Lair Of Secrets

I Hate Blade Ward – Greyhawk ’76 (Ep. 5)

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Ken rants about the new and improved Blade Ward cantrip. in Dungeons & Dragons 2024.

Chapters

0:00 Intro – Welcome to Greyhawk ’76
0:15 Why I Hate Blade Ward
1:10 Blade Ward: 2014 vs. 2024
2:00 The Action Economy Problem
2:30 Final Thoughts & Playtesting
3:00 Outro – Like & Subscribe

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Watch “I Hate Blade Ward – Greyhawk ’76 (Ep. 5)” on YouTube.

Show Notes

Welcome to Greyhawk ’76. I’m Ken Newquist and I hate blade ward.

  • Quick backstory: Had our first Greyhawk ’76 session, in which the adventurers got recruited to recover a lost Fairheights family treasure from an abandoned mine.
  • Our human battlemaster / wizard initiate LOVES blade ward.
    • And rightly so – it’s a cheap, spammable buff that builds on his already impressive AC.
    • What changed?
      • What it did:
        • Resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing attacks
        • Lasted until the end of the next turn
        • What it does now
          • Whenever a creature makes an attack roll against you before the spell ends, the attacker subtracts 1d4 from the attack roll.
          • Requires concentration
          • Lasts for 1 minute.
          • My concern:
            • Impacts the action economy.
              • We’ve added another die role for EVERY attack on this character. More dice being rolled means more time waiting for die rolls. And more math.
              • Increased cognitive load on the Dungeon Master
                • I’ve got a lot of things to remember. This is one more thing.
                • Combined with fighter’s 18 Armor Class (from Scale Mail), this increases the character’s tank-iness at low levels.
                • Seems over powered for a cantrip (no, I did not do the math)
                • Where we go from here?
                  • Obviously I’m joking that I hate Blade Ward.
                  • I have some concerns, but we can mitigate them by:
                    • The player rolling the dice
                    • The player keeping track of the spell
                    • We already have similar book keeping for things like bless so it’s not THAT much more.
                    • But it IS one more thing.
                      • Feedback

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                        • The post I Hate Blade Ward – Greyhawk ’76 (Ep. 5) appeared first on Lair Of Secrets.

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