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That's not a change. Raenir's table either has a house rule or misread the spell.
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Mar 7, 2023 23:33
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Luceo posted:First hit was a crit, and so was the reroll. Who cares about using Barbs on attack rolls, you use it when they succeed on an important save.
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Mar 7, 2023 23:36
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Staltran posted:Who cares about using Barbs on attack rolls, you use it when they succeed on an important save. Exactly. And anyone who matters has a legendary resist to burn anyway, so Barbs is irrelevant. Though I will use it against a crit on a squishy.
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Mar 7, 2023 23:37
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Luceo posted:Exactly. And anyone who matters has a legendary resist to burn anyway, so Barbs is irrelevant. Really? The players in my campaign just got to level 13 last session, and I think they've fought four creatures with legendary resistance. I think they were level 9 for the first one. And two of those four were homebrew. Legendary resistance is pretty rare on WotC-published monsters, especially at lower CRs.
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Mar 7, 2023 23:44
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Luceo posted:First hit was a crit, and so was the reroll. If it's bannable or broken or whatever, that's up to you and your table, but let's not pretend giving both disadvantage on the enemy's roll AFTER they've succeeded, and giving free advantage to an ally (or yourself) for simply a level 1 spell slot and a reaction isn't at the very least VERY strong. Legendary resistance is also a limited resource, so forcing burns on that is very strong.
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Mar 7, 2023 23:45
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Staltran posted:Really? The players in my campaign just got to level 13 last session, and I think they've fought four creatures with legendary resistance. I think they were level 9 for the first one. And two of those four were homebrew. Legendary resistance is pretty rare on WotC-published monsters, especially at lower CRs. Probably table dependent. In my experience, around level 9 it's drat near impossible to do a good boss fight without either legendary stuff or adding in a shitload of minions, because of the action economy. So it's more up to DM preference on whether they show up. You're right that there aren't a lot of them in the official materials, since they basically are only boss fight material, but I've used them often enough that I didn't find the options to be too thin.
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Mar 7, 2023 23:50
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Yeah, it's strong, but so? It's a limited resource and a good way to bait out reactions as a clever DM. And honestly, in most cases, shield is a better use of your reaction if the attack is coming your way, since you get to keep that AC til your next turn. But again, don't use Barbs on attacks unless they're crits, save it for those key saves, like the one mook in a group that saved against hypnotic pattern.
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Mar 7, 2023 23:52
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One Legged Ninja posted:I believe you're looking for The Gamers 1,2 and 3. I know the first two are on YouTube, and the third one was available somewhere else back when I watched it, but is about the same gaming group getting into CCGs instead. The second one is the best one. Sort of, but with high production values and professional actors. Focusing more on the story, like an episode of Game of Thrones with a handful of short scenes that cut back to the game table. I could not make it very far into that video because I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying. Honestly, I would love to see RealmSmith’s Strahd campaign as a mini series. The roleplay is excellent and some of the players are professional voice actors. I enjoy watching the RealmSmith games. Matthew Lillard even guest stars are Van Richton. Nessa fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Mar 7, 2023 |
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Mar 7, 2023 23:53
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El Fideo posted:That's not a change. Raenir's table either has a house rule or misread the spell.  I think we confused it for the Sorcerer ability which forces you to pick the *new* roll.Speaking of, for the sorcerer ability check reroll ability, can you keep burning sorcery points like you can with lucky?
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Mar 7, 2023 23:55
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Azathoth posted:Probably table dependent. In my experience, around level 9 it's drat near impossible to do a good boss fight without either legendary stuff or adding in a shitload of minions, because of the action economy. So it's more up to DM preference on whether they show up. You're right that there aren't a lot of them in the official materials, since they basically are only boss fight material, but I've used them often enough that I didn't find the options to be too thin. How common are boss battles though? If 90% of encounters aren't bosses and don't have anyone with legendary resistance, Silvery Barbs can do a lot of work to ensure control spells land. E.g. a couple sessions ago (when the party was level 12, I think the session had 3 players) one encounter was an Unspeakable Horror (CR 8), a CR 4 caster, I think one CR 5 creature and a couple CR 2 adds. Now as it happened they cast Enemies Abound on the horror, which is an int save so it was impossible for it to save, but if they used a wis save or it had been another CR 8 with decent int Silvery Barbs could have been very valuable. (Though it did get dispelled once before being recast, I think).
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Mar 8, 2023 00:31
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One every level or so for my table. I might not have one every time they level up, but every time they have a boss battle, they're gonna level up afterwards. My table likes big epic fights though, so I might be doing them more than most.
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Mar 8, 2023 00:39
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Rythian posted:If it's bannable or broken or whatever, that's up to you and your table, but let's not pretend giving both disadvantage on the enemy's roll AFTER they've succeeded, and giving free advantage to an ally (or yourself) for simply a level 1 spell slot and a reaction isn't at the very least VERY strong. Luceo posted:Yeah, it's strong, but so?
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Mar 8, 2023 01:36
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Nessa posted:Sort of, but with high production values and professional actors. Focusing more on the story, like an episode of Game of Thrones with a handful of short scenes that cut back to the game table. Yeah, according to Wiki they had a $1000 budget for the first movie, and it shows. The second one is significantly better, though, and it can stand on its own. Not a Hollywood blockbuster by any means but definitely worth the price of admission. It's not like an actual film budget has done any good so far.
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Mar 8, 2023 02:38
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Verisimilidude posted:A lot of people take issue with this because it forms a "death spiral" where players get less and less effective as they start getting knocked unconscious. This makes it even easier for the PC to die, which leads to a "this isn't fun for the players" situation. Note: I think it's a good to penalize the PCs for dropping to 0. OTOH it seems easier to run away in pathfinder, because most people/monsters don't have opportunity attacks. And if you run away you can use all 3 actions to run, so a guy following you probably also has to use all 3 actions to run and can't both keep up with you and whittle away at your HP easily. If they don't chase you you will be able to outrun most ranged attacks in a couple rounds. I like the idea that retreat is at least a possibility.
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Mar 8, 2023 03:10
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The hallmark of a good, balanced spell is completely changing how you the DM plays every meaningful encounter off to counteract it.
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Mar 8, 2023 04:30
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SIlvery Barbs is fine.- Shield is better for defending Ac. Absorb Elements is better for reducing elemental damage. Silvery Barbs is better offensively, by forcing rerolls on succeeded saves and occasionally at dealing with critical damage on the defense. Now what I would argue is that Silvery Barbs shouldn't be on either the Wizard or Sorcerer list, as they already had Shield and Absorb Elements on their spell list. I think if it had been a Bard/Cleric/Druid Spell only it would be far more palatable to a lot of the more hostile players, as that would act as the only defensive reaction spell for Bard and Cleric and would only bring the Druid up to 2 defensive reaction spells (Absorb Elements and Silvery Barbs). Sure multiclassing circumvents this, but I'd say that's more of a strike against the Multiclassing rules instead of the power of Silvery Barbs. Moreover, a player using Silvery Barbs offensively is costing themselves their defensive reaction (spell or otherwise...see for example Lore Bard's Cunning Words), its a choice and a fun one for players. And besides, offensive Silvery Barbs are far weaker than people are suggesting, if an enemy succeeded on their save they most likely have a good save modifier, meaning that Silvery Barbs is unlikely to change the outcome. It's like when a Fighter uses their Indomitable Feature on an Intelligence saving throw......most of the time that is a wasted feature, but it sure feels good (for the player) and is memorable when it works. And I think that's really where the hate is for Silvery Barbs....a lot of people remembering the time Silvery Barbs worked perfectly and neutered an enemy vs all the times it just used a spell slot and changed nothing.
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Mar 8, 2023 14:24
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It also feels really powerful for a first level spell. Even if it was just bumped to 2nd level it'd make more sense as a kind of counterspell-lite.
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Mar 8, 2023 14:51
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Madmarker posted:SIlvery Barbs is fine.- yep
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Mar 8, 2023 14:58
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Bobby Deluxe posted:It also feels really powerful for a first level spell. Even if it was just bumped to 2nd level it'd make more sense as a kind of counterspell-lite. As long as we agree that we should raise both Shield and Absorb Elements to 2nd level spells. As I would argue that in most cases Shield and Absorb Elements are stronger than Silvery Barbs and if I have the choice between preparing/knowing a first level Shield and a second level Silvery Barbs, I would learn Shield every single time.
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Mar 8, 2023 14:58
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The problem with level 1 shield is that it can't be upcast, but the base version is +5ac until the start of your next turn. So the level 1 version feels relatively too strong for its level, but at higher levels it starts to feel useless. (Personally I think the base bonus should be lower and you should be able to use higher level slots to boost it, but that's beside the point) Silvery Barbs retains its relative core functionality (make someone reroll and give an ally advantage) at the point where people are throwing around +6 to hit and DC15 saves, so for a first level slot it's still really useful even at higher levels - even if the forced reroll doesn't work, giving a level 10 or 15 ally floating advantage is really good for the cost of a 1st level slot. It just feels like a 2nd level spell to me, even Gift of Gab as a social RP 'undo button' is 2nd level. It places it below counterspell, but most importantly players can't start doing it until 3rd level where that kind of power feels more in line with what they should be able to do. Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Mar 8, 2023 |
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Mar 8, 2023 15:33
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Madmarker posted:As long as we agree that we should raise both Shield and Absorb Elements to 2nd level spells. No way. Shield and Absorb Elements are both good, but they're no where near as useful as Silvery Barbs. Shield/AE only affect the caster, and do a very specific thing particularly well: Shield protects you from attack rolls while AE gives you resistance to a specific elemental damage, both until the start of your next turn. They are both purely defensive abilities, and in some situations can be replicated with Silvery Barbs. Silvery Barbs affects anyone, not just the caster. It is offensive and defensive. If an ally is about to eat poo poo from an attack/critical hit, or an enemy is about to succeed a saving throw against a powerful effect, you are granting them disadvantage* after their success, even negating advantage if they had it. It's essentially SUPER disadvantage, and I'm not a mathematician but it most certainly amounts to more than the ~17% difference regular disadvantage grants, because the information gleaned from witnessing them succeed in the first place is what allows you to choose to alter the roll, AND it negates advantage. It almost guarantees powerful enemies burning a Legendary Resistance when used offensively. For a level 1 spell. On top of that, its rider is very useful in any situation. The riders for shield and absorb elements are useful but far more situational, and relatively minor. Ignoring a magic missile (a level 1 spell, unless upcast) is worth a level 1 spell, and dealing 1d6 extra damage on your next melee attack (likely something the majority of spellcasters would try to avoid) is nothing spectacular. Giving someone advantage on their next attack roll, ability check or saving throw is very good all the time. The only time it isn't useful is if that target character already has advantage on the next check they're making, but that's something you can easily coordinate with your group. *: it's not even disadvantage, since it stacks with disadvantage as well. Verisimilidude fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Mar 8, 2023 |
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Mar 8, 2023 15:45
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Mildly unrelated clarification, but isn't AE's damage component on your next melee attack only, not spells? It's what usually stops me from taking it.
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Mar 8, 2023 15:52
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Mildly unrelated clarification, but isn't AE's damage component on your next melee attack only, not spells? It's what usually stops me from taking it. You're right, making Absorb Elements even weaker than I thought lol (assuming you're not playing a melee spellcaster, of course)
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Mar 8, 2023 15:53
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Mildly unrelated clarification, but isn't AE's damage component on your next melee attack only, not spells? It's what usually stops me from taking it. It also usually sucks because most of the time you're returning the same elemental damage to... the creature that dealt it, which will likely be resistant or immune anyways
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Mar 8, 2023 15:56
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Yeah, it seems like there's a niche use case if you're a gish who is regularly getting hit by elemental damage, but in that kind of situation you're probably a warlock or paladin with limited slots anyway.
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Mar 8, 2023 15:57
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I took absorb elements on my Melee ranger. Saved my rear end a number of times.
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Mar 8, 2023 16:23
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Silvery barbs might be slightly weaker at a specific niche than absorb elements or shield, but it is also much much more flexible and scales much more readily into higher levels, defensively can cover your whole party instead of just you, and can be used offensively or out of combat. It also completely removes enemy advantage. On top of that, if you really wanted to, you could have multiple casters all able to cast it on the same enemy.
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Mar 8, 2023 16:42
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Ravenfood posted:On top of that, if you really wanted to, you could have multiple casters all able to cast it on the same enemy. I didn't think about this. It's one of the few instances where you can force a reroll of a reroll. I see a lot of people comparing it to Counterspell and how the two fight for reaction slot usage, but Counterspell is a 3rd level spell. I also see a lot of people (not here, elsewhere) saying it's not as good as Shield if you're attacked multiple times, which does come up more in higher levels, but the issue there is not comparing the spells themselves, it's comparing the relative value of using your single reaction. If you're fighting spellcasters often, then of course Counterspell is going to be more useful. If you're constantly fighting multi-attack creatures that target the non-melee spellcasters, Shield is more useful. For all other situations however, Silvery Barbs fills a strong role. I feel like Silvery Barbs would make a great level 2 spell. It would still be powerful and worth using, and it fights closer within its weight class with other powerful but useful spells. I don't take issue with the effect it grants, I take issue with how easily accessible it is and how frequently players can use it. Verisimilidude fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Mar 8, 2023 |
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Mar 8, 2023 16:54
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The additional d6 of damage you do from Absorb Elements is completely negligible. The spell would be almost just as powerful without it. Absorb Elements is there to act as damage reduction...and nothing else. Sure it is nice when you get to do extra damage with a melee attack from Absorb Elements, but it doesn't mean that you take the spell for the extra damage. I mean a simple case, lets say a Adult Red Dragon is breathing fire on your character and you would take 63 damage on a failed save, by spending 1 first level spell slot, you take 31 less damage, which is insane. Let's say your a well built caster, meaning you have 14 Dex and Medium Armor and Shield Proficiency, giving you a minimum of 19 AC while wearing non magical Half-Plate. This same Adult Red Dragon uses its multiattack (It has a bite and 2 claw attacks, each at +14 to hit). With your 19 AC the Dragon has an 80% chance to hit. (As it hits on a 5+ on a d20) If you use Shield before the attack, your Ac has raised to 24, meaning the Adult Red Dragon hits you only 55% of the time. However if you have Silvery Barbs, and you always use it when this adult red dragon hits you can effectively change their 80% chance to hit to a 64% chance to hit.......once. Because remember, Silvery Barbs can at most effect 1 attack on you when used defensively. meaning 1 hit from an Adult Red Dragon would be at 64% but the other 2 hits would have an 80% chance to hit. So on average, if you are using Silvery Barbs defensively against an Adult Red Dragon's attacks, and assuming that you are using Silvery Barbs on the bite attack (the most damaging attack of the multiattack) you can expect to take .64*(26) from the bite and .8(15) from each claw coming to a total of 40.64 damage. Whereas the user of shield will reduce all three attacks to a 55% chance to hit meaning you can expect to take .55(26) from the bite and .55(15) from each claw, coming to a total of 30.8 Damage. Now you could use Silvery Barbs to more assuredly land Dominate Monster or Feeblemind, or some other powerful control effect, but if you are a high enough level where you would encounter this sort of foe, just use Wall of Force or Force Cage and move on.
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Mar 8, 2023 16:57
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Bobby Deluxe posted:The problem with level 1 shield is that it can't be upcast, but the base version is +5ac until the start of your next turn. So the level 1 version feels relatively too strong for its level, but at higher levels it starts to feel useless. +5 to AC is still relevant at high levels.
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Mar 8, 2023 17:02
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Madmarker posted:The additional d6 of damage you do from Absorb Elements is completely negligible. The spell would be almost just as powerful without it. Absorb Elements is there to act as damage reduction...and nothing else. A difference of ~10 damage at those levels is fairly negligible, and you're also granting an ally advantage on something potentially important, all for the cost of a level 1 spell slot. I would argue forcing enemies to reroll saving throws to land those powerful magical effects is a far more effective use of Silvery Barbs. Shield is going to be a better defensive spell against multiple attacks targeting your AC, I don't think anyone is arguing that, but that's a single (if not too uncommon) use case. The only time shield outweighs SB is when you're attacked (and your normal AC is hit) multiple times in a round. Verisimilidude fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Mar 8, 2023 |
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Mar 8, 2023 17:05
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Verisimilidude posted:A difference of ~10 damage at those levels is fairly negligible, and you're also granting an ally advantage on something potentially important, all for the cost of a level 1 spell slot. Nah. "reroll and choose the lower value" is on average -3.325 to hit. Even against a single attack, Shield is just better.
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Mar 8, 2023 17:43
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YggdrasilTM posted:Nah. "reroll and choose the lower value" is on average -3.325 to hit. Even against a single attack, Shield is just better. It's better in a very small way, and its usefulness increases as the user gets attacked multiple times, but Shield has a single use case (namely defending yourself from attack rolls). Silvery Barbs does some of what Shield does (helps prevent a single attack roll from hitting you), AND has a bunch of other arguably more powerful options as well. In fact, preventing yourself from being attacked a single time is one of the weaker ways of utilizing the spell. Although something that shield can never do is prevent a critical hit, which with the exception of .25% of cases, Silvery Barbs will be successful at accomplishing. Silvery Barbs can also be used to affect other people, not just yourself. It can be used for offensive purposes and defensive purposes. It acts as a stronger version of many higher level unique class abilities, and you get it at level 1 as any one of a number of different classes, none of which needed an upgrade in utility. edit: I won't post about it any more. I'll leave with this: The spell is overtuned and makes already powerful classes even better, sometimes outweighing useful high level class abilities. It is easily accessible and very early on can be repeated many times. If the group has a single spellcaster with access to it, it won't have a tremendous effect, but once you have 2+ spellcasters with Silvery Barbs, it bogs the game down tremendously. Adding it to encounters from the DM's side is also not a fun solution, because again it bogs the game down and shits on character successes. Outright banning it is fine IMO, as is tweaking it to some degree. The games I've run with it got very confusing and it ended many otherwise interesting encounters in a very unsatisfying way. Verisimilidude fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Mar 8, 2023 |
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Mar 8, 2023 17:57
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Verisimilidude posted:It's better in a very small way, and its usefulness increases as the user gets attacked multiple times, but Shield has a single use case (namely defending yourself from attack rolls). Silvery Barbs does some of what Shield does (helps prevent a single attack roll from hitting you), AND has a bunch of other arguably more powerful options as well. In fact, preventing yourself from being attacked a single time is one of the weaker ways of utilizing the spell. Although something that shield can never do is prevent a critical hit, which with the exception of .25% of cases, Silvery Barbs will be successful at accomplishing. So in other words, Shield is a better defensive spell and each subsequent hit against you in a round further exacerbates this difference, great. Verisimilidude posted:Silvery Barbs can also be used to affect other people, not just yourself. Great so unlike Shield it can be used as a team based support spell, awesome...spells that encourage players to work together should be a point in design. Verisimilidude posted:It can be used for offensive purposes and defensive purposes. As for its offensive value, yes using a reaction to make someone reroll a saving throw can have a great effect........but again, if something succeeded on a saving throw it likely has a good save proficiency in the affected stat, and the Silvery Barbs will have a small chance of changing the outcome and even if it does, typically the best spells to use against an enemy are the spells that don't require saving throws at all, things like Maze, Forcecage, Wall of Force, etc. Silvery Barbs has a good niche in making spells that often get overlooked at higher levels become useful again. Verisimilidude posted:It acts as a stronger version of many higher level unique class abilities, and you get it at level 1 as any one of a number of different classes, none of which needed an upgrade in utility. Madmarker fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Mar 8, 2023 |
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Mar 8, 2023 18:24
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Verisimilidude posted:Although something that shield can never do is prevent a critical hit, which with the exception of .25% of cases, Silvery Barbs will be successful at accomplishing. YggdrasilTM fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Mar 8, 2023 |
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Mar 8, 2023 23:48
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YggdrasilTM posted:If you are trying to prevent a crit, the opponent has already rolled 20, he just need to roll another one. So 5% of cases. Fair enough. Still a rare situation.
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Mar 9, 2023 00:08
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Verisimilidude posted:The hallmark of a good, balanced spell is completely changing how you the DM plays every meaningful encounter off to counteract it. Though all the editions with long duration prep spells had the same issue: if your party usually has every PC running 10 prep spells, one encounter tuned to account for them where the PCs get caught without any preps can easily be a TPK. I don’t find this to be my most useful measuring tool. My way to parse spell balance in specific use cases is to ask, if I designed an encounter and had two enemy spellcasters who can both cast this spell, does that turn the encounter into something unfun or frustrating for the PCs? If yes, I discuss the problem with my players and we find a solution. For example, in 2E Stoneskin you could cast the spell on allies. This meant an enemy caster could potentially Stoneskin every enemy as a prep if they had the spell slots for it. That would be really frustrating, so we all agreed to have the spell be caster only.
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Mar 9, 2023 02:56
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I think its okay for players to have things that make an enemy's life unfun, tbh. The GM gets a shitton of other characters to play while one NPC is dealing with hard lockdowns, but a player just gets to sigh as their turn (or turns!) just completely unravel. It's not equivalent.
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Mar 9, 2023 03:44
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If your point of comparison for a spell is "is it better than Shield" you're at the very least on the bleeding edge of first level spells and possibly overtuned. Shield is probably overtuned. And as a DM I'll take Silvery Barbs with its stronger offence over the straight no-sell of Shield and Shield over the overcoat full of temp hp that is Wild Shape.
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Mar 9, 2023 12:14
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Isn't much of the other stuff in the Strixhaven campaign pretty powerful? The strixhaven background results in a much stronger first level character than if you pick Urchin or Acolyte. For example the backgrounds like "Prismari Student" you get 2 skills, a language, a tool, and 10 gp. Pretty normal so far. Plus if you are a spell casting class you get 10 more spells to add to your spell list. But wait, there's more! You also get the "Strixhaven Initiate" feat for free at level 1 which gives you 2 cantrips and a 1 first level spell. It's a super high magic setting, and in that setting Silvery Barbs is fine as a 1st level spell almost everyone knows. Strixhaven stuff isn't permitted for Adventurer's League play. It's not even pretending to be balanced properly for a typical game.
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Mar 9, 2023 13:07
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