New Spells in Strixhaven

[Damon_Tor]

The question then is, are Silvery Barbs and the rest of these spells unbalanced or merely powerful? I lean towards the latter.

The fact that it appears to be much better than shield at personal attack protection, plus a ton of additional uses that shield does not address, speaks volumes, especially given how strong shield is to begin with.

[SharkForce]

The fact that it appears to be much better than shield at personal attack protection, plus a ton of additional uses that shield does not address, speaks volumes, especially given how strong shield is to begin with.

I wouldn't say that we can clearly state that this is better than shield at personal attack protection.

if you're facing a lot of attacks, shield is probably better.

with that said, the ability to mess with enemy saves is ridiculous. you get way too much value for your level 1 spell slot out of using silvery barbs to enhance your higher level spell slots.

the spell is way too strong in my opinion. it could be salvaged by removing the ability to mess with saves, and would instead leave a spell that is very powerful, which is generally better at cancelling out single attacks than shield, plus can be used on ability checks, plus gives an ally advantage... which I think would be rather too strong for the base game, but it looks like with strixhaven they are specifically aiming for extra-powerful spells (if they aren't, then most of the new spells need to be nerfed).

[dafrca]

The question then is, are Silvery Barbs and the rest of these spells unbalanced or merely powerful? I lean towards the latter.

In my opinion, if they are restricted to the Strixhaven they feel strong, if allowed out into the general population they feel OP to me.

While I like some of these spells, I would restrict there use in non-strixhaven games.

But like I said, this is just my opinion.

[Waterdeep Merch]

The fact that it appears to be much better than shield at personal attack protection, plus a ton of additional uses that shield does not address, speaks volumes, especially given how strong shield is to begin with.

I think it's external balance is fine. It's strong, no doubt, but it can't win encounters, it can't circumvent challenges on it's own, and it doesn't invalidate other characters in any way. It can save you from bad situations or put an enemy into one, but it can't render an enemy helpless or you immortal. I wouldn't call it "overpowered" for these reasons.

It's internal balance is absolutely on the high side. Any highly optimized caster that can access this spell should have it. It's something of an overall buff to them to have this in their pocket at all times. But if this looks overpowered, it's only because it can help actual overpowered spells/abilities land more often, and if you're unwilling to sift through all of those with the banhammer (not an unreasonable position given the workload and higher likelihood of annoying players) you ought to just ban this and be done with it.

I'm already talking to my own players about allowing it, with the understanding that enemy casters will be rocking it regularly. I like the dynamism it adds to caster vs. caster engagements post-5, where they'll need to balance using this and counterspell or else be left defenseless in front of the enemy. Anything that slurps up more caster resources helps even out the caster/martial divide, in my games at least.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Any highly optimized caster that can access this spell should have it.

That's a huge red flag for me. "Must takes" (as well as "never takes") are essentially never appropriately balanced. Not just spells, but features in general.

[Bobthewizard]

I'm not sure it is better than shield defensively. It's different. It will work sometimes when shield won't by forcing a reroll on a crit. But sometimes you'll cast this spell and it won't work, so you've used your reaction and a spell slot to do nothing.

Absorb elements always works. Shield always works once you figure out the attacker's approximate bonus. You don't have to waste the spell slot if you know it won't work. And it protects you for the rest of the round which silvery barbs does not.

If you are a 5th level wizard, are you going to prepare all of shield, absorb elements, silvery barbs, and counterspell? That's 4 of your 9 prepared spells just on defensive reaction spells. 4 of 6 for a sorcerer.

I like that silvery barbs gives you another defensive reaction spell. Now you need to start making some choices since you probably shouldn't take them all.

I love silvery barbs for a bard. It's a huge upgrade for them. For wizards and sorcerers it's not quite as clear.

Now tier 3 and 4, I think silvery barbs starts to really outclass shield due to its offensive use. It gives a better chance not to waste your 4th or 5th level slot. But in tier 1 and 2, I could see taking either one.

[Waterdeep Merch]

That's a huge red flag for me. "Must takes" (as well as "never takes") are essentially never appropriately balanced. Not just spells, but features in general.

I'm alright with things being must-takes, so long as there's a good reason for it. If it's a must-have because it does something essential that you can't get anywhere else, it's probably fine. If it's a must-take because it's surrounded by weaker options, but the class itself is otherwise balanced when it has it, then the issue lies in the weaker options, not the must-take.

This isn't saying Silvery Barbs is necessarily either. It has shades of the former, perhaps. I'll want to see how it operates in play first. My players are fortunately very forgiving about testing new mechanics before deciding to carry them forward. White room, I theorize this is good for how I run my games. But it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong.

[Kane0]

Barbs can also negate crits

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm alright with things being must-takes, so long as there's a good reason for it. If it's a must-have because it does something essential that you can't get anywhere else, it's probably fine. If it's a must-take because it's surrounded by weaker options, but the class itself is otherwise balanced when it has it, then the issue lies in the weaker options, not the must-take.

Disagree. If something is a must have, it shouldn't be able to be missed. It should be a class feature. I feel the same way about the combat feats--if they truly are "must haves" (something I dispute, but the forum disagrees), then those benefits should be baked into the classes themselves.

And I feel strongly that too-strong options should be cut back and too-weak options should be boosted. They're separate--I don't like the line of thought that says that a strong option is fine because the other options are weak. Or that we should always benchmark everything to the top of the line. The balance point should be chosen a priori and then everything balanced to that; any other option invites power spirals (in one direction or the other). Because there will always be a top option.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Disagree. If something is a must have, it shouldn't be able to be missed. It should be a class feature. I feel the same way about the combat feats--if they truly are "must haves" (something I dispute, but the forum disagrees), then those benefits should be baked into the classes themselves.

And I feel strongly that too-strong options should be cut back and too-weak options should be boosted. They're separate--I don't like the line of thought that says that a strong option is fine because the other options are weak. Or that we should always benchmark everything to the top of the line. The balance point should be chosen a priori and then everything balanced to that; any other option invites power spirals (in one direction or the other). Because there will always be a top option.

Specifically, I'm talking about must-takes for optimization. As you said, top options are always going to exist. Whatever those are become the must-take options.

These only become truly bad for the game if you cannot reasonably play without them (or are completely outclassed when someone else does). You can definitely play 5e without the combat feats, for example. You might not have the best DPR, but you will absolutely be able to keep up, even in a party where other people do have them. Again, still not 100% sold that Silvery Barbs is like that. I need to see it in action.

[ProsecutorGodot]

The fact that it works on attacks, checks and saves coupled with the after-the-fact trigger makes me think closer to OP than merely strong.

Edit: for perspective, would you consider a 1st level spell that does this to be good?
Range 60'
Reaction (a creature you can see rolls an attack, check or save)
You impose disadvantage on the roll

Strong, sure, but keep in mind that first level reaction spells are pretty high impact to begin with.

Actually, thinking through this, it compares pretty favorably to shield and can be used at range and doesn't take a free hand to cast.

You might have convinced me, this is a more generally useful Shield spell and shield is already a fantastic defensive option in it's situational uses.

[Bobthewizard]

And I feel strongly that too-strong options should be cut back and too-weak options should be boosted. They're separate--I don't like the line of thought that says that a strong option is fine because the other options are weak. Or that we should always benchmark everything to the top of the line. The balance point should be chosen a priori and then everything balanced to that; any other option invites power spirals (in one direction or the other). Because there will always be a top option.

I agree with this. I've considered taking something like Treantmonk's (or Ozwik or Professor Q or any of the class guides on here) spell list and changing the spell levels. So take the red spells and drop them 2 levels, drop the orange spells one level, increase the blue spells a level, and see where that gets you for balance. Leave the green and purple spells at the current level.

So shield becomes level 2. Counterspell, hypnotic pattern and fear become level 4, polymorph bumps up to level 5, wall of force and animate objects to 6.

Does hypnotic pattern compare well to otiluke's sphere, banishment and confusion? Does polymorph compare well to wall of stone?

[tokek]

The fact that it appears to be much better than shield at personal attack protection, plus a ton of additional uses that shield does not address, speaks volumes, especially given how strong shield is to begin with.

In most situations Shield is the better defensive spell on any character that wants to put themself in the way of needing a defensive reaction spell. There are a number of high AC defensive builds that depend on Shield that would not swap it for Silvery Barbs.

Silvery Barbs is another spell good enough to build around but those will very likely be different builds.

[ProsecutorGodot]

In most situations Shield is the better defensive spell on any character that wants to put themself in the way of needing a defensive reaction spell. There are a number of high AC defensive builds that depend on Shield that would not swap it for Silvery Barbs.

Silvery Barbs is another spell good enough to build around but those will very likely be different builds.

It would allow a sword and board caster a defensive spell without needing war caster or a free hand

[Aquillion]

I feel Silvery Barbs is obviously overpowered as written. What really pushes it over the top is the ability to force someone to reroll a saving throw - that is brutal out of a first level slot. The other options are all very nice and would make this strong on its own, but ruining a save takes it to broken. The fact that it gives advantage on top of that takes it into silly territory. Plus this comes on top of a "basic function" of rerolling attacks, which is already really strong - you'll never, ever regret having this spell prepared or known.

Cutting Words is IMHO one of the strongest individual abilities for its level in the entire game, and it specifically doesn't affect saving throws, since doing so is so brutal. This is Cutting Words on steroids as a first-level spell.

Worse, if you have multiple people capable of casting Silvery Barbs (it's available to a bunch of types of casters), you can dogpile an enemy's save until they inevitably fail. The game is very cautious about effects that can mess with saves, and for good reason; giving a universal all-purpose "reroll that save" effect as a first-level reaction spell is just too good, especially considering that it does a bunch of other powerful stuff too.

EDIT: Also, because it's an Enchantment, it's available to Arcane Tricksters, who are really strong with this. Ruin someone's save against your wizard, give yourself advantage for a sneak attack. Or just use it to defend yourself so you don't have to waste your non-Enchantment / Divination slot on Shield.

Kinetic Jaunt would be fine if it wasn't concentration, or if it compensated for concentration with a really long duration, but as is it's just not worth it. Even with second-level spells, you should have better things to do with your concentration than this. Just use Misty Step instead - how often do you need to repeatedly move back and forth through enemies?

Borrowed Knowledge is ok but situational. Most of the time your group should already have the proficiencies it needs. Bards in particular don't really need this. It would be more useful if you could cast it on someone else; as is you often won't have the stats for a proficency you lack anyway.

Vortex Warp is seems fine. In a perfect situation it can be devastating, but chances to drop non-fireproof enemies into lava or non-acidproof enemies into acid don't come up that often, and when they do there's several other ways to do it anyway. If you constantly fight in, say, an environment full of deep pits your enemies can't climb out of, maybe this will be really strong, but I feel like the situations where this is powerful are mostly a matter of your DM letting you feel powerful rather than a problem with the spell.

Wither and Bloom is fine. Compared to Shatter you're doing much lower damage in exchange for some moderate healing, which seems like a fair trade-off. It does upcast pretty well, since you raise both the healing and the damage.

[Kane0]

I agree with this. I've considered taking something like Treantmonk's (or Ozwik or Professor Q or any of the class guides on here) spell list and changing the spell levels. So take the red spells and drop them 2 levels, drop the orange spells one level, increase the blue spells a level, and see where that gets you for balance. Leave the green and purple spells at the current level.

So shield becomes level 2. Counterspell, hypnotic pattern and fear become level 4, polymorph bumps up to level 5, wall of force and animate objects to 6.

Does hypnotic pattern compare well to otiluke's sphere, banishment and confusion? Does polymorph compare well to wall of stone?

Seems worth a try, though perhaps filter through multiple guides rather than just one to get multiple perspectives

[Bobthewizard]

Cutting Words is IMHO one of the strongest individual abilities for its level in the entire game, and it specifically doesn't affect saving throws, since doing so is so brutal. This is Cutting Words on steroids as a first-level spell.

Eloquence bard's Unsettling Words is Cutting Words for saving throws. So they kind of threw out that 'don't mess with saves' with Tasha's when they made a subclass that can mess with saves 5 times per short rest. But that's OP too so I mostly agree with this point.

I think at low levels, when every spell slot matters, I'm probably not using silvery barbs much. But at high levels it would be amazing.

[Hael]

I don't really understand the argument with shield/AE. As far as I can see, these are not in competition with one another. If you're being zerged by a bunch of melee, use shield. If the party is facing a beholder, use silvery barbs. Silvery barbs and shield is good enough that you can *easily* use it as a 2nd or 3rd lvl slot.

At low lvls and for some builds, shield is likely a slightly better spell. At high levels, AE and silvery barbs are going to be what you want to use (b/c saves tend to be more debilitating as the game progresses).

This business about going after saves is one of the reasons why I find Paladins, Peace clerics, Diviners/Chronurgists and Eloquence bards so OP. Some classes can say 'no' to a roll, where others start to push the distribution of failed saves to be fewer and fewer. But there is a problem when the amount of bad rolls is only a couple times (or no times) per session. That really does remove one of the few risks in the game, and the DM really starts running out of good options to challenge a party without risking TPKs.

This spell, is just another in the long line of 'solutions' to the saving throw problem, and IMO its beginning to be too easy.

[Kane0]

This spell, is just another in the long line of 'solutions' to the saving throw problem, and IMO its beginning to be too easy.

Yeah, baby steps towards save or suck returning to dominance as the risks of failure are chipped away at.

[Aquillion]

Eloquence bard's Unsettling Words is Cutting Words for saving throws. So they kind of threw out that 'don't mess with saves' with Tasha's when they made a subclass that can mess with saves 5 times per short rest. But that's OP too so I mostly agree with this point.

Oh yeah, I forgot that. But even then - Unsettling Words is only saves, and like you said, it's already absurdly powerful to the point of being the defining ability of the entire subclass. A first level spell, available to Wizards, Bards, and Sorcerers (plus Arcane Tricksters and the like) replicating it with even more power is clearly too much.

I don't really understand the argument with shield/AE. As far as I can see, these are not in competition with one another. If you're being zerged by a bunch of melee, use shield. If the party is facing a beholder, use silvery barbs. Silvery barbs and shield is good enough that you can *easily* use it as a 2nd or 3rd lvl slot.

At low lvls and for some builds, shield is likely a slightly better spell. At high levels, AE and silvery barbs are going to be what you want to use (b/c saves tend to be more debilitating as the game progresses).

I mean they're both good, but they are in competition with each other since they use the same spell slot, both use your reaction, and can accomplish roughly the same thing in different ways. I think it would generally be a mistake to prepare both.

It's clearly not strictly superior to Shield - if your goal is to absolutely maximize your AC no matter what, Shield is what you want - but you wouldn't usually want to take both; and I'd argue that unless you're an AC tank build who intends to be taking a ton of hits, Silvery Barbs is clearly the better choice. Lots of wizards and other casters take Shield just for the backup option without intending to intentionally tank, and for them you'd 100% want Silvery Barbs, which is almost as good as Shield for protecting yourself and can also protect everyone else, ruin saves or the occasional odd ability check, and generates incidental advantage.

The comparison to Shield is useful because Shield is already one of the strongest first level spells, and while not a strict replacement, this does a big chunk of what Shield does while also doing a bunch of other extremely powerful things from the same slot for the same action.

[Witty Username]

The fact that it works on attacks, checks and saves coupled with the after-the-fact trigger makes me think closer to OP than merely strong.

Edit: for perspective, would you consider a 1st level spell that does this to be good?
Range 60'
Reaction (a creature you can see rolls an attack, check or save)
You impose disadvantage on the roll

No, for a few reasons, the big one being that this would have waste chance since disadvantage on a low roll is nothing special. Also advantage cancels the effect and cost is similar to forcing another saving throw. This is kept out of true strike bad due to the reaction, usable but at the bottom half of 1st level spells.

Very similar to Bane in all honesty, but Bane has 3 targets and can apply to multiple saving throws.

[Thunderous Mojo]

This is basically the "rule zero" fallacy, the idea that WotC is excempt from any responsibility for releasing balanced content because the DM can disallow whatever he wants.

Strixhaven is a setting/Adventure book. If a DM allows content from a MtG book..one that the designers have conceded has some very powerful player options into their non Strixhaven campaign....the DM bears the responsibility.

Theros grants an extra feat at 1st level, plus has piety bonuses.
Ravinica has Guild Backgrounds, and Reputation bonuses.
Eberron has Dragonmarks.
Wildermont has Chronurgists and special, setting specific spells.

Now Strixhaven has it's own special elements.

DMs are free to allow what they wish, and leave out what they don't want to use.

Out of curiosity were MtG setting book options allowed in Adventurers League Play?(General question)

[tokek]

Eloquence bard's Unsettling Words is Cutting Words for saving throws. So they kind of threw out that 'don't mess with saves' with Tasha's when they made a subclass that can mess with saves 5 times per short rest. But that's OP too so I mostly agree with this point.

I think at low levels, when every spell slot matters, I'm probably not using silvery barbs much. But at high levels it would be amazing.

At high levels it hits Legendary Saves. So long as you rule sensibly on how it interacts with Legendary Saves I think the spell is maybe alright. Clearly its powerful and is the Shield spell for different builds but with that one caveat of sensible handling I don't think its busted.

Time will tell. My first character with it will be starting in January in a new campaign. Its been given the all clear after the DM and I both discussed that we need to keep an eye on whether it gets out of hand.

[Aquillion]

Maybe it's just that my groups tend to use more casters, but I 100% think that even if you have it fail against Legendary Saves (which I don't think is even RAW but is obviously a reasonable houserule), it's still going to make it too easy for casters to break through Legendary Saves via attrition.

Creatures only have so many Legendary Saves - their resistance to being hit by a Save-or-Loss depends on at least some of the saves they roll succeeding naturally. That means that beating an enemy by overwhelming its Legendary Saves requires forcing it to make X save-or-lose effects against high-level spells that it can't afford to fail. A caster-heavy party absolutely can do this even without Silvery Barbs, they just have to be able and willing to spend a lot of high-level spell slots, and it still takes several actions to get all those spells off.

Silvery Barbs breaks that over its knee. Even at the most conservative houserule, Silvery Barbs (by rerolling the "normal" successful saves) still effectively allows you to turn your level 1 slots into additional Reaction-speed save-or-lose rolls that require you spend a Legendary Save if you fail. So instead of the party eg. casting Polymorph, Feeblemind, Dominate Monster, Banishment, or whatever over and over in order to exhaust Legendary Saves, you can now insert a level-one Silvery Barbs into that rotation (as a reaction!) whenever a save would succeed without wasting a Legendary Save.

The end result is going to be that with a caster-heavy party focused on overwhelming the victim's Legendary Saves, Legendary Saves will be exhausted much more quickly. Due to a level one spell. That's too much.

If you're going to houserule it, just remove the ability to reroll saves entirely. Without that it is still an amazingly powerful spell - comparable to Shield, already one of the best level 1 spells; it's not quite as reliable when used to protect yourself, but it can cancel criticals and can protect the rest of the party as well, and it also generates free advantage and can thwart ability checks if you want to leave that in (there are a few spells that force ability checks that it could exploit, but it's rarer and not as big of a deal.) That houseruled version of the spell would 100% be blue on almost every spell list that can take it, with the note of "take this or Shield depending on your needs", and most backline casters preferring Silvery Barbs.

It really doesn't need to be able to thwart saves on top of that!

[stoutstien]

Honestly the fact barb can effect ability checks is more of an issue than rerolling saves because those already bypass LS and few NPCs have any way to buff checks values to begin with.

[Azuresun]

That's a huge red flag for me. "Must takes" (as well as "never takes") are essentially never appropriately balanced. Not just spells, but features in general.

Very much this. In addition, I don't really want more things that make boss fights into a joke.

[stoutstien]

Very much this. In addition, I don't really want more things that make boss fights into a joke.

Unless you have done some homebrewing most single target encounters have always been a either a joke or a death spiral. They have sort of realized that and have started breaking up and extending the staying power and action economy of high CR PCs with the new mythic action system.

Giving out 1-5 Legendary saves was a bad concept from the get go to try to curve the impact of save or lose/die effects. It's only slightly better than just having save bonuses so high that they would pass regardless of roll values.

[Dark.Revenant]

The rest of the spells are 2nd level. The easiest houserule would be to just bump Silvery Barbs up to 2nd level. At least then it has the same spell-point-equivalent cost as Heighten Spell.

[LudicSavant]

Silvery Barbs looks ridiculous.

What's more is that it's not even filling a new flavor niche or anything. "Briefly distracting people with lights" isn't exactly peak Wizard fantasy or anything (and if it was, they can already do that). It's not really adding anything to the game beyond pure power creep for the characters who need it least.

Is this really a product of someone sitting down and saying "hey, this will really add to the game"?

[Elves]

Giving out 1-5 Legendary saves was a bad concept from the get go to try to curve the impact of save or lose/die effects. It's only slightly better than just having save bonuses so high that they would pass regardless of roll values.

One alternate idea would be to make legendary creatures immune to SOD and for action denials like stun to instead reduce their legendary actions (each stun condition removes 1 legendary action, if there are none left monster is stunned).