Copyright 2011 Wizards of the Coast.

TL; DR

Play a swordmage or hexblade instead.

Introduction

I first heard of bladesingers back in the days of 2e, when they were first introduced as an elf-only character kit that gave a lot of powerful combat bonuses.

I was a member of a couple Brazilian RPG mailing lists where people either loved or hated them. Their fans were also elf fans in general, and their haters were usually GMs who thought it made the character “too anime”.

I never actually read the original bladesinger writeup, so I didn’t take sides in that fight. But having read the Bladesinger class as presented in the 4e Neverwinter Campaign Setting, I have to say I’m not their greatest fan.

They’re probably the greatest departure from the design principles established in the PHB classes, far more extreme in that regard than even the Essentials classes from the “Heroes” books. They feel very much like a return to the design philosophy of previous editions. Or perhaps they’re “foreshadowing”: while 5e hadn’t come out yet when this book was published, it was probably already in development, and one of its major goals was to recapture the feel of those older editions. In either way, they feel very dissonant to me when placed alongside other 4e classes.

The Lore

The book spends a whole page describing bladesingers as the epitome of elven superiority. The text feels like it was written by a sun elf. The term Tel’Quessir is used a lot here but not explained. I assume it means “the elven people”, but I am not sure.

According to the book, the art of the Bladesong was developed by Corellon himself, and has been passed down among the elven people for an untold number of their extremely long generations. Even among elves, few individuals are worthy of receiving its teachings, for one must have the mind of a great wizard and the agility of a great dancer to even comprehend its awesomeness.

Their techniques are passed directly from master to student, and were never written down anywhere. When the last bladesinger dies, so does the mystery and beauty of their art.

All bladesingers are completely devoted to upholding and defending the ways of the Tel’Quessir, for such is the purpose Corellon gave them. Few bladesingers deign to leave their homelands - those who do so are surely in pursuit of some mission or relic vital to the Tel’Quessir.

See those last three paragraphs? They’re almost direct quotes from the book. I’m barely paraphrasing.

Basic Information

Bladesingers are presented as a Wizard subclass, which is the kind of presentation I would expect to see in 5e but not here. The book says you should play one of them if you want to be someone who can both participate in melee combat and cast arcane spells. So you could perhaps see them as the Essentials version of the Swordmage, at least in theory.

Despite this, they’re described as arcane controllers, because of the “wizard subclass” thing, and they get Striker-like HP and healing surges. They still get the wizard’s +2 to Will, and a fairly large list of class skills: Acrobatics, Arcana, Athlethics, Diplomacy, History, Intimidate, Nature and Perception. A bladesinger’s key abilities are Intelligence and Dexterity, in that order. They’re proficient with cloth and leather armor, with all simple and military weapons, and with wizard implements (wand, orb, staff).

This is probably the only class in the entire edition that seems to have a hard racial requirement: no self-respecting Bladesong master would teach it to anyone who is not an elf or eladrin. Once in a great while, a half-elf might earn the honor, but even that’s a bit scandalous.

Eladrin are pretty much ideal bladesingers since they get bonuses to both Int and Dex. Other Int/Dex ancestries are likely to be just as effective.

Powers and Features

We get a full 30-level writeup for the class. Like the other Essentials classes, this one comes with an exclusive Paragon Path (Sorcerous Sword) and you have no reason to pick anything else. You have a little more freedom of choice for your epic destiny.

Level 1

This is an incredibly front-loaded class, with a very long list of level 1 features. They all have slightly different requirements to work, but the combined result this: you want to wear at most light armor, and you want to wield a light or heavy blade in one hand, and either a wand or nothing at all in the other. Let’s call this the Bladesinger Requirement.

When you do fulfill the Bladesinger Requirement, you can use your the following list of benefits:

  • You use Int instead of your Strength for both attack and damage when making basic melee attacks.

  • You gain a +2 shield bonus to AC.

  • You don’t provoke opportunity attacks when using ranged or area attacks. This is a bit less awesome than it sounds because of how your powers work.

  • You can use your sword as an implement for powers that require one. As usual in these cases, you don’t add its proficiency bonus to the attack roll, but you do add its magic item bonus to attack and damage, and its critical dice when you score a critical hit.

You then pick three Bladespells from a set of six - these are your at-will powers, and they all work the same. They don’t use actions, and trigger when you hit an enemy with a melee basic attack while fulfilling the Bladesinger Requirement. Each is a Ranged 10 attack that does automatic (Dex Mod) damage of a different elemental type and has a different controller-y rider:

  • Dancing Fire: Fire damage, target grants CA until the end of your next turn.

  • Dazzling Sunray: Radiant damage, target has -2 to attack until the end of your next turn.

  • Frost Bite: Cold damage, target is slowed until the end of your next turn.

  • Lighting Ring: Lightning damage, target gets damaged again if they move before the end of your next turn.

  • Shadow Sever: Necrotic damage and you knock target prone if it’s the same size as or smaller than the target of the triggering melee attack.

  • Unseen Hand: Force damage and you slide the target 3 squares.

Because of the bonuses above, Bladespells don’t provoke an opportunity attack. They also don’t have to target the same creature you just hit, but you can only use one of them per attack. Their damage increases by 2 per tier past Heroic. Looks like Shadow Sever and Unseen Hand are more or less automatic picks here, their riders are much better. The third pick would depend on your party’s abilities and what benefits them the most.

We’re not done with the Level 1 powers yet. You get three cantrips chosen from the traditional list of Prestidigitation, Ghost Sound, Mage Hand, Light and Suggestion. And then you get the errataed version of Magic Missile, the one that always hits for minimal force damage. That’s another spell I like more in its PHB 1 form.

And finally, you get the Bladesong encounter power. If you’re fulfilling the Bladesinger Requirement, you can use this as a minor action to slip into a fancy bullet time trance that gives you a +2 power bonus to attack rolls and all defenses, and a +5 power bonus to damage rolls. This lasts until the end of your next turn, which means you can get 2 turns’ worth of Bladesong if you use it as your first action on your turn. There is no other way to extend its duration. The word rolls there means it doesn’t benefit your bladespells or Magic Missile, but it does affect your basic attacks and spells that have damage rolls.

Spellcasting and the Rest of the Levels

That huge list of level 1 stuff seems pretty nifty, and there’s so much of it! Unfortunately it also represents most of what you’ll be doing through your whole career, because the rest of your powers are kinda underwhelming.

Let’s start with spellcasting, the main reason why this is presented as a wizard subclass and also the main way in which it breaks from this edition’s usual class design philosophy. You see, bladesingers bring Vancian spellcasting back to 4e.

They get to pick encounter and utility powers as they advance in level, but these are treated much like wizard spells were in 3e instead of being a set of class-specific powers. While their possible choices are all detailed in the class description, they are also literally “taken from the wizard spell list” in that they’re copied from that class’s list of powers.

There is a table showing at which levels they learn new spells. At set levels, they get to pick either two encounter attack spells or two utilities to add to their spellbook. After finishing a long rest, a bladesinger can prepare a number of these spells, detailed in another table. There is no mention of replacing spells with higher level ones as you level, so I guess they just accumulate in your spellbook. A level 1 bladesinger knows 2 encounter attack spells and can prepare 1. A level 30 character knows 14 encounter attack spells and 10 utilities, and can prepare 3 and 5 of them respectively.

I say “encounter attack spells”, and they get presented in red boxes, but they’re only encounter powers for standard wizards. A bladesinger treats them all as dailies, and even gets them when other characters would normally get daily powers. This means the level of the powers lags behind your character level. At level 5, you pick from a list of level 3 wizard powers, and so on. So yeah, even “spell level differs from character level” makes a comeback here. Your reward for reaching level 20 is that you get to pick a single spell from a list of actual daily attack powers.

Utility powers are less wonky. You get them at the same levels as everyone else, their level matches yours when you get them, and their frequency of use actually matches the one in their descriptions.

At the levels where other characters would get encounter powers, you gain new class features. These either make your bladespells a little better, or give you extra bonuses and triggered abilities that only work while your Bladesong is active.

Impressions

Mechanics-wise, bladesingers feel like the many 3e attempts at making a class equally skilled at swordplay and magic. Like them, it gives us a class that’s not that good at either thing as a specialist, and as a result might feel less powerful and fun in play.

They’re labeled as controllers, but they’re not great at it. The majority of their control ability is going to come from their three bladespells, which will usually only affect one enemy at a time. They need to wait until level 24 to be able to target multiple enemies with a bladespell, and they can only do that once per day.

Those “encounter as daily” Vancian spells can let them exert more control, but they’re weaker and scarcer than what a “proper” controller of the same level has access to. In a party with a wizard, invoker, or psion, the bladesinger will be overshadowed as a controller.

They’re better when viewed as strikers. Bladesong’s bonuses to basic attacks and damaging spells provide an appreciable damage increase. However, I don’t think they do so as consistently as the powers and features of a dedicated striker class.

My conclusion here is the same one I added to the helpful TL; DR section at the start of this post: play something else. Like a swordmage, for example! These great PHB-style arcane defenders do a much better job of letting you play someone who is equally skilled at swordplay and magic. Their lore is also far less snobbish, though you can still call your swordmage a bladesinger if you want without changing anything about their mechanics.

Swordmages can be found in the 4e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, which as a bonus includes a lot of information on the wider world of Toril where Neverwinter is located.

Alternatively, if you want to be a elf-flavored striker, you could go with a fey pact Hexblade warlock, who can be found in Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms. One of the characters labeled as a bladesinger here was in fact a hexblade warlock in that book.

Story-wise, I guess they intended this to be the class of choice for the Iliyanbruen Guardian, but I would probably choose Swordmage even so. The only thing that could make me play a bladesinger would be if I could something other than an elf or eladrin, just so I could make fun of the snobbish flavor text. A pixie from the Player’s Guide to the Feywild would be ideal.

The bladesinger class is the last section of Chapter 2. In our next post we’ll begin looking at the GM-focused material of Chapter 3, Factions and Foes.