D&D Next: Bladesinger Homebrew

Not sure how many times we are going to run the playtest before we get new materials, so I cobbled together a 1-3 bladesinger class using the 4th Edition one as a model.

Bladesinger Class Features

• Arcane Aegis: While wearing no armor you gain a +2 bonus to Armor Class.
• Arcane Arsenal: When wielding some kind of sword (ie, short sword, longsword, scimitar, khopesh, etc), you can use your Intelligence modifier in place of Strength for your attack and damage rolls.
• Arcane Magic: You can cast one 1st-level spell per day.
• Bladespells: You know the bladespells dancing flames and frost bite. Bladespells are essentially cantrips that can also be used as part of a melee attack.
• Spellbook: You have a spellbook that contains the spells burning hands and shield.

Bladespells

• Dancing Flames: You can make a ranged attack against a creature within 30 feet. If you hit, the target takes 1d4 + your Intelligence modifier fire damage and grants attack advantage against the next attack made against it. You can instead enchant your sword and make a melee attack; your attack deals fire damage and the target grants attack advantage against the next attack made against it.
• Frost Bite: You can make a ranged attack against a creature within 30 feet. If you hit, the target takes 1d6 + Intelligence modifier cold damage and is slowed for a turn. You can instead enchant your sword and make a melee attack; your attack deals cold damage and slows the target for a turn.

More of these could be cribbed from Neverwinter Campaign Setting, but I figure this will do for now. I should probably require the bladesinger to handle a weapon for a bit, laying in minor enchantments before it can benefit from Intelligence, but, again, we’ll see how it plays out.

2nd-Level

• Increase your total Hit Dice to 2d6, and your maximum hit points by 3.
• Add the spell grease to your spellbook.
• Bladesong: 2/day you can cast a bladespell after making a melee attack.

3rd-Level

• Increase your total Hit Dice to 3d6, and your maximum hit points by 3.
• You gain another 1st-level spell slot and a +1 bonus to damage rolls with melee attacks.

Arcane gets a lot of usage, but the idea is that this class should be able to do some melee stuff without having to spread ability scores too thinly. Originally I had intended to let it add Dex and Int together for AC, but I think that it could easily give it a higher than expected AC at the start (and I am trying to avoid making it more durable than a fighter).

Otherwise I slowed down the spell progression from the wizard (would probably lump in a 2nd-level spell at level 4) and gave it a fighter’s damage bonus because it is supposed to be a melee class. I might bump up the Hit Die to d8. Depends on what else we see and how well it fares during our games.


Spellsword Theme
Here is a kind of default theme I also kicked together. I thought that wizards had to make a Constitution check to cast a spell after being damage, but I could not find that rule anywhere so I’m just going to say that they have to make a DC 10 + spell level Con check to pull it off. I was kind of torn on the 3rd-level feat, going between allowing them to burn spells for a one-time melee damage bonus, sack Hit Dice to recharge a spell once per day, swap out one spell for another so long as it was an Abjuration or Evocation, etc.

• Combat Casting: When you have to make a Constitution check to cast a spell because you took damage, you have advantage.
• Evocation Specialization: When targets make saving throws against your Evocation spells, they have disadvantage.

Bladesinger Review

I have had the chance to take an in-depth look at the bladesinger, as well as get some player feedback from my group’s optimizer (who also got to see it in play on a Virtual Table game), and our consensus is that the class is fucking awesome. The fighter/wizard–aka character that could stab things, cast spells, and be effective–was a pretty difficult concept to realize with either multiclassing (even with 4th Edition) or hybrid builds. I suppose with enough work you could get something functional, but the bladesinger makes it a very easy and straightforward process, delivering an arcane controller that is both effective and unique.

Here is a rundown of each class feature the class gets, along with the sorcerous sword paragon path.

Level 1: Bladesinger Features
Instinctive Attack and Blade Magic all combine to avoid multiple ability and implement dependency allowing you to rely largely on Intelligence and a one-handed heavy blade for attacks and spellcasting. Guarded Flourish lets you get away with casting spells in melee without getting the shit smacked out of you, in addition to giving you a shield bonus with a free hand and light armor (giving you a starting AC on par with greatweapon fighters).

Level 1: Bladesong
This encounter power gives you two turns of insanely souped-up awesomeness; you get a bonus to defenses, attacks, and damage…for starters. At higher levels you can make basic melee attacks as an opportunity action when hit, shift your speed as a move action, and use bladespells even if you miss while its up. The only (understandable) drawback is that you never gain the ability to use it more than once per encounter.

Level 1: Bladespells
There are six in total, but you only get three. The way these work is that if you hit an enemy with a basic melee attack you can followup with one of these. These is no action necessary (meaning you can use it while dazed), but can only use one once per round–so no burning action points to toss a bunch of these out.

• Dancing Fire: Fire damage and causes the creature to grant combat advantage for a turn.
• Dazzling Sunray: Radiant damage and an attack penalty for a turn.
• Frost Bite: Cold damage and slow for a turn.
• Lightning Damage: Lightning damage, and if the creature moves it takes the damage again.
• Shadow Sever: Necrotic damage and the creature is knocked prone.
• Unseen Hand: Force damage and slide 3.

Somewhat related, you also get magic missile for free, giving you something to do in case you get a basic ranged from someone, or just want to auto-kill a minion insanely far away.

Level 1: Bladesinger Cantrips
This is basically the same selection that the wizard gets; you pick three out of five from ghost sound, light, mage hand, prestidigitation, and suggestion.

Level 3: Arcane Strike
When you use a daily bladesinger attack you get to make a single basic melee attack as a minor action. Nice way to combo up a bunch of damage and conditions without having to resort to action points.

Level 7: Steely Retort
When an adjacent enemy hits you while bladesong is going, you can make a basic melee attack as an opportunity action (meaning you could benefit from this multiple times).

Level 13: Unerring Bladespell
If you miss with a basic melee attack while bladesong is up, you can use a bladespell anyway. Yeah it is a limited window, but every bit helps.

Level 23: Bladespell Burst
Once per day when you use a bladespell against an adjacent enemy, you can use it against each adjacent enemy. I am really glad this is a daily, because it makes it much easier to apply it where needed.

Bladesinger Daily Powers
I am not going to go into thorough detail on each spells at each level, but suffice to say you have a spellbook like a wizard, but you treat a wizard’s encounter attacks as daily spells (utilities work as normal). This means that at 1st-level you pick two encounter attacks, prepare one after each extended rest, and use it once per day. The only exception is a level 20 paragon path feature that lets you add an actual daily to your repertoire.  In addition to being able to essentially double-tap monsters each round, these provide an additional layer of control.

Sorcerous Sword Paragon Path

Level 11: Choir of Swords
While bladesong is active, you can burn an action point to attack each adjacent enemy with basic melee attacks. This is not as bad as it seems, because you can always trigger bladesong while surrounded in order to benefit from it (along with Bladespell Burst if you want).


Level 11: Boon Spell
You get a new attack spell of 7th-level or lower, and can prepare another spell of any level you can normally prepare (but not the same one twice, which sucks). Hey, free spell.


Level 12: Bladesong Ballet
While bladesong is active, you can shift your speed as a move action. Being linked to bladesong means that at best you will get two rounds of insane mobility.


Level 20: Signature Spell
You can finally prepare a real wizard daily spell, of 19th-level no less. Very nice.

Neverwinter News

Today’s Neverwinter Campaign Setting excerpt is about racial variants, specifically gold and shield dwarves. Previous editions swamped us with sub-races, allowing you to cherry pick the elf, dwarf, or even orc whose ability score modifiers best match up with your class. Do not get me wrong I am used to players going with optimized race/class combinations, but I much prefer 4th Edition’s removal of racial penalties and inclusion of racial feats to help push different concepts, instead of just making a shitload of slightly different races.

See? If we go with gold dwarf we can be paladins without a Charisma penalty.

Thankfully these are not nearly as aggressive, functioning more like a combination of a background and racial feature swap. For example, gold dwarves can choose to gain a bonus to Dungeoneering or learn Deep Speech or Elven, and can opt to exchange their save bonus on poisons for one against psychic damage, and/or gain proficiency with war picks and mails instead of axes and hammers. There’s also some role-playing notes to help give you some pointers on what it means to be a [insert racial variant here].

This isn’t the actual picture, but it looks waaay cooler.

In other news, a preview for the bladesinger class–a wizard subclass–can be found here. It is still an arcane controller, but uses a mix of melee attacks and ranged followups to get the job done: every time you make a basic melee attack you can cast one of your Bladesong spells on a critter within 10 squares. Strangely the melee attacks are keyed to Intelligence, while the spells are linked to Dexterity. Luckily Guarded Flourish not only gives you a shield bonus to AC in light-or-no-armor, but also lets you ignore opportunity attacks when zapping your enemies.

Other features include allowing you to use a light or heavy blade as an implement (you have to choose, which I like because it lets other races choose more thematic weapons), a bladesong encounter utility that gives you a big attack and damage bonus for a turn, spellbook, cantrips, suggestion, and magic missile. You still get to pick other spells, though another different mechanic is how the bladesinger handles encounter spells…in that they are treated as daily spells (of which you get none).

It is kind of one part wizard, one part swordmage, and one part monk. You get a lot of wizard features and spells, but you will spend most of your time carving up monsters in melee while simultaneously rolling out No Action magic with static damage and controller riders. For example, dancing fire causes a target to grant combat advantage, dazzling sunray imposes an attack penalty, and frost bite slows. While it sounds very striker-ish, the damage is based off of your Dexterity mod, scaling at levels 11 and 21, and I think it is balanced by the fact that you don’t have daily spells, instead starting with two encounter spells that you can only use once per day.

There is other class features mentioned on the table, such as Arcane Strike and Steely Retort, but we’ll have to wait and see what they do in future previews/after the book is released. Anyway, it looks really cool and I am glad to see WotC building a class that does what they want to do without sticking to previous class progression models.