk with RAW in mind.

SoM > True Sight and Darkvision. That's RAW and it was discussed endlessly already on forum.

[RSP]

True seeing allows à character to see the real form of a creature, it works against any kind of illusion, any form of shape changer or polymorph and and classic and magical darkness. It's an effect so powerful that it require a 6 level spell, competing with very good spell and only last an hour., or require and epic boon after level 20 to get permanently, albeit at reduced distance. So the ultimate spell to see through disguise and illusion cannot piece some magique shadow flame (like) from a level 4 spell, or for what it's worth by a more powerful magical light spell. It doesn't make sense in terms of gamedesign. Truth is, as written the spell is either too powerful or way too weak, depending on how to interpret raw, the dev team made a bad job when creating the spell, then a bad job when testing the spell, then Crawford made a bad job when reflecting on it, so it's infortunately up to gms to restore a balance to the force.

True Seeing does what it does. What it doesn’t do is see through heavy obscurement that isn’t caused by darkness.

Fog Cloud, a level 1 spell, causes heavy obscurement which True Seeing does not see through. Why? Because it is neither an illusion nor darkness but actual stuff getting in the way of the character’s vision. That’s the same thing SoM is doing. The weird necromantic Shadow Fire stuff is a thing, and it’s blocking other character’s vision of the caster.

[Bobthewizard]

True seeing allows à character to see the real form of a creature, it works against any kind of illusion, any form of shape changer or polymorph and and classic and magical darkness. It's an effect so powerful that it require a 6 level spell, competing with very good spell and only last an hour., or require and epic boon after level 20 to get permanently, albeit at reduced distance. So the ultimate spell to see through disguise and illusion cannot piece some magique shadow flame (like) from a level 4 spell, or for what it's worth by a more powerful magical light spell. It doesn't make sense in terms of gamedesign. Truth is, as written the spell is either too powerful or way too weak, depending on how to interpret raw, the dev team made a bad job when creating the spell, then a bad job when testing the spell, then Crawford made a bad job when reflecting on it, so it's infortunately up to gms to restore a balance to the force.

Spells and abilities should do what they say they do.

True Seeing "This spell gives the willing creature you touch the ability to see things as they actually are. For the duration, the creature has truesight, notices secret doors hidden by magic, and can see into the Ethereal Plane, all out to a range of 120 feet."
Truesight "A creature with truesight can, out to a specific range, see in normal and magical darkness, see invisible creatures and objects, automatically detect visual illusions and succeed on saving throws against them, and perceives the original form of a shapechanger or a creature that is transformed by magic. Furthermore, the creature can see into the Ethereal Plane.

The flame like shadows of Shadows of Moil are heavy obscurement. They are not darkness, illusions, invisibility, or a shape changer. Nothing in darkvision or True Sight says you can see through heavy obscurement.

As written, SOM is good but not overpowered. It uses concentration and half of your spell slots (until level 11) to give a slightly modified greater invisibility. It's better in combat vs. True sight, but worse for stealth and vs. AOE. Your interpretation makes it less valuable than a 2nd level spell (darkness) for a warlock.

[Chronic]

How would it be worse exactly? True sight is still rare on creatures, and som would not be affected by a spell such as see invisility.
A spell that gives advantage to the player, disadvantage to opponents, have damage on getting hit and can't be countered by true sight as a 4th lvl spell... And you say it's not overpowered. Greater invisibility only usefulness is for combat, otherwise there is no reason to use it over a simple invisibility, and it can still be countered by true sight, and there is no damage on it.

[RSP]

Greater invisibility only usefulness is for combat, otherwise there is no reason to use it over a simple invisibility, and it can still be countered by true sight, and there is no damage on it.

GI is fine out of combat, so long as the duration is kept in mind. SoM is horrible for actual sneaking, though, as it’s hard to miss the 5-10’ ball of darkness.

And yes, GI is countered by True Sight, but not Darkness, which is much more common.

SoM is good, but not great. I’ve used it twice so far, I believe, during SKT (currently level 13 and have had it since level 7). It’s best quality is denying sight-based spells, for sure.

It’s not broken though: it’s a more combat-tuned GI, which sacrifices any stealth use for a little retribution damage against melee attacks and necrotic resistance.

[Corran]

GI is fine out of combat, so long as the duration is kept in mind. SoM is horrible for actual sneaking, though, as it’s hard to miss the 5-10’ ball of darkness.

And yes, GI is countered by True Sight, but not Darkness, which is much more common.

SoM is good, but not great. I’ve used it twice so far, I believe, during SKT (currently level 13 and have had it since level 7). It’s best quality is denying sight-based spells, for sure.

It’s not broken though: it’s a more combat-tuned GI, which sacrifices any stealth use for a little retribution damage against melee attacks and necrotic resistance.
Hold on hold on. Truesight penetrates darkness. You have to attribute the heavy obscurement from SoM to something other than darkness, for truesight not to work against it. That is, the flame-like shadows count as flames, or shadow-y fog, or anything other than darkness.

Whatever the case with SoM against truesight, it is clearly a better spell than greater invisibility with the exception of if you need to hide during combat. But this comparison does not really matter, since SoM is a warlock-only spell.

ps: I agree that SoM is not broken. Being a concentration and a warlock-only spell are two more things that keep it in line.

[Farias123]

A spell that gives advantage to the player, disadvantage to opponents, have damage on getting hit and can't be countered by true sight as a 4th lvl spell... And you say it's not overpowered.
Exactly, it's like, a better fire shield + foresight(not all its effects but it shouldn't have anyway, cause that's a 9th level spell)

[Desamir]

Whatever the case with SoM against truesight, it is clearly a better spell than greater invisibility with the exception of if you need to hide during combat. But this comparison does not really matter, since SoM is a warlock-only spell.


How would it be worse exactly? True sight is still rare on creatures, and som would not be affected by a spell such as see invisility.
A spell that gives advantage to the player, disadvantage to opponents, have damage on getting hit and can't be countered by true sight as a 4th lvl spell... And you say it's not overpowered. Greater invisibility only usefulness is for combat, otherwise there is no reason to use it over a simple invisibility, and it can still be countered by true sight, and there is no damage on it.

There's another big difference between the two. Greater Invisibility is Touch, while SoM is Self only.

[Hael]

As far as I can see, darkness, SOM and shadow sorcerer darkness are essentially class defining features. They’re like spirit guardians or simalcrum. Just very overturned spells that are designed to be way out of line with other spells of their lvl bc they’re uniquely made for the class and involves their mechanical viability.

Warlocks and shadow sorcerers are balanced around this to some extent, so it’s a bit delicate to simply home brew it away.

What I think happened was they were comparing things like fiend locks to wizards when they were balancing things, and they came to the conclusion that the warlock needed some sort of self advantage and defensive package to compete with all the slots and versatility the wizard brings.

[Corran]

Exactly, it's like, a better fire shield + foresight(not all its effects but it shouldn't have anyway, cause that's a 9th level spell)
Yeah, it's a bit like foresight with a fire shield splashed on top of it (for a much more limited duration obviously, and that's very important for warlocks because of how pact magic works), but it has one significant downside. It uses your concentration and that's a big deal for fullcasters. Which is the main reason why foresight and fire shield are considered decent, if not good spells, and why you dont see lots of discussions about fly (which can be a very good spell, but the fact that it uses concentration is definitely keeping it back). It makes much more sense to compare SoM to fog cloud or greater invisibility if you must compare it with something (although I dont see much point in doing so), than to compare it with no-concentration spells. In other words, dont just look at the spell effect. Look at what it costs you to rely on that spell too.


There's another big difference between the two. Greater Invisibility is Touch, while SoM is Self only.
Good point.

[Farias123]

It uses your concentration and that's a big deal for fullcasters.

I see that this is very important for full casters, but I just can't see Warlocks as full casters, they have such a different way of casting. Anyway, on this particular case, I think that all the other slots would be used to Eldritch Smite, and so, maintaining concentration is way more viable.

[RSP]

I see that this is very important for full casters, but I just can't see Warlocks as full casters, they have such a different way of casting. Anyway, on this particular case, I think that all the other slots would be used to Eldritch Smite, and so, maintaining concentration is way more viable.

ES isn’t a horribly good use of spell slots.


Hold on hold on. Truesight penetrates darkness. You have to attribute the heavy obscurement from SoM to something other than darkness, for truesight not to work against it. That is, the flame-like shadows count as flames, or shadow-y fog, or anything other than darkness.

Sure, but that was already covered in the preceding posts.

[Farias123]

ES isn’t a horribly good use of spell slots.

But here, we're trying to see the most of damage dealing, so I believe Eldritch Smite would be the best option.

[RSP]

But here, we're trying to see the most of damage dealing, so I believe Eldritch Smite would be the best option.

Depends how you see it. Using Synaptic Static on 5 enemies not only does more damage, but also helps your entire group’s defenses against those 5.

[MaxWilson]

Shadows are not darkness. Shadows are not "light effect" presented in 5e. It's not Dim Light and not Darkness.

Shadows *are* dim light. PHB 183, "Dim light, also called shadows, creates a lightly obscured area.... (blahblahblah)"

Darkvision helps you see through (i.e. be impaired by) shadows, a.k.a. dim light.

You rule however you like, but I'm more confident in the PHB and Xanathar's text than I am in Crawford's Twitter account, and clearly you have a different perspective. Agree to disagree?

[RSP]

Shadows *are* dim light. PHB 183, "Dim light, also called shadows, creates a lightly obscured area.... (blahblahblah)"

Darkvision helps you see through (i.e. be impaired by) shadows, a.k.a. dim light.

You rule however you like, but I'm more confident in the PHB and Xanathar's text than I am in Crawford's Twitter account, and clearly you have a different perspective. Agree to disagree?

Hence my earlier post. If SoM refers to the same “shadows” as mentioned with Dim Light, how is it heavily obscured? If it’s the same “shadows” as Dim Light, it would have to be lightly obscured, per the PHB quote you shared. As it specifically says the “shadows” created by the spell make the caster heavily obscured to everyone else, it cannot be the same “shadows” as mentioned in Dim Light.

[Alucard89]

Shadows *are* dim light. PHB 183, "Dim light, also called shadows, creates a lightly obscured area.... (blahblahblah)"

Darkvision helps you see through (i.e. be impaired by) shadows, a.k.a. dim light.

You rule however you like, but I'm more confident in the PHB and Xanathar's text than I am in Crawford's Twitter account, and clearly you have a different perspective. Agree to disagree?

Normal shadows don't heavy obscure you mate. It's not the same.

[Zayol]

So as a battlesmith just cast fairie fire on the hexblade and take this heavily obscured advantage away.... ez pz

[Alucard89]

So as a battlesmith just cast fairie fire on the hexblade and take this heavily obscured advantage away.... ez pz

Where do you have in description of Fearie Fire spell that it counters Shadow of Moil?

FF:

"For the duration, objects and affected creatures shed dim light in a 10-foot radius. Any attack roll against an affected creature or object has advantage if the attacker can see it, and the affected creature or object can’t benefit from being invisible."

Shadow of Moil:

"The shadows turn dim light within 10 feet of you into darkness, and bright light in the same area to dim light."

"Flame-like shadows wreathe your body until the spell ends, causing you to become heavily obscured to others"

So first of all Shadow of Moil changes Dim Light of FF into Darkness, so no glowing and second SoM does not make target invisible so second effect of FF does nothing against it because Heavy Obscured is NOT invisibility.

ez pz...

[Spiritchaser]

I think the interaction between true seeing and SoM is pretty clear: you can see in that globe of magical darkness, because truesight says it does that, but truesight provides no way to see through the heavy obscurement by shadowy flames caused by a necromantic spell.


There’s a tougher one that comes up quite a bit:

How do you rule the Interaction between Shadow of Moil and blindsight?

Blindsight does not penetrate heavy obscurement...

[GorogIrongut]

I guess I can't stay away from this thread...

1. As has been said many, many times on these forums, Crawford's Twitter feed is not official and is often wrong. It is to be taken with a big grain of salt.

2. The text of the spell of Shadow of Moil says:
'Flame-like shadows wreathe your body until the spell ends, causing you to become heavily obscured to others. The shadows turn dim light within 10 feet of you into darkness, and bright light in the same area to dim light.'

The caster is surrounded in shadows (flame-like ones... they're not the noun. They're describing the shadows). This means that the spell is using the word shadows as the keyword mechanic found on pg 183 under Vision and Light. Shadows in this sense provide Light Obscurement. But... the spell specifically says that it provides Heavy Obscurement.

This means that the spell recognizes that pg 183, Vision and Light considers darkness a sliding scale between Light and Heavy Obscurement, which is very easy for anyone who's actually read that section.

Vision and Light
The most fundamental tasks of adventuring—noticing danger, finding hidden objects, hitting an enemy in combat, and targeting a spell, to name just a few— rely heavily on a character’s ability to see. Darkness and other effects that obscure vision can prove a significant hindrance.

A given area might be lightly or heavily obscured. In a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.

A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature in a heavily obscured area effectively suffers from the blinded condition (see appendix A).

The presence or absence of light in an environment creates three categories of illumination: bright light, dim light, and darkness. Bright light lets most creatures see normally. Even gloomy days provide bright light, as do torches, lanterns, fires, and other sources of illumination within a specific radius.

Dim light, also called shadows, creates a lightly obscured area. An area of dim light is usually a boundary between a source of bright light, such as a torch, and surrounding darkness. The soft light of twilight and dawn also counts as dim light. A particularly brilliant full moon might bathe the land in dim light.

Darkness creates a heavily obscured area. Characters face darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights), within the confines of an unlit dungeon or a subterranean vault, or in an area of magical darkness.

Nothing in the text for Shadow of Moil implies that the Heavy Obscurement comes from anything but shadows/darkness. It's not shadow-like flames. It's not some fog-like substance that delineates the flame-like shadows. Nor are these flame-like shadows created with foliage. The very name of the spell highlights that it uses shadow (darkness) to create the many spell effects listed (even the 2d8 necrotic damage effect). To say otherwise is wishful thinking.

Now how the darkness created by Shadow of Moil interacts with varying effects depends on what effects we're talking about. I have no desire to get dragged into all of the permutations and will include only one more direct quote from the PHB.

Darkvision
Many creatures in the worlds of D&D, especially those that dwell underground, have darkvision. Within a specified range, a creature with darkvision can see in darkness as if the darkness were dim light, so areas of darkness are only lightly obscured as far as that creature is concerned. However, the creature can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

[Alucard89]

I guess I can't stay away from this thread...

1. As has been said many, many times on these forums, Crawford's Twitter feed is not official and is often wrong. It is to be taken with a big grain of salt.

2. The text of the spell of Shadow of Moil says:
'Flame-like shadows wreathe your body until the spell ends, causing you to become heavily obscured to others. The shadows turn dim light within 10 feet of you into darkness, and bright light in the same area to dim light.'

The caster is surrounded in shadows (flame-like ones... they're not the noun. They're describing the shadows). This means that the spell is using the word shadows as the keyword mechanic found on pg 183 under Vision and Light. Shadows in this sense provide Light Obscurement. But... the spell specifically says that it provides Heavy Obscurement.

This means that the spell recognizes that pg 183, Vision and Light considers darkness a sliding scale between Light and Heavy Obscurement, which is very easy for anyone who's actually read that section.

Vision and Light
The most fundamental tasks of adventuring—noticing danger, finding hidden objects, hitting an enemy in combat, and targeting a spell, to name just a few— rely heavily on a character’s ability to see. Darkness and other effects that obscure vision can prove a significant hindrance.

A given area might be lightly or heavily obscured. In a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.

A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature in a heavily obscured area effectively suffers from the blinded condition (see appendix A).

The presence or absence of light in an environment creates three categories of illumination: bright light, dim light, and darkness. Bright light lets most creatures see normally. Even gloomy days provide bright light, as do torches, lanterns, fires, and other sources of illumination within a specific radius.

Dim light, also called shadows, creates a lightly obscured area. An area of dim light is usually a boundary between a source of bright light, such as a torch, and surrounding darkness. The soft light of twilight and dawn also counts as dim light. A particularly brilliant full moon might bathe the land in dim light.

Darkness creates a heavily obscured area. Characters face darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights), within the confines of an unlit dungeon or a subterranean vault, or in an area of magical darkness.

Nothing in the text for Shadow of Moil implies that the Heavy Obscurement comes from anything but shadows/darkness. It's not shadow-like flames. It's not some fog-like substance that delineates the flame-like shadows. Nor are these flame-like shadows created with foliage. The very name of the spell highlights that it uses shadow (darkness) to create the many spell effects listed (even the 2d8 necrotic damage effect). To say otherwise is wishful thinking.

Now how the darkness created by Shadow of Moil interacts with varying effects depends on what effects we're talking about. I have no desire to get dragged into all of the permutations and will include only one more direct quote from the PHB.

Darkvision
Many creatures in the worlds of D&D, especially those that dwell underground, have darkvision. Within a specified range, a creature with darkvision can see in darkness as if the darkness were dim light, so areas of darkness are only lightly obscured as far as that creature is concerned. However, the creature can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Again, SoM shadows are not normal shadows because normal shadows does not heavy obscure. It's magical effect that looks like shadows but they are not normal shadows as then they would behave like normal shadows (light obscure, not heavy). Saying that A and B are the same even though they have totally different effects is not logical at all.

[Spiritchaser]

I guess I can't stay away from this thread...

1. As has been said many, many times on these forums, Crawford's Twitter feed is not official and is often wrong. It is to be taken with a big grain of salt.

2. The text of the spell of Shadow of Moil says:
'Flame-like shadows wreathe your body until the spell ends, causing you to become heavily obscured to others. The shadows turn dim light within 10 feet of you into darkness, and bright light in the same area to dim light.'

The caster is surrounded in shadows (flame-like ones... they're not the noun. They're describing the shadows). This means that the spell is using the word shadows as the keyword mechanic found on pg 183 under Vision and Light. Shadows in this sense provide Light Obscurement. But... the spell specifically says that it provides Heavy Obscurement.

This means that the spell recognizes that pg 183, Vision and Light considers darkness a sliding scale between Light and Heavy Obscurement, which is very easy for anyone who's actually read that section.

Vision and Light
The most fundamental tasks of adventuring—noticing danger, finding hidden objects, hitting an enemy in combat, and targeting a spell, to name just a few— rely heavily on a character’s ability to see. Darkness and other effects that obscure vision can prove a significant hindrance.

A given area might be lightly or heavily obscured. In a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.

A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature in a heavily obscured area effectively suffers from the blinded condition (see appendix A).

The presence or absence of light in an environment creates three categories of illumination: bright light, dim light, and darkness. Bright light lets most creatures see normally. Even gloomy days provide bright light, as do torches, lanterns, fires, and other sources of illumination within a specific radius.

Dim light, also called shadows, creates a lightly obscured area. An area of dim light is usually a boundary between a source of bright light, such as a torch, and surrounding darkness. The soft light of twilight and dawn also counts as dim light. A particularly brilliant full moon might bathe the land in dim light.

Darkness creates a heavily obscured area. Characters face darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights), within the confines of an unlit dungeon or a subterranean vault, or in an area of magical darkness.

Nothing in the text for Shadow of Moil implies that the Heavy Obscurement comes from anything but shadows/darkness. It's not shadow-like flames. It's not some fog-like substance that delineates the flame-like shadows. Nor are these flame-like shadows created with foliage. The very name of the spell highlights that it uses shadow (darkness) to create the many spell effects listed (even the 2d8 necrotic damage effect). To say otherwise is wishful thinking.

Now how the darkness created by Shadow of Moil interacts with varying effects depends on what effects we're talking about. I have no desire to get dragged into all of the permutations and will include only one more direct quote from the PHB.

Darkvision
Many creatures in the worlds of D&D, especially those that dwell underground, have darkvision. Within a specified range, a creature with darkvision can see in darkness as if the darkness were dim light, so areas of darkness are only lightly obscured as far as that creature is concerned. However, the creature can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

I’d say the nature of the shadows has multiple fluff interpretations, but the crunch is clearly stated.

[Corran]

Blindsight does not penetrate heavy obscurement...
It's the other way around. Heavy obscurement does nothing against blindsight, since blindsight lifts the need to rely on actually seeing the target with your own eyes. At least that's what I think and I dont see the confusion.

[Alucard89]

It's the other way around. Heavy obscurement does nothing against blindsight, since blindsight lifts the need to rely on actually seeing the target with your own eyes. At least that's what I think and I dont see the confusion.

This is correct. Blindsight counters all "sight-blocking" effects like SoM, Darkness, Invisibility, etc. The only thing that works against Blindsight is Hide, because you can still hide from other senses (not moving - no sound, behind cover- no sight, and smell would require same perception roll to find Hidden creature as normally with sight). Blindsight is the ultimate counter for all simillar magical effects. Foresight is the answer for Blindsight or spells like Tenser Transfomation etc.

[GorogIrongut]

Again, SoM shadows are not normal shadows because normal shadows does not heavy obscure. It's magical effect that looks like shadows but they are not normal shadows as then they would behave like normal shadows (light obscure, not heavy). Saying that A and B are the same even though they have totally different effects is not logical at all.


Then tell me what they are? The use of the words: shadow, shadows, darkness, heavily obscured, dim light, bright light, etc. all seem to disagree with you.

Unless they are a specific thing that is listed, we have to assume that in typical WotC fashion, they wrote the spell poorly. And that all of the inclusion of darkness-based terminology is the actual intention of the spell. If it isn't actual darkness being applied, then why do the shadows turn dim light within 10 feet of you into darkness, and bright light in the same area to dim light?

If it's fog, then show me where it says that. Foliage? Maybe it's shadow-like flames...?

[Keravath]

"BLINDSIGHT
A creature with blindsight can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius. Creatures without eyes, such as oozes, and creatures with echolocation or heightened senses, such as bats and true dragons, have this sense."

"A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely" PHB 183

Heavily obscured only blocks vision. Blindsight allows perception of the surroundings without using sight. Heavily obscured does NOT interfere with blindsight. Blindsight is unaffected by Shadow of Moil in terms of perceiving the creature affected by it.

Blindsight is also unaffected by fog cloud or darkness.

"TRUESIGHT
A creature with truesight can, out to a specific range, see in normal and magical darkness, see invisible creatures and objects, automatically detect visual illusions and succeed on saving throws against them, and perceives the original form of a shapechanger or a creature that is transformed by magic."

Shadow of Moil causes the heavily obscured condition. This is caused by shadowy flames which are neither normal or magical darkness (It is essentially flavor text describing what the effect looks like). It is also not invisibility. Truesight does not see through Shadows of Moil.

---

Finally, eldritch smite has to be one of the worst warlock invocations since they have so few spell slots. Until level 10 they only have 2 spells slots which are much better used for Shadow of Moil ... occasionally something like Synaptic Static is worthwhile if there are enough opponents (and it will do more damage typically that ES). Level 11+ warlocks get 3 or 4 spell slots/short rest so a case could be made for ES then but there are often much better uses for their spell slots than 6d8 extra damage on one attack. (the same goes for most of the smite spells for warlocks ... generally a trap due to the very small number of spell slots ... I'd rather keep the spell slot in reserve for when I fail a concentration check and lose whatever I am concentrating on ... like Shadow of Moil).

Note: A level of sorcerer and a ring of spell storing can go a long way in helping a warlock shore up their use of level 1 utility spells like shield ... shield is a useless spell on a hexblade since it uses one of their very few spell slots and if you try to put it in a ring of spell storing it takes as many spaces as the level it is cast at ... which means that a level 9 warlock can put ONE shield spell in a ring of spell storing because it is automatically cast at 5th level.

[Corran]

Maybe it's shadow-like flames...?
Funnily enough, I think that this simple change in wording would solve the issue.
Edit: Maybe shadow-like-flames that the caster can see through, to be more accurate.

Edit 2: The problem, as I understand it, is trying to explain what it is exactly that causes the heavy obscurement. Which in turn, is a problem of how you have to classify the flame-like shadows. Classifying them as shadows is problematic, cause shadows only lightly obscure you. The scaling argument is a logical one, and I'd happily accept it if a DM was using it, but it's conjecture, at least if we are going by what is written. Logical conjecture? Sure. The spell messes up magically with illumination, creating a small area of darkness and a slightly larger area of dim light, with the flame-like shadows acting as the ''border''. Is this the most logical way to explain the spell? Imo yes. Is it the intent? Clearly not, as stated by the designers. If it was the intent to work as you say, it would probably be an evocation spell (conjuration might work too) anyway, and not a necromancy one (though perhaps I am ignoring notable examples here). Going by RAW, the spell description is not detailed enough to conclude that something other than the flame-like shadows heavily obscures you, and that alone leaves us not being able to classify the flame-like shadows in a way that would be logical (ie as shadows). A silly technicality? Sure. So now we are left with a new obscurement effect, that is untyped, and thus it cannot be countered by anything that was written up to this point, cause SoM didn't exist as a though the moment all the already existing counters were being written.

[RSP]

Then tell me what they are? The use of the words: shadow, shadows, darkness, heavily obscured, dim light, bright light, etc. all seem to disagree with you.

Unless they are a specific thing that is listed, we have to assume that in typical WotC fashion, they wrote the spell poorly. And that all of the inclusion of darkness-based terminology is the actual intention of the spell. If it isn't actual darkness being applied, then why do the shadows turn dim light within 10 feet of you into darkness, and bright light in the same area to dim light?

If it's fog, then show me where it says that. Foliage? Maybe it's shadow-like flames...?

Per the lead designer, the intention of the spell is heavy obscurement that isn’t caused by darkness or dim light, so I don’t think creating your own idea of intent is a valid argument.

The obscurement comes from necrotic-magic-created shadow-flames.

Your argument seems to be that all the effects are combined. So, then, how do normal dim light shadows cause 2d8 necrotic damage?

The answer, obviously, is they don’t; but necrotic flame-shadows-that-aren’t-normal-shadows do. Just like those necrotic flame-shadows-that-aren’t-normal-shadows create heavily obscurement to anyone who’s not the caster.

[GorogIrongut]

Per the lead designer, the intention of the spell is heavy obscurement that isn’t caused by darkness or dim light, so I don’t think creating your own idea of intent is a valid argument.

The obscurement comes from necrotic-magic-created shadow-flames.

Your argument seems to be that all the effects are combined. So, then, how do normal dim light shadows cause 2d8 necrotic damage?

The answer, obviously, is they don’t; but necrotic flame-shadows-that-aren’t-normal-shadows do. Just like those necrotic flame-shadows-that-aren’t-normal-shadows create heavily obscurement to anyone who’s not the caster.

As we've identified, Crawford's Twitter is dubious at best. And as I've mentioned the amount of times that WotC just write things poorly, is an even larger sample size. They could have resolved this issue with one word changes. Shadow like flames. Flame-like darkness. Etc., etc.

But as it stands, there is no directly identifiable cause of the heavy obscurement besides "shadows". I'm not denying that shadows cause light obscurement. Which could be why it immediately clarifies these shadows as providing heavy obscurement. When taken in tandem with how shadows and darkness operate according to the PHB. And that the spell text specifically mentions how a darkness effect radiates 10' from your person and there is a very distinct shadow/darkness vibe coming from this spell.

That's why I would argue that the caster is surrounded by flame-like darkness. Because it's laced all the way through the rest of the spell.


As for why it's a necromancy spell instead of evocation, that's because the shadows retaliate against any striker dealing 2d8 necrotic damage.


Now, every table will read this their own way. It's why I was going to let this alone. But every one quasi villified anyone who didn't accept the obscurement as being something besides darkness. Like it was obvious and anyone who thought otherwise was obviously... processing with difficulty.

Crawford aside, I'd put it at 75% darkness, 25% something else. If there were anything else that it could be hung on, anything at all beside a nebulous 'something'. I'd be a 100% on the side of 'something else'.

Anyhoo.

[RSP]

As we've identified, Crawford's Twitter is dubious at best. And as I've mentioned the amount of times that WotC just right things poorly, is an even larger sample size. They could have resolved this issue with one word changes. Shadow like flames. Flame-like darkness. Etc., etc.

Not to defend JC, but I don’t think “we’ve” identified anything of the sort: you made the claim that the intent of the writers was to have it be normal shadows/darkness:



And that all of the inclusion of darkness-based terminology is the actual intention of the spell. If it isn't actual darkness being applied, then why do the shadows turn dim light within 10 feet of you into darkness, and bright light in the same area to dim light?

I pointed out that the head writer stated the intent was nothing of the sort. You can bashJC all you want, call his tweets unofficial and whatnot, but his comments on the intent of the spell hold a lot more water than your determinations on what the intent were.

[Dork_Forge]

The intention is a little meaningless if they don't intend to errata the wording to make it clear and if they won't fix Simulacrum (I don't think they've patched it only not getting slots back) then it's doubtful they'll patch this, 2 and a half/ 3 years later?

[Zalabim]

If Shadows of Moil can be seen through with darkvision, that leaves resistance to an extremely uncommon type of damage, retaliation damage against close attacks, for up to 1 minute with concentration. That would be so much worse than Fire Shield. The result of this line of thought is absurd, so it's less likely to be correct than an alternative.

[Dork_Forge]

If Shadows of Moil can be seen through with darkvision, that leaves resistance to an extremely uncommon type of damage, retaliation damage against close attacks, for up to 1 minute with concentration. That would be so much worse than Fire Shield. The result of this line of thought is absurd, so it's less likely to be correct than an alternative.

Fire Shield also lights you up like a Christmas tree and deals more commonly resisted damage in the retribution aspect.

[RSP]

Fire Shield also lights you up like a Christmas tree and deals more commonly resisted damage in the retribution aspect.

SoM does the same thing as Fire Shield in terms of being noticed. Cloud of blackness isn’t horribly different from ringed in Fire, in terms of being noticed.

Concentration and Duration are significant differences between the two.

[RSP]

The intention is a little meaningless if they don't intend to errata the wording to make it clear and if they won't fix Simulacrum (I don't think they've patched it only not getting slots back) then it's doubtful they'll patch this, 2 and a half/ 3 years later?

I agree they are selective with what they choose to errata, however, I don’t agree that means intention is meaningless: a lot of tables care about the RAI more than RAW.

[Dork_Forge]

I agree they are selective with what they choose to errata, however, I don’t agree that means intention is meaningless: a lot of tables care about the RAI more than RAW.

Likewise a lot of tables care about/refer to JC's tweets, but those same tables can clash on the issue regardless when they come up with two tweets contradicting themselves. All the power to them, if they want SoM to work that way then I hope they have fun, but it hardly seems like a balanced spell the RAI way.

[MaxWilson]

Again, SoM shadows are not normal shadows because normal shadows does not heavy obscure. It's magical effect that looks like shadows but they are not normal shadows as then they would behave like normal shadows (light obscure, not heavy). Saying that A and B are the same even though they have totally different effects is not logical at all.

You know what you get when you add enough normal shadows together? Absence of light, i.e. darkness, i.e. heavy obscurement. Nothing about Shadow of Moil suggests that darkvision is unable to penetrate the shadows it creates.

[RSP]

You know what you get when you add enough normal shadows together? Absence of light, i.e. darkness, i.e. heavy obscurement. Nothing about Shadow of Moil suggests that darkvision is unable to penetrate the shadows it creates.

No, and certainly not in 5e. Normal shadows do not equal heavily obscured, they explicitly equal lightly obscured in 5e.

[Alucard89]

You know what you get when you add enough normal shadows together? Absence of light, i.e. darkness, i.e. heavy obscurement. Nothing about Shadow of Moil suggests that darkvision is unable to penetrate the shadows it creates.

This is not physics, but game rules. RAW says shadows- light obscurment, Darkness- heavy. That is all. There is nothing in between. Don't start to justify your RAI with real life rules because then we can start debating on Lighting vs metal armor and so on.

This is game, not simulator. Rules are clear.

[MaxWilson]

No, and certainly not in 5e. Normal shadows do not equal heavily obscured, they explicitly equal lightly obscured in 5e.

Normally yes, but add enough of them together and you get heavy obscurement. (DM's call where the line is drawn.) Otherwise, why is it dark underground, if not due to cumulative shadows from every angle? What is night time but the shadow of the Earth?

=======================================


If Shadows of Moil can be seen through with darkvision, that leaves resistance to an extremely uncommon type of damage, retaliation damage against close attacks, for up to 1 minute with concentration. That would be so much worse than Fire Shield. The result of this line of thought is absurd, so it's less likely to be correct than an alternative.

Against anything without darkvision (e.g. humans, werewolves, dinosaurs, githyanki, most giants) and also when you're outside of darkvision range, it grants you most of the benefits of Greater Invisibility even in broad daylight, it damages your melee attackers as much as Fire Shield, and unlike Greater Invisibly it is actually available to non-fey warlocks.

It's two 4th level spells in one, with a warlock twist and a limitation (countered by darkvision). Pretty middle-of-the-road for a 4th level warlock spell, but situationally quite good.

For reference, here's a complete-ish list of monsters without darkvision, truesight, or blindsight:


Aarakocra
Abjurer
Acolyte
Allosaurus
Ankylosaurus
Ape
Apprentice Wizard
Archdruid
Archer
Archmage
Assassin
Aurochs
Awakened Shrub
Awakened Tree
Axe Beak
Azbara Jos
Azer
Baba Lysaga
Baboon
Bandit
Bandit Captain
Bard
Beldora
Berserker
Black Bear
Black Earth Guard
Black Earth Priest
Blackguard
Blagothkus
Blink Dog
Blood Hawk
Boar
Brontosaurus
Brown Bear
Bullywug
Burrowshark
Camel
Captain Othelstan
Cat
Centaur
Champion
Cloud Giant
Cloud Giant Smiling One
Commoner
Conjurer
Cow
Crocodile
Crushing Wave Priest
Crushing Wave Reaver
Cult Fanatic
Cultist
Cyclops
Darathra Shendrel
Dark Tide Knight
Darz Helgar
Deer
Deinonychus
Demonic Boon Template
Diabolical Cultist Template
Dimetrodon
Dire Wolf
Diviner
Draft Horse
Dragonbait
Dragonclaw
Dragonfang
Dragonsoul
Dragonwing
Druid
Duvessa Shane
Eagle
Eblis
Elder Evil Template
Elephant
Elizar Dryflagon
Elk
Enchanter
Eternal Flame Guardian
Eternal Flame Priest
Evil Mage
Evoker
Fathomer
Feathergale Knight
Fire Giant
Fire Giant Dreadnought
Firenewt Warrior
Flamewrath
Flying Monkey
Frost Giant
Frulam Mondath
Ghelryn Foehammer
Giant Ape
Giant Boar
Giant Crocodile
Giant Eagle
Giant Elk
Giant Goat
Giant Hyena
Giant Sea Horse
Giant Strider
Giant Subterranean Lizard
Giant Vulture
Giant Wasp
Giff
Githyanki Gish
Githyanki Kith'rak
Githyanki Knight
Githyanki Supreme Commander
Githyanki Warrior
Githzerai Anarch
Githzerai Enlightened
Githzerai Monk
Githzerai Zerth
Gladiator
Goat
Grisha
Grung
Grung Elite Warrior
Grung Wildling
Guard
Hadrosaurus
Harpy
Hawk
Hill Giant
Hippogriff
Howling Hatred Initiate
Howling Hatred Priest
Hurricane
Hyena
Illusionist
Izek Strazni
Jackal
Jackalwere
Kamadan
Kenku
Knight
Kraken Priest
Lifferlas
Lion
Lizardfolk
Lizardfolk Shaman
Madam Eva
Mage
Mammoth
Mantrap
Markham Southwell
Martial Arts Adept
Master Thief
Mastiff
Merfolk
Miraj Vizann
Miros Xelbrin
Mouth of Grolantor
Mule
Narth Tezrin
Naxene Drathkala
Necromancer
Nightmare
Noble
One-Eyed Shiver
Oreioth
Oren Yogilvy
Othovir
Ox
Panther
Pegasus
Peryton
Pharblex Spattergoo
Pidlwick II
Pixie
Plesiosaurus
Polar Bear
Pony
Priest
Pterafolk
Pteranodon
Quetzalcoatlus
Rath Modar
Raven
Razerblast
Redbrand Ruffian
Rhinoceros
Rictavio
Riding Horse
Roc
Saber-Toothed Tiger
Sacred Stone Monk
Satyr
Scout
Sea Horse
Sea Lion
Shalvus Martholio
Sharwyn Hucrele
Shoalar Quanderil
Sildar Hallwinter
Sir Baric Nylef
Sir Braford
Sirac of Suzail
Skyweaver
Sprite
Spy
Stegosaurus
Stone Cursed
Stonemelder
Storm Giant
Su-Monster
Swarm of Ravens
Swashbuckler
Thayan Warrior
Thug
Thurl Merosska
Tortle
Treant
Tressym
Tribal Warrior
Triceratops
Tyrannosaurus Rex
Urgala Meltimer
Uthgardt Shaman
Velociraptor
Veteran
Vulture
War Priest
Warhorse
Warlock of the Archfey
Warlord
Weasel
Werebear
Wereboar
Wereraven
Werewolf
Wiggan Nettlebee
Winter Wolf
Wolf
Yakfolk Priest
Yakfolk Warrior
Zi Liang
Zorbo

[RSP]

Normally yes, but add enough of them together and you get heavy obscurement. (DM's call where the line is drawn.) Otherwise, why is it dark underground, if not due to cumulative shadows from every angle? What is night time but the shadow of the Earth?

It’s dark underground if there’s no light. Turn on a flashlight, and the darkness goes away, at least in part. Darkness is the absence of light, not the accumulation of shadows (which require light to exist).

Night time isn’t the shadow of earth, it’s the lack of direct light from the sun.

None of that, however, is particularly relevant to this discussion. Normal shadows=dim light, in 5e, which is lightly obscured; not heavily obscured, like the necrotic shadow-fire stuff created by SoM, the same stuff that causes 2d8 necrotic damage to anyone that hits the caster with a melee attack.



Against anything without darkvision (e.g. humans, werewolves, dinosaurs, githyanki, most giants) and also when you're outside of darkvision range, it grants you most of the benefits of Greater Invisibility even in broad daylight, it damages your melee attackers as much as Fire Shield, and unlike Greater Invisibly it is actually available to non-fey warlocks.

So in your playing of the spell, the caster is effectively blinded if they don’t have Darkvision or Devil’s Sight?

[GearsX]

It’s dark underground if there’s no light. Turn on a flashlight, and the darkness goes away, at least in part. Darkness is the absence of light, not the accumulation of shadows (which require light to exist).

Night time isn’t the shadow of earth, it’s the lack of direct light from the sun.

None of that, however, is particularly relevant to this discussion. Normal shadows=dim light, in 5e, which is lightly obscured; not heavily obscured, like the necrotic shadow-fire stuff created by SoM, the same stuff that causes 2d8 necrotic damage to anyone that hits the caster with a melee attack.



So in your playing of the spell, the caster is effectively blinded if they don’t have Darkvision or Devil’s Sight?

Makes sense in a way that a caster cant see through their own castings of darkness without devil's sight or other magical means, same could be said with heavily obscured.

SO how could one see through it without such means? Even if it was the caster, no where does it say that the caster can see through it.

[Christew]

I mean, it specifically says "you become heavily obscured to others." That certainly sounds one way to me.

[MaxWilson]

It’s dark underground if there’s no light. Turn on a flashlight, and the darkness goes away, at least in part. Darkness is the absence of light, not the accumulation of shadows (which require light to exist).

Night time isn’t the shadow of earth, it’s the lack of direct light from the sun. SNIP

So in your playing of the spell, the caster is effectively blinded if they don’t have Darkvision or Devil’s Sight?

"Lack of direct light" = Shadow, QED.

Darkness doesn't prevent you from seeing stuff that isn't in darkness. In 5e, darkness only blocks seeing whatever is heavily obscured by it--therefore the caster can see everything but himself. (Darkvision would allow him to also see himself.)

[Zalabim]

If the flame-like shadows in the spell means dim light, then let's play substitution.

"Flame-like shadows wreathe your body until the spell ends, causing you to become heavily obscured to others."
Well, shadows don't cause you to be heavily obscured, but that's what the spell specifically says, so it overrides the general rule for shadows.

"Flame-like dim lights wreathe your body until the spell ends, causing you to become heavily obscured to others."
Well, dim lights don't cause you to be heavily obscured, but that's what the spell specifically says, so it overrides the general rule for dim lights.

Now if the observer has Darkvision:
"Flame-like bright lights wreathe your body until the spell ends, causing you to become heavily obscured to others."
Well, bright lights don't cause you to be heavily obscured, but that's what the spell specifically says, so it overrides the general rule for bright lights.

Shadow of Moil causes you to become heavily obscured to others because that's what the spell says it does.

[MaxWilson]

If the flame-like shadows in the spell means dim light, then let's play substitution.

"Flame-like shadows wreathe your body until the spell ends, causing you to become heavily obscured to others."
Well, shadows don't cause you to be heavily obscured, but that's what the spell specifically says, so it overrides the general rule for shadows.

"Flame-like dim lights wreathe your body until the spell ends, causing you to become heavily obscured to others."
Well, dim lights don't cause you to be heavily obscured, but that's what the spell specifically says, so it overrides the general rule for dim lights.

Now if the observer has Darkvision:
"Flame-like bright lights wreathe your body until the spell ends, causing you to become heavily obscured to others."
Well, bright lights don't cause you to be heavily obscured, but that's what the spell specifically says, so it overrides the general rule for bright lights.

Shadow of Moil causes you to become heavily obscured to others because that's what the spell says it does.

Cute equivocation. I've got one too:

Half a loaf is better than nothing.
Nothing is better than chocolate.
Therefore, half a loaf is better than chocolate.

Neither equivocation is actually relevant to this thread.

In reality, the claim being advanced is not that "shadows ≡ dim light" but rather "shadows = occlusion of light", normally manifesting in 5E as dim light (explicitly referred to as "shadows") but also sometimes as darkness.

[Zalabim]

Cute equivocation. I've got one too:

Half a loaf is better than nothing.
Nothing is better than chocolate.
Therefore, half a loaf is better than chocolate.

Neither equivocation is actually relevant to this thread.

In reality, the claim being advanced is not that "shadows ≡ dim light" but rather "shadows = occlusion of light", normally manifesting in 5E as dim light (explicitly referred to as "shadows") but also sometimes as darkness.

Do you have any support for your claim? Like, you know, rules. Because I'm addressing Gorog's claim that the heavy obscurement comes from shadows, aka dim light. Clearly, dim light does not itself cause heavy obscurement, so whether the observer views shadows as dim light or bright light would not change whether the caster is heavily obscured to others, because that property comes from the spell and not the default rules for dim light or shadows.

[Spiritchaser]

"BLINDSIGHT
A creature with blindsight can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius. Creatures without eyes, such as oozes, and creatures with echolocation or heightened senses, such as bats and true dragons, have this sense."

"A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely" PHB 183

Heavily obscured only blocks vision. Blindsight allows perception of the surroundings without using sight. Heavily obscured does NOT interfere with blindsight. Blindsight is unaffected by Shadow of Moil in terms of perceiving the creature affected by it.

Blindsight is also unaffected by fog cloud or darkness.


There is however, more to the definition of blindsight. It is defined as “echolocation or heightened senses” Heightened senses could be fluffed as nearly anything, and is totally indeterminate as to how it might deal with heavy obscurement. If you rule it to work like thermoimaging, obscurement by shadowy flames might well work. If you imagine it as something else there might well be no impact, but this is totally DM fiat.

Echolocation is well understood.
Heavy obscurement from Cover? No vision, though not really the same.
Heavy obscurement from something like leaves? No vision, obscurement works.
Heavy obscurement from fog? Vision
Heavy obscurement from shadowy flames that cause damage?
Meh?

Assuming Moil fails against blindsight is certainly the simplest interpretation, and there’s a lot to be said for that, but I do not believe that this is remotely clear.

[RSP]

Makes sense in a way that a caster cant see through their own castings of darkness without devil's sight or other magical means, same could be said with heavily obscured.

SO how could one see through it without such means? Even if it was the caster, no where does it say that the caster can see through it.

Yes, it does say the caster is unaffected by the heavily obscured: “...causing you to become heavily obscured to others.” “To others” there, means it’s not affecting the caster. Likewise, the verbiage supports that it isn’t a “normal” heavily obscured from darkness, which would affect both the caster and others.


"Lack of direct light" = Shadow, QED.

Darkness doesn't prevent you from seeing stuff that isn't in darkness. In 5e, darkness only blocks seeing whatever is heavily obscured by it--therefore the caster can see everything but himself. (Darkvision would allow him to also see himself.)

Are you quoting the rules of 5e with “Lack of direct light”=Shadow? If not, it doesn’t matter. Your previous examples of how “shadows” accumulate to cause darkness was off, so I’m not horribly concerned with any “real world” examples of how you think a magic spell in a fantasy game should work.

And see above for how SoM specifically does not affect the caster with heavy obscurement.

You can ignore what the spell says, if you like, and have it affect the caster to try and have the spell better fit what you want it to be; just acknowledge that’s what you’re doing and don’t pretend it’s it RAW or RAI, or anything outside of what you want the spell to be houserules as.



In reality, the claim being advanced is not that "shadows ≡ dim light" but rather "shadows = occlusion of light", normally manifesting in 5E as dim light (explicitly referred to as "shadows") but also sometimes as darkness.

No, the rules state what the rules state, regardless of what you want them to state. The rule in discussion here, is, in fact, “Dim light, also called shadows, creates a lightly obscured area.” This means dim light=shadows in 5e.

Now the relevant question is “are the flame-like shadows created by SoM the same as the PHB shadows?” The fact that they behave completely different than the PHB shadows, with expressly different rules, means, logically, they are not the same.

[Skylivedk]

Likewise a lot of tables care about/refer to JC's tweets, but those same tables can clash on the issue regardless when they come up with two tweets contradicting themselves. All the power to them, if they want SoM to work that way then I hope they have fun, but it hardly seems like a balanced spell the RAI way.

IMX, no. It's even over-rated (again, my experience) when blocking everything except Blindsense. I've seen guides suggest dropping Devil's Sight once SoM became available. I never understood that. The duration difference is too heavily in favour of Darkness.


Normally yes, but add enough of them together and you get heavy obscurement. (DM's call where the line is drawn.) Otherwise, why is it dark underground, if not due to cumulative shadows from every angle? What is night time but the shadow of the Earth?

=======================================



Against anything without darkvision (e.g. humans, werewolves, dinosaurs, githyanki, most giants) and also when you're outside of darkvision range, it grants you most of the benefits of Greater Invisibility even in broad daylight, it damages your melee attackers as much as Fire Shield, and unlike Greater Invisibly it is actually available to non-fey warlocks.

It's two 4th level spells in one, with a warlock twist and a limitation (countered by darkvision). Pretty middle-of-the-road for a 4th level warlock spell, but situationally quite good.

For reference, here's a complete-ish list of monsters without darkvision, truesight, or blindsight:


Aarakocra
Abjurer
Acolyte
Allosaurus
Ankylosaurus
Ape
Apprentice Wizard
Archdruid
Archer
Archmage
Assassin
Aurochs
Awakened Shrub
Awakened Tree
Axe Beak
Azbara Jos
Azer
Baba Lysaga
Baboon
Bandit
Bandit Captain
Bard
Beldora
Berserker
Black Bear
Black Earth Guard
Black Earth Priest
Blackguard
Blagothkus
Blink Dog
Blood Hawk
Boar
Brontosaurus
Brown Bear
Bullywug
Burrowshark
Camel
Captain Othelstan
Cat
Centaur
Champion
Cloud Giant
Cloud Giant Smiling One
Commoner
Conjurer
Cow
Crocodile
Crushing Wave Priest
Crushing Wave Reaver
Cult Fanatic
Cultist
Cyclops
Darathra Shendrel
Dark Tide Knight
Darz Helgar
Deer
Deinonychus
Demonic Boon Template
Diabolical Cultist Template
Dimetrodon
Dire Wolf
Diviner
Draft Horse
Dragonbait
Dragonclaw
Dragonfang
Dragonsoul
Dragonwing
Druid
Duvessa Shane
Eagle
Eblis
Elder Evil Template
Elephant
Elizar Dryflagon
Elk
Enchanter
Eternal Flame Guardian
Eternal Flame Priest
Evil Mage
Evoker
Fathomer
Feathergale Knight
Fire Giant
Fire Giant Dreadnought
Firenewt Warrior
Flamewrath
Flying Monkey
Frost Giant
Frulam Mondath
Ghelryn Foehammer
Giant Ape
Giant Boar
Giant Crocodile
Giant Eagle
Giant Elk
Giant Goat
Giant Hyena
Giant Sea Horse
Giant Strider
Giant Subterranean Lizard
Giant Vulture
Giant Wasp
Giff
Githyanki Gish
Githyanki Kith'rak
Githyanki Knight
Githyanki Supreme Commander
Githyanki Warrior
Githzerai Anarch
Githzerai Enlightened
Githzerai Monk
Githzerai Zerth
Gladiator
Goat
Grisha
Grung
Grung Elite Warrior
Grung Wildling
Guard
Hadrosaurus
Harpy
Hawk
Hill Giant
Hippogriff
Howling Hatred Initiate
Howling Hatred Priest
Hurricane
Hyena
Illusionist
Izek Strazni
Jackal
Jackalwere
Kamadan
Kenku
Knight
Kraken Priest
Lifferlas
Lion
Lizardfolk
Lizardfolk Shaman
Madam Eva
Mage
Mammoth
Mantrap
Markham Southwell
Martial Arts Adept
Master Thief
Mastiff
Merfolk
Miraj Vizann
Miros Xelbrin
Mouth of Grolantor
Mule
Narth Tezrin
Naxene Drathkala
Necromancer
Nightmare
Noble
One-Eyed Shiver
Oreioth
Oren Yogilvy
Othovir
Ox
Panther
Pegasus
Peryton
Pharblex Spattergoo
Pidlwick II
Pixie
Plesiosaurus
Polar Bear
Pony
Priest
Pterafolk
Pteranodon
Quetzalcoatlus
Rath Modar
Raven
Razerblast
Redbrand Ruffian
Rhinoceros
Rictavio
Riding Horse
Roc
Saber-Toothed Tiger
Sacred Stone Monk
Satyr
Scout
Sea Horse
Sea Lion
Shalvus Martholio
Sharwyn Hucrele
Shoalar Quanderil
Sildar Hallwinter
Sir Baric Nylef
Sir Braford
Sirac of Suzail
Skyweaver
Sprite
Spy
Stegosaurus
Stone Cursed
Stonemelder
Storm Giant
Su-Monster
Swarm of Ravens
Swashbuckler
Thayan Warrior
Thug
Thurl Merosska
Tortle
Treant
Tressym
Tribal Warrior
Triceratops
Tyrannosaurus Rex
Urgala Meltimer
Uthgardt Shaman
Velociraptor
Veteran
Vulture
War Priest
Warhorse
Warlock of the Archfey
Warlord
Weasel
Werebear
Wereboar
Wereraven
Werewolf
Wiggan Nettlebee
Winter Wolf
Wolf
Yakfolk Priest
Yakfolk Warrior
Zi Liang
Zorbo

Besides availability, I'd see it as way too bad, and pretty much strictly worse, than Greater Invisibility with this ruling.

It would go from: "I've picked SoM for tight areas and uncoordinated parties" to "meh, most important effect is worse than Darkness? 1 minute duration? Pass"

[Dork_Forge]

IMX, no. It's even over-rated (again, my experience) when blocking everything except Blindsense. I've seen guides suggest dropping Devil's Sight once SoM became available. I never understood that. The duration difference is too heavily in favour of Darkness.


There's too many differences for Duration to be a straight consideration: it doesn't hinder your allies (unless they're attempting to buff you) like Darkness easily can, it grants a resistance and it does damage and I think a big consideration is how Warlock slots work: You're casting a 4th level+ slot anyway, so why not get the additional benefits (this also has benefits at my table because I rule that upcasting things like Darkness doesn't increase the Dispel/Counterspell difficulty).

Though if I were playing a Darkvisionless Warlock I certainly wouldn't be giving up Devil's Sight any time soon regardless of what spell I was casting.

[Farias123]

Wow, this thread didn't went the way I expected, there are people in here discussing about physics and how shadows work.
First of all, I'm going to take into consideration that Shadow of Moil, works the way Jeremy Crawford said (the heavy obscurement is a different effect from the darkness, and darkvision doesn't surpass it, so, it does give advantage, and imposes disadvantage, like it is RAI).
Second, please, I want to know your opinions and builds around to see how to deal the most of damage with each of them, not to discuss if night works as if there was a giant Shadow around the globe.

[Christew]

Wow, this thread didn't went the way I expected, there are people in here discussing about physics and how shadows work.
There always is when vision and lighting rules are under discussion. You should see the "reinterpret the Darkness spell" thread that pops up every month or so. It is a thing of surreal beauty. Actually, should probably be popping back up any day now, so keep your eyes peeled. Though this thread may serve to delay it a bit.

[Zayol]

Considering we have all gone through this entire light vs dark factor now I say we must now discuss smell and how it affects all this, what if your hexblade doesnt bath or wears to much perfum? I think he should be at a disadvantage even with SoM due to smelling and being detected through that....

.....discuss....

[Christew]

Considering we have all gone through this entire light vs dark factor now I say we must now discuss smell and how it affects all this, what if your hexblade doesnt bath or wears to much perfum? I think he should be at a disadvantage even with SoM due to smelling and being detected through that....

.....discuss....
Haha.
Player: Okay, we have eaten, we have rested, we are not encumbered, and we have plenty of ammo. I think we're ready to sneak into the dragon's lair.
DM: Interesting. When did you last bathe?

[Farias123]

It's been a month guys, I know initially the thread wasn't focused on a 1 on 1 combat, but I'll explain to you what happened.
So, me and my friend decided to test our characters on a combat and coincidentally his character had a few levels of Hexblade and was totally damage focused, while I had the Battle Smith's ones. Both of them were level 10 character, mine was Battle Smith 8/ War Wizard 2, and his was Oath of the Ancients Paladin 5/Hexblade 5.
His character is absolutely destructive, he can burn through Eldritch and divine Smites to destroy a foe in just a couple of rounds(and here comes the important part)if he hits.
My character isn't much of a damage dealer, but man, he is basically untouchable, my friend had to roll a 19 to hit, while I was with Haste on and used shield.
He destroyed the defender on one single round, that certainly scared me at first.
But man, he wouldn't land a blow, and when he did, he had already spent all those valuable spell slots on shield so he wouldn't die either.
Finally, I got to the point that, Hexblade is more focused on damage, and the Battle Smith is more focused on defense and staying alive, and how a wise man said on this thread:
Everyone does more damage than the guy bleeding out on the floor.

Joking apart, if there was an imaginary punch bag the Warlock would definitely shine.

[Dork_Forge]

It's been a month guys, I know initially the thread wasn't focused on a 1 on 1 combat, but I'll explain to you what happened.
So, me and my friend decided to test our characters on a combat and coincidentally his character had a few levels of Hexblade and was totally damage focused, while I had the Battle Smith's ones. Both of them were level 10 character, mine was Battle Smith 8/ War Wizard 2, and his was Oath of the Ancients Paladin 5/Hexblade 5.
His character is absolutely destructive, he can burn through Eldritch and divine Smites to destroy a foe in just a couple of rounds(and here comes the important part)if he hits.
My character isn't much of a damage dealer, but man, he is basically untouchable, my friend had to roll a 19 to hit, while I was with Haste on and used shield.
He destroyed the defender on one single round, that certainly scared me at first.
But man, he wouldn't land a blow, and when he did, he had already spent all those valuable spell slots on shield so he wouldn't die either.
Finally, I got to the point that, Hexblade is more focused on damage, and the Battle Smith is more focused on defense and staying alive, and how a wise man said on this thread:
Joking apart, if there was an imaginary punch bag the Warlock would definitely shine.

Sounds like a good rumble!

It does seem more like a testament to a Palock rather than a testament to the Hexblade, had your friend been a straight Hexblade:

-He would have had two slots, so likely would have been completely out of resources in one turn, maybe two if he couldn't hit you.

-With only having two slots and being unable to stack smites, it's very unlikely he would have been able to kill your (47hp?) Defender in a single turn (hard to know without more details on how they were fighting)

-No resources means no Shield (an awful use of a Warlocks slots unless it's a life or death hit), so you would have hit more

-Combined with your flexibility to heal yourself with Arcane Jolt rather than spike damage, it really turns the encounter on its head

[Hael]

It's been a month guys, I know initially the thread wasn't focused on a 1 on 1 combat, but I'll explain to you what happened.
So, me and my friend decided to test our characters on a combat and coincidentally his character had a few levels of Hexblade and was totally damage focused.
But man, he wouldn't land a blow, and when he did, he had already spent all those valuable spell slots on shield so he wouldn't die either.


Ok, pve builds and pvp builds are very different creatures. However, a few points to illustrate how warped this scenario is. (i will assume a single class hexblade where appropriate)

1) Never cast Haste in PvP. I repeat, never cast haste in PvP. You cast haste, I cast dispel (or invisibility, or stealth or fly). I win the next turn or whenever haste drops.
2) The Hexblade can simply outkite the smith. EB can be made to have a 240foot distance.
3) Spells like flight are going to massively favor the superior ranged abilities of the hexblade, and if the smith retaliates with his own fly, it effectively removes the defender from the fight.
4) PvP builds are going to look alot different than pve builds. For instance, the Hexblade is encouraged to create an armor of agathys, shadow of moil, hellish rebuke, fiendish vigor type situation as he can effectively temp hp tank a lot of your damage and the smith will lose a good amount of hps trying to hit him (thats 2d8 necrotic +25 each hit).
5) Against high ac (say 20 + 5for shield = 25 assuming a +1 ac item) an elven accuracy/PAM + SOM for advantage hexblade is still going to hit about 58% of the time for about 27 dpr with curse up. Thats more dpr than the smith is doing against ac17 at disadvantage.

I know this was against a Hexadin, but its still pretty warped. The Hexadin is encouraged to use his paladin slots for more of the AoA type situation I just outlined. Moreover, all he has to do is hit you once, and he can hit you with a double smite + eldritch smite (that knocks you prone), which I don't see how you live through.

[Dork_Forge]

Ok, pve builds and pvp builds are very different creatures. However, a few points to illustrate how warped this scenario is. (i will assume a single class hexblade where appropriate)

Completely agree PvE is a different beast to PvP


1) Never cast Haste in PvP. I repeat, never cast haste in PvP. You cast haste, I cast dispel (or invisibility, or stealth or fly). I win the next turn or whenever haste drops.
A good point but a bit strong, Hasting the Steel Defender is probably a stronger move


2) The Hexblade can simply outkite the smith. EB can be made to have a 240foot distance.

And taking Sharpshooter gives a normal range of 400ft to a heavy Crossbow or 600ft to a longbow, this combined with having a +1/+2 weapon and a high AC puts things in favour of the Battle Smith (and locks the Warlock out of setting up things like HBC unless they start close and try to flee)


3) Spells like flight are going to massively favor the superior ranged abilities of the hexblade, and if the smith retaliates with his own fly, it effectively removes the defender from the fight.

Winged Boots are an infuseable item, you can cast Fly on the Defender at the same time or just be small, ride the Defender and cast fly on it. The Hexblade doesn't really have superior ranged abilities, as already discussed.


4) PvP builds are going to look alot different than pve builds. For instance, the Hexblade is encouraged to create an armor of agathys, shadow of moil, hellish rebuke, fiendish vigor type situation as he can effectively temp hp tank a lot of your damage and the smith will lose a good amount of hps trying to hit him (thats 2d8 necrotic +25 each hit).

Assuming that you're getting hit in melee (A Battle Smith has potentially a lot of ranged tools at their disposal.


5) Against high ac (say 20 + 5for shield = 25 assuming a +1 ac item) an elven accuracy/PAM + SOM for advantage hexblade is still going to hit about 58% of the time for about 27 dpr with curse up. Thats more dpr than the smith is doing against ac17 at disadvantage.

The AC is on the low side for a PvP focused Battle Smith and doesn't account for things like the Steel Defender's Defensive Pounce. Shadow of Moil is great, but it doesn't look like you're considering a lost turn of DPR in exchange for setting it up and are assuming that the Hexblade would be able to maintain concentration.


I know this was against a Hexadin, but its still pretty warped. The Hexadin is encouraged to use his paladin slots for more of the AoA type situation I just outlined. Moreover, all he has to do is hit you once, and he can hit you with a double smite + eldritch smite (that knocks you prone), which I don't see how you live through.

...Why would getting hit by a double smite instadrop a Battle Smith? Assuming 10th level with a modest +2 Con, you're looking at 73hp, with options available for temp hp and self healing (Arcane Jolt can self heal without even costing action economy). Remember you're fighting through a high AC and one attack a round at disadvantage.

Having done a lot of PvP (I enjoy the combat element of 5e a lot), it is rarely as cut and dry as you're making it and would be a close fight regardless what side wins.

[Hael]

Completely agree PvE is a different beast to PvP
And taking Sharpshooter gives a normal range of 400ft to a heavy Crossbow or 600ft to a longbow, this combined with having a +1/+2 weapon and a high AC puts things in favour of the Battle Smith (and locks the Warlock out of setting up things like HBC unless they start close and try to flee)


Good point about sharpshooter. However the Hexblade could take spell sniper as well as the invocation, and I was incorrect about the invocation it sets EB at 300 feet. So doubling that and its 600 feet and ignores 1/2 and 3/4 cover and is functionally identical to the longbow with sharpshooter. Further, the Hexblade can wear a shield whereas the longbow has to be held with 2hands (on the other hand the smith will have an armor attunement bonus and more spellslots for shield spell).

Coupled with advantage from darkness or SOM, hexblades curse and the greater damage of eldritch blast (as well as AoA) and I feel confident that the Hexblade wins the extreme range wars.

As for the PvE Hexadin fight, most of the hits against very high AC will be from triple advantage with curse up, so you are looking mostly at hits that are going to be crits. A single crit is particularly brutal as the Hexadin will hit you with massive double smite crit damage. There is a world in which the smith survives and pulls a comeback from that, but the odds are long.

Anyway, i've never PvP'd with a Hexblade before, but they naively seem to be quite strong (as far as I can tell PvP is mostly wizard land).

[RSP]

Winged Boots are an infuseable item, you can cast Fly on the Defender at the same time or just be small, ride the Defender and cast fly on it.

I don’t particularly care about the PvP, but did want to point out that using a flying mount is particularly risky vs a Warlock d/t RB. Not sure if that was in the build you fought, but in general, I’d expect an EB Warlock to have it. In this situation, it basically adds falling damage to their EB.

[Dork_Forge]

I don’t particularly care about the PvP, but did want to point out that using a flying mount is particularly risky vs a Warlock d/t RB. Not sure if that was in the build you fought, but in general, I’d expect an EB Warlock to have it. In this situation, it basically adds falling damage to their EB.

I was mainly pointing out that you could just ride a flying Steel Defender, though if you did and were knocked off, Feather Fall is an Artificer spell and would be a wise choice if yo uwere trying the flying SD.


Good point about sharpshooter. However the Hexblade could take spell sniper as well as the invocation, and I was incorrect about the invocation it sets EB at 300 feet. So doubling that and its 600 feet and ignores 1/2 and 3/4 cover and is functionally identical to the longbow with sharpshooter. Further, the Hexblade can wear a shield whereas the longbow has to be held with 2hands (on the other hand the smith will have an armor attunement bonus and more spellslots for shield spell).

So about the same range but a lower to hit.


Coupled with advantage from darkness or SOM, hexblades curse and the greater damage of eldritch blast (as well as AoA) and I feel confident that the Hexblade wins the extreme range wars.


You're assuming that 1) Burning an entire round setting that up won't screw the Hexblade over (especially if they're second in the initiative), 2) The Hexblade can maintain concentration and 3)That the Battle Smith doesn't have Alert, an extrememly popular feat in general but particularly in PvP


As for the PvE Hexadin fight, most of the hits against very high AC will be from triple advantage with curse up, so you are looking mostly at hits that are going to be crits. A single crit is particularly brutal as the Hexadin will hit you with massive double smite crit damage. There is a world in which the smith survives and pulls a comeback from that, but the odds are long.

Assuming again that the Hexblade gets advantage, even then "mostly crits" seems like a big stretch, especially since Defensive Pounce is in play. It's also a one and done kind of strategy since presumably a Warlock slot is burned on Darkness/SoM, so once the Hexadin hits once with Eldritch Smite they can't do that trick again. At level 10, assuming the Hexadin is able to unload a bunch of Smites, of course they'd likely win if they're only attacking the Battle Smith. The hard part is actually hitting and ignoring the Steel Defender attacking, though if it's a viable strategy for a straight Hexblade to kite a Battle Smith, why couldn't said Smith kite the Hexadin? The Paladin kit is pretty much worthless at range.


Anyway, i've never PvP'd with a Hexblade before, but they naively seem to be quite strong (as far as I can tell PvP is mostly wizard land).

In my experience, they're very popular becuase they make the build easy and usually result in over confident players that under perform. Straight Wizards in PvP rarely go well, the ones with the strongest chance are Abjurer's just because of the Ward.

[Farias123]

1) Never cast Haste in PvP. I repeat, never cast haste in PvP. You cast haste, I cast dispel (or invisibility, or stealth or fly). I win the next turn or whenever haste drops.
2) The Hexblade can simply outkite the smith. EB can be made to have a 240foot distance.
I see your point but I don't know most combats that start with a distance of more than 120 foot distance between the two combatants. What I'm trying to say is that, Haste is such a good option for not being hit, because of the bonus to AC, movement so you can get to that Warlock blasting from distance(your movement is doubled and you can use haste action to dash), and at the same time, getting one extra attack every turn(if you didn't used the action for other things of course), so it ends up being one big defense/offense buff, and when it's over, okay, you lose one round, but it's not big deal if your enemy is dead before that, and even if it's alive you still have a high AC, so maybe you won't even be hit on that round either.

I'm not trying to say that Battle Smith is the best and that's it, I'm just trying to show the good sides of both of them, and I know that the combat in which I took part, wasn't a full Warlock, full Artificer build combat, but I do share of my friend's opinion:
"Your character doesn't deal a lot of damage, but he is simply unhittable, and mine is a killer machine if it hits, while someone can easily kill him, bit to bit"
So, his character and mine have different means of survival, his way is: if he's dead, he won't hit me. While my way is: if he can't touch me, he won't kill me.