Quote Originally Posted by Sillybird99 View Post
Blade Ward
Abjuration cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: touch
Components: V, S
Duration: 1 round
You extend your hand and trace a sigil of warding in the air. Until the end of your next turn, the target creature has resistance against bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage dealt by weapon attacks. Any creature who hits the warded creature with a melee weapon attack takes damage of the type dealt by their attack equal to your character level.


Just making it a touch cantrip adds a lot more use cases, and although the original version technically scales with damage dealt by enemies, I figured adding minor scaling retributive damage makes it a cooler use of your action. The retributive damage is balanced by only working vs melee attacks.

Is it now worth taking? Abusable?

IMO, the best way to buff blade ward is making it a bonus action, still lasting a round, but not costing concentration, and then making it a first level spell, though even this seems underpowered idk.