The Tweet didn't make it into the official Sage Advice compendium, so this usage is not against the rules (RAW). However, if you want to use it like this, you ought to warn your DM that JC wouldn't allow it as his table since the spell wasn't intended to be used in this way (RAI).
I think in this case I'd have to say Jeremy is reading it the way I would anyway - creating the 'mystic connection' between yourself and yourself to me would make your RAW interpretation incorrect. But I do agree it is ambiguous, however the act of the spell is 'creating a connection' which to me would require two separate entities as you can't create the connection when you are already connected - like dialling your own phone number or any stacking spell effect in D&D.
@@deiveonmartinsen1831 ... yeah... ? And the way the rules work with that is stupid. They can write the rules however they like. They could write it as: Truestrike allows you to see invisible creatures, removing the condition from them for that creature. But they don't make that errata. The only rule that matters is the DM's at your table and fortunately all of the DMs I have had haven't been as weird as Crawford on that one.
I used warding bond for a dramatic betrayal in a short adventure I ran. The NPC the party was escorting ended up being the BBEG, very original, I know. The party's mission was to recover an artifact of Orcus before a death cult could get to it. Our paladin really went in for protecting the "artifact expert." She just so happened to have a pair fancy, matching platinum rings that she can store warding bond within, so that anyone willing to take a vow with her can cast the spell with her as its target. An easy History check to determine that these were elven *marriage* rings really sold it. How romantic! Welp. She's a Death Cleric. And the rings are curse so you can't take them off. She got the paladin alone, and after a dramatic speech and magical goth transformation, she was floating in the air and casting Vampiric Touch. She attacked...herself! Each attack dealt half to the paladin and half to her, but she healed the full amount. With no good ranged options, the paladin was slowly defeated, despite some hints that she could have broken down the door to escape. PCs won in the end and the paladin got some redemption. Scariest monologue ever!
Clever tactic, but couldn't the paladin have dismissed the spell with an action? Or were the cursed rings keeping the bond active despite the paladin's wishes?
@@joshhoey Only the caster can dismiss the spell. And, of course, DM ruling could just override anything on that sense due to the rings being cursed. Always carry a Remove Curse scroll, boys. One never knows when an impromptu divorce is necessary
@@Jewels___ Yeah, I may have misinterpreted things but I read it as the paladin casting "Warding Bond" on the secret-BBEG and therefore could have dropped it, but I could see the cursed rings keeping it going. 👍
@@joshhoey It was made clear when the paladin cast the spell that the only way the spell would end is if they were separated by 60 feet. A bit hand wavey, but the idea was that she couldn't be compelled by mind magic to dismiss the spell or remove the ring. So it was sold as a bonus when it was actually a trap. It was kind of a puzzle encounter, where she was supposed to figure out how to run, but, of course, if fighting is presented as an option, PCs will always choose violence, even with the odds stacked against them, lol.
If you read warding bond as two separate instances of damage when cast on yourself, then you have to make a lot more than just the initial save for concentration on spirit guardians. Because the spell reads “each time it takes damage, you take the same amount of damage.” So you would take 41 halved to 20 plus 20 halved to 10, but you took that 10 damage from warding bond so you would take an additional 10 halved to 5, plus 5 halved to 2, and then 2 halved to 1 20+10+5+2+1 In total, you would take 38 damage, which is better than the 41 you would have taken, but now you need to make FIVE saving throws to maintain concentration.
EDIT: On re-reading, treating it as a second instance of damage I see why it would apply resistance again - you're right. If youre reading it as echoing, halving each time wouldnt it be: - The initial 20 after resistance is applied - The second 20 (to the caster, you) and resistance has already been applied - Then 10 because you took damage, resisted - Then 5, because resisted again - Then 2 - Then 1 - Then 0, for like 48 damage - otherwise youre applying resistance to the second lot of damage, twice Kinda a niche way to read it, but halved/halved/halved etc as youve interpreted it reduces the damage a little bit more than the occasional 1 here and there. Idk, I feel like it could equally be: halve the damage (rounded down) and applied twice - once to the target and once to the caster.
@@aarondavidson4093 looks like a decent thing to combo with [heavy armor master] feat. Would be even better if resistance applied before the flat decrease
My favoeite use of Warding Bond, by far, is as a Battle Smith Artificer. Make yourself a number of identical rings equal ro your party size +1, and infuse one of those rings and give it to your Steel Defender. Since the ring is infused, and you can now use it as a spellcasting focus, you can make it a spell-storing item, and put Warding Bond in it. Then all you have to do is use your bonus action to tell your Steel Defender to run up to the party member of your choosing and touch them before activating the item. Now you have near infinite uses of Warding Bond, with a big slab of free hit points to protect people with. As someone who adores utility builds, its my favorite thing to do.
You can also use any Artisan Tools to store the spell if you don’t want to give up an infusion for your Steel Defender. Or just hand it a simple or martial weapon. It doesn’t need proficiency just to hold the item and use the spell from it.
@@tjstyles1171 some DMs will be sticklers about the steel defender being able to hold items, especially weapons or tools, while still attacking. The infused ring trick is the one foolproof version of this that I've had. No DM has ever found a reason not to allow it.
My only problem with this spell is that in all my groups the clerics have either had the HP pool of a stereotypical wizard or thought they were front line fighters. In other words, the cleric wouldn't survive.
Not to be mean, but that's not a problem with the spell, it's a problem with the player. There is no feature in the game so good that bad decisions cannot ruin it.
@@ChristnThms Fireball? Isn't the whole point of the "I didn't ask how big the room is" meme that even with bad decisions that fireball is still an effective choice.
Robin if a cleric had a d8 hit die and gives resistance to damage, it becomes a 2d8. And cleric AC is more like the fighter that has a d10 hit die. Thus it has good results. Also keeping your wizard or rogue alive makes the fight end faster. There are many ways it becomes positive to use.
Thanks for highlighting this spell. I joined an already underway campaign that had lost 3 players, and I'm playing a light domain cleric to cover the party's gaps in support and AOE. My spell choices have mostly been healing and AOE damage focused, so I completely slept on the utility of Warding Bond. But now I see how much more valuable than Death Ward it would have been on "protect the NPC" type quests.
I was thinking that too, my heavy armour master paladin already shrugs off so much damage. Also, that feat is awesome with all the small damage sources, just ignoring burning and bleeding damage is great
BG3 Warding Bond can also be cast by Gale, who heals all damage infinitely when not in your party. He can cast Warding Bond on your entire party and you basically get free resistance to everything at no cost.
So... for those tables either allowing setting specific content or taking place in one of these settings, Mark of the Sentinel (Eberron) and Selesnya (Ravnica) offer Warding bond as an additional spell on your character's spell list(s). Instead of Battlesmith, this makes the Artillerist the GOAT, because that thp cannon can apply its thp to both instances. Artillerist thp cannons were already amazing at keeping the front rows alive. This just turns it up a notch.
The cannon is an object, not a creature. You cannot cast Warding Bond on objects. Also, make sure your players aren't healing the cannon with anything other than mending, and your enemies aren't targeting the cannon with damage cantrips. Object, Object, Object.
@@dexter2392 I didn't say to cast the spell on the cannon. That would essentially waste the whole point of the spell. You cast the Warding Bond on the front row striker, who's obviously going to make himself a primary target, and then stay close enough to him that you can both benefit from the thp. That was a total straw man.
@@elliotbryant3459 thank you, I always forget about those backgrounds/feats. I'm really looking forward to the OneD&D making all backgrounds include a feat. Seems like a great way diversify or specialize a build concept.
It's probably a very dumb idea, but a familiar can deliver touch spells as if it was the caster. That is an extremely convoluted and pricy way to give yourself 1-5 bonus hp and +1 to ac and saves. I find it kinda funny.
I have a possible cheese to it in some cases, Clerics get Glyph of Warding so throw it in that if you can find a way to carry it with you it becomes much better otherwise you have to pick your battlefield. Edit: If you took a 3 lvl dip in Warlock for voice of the Chain Master you could command word the glyph and leave it with the Familiar use the ability to speak through it to trigger the glyph. This sounded better before I wrote it out but could be doable.
@@SammaelVanir more importantly the Steel Defender can heal other Constructs... Like your Simulacrum that you make and give non attunement magic items and a scroll case full of scrolls. Thank you AL for making stupid rules that force searching for things like this.
In the current season of Dimension 20: Fantasy High: Junior Year, one of the PCs is a barbarian/artificer multi class and he gets access to warding bond. This is the best use case I’ve ever seen for this spell. He has cast it as a pre-buff (on the cleric actually, lol) and then rages for the rest of the combat. Since it’s non-concentration, there is no conflict with rage. The spell says nothing about the caster using resistances to damage so the barbarian is halving a lot of the damage he’s taking when the cleric takes damage and the cleric is helped with maintaining her concentration on her big spells like “Circle of Power” or even “Bless”
Warding Bond is a really great spell. One note, though. Your math is a little off on the savings throw chances. The 41 damage no Bond chance is 69.75%, not 64%, and the next two are 87.75 and 82.81%. You’re scooting all the d20 rolls over by one.
My first character was Totem Barbarian/Cleric, so Warding Bond was probably the most optimal spell I could've taken. It could be cast long before combat so I still got to Rage and attack on turn 1 and I halved whatever damage came my way through the Bear Totem, so it severely dampened enemy damage output.
Warding Bond also pairs really well with characters that have non-resistance damage reduction abilities. Characters like Goliaths, Fathomless Warlocks, and Clockwork Soul Sorcerers. They end up double-dipping on the damage reduction, since they reduce the damage before Warding Bond splits it between the warded characters.
I was really uncertain of this fact but re reading the spell description indeed does no mention if the mirrored damage is before or after reductions. Thus a advantage for the players
Great for high AC squishies, like Bladesingers or Swords Bard, as they have proportionally less damage coming thier way - and mitigating that damage can be the difference between them dropping or losing conc and not.
Regardless to whether or not you can warding bond yourself, Chris’s analysis regarding the overall mechanical benefits to the spell are spot on. Additionally I would point out that the ability to use a better throughput cure wound on yourself rather than a same spell slot healing word means more effective usage of spell slots for cures.
Our group was recently finishing up the PF1e Jade Regent adventure path converted over to 5e. I was playing as a Mercy Monk as a supporting character because I came in towards the end after having to hand over the DM reins due to a fresh case of tiny human syndrome. One of my magic item picks was a set of "Servant's bond Rings", essentially just an unlimited range Warding bond that was always up. I gave the Masters ring to the Empress to protect her once my character joined the party and that thing saved her butt a few times. When the party got hit by 3 cones of cold in one round during a hairy fight against a squad of Oni, my monk absorbing half of the damage kept her on her feet instead of a frozen popsicle and an end to the campaign. Near the end, we managed to bargain and convince an Ancient imperial dragon to accept the servants ring side of the bond in trade for wearing it for the next 60+ years and an honoured place on the Empresses council for the next 200 years. Again, we were 14th level at the end and the final fight was against a trio of CR 15s. A Samurai Lord, Storm Oni, Kenku Assassin, and a slightly lower CR oracle (Didn't check her stats afterwards) again, she took a bunch of damage but the ring kept her on her feet and throwing out Bardic Inspirations and allowed us to claim victory when it was looking kinda grim.
Warding Bond is available to the Battle Smith Artificer. Since the Steel Defender can be revived quickly and easily with a spell slot, or healed quickly and easily with the Mending Cantrip as well as 3 charges of "Repair" it makes an amazing target for this spell. At level 11 with Spell Storing Item, Warding Bond can then be infused into any weapon/tool/etc and then the entire party can use it if needed in all sorts of interesting ways.
Unless I'm missing something, Casting Warding Bond on the steel defender doesn't seem that great? That makes the steel defender take less damage, and you take more damage. Having the steel defender using a spell storing item to cast warding bond on you is, of course, pretty good.
@@KaitlynBurnellMath No you're definitely right it works way better if you're tanking as a Battlesmith to have the Defender cast on you. With 10 charges you can have it up all adventuring day or pass it around so more people can use it. My Battlesmith ended up using Repeating Shot Crossbow for a while and we had no substantial healing so it was nice to spread the damage around. The Defender would basically run in and body block for our Wizard.
I think a "mystical bond between you and the target" pretty clearly implies that you are not the target. I would not allow the caster to be the target.
Warding Bond finally getting the credit it deserves! One strategy I like is: Warding bond [from Battle Smith] + spell storing item [if dm allows the artificer’s subclass spells to qualify] -your mendable minion can cast it on you and function as a hit point battery for you or an ally. If it dies you can revive it with a level 1 spell slot after combat.
So on the one hand Nice work! On the other hand, it seems a bit white board… there seems to be some differentiation in the natural language of the spell between the caster and the eased creature
I interpreted it that way too initially, but as youre resistant to all damage, the second instance would be resisted, and the third resisted again. E.g. 41 damage -> 38 (20 + 10 + 5 + 2 + 1).
Wouldn't casting Warding Bond on yourself cause you to take infinite damage? Because when you take the same amount of damage as the target, because you are the target, the target is taking damage again, so you take equal damage again, which means the target is taking damage again, on and on?
You have resistance to the subsequent bits of damage, so no, not infinite. The 41 for example gets halved to 20 due to resistance, and then you take another 20 but this 20 doesn't have resistance applied yet - it's just 20 from Warding Bond. But you are resistant to it so it's halved to 10. And then you take 5, and then 2, and then 1.
@@Shindashi Yeah, you end up taking 220% of the damage inflicted though, which isn't worth it unless the dice Gods have worked in a way to make that +1 AC and Saving Throws much more valuable than they should have been.
@@Giant2005 The example I gave was 38/41; it's never actually going to reach 100% (the asymptotic limit is 100% and the rounding down does some work). The problem is that unless you're immune to some of those concentration saving throws that's almost guaranteed to end your concentration. It could work with Armor of Agathys on a Clockwork Sorcerer though, if you're ok with not concentrating on stuff in some fights.
A great use for this spell is on an 11th level Battle Smith. By then, you will probably have budgeted in a feat for Crossbow Expert or Polearm Master, so you don't need your Steel Defender to attack anymore. So what use is it now? For holding your Spell Storing Item, casting Warding Bond on you, and becoming a pool of extra hit points that can restore back to 100% with a Mending cantrip in between combats.
Good morning Chris! I didn't make much quest progress yesterday, but I finished up the Girlfiend and the Bugbearing Down on my Foes videos so far this am! I saw a new upload and had to come watch before resuming the quest! Have a great day, much love to you! 💜 Edit: "What you do in the privacy of your own home..."😂😂😂
fun note: as per the text of the spell, the person you target gains resistance, and you take the same damage they do. because there's no assigned damage type, there's no way to have resistance to this extra damage you take - unless, of course, there was some feature that just "gave you resistance" to damage you took without assigning a specific type... insert the totem warrior barbarian, whose bear totem gives you resistance to "all damage except psychic damage" while you're raging. not "all damage TYPES--" just "all DAMAGE." and since warding bond isnt concentration, nothing stopping you from using it while you rage! i dont think this combination is actually optimal, since a big part of the benefit to this spell is helping you concentrate on spells, which is useless for a raging barbarian - but i do think it's fun :)
It's in the definition of the word "between ". adverb 1. in or along the space separating two objects or regions. "layers of paper with tar in between" 2. in the period separating two points in time. "sets of exercises with no rest in between" You are not two targets. So you cannot cast it on yourself. From a simulacrum however.....
Thank you! I'm glad I'm not alone in my understanding of the word "between" I had a similar linguistic argument in another comment about the implication of the phrase "cast again on either" preventing multiple castings by the same cleric
The way I have always interpreted this interaction is slightly different: since the spell gives resistance to all damage, this should also apply to the damage dealt from the spell itself; also that damage is damage to the target, and hence causes the spell to deal damage to the caster. In the given example of 41 damage this results in a total of (20+10+5+2+1=) 38 damage taken over 5 instances. The repeated rounding can be quite advantages.
I started using warding bond 2 ish weeks ago on my unoptimized squishy friends. It's actually really good to cast if you are playing with lower power level friends
Great video. I assume lots of DMS are going to house rule you can't do it and Jeremy Crawford has a post that you cannot Target yourself with the spell, so not sure why they haven't added it to Errata yet. I assume they'll update it with the new players handbook
The battle smith artificer has a really amazing use case for this spell starting at 11th level. It's true shenanigans. Step 1: Use your Spell-Storing Item feature to store Warding Bond in it. (You don't need components) Step 2: Give your SSI to your steel defender pet Step 3: Have it cast Warding Bond on you through the SSI Step 4: Stuff your steel defender into your bag of holding (infusion or otherwise) Step 5: Run into the front lines (butt naked if you want). The trick of warding bond is that you take the same damage as the bonded creature, at least in this case, and because a Steel Defender is about the same level of tanki-ness than an artificer (same d8 hit die), if you're not at 0 hit points, it's not at 0 hit points either, and you can heal it back easily after combat through mending, with 7 hp a minute. Whereas a +1 AC and saves and resistance to all damage is a very effective tactic to make you a better melee. If the steel defender ever manages to die, well, you can just resurrect it with a 1st level spell slot and cast Warding Bond again, you have 10 charges, you never run out.
A Barbarian wouldn't benefit from the resistance, true. But, a 3-4 lv dip cleric, barbarian x could cast warding bond out of combat and only fight in combat, thereby actually tanking for their teammates, even if the enemies dont target him. For a giant barbarian 5, continuing with 3-4 lv in forge cleric, this would even increase his damage. The weapon gets a +1 and later on, he could forge his own oversized weapons, possibly increasing his damage at total lv 7 by 2d6 per hit. He then could continue barbarian and simply use the slots to support from out of combat.
I think casting this spell on yourself is actually really weird, RAW. I might be missing something, please correct me if there's some rule somewhere that says it doesn't work like I'm describing. "each time [the target] takes damage, you take the same amount of damage" So say I cast this targeting myself, and get hit for 20. I have resistance to the damage, so I only take 10. And whenever I take damage, I also take the same amount of damage. So I take another 10. Then, I just took 10 damage, so according to the spell, I take the same amount of damage, so I take another 10. And another 10. And another 10. Under this interpretation, taking any amount of damage with warding bond active instantly kills you. You go to zero, autofail death saves for taking damage, and die. But this is actually also wrong, because of another thing I think you missed about the spell. Warding Bond gives you resistance to all damage. It doesn't say "resistance to all damage not from this spell". So if you take 20 damage, you take 10 because resistance, then another 10 from the spell. But you have resistance to all damage, so this actually only does 5. Then, you've just taken damage, so you take another 5, which is halved to 2 because you have resistance to all damage. Then you take another 1, then 0, and the "loop" ends because you didn't actually take any damage. So you end up taking 18 damage at the end of the day. Which makes it actually an even better spell than described in the video. (though you have to do way more math than is reasonable for calculating damage from a single attack)
My ol' boy Omzother the forge cleric / war mage made great use of casting warding bond on himself. I miss that crazy nearly unhittable beast of a bot. I never thought about the concentration check reducing benefits for high damage numbers. XD
Lets say you take 43 points of damage from a slashing attack, while you have warding bond cast on yourself. Resistance to slashing reduces the damage to 21, and then as the caster you take an additional 21 slashing damage from warding bond on yourself. Would you not still apply resistance to slashing damage on the second instance? If you do it would only be 10 more points of damage, for a total of 31 damage taken from a 43 damage hit.
.... Warding Bond doesn't require concentration?.... I have been operating for years on the assumption that it does because the first time I played 5e I cast it as a cleric and then as soon as I took damage the DM told me to make concentration checks and taught me about the concentration mechanic. I never looked at the spell again because of how much that sucked, then I noticed it didn't have it on the screen while watching this and went to check again and my mind is blown.
I abuse the heck out of this in BG3. Our team is practically invincible. - Abjuration Wizard has overpowered Arcane Ward. Works differently in BG3 than 5e.The total damage reduction is parabolic, not linear, with the number of layers. - Life Domain Cleric 3 for Warding Bond, cast on all 3 active party members. Use cleric spells to keep self alive, and grant the whole team besides self that +1 - Any Warlock 3, for a few more 2nd level spell slots across the day, Armor of Agathys, free-cast Mage Armor to charge up Arcane Ward to 100% for free, and free-cast temp HP - Magical heavy armor + Heavy armor master = any damage that slips through Arcane Ward is reduced even further before it even reaches Temp HP - Shield that grants Force Conduit - subtract even more damage if you've survived a couple of rounds without getting hit - Periapt of Wound Closure - max dice rolls for heals Again, BG3 Arcane Ward works differently than 5e So a 12 point arcane ward can negate up to 12+11+10+9... = 78 damage. And it'll negate even more damage if you cast abjuration spells during combat, like Shield, Armor of Agathys, or Glyph of Warding 6th level Abjuration Wizard also gets Projected Ward. So let's suppose a brass dragon is about to explode in your ally's face, and they want to face tank it for fun. idk how much damage it does but let's say 50. First, use projected ward to subtract 12. Now it's 38. Now the ally has +1 to their saving throw, but let's assume they fail. They have resistance, so they take 18. Now the wizard-tank can use Arcane Ward on themselves automatically too (no reaction). 18 damage is reduced by 11 to 7. Now magical plate reduces that by 3 to 4. If it was plain non-magical physical damage, then Heavy Armor Master can reduce it by 3 more to 1. Then Force Conduit can reduce the damage even more. We've already zeroed out the wizard's half of the 50 damage, but let's keep going. Then Temp HP is activated. And finally, any true damage that cuts all the way through..... you can reheal with maximized dice. Then recharge the ward to 100% between combats for absolutely free using warlock mage armor.
Warding Bond on cleric is very good, but it is BUSTED on Battlesmith. The spell becomes a legal choice for Spell Storing Item at level 11, at which point you can give the item to your Steel Defender and have IT cast the spell then use its Repair action on subsequent turns if necessary, and all it costs you is a bonus action and a single charge of an item that has 8~10 charges at this level. The wording on SSI says that the creature uses its action to "produce the spell's effect" which I believe allows it to ignore the 100gp pair of rings material component. Now, at 11th level that's likely pocket change for most PCs, but it also allows the spell to target NPCs without the hassle of having extra rings on hand or worrying about action economy to pull off a defensive play. Also, at 11th level, the Steel Defender's AC and HP will make for a lackluster tank, so the opportunity cost of using this strategy is actually very low. Even if it dies, the artificer can resummon it in 1 minute and hand it the Spell Storing Item again for round two at the cost of a 1st level slot.
You know, when I always read warding bond I missed the "and resistance to all damage types" part. So I always assumed it was a lot worse spell and never took it.
There's a gimmicky tech about this that makes it broken. At lv11, a battlesmith can put this spell in their spell-storing item. Now, the spell ends if it's cast on either of the connected creatures, not if one of them cast it. So you can make a chain of warding bond, resulting in all party basically sharing a hp pool and the bonuses
Warding Bond perfect on a pure Battle Smith Hand Crossbow Sharpshooter. Cast it on your Steel Defender, turning it into a rageless barbarian, and send it to soak attacks at the frontline while you hang back sniping crossbow bolts.
great video, but i think you could have had a more extreme example for the sake of the concentration saving throw to further drive home the point 43 points of damage=DC 21 Con Save With warding bond, - 1 damage, 21 damage per instance/2=10.5 round down 10 even with 2 extra points of damage on the attack, you still get the same dc, meanwhile, the dc without warding bond went up by 1 now making the disparity 11.
I used warding bond in my celestial/divine soul sorlock with 1 level dip in life cleric, with familiar and invocation for max dice value for healing. One of best support-heal characters I played
My character used warding bond as a lvl 20 redemption paladin in a 1 shot. The redemption paladin lets you take the other half of the damage as well while also reflecting some damage back to the enemy twice. My friends character did not lose any HP.
Would you be able to cast it on a mount? Seeing that the target needs to wear the ring. Would like looping it into a horses mane count? Or maybe a hoof sized ring?
I didn't hear much mention of it, but 2 more tactics for Warding Bond: Build a character for maximum health/ Twilight Cleric shenanigans and cast Warding Bond on all of your teammates. The spell specifies it can't be cast again *on* either of the affected creatures. Says nothing about being cast *by* the affected creatures. Battlesmiths can load Warding Bond into the Spell Storing Item. They can then have Tiny Servants ready actions to cast Warding Bond on them so that if big attacks come your way, you get resistance for cheap. The Tiny Servant does but that's why you have more
I have my Steel Defender use the item. Cast it on everyone and it's dumb. I just pick it back up if it dies at the end of combat with a 1st level spell. Boom, full health steel defender that can recast it on the party. Spell storing item is busted with warding bond.
when I read spell storing Item correctly, you cant load Warding bond into it. It specifies "...store a spell in it, choosing a 1st or 2nd level spell from the artificer spell list ...." [Tasha's Page 13] That is specifically talking about THE artificer spell list, not YOUR spell list. As I read it, you also could not use spells that are granted by any other race, class etc. It ist the artificer spell list and not the spells you, as an artificer, have access to. Please correct me if I am wrong. I would love to be wrong on this one :D
@@patrickdargel4684 The line I'm relying on that makes this work: These spells count as artificer spells for you, but they don’t count against the number of artificer spells you prepare.
@@patrickdargel4684 if it was coming from a race, background or multi class you'd be absolutely right. Battlesmith gets warding bond as an additional spell which "counts as an artificer spell for you" which you could actually argue isn't the same as "is added to the artificer spell list for you" however I think that's just saving on words since they're always prepared, warlock which doesn't get subclass spells known automatically does say they are added to the spell list for you. So there is some argument that it doesn't work but I'd say it's probably intended to.
@@patrickdargel4684 It's a subclass spell, which means it's added to the artificer spell list specifically for the battlesmith. Otherwise you couldn't load scorching ray as the artillerist either, but it's the thing it relies upon.
I remember playing a paladin with the Interception Fighting Style and a warhorse. I don’t remember exactly, but I casted Warding Bond once on my horse and I kept using Interception while the DM kept trying to get me down of my horse, but the horse with is 17-ish HP didn’t want to go down. So an NPC casted a Fireball on my character and his horse. The thing is that the starting damage was like 32, but the horse took only 1 or 2 thanks to the buff to his DEX saving throw, the Interception fighting style and the resistance given by Warding Bond. My DM was flabbergasted lol.
Here's a different interpretation of that 41 damage. You are resistant to all damage and take 20 damage. Then you must take 20 damage because of warding bond, but you are resistant to that too and take 10 instead. But then you have to take another 10 damage, but you are resistant to that too and take 5. Then you take 2, and then 1. If you do have to roll, the table will love watching it. Once. And then they'll hate it.
I just played a twilight cleric with warding bond in a one shot. Never felt the need to actually cast it though because the twilight sanctuary did enough. However, I had a +6 to my Con save and while the chance of failing the concentration check was low, it did seem like a sizeable risk to use warding bond and unnecessarily end spirit guardians instead of just standing in the middle of the battlefield, dodging and replenishing temp hp. If I had a +9 Con save, I wouldn't think twice about it.
I’ve been using it as a death cleric in conjunction with our party’s Clockwork Sorcerer’s Armor of Agathys. Then, since I’m a death cleric and it’s style points, when I can afford to I use Vampiric Touch to heal myself up from the damage (with the Death channel divinity to make it not a complete waste of time). It’s been fun, I definitely recommend death cleric for people looking to get some unique tactics out of cleric.
I'm not sure I think this spell is generally a good investment of a second level slot through all levels of gameplay - until you have an abundance of spell slots, or perhaps can get it back with a short rest through a warlock dip it is a substantial resource cost, and until you have more HP and probably a larger HP differential between the target you'd cast it on and yourself it doesn't feel like you are gaining much there. At the very low levels you could first cast I'd suggest will actually make it easier for the NPC to knock you both down - instead of a small handful of hits where odds are good the last hit was wasting half or more of its damage you now instead share the first hit evenly and so both go down with less hits taken as the attack damage isn't so often wasted. Once you get to 5th level or so it probably helps, and by 10th I can't see it ever being a bad investment. But in those earliest levels you could cast it most of the time I'd suggest its both too much of your spell power to waste AND might actually make it easier to knock you down.
My issue is that it only lasts an hour. And while that is a long time, but exploring can take hours. Maybe it is just my DM being harsh on pre-casting spells. But unless you are spending 3 or 4 spell slots on it, you have a 40% of have it during the fight.
Assuming that you can cast warding bond on yourself, and assuming a weirdly literal interpretation of the text - the phrase "each time [the target] takes damage, you take the same amount of damage" could actually have no effect at all! You see, when you take damage, you *already* take the same amount of damage that you take. This part of the spell's text only describes something that is already true. It wouldn't normally be true - because normally, you aren't the target - but if it is, making something true that's already true has no effect. Realistically, I very much doubt that this would fly at any table. It's blatantly overpowered and obviously counter to the designers' intent. It's just kinda funny that this spell works this way by RAW.
So the TLDR is make a Hill Dwarf Battle Smith with the a high CON. I like, but for some reason my go to was Divine Soul, guess it is for the higher slots and Cleric spells.
Another aspect of splitting the damage in half and taking both halves as separate damage sources, is getting to apply damage reduction effects twice.Things like Heavy Armor Master.
Assuming any DM would ever let you cast it on yourself, I think it's reasonable to treat each instance of damage as separate and new. I was initially thinking that would result in infinite damage to yourself, but you're always going to be halving and rounding down. So you do actually end up taking slightly less damage (if you don't mind a bunch of easy concentration checks) IE: a 20-damage hit means that you as the target are assigned 20 damage, halve it for resistance and take 10. As the caster, then, you are assigned 10. You still have resistance, and this is a new damage source, so apply resistance: now it's 5 damage. Then 2. Then 1. Then zero. So, damage went from 20 in one hit to 18 in five hits (10+5+2+1+0. Since no damage is dealt on that last one, you're no longer triggering the "each time it takes damage" clause.).
Hypothetically, if you cast warding bond on yourself, wouldn’t it chain off? Say i take 40 damage. It is halved to 20, but warding bond will then deal 20 damage to me. It doesnt say this damage cant be reduced, and it is also a different instance of damage, so it should be reduced to 10. But when you take the 10 damage this will happen again, reduced to 5, then reduced to 2, then reduced to 1, then rounded to 0, causing a total of 20+10+5+2+1=38 damage, reducing the damage by 2 due to rounding but causing 5 dc 10 concentration saves. The damage reduction of course depends on the way each case rounds, causing tedious calculation for each instance of damage, but Isnt this how it would work?
i would make a barbarian with a couple levels of war cleric, probably an orc in service of gruumsh... and id cast warding bond on the other melee fighter or cleric on any caster and go nuts. im raging so i resist any incoming damage. the warded players takes 4dmg, its reduced to 2, and i take 2 damage as well, but then i resist it via rage, so i only take 1dmg. the important part is the wording here: you take the same amount of damage. and rage resists any damage taken, so its not a double stack on resistance. no concentration, your orc barbarian, probably a zealot, is diving into a battle alongside a fully armoured orc paladin with plate and shield of faith and shield/battleaxe or any kinda tank you can imagine. maybe you are an orc horde and you play the shaman of the group and blessing the party.... on a low level campaign, even a lvl1barbarian/lvl3 war cleric can be good, and you can still have some utility casting on the side. so yeah, i really like this spell
Hey Chris, here is a mounted duo build using warding bond and mounted combatant to maximize armor of Agathys: Lightfoot Halfling Conquest Paladin 6 (Lightfoot) riding a Centaur Rune Knight 3/Order Cleric 3 (Stepper). Lightfoot takes mounted combatant feat and spams armor of Agathys. Stepper casts warding bond and spams interception fighting style reaction and grows to large size for big fights. This is fully online at level 4. At later levels, Lightfoot multiclasses arcane trickster for shield, uncanny dodge and evasion. Stepper picks up fey touched for dissonant whispers to proc sneak attack for Lightfoot as a reaction along with order domain to 6 for spirit guardians and bonus action spells. Haven't fully flushed out late levels, but Lightfoot dipping undead warlock 1, Paladin 7 seems good. For Stepper, Fighter 6, cleric 8, ancestor guardian 3, wildfire Druid 2.
Casting Warding Bond on yourself is a RAW interpretation of the spell. "Each time it [you] takes damage, you take the same amount of damage" is a RAW interpretation of the spell. Casting Warding Bond on yourself but NOT applying damage to yourself whenever you take damage (repeatedly) is a RAI reading inside of a RAW interpretation. Either interpret the entire spell as RAW or the entire spell as RAI, not just the text that benefits you. Chris, I like how you're consistently very conscientious concerning asking your DM about questionable rulings. As a DM, If a player asked me about how to handle savings throws under the effects of Self-Warding Bond before asking if they could cast Warding Bond on themselves, I would be concerned. Loved the video until "Targeting Yourself" section with no disclaimer. The self touch jokes were solid though. I'm a big fan, but felt strongly about feedback here. Great channel, looking forward to more.
I agree, the targeting yourself section felt very reminiscent of the TRDSIC mindset he's norrnally against. It also seemed like it wouldn't work RAW. It "creates a mystic connection between you and ..."-yourself? -there's no connection "between" if it's the same entity on both ends.
@@elliotbryant3459 I think Chris explains the RAW premise of self targeting Warding Bond well (except for lack of timely ask your DM disclaimer). RAI it's clearly unintended. However, I don't think he accurately portrayed how a RAW ruling of the spell should work in game. There are a few comments pointing out the damage formula of taking 41 damage RAW: Incoming Damage: 41 Self Warding Bond: 20 + 20 + 10 + 5 + 2 + 1 + O Total Received: 58 Total Concentration Saves: 6 That's how I would establish a RAW interpretation of casting Warding Bond on yourself and taking 41 damage. Anything less is cherry picking rulings for mechanical benefits IMO.
@@voicechatty wouldn't the damage be 20 [initial instance from enemy to target] + 10 [1st damage echo, you take the same amount of damage but you have resistance to all] + 5 [subsequent echoes of damage, etc.] + 2 + 1 + O. It seems like the first recoil of warding bond would be reduced to 10 damage because you take the same damage that the bonded caster takes [20], but they have resistance to all damage. Unless I'm misunderstanding something and the initial instance of warding bond damage should supersede resistance?
@@elliotbryant3459You're right. The initial 20 + 20 damage is based on the RAI reading of how Warding Bond works normally between two people. The resistance echo damage would start after the first instance because you don't actually take the damage until after it's been reduced. A RAW reading of Self targeting Warding Bond would grant greater damage reduction than presented in the video in addition to the other effects (38 total from 41 incoming). Turns out a strict RAW reading grants even more benefits than a mixed RAI/RAW reading. 🤦
If you disregard the Jeremy Crawford tweet and decide to cast Warding Bond on yourself, you should consider whether the "shared damage" itself is affected separately by your resistance (since it doesn't say "bypassing any resistance you might have"), or the rest of warding bond's text, triggering a cascade. Worst case: the shared damage bypasses your resistance, and triggers the rest of the text, replicating itself infinitely. Any pocket of damage bigger than a 1 becomes infinite, and you die. Middle case: (as you assumed) the shared damage bypasses your resistance but doesn't trigger the rest of the spell's text again. You take -1 damage on any odd amount of damage. Better case: the shared damage is reduced by your resistance, and gets shared again. 19 damage becomes 19/2=9 and 9/2 = 4 and 4/2=2 and 2/2=1, you take 16 damage. You can reduce the damage by several. Best case (unlikely): the shared damage is reduced by your resistance, and doesn't get shared again. 19 becomes 9 and 4, you take 13 damage. In general, you'll take a little less than 3/4 damage.
If I could do more than Like this video I would. I am glad that someone is finally giving Warding Bond its due. It is one of the most underrated spells in the game, IMO. I get so irked every time I watch an Artificer Tier Rank video and they have Armorer at S-Tier and Battle Smith at B or C-Tier. Spell-Storing Warding Bond and having your Steel Defender cast it on your Tank or Healer is ridiculously strong (granted you don't get to do this until level 11), and is super useful whether you want to be a tank, support or DPS. If the Steel Defender doesn't die at the end of combat, you simply Mend it back to full health. If it does die, you expend a first level spell slot and it comes back at full health. And, you can use your bonus action during combat to let it heal itself (and your healer isn't being taxed with keeping it alive because most heal spells can't target constructs anyway). So, you give any character in your party 6 to 10 hours of Bear Totem Barbarian damage resistance each day and nobody in your party has to sacrifice their health for it. Michael Scott would call that a Win-Win-Win. And, if you add in a College of Glamour Bard on top of this, you may be able to go a whole campaign without anyone having to cast a heal spell (well, after level 11 at any rate).
Have we finally found a useage for blade ward, or else would a raging bear totem barb as the caster reduce the secondary damage further? It just reads you take the same amount of damage. Doesnt specify a type though, you could infer 'of the same type' or some kind of automatic damage - although it would usually specify "this damage cannot be reduced in any way" like in a few other spells. So hypothetically two bear totem barbarians (resisting *all but psychic*) with warding bond on each other taking that same 41 damage Barb 1: 20 damage after resistance Barb 2 (caster): 10 damage, resisting the incoming damage Seems worthwhile on the surface - perhaps more thematic for a Ancestral Guardian Barb.
How's that ring you're required to wear for the duration interact with wild shape? Each equipment stipulation has problems. Falls to the ground=no warding bond. Merged into your new form does NOT mean that it is considered worn, because worn is its own condition, and merged equipment explicitly has no effect. If it is worn, the item has to be practical for the new form to wear and is explicitly not resized or reshaped. If you're a big bag of hitpoints, that ring probably ain't gonna fit. I'm not aware of any Crawford "thoughts" on the subject, so looks to me like the platinum ring requirement is a tough hurdle for druids to leap, RAW.
10:40 through for the next few minutes. What I'm seeing here is that Warding Bond is a good choice to self cast in mid to late game. I like the idea of warding bond on an abjuration tank wizard (which ive been dying to play. Maybe i can get my buddy to go cleric and make me even tankier). I think the Warding Bond wildshape combo is hilarious, but not extremely helpful. As you state later, you want to avoid combat so your bond doesnt take YOUR damage as well. So your wildshape has to avoid combat which greatly hampers your utility in a fight. Sure, youre mitigating your ally's damage, but what are you going to do next turn?
If you can cast it on yourself, and it does check twice like that, I would say it's worse for concentration checks until you get to about level 9. DC 10 concentration checks are just by far the most common concentration checks (any damage 21 and below, including from monsters who multiattack). And until you have a +7 on your CON saving throws, you'll have a better chance of passing one DC 10 concentration check, than passing two DC10 concentration checks with a +1 to the save.
I still like Aid over Warding Bond. Neither are concentration. Aid lasts long. Sure, Warding Bond might be more impactful if you are only fighting one Big bad, or if the the group of enemies is zerging someone down. Aid benefits more of the party, and stays up even if the caster goes down. The 60-feet restriction for Warding Bond can sometimes be problematic. Also, perhaps it's just the table I play at, but I can't recall the last encounter in which the DM simply let the casters and range attack freely without something firing back at them. To me, Aid seems like it is always beneficial, while Warding Bond is occasionally situationally good.
I used just yesterday evening this spell as a "sexadin" to protect my wife's PC, a twilight cleric, in the final fight of the campaign. But I also used on myself a potion of invulnerability, so I halved even the damage I took from the bond. Consider that you can apply your resistances to the damage you receive. So 39 damage for example was 19 for her, and 9 for me. Did I misinterpreted something, or it was good?
Two other ways to read this: 1. You take 75% of all damage. Say you get hit for 40 damage. You resist damage, so take 20. You then also take 20, but you resist all damage, so it gets reduced to 10. 2. Ignoring the double resistance verison: Taking any amount of damage will instantly down you. Say you take 40 damage. You resist damage, so take 20. You then also take 20 damage. But, each time you take damage, you also take damage. So you stack 20 damage instances on yourself until you drop to 0 hit points and the spell ends.
Now here is a question: lets say the Cleric is connected through a bond to a lower HP Wizard. The Wizard is finally dropped to zero hit points. Later, before the Cleric can use his action to sever the bond, a fireball hits both of them. Does the cleric still take his damage, plus half damage rolled against the Wizard from the bond even though the Wizard is at zero HP? I have to say, as a DM, I cant sign off on the self bond. It's against the plain wording of the spell, using 2nd and third person references consistently. Also, it notes explicitly "It also ends if the spell is cast again on either of the connected creatures." The use of the plural here makes it clear it can't be one creature. if it just said "The bond ends if the caster casts Warding Bond again" then it would pass the strict legality tests. AOE damage and worries about extra damage to a Cleric would make me hesitate as a player without the aforementioned temporary HP shenanigans. With the presence of the mentioned artificer protector or Twilight Cleric though--its Vegas quickie wedding time baby!
I think you should have pointed out situations where having Warding Bond cast on a companion would be dangerous to the caster. Area Of Effect damage such as a fireball, lightning bolt, dragons breath and so on, where both the caster and the warding bond receiver are both in the AOE damage area would be deadly to the caster. The caster would take 1.5 times the normal damage from that AOE effect, although the receiver might be 5% less likely to fail a safe versus the damage, if that applies. What if both drop down a pit trap? The caster would take 1.5 times the damage they would normally have taken.
Before I get through the video: I love warding bond, being a healing style support player. Giving this spell to a meaty barbarian can be fun. Exceptions being AoE damage if caster is struck as well as the target of Bond. Edit: After watching thoughts: First, your cast on self jokes sent me into a gigglefit. Second, I look at this spell along these lines a lot! Warding bond is powerful, if one wants to protect the effects from a concentration spell, if this caster works with another.
Chris, can you explain why casting warding bond on yourself doesn't create an infinite feedback loop? In your example, the target of the spell takes 41 damage, reduced to 20, and the caster takes 20, but since the caster is also the target, wouldn't that mean the caster takes an additional 20 since the target just took 20, bringing the total to 60? Rinse and repeat until you die, right?
Casting Warding Bond on yourself is deadly if you have any resistance outside the spell (e.g. from racial, subclass feature or item). Let's say that you are tiefling and you take X fire damage. That X is not halved by Warding Bond because resistances don't stack (as you said in the video). Then, you (as the second person of the bond) take X damage again. So basicly you are take double damage from the types of your resistances.
You forgot one great option, which, while DM dependant due to an item, fits super thematically: You have someone else cast Warding Bond on you with a spell-storing ring. The spell already requires rings to cast, so why not put the spell there? I had a Cleric and Figher NPC couple who were part of a rival party; the fighter's wedding ring was a spell storing ring her partner would refill each morning, while the cleric's held a single use of cloud rune the fighter would have to recharge. It helped mechanically sell their connection to each other. If I had the cleric place Warding Bond in there, I shudder to think how my players would have reacted when they dueled with the rival party.
I only recall it being used at my table once... It was the Final Battle of an arc, and the Paladin was alone in the 'kill-box', swarmed by enemies, and the rest of the party hanging out safely in the next room casting ranged spells. The Cleric nearly dropped from the half-damage, and had to cast Heal on themselves. Obviously gave the Paladin a *lot* of staying power, and they stayed up the entire encounter.
When you cast this on yourself, don't you actually take 3/4 damage all the time, because you double dip on the Resistance? I mean, you have Resistance on the damage from the initial hit. You take it. Then you take the same amount again, but your Resistance should be applying on it too, no? I'm pretty sure it's specified in other features, whether the damage you take cannot be reduced, and it doesn't say so here.
I don't like this. You're already stretching the wording of the spell and then additionally you need DM approval for some more stretching of RAI. Just a whole lot of work for something purely minmaxy
Please note that if you warding bond yourself the damage will loop once you get hit so you'll take weird amounts of damage like the 41 damage example would hit You'd take 20 Then you took 20 so now that damage is dealt to the creature it's dealt to the caster which is is you So now you resist this so you take 10 but the creature has been dealt damage now the Caster has to take 10. But you halve that to 5 so creature takes 5 caster takes 5 but you half. So now creature takes 2 and then you take 1. Then 1 gets halved to 0. So overall in this situation you take 38 damage and make 5 concentration checks.
I think the difficulty with warding bond is that the primary effect isn’t strictly positive, in fact, I would say it will usually be a negative because it will usually make maintaining concentration harder. Ya sometimes splitting one damage instance into 2 is good but take 30+ damage in a single instance is pretty rare, even at higher levels. I’d say it’s a top tier 2nd level spell for paladins, but for clerics, it’s maybe worth taking unless you’re at levels of play most campaigns don’t see.
If you could cast it on yourself, would you not just take infinite damage until "half" is 0? Take 10 damage, becomes 5 and 5, meaning you took 5 more damage, meaning you take 2 and 2, meaning you took 2 damage, meaning you take 1 and 1?
In a space 5e game, our leader a interstellar rockstar (bard) dumped Con cause he is funny like that. Saying it was from all the drugs he does. So me as his spiritual advisor (warforged cleric, warding bonded him and he effectively have the same health as the true believer bouncer (paladin) it was kinda wild.
You forgot to mention that if you allow WB to be cast on yourself that you only take 75% of all damage because you have RESISTANCE to the second instance of damage too .
I get a pretty cool use out of warding bond on my Dark Rider build. The build is an oath breaker paladin with some hexblade and a 1 level dip in Order domain cleric. It is one of the handful of spells I use to beef up my mount that which have the added bonus of giving my mount an attack thanks to Voice of Authority. I'm curious though if I can get extra use out of it with the brilliant tactic of casting it on my paladin and then by virtue of find steeds spell sharing also protect my mount for a triple wammie. A fiend warhorse on this build can hit pretty hard if you time the combo correctly, after charging a target and making the reaction attack this should in theory also proc the trampling charge ability warhorses have giving a bonus action attack as well. A warhorse making two attacks both of which get a damage boost from aura of hate is a pretty nice chunk of damage when casting a spell that normally does 0 damage on cast. I make pretty good use of warding bond armor of agythys and divine favor to pretty astounding results in some cases rivaling the damage of other party members. It's also really funny when I cast shield and more horse kills the attacker lol
To the warding bond ring for a mount neigh-sayers, couldn't the horse have the ring on a chain around its neck and be considered wearing it? Or ring as a horseshoe [no one said a ring has to be a torus], ring as structural part of a bridal, Ring braided in their mane, ring on the tail, etc. Granted, if your horse is summoned you will have to track down the lost ring. The dmg says "Unless a ring's description says otherwise, a ring must be worn on a finger, or a similar digit, for the ring's magic to function", but for warding bond, it isn't the function of a magic item, it's only a spell component
I really wish fun spells were more open. Specifically i wish artificers had more..... alchemist would love this spell, and they would love prayer of healing, and they would love vitrolic sphere. All of which would really fit the class.
I used warding bond religiously (pun intended) on a dwarven life cleric that my group played to level 20. Having a bunch of HP made it not hurt so much, and also made the life cleric perk of self healing when casting a leveled healing spell relevant.
I dont think you can cast this on yourself. Seems entirely against the spirit of the spell. I do like the idea of using it on your mount though. Especially for Paladins. I'd totally allow that as a DM if the player can find a way to attach the ring to their mount. Even if it's just as simple as piercing its ear or something like that. But yeah, the spell is clearly meant to be used with two creatures, not to be a concentration-free Cloak of Protection that splits up damage in a silly way.
Now this is very interesting, could the warding bond self cast make heavy armor master an actually decent take? It still has the nonmagical damage stipulation that's not good, but with this we would be reducing all nonmagical slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage by three two times instead of one time. probably still not worth a feat, but an interesting interaction to consider still.
FYI: I was informed that Jeremy Crawford tweeted that Warding Bond cannot be cast on yourself, so take that for what it's worth.
The Tweet didn't make it into the official Sage Advice compendium, so this usage is not against the rules (RAW).
However, if you want to use it like this, you ought to warn your DM that JC wouldn't allow it as his table since the spell wasn't intended to be used in this way (RAI).
He has also said creatures with true sight still have disadvantage attacking invisible creatures, though, so I sometimes wonder at how his mind works.
@@HorizonOfHopebecause invisible creatures have the invisible condition
I think in this case I'd have to say Jeremy is reading it the way I would anyway - creating the 'mystic connection' between yourself and yourself to me would make your RAW interpretation incorrect. But I do agree it is ambiguous, however the act of the spell is 'creating a connection' which to me would require two separate entities as you can't create the connection when you are already connected - like dialling your own phone number or any stacking spell effect in D&D.
@@deiveonmartinsen1831 ... yeah... ? And the way the rules work with that is stupid. They can write the rules however they like.
They could write it as: Truestrike allows you to see invisible creatures, removing the condition from them for that creature.
But they don't make that errata.
The only rule that matters is the DM's at your table and fortunately all of the DMs I have had haven't been as weird as Crawford on that one.
I used warding bond for a dramatic betrayal in a short adventure I ran. The NPC the party was escorting ended up being the BBEG, very original, I know.
The party's mission was to recover an artifact of Orcus before a death cult could get to it. Our paladin really went in for protecting the "artifact expert." She just so happened to have a pair fancy, matching platinum rings that she can store warding bond within, so that anyone willing to take a vow with her can cast the spell with her as its target. An easy History check to determine that these were elven *marriage* rings really sold it. How romantic!
Welp. She's a Death Cleric. And the rings are curse so you can't take them off.
She got the paladin alone, and after a dramatic speech and magical goth transformation, she was floating in the air and casting Vampiric Touch. She attacked...herself! Each attack dealt half to the paladin and half to her, but she healed the full amount. With no good ranged options, the paladin was slowly defeated, despite some hints that she could have broken down the door to escape. PCs won in the end and the paladin got some redemption. Scariest monologue ever!
Clever tactic, but couldn't the paladin have dismissed the spell with an action? Or were the cursed rings keeping the bond active despite the paladin's wishes?
@@joshhoey Only the caster can dismiss the spell. And, of course, DM ruling could just override anything on that sense due to the rings being cursed. Always carry a Remove Curse scroll, boys. One never knows when an impromptu divorce is necessary
@@Jewels___ Yeah, I may have misinterpreted things but I read it as the paladin casting "Warding Bond" on the secret-BBEG and therefore could have dropped it, but I could see the cursed rings keeping it going. 👍
@@joshhoey It was made clear when the paladin cast the spell that the only way the spell would end is if they were separated by 60 feet. A bit hand wavey, but the idea was that she couldn't be compelled by mind magic to dismiss the spell or remove the ring. So it was sold as a bonus when it was actually a trap. It was kind of a puzzle encounter, where she was supposed to figure out how to run, but, of course, if fighting is presented as an option, PCs will always choose violence, even with the odds stacked against them, lol.
Thats a cute/cool use of vampiric touch
If you read warding bond as two separate instances of damage when cast on yourself, then you have to make a lot more than just the initial save for concentration on spirit guardians. Because the spell reads “each time it takes damage, you take the same amount of damage.”
So you would take 41 halved to 20 plus 20 halved to 10, but you took that 10 damage from warding bond so you would take an additional 10 halved to 5, plus 5 halved to 2, and then 2 halved to 1
20+10+5+2+1
In total, you would take 38 damage, which is better than the 41 you would have taken, but now you need to make FIVE saving throws to maintain concentration.
EDIT: On re-reading, treating it as a second instance of damage I see why it would apply resistance again - you're right.
If youre reading it as echoing, halving each time wouldnt it be:
- The initial 20 after resistance is applied
- The second 20 (to the caster, you) and resistance has already been applied
- Then 10 because you took damage, resisted
- Then 5, because resisted again
- Then 2
- Then 1
- Then 0, for like 48 damage - otherwise youre applying resistance to the second lot of damage, twice
Kinda a niche way to read it, but halved/halved/halved etc as youve interpreted it reduces the damage a little bit more than the occasional 1 here and there. Idk, I feel like it could equally be: halve the damage (rounded down) and applied twice - once to the target and once to the caster.
On a bit of experimentation the damage reduction seems to have a soft cap of about 5pts.
@@aarondavidson4093 looks like a decent thing to combo with [heavy armor master] feat. Would be even better if resistance applied before the flat decrease
My favoeite use of Warding Bond, by far, is as a Battle Smith Artificer. Make yourself a number of identical rings equal ro your party size +1, and infuse one of those rings and give it to your Steel Defender. Since the ring is infused, and you can now use it as a spellcasting focus, you can make it a spell-storing item, and put Warding Bond in it. Then all you have to do is use your bonus action to tell your Steel Defender to run up to the party member of your choosing and touch them before activating the item. Now you have near infinite uses of Warding Bond, with a big slab of free hit points to protect people with. As someone who adores utility builds, its my favorite thing to do.
You can also use any Artisan Tools to store the spell if you don’t want to give up an infusion for your Steel Defender. Or just hand it a simple or martial weapon. It doesn’t need proficiency just to hold the item and use the spell from it.
@@tjstyles1171 some DMs will be sticklers about the steel defender being able to hold items, especially weapons or tools, while still attacking. The infused ring trick is the one foolproof version of this that I've had. No DM has ever found a reason not to allow it.
My only problem with this spell is that in all my groups the clerics have either had the HP pool of a stereotypical wizard or thought they were front line fighters. In other words, the cleric wouldn't survive.
Not to be mean, but that's not a problem with the spell, it's a problem with the player.
There is no feature in the game so good that bad decisions cannot ruin it.
@@ChristnThms Fireball? Isn't the whole point of the "I didn't ask how big the room is" meme that even with bad decisions that fireball is still an effective choice.
effective at TPKing your own party@@spikehammer3112
or both at the same time!
Robin if a cleric had a d8 hit die and gives resistance to damage, it becomes a 2d8. And cleric AC is more like the fighter that has a d10 hit die. Thus it has good results. Also keeping your wizard or rogue alive makes the fight end faster. There are many ways it becomes positive to use.
Thanks for highlighting this spell. I joined an already underway campaign that had lost 3 players, and I'm playing a light domain cleric to cover the party's gaps in support and AOE. My spell choices have mostly been healing and AOE damage focused, so I completely slept on the utility of Warding Bond. But now I see how much more valuable than Death Ward it would have been on "protect the NPC" type quests.
BG3 warding bond is amazing with the way flat damage reduction from armor works.
I was thinking that too, my heavy armour master paladin already shrugs off so much damage. Also, that feat is awesome with all the small damage sources, just ignoring burning and bleeding damage is great
@@Evildaddy911 which feat let's you ignore burning/bleeding damage?
BG3 Warding Bond can also be cast by Gale, who heals all damage infinitely when not in your party. He can cast Warding Bond on your entire party and you basically get free resistance to everything at no cost.
@@normal6483ya but that’s lame
@@normal6483 Gale heals infinitely while not in the party!?!?
Is this feature spelled out anywhere?
So... for those tables either allowing setting specific content or taking place in one of these settings, Mark of the Sentinel (Eberron) and Selesnya (Ravnica) offer Warding bond as an additional spell on your character's spell list(s). Instead of Battlesmith, this makes the Artillerist the GOAT, because that thp cannon can apply its thp to both instances.
Artillerist thp cannons were already amazing at keeping the front rows alive. This just turns it up a notch.
The cannon is an object, not a creature. You cannot cast Warding Bond on objects. Also, make sure your players aren't healing the cannon with anything other than mending, and your enemies aren't targeting the cannon with damage cantrips. Object, Object, Object.
@@dexter2392 I didn't say to cast the spell on the cannon. That would essentially waste the whole point of the spell. You cast the Warding Bond on the front row striker, who's obviously going to make himself a primary target, and then stay close enough to him that you can both benefit from the thp.
That was a total straw man.
Adept of the White Robes feat from the dragonlance setting could also get you warding bond access
@@elliotbryant3459 thank you, I always forget about those backgrounds/feats.
I'm really looking forward to the OneD&D making all backgrounds include a feat. Seems like a great way diversify or specialize a build concept.
It's probably a very dumb idea, but a familiar can deliver touch spells as if it was the caster. That is an extremely convoluted and pricy way to give yourself 1-5 bonus hp and +1 to ac and saves. I find it kinda funny.
I was thinking this too, CAN it work?
No, you're still the caster, the familiar only allows you to cast a touch spell through it
I have a possible cheese to it in some cases, Clerics get Glyph of Warding so throw it in that if you can find a way to carry it with you it becomes much better otherwise you have to pick your battlefield.
Edit: If you took a 3 lvl dip in Warlock for voice of the Chain Master you could command word the glyph and leave it with the Familiar use the ability to speak through it to trigger the glyph.
This sounded better before I wrote it out but could be doable.
The battle Smith pet can cast using infused itens. And he can repair itself
@@SammaelVanir more importantly the Steel Defender can heal other Constructs... Like your Simulacrum that you make and give non attunement magic items and a scroll case full of scrolls.
Thank you AL for making stupid rules that force searching for things like this.
IMO the split damage effect of this spell is actually intended to be a negative trade off to balance out the +1 to AC and saving throws.
In the current season of Dimension 20: Fantasy High: Junior Year, one of the PCs is a barbarian/artificer multi class and he gets access to warding bond. This is the best use case I’ve ever seen for this spell. He has cast it as a pre-buff (on the cleric actually, lol) and then rages for the rest of the combat. Since it’s non-concentration, there is no conflict with rage. The spell says nothing about the caster using resistances to damage so the barbarian is halving a lot of the damage he’s taking when the cleric takes damage and the cleric is helped with maintaining her concentration on her big spells like “Circle of Power” or even “Bless”
Warding Bond is a really great spell. One note, though. Your math is a little off on the savings throw chances. The 41 damage no Bond chance is 69.75%, not 64%, and the next two are 87.75 and 82.81%. You’re scooting all the d20 rolls over by one.
I thought I was good at math. Then I started watching this channel….
Good catch, yes this looks right.
My first character was Totem Barbarian/Cleric, so Warding Bond was probably the most optimal spell I could've taken. It could be cast long before combat so I still got to Rage and attack on turn 1 and I halved whatever damage came my way through the Bear Totem, so it severely dampened enemy damage output.
Warding Bond also pairs really well with characters that have non-resistance damage reduction abilities. Characters like Goliaths, Fathomless Warlocks, and Clockwork Soul Sorcerers. They end up double-dipping on the damage reduction, since they reduce the damage before Warding Bond splits it between the warded characters.
Yes, great point
I was really uncertain of this fact but re reading the spell description indeed does no mention if the mirrored damage is before or after reductions. Thus a advantage for the players
Heavy armor master could also work
@@zeedar412 oooohhh nice
Great for high AC squishies, like Bladesingers or Swords Bard, as they have proportionally less damage coming thier way - and mitigating that damage can be the difference between them dropping or losing conc and not.
Regardless to whether or not you can warding bond yourself, Chris’s analysis regarding the overall mechanical benefits to the spell are spot on. Additionally I would point out that the ability to use a better throughput cure wound on yourself rather than a same spell slot healing word means more effective usage of spell slots for cures.
Our group was recently finishing up the PF1e Jade Regent adventure path converted over to 5e. I was playing as a Mercy Monk as a supporting character because I came in towards the end after having to hand over the DM reins due to a fresh case of tiny human syndrome.
One of my magic item picks was a set of "Servant's bond Rings", essentially just an unlimited range Warding bond that was always up. I gave the Masters ring to the Empress to protect her once my character joined the party and that thing saved her butt a few times. When the party got hit by 3 cones of cold in one round during a hairy fight against a squad of Oni, my monk absorbing half of the damage kept her on her feet instead of a frozen popsicle and an end to the campaign.
Near the end, we managed to bargain and convince an Ancient imperial dragon to accept the servants ring side of the bond in trade for wearing it for the next 60+ years and an honoured place on the Empresses council for the next 200 years.
Again, we were 14th level at the end and the final fight was against a trio of CR 15s. A Samurai Lord, Storm Oni, Kenku Assassin, and a slightly lower CR oracle (Didn't check her stats afterwards)
again, she took a bunch of damage but the ring kept her on her feet and throwing out Bardic Inspirations and allowed us to claim victory when it was looking kinda grim.
Warding Bond is available to the Battle Smith Artificer. Since the Steel Defender can be revived quickly and easily with a spell slot, or healed quickly and easily with the Mending Cantrip as well as 3 charges of "Repair" it makes an amazing target for this spell. At level 11 with Spell Storing Item, Warding Bond can then be infused into any weapon/tool/etc and then the entire party can use it if needed in all sorts of interesting ways.
Unless I'm missing something, Casting Warding Bond on the steel defender doesn't seem that great?
That makes the steel defender take less damage, and you take more damage.
Having the steel defender using a spell storing item to cast warding bond on you is, of course, pretty good.
@@KaitlynBurnellMath No you're definitely right it works way better if you're tanking as a Battlesmith to have the Defender cast on you. With 10 charges you can have it up all adventuring day or pass it around so more people can use it.
My Battlesmith ended up using Repeating Shot Crossbow for a while and we had no substantial healing so it was nice to spread the damage around. The Defender would basically run in and body block for our Wizard.
I think a "mystical bond between you and the target" pretty clearly implies that you are not the target. I would not allow the caster to be the target.
Warding Bond finally getting the credit it deserves! One strategy I like is:
Warding bond [from Battle Smith] + spell storing item [if dm allows the artificer’s subclass spells to qualify] -your mendable minion can cast it on you and function as a hit point battery for you or an ally. If it dies you can revive it with a level 1 spell slot after combat.
So on the one hand Nice work! On the other hand, it seems a bit white board… there seems to be some differentiation in the natural language of the spell between the caster and the eased creature
Cast on self = Extra damage taken. The echo, echoes, echoes, echoes.
I interpreted it that way too initially, but as youre resistant to all damage, the second instance would be resisted, and the third resisted again. E.g. 41 damage -> 38 (20 + 10 + 5 + 2 + 1).
Wouldn't casting Warding Bond on yourself cause you to take infinite damage?
Because when you take the same amount of damage as the target, because you are the target, the target is taking damage again, so you take equal damage again, which means the target is taking damage again, on and on?
That is a really good point. I thought this tactic sounded awesome, but you shut that right down lol.
You have resistance to the subsequent bits of damage, so no, not infinite. The 41 for example gets halved to 20 due to resistance, and then you take another 20 but this 20 doesn't have resistance applied yet - it's just 20 from Warding Bond. But you are resistant to it so it's halved to 10. And then you take 5, and then 2, and then 1.
@@Shindashi Yeah, you end up taking 220% of the damage inflicted though, which isn't worth it unless the dice Gods have worked in a way to make that +1 AC and Saving Throws much more valuable than they should have been.
@@Shindashi True, it would eventually decay to 0.
@@Giant2005 The example I gave was 38/41; it's never actually going to reach 100% (the asymptotic limit is 100% and the rounding down does some work). The problem is that unless you're immune to some of those concentration saving throws that's almost guaranteed to end your concentration.
It could work with Armor of Agathys on a Clockwork Sorcerer though, if you're ok with not concentrating on stuff in some fights.
A great use for this spell is on an 11th level Battle Smith. By then, you will probably have budgeted in a feat for Crossbow Expert or Polearm Master, so you don't need your Steel Defender to attack anymore. So what use is it now? For holding your Spell Storing Item, casting Warding Bond on you, and becoming a pool of extra hit points that can restore back to 100% with a Mending cantrip in between combats.
Yep, it simply becomes a large hp tank that prevents you from dying, it's basically better barbarian rage but on a half-caster lol.
Good morning Chris! I didn't make much quest progress yesterday, but I finished up the Girlfiend and the Bugbearing Down on my Foes videos so far this am!
I saw a new upload and had to come watch before resuming the quest!
Have a great day, much love to you! 💜
Edit: "What you do in the privacy of your own home..."😂😂😂
fun note:
as per the text of the spell, the person you target gains resistance, and you take the same damage they do. because there's no assigned damage type, there's no way to have resistance to this extra damage you take - unless, of course, there was some feature that just "gave you resistance" to damage you took without assigning a specific type...
insert the totem warrior barbarian, whose bear totem gives you resistance to "all damage except psychic damage" while you're raging. not "all damage TYPES--" just "all DAMAGE." and since warding bond isnt concentration, nothing stopping you from using it while you rage!
i dont think this combination is actually optimal, since a big part of the benefit to this spell is helping you concentrate on spells, which is useless for a raging barbarian - but i do think it's fun :)
It's in the definition of the word "between ".
adverb
1.
in or along the space separating two objects or regions.
"layers of paper with tar in between"
2.
in the period separating two points in time.
"sets of exercises with no rest in between"
You are not two targets. So you cannot cast it on yourself. From a simulacrum however.....
Thank you! I'm glad I'm not alone in my understanding of the word "between"
I had a similar linguistic argument in another comment about the implication of the phrase "cast again on either" preventing multiple castings by the same cleric
The way I have always interpreted this interaction is slightly different: since the spell gives resistance to all damage, this should also apply to the damage dealt from the spell itself; also that damage is damage to the target, and hence causes the spell to deal damage to the caster. In the given example of 41 damage this results in a total of (20+10+5+2+1=) 38 damage taken over 5 instances. The repeated rounding can be quite advantages.
I started using warding bond 2 ish weeks ago on my unoptimized squishy friends. It's actually really good to cast if you are playing with lower power level friends
My artificer just got this spell. Thanks for the tips 🙏
Great video. I assume lots of DMS are going to house rule you can't do it and Jeremy Crawford has a post that you cannot Target yourself with the spell, so not sure why they haven't added it to Errata yet. I assume they'll update it with the new players handbook
I like these kind of videos. Its so easy to skip past 80% of my characters spell options, these realy help ME widen my scope.
At low levels, I primarily have used warding bond on a barbarian who was out of rages so we felt less vulnerable as a group.
The battle smith artificer has a really amazing use case for this spell starting at 11th level. It's true shenanigans.
Step 1: Use your Spell-Storing Item feature to store Warding Bond in it. (You don't need components)
Step 2: Give your SSI to your steel defender pet
Step 3: Have it cast Warding Bond on you through the SSI
Step 4: Stuff your steel defender into your bag of holding (infusion or otherwise)
Step 5: Run into the front lines (butt naked if you want).
The trick of warding bond is that you take the same damage as the bonded creature, at least in this case, and because a Steel Defender is about the same level of tanki-ness than an artificer (same d8 hit die), if you're not at 0 hit points, it's not at 0 hit points either, and you can heal it back easily after combat through mending, with 7 hp a minute. Whereas a +1 AC and saves and resistance to all damage is a very effective tactic to make you a better melee. If the steel defender ever manages to die, well, you can just resurrect it with a 1st level spell slot and cast Warding Bond again, you have 10 charges, you never run out.
My interpretation is that bag of holding is another Plane thus the spell ends (+60 ft)
@@theJoPandaYou're correct. It's also a waste to use the Defender just for that, it's better to just have the Defender
A Barbarian wouldn't benefit from the resistance, true. But, a 3-4 lv dip cleric, barbarian x could cast warding bond out of combat and only fight in combat, thereby actually tanking for their teammates, even if the enemies dont target him. For a giant barbarian 5, continuing with 3-4 lv in forge cleric, this would even increase his damage. The weapon gets a +1 and later on, he could forge his own oversized weapons, possibly increasing his damage at total lv 7 by 2d6 per hit. He then could continue barbarian and simply use the slots to support from out of combat.
I think casting this spell on yourself is actually really weird, RAW. I might be missing something, please correct me if there's some rule somewhere that says it doesn't work like I'm describing.
"each time [the target] takes damage, you take the same amount of damage"
So say I cast this targeting myself, and get hit for 20. I have resistance to the damage, so I only take 10. And whenever I take damage, I also take the same amount of damage. So I take another 10. Then, I just took 10 damage, so according to the spell, I take the same amount of damage, so I take another 10. And another 10. And another 10. Under this interpretation, taking any amount of damage with warding bond active instantly kills you. You go to zero, autofail death saves for taking damage, and die.
But this is actually also wrong, because of another thing I think you missed about the spell. Warding Bond gives you resistance to all damage. It doesn't say "resistance to all damage not from this spell". So if you take 20 damage, you take 10 because resistance, then another 10 from the spell. But you have resistance to all damage, so this actually only does 5. Then, you've just taken damage, so you take another 5, which is halved to 2 because you have resistance to all damage. Then you take another 1, then 0, and the "loop" ends because you didn't actually take any damage. So you end up taking 18 damage at the end of the day. Which makes it actually an even better spell than described in the video. (though you have to do way more math than is reasonable for calculating damage from a single attack)
My ol' boy Omzother the forge cleric / war mage made great use of casting warding bond on himself. I miss that crazy nearly unhittable beast of a bot. I never thought about the concentration check reducing benefits for high damage numbers. XD
Lets say you take 43 points of damage from a slashing attack, while you have warding bond cast on yourself. Resistance to slashing reduces the damage to 21, and then as the caster you take an additional 21 slashing damage from warding bond on yourself. Would you not still apply resistance to slashing damage on the second instance? If you do it would only be 10 more points of damage, for a total of 31 damage taken from a 43 damage hit.
.... Warding Bond doesn't require concentration?....
I have been operating for years on the assumption that it does because the first time I played 5e I cast it as a cleric and then as soon as I took damage the DM told me to make concentration checks and taught me about the concentration mechanic. I never looked at the spell again because of how much that sucked, then I noticed it didn't have it on the screen while watching this and went to check again and my mind is blown.
Just here to say I loved the humor lol
@Treeantmonk You've been using your new channel symbol/avatar and I like it.
I abuse the heck out of this in BG3. Our team is practically invincible.
- Abjuration Wizard has overpowered Arcane Ward. Works differently in BG3 than 5e.The total damage reduction is parabolic, not linear, with the number of layers.
- Life Domain Cleric 3 for Warding Bond, cast on all 3 active party members. Use cleric spells to keep self alive, and grant the whole team besides self that +1
- Any Warlock 3, for a few more 2nd level spell slots across the day, Armor of Agathys, free-cast Mage Armor to charge up Arcane Ward to 100% for free, and free-cast temp HP
- Magical heavy armor + Heavy armor master = any damage that slips through Arcane Ward is reduced even further before it even reaches Temp HP
- Shield that grants Force Conduit - subtract even more damage if you've survived a couple of rounds without getting hit
- Periapt of Wound Closure - max dice rolls for heals
Again, BG3 Arcane Ward works differently than 5e
So a 12 point arcane ward can negate up to 12+11+10+9... = 78 damage. And it'll negate even more damage if you cast abjuration spells during combat, like Shield, Armor of Agathys, or Glyph of Warding
6th level Abjuration Wizard also gets Projected Ward. So let's suppose a brass dragon is about to explode in your ally's face, and they want to face tank it for fun. idk how much damage it does but let's say 50. First, use projected ward to subtract 12. Now it's 38. Now the ally has +1 to their saving throw, but let's assume they fail. They have resistance, so they take 18. Now the wizard-tank can use Arcane Ward on themselves automatically too (no reaction). 18 damage is reduced by 11 to 7. Now magical plate reduces that by 3 to 4. If it was plain non-magical physical damage, then Heavy Armor Master can reduce it by 3 more to 1. Then Force Conduit can reduce the damage even more. We've already zeroed out the wizard's half of the 50 damage, but let's keep going. Then Temp HP is activated. And finally, any true damage that cuts all the way through..... you can reheal with maximized dice. Then recharge the ward to 100% between combats for absolutely free using warlock mage armor.
Warding Bond on cleric is very good, but it is BUSTED on Battlesmith. The spell becomes a legal choice for Spell Storing Item at level 11, at which point you can give the item to your Steel Defender and have IT cast the spell then use its Repair action on subsequent turns if necessary, and all it costs you is a bonus action and a single charge of an item that has 8~10 charges at this level.
The wording on SSI says that the creature uses its action to "produce the spell's effect" which I believe allows it to ignore the 100gp pair of rings material component. Now, at 11th level that's likely pocket change for most PCs, but it also allows the spell to target NPCs without the hassle of having extra rings on hand or worrying about action economy to pull off a defensive play. Also, at 11th level, the Steel Defender's AC and HP will make for a lackluster tank, so the opportunity cost of using this strategy is actually very low. Even if it dies, the artificer can resummon it in 1 minute and hand it the Spell Storing Item again for round two at the cost of a 1st level slot.
RAW < RAI
I mean if you casted it on yourself and took damage you would instantly take infinite damage rules as written... so...
Great video if you play with a DM who never looks up the wording of spells.
You know, when I always read warding bond I missed the "and resistance to all damage types" part. So I always assumed it was a lot worse spell and never took it.
There's a gimmicky tech about this that makes it broken.
At lv11, a battlesmith can put this spell in their spell-storing item. Now, the spell ends if it's cast on either of the connected creatures, not if one of them cast it. So you can make a chain of warding bond, resulting in all party basically sharing a hp pool and the bonuses
Just started playing a Cleric and am about to pick up my 2nd level spells! Perfect timing Chris!
Warding Bond perfect on a pure Battle Smith Hand Crossbow Sharpshooter. Cast it on your Steel Defender, turning it into a rageless barbarian, and send it to soak attacks at the frontline while you hang back sniping crossbow bolts.
great video, but i think you could have had a more extreme example for the sake of the concentration saving throw to further drive home the point
43 points of damage=DC 21 Con Save
With warding bond, - 1 damage, 21 damage per instance/2=10.5 round down 10
even with 2 extra points of damage on the attack, you still get the same dc, meanwhile, the dc without warding bond went up by 1 now making the disparity 11.
I used warding bond in my celestial/divine soul sorlock with 1 level dip in life cleric, with familiar and invocation for max dice value for healing. One of best support-heal characters I played
My character used warding bond as a lvl 20 redemption paladin in a 1 shot. The redemption paladin lets you take the other half of the damage as well while also reflecting some damage back to the enemy twice. My friends character did not lose any HP.
Would you be able to cast it on a mount? Seeing that the target needs to wear the ring.
Would like looping it into a horses mane count?
Or maybe a hoof sized ring?
I didn't hear much mention of it, but 2 more tactics for Warding Bond:
Build a character for maximum health/ Twilight Cleric shenanigans and cast Warding Bond on all of your teammates. The spell specifies it can't be cast again *on* either of the affected creatures. Says nothing about being cast *by* the affected creatures.
Battlesmiths can load Warding Bond into the Spell Storing Item. They can then have Tiny Servants ready actions to cast Warding Bond on them so that if big attacks come your way, you get resistance for cheap. The Tiny Servant does but that's why you have more
I have my Steel Defender use the item. Cast it on everyone and it's dumb. I just pick it back up if it dies at the end of combat with a 1st level spell. Boom, full health steel defender that can recast it on the party. Spell storing item is busted with warding bond.
when I read spell storing Item correctly, you cant load Warding bond into it. It specifies "...store a spell in it, choosing a 1st or 2nd level spell from the artificer spell list ...." [Tasha's Page 13]
That is specifically talking about THE artificer spell list, not YOUR spell list. As I read it, you also could not use spells that are granted by any other race, class etc. It ist the artificer spell list and not the spells you, as an artificer, have access to.
Please correct me if I am wrong. I would love to be wrong on this one :D
@@patrickdargel4684 The line I'm relying on that makes this work:
These spells count as artificer spells for you, but they don’t count against the number of artificer spells you prepare.
@@patrickdargel4684 if it was coming from a race, background or multi class you'd be absolutely right. Battlesmith gets warding bond as an additional spell which "counts as an artificer spell for you" which you could actually argue isn't the same as "is added to the artificer spell list for you" however I think that's just saving on words since they're always prepared, warlock which doesn't get subclass spells known automatically does say they are added to the spell list for you. So there is some argument that it doesn't work but I'd say it's probably intended to.
@@patrickdargel4684 It's a subclass spell, which means it's added to the artificer spell list specifically for the battlesmith. Otherwise you couldn't load scorching ray as the artillerist either, but it's the thing it relies upon.
I remember playing a paladin with the Interception Fighting Style and a warhorse. I don’t remember exactly, but I casted Warding Bond once on my horse and I kept using Interception while the DM kept trying to get me down of my horse, but the horse with is 17-ish HP didn’t want to go down. So an NPC casted a Fireball on my character and his horse. The thing is that the starting damage was like 32, but the horse took only 1 or 2 thanks to the buff to his DEX saving throw, the Interception fighting style and the resistance given by Warding Bond. My DM was flabbergasted lol.
Quick note: interception doesn't work with aoe because it needs a succesful attack
@@deru72 ah yes it’s true. I guess I made a little mistake here! But still, the horse would have survived the fireball thanks to the spell
@@leochouinard1010 Nope, since horses can't wear rings. ^ ^;
@@xFallenAngel a true Paladin loves his horse and gives him a nose ring piercing!
Here's a different interpretation of that 41 damage.
You are resistant to all damage and take 20 damage.
Then you must take 20 damage because of warding bond, but you are resistant to that too and take 10 instead.
But then you have to take another 10 damage, but you are resistant to that too and take 5.
Then you take 2, and then 1.
If you do have to roll, the table will love watching it. Once. And then they'll hate it.
I just played a twilight cleric with warding bond in a one shot. Never felt the need to actually cast it though because the twilight sanctuary did enough. However, I had a +6 to my Con save and while the chance of failing the concentration check was low, it did seem like a sizeable risk to use warding bond and unnecessarily end spirit guardians instead of just standing in the middle of the battlefield, dodging and replenishing temp hp. If I had a +9 Con save, I wouldn't think twice about it.
I’ve been using it as a death cleric in conjunction with our party’s Clockwork Sorcerer’s Armor of Agathys. Then, since I’m a death cleric and it’s style points, when I can afford to I use Vampiric Touch to heal myself up from the damage (with the Death channel divinity to make it not a complete waste of time). It’s been fun, I definitely recommend death cleric for people looking to get some unique tactics out of cleric.
Thought twilight cleric was gross. Well just imagine he gets married to the fighter with a warding bond ring.
I'm not sure I think this spell is generally a good investment of a second level slot through all levels of gameplay - until you have an abundance of spell slots, or perhaps can get it back with a short rest through a warlock dip it is a substantial resource cost, and until you have more HP and probably a larger HP differential between the target you'd cast it on and yourself it doesn't feel like you are gaining much there. At the very low levels you could first cast I'd suggest will actually make it easier for the NPC to knock you both down - instead of a small handful of hits where odds are good the last hit was wasting half or more of its damage you now instead share the first hit evenly and so both go down with less hits taken as the attack damage isn't so often wasted.
Once you get to 5th level or so it probably helps, and by 10th I can't see it ever being a bad investment. But in those earliest levels you could cast it most of the time I'd suggest its both too much of your spell power to waste AND might actually make it easier to knock you down.
My issue is that it only lasts an hour. And while that is a long time, but exploring can take hours.
Maybe it is just my DM being harsh on pre-casting spells. But unless you are spending 3 or 4 spell slots on it, you have a 40% of have it during the fight.
Assuming that you can cast warding bond on yourself, and assuming a weirdly literal interpretation of the text - the phrase "each time [the target] takes damage, you take the same amount of damage" could actually have no effect at all!
You see, when you take damage, you *already* take the same amount of damage that you take. This part of the spell's text only describes something that is already true. It wouldn't normally be true - because normally, you aren't the target - but if it is, making something true that's already true has no effect.
Realistically, I very much doubt that this would fly at any table. It's blatantly overpowered and obviously counter to the designers' intent. It's just kinda funny that this spell works this way by RAW.
So the TLDR is make a Hill Dwarf Battle Smith with the a high CON. I like, but for some reason my go to was Divine Soul, guess it is for the higher slots and Cleric spells.
Questionable if creatures without fingers can 'wear' rings, such as the mount example
Another aspect of splitting the damage in half and taking both halves as separate damage sources, is getting to apply damage reduction effects twice.Things like Heavy Armor Master.
Assuming any DM would ever let you cast it on yourself, I think it's reasonable to treat each instance of damage as separate and new.
I was initially thinking that would result in infinite damage to yourself, but you're always going to be halving and rounding down. So you do actually end up taking slightly less damage (if you don't mind a bunch of easy concentration checks)
IE: a 20-damage hit means that you as the target are assigned 20 damage, halve it for resistance and take 10.
As the caster, then, you are assigned 10. You still have resistance, and this is a new damage source, so apply resistance: now it's 5 damage.
Then 2.
Then 1.
Then zero.
So, damage went from 20 in one hit to 18 in five hits (10+5+2+1+0. Since no damage is dealt on that last one, you're no longer triggering the "each time it takes damage" clause.).
Never thought of that. I think you're right
Hypothetically, if you cast warding bond on yourself, wouldn’t it chain off? Say i take 40 damage. It is halved to 20, but warding bond will then deal 20 damage to me. It doesnt say this damage cant be reduced, and it is also a different instance of damage, so it should be reduced to 10. But when you take the 10 damage this will happen again, reduced to 5, then reduced to 2, then reduced to 1, then rounded to 0, causing a total of 20+10+5+2+1=38 damage, reducing the damage by 2 due to rounding but causing 5 dc 10 concentration saves. The damage reduction of course depends on the way each case rounds, causing tedious calculation for each instance of damage, but Isnt this how it would work?
i would make a barbarian with a couple levels of war cleric, probably an orc in service of gruumsh... and id cast warding bond on the other melee fighter or cleric on any caster and go nuts. im raging so i resist any incoming damage. the warded players takes 4dmg, its reduced to 2, and i take 2 damage as well, but then i resist it via rage, so i only take 1dmg. the important part is the wording here: you take the same amount of damage. and rage resists any damage taken, so its not a double stack on resistance. no concentration, your orc barbarian, probably a zealot, is diving into a battle alongside a fully armoured orc paladin with plate and shield of faith and shield/battleaxe or any kinda tank you can imagine. maybe you are an orc horde and you play the shaman of the group and blessing the party.... on a low level campaign, even a lvl1barbarian/lvl3 war cleric can be good, and you can still have some utility casting on the side. so yeah, i really like this spell
Hey Chris, here is a mounted duo build using warding bond and mounted combatant to maximize armor of Agathys: Lightfoot Halfling Conquest Paladin 6 (Lightfoot) riding a Centaur Rune Knight 3/Order Cleric 3 (Stepper). Lightfoot takes mounted combatant feat and spams armor of Agathys. Stepper casts warding bond and spams interception fighting style reaction and grows to large size for big fights. This is fully online at level 4. At later levels, Lightfoot multiclasses arcane trickster for shield, uncanny dodge and evasion. Stepper picks up fey touched for dissonant whispers to proc sneak attack for Lightfoot as a reaction along with order domain to 6 for spirit guardians and bonus action spells.
Haven't fully flushed out late levels, but Lightfoot dipping undead warlock 1, Paladin 7 seems good. For Stepper, Fighter 6, cleric 8, ancestor guardian 3, wildfire Druid 2.
Casting Warding Bond on yourself is a RAW interpretation of the spell.
"Each time it [you] takes damage, you take the same amount of damage" is a RAW interpretation of the spell.
Casting Warding Bond on yourself but NOT applying damage to yourself whenever you take damage (repeatedly) is a RAI reading inside of a RAW interpretation.
Either interpret the entire spell as RAW or the entire spell as RAI, not just the text that benefits you.
Chris, I like how you're consistently very conscientious concerning asking your DM about questionable rulings. As a DM, If a player asked me about how to handle savings throws under the effects of Self-Warding Bond before asking if they could cast Warding Bond on themselves, I would be concerned. Loved the video until "Targeting Yourself" section with no disclaimer. The self touch jokes were solid though. I'm a big fan, but felt strongly about feedback here. Great channel, looking forward to more.
I agree, the targeting yourself section felt very reminiscent of the TRDSIC mindset he's norrnally against. It also seemed like it wouldn't work RAW. It "creates a mystic connection between you and ..."-yourself? -there's no connection "between" if it's the same entity on both ends.
@@elliotbryant3459 I think Chris explains the RAW premise of self targeting Warding Bond well (except for lack of timely ask your DM disclaimer). RAI it's clearly unintended. However, I don't think he accurately portrayed how a RAW ruling of the spell should work in game. There are a few comments pointing out the damage formula of taking 41 damage RAW:
Incoming Damage: 41
Self Warding Bond: 20 + 20 + 10 + 5 + 2 + 1 + O
Total Received: 58
Total Concentration Saves: 6
That's how I would establish a RAW interpretation of casting Warding Bond on yourself and taking 41 damage. Anything less is cherry picking rulings for mechanical benefits IMO.
@@voicechatty wouldn't the damage be 20 [initial instance from enemy to target] + 10 [1st damage echo, you take the same amount of damage but you have resistance to all] + 5 [subsequent echoes of damage, etc.] + 2 + 1 + O.
It seems like the first recoil of warding bond would be reduced to 10 damage because you take the same damage that the bonded caster takes [20], but they have resistance to all damage. Unless I'm misunderstanding something and the initial instance of warding bond damage should supersede resistance?
@@elliotbryant3459You're right. The initial 20 + 20 damage is based on the RAI reading of how Warding Bond works normally between two people. The resistance echo damage would start after the first instance because you don't actually take the damage until after it's been reduced. A RAW reading of Self targeting Warding Bond would grant greater damage reduction than presented in the video in addition to the other effects (38 total from 41 incoming). Turns out a strict RAW reading grants even more benefits than a mixed RAI/RAW reading. 🤦
If you disregard the Jeremy Crawford tweet and decide to cast Warding Bond on yourself, you should consider whether the "shared damage" itself is affected separately by your resistance (since it doesn't say "bypassing any resistance you might have"), or the rest of warding bond's text, triggering a cascade.
Worst case: the shared damage bypasses your resistance, and triggers the rest of the text, replicating itself infinitely. Any pocket of damage bigger than a 1 becomes infinite, and you die.
Middle case: (as you assumed) the shared damage bypasses your resistance but doesn't trigger the rest of the spell's text again. You take -1 damage on any odd amount of damage.
Better case: the shared damage is reduced by your resistance, and gets shared again. 19 damage becomes 19/2=9 and 9/2 = 4 and 4/2=2 and 2/2=1, you take 16 damage. You can reduce the damage by several.
Best case (unlikely): the shared damage is reduced by your resistance, and doesn't get shared again. 19 becomes 9 and 4, you take 13 damage. In general, you'll take a little less than 3/4 damage.
If I could do more than Like this video I would. I am glad that someone is finally giving Warding Bond its due. It is one of the most underrated spells in the game, IMO. I get so irked every time I watch an Artificer Tier Rank video and they have Armorer at S-Tier and Battle Smith at B or C-Tier. Spell-Storing Warding Bond and having your Steel Defender cast it on your Tank or Healer is ridiculously strong (granted you don't get to do this until level 11), and is super useful whether you want to be a tank, support or DPS. If the Steel Defender doesn't die at the end of combat, you simply Mend it back to full health. If it does die, you expend a first level spell slot and it comes back at full health. And, you can use your bonus action during combat to let it heal itself (and your healer isn't being taxed with keeping it alive because most heal spells can't target constructs anyway). So, you give any character in your party 6 to 10 hours of Bear Totem Barbarian damage resistance each day and nobody in your party has to sacrifice their health for it. Michael Scott would call that a Win-Win-Win. And, if you add in a College of Glamour Bard on top of this, you may be able to go a whole campaign without anyone having to cast a heal spell (well, after level 11 at any rate).
Have we finally found a useage for blade ward, or else would a raging bear totem barb as the caster reduce the secondary damage further?
It just reads you take the same amount of damage. Doesnt specify a type though, you could infer 'of the same type' or some kind of automatic damage - although it would usually specify "this damage cannot be reduced in any way" like in a few other spells.
So hypothetically two bear totem barbarians (resisting *all but psychic*) with warding bond on each other taking that same 41 damage
Barb 1: 20 damage after resistance
Barb 2 (caster): 10 damage, resisting the incoming damage
Seems worthwhile on the surface - perhaps more thematic for a Ancestral Guardian Barb.
How's that ring you're required to wear for the duration interact with wild shape?
Each equipment stipulation has problems. Falls to the ground=no warding bond. Merged into your new form does NOT mean that it is considered worn, because worn is its own condition, and merged equipment explicitly has no effect. If it is worn, the item has to be practical for the new form to wear and is explicitly not resized or reshaped. If you're a big bag of hitpoints, that ring probably ain't gonna fit.
I'm not aware of any Crawford "thoughts" on the subject, so looks to me like the platinum ring requirement is a tough hurdle for druids to leap, RAW.
10:40 through for the next few minutes. What I'm seeing here is that Warding Bond is a good choice to self cast in mid to late game.
I like the idea of warding bond on an abjuration tank wizard (which ive been dying to play. Maybe i can get my buddy to go cleric and make me even tankier).
I think the Warding Bond wildshape combo is hilarious, but not extremely helpful. As you state later, you want to avoid combat so your bond doesnt take YOUR damage as well. So your wildshape has to avoid combat which greatly hampers your utility in a fight. Sure, youre mitigating your ally's damage, but what are you going to do next turn?
If you can cast it on yourself, and it does check twice like that, I would say it's worse for concentration checks until you get to about level 9. DC 10 concentration checks are just by far the most common concentration checks (any damage 21 and below, including from monsters who multiattack). And until you have a +7 on your CON saving throws, you'll have a better chance of passing one DC 10 concentration check, than passing two DC10 concentration checks with a +1 to the save.
I still like Aid over Warding Bond. Neither are concentration. Aid lasts long. Sure, Warding Bond might be more impactful if you are only fighting one Big bad, or if the the group of enemies is zerging someone down. Aid benefits more of the party, and stays up even if the caster goes down. The 60-feet restriction for Warding Bond can sometimes be problematic. Also, perhaps it's just the table I play at, but I can't recall the last encounter in which the DM simply let the casters and range attack freely without something firing back at them.
To me, Aid seems like it is always beneficial, while Warding Bond is occasionally situationally good.
I used just yesterday evening this spell as a "sexadin" to protect my wife's PC, a twilight cleric, in the final fight of the campaign. But I also used on myself a potion of invulnerability, so I halved even the damage I took from the bond. Consider that you can apply your resistances to the damage you receive. So 39 damage for example was 19 for her, and 9 for me. Did I misinterpreted something, or it was good?
Two other ways to read this:
1. You take 75% of all damage. Say you get hit for 40 damage. You resist damage, so take 20. You then also take 20, but you resist all damage, so it gets reduced to 10.
2. Ignoring the double resistance verison: Taking any amount of damage will instantly down you. Say you take 40 damage. You resist damage, so take 20. You then also take 20 damage. But, each time you take damage, you also take damage. So you stack 20 damage instances on yourself until you drop to 0 hit points and the spell ends.
Now here is a question: lets say the Cleric is connected through a bond to a lower HP Wizard. The Wizard is finally dropped to zero hit points. Later, before the Cleric can use his action to sever the bond, a fireball hits both of them. Does the cleric still take his damage, plus half damage rolled against the Wizard from the bond even though the Wizard is at zero HP?
I have to say, as a DM, I cant sign off on the self bond. It's against the plain wording of the spell, using 2nd and third person references consistently. Also, it notes explicitly "It also ends if the spell is cast again on either of the connected creatures." The use of the plural here makes it clear it can't be one creature. if it just said "The bond ends if the caster casts Warding Bond again" then it would pass the strict legality tests. AOE damage and worries about extra damage to a Cleric would make me hesitate as a player without the aforementioned temporary HP shenanigans. With the presence of the mentioned artificer protector or Twilight Cleric though--its Vegas quickie wedding time baby!
I think you should have pointed out situations where having Warding Bond cast on a companion would be dangerous to the caster. Area Of Effect damage such as a fireball, lightning bolt, dragons breath and so on, where both the caster and the warding bond receiver are both in the AOE damage area would be deadly to the caster. The caster would take 1.5 times the normal damage from that AOE effect, although the receiver might be 5% less likely to fail a safe versus the damage, if that applies. What if both drop down a pit trap? The caster would take 1.5 times the damage they would normally have taken.
Before I get through the video: I love warding bond, being a healing style support player. Giving this spell to a meaty barbarian can be fun. Exceptions being AoE damage if caster is struck as well as the target of Bond.
Edit: After watching thoughts: First, your cast on self jokes sent me into a gigglefit. Second, I look at this spell along these lines a lot! Warding bond is powerful, if one wants to protect the effects from a concentration spell, if this caster works with another.
Chris, can you explain why casting warding bond on yourself doesn't create an infinite feedback loop? In your example, the target of the spell takes 41 damage, reduced to 20, and the caster takes 20, but since the caster is also the target, wouldn't that mean the caster takes an additional 20 since the target just took 20, bringing the total to 60? Rinse and repeat until you die, right?
Casting Warding Bond on yourself is deadly if you have any resistance outside the spell (e.g. from racial, subclass feature or item). Let's say that you are tiefling and you take X fire damage. That X is not halved by Warding Bond because resistances don't stack (as you said in the video). Then, you (as the second person of the bond) take X damage again. So basicly you are take double damage from the types of your resistances.
You forgot one great option, which, while DM dependant due to an item, fits super thematically: You have someone else cast Warding Bond on you with a spell-storing ring. The spell already requires rings to cast, so why not put the spell there?
I had a Cleric and Figher NPC couple who were part of a rival party; the fighter's wedding ring was a spell storing ring her partner would refill each morning, while the cleric's held a single use of cloud rune the fighter would have to recharge. It helped mechanically sell their connection to each other. If I had the cleric place Warding Bond in there, I shudder to think how my players would have reacted when they dueled with the rival party.
I only recall it being used at my table once... It was the Final Battle of an arc, and the Paladin was alone in the 'kill-box', swarmed by enemies, and the rest of the party hanging out safely in the next room casting ranged spells.
The Cleric nearly dropped from the half-damage, and had to cast Heal on themselves.
Obviously gave the Paladin a *lot* of staying power, and they stayed up the entire encounter.
When you cast this on yourself, don't you actually take 3/4 damage all the time, because you double dip on the Resistance?
I mean, you have Resistance on the damage from the initial hit. You take it. Then you take the same amount again, but your Resistance should be applying on it too, no?
I'm pretty sure it's specified in other features, whether the damage you take cannot be reduced, and it doesn't say so here.
I don't like this. You're already stretching the wording of the spell and then additionally you need DM approval for some more stretching of RAI. Just a whole lot of work for something purely minmaxy
Please note that if you warding bond yourself the damage will loop once you get hit so you'll take weird amounts of damage like the 41 damage example would hit
You'd take 20
Then you took 20 so now that damage is dealt to the creature it's dealt to the caster which is is you
So now you resist this so you take 10 but the creature has been dealt damage now the Caster has to take 10.
But you halve that to 5 so creature takes 5 caster takes 5 but you half.
So now creature takes 2 and then you take 1. Then 1 gets halved to 0.
So overall in this situation you take 38 damage and make 5 concentration checks.
I think the difficulty with warding bond is that the primary effect isn’t strictly positive, in fact, I would say it will usually be a negative because it will usually make maintaining concentration harder. Ya sometimes splitting one damage instance into 2 is good but take 30+ damage in a single instance is pretty rare, even at higher levels. I’d say it’s a top tier 2nd level spell for paladins, but for clerics, it’s maybe worth taking unless you’re at levels of play most campaigns don’t see.
If you could cast it on yourself, would you not just take infinite damage until "half" is 0?
Take 10 damage, becomes 5 and 5, meaning you took 5 more damage, meaning you take 2 and 2, meaning you took 2 damage, meaning you take 1 and 1?
In a space 5e game, our leader a interstellar rockstar (bard) dumped Con cause he is funny like that. Saying it was from all the drugs he does. So me as his spiritual advisor (warforged cleric, warding bonded him and he effectively have the same health as the true believer bouncer (paladin) it was kinda wild.
You forgot to mention that if you allow WB to be cast on yourself that you only take 75% of all damage because you have RESISTANCE to the second instance of damage too .
I get a pretty cool use out of warding bond on my Dark Rider build. The build is an oath breaker paladin with some hexblade and a 1 level dip in Order domain cleric. It is one of the handful of spells I use to beef up my mount that which have the added bonus of giving my mount an attack thanks to Voice of Authority. I'm curious though if I can get extra use out of it with the brilliant tactic of casting it on my paladin and then by virtue of find steeds spell sharing also protect my mount for a triple wammie. A fiend warhorse on this build can hit pretty hard if you time the combo correctly, after charging a target and making the reaction attack this should in theory also proc the trampling charge ability warhorses have giving a bonus action attack as well. A warhorse making two attacks both of which get a damage boost from aura of hate is a pretty nice chunk of damage when casting a spell that normally does 0 damage on cast. I make pretty good use of warding bond armor of agythys and divine favor to pretty astounding results in some cases rivaling the damage of other party members. It's also really funny when I cast shield and more horse kills the attacker lol
To the warding bond ring for a mount neigh-sayers, couldn't the horse have the ring on a chain around its neck and be considered wearing it? Or ring as a horseshoe [no one said a ring has to be a torus], ring as structural part of a bridal, Ring braided in their mane, ring on the tail, etc. Granted, if your horse is summoned you will have to track down the lost ring.
The dmg says "Unless a ring's description says otherwise, a ring must be worn on a finger, or a similar digit, for the ring's magic to function", but for warding bond, it isn't the function of a magic item, it's only a spell component
I really wish fun spells were more open. Specifically i wish artificers had more.....
alchemist would love this spell, and they would love prayer of healing, and they would love vitrolic sphere. All of which would really fit the class.
I used warding bond religiously (pun intended) on a dwarven life cleric that my group played to level 20. Having a bunch of HP made it not hurt so much, and also made the life cleric perk of self healing when casting a leveled healing spell relevant.
I dont think you can cast this on yourself. Seems entirely against the spirit of the spell. I do like the idea of using it on your mount though. Especially for Paladins. I'd totally allow that as a DM if the player can find a way to attach the ring to their mount. Even if it's just as simple as piercing its ear or something like that. But yeah, the spell is clearly meant to be used with two creatures, not to be a concentration-free Cloak of Protection that splits up damage in a silly way.
Now this is very interesting, could the warding bond self cast make heavy armor master an actually decent take? It still has the nonmagical damage stipulation that's not good, but with this we would be reducing all nonmagical slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage by three two times instead of one time.
probably still not worth a feat, but an interesting interaction to consider still.
I have Warding Bond on my Twilight Cleric because the round-by-round THP is a really good buffer for both PCs.