The Best Spellblade Class in D&D
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- Опубликовано: 11 сен 2024
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Dungeons and Dragons, XP to level 3 with Davvychappy, potentially a bit a Critical Role with dungeoneering, tabletop community next to tabletop RPG, dungeons and dragons, Fjord, Beau, Jester, Yasha, Caleb, Nott, 5th edition dragons, 3.5e, dungeon dudes, DM GM, dungeon master, game master tips sprinkle a bit of Caduceus, Mollymauk in the Mighty Nein. Matt Mercer.
I kept saying sorcery and magic for whatever reason, I meant blade and magic, or blade and sorcery but my brain fried, apologies! At least in the subtitles it says the right thing ^^'
Another great video but, I have a question. Aren't paladins already a sorcery and blade class? They are great tanks with healing magic that only works at close range, all the magic spells that power-up their melee attacks (plus a limited but nice selection of control spells), and also smite, which literally channels magic to make physical attacks stronger. Why don't they qualify?
I had this idea for a class called mystic knights they mainly use enchantment spells and area of effect spells that center around the caster they have a higher armor class than a wizard since they are trained for medium and heavy armor but the heavier the armor the higher the roll for consintration will be since they have to balance mental and physical exhaustion and higher level mystic knights can conjure weapons made of pure magic I'm still in the process of making the subclasses and higher levels. For anyone who's interested, find the game called Dragons Dogma, and it's similar to the name sake of one of the classes in the game
And why bother doing a second take for your 60 sec video? That would take ages!
@MonkeyDM I just did a late pledge for your steinhardt book, do you know when they'll ship? Thanks
I thought it was cute. What's your best spell blade build or class? 😢I really want one. I went, mostly for flavor war wizard with blades. Not optimal, strong breezes are dangerous 😂 she was really cool tho 😊
I think sorcerers should get a spell blade subclass. Imagine being able to melee and then using meta magic to cast fireball
They barely have any subclasses so I agree
I played a Sorcerer sword and spell build last year. Between quicken spell and a couple levels in fighter, it was a crazy good time
A spellblade or hexblade dip could make it possible
I want a sorcerer subclass thats almost monk y. I want to play as sypha from castlevania
@@Garbageday666 she's not really a monk though, not in terms of the 5E class. She doesnt engage in unarmed combat or have high mobility. She is of a monk order though, but that would be more her background. I could see her being a Divine Soul Sorcerer or Light domain Cleric.
This is why my favorite TTRPG class is the Pathfinder Magus. Spells go in the battle stick!
Magus has Pounce using a 2nd level spell slot. :P
Came here to say that
Was going to mention Magus. Arguably the perfect spell warrior.
You read my thoughts
Am I going to cast a spell, or strike the enemy in melee? Heck I will do both at once!
Bladesingers are really cool. At least concept wise
They're still cool in use too. As long as you accept that you're not being super optimal as a wizard, you can still function as a better martial than all the martial classes in the game with the ac buff, shield spell, and cantrip extra attack.
@@glaba24 my favorite spell when I play bladesinger is tenser's transformation, steel wind strike, etc. All the spells you wouldn't cast normally... Unless you are not afraid to be up close and personal, swinging away and still being able to use spell slots for Song of Defense.
And then there's the Elven Accuracy + Tenser's synergy...
@@nickname8619 hehehhee
@@glaba24 you're essentially a better monk lol
@@nickname8619Those are spells you wouldn't cast normally? I used both of them on my only wizard that got high enough in level, which was a divination wizard.
There is also Swords Bard, but it does suffer from some of these problems too. The best idea I can think of is probably a Hexblade paired with Bladesinger. Especially if you have the Warcaster feat
A bit MAD but manageably so.
I have a College of Swords Bard that I put two levels of fighter in so I could get action surge, it allows me to have a bit more versatility for if I need to cast and attack on the same turn, even if it's not something I can do each turn.
Best one is hex sorc paladin or just paladin sorc. Funny thing that you dont need any of these sword and sorcery subclasses to play sword and sorcery.
Paladin/Bard is also a very fun Swords and Sorcery combo.
I was surprised the bard didn't even get a mention in the vid.
Swords bard with one starting lvl in sorc
Meanwhile the PF2E Magus is just so elegant and rad dang. The whole idea of “if I hit you with my strike, I also hit you with magic Spell attack” is awesome. And then the idea of recharging it with another signature Strike is just I can’t even so good
That's the difference in design. DnD's system simply can't support something like that, while Pathfinder's 3 action system is exactly ideal for it.
@@Leivve Pathfinder is based on d&d. And even if you meant 5e, there is no reason to disallow this sort of system.
@@CallenExile I'm talking about game design.
@@Leivve I know. And there's nothing in 5e that makes the Pathfinder Magus incompatible.
@@Leivve There is nothing in the 3 action system that supports this playstyle. You can easily do something like that in 5e as well, they are just afraid to do it because of the delicate action economy. I bet homebrewers have already taken care of that. But I am not interested enough to research it. I have created so much 5e homebrew that I know it's easily doable though.
In addition, the Bladesinger can support this playstyle, it is just if you want to min/max and meta your playstyle it is to your best interests to play as a normal wizard (from a distance). However, if you care about sticking to a theme and not optimisation then you are really fine with playing like a Magus does on melee range.
DnD will always be better than PF in every single way. Sorry.
They need a class that doesn't punish you for wanting to do magic and martials, like the hexblade where you can attack with your spellcasting ability. Then you also need to be instivized to use both in combat. Something like, if you successfully cast a spell, then tour next attack has bonus damage
other idea: very limited spell slots, but you can gain them in combat through skills and abilities using your melee weapon. so you're fighting as a martial not to deal the big damage, but to enable the strength and versatility of your spells.
the core issue with anything that takes a bit of half to merge spell casting with weapon fighting is that you'll be limited by action economy regardless. so having a class who can choose to be a worse caster or a worse fighter is completely pointless. any class just has to answer 2 questions: why pick your class over any other? why pick any other class over your class? balance doesn't matter, as long as there's a real serious point to play a class and this class does not overshadow another class, some people will play and enjoy it.
Incentivized*. Kindof a tongue twister but for writing.
3.5 Duskblade and pathfinder Magus both fulfill that criteria
Pathfinder 2e Magus lets you load spells into weapon attacks and having them both hit with the same roll and then gives you other effects on top of that
That's a half caster
There was a dusk blade in 3.5 that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Dusk blade did gish justice
I was just looking in the comments for a Dusk Blade call out!
From 3.5 Duskblade to pf1e Magus to pf2e Magus, I love you in every universe.
*Laughs in Arcane Trickster with Shadow Blade*
I hear 'with it's beginning in fifth edition' and am not sure if I want to scream in rage or just weep.
I know right… At least he didn't say in the beginning with 4th edition
I had to watch it twice to make sure i heard him right
I think that's just a language comprehension thing. He likely meant "since the very beginning *of* 5e" rather than *in* 5e
Really though they have not successfully been able to create a spell sword that feels good
Or people could just be a Paladin. Often times, they routinely cast spells that boost their upcoming attacks (especially if you count Divine Smite as a spell, which it basically is) or they straight up cast spells alongside their attacks.
Divine smite is better than a spell cause its a class ability not a spell so its better as it doesn't take a action or bonus action and can apply AFTER the hit.
Definitely! Paladin is a martial spellcaster in my book!
THANK YOU
I felt like everyone forgot they existed or something
@@_The_Dumbass_ i feel people forget because they get pigeonholed into righteous divine-magic warrior. 5e did a good job in the phb establishing that you dont need to worship a god to be a paladin, differentiating them from a cleric
You can take Sorcerer at 7th level for an excellent tank capability too + more spells, so versatile
I feel like the Magus from Pathfinder does this well, letting you cast spells by hitting people with your sword.
Would be pretty broken in 5e so I dunno how you'd translate that over
You're super right. I frickin LOVE the feel of playing a Magus and using Spell Strike, but I dunno if 5e could replicated it without breaking the game. Maybe if the were a half caster, with some limitations, but even then it's taking away important apsects of the existing class.
The most Magus build I can think of for 5e would be College of Swords Bard with a 2 level dip in Paladin for Smites. I dunno, could be fun.
I've been working on something kind of like that
I've been trying to balance it like a half caster, and the casting is action-economy wise is similar to the paladin bonus action smites and the ranger subclass extra damage features
So far it's a bit wordy
I'm trying to make it so the spell HAS to be cast from the weapon as the big limiter
You could do something similar to how pf1e did the magus, spell combat effectively worked like 2 handed fighting except the off-hand attack is a spell. I don't know how you could balance spellstrike in 5e, maybe have it work like smite except you have to declare you're using the spell before rolling?
My favorite character I've ever played was a bladesinger. By the end of the campaign, when I had all my buffs up, I had 33 AC.
Honestly they did a great job in 4e with the Swordmage. The class had a fantastic mix of magic that let them protect allies, punish enemies, and great mobility. Ton of fun to play
5e needs to bring to life the Pathfinder 2e Magus.
God I love that class. They are like Paladins of arcane, getting a form of Smite called spellstrike
They already did in 4E, all of you hate it for them doing it
I remember having to go through a ton of versions for my Spellsword homebrew class to warrent the use of both melee and magic. Got it eventually and it's been my favorite hb class of mine since.
Share it my dude
Give
What they're looking for, I think, is something like the Magus.
I homebrewed a sorcerer that pumped its spells into its weapon and the spells would go off on a hit with that weapon. The tradeoffs were it limited attacks if you did it in one turn, like a rogue with sneak attack, and there were very few ways to buff ac and hp. So I created a glass cannon fighter which I thought was pretty cool and actually worked very well.
Congrats, you made the Pathfinder 2e Magus! Cause the magus also has the ability to channel their magic into their weapon strike
We need more Melee attack Cantrips, maybe one that works with multi attack.
And that's why I homebrewed a proper Battlemage class - an intelligence half-caster with a balanced (I think) way to store a spell in their weapon and unleash it on attack. Also a subclass for each school of magic
I think bladesinger actually was released before the hexblade. It was in the sword coast book while hexblade was released in xanathar's
Personally I have seen good things from the Pathfinder Magus class
Kineticist is better
Pathfinder Magus class is good fun for this exact purpose :)
I’m playing a blade singer right now and a large portion of the spells I have are the summon spells from tasha’s because bladesingers also get to a bonus to concentration saves, plus warcaster to basically guarantee I pass my concentration in battle. So it’s always me bladedancing with a spirit of some kind lol.
Best way I've seen it done is a "Woundmancer".
We modified most of the spells to fit into the theme, essentially the Woundmancer would build up stacks onto opponents they harm with their melee weapon and then their spells would cast on the wounds themselves. It made things interesting because the damage or effects of most spells scaled with the wound stacks they inflicted on their target before the cast. Some spells imbued the blade to autocast spells onto a target if their wound stacks hit a certain threshold, like inflicting chill touch when wounds hit 2.
We did that because players tended to focus on just spells or just melee so we wanted to make magic feel a little more effortless
Clerics: "Am I a joke to you?"
Paladins: "Am I a joke to you?"
I created a funny melee spell character. Protector aasimar. Spore Druid with polearm master and crusher. The setup takes 2 rounds but after setting up Radiant Soul, Shillelagh, and Symbiotic Entity. You’re doing 1d8+Wis+lvl+1d6 at level 2 with only one hit. When you get polearm master you get a second hit with bonus action making it 1d4+Wis+lvl+1d6 and whenever a creature enters your range you get a free hit as a reaction. Then take crusher allows you to move enemies 5ft. Move them 5ft away. Free attack when they renter with polearm master. Add this with Druid spell list and throw down spike growth down and you’ve become a menace to all melee characters. Also if situation gets tough you can fly over spike growth as a aasimar.
I had to watch this video twice because i thought I saw you tealing a clip from She-ra for a brief second. It turns out you did, i was not expecting that.
3e dnd had a class in one of the supplemental books called battle mage. They were mages constantly training in heavy armor so that they could cast spells while armored
3.5E Also had the Spell Sword and the Eldritch Knight prestige classes.
My first ever character when I was 14 in 2003 started as a fighter that dual-wielded bastard swords, and later took levels in wizard to get those classes.
Haven't played 3.5 since before I left high school, though, so I'm not even sure if we were playing correctly, but those were good times.
Don’t forget hexblade and just playing a cleric of Corellon larenthian. Love to see other 3.5 enjoyers here
The Primal Magic wizard from DDAL00-13 "Knuckleheads & Other Such Curiousities" is a powerful alternative to the spell singer.
The best thing I came up with in our campaign was a Paladin with A LOT of spell and cantrip based feats. And yeah, it first sounds stupid but when you think about it, you don’t really get damage spells and being a wizard always lets you have bad HP and AC when you’re not bladesinging. The Paladin instead comes with Heavy Armor proficiency, great damage output in melee and with the oath of redemption you get amazing utility spells. Also many feats say that you can cast the spell with your spellslots you have available, additionally to letting you cast them for free once. You can ALSO get a ring of spell storing to even increase the number of spells you have available. There are so many great things you can do with the Paladin alone to get this „Sword and Magic“ style character you wanted.
I hate how tanks in games aren’t given high burst damage potential. You know, like a tank.
Kind of like how shotguns are super close range in games, they do it to balance things out, if the uber tanky hard to kill character also does crazy burst, why wouldn't everybody just play that. A real shotgun can hit targets surprisingly far away and still be effective, a real tank can blow holes through fucking anything while being able to "tank" just about everything thrown at it. D&D famously struggle with having a class that can decently play as both a blaster mage and a martial fighter at the same time, they are different playstyles, but what D&D doesn't do is limit your creativity and flavor. A hexblade warlock is generally better off just throwing eldritch blasts instead of hitting things with their blade, but combining bladesinger with hexblade allows you to do both. A hexblade with the warcaster feat can easily blast away with eldritch blast all game in melee combat and simply flavor that attack as a combination of bladework and blasts of energy.
Because that's not what a tank is??????
I really love the rune knight, not really mechanically a spell blade,but appeal to the flavor of a character that dabs on the arcane on some way and kick ass on the field
Pathfinder's Magus comes to mind; specifically the sword saint.
I think baldurs gate has the perfect sword and sorcery class with the changes they made to pact of the blade. They made it so you can use your charisma for attacks and damage like the hexblade and can use any weapon as your pact weapon. This opens up so much versatility, you can play the fiend to get powerful fire spells and temp hp on kills, the great old one for fear on crits and imposed disadvantage as a reaction, or invisibility and other trickery with the archfey. It feels great to play, especially as a gith to get misty step and medium armor for extra tankiness and escapes
I mean that comes down to the problem of how DND is designed. Magic is so much more versatile than sword play and in the higher levels is very hard without magic items or some other thing to out damage a magic user.
That's why I do like bladesinger wizard. With 3 lvls of fighter or artificer. That's the closest you can get.
One thing I did, luckily when I rolled my stats I had pretty high stats so this worked wonderfully; Made a Drow, so proficiency with short and long swords, put my highest in int, second highest as con and dex since they were the same. Took a proficiency instead of an ability score modifier for light armor proficiency. Got my base ac up to 17 at lvl 4. Then later worked with our rogue who was working to turn dragon scales into a viable light armor/ cloak for protection. And got that ac up to 19. Along with the necromancy subclass that gave life leach, that wizard never had much trouble. Seeing as how you can always attack with the weapon in your free hand without bonuses, unless you have the feat, you can always cast a cantrip or a spell then use your bonus action for the second attack.
Surprised they aren’t just condensing all these subclasses into a whole new class of Spellswordsmen.
Ah yes, Sorcery and Magic, two diametrically opposed styles of play, lol
Pathfinder's Magus class : Hold my beer
Thus why I love the Pathfinder and the Magus class. Getting to not only cast spells and attack in the same turn (due to the 3-Point Action Point system, as opposed to 5e’s set types of actions per turn… ie main action, bonus action, etc), not to mention the Magus’s Spellstrike ability that lets them cast a 1 or 2 action spell through their weapon’s attack (and even through unarmed attacks in 2e)
Then you have Arcane Cascade, that lets you power up follow-up attacks, dealing further damage on your attacks based on your specialisation with the weapon you’re using.
PF2e is definitely a more offensive fighter when it comes to being a Spellblade style character.
I had a campaign with a pair that found an effective way to do this. One fighter and one wizard. The wizard would create magic circles and symbols on the fighters armor and sword. Like a fireball spell attached to a shield for example. Once the enemy impacts the shield the spell would go off. I would allow this because one it took some prep time, so it prevented the party from jumping into battles Leon Jenkins style and it was fun to play out.
best way to play a spellblade is to run a hexblade warlock and a sorcerer multiclass and use quickened spell to cast haste on yourself. cast a spell and wack enemes with your sword in the same turn. use the haste action to spellcast because i think it only allows you to attack once even if you have multiattack. use your next bonus action to cast hexblade's curse and the enemy is gonna die
I do love the Sword Saint Magus from Pathfinder, any spell with a touch range can be cast via your sword as the thing to touch with, using a sword hit roll instead of a magic hit roll, and adding the sword damage and any modifiers your sword has. I particularly like using vampiric touch with this, it just makes you unstoppable with how much health you can steal from enemies
My favorite kind of character to make is "squishy caster turned party tank". I was gonna make my next one a bladesinger, but my last one who could sorta take some hits was a fiendish warlock who'd kill things fast enough they'd never run out of temp hp. Only fell a couple times through the entire campaign, which saw 6 character deaths.
- Whenever you cast a spell that targets a creature, add 1d4 + spell level to your damage roll on your next melee attack against that creature. This effect stacks.
- Whenever you successfully attack a creature with a melee attack, you may disengage as a bonus action.
Spellblade archetypes are my favorite types of characters to play lately. I like to mess around with different combos of martial classes and caster classes via multi classing, even at the cost of extra feats/higher lvl spells.
It's a bit unorthodox in terms of what makes a Spell"Blade" a Spellblade but I just rececently played a Gold Dragonborn Pally, OoV. Crossed it with a Dragon Sorc (red) and got both to lvl 6. By lvl 12 I had access to mirror image, shield, haste, counterspell and fireball, on top of Divine Smite, AoP and the martial prowess of a Pally. I went with a fire flavored version, but you could easily swap it for any element or a mix. One of my favorite things to do in DnD tho is find ways to stack fire resist and have my tanky spellblade wade into a group of enemies and drop fireballs at his feet. And I definitely achieved that with this build. It's also a very good Red Mage from Final Fantasy type build. Which was an OG spellblade imo. Always fun finding ways to build different classes from other games in DnD
The best option for casting and attacking sorcerer with quickened spell. If you want more martial capability, you can combine it with Hexblade, Fighter, or Paladin. Action Surge and Quickened Spell are the best features for spellswords, followed by Bladesingers Extra Attack.
Thats what i love about Mage, specially the akashic brotherhood tradition(similar to clan of sorts)... so much freedom for all kinds of martial/athletics magics possible... just hard making cool ones coincidental
As someone working on a custom sub class for sorcerers, called the armory sorcerer, it’s interesting to see where things have failed and succeeded.
I definitely want to make a video explaining how it works when I get it fully fleshed out.
At the moment I have level caps for one aspect, being the blessing or curse done by the gods at the birth of the hero. This allows them 3 items that they can draw from their hands, starting at level 5 they can only call one item, and only for an hour. This increases to 2 at level 10, and all 3 at level 15, with a slight increase in allotted time for the day. At level 20 they can used them almost indefinitely, with a limit of 12 hours of use. And definitely keep track of that time you have left, because once it runs out you will start taking damage.
They can wear armor and can have weapon proficiencies, though this can be limited by the DM.
The DM also has to approve the items, meaning my character who I’ve already built with this class will likely never get to see the light of day as a pc… as he has 3 op weapons…
A dip into sorcerer, or even just the Metamagic Adept feat to gain Quickened Spell works wonders for the sword and sorcery build. Action extra attack plus bonus action spell feels incredible. Note that Metamagic Adept falls off super quickly as you level up, but it’s an amazing way to get a basic version of the build at level 1. If your DM gives you a free starting feat, you can go Fighter + Metamagic + Race with a combat cantrip.
I wrote a Sorcerer subclass for one of my settings that is designed as a spellblade, lorewise being the descendants of Hexblade Warlocks or cursed/sentient weapon wielders. They have features like gaining temporary hit points whenever they make a melee spell attack (or spell melee weapon attack) and being able to ‘attune’ to a master, gaining the ability to use some of their master’s statistics and being able to give the aforementioned temporary hit points to their master instead of themselves.
That's a awesome idea!
Fits well with my character personality concept that I can never find any mechanics to build as well!
It’s probably not the “blade swinging spellcaster” that people imagine when thinking of a spellblade, but Paladin does fit fairly well ento the idea of a character swinging spells and magic together. With the different types of smites empowering your weapon with some kind of elemental or glowing phenomena, plus plenty of other magical abilities that mix with your martial powers, it’s very solid pick for someone that wants to mix martials and magics
Eldritch knights may not quite fit the fantasy many are looking for with a spellblade build, but having Shield and Absorb Elements while wielding a great weapon, with teleporstion to close the gap and a familiar in your bag feeding you potions makes it a hugely fun build to play. I highly recommend taking booming blade and fire bolt as cantrips early and taking war caster as soon as you can. The ability to booming blade someone as they try to run makes it so enemies quickly figure out that they must treat your threat range with respect and fire bolt is great for pinging in a little damage while you close the gap. Tbh I wouldn't even bother with ANY offensive spells that aren't cantrips-utility and defense all the way. Ritual caster or a couple level dip into wizard also give a huge amount of utility that really round it out in a satisfying way to play. My personal build included elemental adept for fire to try and make offensive spells work better by specializing, which worked pretty well but I think the better move is just to double down on defensive magic. Shield, absorb elements, find familiar, silvery barbs, misty step (these 2 are easy to pick up with Fey Touched), haste, etc really let you take what should be by all rights a glass cannon and turns it into a nearly unstoppable juggernaut that can win a face punching contest with some dragons without support. If you have a way to get herbalism proficiency and your DM allows potion brewing, MAKE ALL THE HEALING POTIONS YOU WILL HAVE MORE HEALING POTION IN YOU THAN BLOOD.
elven sorcerers gain weapon proficiencies and also have access to green flame blade, or booming blade along with quickened spell. Draconic bloodline gives permanent mage armor, and an extra point of hp per level. Haste gives a +2 to ac, and shield a +5. With all of that, you have a resting ac of 15, an action and bonus to cast melee spell attacks with cantrip scaling, have a second action for a single extra regular attack, or one of the other haste options, and you can pump your ac to 20 for a turn if needed, all at level 5.
Pathfinder 1e has an archetype called the kinetic knight, which is basically a spellsword but with bending instead of magic, and it's a ton of fun
This is one reason I think pathfinder is so cool it has a lot of classes like the Magus which actually blends the sword and magic really well
I just started an even split between Fighter and Sorcerer and honestly it’s pretty fun. Use your normal action to attack and then Quickened Metamagic to cast a leveled spell as a Bonus Action.
It couples nicely with a 1st level Fighter gets both Heavy Armor AND Con save proficiency. It’s not a perfect all in 1 but it’s pretty fun.
Honestly arcane trickster is probably the most useful swordcaster. Since they don’t lose out on their extra attacks if they use booming blade
Pathfinder has the Magi class, which I think does the spell blade thing really well. Its class feature is called spellstrike which allows it to cast any prepared touch spell as a reflexive bonus action on a successful melee hit. It's a 3/4 caster so it's not as good at melee as a fighter nor as good at magic as a wizard but good enough at both to be worth it. If they want a melee focused spell blade class, they should look at the magus. I'm sure they'd find plenty of inspiration for how to make it work.
Eldritch knight can also attack and cantrip at the same time, and a spell from outside aberration and evocation* every few levels. They also get a trait that lets them lower their opponents saves since their int is bound to be lower than normal.
I think a potential solution is to make a subclass that can cast a spell using their action and then make a melee attack with their bonus action (or make an attack with their action and a second attack with their bonus action). So they could cast fireball, move to the target, and finish them off with a sword
I found mage hand press' warmage does a pretty good job with making a melee caster by giving you the various blade spells, plus it synergizes really well with rogue's sneak attack
I think the smite and melee buff cantrips were meant to be the remedy. Like casting booming blade to augment your melee attack for a massive magical boost in damage.
That's precisely how the original bladesinger multiclass from AD&D was intended to be implemented. Their proficiency with a blade and armor was intended to be mostly defensive, parrying incoming attacks with bladesong while blasting away with their spells.
That's why I like the Magus in Pathfinder, where you can use a full attack to cast and attack with only a -2 penalty on the attack. And it's not limited to cantrips.
Valor Bard. Magical Secrets means you can take spells from any list, level 14 Feature lets you take the attack action as a bonus action on a turn you use your action to cast your spell. Also natively has the extra attack feature.
Yes it does take a while to come online, but a solid choice for a high level one shot or campaign.
Also War Domain Cleric which allows you to take an attack action as a bonus action at a lower level than Valor Bard, so a viable caster-fighter albeit somewhat hampered by the more support oriented Cleric Spell List and no native extra attack
I think multiclassing probably gets you the best effect, however I did really enjoy my Eldritch Knight that I played to level 16. You can melee and cantrip in one turn, and your melee hits give the target disadvantage on the next spell save you have them make. Pop a good concentration spell in the beginning of the fight like flaming sphere for DOT, then just attack and toll the dead every single turn. Back it up with shield and counterspell, and you’re a pretty formidable threat, especially when boasting a resting AC of 22.
Man, the more I hear about this stuff, the more excited I get for my own system's reception. "Learn from the mistakes of others" is totally a viable information gathering tactic.
there was a spell balde prestige in 3.5 called litterly spell sword, that could sacrifie their movement to charge their weapon with a spell that would be unleashed on the next suscesful melee strike. the clase was great with touch and necromancy spells.
In my opinion, if you want a good "Spell Sword"/sword and magic together class, look at the Magus from Pathfinder 1e. A big part of the class is either doing a spell and sticking your foe, or using your weapon to cast a spell through said weapon and have your foe take both damages. I am by no means an expert in Magus class, but I have seen how they can destroy foes rather rapidly once they "open up" after a few levels. All further info on the class can be found on the PFSRD. Hope this helps!
This is one of the things I love about SotDL
It has both classes tailored for gish-playstyle and spells dedicated to gishes
Here's what I did for a melee spellcaster:
Went Artificer. Took five levels of Artillerist. Got the Arcane Firearm. Now I get a D8 do all my Artificer Spells, like for instance Green Flame Blade and Booming Blade.
Went running around with a battle staff like Hawke in Dragon Age 2, whacking and delivering magic damage. With a Booming Blade at 5th level you do 1d8+3 Bludgeoning + 2d8 Thunder Damage, and another 2d8 if they decide to move. Also picked up Hex from Fey Touched so you can add another d6 of necrotic on that. Sure it's only one attack. But if you know the campaign will go over level 12 you can go Eldritch Knight or Bladesinger on top of this. You won't have super high level spells but you will be running around slinging cantrips with your staff for a heck of a lot of damage.
If you like to be crazy you can grab the Meta Magic feat for quickened spell and do a pretty decent one turn burst of two Booming Blades Back to Back.
If you'd like to go more along the route of a Red Mage like Final Fantasy I'd do a similar build but with Alchemist instead of Artillerist. Then you just add your int modifier as an additional bonus to healing and poison/fire damage. More of a flat bonus rather than an extra D8, but it applies to your healing spells as well.
I have a bladesinger/swashbuckler tabaxi in RotFM campaign and it is ridiculously good when paired with stuff like haste, mirror image, shield, and silvery barbs.
DnD One's playtest for Eldrtch Knight looks really good, they get the bladesinger thing attack cantrip thing, but better at higher levels as they can give up a number of attacks for a leveled spell.
I like how bladesinger and eldritch knight are basically doing the same thing. Insane AC, cantrip + attack (requires a bonus action for eldritch knight). Differens is one is still a wizard and the other a fighter..
I think a spell caster that can infuse spells into their weapons might make for a more spell blade type character. If you're too far you can cast cantrips and stuff, but once You're up close you can melee, with different effects, either based on the last spell you used, or by using an action to infuse a spell onto your blade, which then let's you attack after infusion. If you hit you get a melee attack and the spell effect, if you miss neither.
My best build so far was a Fighter 2, divine soul sorcerer X, that by level 5 can use action surge to attack twice or cast 2 leveled spells, or use quicken spell with a bonus action and attack with an action. The worst part is the dependency of a ruby of the warmage (common magic item) to turn the weapon used into an arcane focus, alowing the build to also use a shield instead of having to hold a focus, or keep the hand free for spellcasting.
I actually made a homebrew to circumvent that, a half caster martial focus. I call it the blade gleamer instead of using slots it relies on a class specific point system like monks and can't cast spells normally as it can only cast using the sword as it's glimpse focus allowing it to cast any spell in it's spell list through the sword as a bonus action on top of the sword attack action.
homebrewing a druid subclass that nerfs, changes or removes wild shape in exchange for buffed or changed barkskin and shillelagh and some special homebrew spells for good measure, I think it may be a good option to look in to for a fix for this in your own homebrew
They could make it's so you have a limited number of times you can cast every spell and the only way to get it back is a long rest or to hit an enemy with a melee attack and have it replenish some slots it would force them to get closer to cast magic and force them to melee as well I think this would solve the bladesinger problem
It would have to imbue magic on sword attacks. Where it used to be either/or, it becomes both together. Different magic augments would have different effects.
Elemental is the obvious, but it can also do things like multi bladed strike where one attack can hit more than once, or multi target to hit more then one enemy with a weapon attack. Could even have a getsuga tenshou like ability that shoots a sword slash through the air.
Maybe a magic to change weapon, or go elderscrolls and just summon a magical weapon of choice. In that case, you could have certain magical augments that would only be used with certain weapons.
You could make it to where the "cast" is in the same action as the use. So it wouldn't be action to cast, action to use.
You could also make it an action to cast an augment (that lasts for x amount of turns) and make this character able to bonus action attack. So if you don't use a magic augment, you get 2 weapon attacks.
I’ve got an idea, a sorcerer who has a full range of spells but they are all touch except magic missile at 1st possible level no upcast. Then they can use constitution as their melee attack stat and get sorcerous attack, aka one of their spells. Any spell must be used as if a touch spell, any effect that would damage you doesn’t damage you.
You got your power from the lingering strength of a now dead sentient weapon that you grow to resemble the sentience of, no one knows whether you were influenced by the power or it chose you due to this resemblance.
Yet there is a ton of amazing homebrew of sword + magic classes. I even made one that casts a spell on its weapon, and uses a portion of its effects when you attack.
My favorite character I've made was a Sorcerer who used shadow blade and would quicken spell to cast two Green Flame blades in a turn. They could deal so much burst damage as a spell sword. They could also use misty step for mobility, which was really fun.
I think Hexblade does the full spell caster sword thing the best, as you use your casting mod to hit people with swords, have Pact of the Blade and Invocations to enhance your sword play, a higher hit dice, better armor proficiencies, and AoA.
As for the best class who cast magic and uses swords, that would be Paladin, as they get divine smite, support spells, Find Steed/Find Greater Steed, smite spells, and abilities that help those around them (Lay on Hands, Aura of Protection, most subclass auras, ect.).
a lot of people of people may just end up flat out disagreeing with me but in my experience multiclassing is the easiest option to get the desired outcome talked about in this video, the way i see it is that subclasses are supposed expand options, not create entirely new ones, thats why i feel like there are subclasses out there that don’t make sense(even though they may be powerful and we may like them)
My recommendation for expierienced players who don’t mind messy multi classes and want to try new things out.
For longer campaigns i suggest playing a half caster like ranger or paladin until about 7th or 11th level and switch to a full caster like sorcerer or druid for the final 9-13. For shorter ones i’d suggest starting in a class like warlock, rogues artificer or fighter until level 3 and then switching to something like wizard or cleric for the next 2-4 levels
AGAIN i can not stress enough that i do not recommend this for new people, nor do I recommend this for people who want to min max and be the party’s star damage dealer, I recommend this to people who want to try new things out and are open to the idea of mixing together classes that don’t usually synergize but doing your best to try and make something new with it.
Having crazy high AC as a bladesinger does not make me want to sit in the back lol
Blade singer is amazing. If they add a few solid martial spell choices that would def encourage them to get close & personal
Back in 3.5e there was an awesome class that did both really well! It was called Duskblade, or something similar. It was in the PHB 2 and it allowed you to make a melee attack while also channel a spell into it. Alternatively in Pathfinder 2e there is also the Magus which does the best job I've ever seen of doing a Spellblade type character
One thing with Hexblade is that I like the idea that you cast Eldritch Blast as/through sword strikes. So you're action is casting a cantrip but in flavor your swinging a sword, and at high level it means you swing 3-4 times instead of just 2. This can be done on any Warlock, but Hexblade has medium armor and flavor it's self. And you'll need Gunner or Crossbow expert to not have disadvantage on attacks when close up, if I'm remembering which feats correctly.
Blade singers can be front liners you just need toughness feat at 5th level then go find the amulet of Constitution to buff that con
I think multiclassing sorcerer makes hexblade or paladin actually pretty good at this because of quickened spell.
It's not *a* class, but it does the job. Really what they need for it is a solid sorcerer subclass. Maybe make it kind of the offensive gish to bladesinger/eldritch knight's tank, and hexblade's more balanced option.
I actually had an idea for a character class. That’s kind of like a warlock in that it’s given at most 3 spell slots that move up the spell level as you level up.
But the key thing about the character is that most (if not all) of its magic abilities come from cantrips.
The idea is that this particular class type will be able to have more cantrips than any other Spellcaster.
From what I've seen from the Dragons podcast, Crawford basically stated that EK is only for those people who don't wanna deal with multiclassing. It's designed to be a fighter wizard despite a multiclass just being better.
If you’re an eldritch knight though, you can pump out pretty decent damage with just a base level shadow blade just cause of how often you attack; you already have proficiency in con saves, if you pick up warcaster, you’ll never run out of concentration while dishing out more damage per attack than if you were using a great axe
Multiclass fighter up to at minimum, level 5, and then pick any spellcaster class and take primarily spells that use attack rolls. They fit into the Extra Attack feature. (I usually like to take Cleric for Inflict Wounds and Guiding Bolt, plus healing spells)
As an eldritch knight, you get a feature at 7th level, if you cast a cantrip as an action, you can then use a weapon attack as a bonus action, so at 7th level, you can cast booming blade on a battle axe, basically doubling your damage for that attack, only to attack again as a bonus action
My idea is a Magic Knight class that imbues magic to the blades by a technique unique to that class I like to call "Spell Blade" which will allow them to cast a bona fide spell while doing melee attacks. Ofc they would need an entire spell list of their own.
The "Shadow of the Demon Lord" system covers this from all directions- it features a base class called "Spellguard" which combines weapons and magic, a subclass "Spellbinder" that focuses on exactly what you described with "Spell Blade", and a whole list of spells that focus around a gish playstyle (from creating magic weapons to augmenting attacks)
This was actually the last character I played
@@Konpekikaminari that's nice to know, I've never had the opportunity to play dnd so I didn't know a class liked that existed
The actual best is doing shenanigans with spells that use melee with multiclassing. The best version I found yet is a Shadow Blade sorcerer build. If you want to be just playable stay at sorcerer, using metamagic to quicken 2 booming/green-flames and even twinspell with booming if there are many enemies. To make this really really op you can multiclass it with 2 levels of fighter and 3 of assassin rogue (F2/AR3/SorcX either lunar or shadow)... you can easily deal over 150 damage, most of it psychic, at lvl 11 or so. So you're this hella cool rogue sneaking behind people, summoning a blade of darkness and striking them repeatedly with lightning infusions. It's really really strong and cool, I'm using it for an NPC
I made a class called the Blood Painter.
Basically, it's something like a Barbarian/Sorcerer hybrid.
It starts out encounters like a Barb, but it gains a sort of mana pool, calculated from the amount of damage dealt by their melee attacks, that they use to cast their spells.
Self heals, AC buffs, even using the blood to summon creatures or drown enemies in it.
But it always had to sway in and out of the front lines and never had the best base AC. High Risk, High Reward.
Absolutely sucked against undead, though, cuz you'd end up having to use your own blood to cast spells, considering Zombies usually don't have much to spare.
I'll take note, i have a few new subclasses coming (minimum of one per class)
I already thought of doing ranged based bonuses, so maybe a Barb that gets to cast a cantrip on a target within 5ft whenever it lands a hit, or buffing its spell damage while close (they do have casting, but what level can be cast at during rage scales with level, but it's slow)
Beyond that, I have a few mobility based ones, so them getting in close and zipping out works good too