Difference between swordmage and blade dancer?

[DarkElfDude]

Not sure if this quite fits here im new to this site but i was just wondering the main differences between bladedancers and swordmages

i know bladedancers must be elven but other than that im quite clueless, feel free to add differences in official lore or game specific lore :

[Brookshw]

You may want to ask a mod to move this to the appropriate edition's subfolder. Also, what edition, and lore or crunch?

[Koo Rehtorb]

Two letters.

[Xuc Xac]

Two letters.

Yeah. Blade Dancers are BD and Sword Mages are SM. If you search for BDSM on Google for more information, there's quite a lot of material out there. Surprisingly, narrowing the search to "BDSM dark elf" doesn't really limit it that much. Warning : most results are NSFW (non-spellcasting female warriors).

[DarkElfDude]

Yeah. Blade Dancers are BD and Sword Mages are SM. If you search for BDSM on Google for more information, there's quite a lot of material out there. Surprisingly, narrowing the search to "BDSM dark elf" doesn't really limit it that much. Warning : most results are NSFW (non-spellcasting female warriors).

You my sir have officially won the sarcasm prize

[EndlessKng]

Not sure if this quite fits here im new to this site but i was just wondering the main differences between bladedancers and swordmages

i know bladedancers must be elven but other than that im quite clueless, feel free to add differences in official lore or game specific lore :

So... to clarify, are we talking the 3.5 prestige classes that blend magic and martial technique? If so you may have the terms off slightly. If not we need a reference - possibly 4e since I think they had a sword mage class.

In 3.5 there wasn't a specific "swordmage" class, but several classes that did things with the concept of merging arcane magic and melee combat. The duskblade and hexblade did it to varying degrees of success as base classes, and the spellsword and bladesinger were PrCs that merged the concepts earlier, and I think those are what you are referring to in 3.5. In that case, the spellsword was a more general class that allowed armor and focused magic through attacks with melee weapons - not just swords; the bladesinger was an elvish tradition that used one-hand blades and kept the other open for casting. Doing so allowed them to apply special effects to magic and defend themselves with magic.

There WAS a bladedancer in Oriental Adventures. Where the other two advanced casting and combat prowess, Blade Dancer cut magical progression completely, similar to arcane archer. Instead, you channeled magic into flexible enchantments on your sword as well as acrobatic shenanigans. Basically it was wuxia. It also is notoriously difficult to qualify for, especially in 3.0 AND considering the bard was not intended in most OA based settings.

4e DID have a swordmage and bladesinger as well. Swordmage was the arcane defender - they, as the others before, mixed swordplay and magic, focusing mostly on close range spells and a few distance options. Their key feature was the aegis - depending on which you chose, you could target an enemy with the aegis effect and manipulate their actions to keep them on you or off someone else (or in one place). Bladesinger was a wizard subclass from Neverwinter Nights in the Essentials era. They had reduced spell options but, as before, had ways to use magic and one hand swords together. I played one for two sessions in Encounters, but don't recall the details.