| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
|---|---|
| #1abs1nthNov 09, 2014 3:33:38 | I'm thinking about changing Bless to only affect 2 targets when using a 1st lvl spell slot and would like some feedback on this change. This is born from what other people said about the spell but also simply from me looking at 1st lvl spells and realizing that I almost never could imagine using another concentrated spell. This is bad, you want balance because you want to have to make interesting choices. If one spell is simply 99% of the time the best then you are making less interesting choices.
So, what do you think? Does this change break bless? It seems to me like the spell would STILL be quite strong even with it only affecting 2 people. |
| #2AaronOfBarbariaNov 09, 2014 4:59:48 | Bless isn't as powerful as anyone talking about it being overpowered perceive it as - the "bless is too good" talk always involves mixing it in with other abilities that it has a good synergy with, not analyzing the effect of the spell on its own.
Even if it is the most powerful 1st level spell in the whole game, it still isn't so powerful that it needs to be changed.
And last, but certainly not least, having it affect one less target does not at all change the potency of the spell - which isn't actually the best spell most of the time, it's just the best at what it does. |
| #3abs1nthNov 09, 2014 8:30:13 |
|
| (Reply to #3)AaronOfBarbaria |
|
| #5ChrisCarlsonNov 09, 2014 6:47:18 |
|
| #6abs1nthNov 09, 2014 8:14:40 |
|
| #7RhennyNov 09, 2014 8:19:00 | The War Cleric in our group rarely uses bless because many of the combats they have are between 1 and 4 rounds long (at levels 1-5). He'd rather attack and use his extra attack or save spells for healing later. When fights get more challenging, and monsters have more hit points and other attacks that call for saving throws, that's when the cleric uses bless. That's probably the intent of the spell. I think its real power is granting the d4 to saves. I really like that because I don't want my higher level PCs to get shut down, turned to stone, paralyzed, killed outright in those situations. The 1d4 bonus is a little insurance, but it isn't a sure thing.
|
| #8CCSNov 09, 2014 9:51:01 | I think you should play the game as is initially & base any changes on whats actually needed at your table. |
| #9abs1nthNov 09, 2014 11:27:33 | Comparing Bless to Compelled Duel, Heroism and Shield of Faith I actually think it should only affect 1 target to be on even footing with those spells.
Edit: This would have the added benefit of making stuff like Shield of Faith which doesn't scale probably better at low levels and Bless significantly stronger with higher spell slots. |
| #10AshrymNov 09, 2014 11:41:46 |
Heroism is a pretty good spell as the temp hp saving device that competes with cleric earlier mass healing like mass healing word for in combat use. It really hits it's stride from levels 4 through 8, after which groups start getting into much better healing, in general. It's still useful for fear immunity after that. Bless is a good spell but it's not always the best choice to start with, and as more and more concentration spells become available while level progression occurs it it becomes less and less the best choice. I find bane to be a better choice based on what opponents we are fighting on a regular basis, and given a choice for faerie fire I find that to be a solid choice over bless often as well.
|
| #11ZardnaarNov 09, 2014 12:01:38 |
|
| #12abs1nthNov 09, 2014 12:03:18 |
|
| (Reply to #11)Ashrym |
|
| #14ZardnaarNov 09, 2014 12:41:24 |
|
| (Reply to #12)Ashrym |
|
| #16ShasarakNov 09, 2014 12:56:37 |
|
| #17PsikerlordNov 09, 2014 13:18:09 | I think changing the number affected by Bless (to 2 or 1 or self only) is a very easy fix if you find that Bless is a problem in your game. Nerfing it a bit certainly wont break it. |
| #18ZardnaarNov 09, 2014 13:22:50 | My theory is go back to a +1 bonus with no concentration required a';a BECMI-3E or have it fixed as a +2 bonus. |
| (Reply to #14)Ashrym |
|
| #20ZardnaarNov 09, 2014 13:30:47 |
|
| #21KarnosNov 09, 2014 20:27:07 | Bless is typically weak already, one of the weakest concentration spells. Making it weaker still seems like a bad idea.
The comaprisons love to look at the best case damage increases it offers, while ignore that it uses a valuable spell slot, it uses a valuable concentration slot, and it uses up a round's action.
For example, lets say base you got 4 fighting characters including the cleric. All of them do 7.5 damage per hit on average, and hit 50% of the time without bless, for an expected damage total of 15 damage per round for the party as a whole.
Cast bless! Now each character hits 62.5% of the time!
Best case, cleric acts first that round, expected damage is 14.0625 - it's actually LOWER.
Second round, 18.75 damage expected, total 32.81 vs 30 without casting bless- so you burned a valuable spell slot for a net gain of 2.8 damage, not a very good deal. A wizard, for example, could burn a levle 1 slot for 10.5 average damage thru magic missile, a net increase of about 5 or 6 points over making a normal cantrip attack.
Third round, another 18.75, 51.56 total damage, vs 45 without bless- gain of 6.5 damage. Starting to pay off now, maybe as good as a wizard's magic missile spell in efficiency, except there is the fact that dealing a little bit more damage on average over time is much less valuable than dealing a lot of extra damage all at once in one early combat round- the wizard could have used magic missile in round 1 and killed a bad guy, for example, while your bless would take 3 rounds to potentially add the same damage, which is 3 extra rounds that bad guy would be using to hurt the party.
And that is only comparing to magic missile. Consider a sleep spell, and bless looks even worse. Hell, compare to a cure light wounds! If the enemies are doing x damage per round, and curel ight wounds cure y on average, you can equate a cure to allow your party to deal [(y/x*party damage) - one clerics attack] damage, in many cases that will be much more efficient than casting bless.
Another consideration, cleric cast bless turn 1, cleric gets hit turn 1 by a stray arrow, unlucky save and concentration is lost and bless is lost, wasted, AND the party overall lost damage instead of gaining any. It's a risky spell to cast if the cleric could be targetted by an enemy, and in my games so far the cleric is hit just as often as anyone else, if not more often.
And of course, this is a nearly optimal situation for bless. In many cases, party members will not be making basic attack rolls every round. Spells will be cast, potions drunk, objects in the room interacted with- removing a few attacks per round makes the math look even worse for bless.
Basically, bless can be nice if it can be kept up for a long 3+ round combat. Any shorter, and it's worse than most damaging spells. Any damage to the cleric, and it's very risky to use because it's likely to be lost due to concentration. |
| #22melloredNov 09, 2014 20:42:57 | As mentioned, bless takes a few rounds to pay off. Higher damage attackers (sharpshooter) can make up for it quicker, but it still takes time. Personally, I only use it if I can manage a pre-buff. And at low levels (1-3) heroism win. bless does scale well though. |
| #23MistwellNov 09, 2014 20:45:05 | Play with the rule for a while before you decide to change it. 5e, more than any other edition, doesn't read quite like it plays. |
| #24ZardnaarNov 09, 2014 20:49:33 |
|
| #25FrogReaverNov 09, 2014 22:36:56 | Bless is good. How good? Probably good enough that the cleric uses his turn to cast it early in a fight. But probably not soo good that the paladin gives up his turn and a spell slot to cast it in a fight. (Likely will be better off attacking and using smite)
Bless is comparable to faerie fire but doesn't require a save. Bless also ups saving throws (which is probably its biggest benefit). However, bless doesn't scale as easily with larger parties as compared to faerie fire. Bless is optimal with a 3 man party. Faerie fire is better the more PC's you have. Bless also doesn't up chance to hit as much as faerie fire. It also doesn't up crit like faerie fire does. However, bless does stack with other sources of advantage unlike faerie fire.
IMO bless will be slightly better in most situations than faerie fire, however, in the best case scenarios faerie fire is probably better. |
| (Reply to #24)FrogReaver |
|
| #27ZardnaarNov 10, 2014 0:44:45 |
|
| #28PsikerlordNov 10, 2014 2:27:55 |
|
| #29abs1nthNov 10, 2014 4:46:45 | Thanks for all the replies!
I would be okay with leaving Bless as is if it weren't for Shield of Faith. I see no reason to prepare let alone cast that spell when Bless in its current form exist. I thought about nerfing Bless to 1 target but also making it a bonus action to make it competitive with Shield of Faith but bottom line is: I think Bless is more fun as a group spell and I think I want to keep that. As a consequence Shield of Faith needs a buff. Increasing the duration to 1 hour is my suggestion as of yet. It gives Shield of Faith that value niche, you spend 1 spell slot and get something weaker than Bless but also something that's going to last you a lot longer and thus protect you in more fights at the same cost.
Heroism seems only powerful if you also benefit from the frightened immunity otherwise I have trouble imagining a fight where that 2-3 temp HP per round would outperform triple Blessing. That said: Compelled Duel is utter trash, outside of RP reasons I don't ever see someone using this. |
| #30UngeheuerLichNov 10, 2014 5:10:36 | Shield of faith is only a bonus action to cast. Also stacking armor is worth more than increasing attack bonus, because use on an already high AC target, it may make it near unhittable. If you can reliably boost your AC by many points (shield spell), it makes you very very hard to kill.
Maybe the right way to nerf bless is only allowing the bless dice to be used once per round (or once per turn if you want offense and defense seperately). Just notice that it is a new decision point for inexperienced players. But I guess for inexperienced players there is no need to nerf bless at all.
I just thought, that maybe the spell would even be good enough to grant one d4 to use at any time until the spell expires. Maybe this makes it match its damage output for a first level spell more reliably. 3 times 1d8+3 damage on average seems about right for a first level spell. Or maybe a total of 3 d4 bless dice you may spread around until the spell expires. |
| #31melloredNov 10, 2014 5:18:33 |
|
| #32abs1nthNov 10, 2014 8:46:55 |
|
| #33SorxoresNov 10, 2014 6:51:08 |
|
| #34KarnosNov 10, 2014 12:02:16 | At higher levels I think it's just more likely that character will be casting save based spells more often, making bless even less effective. It's only decent when it helps almost the whole party, if you have a wizard casting spells and a bard casting spells and a cleric casting spells and only 2 characters are even using attack roll based attacks, the benefits of bless are greatly reduced.
The concentration required is VERY important yet seems to be ignored by everyone who calls bless overpowered. Basically, if you are keeping bless up it means you can't use hold person, which is an incredibly strong spell for it's level. |
| #35ZardnaarNov 10, 2014 12:31:31 |
|
| #36MistwellNov 10, 2014 12:51:36 | Compare Bless to Guiding Bolt.
Guiding Bolt does 14 radiant damage on a hit, and grants (approximately) +5 attack bonus to everyone in the part for one round to hit that creature (advantage).
That's going to be more effective than Bless for most combats which last 3 rounds or less, in my opinion. Instead of doing no damage on your turn (Cleric) you do 14 radiant damage, and instead of an average of +2.5 attack for however few rounds the combat lasts to three people, you're doubling that bonus to the next attack from the party for one round for that one target. The +1d4 for 3 people for 2-3 rounfs vs. +5 to (one target) for one round is itself arguably a push, but then you also do 14 damage yourself instead of zero damage that round. |
| #37ZardnaarNov 10, 2014 12:52:29 |
|
| #38MistwellNov 10, 2014 12:55:12 |
|
| #39ZardnaarNov 10, 2014 13:09:29 |
|
| #40melloredNov 10, 2014 13:17:09 | The answer is simple.
1: Sneak up on a target. 2: Cast bless. 3: Cast guiding bolt from hidden, with advantage and +1d4.
|
| #41ZardnaarNov 10, 2014 13:24:19 |
|
| #42KarnosNov 10, 2014 13:45:39 |
|
| #43autolycusNov 10, 2014 13:49:34 | Disrupt Concentration1st-level enchantment Casting Time: 1 action Range: 120 feet Components: V, S Duration: Instantaneous
You assault the mind of a spellcaster with jarring and eldrich images which disrupt concentration. Choose a creature within range. If it is maintaining a concentration spell it must make a concentration check (Constitution saving throw) equal to your spell save DC or else it looses the spell upon which it is concentrating. This spell will not function aginst aberrations.
At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the DC of the concentration check increases by 5 for each slot level above 1st.
-----------------------------------------------------
This is a spell being researched by a caster at my table. At low levels it isn't very threatening but at higher levels the concentration check becomes very difficult indeed. The "higher levels" part is still being tweaked. |
| #44abs1nthNov 10, 2014 17:10:08 |
|
| #45RhennyNov 10, 2014 18:10:03 |
|
| #46AshrymNov 12, 2014 0:41:30 |
|