The Bladesinger - D&D: Optimized #7

[Music] hi everybody welcome to dnd optimized the show where each episode we take a deep dive into one specific character build for dungeons and dragons 5e and do our best to optimize it for you to give you the greatest numerical advantage for your character's chosen role my name is colby thanks for being here appreciate having you if you are looking for ideas for your next dnd character or for ideas to maybe get the most out of an existing character or a future character that you're planning on building or frankly if you just really like theory crafting and number crunching and getting into the weeds of the rules of dnd and and love thinking about you know how to create really powerful fun to play characters the show's for you um today is episode seven and uh before i tell you what the character class is that we're going to be looking at even though you probably already know because you read the title of the podcast episode or youtube video but i'm gonna pretend like you don't know so it'll be a surprise this character that we're gonna talk about today was um really kind of the inspiration for me to create the show in the first place because i wanted to know it felt so powerful to me i wanted to know how it compared to some of the other um you know really powerful character builds that you hear out there and i think after crunching the numbers that it might be the best that i've come up with so far um at least in certain situations in certain scenarios maybe i'll find something better but as far as sustained damage goes it's going to be hard to beat this this one um you know when i first read about the shadow blade spell it sounded so cool to me it's it it basically was like a lightsaber in dnd it's a magical blade that you summon it's made of like dark energy shadowy energy or whatever um and in my mind it hums every time i summon it um but it's it's it's a very powerful very powerful spell it's a 2d8 of damage magic damage psychic damage even at level three right because it's a level two spell so you get it at level three most casters anyway um i mean you think about it a great sword is 2d6 right this is 2d8 so it's it's better than any just plain old martial melee weapon out there or ranged i guess too for that matter as far as damage goes you can throw it you get advantage when you when you're making attacks in dim light or darkness it's just a fantastic fantastic powerful weapon that can also be up cast later clear up to a 5d8 per weapon attack right that's huge um so i wanted to make a character kind of around this particular spell started looking i was thinking warlock hex blade at first but that didn't work because you can't make it your packed weapon it doesn't last long enough eldritch knight actually would work really well with the shadow blade spell and i might have to do an episode on on an eldritch night one day if i do i'll probably be using shadow blade so brace yourself um but then i discovered the blade singer the blade singer is a wizard uh archetype that is um just made for this spell it's like it's like wizards of the coast went you know blade singers are cool but we need to give them something to just really buff them how about this spell boom it's so good and they they work so well together blade singers have a naturally a high armor class they have great additional resistance to to um holding concentration uh uh that comes along with their blade song um coupled with warcaster which we'll get later it's it's very easy for them to maintain concentration so um this is a powerful concentration spell it's a melee thing blade singers are in melee so so let me just give you the basic overview of of what the character looks like how how the class overview how the character overview looks basically you are you know wielding a magical lightsaber um jumping into combat melee combat um you are dexterous and you're pirouetting and dancing around your enemies dealing death and singing too for that matter but it's a very it's a very martial it's a very martial song of that i'm committed well actually they're they are elves so maybe they're maybe they're frolicking maybe they're they're life and jolly but regardless um you're dancing around dealing death to all of your enemies you have access to the best spell listing game you have lots of great defensive spells uh at your fingertips as well as mobility spells and utility spells and and direct damage spells too and and area of effect damage spells i mean it's kind of like the um the eldritch sorcerer build that we did last episode but in melee and with an even better spell list and access to your wish spell earlier and um doing more damage so anyway um is fun fun fun i i've never had more fun than uh in combat in dnd than when playing uh a blade singer wielding a shadow blade now um before we jump into the level build level by level build one of my youtube subscribers mr baker's dozen 2020 asked for a a war mage build you know the war magic arcane tradition in the wizard line um i'm hoping that this scratches that itch at least temporarily maybe i'll do a war mage later they're very similar they're both wizards they're both they both have great defensive capabilities the war mage may have a slight edge but if so it's only slight um the war mage isn't necessarily designed to be a melee character though they could and and they could do it well um but they they seem to be designed a little bit more for backline throwing fireballs counterspelling enemy mages and still have great defensive capabilities so if that's really what you're looking for the blade singer might not necessarily be the best class but if you're just looking for a wizard that can do great sustained damage fantastic sustained damage in fact um and also have a lot of great defensive capabilities and lots of versatility and utility and and is doing their damage from melee the blade singer is going to be the character for you so let's uh let's dive in to the build at level one um race you have to be l for half elf that's what the rules say um this is an elven tradition so unless you can convince your dm that he needs to let you roll a variant human blade singer which would probably be choice number two uh and you gotta come up with a good reason for it to convince him maybe you trained with a blade singer that was banished from their tribe from their elven village or whatever because they were taking on non-elven uh padawans um you gotta be l for half elf and i'm gonna recommend elf because they get the plus two to dex and depending on the sub race a plus one to intelligence and those are your most important stats so um if you can and want to go a different race i'd recommend variant human because you can start with the feet and you're going to want the warcaster feet so that's great but the the elves because of elven accuracy which we'll take later are going to have the edge excuse me they'll have the edge in sustained dpr later on so something to consider but you know if the campaign's going to end at level 8 or so variant human probably going to come out ahead well they will so yeah know what you're getting into um let's see the sub-races of elves i'm going to recommend two the aladrin variant is great because you get a plus one to intelligence and you get a free casting of the misty step spell once per long rest without taking up a spell slot which is great mobility is so fun on this character you're dancing around dealing out death somebody's trying to escape you can bamp over to them and finish them off or you know get to hard to reach places etc um great great spell uh if you are however going to kind of be performing the party's rogue functions of stealthing and scouting and disarming traps and picking locks and things i'd probably go a reni high elf i hope i'm pronouncing that right a-e-r-e-n-i a rennie high elf um you get the plus one to intelligence as well but you also get to double your bonus your proficiency bonus for either one of your tools which would be thieves tools in this particular case or you know one of your skills like stealth for example so depending on what role you're going to be playing in your party that's the recommendation as far as equipment goes i strongly suggest getting gold and buying equipment as opposed to just starting with the standard stuff [Music] for those who don't know you the the the rules say that depending on your class you can roll a certain amount of dice times 10 and and start with gold instead of standard equipment for a wizard it's 4d4 you roll 44 times 10 so on average 100 gold plus whatever you may get from your background selection and then you can use that to buy your equipment now a spellbook costs 50 gold so you got to make sure you get that at least and like some clothes but other than that you can buy yourself a rapier which you're gonna be using until you get shadow blade buy a short sword which you're gonna be using for um like a bonus action offhand attack you're gonna be doing two weapon fighting when you don't have any other use for your offhand or sorry for your bonus action and maybe leather armor though that might be a bit of a trap we'll talk about it in a moment so that's what i would spend gold on um your stats you assuming point by you're going to want to buy 15 decks and you get plus two right for elf so if you're at 17 decks you're going to want 15 intelligence plus one for taking that high elf variant so you're at 16 intelligence and that's big other than that you know put points where you see fit i would recommend constitution third try and get like a 14 constitution and then you know whatever else you want to do with it with your points um as for your spells i don't usually recommend this many spells but you're going to want to make sure that for a cantrip you get either booming blade or green flame blade you'll be using that um you're going to want a ranged uh arranged spell like firebolt or told the dead and then i'm highly recommending that you take shield again no no good spellcaster should leave home without it you know when you get hit by an attack you can as a reaction cast shield which will raise your ac by five which could potentially cause that attack to miss and then your ac is bumped by five like that for the rest of the round until your turn and that's great it makes you very hard to hit absorb elements is also a great reaction spell that you can use when you get hit by a spell like fire damage cold damage acid something like that it will let you absorb some of that as a reaction and soften the blow so now you can get a high ac and also absorb spell damage um i would definitely get mage armor and this is why leather armor may be a trap you cast mage armor on yourself it doesn't require concentration it lasts for eight hours and it when you're not wearing armor otherwise it puts your ac at a 13 which is really great and it's better than leather arm or leather armor is just an 11. even studded leather armor is a 12. so studded leather armor plus one until you can get studded leather armor plus one uh you're going to be better off with mage armor now it takes a spell slot and it is dispellable someone casts like to spell magic on you um so there is that but otherwise your ac is going to be higher with mage armor at the cost of a spell slot you decide if that's worth it find familiar strongly recommend find familiar it's such a great spell it lets you summon a little familiar right that can kind of do your bidding you can you can see through its eyes and hear through its ears and send it off to you know scout ahead and all kinds of great things and also with the familiar for those who don't know familiars can't attack but they can take the help action and when somebody takes the help action for example in combat if they are helping then the next attack is going to be made with advantage so theoretically they're helping you and your attacks your your first attack that you make uh against that target is going to be made with advantage so you know they're flying in you're gonna take an owl please take an owl owls are the best they can fly they have great perception bonuses and most importantly they they can they can help and get in melee range and then disengage without provoking an opportunity attack and fly away so they'll stay safe so it can fly in they're going to distract the enemy flap its wings in its face poop on its head whatever and then you get advantage on on your first attack not the whole round but the first attack so that's really really great super useful spell and owls are just cool because then you get to have a little owl perched on your shoulder and walk around and pretend like you're a character out of greek mythology at level two you get your arcane tradition and you are going to be a blade singer naturally and blade singer just completely changes the game for you for how you play versus other wizards so you're proficient with light armor and one one-handed melee weapon of your choice which would be a rapier if you have one um you also gained proficiency in performance cool twice per short rest you can invoke your blade song as long as you're not wearing medium or heavy armor or carrying a shield or using two hands to make a weapon attack again shadow blade perfect it lasts for one minute and here's the deal it gives you an increase to your armor class equivalent to your intelligence modifier which for you is three and you're also getting a plus three from your decks and if you have if you're using mage armor 13 plus three plus three you have a 19 armor class at level two that's so good that's probably better than anyone in your party and it may remain that way for the entire game um so yeah really great it also gives you 10 feet of movement speed an extra 10 feet of movement speed while you're singing um and advantage on acrobatics checks and and also very importantly it lets you add your intelligence modifier to your checks to maintain concentration so between that and warcaster which you'll be picking up later you have a great chance to maintain concentration on your shadow blade spell which is what you'll be concentrating on and not get hit too at the same time so anyway yes just it was it was made for this spell so speaking of at level three you get level two spells you want you wanna take misty's step probably um unless you're in a ladder now if maybe you can get away with just you know only having that that racial feature and having it once per long rest it's a great spell mirror image strongly recommend mirror image it's so good so you cast mirror image as an action and it creates three duplicates for yourself basically that then when the enemy goes to attack you they might attack one of your mirror images as well so coupled with your high ac and all the other stuff you have going on it's it's very very good i highly recommend using mirror image if you're going into what you think is going to be a very tough fight and or if your party is low on health or resources it's super strong and then of course you get uh shadow blade now one thing i've already talked about shadow blade so i won't talk about it anymore other than to say when when you're in dim light or darkness uh with shadow blade you get advantage on your attacks now you're not always going to be in dim light um sometimes you'll be in bright light obviously you'll be right next to a torch you'll be fighting outside in the middle of the day but a lot of times you will or at least i found in the campaign that i played this character in a lot of the times we were we were in caves we were in dungeons we were fighting at night we were fighting in in buildings that were not very well lit um maybe my dm just had a real goth thing going i don't know but more often than not i was in dim light and thus getting advantage on my attacks if you're not in dim light you can use your um your familiar to give you advantage on one of the attacks so for the purposes of the numbers when we crunch the numbers and i'm telling you what kind of dpr you can expect this character to do it's under the assumption that you're getting advantage on your attacks if you're attacking in bright light the numbers that i tell you are going to be slightly lower right you'll get advantage on the first tack assuming you've got a familiar up but not on the second so it'll be a few points lower depending on the level depending on the enemy armor class so keep that in mind at level four you get an ability score increase or a feet and i'm strongly recommending warcaster again for those who don't know warcaster lets you cast a spell instead of make a weapon attack as an opportunity attack and that's great because you can cast the booming blade spell and and when you cast booming blade you make a weapon attack so now you get both the weapon attack and the bonus damage that you get from booming blade and if they're moving which they are because they're moving away that's why you're getting the opportunity attack attack of opportunity they um they're gonna take bonus damage right for for taking that uh that movement so booming blade super cool thank you warcaster um also lets you uh cast spells that that have somatic components with with if you're using a weapon and so you're using a weapon you need your hands to to cast spells a lot of times and and it lets you do that while wielding a weapon your dm may not be a stickler and may just let you cast spells anyway if you have a rapier in one hand and a short sword and another or a shadow blade in one hand and a short sword at another but rules as written you should at least have one free hand to do the somatic components so you therefore wouldn't be able to use a short a short sword for for an extra attack um because you are by the way doing that um when whenever your bonus action is free you know use that that bonus action for for a short sword attack it's not going to do a ton of damage but it'll do some you know it's a d6 you don't get to add your agility or dexterity sorry bonus to it but it's it's still there and it's still useful but the most important thing for our purposes about warcaster is it gives you advantage on checks to maintain concentration so between blade singing and war casting it's going to be pretty tough for you to lose advantage so you will you should have that shadow blade up pretty much all the time at level 5 you get level three spells congratulations uh i would use a level three spell slot to up cast shadow blade because at level three shadow blade will do 3d8 damage per attack such a good weapon um and and from there on it will only upgrade every two levels so at levels three five and finally seven um it will get an extra d8 of damage um of course you know pick up the usuals i'd get fireball because you're gonna have packs of rats sometimes that you just need to clear out um unless you've got you know a sorcerer or something in your in your party and and they're gonna take that role in which case just get a bunch of more cool utility and defensive spells definitely take counter spell counter spell is going to be something that will be very useful to you to make sure that you're not getting hit that you're not losing concentration or getting you know otherwise uh controlled by an enemy caster um at level six you finally it's your one level lake one level late compared to other martial characters but you get an extra attack so now you get to make two attacks whenever you take the attack action so shadow blade shadow blade off hand short sword um so that's fantastic uh let's do a damage report for level six at this level um versus a an enemy with 10 armor class you're going to be averaging 38 damage per round and against an enemy with a 15 armor class you're going to be averaging 33 um damage per round that's good not great um but it is your probably your weakest point when compared to other characters it gets better from here at uh level seven um you get fourth level spells knock yourself out polymorph dimension door dimension door really good extra mobility that's nice at level eight you get an ability score increase for a feet i'm recommending another feet if you're an elf or a half elf take elven accuracy i know it's boring because so many of my builds go with elven accuracy but it is so good um it's gonna bump your dexterity by one so now you're in 18 deck so you don't have to it's not like you're missing out on that ability score increase and again for those who haven't seen my other episodes because i use this a lot whenever you make an attack with advantage instead of rolling two d20s to see if you hit you get to roll three and that just helps you land so many more hits it really has a positive very positive impact on your damage per round especially against higher ac targets at level 9 you get level 5 spells you can up cast shadow blade again which i would a lot of the time for 4 d8 damage per swing which is fabulous but you start to get at level five spells you have some things where you go maybe i should use my concentration for something else right um i've read a lot of by the way a lot of um a lot of guides a lot of blade singer guides online and for some reason every single one of them talk about using your concentration for haste they mention shadow blade but it's like oh this could be nice to use like in a pinch or you know when you're using booming blade it'll really increase the damage um one extra attack that you might get from haste is just pales in comparison to the extra damage that you do with shadow blades so don't listen to those fools um but uh there are they you know you do start to get some other concentration options especially here where it might make you pause and think do i want to cash shadow blade most prominently in my opinion animate objects i won't talk about it at length here but animate objects can do a lot of extra damage and so if you're using concentration for that you know you're going to be making attacks just with your rapier and short swords if if if you have an enemy that is a low ac and fairly easy to hit animate objects is going to do more damage for your concentration but they could also be you know all those objects that you animate could be fairly easily killed with a single fireball from your enemy so something to consider um damage report at level 9 versus a 10 armor class you're doing 53 damage per round very good and versus a 16 armor class you're doing 50 hardly drops thanks oven accuracy so that's starting to be very very strong for your level and particularly as you get above 16 ac 17 18 19 ac you won't be fighting a lot of enemies at this level with that high of ac but when you do you're going to be better than basically everybody as far as sustained damage and that's that's what's so great about it it's you cast one spell shadow blade maybe mirror image too um and then you're just doing damage damage damage instead of a lot of what a lot of other wizards have to do which is blow a spell slot for fireball blow a spell slot for lightning bolt blow a spell slot for you know earthquake whatever to do damage every round um at level 12 skipping ahead there's other cool things that you pick up at level 10 it's defensive i'm gonna skip it at level 12 you get an ability score increase so now your ability your dexterity is going to be capped at 20. at level 13 you get level 7 spells so you could up upcast shadowblade to 5d8 5d8 per swing 5d8 per swing on a weapon compared to a 2d6 greatsword it's so good right now i know you're level 13. you probably have a flame your your barbarian or fighter probably has a flame tongue greatsword so so their greatsword does 46 still not as good it's still not as good as the weapon that you got access to uh at level three so yeah um i mean it's one-handed so you can make an offhand attack you often get advantage with it more damage you can throw it it does psychic damage the shadow blade's just the best thing ever in case you couldn't tell i really love the spell damage report against a 10 ac you're doing 65 damage per round and against a 17 ac you're doing 63 damage per round it went down by two woo at level 14 this is amazing you as a blade singer get uh the song of victory feature uh it allows you to add your intelligence modifier to all of your weapon attacks including your your short sword uh offhand weapon attack so that's huge that adds a lot of damage to uh to your to your turn uh skipping to level 16 you get an ability score increase definitely want to go with intelligence your intelligence has only been 16 this whole time which is really low for a wizard especially at this level that's going to improve your armor class that's going to improve your concentration saves it's going to and of course improve your your difficulty check on those wizard spells that you're casting where the enemy needs to make a saving throw so i would highly recommend intelligence at level 17 you get your level 9 spells um go crazy you're a wizard take wish if you really want to break the game and make your dungeon master mad um take something else otherwise but there's there's lots of powerful level 9 spells i'm not going to go into it here i probably need to do an episode on just spells at some point but that's not this episode so damage report against a 10 armor class you are doing 77 damage per round and against an 18 armor class you're doing almost the same 73 and and you know up there at 18 19 20 and beyond um i i have yet to find a build that does sustain damage that's as good as uh the blade singer using shadowblade maybe i'll find one maybe you know of one feel free to tell me about it but yeah it's very very good final thoughts on the blade singer i don't have a lot more to add i'm not gonna lie when i was playing this character in a campaign there were times where i felt like a god um it can be a little overpowered and we'll talk about that when we get to dm tips in in my opinion and you know i had a magic item that really helped the cloak of displacement that i think that was what was called that gave enemies disadvantage when they attacked me so i was that much harder to hit um you know you get you you do great sustained damage you have access to the best spell list in the game all these great defensive spells making you that much harder to hit and coupled with your high ac and your and your resistance to you know losing concentration um the character is just so fun to play so mobile so versatile uh so defensive and um so much damage um you know check out the graphs and and look at the look at the spreadsheets that that that i post um see for yourself compare it to what i've done so far maybe i'll find something stronger but man this this this build is really really good and so so fun i think i said in-game once that i wanted to marry my character and i think i still feel that way uh dm tips so if you have a uh player at your table that's playing a blade singer and you feel like it's um maybe trivializing your encounters or making it less fun for your other party members who aren't performing at the same level or whatever the case may be in you're looking for ways to maybe temper their um their power level um you know there's not a well there are some things you can do it's kind of tough because i mean finding enemies that are resistant to psychic damage there aren't a lot out there um this character has a high ac has mirror images absorbing damage um with you know absorb elements bonuses to their concentration saves so yeah there are some things though of course increased difficulty the usual right more enemies tougher enemies um keeping them from resting so they're burning through their spell slots and running low and kind of having to decide oh i'm out of shield spells now you know what do i do i'm going to get hit a lot more that kind of thing using having enemies with dispel magic um preferably cast at a high level so they can't counterspell it so easily or maybe cast after they've burned their reaction on a shield right you only get one reaction per per turn so so bait that reaction and then hit them with the with a dispel magic and uh and then they'll they'll lose their mirror images and their shadow spell or shadow blade and and mage armor even that could actually be really really painful for this character dungeon master of mine don't watch this episode i'm gonna send him a note um try hitting them before they have a chance to start their blade song it's not gonna be easy but they're more vulnerable then enemies with multiple attacks these were suggestions from my own dungeon master actually so he already knows enemies with multiple attacks to get through mirror images um enemies with high bonus to hit to help to help you you know overcome the the shield reaction um and enemies that do damage based on saving throws and not ac because absorb elements is nice but it doesn't actually absorb a lot unless you cast it at a really high level so those are my dm tips and that is our show for the week even though it's not technically a weekly show it has been so far please well thank you thank you for for watching please remember to subscribe uh to the podcast or to the youtube channel if you feel so inclined if you enjoy this comment like share review all of the things remember that i do post in the show notes and video description links to the math for this particular episode as well as graphs comparing this build to builds from other episodes that i've done so check that out if that's interesting to you and of course you know feel free to get in touch with us via social media dnd optimized making comments or sending an email to dnd optimized gmail.com particularly if you have a build that you would like me to do an episode on give me some details if you can about what that build looks like and and you know a few specifics so i can know what you're trying to accomplish exactly and i will do my best to optimize it for you thanks everybody have a great day [Music]

Channel: d4: D&D Deep Dive

Views: 17,256

Rating: 4.9482017 out of 5

Keywords: D&D, Dungeons & Dragons, Bladesinger Guide, Character Optimization, Wizard, shadow blade

Id: hoZrfpwUbHE

Length: 35min 26sec (2126 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 24 2020