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Up until now, we had quite the terrible party lineup (a Rogue, two Paladins and a Barbarian; we soon discovered the game is simply not enjoyable without casters), and we all decided to fix this by designing a new party together: our next lineup will consist of the same Rogue and the Barbarian, but the Paladins (one of which was me) will be replaced by a Divination Wizard and an unholyly multiclassed Bard. Since the Wizard and the Rogue are quite squishy, we decided I should take the role of a frontliner, so I designed the character to be at least kind of an off-tank.

Long story short, I built my character based around a sword and board build with the Ruby of the War Mage and the War Caster feat. Flavour-wise, this character was designed to be both air-headed and hot-headed (hot-air-balloon-headed, if you will), and as such is prone to engage in melee combat if only to feel the thrill of the fight. Since I will only pick three levels of Warlock (the Pact of the Tome is integral to the flavour of my character concept), I won't be able to access the Pact of the Blade's Extra Attack invocation. Thus, I based the character's melee DPR output around Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade.

I discussed with my GM the possibility of being able to trigger Booming Blade via Command, and he said it was not possible, which is reasonable. However, he started looking into the cantrip itself and some (hastily) made damage comparison tables, and said it is broken and should be nerfed to avoid overshadowing the martial characters. Some of the proposed nerfs were:

  • Blade cantrips are now a level 1 spell.
  • Blade cantrips don't trigger the primary effect, only the secondary one (that is, BB's movement damage and GFB's "cleaving" damage)
  • Blade cantrips don't trigger the primary effect, but the secondary one is increased by one die size (BB's movement and GFB's "cleaving" would use d12)
  • Reduced dice size for the cantrip's damage (for example, d8 to d6).
  • Reduced dice size for the cantrip's primary effect, but augmented for the secondary effect (d8 to d12)

Needless to say, I'm kinda bummed by this change since the whole gish appeal of this character concept was based around being able to use these cantrips, since playing a melee character with a single attack, only 1d6 at Sneak Attack and the very limited magic items we have would suck hard; I would feel stupid using a single attack when I could be spamming Eldritch Blast instead. The secondary effects of these cantrips are extremely situational and I am sure they won't come up many times since we often face intelligent enemies. I would be kinda okay with the last proposal, but still, I'm not convinced. I proposed the DM to write some homebrew (I consider myself fairly good at balancing) martial weapons and mechanics to make martials more flexible instead of outright nerfing the cantrip, but he said he wants this campaign to be as vanilla as possible.

How can I convince my DM that the Blade cantrips aren't that unbalanced? Alternatively, what's a reasonable way to rebalance them?

[EDIT] To reply to the questions in the comments:

  • The calculations my DM did were from a table we found on the Internet. It only compared how Extra Attack, Blade cantrips and the Fighter's Extra Attack x3 at levels 1, 5, 11, 17 and 20. It did not take into account other class features, such as Improved Divine Smite, magical weapons, Sneak Attack, the Barbarian's Rage damage, Great Weapon Master, etc.
  • Out party is level 10 right now, but my new character will be introduced at level 11 to take advantage of the extra starting gold and magic items.
neirenoir
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    Related, ironically about how to be more effective with booming blade: How can a player effectively use Booming Blade in combat? – Thomas Markov Jun 24 '20 at 22:09
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    Any DM who decides it is ok to nerf a spell that a character concept is built around is one I would be wary of playing with. I would be less inclined to try and show this spell isn't overpowered, and more inclined to ask them to stop ruining your fun. If this is the same DM who couldn't balance combats for a party without a caster this is a serious comment because they clearly seem to have some flaws which are making various areas of the game un-fun. – SeriousBri Jun 24 '20 at 22:21
  • Hm, why did it get closed, exactly? Last time I saw it, it had one vote for unclear, one vote for for focus, and one vote for opinion-based, so I guess the community didn't agree much on the reason to close this one (?) – HellSaint Jun 26 '20 at 05:42

2 Answers2

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Nah I don't think it is broken in any way

More than half of these changes don't even make sense and make the cantrip worse than a Fire Bolt. But you have to be melee. That's an awful trade-off. This makes me believe the person proposing these changes is not fully aware of optimal builds, power levels and overall balance on homebrews.

So, to answer your question, let us compare the damage output of the cantrip against a Rogue. That's it - just a Rogue. No optimization whatsoever. Just a Rogue with their attributes in the right place.

Let us assume the same probability to hit for both. This makes the computation easier, as we only need to care about the damage being done.

I will assume you will be using a weapon that deals 1d8 + Dex damage, same as the Rogue. So, again, we can ignore the primary weapon damage and focus on the Sneak Attack vs Cantrip.

At third level, the Rogue would be dealing 2d6, while the cantrips deal either 1d8 (when enemy moves) or +3 (that should be the Charisma mod at low levels) with the cleave. 2d6 is superior in both cases.

At fifth level, the cantrip damage goes to 1d8 on hit, and +2d8 if the target moves (average 13.5), which is better than 3d6 (average 10.5) (although the 3d6 would crit, while only the 1d8 takes effect in the case of a critical), or 2d8 + 4 (average 13), which is slightly better than the Rogue. However, note that the Rogue has probably the worst fifth level power spike. Any class getting an Extra Attack can do better, but the Rogue is the easiest to compare (as it also has no Extra Attacks, and also depends on hitting the one attack you have).

However, at 7th level, the Rogue is already dealing more damage again! At 4d6, its average damage is now 14, which beats both uses of your cantrip. And that is pretty much always. It doesn't need the enemy to move, it doesn't need an enemy standing 5 feet of the primary target. It just needs your Barbarian to be close to the enemy being hit, or having advantage through Hiding which Rogues can do quite easily.

I don't need to say that at 9th level the cantrip is outclassed as well, right?

So, let us move on to the next tier... At 11th level, you are dealing a whoooping extra 2d8 on hit and 3d8 if the target moves, for an average of 22.5, with BB. The Rogue is slightly worse at 6d6 (21 average). Again, that is if the target moves, and that does not include the probability of a critical hit. With GFB, you may be getting 2d8 on the main target and 2d8 + 5 on the cleaving, for a total average of 23. While you are slightly better than the rogue again, any nerf you make will make you completely inferior, and at 13th level the Rogue is already better than you again with 24.5 average damage.

Finally, at 17th level, it's 32 (cantrip) against 31.5 (Sneak Attack), and at 19th level the Rogue gets better, again.

So, overall, your cantrip is as good as a Sneak Attack that does not proc as often as an actual Sneak Attack. No, that is not broken. And obviously your character will have ways to boost his damage (unlike the Rogue), but the Rogue is mostly a Skill Monkey that can easily hide and attack with advantage, not an optimal damage dealer. By the way, did I mention that the Rogue can do all of this with a crossbow at 100ft range, while you are a squishy warlock being targeted by the 10 thugs from the enemy side?

If you could, at least, kite the enemy while casting Blooming Blades in order to "force" him to "willingly" move, I could see a point - but that's not the case. You will be in melee with the enemy, and the enemy will be very glad to hit the low-AC low-HP Warlock instead of the higher-AC high-HP Raging Barbarian.

HellSaint
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    I'm actually a Hexblade Bard, so I use CHA for both casting and hitting. Anyway, that won't be an issue because this character will be starting at level 11. – neirenoir Jun 24 '20 at 23:48
  • @Blacktay For some reason I thought that was an Invocation for the Pact of the Blade, but yeah you get Hex Warrior. Deleting that last sentence lol – HellSaint Jun 25 '20 at 00:04
  • @HellSaint I think it is a good answer in general but it miss two important factors, first the cantrip benefits from the sneak attack if hits, so it is not just the cantrip damage. The second factor, and considering the previous one, the cantrip is hit or miss (unless a crazy combination like EK 7 rogue X), while a rogue usually dual-wield having an edge with high AC targets, but losing against low AC targets (or advantage). – Chepelink Jun 25 '20 at 02:59
  • @Chepelink Most of my answer is based on a ranged Rogue, and usually I see Rogues playing ranged-style using Hide as their Bonus action in order to get advantage rather than actually dual wielding. Dual wielding actually probably reduces the DPR, assuming the rogue has somewhere to hide. – HellSaint Jun 25 '20 at 03:02
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    About the combination with Sneak Attack, that is outside the scope of the question, IMO. I wanted to focus on the question build, which does not include, in any way, multiclassing with Rogue. The claim is that the cantrip deals too much damage (by itself), and my counter point is that it deals as much as a Sneak Attack, which is not insanely strong. If you are including a Rogue multiclass on it, I would then compare to an actual optimized damage dealing build, not with a Rogue single class. – HellSaint Jun 25 '20 at 03:05
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Booming Blade is a good cantrip. It deals a lot of damage, and it deals a lot more damage when the target moves.

Compared to other damage cantrips, it's just better. If you have +5 Cha and a longsword (wielding in 2 hands) and the enemy refuses to ever move, you will still be dealing more than double the damage you would be dealing with firebolt - and at level 1 to 4, you will be dealing triple.

If the target moves, then you are dealing triple the damage at most levels, and quadruple at 1 to 4.

Compared to Sneak Attack (with a rapier and 5 dex), it's basically just as good - so long as the target moves. Otherwise, it's only going to deal about two thirds to half as much damage.

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So, booming blade is strong, but is it broken? The limitations of booming blade are that it can only be used once per turn, it only works in melee, and you need to land a melee attack. Firebolt can be fired from 120 feet away, completely out of harms way. Sneak Attack works for free when you attack, and can even be used multiple times per round. Rogues will often be attacking with advantage too, making their attacks even more potent.

In my experience I have never seen booming blade be broken in practice. I have actually played a few characters that use both sneak attack and booming blade and found it to be a great combination.

I would very strongly advise against nerfing this spell. At level 10 every class will be bringing strong synergy and cheese to the table. It's hard to say booming blade is overpowered when there is a half elf rogue with 30% crit chance, or a tank with nearly 30 AC, great weapon fighting polearm masters, or a wizard lobbing whatever crazy spells.

It's very easy for a DM to counter booming blade by having enemies not run away. Even if all the enemies run, you can only catch one of them. It's not a big deal.

user-63873687
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    I think the comparison with Fire Bolt, in this case, is unfair. You should be comparing at least with an Agonizing Blast'd Eldritch Blast. (The reason I mentioned Fire Bolt in my own answer is just to emphasize how bad it would be with some of the nerfs proposed). Other than that, nice reminder that he could actually use the longsword with 2 hands so the damage is 1d10 not 1d8, although that's quite minor. – HellSaint Jun 25 '20 at 02:21
  • @HellSaint I don't think it's necessary to mention EB because Booming Blade is on 3 spell lists, can be accessed by multiple archetypes, and is available for everyone else with a single feat. The ubiquity of the spell makes it more than just "Booming Blade vs Eldritch Blast" for me. Worse still, then the question if "is EB with AB better than X other Eldritch Invocation?" becomes relevant. EB with AB is equal or better than BB when not moving, and worse when moving. It doesn't change much for me. – user-63873687 Jun 25 '20 at 02:26
  • I see, you are giving a more general answer. I was thinking specifically on the question's context, which is a 3rd level Warlock X Bard combination, so his most obvious "other choice" would be to go for standard EB-AB as the "baseline". But I agree that as a general answer Fire Bolt is a valid comparison. – HellSaint Jun 25 '20 at 02:31
  • Please check Sneak Attack again. It is only available once per round. – Verdan Jun 25 '20 at 04:03
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    @Verdan: "Once per *turn*, you can deal an extra 1d6 damage to one creature you hit with an attack if you have advantage on the attack roll." - Quote from the second sentence of Sneak Attack ( https://www.dndbeyond.com/classes/rogue#SneakAttack-343 ) – user-63873687 Jun 25 '20 at 04:30
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    @Verdan: "Can a rogue use Sneak Attack more than once per round? *Yes, but no more than once per turn." - Quote from Sage Advice: https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-february-2016 And here is the same question/answer on this site https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/47692/do-rogues-get-sneak-attack-damage-added-to-attacks-made-outside-their-turn – user-63873687 Jun 25 '20 at 04:32