Who to warding bond?

[Master O'Laughs]

Hey y'all,

I am playing in a one shot tonight with pre-gens from the DM. One of them is a twilight cleric which I have chosen to play.

other members are a battlerager barbarian, battlemaster fighter, thief rogue, and abjurer wizard.

Most spells were pre-picked but I had the flexibility of two slots. I decided to lean into the support aspect and picked a custom spell from my DM to as a reaction give someone a 20 on their death saving throw to pop them back up and warding bond.

The question is, who would be the better target, the rogue or the wizard?

I was leaning towards the wizard as we would both be less likely to be in the thick of things and it would help with his concentration checks.

Does this sound reasonable? I figure the THP shield would hopefully be enough to keep the rogue afloat.

[Bobthewizard]

I would hold off and see who needs it in a combat. The classes don't tell us everything, since it will depend on their play styles. It's likely the rogue will need it more than the wizard, but it could even be best to use it on the fighter once they lose half of their HP.

However, if your wizard has access to armor of agathys, then definitely place it on them. Resistance, arcane ward, and armor of agathys is a great combination.

[KorvinStarmast]

other members are a battlerager barbarian, battlemaster fighter, thief rogue, and abjurer wizard.

Most spells were pre-picked but I had the flexibility of two slots. I decided to lean into the support aspect and picked a custom spell from my DM to as a reaction give someone a 20 on their death saving throw to pop them back up and warding bond.

The question is, who would be the better target, the rogue or the wizard?

I was leaning towards the wizard as we would both be less likely to be in the thick of things and it would help with his concentration checks.

Does this sound reasonable? I figure the THP shield would hopefully be enough to keep the rogue afloat. I'd put it on the battle master if he tends to mix it up, or on the rogue if they going in for close fighting to get sneak attack benefits in tandem with the tank. FWIW, that's what I did in our first few campaigns when I ran a life and a tempest cleric. (I also kept extra healing pots in my belt pouch to chug as damage got passed along).

That battle master will benefit more from the +1 AC than your squishy wizard.

[Master O'Laughs]

So benefits of Fighter:

+1 AC likely to make things miss him more often

Benefits of Rogue:

+1 AC may make things miss, has less hp than fighter so shared damage helps.

Benefits of wizard:

Shared damage helps with his Concentration saves. Less likely to be hit, thus helping me make less concentration saves.

Does that seem like a fair comparison?

[LudicSavant]

other members are a battlerager barbarian, battlemaster fighter, thief rogue, and abjurer wizard.

Most spells were pre-picked but I had the flexibility of two slots. I decided to lean into the support aspect and picked a custom spell from my DM to as a reaction give someone a 20 on their death saving throw to pop them back up and warding bond.

The question is, who would be the better target, the rogue or the wizard?

I was leaning towards the wizard as we would both be less likely to be in the thick of things and it would help with his concentration checks.

Does this sound reasonable? I figure the THP shield would hopefully be enough to keep the rogue afloat.

Two characters of the same class (or even subclass) can be built and played very differently from each other and this fundamentally changes who the target should be. For example, a Sentinel Battle Master is very different from a Sharpshooter Battle Master. For another example, some Abjurers have a low AC, others are superheavy main tank builds with access to sky-high AC, unlimited regenerating wards, spells like AoA added to their list, and are sticky frontliners with Warcaster. You need to provide more information if you're going to get the true answer.

That said I can at least give some advice that you will be able to generalize to just about any situation, whatever those variables you haven't told us turn out to be.

- Warding Bond synergizes with certain spells. For example, if someone uses Armor of Agathys, and you Warding Bond them, that armor will dish out more retribution damage before breaking.

- Warding Bond can also cut the DC of Concentration saves -- if you take half damage, the DC of the save is lower (to a minimum of 10, so this only matters for hits that would have done more than 20 damage).

- Abjurer's Ward applies before Resistance. So if Abjurer's Ward eats a hit, damage isn't halved, but you don't take any damage either.

- The AC/saves bonus of Warding Bond is more beneficial on people who already have a solid AC/save. This is because miss chances have steeply escalating non-linear returns (e.g. the difference between 20 and 21 AC is considerably bigger than the difference between a 10 and 11 AC).

- Warding Bond doesn't stack with Resistance.

- Warding Bond provides additional value when cast on whoever is most vulnerable to being focused down, or whoever is most likely to be focused on.


The classes don't tell us everything, since it will depend on their play styles.

100% this.

Classes are not individual characters on a character select screen. They are broad toolkits from which you can build an entire roster of characters. With some subclasses, you can even build a genuinely well-rounded party just out of different builds of that subclass.

[Master O'Laughs]

Okay I missed the additional information.

As these are pre-gens and we are long-time players for this DM, he gave role-playing notes for the characters from his world.

The thief rogue is suggested to be played like an 80's action hero and will be dual-wielding short swords.

The battle master fighter looks to wear heavy armor (most likely chainmail due to level 4) and uses a 2-handed sword. He is a leader, front-line type

I have no idea what is on the wizard's spell list, so for the purposes of the thought experiment, I would assume AoA has not been selected.

Side note: How would the Twilight Cleric THP replenishment interact with AoA?

[LudicSavant]

Side note: How would the Twilight Cleric THP replenishment interact with AoA?

Doesn't stack.

[stoutstien]

Could ask DM if they allow casting WB on yourself if no one wants it.

[JackPhoenix]

The rogue sounds the most vulnerable. In melee, and sacrificing roguish mobility for TWF, but really, you should decide according to situation.

[Dork_Forge]

What level is the one shot?

I would say either the Fighter or Rogue, it'd largely be wasted on the Wizard since it wouldn't interact with their Ward at all.

If you're 5th level or higher and the Fighter is melee I'd prefer the Fighter since the Rogue has Uncanny Dodge to look after themselves.

Edit: Ahh I see now, level 4, then the Rogue gets my vote.

[MaxWilson]

Side note: How would the Twilight Cleric THP replenishment interact with AoA?

They are mutually exclusive. The AoA guy can't benefit from the Twilight temp HP until AoA is used up--accepting the Twilight temp HP forces AoA's effect to end early if it hasn't already.