Modifying battlesmith’s extra attack

[Khrysaes]

So, i dont remember where, but in another thread i remember someone suggesting to change the battlesmith artificer extra attack to be the same as the bladesinger.

That said the core downside to doing this i see, as a dm, is that mending can be cast every round as part of an attack action on the defender.

Would this break the game?

[nickl_2000]

If your only concern is that they cast Mending as a single action make it

"you may replace one of your attacks with a cantrips that takes a 1 action to cast." Problem solved.

[Greywander]

Mending has a casting time of 1 minute.

[nickl_2000]

Mending has a casting time of 1 minute.

Except the bladesinger ability overrides that casting time of 1 minute.


Extra Attack
6th-level Bladesinging feature

You can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn. Moreover, you can cast one of your cantrips in place of one of those attacks.

[kore]

Except the bladesinger ability overrides that casting time of 1 minute.

Right, so your original solution fixes that concern. I think everyone is on the same page so the question still stands.

[Greywander]

Except the bladesinger ability overrides that casting time of 1 minute.
Wh...

What...

How did they overlook something like this? Surely this isn't intentional? I always just assumed it was restricted to cantrips with a casting time of 1 action. I mean, sure, outside of the context of a Battle Smith, Mending as an attack isn't going to break much, and I don't think there are many other cantrips with a casting time longer than an action, but there's still the potential of a cantrip being introduced that would break the game if it could be cast so quickly. In theory, anything that is a ritual could be reworked to be a cantrip with a 10 minute casting time without being unbalanced. I'm also not a fan of abilities that only work after/as part of an attack, but you might want to use out of combat, so you have to punch a wall or something so that you can use said ability.

Personally, I would houserule the Bladesinger to only allow cantrips with a casting time of one action. As for if Mending every round would break the game, I don't think so. Artillerists can grant temp HP to their entire party every round as a BA, so casting Mending on your Steel Defender should be roughly comparable.

[nickl_2000]

Wh...

What...

How did they overlook something like this? Surely this isn't intentional? I always just assumed it was restricted to cantrips with a casting time of 1 action. I mean, sure, outside of the context of a Battle Smith, Mending as an attack isn't going to break much, and I don't think there are many other cantrips with a casting time longer than an action, but there's still the potential of a cantrip being introduced that would break the game if it could be cast so quickly. In theory, anything that is a ritual could be reworked to be a cantrip with a 10 minute casting time without being unbalanced. I'm also not a fan of abilities that only work after/as part of an attack, but you might want to use out of combat, so you have to punch a wall or something so that you can use said ability.

Personally, I would houserule the Bladesinger to only allow cantrips with a casting time of one action. As for if Mending every round would break the game, I don't think so. Artillerists can grant temp HP to their entire party every round as a BA, so casting Mending on your Steel Defender should be roughly comparable.

You can punch a window as your first attack, break it, then mend it immediately afterwards :)

Personally I assume it was an oversight and accidently left out.

[Khrysaes]

My main concern was mending, since it is explicitly better for a battlesmith.

That said I can still make something similar with Battlesmith 3/bladesinger 6. The key difference is the 4 levels difference and the weaker defender at that point.

[Khrysaes]

My main concern was mending, since it is explicitly better for a battlesmith.

That said I can still make something similar with Battlesmith 3/bladesinger 6. The key difference is the 4 levels difference and the weaker defender at that point.

Conversely, 6 wizard grants 3rd level spells, so it is much better spellcasting than Battlesmith 5, AND at level 9 the battlesmith only has 3rd level spells anyways.

[stoutstien]

So, i dont remember where, but in another thread i remember someone suggesting to change the battlesmith artificer extra attack to be the same as the bladesinger.

That said the core downside to doing this i see, as a dm, is that mending can be cast every round as part of an attack action on the defender.

Would this break the game?

Break is a strong word. It's a flat out upgrade even without the action casting time for mending. Saying that it's not really that big of an upgrade. It would go from strong to stronger. You're basically getting a free weapon attack on top of a booming blade or if they're smart just prone and BB. And a lot of ways it's better on the artty than it is a wizard because of being SaD and having more passive staying power on the front line. Thanks to infusions buffing their strength up they can pretty reliably prone booming blade and use their steel defender to shove them away or grapple.

As for the bladesinger multi-class option goes it's oversold. It interferes with that SaDness and prevents the use of shields. There's only about a two to three level band where I'd say it would be a fair trade before straight artificer would have the edge again any ass you're looking for the expanded spell casting option in that case there are better subclasses to pick. Even the action base mending here isn't that great because you're making up the loss SD HP from multi-classing and delaying access to jolt and all the other goodies. If I was in a multi-class I would look at abjur or war.

[kore]

Wh...

What...

How did they overlook something like this? Surely this isn't intentional? I always just assumed it was restricted to cantrips with a casting time of 1 action. I mean, sure, outside of the context of a Battle Smith, Mending as an attack isn't going to break much, and I don't think there are many other cantrips with a casting time longer than an action, but there's still the potential of a cantrip being introduced that would break the game if it could be cast so quickly. In theory, anything that is a ritual could be reworked to be a cantrip with a 10 minute casting time without being unbalanced. I'm also not a fan of abilities that only work after/as part of an attack, but you might want to use out of combat, so you have to punch a wall or something so that you can use said ability.

Personally, I would houserule the Bladesinger to only allow cantrips with a casting time of one action. As for if Mending every round would break the game, I don't think so. Artillerists can grant temp HP to their entire party every round as a BA, so casting Mending on your Steel Defender should be roughly comparable.

Yeah, this thread revealed that oversight to me as well. I agree 100% with your last paragraph, though.

[Amechra]

Wh...

What...

How did they overlook something like this?

The Bladesinger version of Extra Attack was Very Well Thought Out.