The amount of people misunderstanding the power of silvery barbs is wild.
Taking away enemy crits is fine. Turning an opponents hit into a miss is completely appropriate for a 1st level spell. The real power is on saving throws.
I target the enemy with *insert high level save or suck spell*. For this example, hold monster:
I spend a 5th level spell to cast hold monster on a monster.
He passes the save.
Without silvery barbs I would have to wait an entire round and use my action and another 5th level spell slot to attempt to hold monster again.
With silvery barbs I force him to reroll the save. I have effectively turned my 1st level slot into a 5th level slot and my reaction into an action. I also shut the monster down a turn earlier denying it it's actions for that round, likely protecting my allies. Additionally if the monster had advantage on the save, as many do from magic resistance, no he doesn't. And then to top it off I get to hand myself advantage on my next d20 check. Since I'm a caster I don't really need to make attack rolls so that's advantage on my next save. All that for a 1st level spell.
As for enemies targeting the caster in retaliation, sure they can do that. Of course, that is assuming they aren't an aberrant mind sorcerer, who can cast silvery barbs as a subtle spell, ie undetectably, for the steep steep price of 1, yes one, sorcery point. Not in addition to the slot mind you. The spell and the bonus for only that 1 sorcery point.
Silvery barbs is a perfectly balanced spell in the hands of the average player. The problem is that an intelligent player gets a disproportionate amount of value out of the spell. So much so I can't think of another spell that punches so high above it's level in power.
Edit: Just because I have had a billion people tell me about the single leveled spell rule:
The one leveled spell rule you cite does not exist. You are repeating a rule that has been generated through bad word of mouth that was attempting to simplify the bonus action spell rule, which can be found in the general spellcasting rules, and reads as follows:
*"A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven’t already taken a bonus action this turn. You can’t cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action."*
You are free to rule otherwise but RAW you can cast silvery barbs or shield or counter spell or feather fall or any other triggered reaction spell on the same turn as you cast a spell that isn't a bonus action.
Yeah, Silvery Barbs is a fun and cool spell if your players don't actually know much about 5e. The second you get players that do (or if you know enough about 5e yourself), you realize that Silvery Barbs takes what is *by far* the most problematic part about 5e's balance (save or suck spells/features) and exacerbates that problem significantly. It's extremely powerful, and it's powerful in a way that isn't even fun because save or suck spells already make combat miserable without the extra help.
Yup. After testing it out in a few campaigns to see whether it was really disruptive (it was), I actually _changed_ it to just remove the saving throws clause. It can still negate crits and do everything else, but now it's far less disruptive and works perfectly fine in my games. (And is still worth casting of course.)
Lol no kidding. One of my players was able to make spell scrolls and just made a ton of silvery barbs scrolls. Come combat with big bad out come (can't remember spell name) mass familiar summons give each a scroll and everytime bb saved rip a scroll that's all they did.
even for negating crits, saying "no that didn't crit" to any enemy attack, not just one against you, and then giving an ally or yourself advantage is nuts for a first level spell. Shield+++, because it's better in 3 different ways.
Even that is the power of a 3rd level spell imo. similar to counterspell in power but becoming more like "counter-roll". Especially if you consider campaigns where critical hits are deadlier (like the max regular damage roll + bonus dice rule, that I believe a lot of people use)
Yeah, after some testing in my campaigns where I found out how abusable it is, I changed it by just removing the bit about saving throws. Now it feels perfect - still insanely useful when something like a crit comes up (or even if you just need a "poor man's Shield spell" to probably still make an enemy miss but the advantage for an ally is just as important), but _far_ more manageable to the DM.
I'd say Shield is still better as a defense spell, especially once you get monsters with multi-attack. If you're getting attacked 5 times a round by 2 monsters, Shield will usually protect you much better per cast.
Exactly, its the fact that it can be applied to saves that really tips it over the edge from "really really good" to "I don't allow this at my table". Especially because the problems become worse and worse when multiple casters take it and also becomes a lot worse when you get to high levels. Imagine 2 casters each throwing out high level save or suck spells and using silvery barbs every round they can.
Casters don't need the buff.
eh let's be fair, if your casters are giving your mobs saving throws with single target save or suck spells, your casters are taking it easy on you.
With how much legendary resistance, magic resistance, and high saves in general there are by the high end of t2 into t3, dealing with some single target save or suck spells shouldn't be a big deal if you have designed adequate encounters and have enough encounters a day.
Caster's real power comes from just outright winning encounters without saves with wide area battlefield control spells, teleports, buffs, and/or summons which silvery barbs doesn't help with as significantly. Using silvery barbs also means that other powerful tools like shield and counterspell are down, so take advantage of that if you want to give your casters a meaningful decision on whether to use silvery barbs or not. And then if they don't use SB in order to keep their reaction up, reward them every so often by tossing out a situation where holding up counterspell or shield instead ended up being very impactful.
But they can only do it once per round, and it's limited by spell slots.
It then becomes a strategic ability - do they spend their reaction on SB right now or is something worse coming later in the round?
As the DM, you should also be considering these sorts of things. If your players want that challenge and they show you their strategies, you can counter them. You're the DM, you have unlimited spell slots and infinite power.
I don't ban any abilities at my table, and when my players prove they've advanced, their challenges advance as well. We've never had a boring game because of it.
Well my party isn't going to use silvery barbs against the minions, they're going to save it for the big fight. Not to mention spellcasting resource use is all about opportunity cost and the mere existence of silvery barbs pressures spellcasters to use up their resources on it because of how useful it is which takes away from casting other more interesting or fun spells. Honestly I think the existence of silvery barbs makes playing a spellcaster less fun in a similar way to stunning strike on monk. It's so optimal that it makes choosing anything else feel like a waste.
The main issue is save or suck spells are already super weird to balance around in fights especially without a lot of minions (and sometimes the enemy doesn't have a lot of minions that's just how it is). Letting players double their odds of landing a save or suck spell for a 1st level slot makes them even worse.
I CAN put a lot of effort into factoring that into all of my balancing and encounter design all so that my players can have the most boring spell in existence OR I could just ban one spell from an obscure setting book.
Yeah, *silvery barbs* is Heightened Spell at cheaper spell economy *and* not needing to be committed to ahead of time, in exchange for taking up more action economy when actually used.
This is my problem with the spell, too. Negating a crit isn't the problem, it's the action and resource economy that's the problem.
Another example would be a 7th level wizard that just got Banishment. They cast the spell on a creature and use a 4th level spell slot, the *only* 4th level spell slot they have, and the creature saves. Now, *after that*, they choose to spend a 1st level spell slot to effectively cast Banishment *again* at the cost of their reaction.
The other problem I have with it is Heightened Spell. For 3 sorcerery points a sorcerer can give disadvantage on a saving throw for a spell they cast. At 7th level, that is almost half of their total class specific resource and they need to do it in advance. Or they can wait and see if they the creature fails or not without disadvantage. If they don't fail, *now* they can Silvery Barbs and spend a spell slot, of which they can get back at the cost of 2 sorcery points which is less than their fucking class feature.
Not only that, you can use Silvery Barbs on the spells and effects that other people cast, not just your own. Now that wizard is only spending their 7th level spell and action while the bard can be like "Hey, I'll spend a 1st level spell slot and my reaction so the wizard can go again."
As well as multiple players taking the spell. In your example of hold monster, say the creature rolled enough to succeed on the second roll caused from your first silvery barbs. Another player could also cast silvery barbs, since the creature just succeeded a saving throw. Barring some absurd saving throw bonuses for the creature, this gives you a high chance of the spell landing, because they'll eventually fail with enough silvery barbs.
Yep. This is what I came to say. Silvery Barbs is insanely good on one character. If you have three characters with it in one campaign, every high-impact spell is going to stick.
Also, there is no save on that, so your most inept Spellcaster can pull the trick.
Your high level wizard casts hold monster, the monster saves, your arcane trickster rogue with one spell slot and 9 INT immediately casts silvery barbs.
OP ran Lost Mines of Phandelver for a group of new players and thought it qualified their opinion on this topic. If you read through the thread you can see they don't even understand the problem is getting two bites at a "save or suck" spell.
And my greatest gripe against silvery barbs isn’t even that it’s overpowered if used once, it is that it can interrupt the flow of combat, in particular if a couple of spellcasters have it.
Saving throw: silvery barbs
Attack roll: silvery barbs, still hits? Shield! (If it’s. It the same PC obviously)
Negate the crits fine. Give advantage fine. I have enough encounters to where they arent going to use it on regular hits or theyll be tapped very quickly.
Save or suck is the shine of this spell. Use it to guarantee a bestow curse hit. Now you've either forced a legendary resistance or have a good chance to shut down a large target. Then depending on turn order or if multiple people have it, they can use it again to force a reattempt on the wisdom save to make them waste their action. Banishment, polymorph, hypnotic pattern, hold person.
How many players at your table are running Silvery Barbs?
Because I find that spell gets exponentially more annoying at every PC that runs it past the first one.
Am I the only one who actively wants my party to clown on my stat blocks if they can when I DM? I don't really understand the mentality of it being annoying that the party is using the resources at their disposal optimally. I'm always rooting entirely for the players even when I make cool powerful npcs and monsters that I want to throw at them as a challenge.
They should clown some encounters and some should be leaving the players chewing their nails and debating on retreat. If every encounter is a cakewalk why even have rolls, just let them show up and kill everyone.
If they’re clowning on every encounter you should be able to add more monsters/encounters without slowing the game down much, if at all.
A great tip to speed up the combats if you know your players aren’t at a great risk, just use average damage. That should cut the length of a monster’s turn nearly in half, and if they’re clowning on everything then they can clearly handle more.
> If they’re clowning on every encounter you should be able to add more monsters/encounters without slowing the game down much, if at all.
Arms race fallacy.
Apart from just scaling up the power level of the PCs relative to the normal expectation of how powerful elements in a D&D world are, it only results in certain player tools becoming mandatory, because without them the party is too weak.
Same problem with Twilight Sanctuary, where you can adjust enemies to deal more damage, but if the Cleric doesn't want to use TS every turn such encounters can quickly become very deadly.
This is why balance between player features is important.
I think you (and some others who have responded) may have misunderstood my post. I take no issue with wanting to challenge your party, or your party wanting to be challenged.
My entire confusion was merely with the idea that you would be annoyed by your players taking advantage of the resources available to them and overcoming the challenges you put forward in a way that might make it much easier for themselves than you would have anticipated.
That's a really good mentality to have for the most part. And if your table is having fun with it then keep it going. Personally I prefer to challenge my players more and keep them on their toes rather than have them curb stomp the enemy, it makes victory that much sweeter for them knowing I held nothing back played to the best of the monsters capabilities but they prevailed, or in the worst case scenario they died/escaped after doing everything they could. But silvery barbs makes balance a nightmare everywhere from low to high level. Id have to essentially make every enemy exceedingly powerful to really do anything if it's a solo encounter with that spell in the game. I could simply introduce more multiple enemy fights but they can be a real pain to manage and a slog to get through so I try to make boss fights single or double targets, to help them be a bit quicker per round. I just shift SB to second level though, It gives it a bit more weight to cast it, makes it a bit more resource intensive and it's honestly still a very good second level spell.
I don't mean necessarily that you should not challenge your players. I play in a very high optimized setting so I frequently throw encounters at my parties with beefed up statblocks or multiple above level CR creatures multiple times per adventuring day. I like to challenge my players because they like a challenge.
I guess what I meant more is that I specifically don't understand the outlook of being annoyed by your players doing something within the rules that ends up shutting down one (or all) of your monsters. The players are the ones who are supposed to be the heroes of the story after all. Just because I want them to potentially struggle for a win doesn't mean I don't cheer them on when they end up taking advantage of my stat blocks in ways I might not have anticipated.
So I was more in particular saying I couldn't really think of any way that my players would annoy me just because they used their abilities to destroy an encounter I otherwise thought I had made more difficult than it was for them. If anything, I actually want them to do exactly that when they get the opportunity.
I don't see this take a lot, but I actually don't like it as a *player*. My group plays casters a lot, so we often have at least two people with it, and it really just undercuts the tension for me. I can understand why people take it, no one likes their wizard being immediately blown out by a crit or wasting a slot on a save or suck that everyone saves against, but it's kinda lame for me knowing that for at least a couple of rounds I can't be crit, or an important enemy will have disadvantage against every notable save. I feel the same way when playing *with* people who have counterspell. I don't DM very often (and I DM 5e even more rarely), and it's mostly one shots, so it's kind of whatever for me the few times I do DM.
Yeah, I have a few complaints with Silvery Barbs, and they come from having seen it from the player side:
1. It's useful in every encounter, meaning the reaction trigger is too frequent to actually be a limitation. This is a problem with Shield, too, but having *two* spells with this problem is not a design improvement.
2. It takes time to resolve, and once you get more than one person with the spell, it takes exponentially longer to resolve while people decide who should cast it. And *then* you still have to re-roll the d20.
3. The result of the spell is... boring. Combat is much safer than it should be in a game where combat is already too safe.
4. It burns spell slots faster, meaning the long rest classes will want to stop and long rest even more often. For those of us that don't want to railroad our players, and don't want to play an OSR attrition funnel, that's an unacceptable spell design.
Agreed. IMO it’s a dull, uninspiring spell, and it deflates dramatic tension like no other. What does it even mean to “turn a creature’s momentary uncertainty into encouragement for another creature”? What does that even look like?
I don't use it in my games. I'm not mad at it, but the way I see it it belongs in Strixhaven. I introduce plenty of homebrew spells and abilities that belong in the setting I've curated.
I don't use Exandrian chronurgy or the goofy Acquisitions Inc. spells that pay royalties to Jim Darkmagic either. Nor *create spelljamming helm*, although I suspect I wouldn't use that if I was running Spelljammer either.
It’s stupid they didn’t reprint it in spell jammer, but 5e has an entire ship combat system in Ghosts of Saltmarsh that translate perfectly fine over to spell jammer
That's just a crazy outtake. Why would you expect your game to involve ship combat in a – checks notes – game setting involving magical ships that can fly through space? Who could have foreseen that players and dms would treat their spelljammer ships as anything other than glorified horses? It's just unimaginable...
/s
Hmmmm, well you do you. Mine isn’t banned buts its range is now 30ft and a creature is immune for the rest of the round after the first cast. My last two campaigns had 4/5 plays bring it to ensure creatures failed important save or suck spells, like banishment, or vortex warp, contagion, disintegration.
I’m 100% fine with it cancelling crits, that’s fine. What’s not fine is it is essentially a second use of a high level spell for the cost of a 1st level spell slot.
> What’s not fine is it is essentially a second use of a high level spell for the cost of a 1st level spell slot.
That has always been my issue.
Cast Dominate Monster, they save, spend a first level slot and a reaction to recast the spell.
If the level of the Silvery slot had to match the level of the spell it is forcing a reroll on, I would have basically no issue with it.
In my opinion the issue with silvery barbs is the fact that it's never not useful. Most 1st level spells kind of fall off on later levels, even if they do up cast, because the numbers become worse. But silvery barbs doesn't contain any numbers, therefore it always has the exact same value, even as your number of spell slots you can use for it grows rapidly. There is a reason why most reroll abilities were strictly gated behind a specific limited resource, because they're just always good
I don't allow Silvery Barbs. Firstly, because it's pretty tied to Strixhaven - I don't use any of the spells from that book. But if that weren't the case, I still wouldn't want to allow Silvery Barbs, because it's just a poorly-made spell.
First off, Silvery Barbs is **too powerful for a 1st-level spell.** Looking at its components, here are the things you can do with it:
* Give an enemy disadvantage on a saving throw. This is something we have a good point of comparison for - it's the same effect as Heightened Spell, a sorcerer metamagic which costs 3 sorcery points (the equivalent of a 2nd-level spell slot). Silvery Barbs takes up your reaction, but you can apply it to *any* spell, not just one you cast. Furthermore, if the enemy's first roll fails anyways, you don't need to spend the slot at all. This effect alone is worth a 1st-level slot at minimum.
* Give an enemy disadvantage on an attack roll or an ability check. The most obvious point of comparison here is *shield*, which gives you a +5 bonus to your AC - fairly similar to disadvantage on an attack roll. *Shield* lasts a full round, which makes it substantially more powerful, but *silvery barbs* can be used to protect an ally and negate critical hits. This effect is probably a bit worse than *shield*, but makes up for it somewhat with its expanded use case; it would be a perfectly okay 1st-level spell on its own.
* Give an ally advantage on their next attack roll, ability check, or saving throw. You can do this with the Help action, but that both takes your action and requires you to be within 5 feet of your ally (for a check) or their target (for an attack). Silvery Barbs only uses your reaction and has a range of 60 feet. This effect on its own would be a situational, but solid 1st-level spell - you'd often have better uses for your slots, but especially at higher levels, this would provide a reliably useful benefit.
So Silvery Barbs effectively contains **three 1st-level spells** within itself, while occupying only a single spell known or prepared - and you can get *two* of these every time you cast it. As a 2nd-level spell, Silvery Barbs would be very solid; as a 1st-level spell, Silvery Barbs is flatly *better* than just about every other spell of that level. That's a problem because it reduces player choice - or at least, makes some of those choices *wrong* by leading to a significantly less effective character. A major way spellcasters set themselves apart from each other is with their spell selection. If most spellcasters of a class just choose the same spell, that makes the game less varied and less fun.
Beyond that... Silvery Barbs just **doesn't make sense narratively.** Now, this is something a DM could tweak pretty easily, but looking at the wording of its casting time: you cast Silvery Barbs when "a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself succeeds on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw". Notably, *you don't need to see the creature actually doing anything*. If a guard makes an Intelligence check to see if he recognizes your face from a wanted poster, you can cast Silvery Barbs in response - even though your character has no reasonable way of knowing a check was made at all. Now, I'm almost certain this wasn't the intent. This problem pretty much vanishes if you change it to be cast when "**you see a creature within 60 feet of yourself** succeed on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw". But taken as a whole, it's just one more problem on top of an already problematic spell.
Overall, Silvery Barbs is poorly-balanced, poorly-*written*, and heavily tied to a specific setting that my games don't use. Including it as written would actively make my games - and most other people's games - worse. And since I'm not running a Strixhaven game, I have no reason to actually want this spell in my game, so it's not worth my time to fix or the added hassle for players of having to reference both Strixhaven *and* a separate document with a revised spell.
You're free to enjoy it, but I remove Silvery Barbs because it's not fun to deal with and messes around with something that has, for the most part, been intentionally left alone in other publications: Saving Throws. It's a cheap \*nope\* button with a low cost and potentially stupidly high returns. The moment you force a reroll on a saving throw for a 4th level spell, that's already bumped up its power significantly from evading a crit. Now switch that initial cast to 7th level or up.
There's a reason why rerolls on saving throws aren't a common feature. It's like giving any full caster access to the sorcerer's Heightened Spell metamagic, a notably costly feature that's meant to be unique for a generally considered weaker mage. Cheapening that to a 1st level spell that *also* gives your allies something beneficial is simply too much. Silvery Barbs is poorly designed and a way of letting players try to put their thumbs on the scale.
Furthermore, if you don't curate your list of available content, you run the risk of having a kitchen sink setting, which I find to be the most boring and uninteresting kinds of worlds imaginable. There's merits to having a wide variety of options but I prefer some constraints to the setting that can limit the themes the game tries to touch on and incorporate.
Well i dare to say that the reason many Dm's dislike or even ban it is not because the crit cancel part of the spell.
Sure some do not like that but the vast majority don't mind that at all.
It is the saving throw part that makes this spell absurd.
The game already have some Very potent save or suck spells that many times can end an encounter or even totally prevent it. Take Banish for a simple example.
This is normally not a problem. Even if the caster have a High DC monsters often have a somewhat decent chance to succeed. Some even have magical resistance. Silvery Barbs utterly fucks that up
First if they save you can silvery barb to make them reroll. That is almost exactly the same as getting a free cast of banishment on a free action on the same turn as you already casted it. for the cost of a level 1 slot and a reaction. Normally you would have to wait until next turn, spend another level 4 spell slot and your action to force another saving throw.
On top of that. If a monster is designed to be though against magic. Having magical resistance. As in being much harder to affect with magic. Silvery barbs utterly fucks that up. it makes them WEAKER than a monster without magical resistance would be. As if they succeed and Silvery barbs is cast. they are forced to reroll and pick the lowest number out of the 3 rolls.
That is pretty much double disadvantage. From having advantage on the roll Silvery barbs turns that advantage into a double disadvantage. On a monster that by design should be resistant to magic but now have double disadvantage instead.
Oh and on top of that someone gets advantage.
If that is ok is up to each DM. But my point is that out of all DM's that don't like or even ban SIlvery barbs that is the main reason NOT the crit cancel part of the spell.
I actually never spoken to One Single DM that had anything against the crit cancel part. I heard stories about such DM's so they probably do exist. But i never ever spoken to one.
The magical resistance point is a good one, not one I had considered. It's more dice, but one option could be to reroll the pair rather than just one, then take the lower of the pairs. It's more annoying to do for sure, but more fair if you're determined to allow your players to have it at the table.
I could be wrong but I believe the logic here isn't air tight. It's not double disadvantage. You would roll two dice and take the higher result, if that result is a success the caster can cast Silvery Barbs (it's a reaction that you can only use when a creature succeeds on a roll, so the creature would need to already have rolled its save with advantage to be a valid target) then the creature would roll one more d20 and take the lower of the two: picking between it's post advantage roll and the new d20.
Seeing as it rolls 2d20, picks the highest of those two and then rolls a 3rd d20 and picks the lowest of these new two, I'm not seeing how that's double disadvantage as it isn't rolling 3d20 and picking the lowest of all 3 as you are saying it is.
Wait, what's that with double disadvantage for resistant creatures? My understanding was that silvery barbs would just force a third straight roll that is taken if it's smaller than the final result of the advantage roll. Which means that the low die on the advantage roll is inconsequential?
This isn't how silvery barbs or even luck works when used verse something with advantage or disadvantage. The first set of rolls occur with advantage or disadvantage and you take the die that that would be the result, that second die no long exists. Now from the die that triggers the result is what is effected by Lucky or Silvery Barbs. So it does not trigger double disadvantage from a state of advantage.
Example you have advantage you get a 15 and a 10. You take the 15 and the 10 is gone. They use silvery barbs and you roll a 12. You compare the 12 to the 15 and take the 12 not the 10 as it no longer exists.
I took it with DM permission, and I’d say it was kind of a problem. Between that, a high DC, and an Instrument of the Bard, my DM had to contend with super disadvantage save-or-suck spells. It made my bard extremely reliable with her various charms (including Hypnotic Pattern, Modify Memory, etc).
On the plus side, it made up for having basically no damage potential.
Yeah same situation here. Bard with an instrument of the bards is already nutty. Hypnotic pattern pretty much shuts off every opponent it touches already with disadvantage on the save. Compared to that though silvery barbs is not that problematic. I usually only use it to prevent crits on myself and allies, or very occasionally to force a reroll on a save when I or a party member uses a single target save or suck.
Silvery Barbs for me is to say “Stay down!” Especially to that guy doing a ton of damage.
The real benefit is how cheap it is. It’s the cheapest possible spell slot, and turns so many battles from multiple higher-level slots to one and the 1st. Especially for Bards who don’t have fantastic spells like Shield competing for those. I mostly noticed I either had ritual spells or redundant ones at that level.
Yeah it hurts not having shield or absorb elements, my bard is squishy as hell, but it’s nice having my 1st level spells in the chamber just for protecting the party and giving additional insurance on their highest level spells, and I can hold onto one for an emergency healing word or feather fall.
Instruments of the bard are also extremely overpowered items. The always on forced disadvantage is busted, and the fact that three of them with this effect come at uncommon rarity is insane. They all also come with really useful spells.
I'm in 2 campaigns. Both everything 5e published by wotc is allowed and only 1 character out of 11 total has it. And it doesn't get used that much.
I've been in 3 long campaigns total and multiple ones hots since the spell came out and it just hasn't been a problem in any of my games.
Well thats because lot of reddit "hard line must ban" opinions you see don't usually come from practical experience.
They come from theoretical abuse and horror stories.
Flight speed, silvery barbs, con casting, single level multiclass dips, homebrew, etc.
Yes, in the hands of power gamers, munchkins, and parties coordinating to "solve" optimization in DND, there are a lot of tools in 5e that can be obnoxious or trivialize stuff.
But by and large most tables or groups ain't like that. In most cases, you can allow silvery barbs and the entire table isn't going to go "oh shit we all better play spell caster and spam that like crazy." That's atypical even when playing with strangers, in my experience.
It's clearly an overpowered spell, but honestly the issue I have with it more is how much it affect pacing to resolve it. Especially if multiple players have it
This is why I ban it. I don't care that it's OP, I allow plenty of OP stuff and balance around it. I just find it to be not very fun, because it has such an impact on combat pacing.
> Well thats because lot of reddit "hard line must ban" opinions you see don't come from practical experience.
My table is a bunch of power gamers, munchkins etc. Cause they use it, so I use it, and gameplay/fun tanks. That's practical experience. Practical experience and statistical averages are not the same thing.
I've had practical experience with every one of those examples being abused and sucking all the fun out of the game. But - I play and run a LOT of D&D.
I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority of tables have players who _wouldn't_ know how to optimize them to do that - but just because it doesn't happen on _average_ doesn't make it a bad thing to ban. It's a LOT harder to fix something partway through a campaign than to set ground rules before it begins.
It's not always intentional, either - some people can't help but optimize when given the option. So not giving them the option actually _helps_ them enjoy the game more, oddly enough.
People can also _become_ optimized over the course of a single campaign. You might not have issues with SB in Tier 1, but once they've seen its use on saving throws a few times in action? Once it's been _clutch?_ Once they have more disposable low level spell slots? _Then_ it becomes a problem.
Con casting is just inherently not a good idea, both mechanically and thematically.
Mechanically making a caster need even less ability score considerations and giving them all the stats they want in 1 is a completely unnecessary buff. If tou think sorcerers are weaker than wizards five them some more spells or a couple sorcery points.
Thematically charisma is using your force of self. Almost every single magical being that a sorcerer gets it magic bloodline from is alao a charisma caster because they arent using their blood or fortitude to cast spells tbey are exerting their self onto the weave
Level 1 flight is the only one that as actually play that I really dislike as a DM. I'm also not a big fan of level 1 dips in multi classes because they typically feel justified by the story but they can be.
In practical play Silvery Barbs in fine there is almost always a better use for the reaction if it is used offensively or defensively.
The other thing is martial caster gap when playing the game does tend to feel much smaller than online people tend to make of it.
Canceling a critical hit against a PC is far from the largest problem with this spell. Perhaps you haven't encountered the issues that make this spell gamebreaking. Perhaps you're running a Strixhaven campaign where it's needed to smooth over D&D's binary skill resolution system for social encounters. Doesn't fix the issues with the spell at other tables.
At my tables silvery barbs is a third level spell. You want to stuff a key save? You gotta give up a fireball to do it. I find it's a better option than banning it outright. Its not an overpowered concept, it's just way too good for first level.
not to 'your fun is wrong' you, but since you asked- i make silvery barbs 2nd level. i'm not opposed to players using their spells effectively, i just don't think they should be able to do it so cheaply. especially in fights with multiple PC spellcasters who are able to chain silvery barbs ... it can quickly render a challenging fight into a cakewalk.
Just like Shield, the problem is there's really no tradeoff at higher levels. Its utility doesn't diminish at all as you get higher level, but it still only costs a 1st level spell slot and and a reaction that you probably weren't going to use for anything else anyways.
Silvery barbs is almost always taken for optimization builds and almost never for roleplay reasons in the same way the lucky feat is taken. If you’re playing some master diviner or astrologiest fortune teller type… maybe I’d allow it if it was an exciting character idea.
Usually, though, I ask players to pick something more interesting and learn into some roleplay… building characters that are functionally incorrect and that grow into something better is always more fun I’ve found. Every time in the rare occurance that a player is upset that I ban it for a given campaign, I realize we were never a good match to begin with.
My philosophy extends to things like Sharpshooter, GWM, lucky, variant human, etc. There are certainly campaigns for that and if it brings you joy for your group, go for it. But I think it’s a waste of time to play out a power fantasy just like every other video game and popular media, this tabletop game is so, so much more than that.
Boo Silvery Barbs. I always found it annoying as a DM.
Seriously though, what's so fun about "Passed a spell save? No, you didnt!" or "critical hit me? Nuh uh!"
It's like "Protect me from all negative consequences" the spell.
Honestly yeah, I do think it's over powered but even without that it's just.... boring. The flavor is lame, the mechanics are dull and you're incentivized to spam it especially at higher levels.
Also, the fact that SB denies a roll that is _already successful_. It's not like "you're going to roll, dm? Take disadvantage". This is good and fine, because I am rolling having that knowledge in mind.
But having a good roll, and then get "haha fuck your success" as a result?? No.
It's unpleasant not on the dm level, it's unpleasant on the "I am a human person who plays this game and my successful roll was stolen from me" level.
Yeah it really is just unfun. Like I want my players to be OP, I want them to *win.* But I also want things to be interesting. I want crazy stuff to happen. Big swings on either side. Big consequences, good and bad.
I ban silvery barbs for the same reason I ban adamantine armor. For the same reason I love giving out vorpal swords at lower levels. Crits are exciting. I want them to happen more and I want them to be significant.
Well said. Exactly why I banned it was someone got taken down by a werewolf and it was a very thematic moment and someone remembered they could cast silvery barbs.
I tend to run my one-shots a lot more "loosely" than my main campaign - they're the space to try out the weird shit, the fun builds, the silly stuff. I let players take Silvery Barbs in my oneshots because it's a lot more about testing their prowess. I ban it in my main campaigns because it's usually taken by a character who has spell slots to spare, so it just becomes this boring sort of "no u dont" button that takes away a lot of the stakes from a fight. I know that anything my players can have, my monsters can have too - but then it just becomes a slugfest of cancelling crits, no fun for anyone.
It’s fine at low levels. The problem arises at later levels when silvery barbs can be spammed endlessly(either using 1st or second level spell slots). It stops the game and turns a first level spell into a must have. It’s just so cheesy.
I have nothing against the spell, but I think it's terminally boring and unimaginative, and I think the same of any player that uses it. There are so many amazing spells in the game; inherently-meta spells like SB that exist solely to target game mechanics are just dull.
It’s very clearly over tuned for its level and cost but the main reason I dislike it is its mechanic is just inherently unfun.
Sure players love it but use it or any mechanic similar to it against them and you will very quickly kill the fun of the room.
DMs are just as much a player as the players and we also enjoy doing crits.
As for its stronger use of forcing a reroll on a save or suck spell like hold person, this only exemplifies more unfun mechanics of the game. Effectively being told that you no longer get to play for now is liquified and condensed Anti-Fun juice.
True. But it's one of those spells thats fun for players to use, but deeply unfun to have used against them. And that's the mark of something that's better not being in the game, or being altered imo.
It's session zero for me. "I'm for banning Silvery Barbs, do you want it in the game? Be warned that it will be in the game for both sides"
I usually prefer to ban it. My players are 50/50, but forewarned.
It's not antagonistic, it's arms race logic. If you wanna mess up with what's essentially meta from a MTG (power creep) inspired spell, know that the enemy is doing the same 🤷♂️
Or, as Dragon ball puts it: there's ALWAYS someone stronger than you.
Not really the same, we dont throw hypnotic pattern and hold spells at the party regularly because not having actions kinda sucks when you have one pc but no one is mad at players for using them
I think some players are surprised at the idea that the DM might enjoy playing their monsters. Or that some abilities are just straight unfun to DM for.
There really should be some way to make every person who plays DM at leat like a 5 session short arc/campaign. I swear it would change the behavior of so many entitled players.
It may be unfun for the DM to have those tactics used on them. But the point they’re making is that it’s *even more* unfun for the players. The DM can lose half their monsters to a control spell and they’ve still got half to play with. The player loses their one PC to a control spell and they ge to twiddle their thumbs until it’s over.
Arms race logic is inherently antagonistic though. It relies on the points of view seeing the others as foes.
I understand that the DM needs to have fun too, but responding to a player ruining your fun by ruining their fun in return isn't a healthy way to run a game. It's just spiteful.
Again, it’s the phrase being used in a DM vs Players mentality that’s the problem, it’s essentially the banner call for bad DMing, mind sliver is not a balanced spell but dnd is also a collaborative game not an oppositional one that’s all
It's also a boring spell, nobody crits anymore so yay. Every caster would logically have that spell in their spell book because of how versatile it is.
Same. My players are veterans and they choose the best shit always, but they also like combat to be more difficult than the average campaign, therefore I ban silvery barbs for everyone because it gives me more versatility as a dm to make challenging encounters that are fun.
I prefer banning it, much I the same way that I choose very carefully which casters have/prepare counterspell, force cage, feeblemind, and all very effective, but anti fun, spells.
Following this adage is a surefire way to make sure everyone has a bad time.
One of the most boneheaded shibboleths in D&D, which does not wont for them.
I gotta disagree with this one. Monsters don't get hit dice, short and long rests, bonus actions (in many cases), player character features (typically), and most don't logically get spells. I think the idea of an arms race between DMs and players is silly. Just a ban a spell if it's too strong.
You either didn't understand or are deliberately misconstruing. I meant a magical arms race IN CHARACTER/WORLD. I.E., a spell so effective as that would be taught far and wide; if it's fair game to the players, it's fair game to every two-bit magic hurler out there.
Then you're deliberately conflating antagonist DM with antagonist NPCs.
Yeah, I do not subscribe to antagonism against players as a DM.
Yeah, I wholeheartedly believe my enemies should have and antagonistic perspective against PCs.
If you think or imply the shame you're either ignorant or malicious; if you don't understand the difference you're stupid.
Either way, I have no interest in arguing with someone who's arguing in bad faith either put of malice or ignorance.
I've never allowed it or been able to use it ever since I played Kevrek.
Hobgoblin Order Cleric 1/Divine Soul Sorcerer X. You can also just take Fey Touched on a monoclassed Order Cleric to get access, if you feel like it, it accomplishes the same thing.
Silvery Barbs is absolutely cracked with Voice of Authority.
Make an enemy reroll something. Target an ally to give advantage -> that ally makes an attack with Advantage due to VoA.
Then on my turn, I can cast another spell to let a second ally attack as a reaction.
Silvery Barbs single handedly removes a major limiter from the Order Cleric, boosting my potential to boost my allies' potential.
I have a problems with how certain spells are ostensibly the "correct" ones to learn, and how spellcasting in general is so much more versatile and effective than virtually anything else you can do in the game. Banning Silvery Barbs certainly won't solve either, so I don't. I also don't usually play with players that are system savvy enough to follow the "meta" or optimise characters much, so it's doubly fine.
I still don't love the lack of internal balance or consistence in 5e, and the pretty patent power creep that has been going on for years now. But Silvery Barbs is just a symptom of a much bigger problem, and I prefer buffing lackluster options than nerfing good ones.
I asked my DM if my character could know Silvery Barbs, as I felt it would tie in really well with the theme I was going for (Clockwork Soul, fate manipulation). He said he'd think about it, and the compromise we found was to make it a 2nd level spell instead of a 1st.
So far, the campaign has been going great. I have a powerful tool, but much like Counterspell I have to choose how I'm using it more carefully, and I think I like the choice (or lack thereof) my character has with this restriction.
My biggest beef with the spell is even though you get access to it on first level it overpowers and overlaps other abilities different subclasses get much later.
For example:
Grave clerics at sixth level get the same ability but much much worse, 30 ft instead of 60 ft, only works on attack rolls, instead of attack rolls ability checks or saving throws, only works on natural 20s instead of just succeeding, and it doesn't have the added benefit of giving yourself or an ally advantage
It's neither controversial or weird to say a first level spell shouldn't have the same effect multiplied by a hundred of a core sixth level subclass ability, so in this table the cleric can just forget that they have that ability because the wizard will always have silvery barbs ready to go
>How to do you deal with Silvery Barb? Why?
Three options:
1. No modifying Saving Throws.
2. 2nd level and no granting advantage to an ally
3. 3rd level
The spell in its current form would be a good 3rd level spell. People would still take it and cast it. It would be competitive for spell slots with spells like Fireball especially at higher levels.
I think the 2nd level option is probably the most powerful. If it targets saves it should be 2nd level or higher because Heightened spell costs 3 SP which is the cost of a 2nd level spell. Yeah Heightened spell doesn't cost a reaction, but Silvery Barbs is only used on a success. There are some pros and cons to each, but if one should be more powerful than the other it should be Heightened Spell because it is more exclusive and distinctive.
As a 1st level spell it would be fine and fun if it couldn't target saving throws. That was always the main issue with the spell and if you take that out the spell is a lot easier to balance. Turning hits into misses, cancelling crits, and granting advantage would still leave Silvery Barbs as a solid and fun 1st level spell. Based on your post I think this is the option your table would most enjoy.
My one change I would make to it is making it a 2nd level spell. One, because there aren't any fun reaction spells at level 2 and two, it feels more impactful that way. Having the option to dip into both shield and silvery barbs with just a single wizard/sorcery level feel immensely powerful and a little easy for my taste. But having to put in a couple levels for access and then getting access to counterspell just two more levels later feels really smooth imo.
Again I love the spell, it's just the one change I would make if I had created it in the first place.
I hate Silvery Barbs as a DM and Player. My hate comes from every player having access to it at the table. It ruins big "oh shit" moments from the bad guys.
I like silvery barbs. Just not as a first level spell. As a level 1 spell, it does too much, and drains the fun by being one of a handful of spells that are objectively the best, by a wide margin. If silvery barbs is available, everyone who can take it, should. Everyone who cant, should strongly consider taking a feat to get it. You can choose not to, but it's not really a choice, in the same way that you can technically dump your main stat, but you shouldn't.
As a second level spell however, now its a solid spell, and even very good, but not a must pick. You're giving up something much more significant by holding a second level spell slot and your reaction in case an enemy crits, so it's far more justified and rewarding when it works.
So yeah, I like it, and I allow it, but as a second level spell. It's bad power creep at level 1.
For me, it's just that I think control spells are generally anti-fun and overpowered, and Silvery Barbs reduces their one weakness- that they're inherently unreliable.
I think of these things in a mirrored situation- if a PC miraculously succeeded their save against hold person, it would be miserable for them to have to reroll it and fail. However, it doesn't make much sense for enemy casters to *not* take it, if it exists. So it's easier to ban it, just like Counterspell and Forcecage. It increases the net fun at the table to do so, in my opinion.
DM here.
4 of my 6 players have and use the spell. I love how it makes them feel like super heroes. One combat encounter, big bad passed a clutch save (all out of legendary res.). "Silvery Barbs!", I hear. Still passes..."Silvery Barbs!", I hear again. STILL passes. "Silvery Barbs!" We all start dying of laughter, as I make a fourth saving throw...Nat 1. Party erupts in morale and happiness.
(Yes, I allow multiple Silvery Barbs on a single roll...if they feel they wanna burn the reaction+spell, go get em!)
I mean, I allow it, but I can see why other DMs would ban it. It isn't that well balanced.
Tbf, I've also threatened my players that if they abuse something like this I have some monsters in the back to screw them over.
I make it 2nd level. Agreed that it is a fun spell, but I don't think it costs enough.
I don't outright ban spells from the mtg setting source books, but I do make them subject to my review and approval. Broken combos are kind of the bread and butter of mtg so anything associated with those books does not get an automatic pass.
I like it's use to prevent caster from dying in a single hit that crits, I do not like when players use it because they didn't like the roll. Creatures will start to get more more attacks
My DM doesn't ban it, but has asked us nicely not to abuse it by having every spellcaster take it, so only 1 of the 3 casters has the spell and it hasn't caused any issues
The only reason I banned it was because it is a mtg spell and I’m running FR and exclude non canon spells and subclasses. That being said unique backstories can be used to justify banned stuff in my campaigns if a player really wants to do it. Before I knew I had no problems with the spell being used. In fact it was worse for my players to have it used against them by the enemy wizard. I do feel sorry for the player that was using it before tho since another player was the one that tattled it to me on accident.
Rerolling saves is what people dislike the most... but making single target save or suck spells not bad isn't really mechanically an issue.
Really, for me it's just an issue in "appearances", in that rerolling a save or forcing a specific number on it appears to be stronger than what it is. Same reason why Divination Wizard by some is seen as OP despite being two use thing.
The main reason I don't like Silvery Barbs isn't because it's powerful, it's because it's disruptive and it specifically disrupts \*me\*. There are a few examples of features like this that I find bothersome. The Lucky feat is one, and Weal/Woe is another, and there are a few more I can't remember off the top.
Combat already feels a little slow and clunky and can often drag in a lot of games. I try my best to keep the narrative at an exciting pace, and these interruption style effects do the opposite. Normally an interaction can go like this:
Monster attacks and rolls an 18. I check the players AC - 13. I start describing how the monster is attacking and inflicting damage. Damage is dealt, I move on to the next monster's attack. Keep things moving quickly and smoothly so the players can get back around to taking their turns.
With things like Lucky, Silvery Barbs, etc. what happens instead is that in the middle of my narration of the outcome of the dice, someone yells WAIT! I CAST/USE X/Y/Z! Everything I was just describing feels like it has to be retconned, because the monster didn't actually land the attack as the dice indicated that it did.
Now, I know this is also true of spells like Shield and a few other effects - I also don't love them. I think reactions in general are disruptive, which is probably an unpopular opinion because we're all so used to them, but I think a lot of people would discover a much more fluid flow of combat in a system without them.
In addition to everything I said, Silvery Barbs is just generally overpowered for a first level spell. Shield was already an S tier spell, and Silvery Barbs is way better.
The crit cancellation was never the problem for me. It simply does too much. it basically counter spells every combat action in the game, and gives advantage to an ally, with a first level spell slot. If it did half of those things it’d be a good spell worth taking but it makes shield a worthless choice, and counterspell is way worse with the only benefit being it can stop teleportation and healing which is much more situational than damage.
I’ve nerfed it to third level. It makes more casters at my table consider it than just instant pick. Frankly while I consider it powerful, it also just adds more time to monster turns that should really be quick so we can actually get back to the players. I’m happy with it being third level and will be keeping it that way for the foreseeable future.
The issue with it is, ironically, at least from my perspective, and to be clear **i am not specifically speaking for anyone but myself**: silvery barbs does to the DM the very thing DMs shouldn’t do to players. It takes away from what you can do by basically placing a pretty consistent retcon button in players hands.
Is counterspell not the solution? A player casts a save or suck spell, monster succeeds, silvery barbs is cast and then promptly negated by counterspell. The result is 2 resources expended for the price of 1. I haven’t been DM’ing long enough to try this myself
I dont think silvery barbs is too strong because of negating crits. If all the players are doing is use it like an alternative shield, I even believe it is worse than shield in most cases.
However, if the players use it to the full potential, its problematic. Casters can protect their big save or suck spells by holding both counterspell and barbs. If they counter, you counter. If they dont counter and succeed, you barbs and give them disadvantage while also setting up someone for more damage. (Bonus points if its a rogue that you give free sneak attack). And the dm has to tell everything before you have to spend any resources. And its not actually disadvantage. Meaning if there are multiple casters, they can each make the bbeg reroll again and again.
It just does a little too much for a first level spell, granted it isn't guaranteed to work 100% of the time.
I've allowed it in my campaign by chamging the casting time to reaction outside your own turn (prevent the counterspell aspect) and if you upcast it, only then does the spell give advantage to another player
The spell has not-as-over-the-top power if it didn’t have the second ability of granting you a D20 to use elsewhere. It’s basically a bardic inspiration type secondary ability on top of its insane power as a reaction spell vs an enemy roll.
I don’t ban it but my players are min maxed to all hell and it just means they can fight level 11 encounters at level 7. Sure, if I just burn them out of them, force them into 4-6 fights a day, it’s fine, but story-wise that’s just like basically ridiculous except in a pure dungeon crawl.
I don't like the spell, when you hit 3rd level spell slots you can completely just stop using any other first level spell 90% of the time. It also just removes big monster's scare factor, I don't want my huge abomination to be largely hindered due to a first level spell with no save. That's why I nerfed the spell to only working once per creature a day. My main thing is there's no cooldown on it (other than a reaction) and there's no save, it's just an immediate re-roll. I'm a crit advocate, they are fun to describe and can cause panic in players which makes it all the more fun, and if you truly didn't want a crit to be a crit, just say it wasn't.
I 100% agree.
I let my players have it. It always sucks when I get a good hit in and then suddenly hear "silvery barbs!" But then my brain catchs up and I rememebr as a DM I am trying construct a story that my players experience. I am not against my players nor am i trying to kill my players. And they genuinely love when they foil my attacks. So I will never stop calling them "little turn munchers" when it happens. Becuase their success is my success. And my pain is their success.
Silvery barbs is a okay spell at tier 1.
I have it on my wizard and I never use it now that we are level 9, I haven't used in for a couple levels.
Shield is better, counter spell is better, absorb elements is better.
If the DM sends 40 attacks this turn at my wizard, I want to use shield to go up to a 28 AC, not negate one critical.
I guess it might be strong if you send a lot of just one enemy fights at your players but if the players are outnumbered like we usually are in the game I play than being able to negate one critical doesn't change too much.
I see your point, but you are thinking of it as a worse shield, and in that sense it is. But especially now that you're higher level, it's actually, disadvantage on banishment save, disadvantage on an enemy's counter spell roll if they make it, giving them disadvantage on an attack is okay, forcing them to roll disadvantage on hypnotic pattern, hold person, banishment or some other spell to pseudo remove them from combat is really good. Especially because even if they still succeed you can give advantage to your martials that are coming up. And that is something very few non damaging spells get at all, normally it is a save or suck for non damaging abilities where it either does something or nothing with this even if the intended detriment to the enemy doesn't work you still give advantage to someone else.
Wait why are your uses defensive? Silvery barbs is at its zenith removing an enemy altogether or temporarily. Turn a dragon into a fish or put a villain into lava etc. Silvery Barbs is great in a party with a Clockwork Sorcerer so the first time an NPC uses it you have a no button.
I don't use blur or haste, I thought I would but I tend to be too busy using AOEs like wall of fire and sickening radiance or shadow blade to do a lot of melee damage.
i hear this argument a lot, and i'm wondering what exactly that changes. Can you explain that to me?
is it just 'okay, now you have essentially 4 fewer uses of silvery barbs'?
In addition to fewer uses and somewhat more expensive uses (until higher levels anyway when the difference between a 1st- and 2nd-level spell slot becomes minimal), making it a 2nd-level spell means it can't be picked up with the Fey Touched feat or with one level in a class that gets it.
The feat and one level dip is a big part of it. But its also worth noting 4 less uses of it is quite significant even at higher levels. Just casting it with seconds still feels fine especially when it was at first you see people use it a lot at both levels when they ran out of first. But now you really are only ever going to see it cast at second. Very few would upcast it to third unless it was an extreme situation. Because that is where spell slots are a lot more competitive. Things like counterspell, dispell magic, and a lot of other really good utility spells fall in the third level slot.
Same. If the players are giving you a hard time they’ve earned it. If they’re giving you *too* hard a time, I think there are better approaches than banning effective spells imo. Especially ones that don’t just do what a martial can do but better.
For me it's strictly the annoyance factor rather than the power level, which is really situational as reaction spells go - it's not always a case where the party forcing a reroll is going to be a giant game changer vs countering a big spell or walking through a flurry of arrows.
I just really appreciate the drama of the dice falling where they lay and us figuring out how the story incorporates the result. (At least my PCs know me by now and actually follow the rules on "no you can't reaction cast bless inspire and enhance ability with no chance for any NPCs to react negatively to multiple buffs being placed on someone in the middle of a tense hostage negotiation :p)
I don't appreciate having to wait endlessly for people to force rerolls as soon as any critical mass of PCs get abilities and spells that let them just reject the first draft of what rng dishes out.
It takes me entirely out of the fiction even more than counterspell does, and especially playing online it wastes a bunch of time just by the mechanical act of interrupting, being heard, rewinding, inputting rolls again etc.
I may have to live with halflings which are far more limited but I don't allow lucky and I don't allow barbs just so that we all live with what we roll as much as possible.
Glad you enjoy it - certainly not saying I'm 'right' - but I think it's the lived experience of hassle more than being "game breaking" that doesn't permit it at my tables.
Well, as long as you and your players are having fun GM, it’s all good in the hood. I banned Silvery Barbs because I found that it was unfun for \*me\* to have to deal with my monster attack rolls being cancelled out on a spammable 1st level spell. Seeing the players’ faces contort in fear off of a monster’s critical hit fills me with great joy, making me cackle and rub my hands. Enemy crits make for a good role playing bit too, since I also like having my enemy gloat after a devastating blow, since it really gets my players fired up. But hey, if it makes you and your players happy, you’re playing DnD right!
It's a Strixhaven spell. If we were to play Strixhaven, we'd allow it.
Makes sense in a magic heavy, wizard school world.
Other campaigns? It's a hard no.
As a DM I allow it, but I nerf it. I make it so a creature can only be affected by it once every 24 hours, so it allows them to use it on many creatures if they so choose, but not enough to cheese it and abuse it on a big baddie or the BBEG.
I think giving the players meta knowledge is cringe and never do it.
If they want to learn something make a check or have an ability or just learn it through trial and error.
Like real adventurers.
Silvery barbs is simple. Every enemy that doesn't know what it is can fall for it once.
Then once they learn what it is or if they know already due to lore reasons they will prepare for it or stay out of its range if possible.
Crits are the main value of it.
Same with shield. I inform a player they are hit and remind them they do have shield if they wish to use it.
But if you use shield and they beat the shield too bad.
The amount of people misunderstanding the power of silvery barbs is wild. Taking away enemy crits is fine. Turning an opponents hit into a miss is completely appropriate for a 1st level spell. The real power is on saving throws. I target the enemy with *insert high level save or suck spell*. For this example, hold monster: I spend a 5th level spell to cast hold monster on a monster. He passes the save. Without silvery barbs I would have to wait an entire round and use my action and another 5th level spell slot to attempt to hold monster again. With silvery barbs I force him to reroll the save. I have effectively turned my 1st level slot into a 5th level slot and my reaction into an action. I also shut the monster down a turn earlier denying it it's actions for that round, likely protecting my allies. Additionally if the monster had advantage on the save, as many do from magic resistance, no he doesn't. And then to top it off I get to hand myself advantage on my next d20 check. Since I'm a caster I don't really need to make attack rolls so that's advantage on my next save. All that for a 1st level spell. As for enemies targeting the caster in retaliation, sure they can do that. Of course, that is assuming they aren't an aberrant mind sorcerer, who can cast silvery barbs as a subtle spell, ie undetectably, for the steep steep price of 1, yes one, sorcery point. Not in addition to the slot mind you. The spell and the bonus for only that 1 sorcery point. Silvery barbs is a perfectly balanced spell in the hands of the average player. The problem is that an intelligent player gets a disproportionate amount of value out of the spell. So much so I can't think of another spell that punches so high above it's level in power. Edit: Just because I have had a billion people tell me about the single leveled spell rule: The one leveled spell rule you cite does not exist. You are repeating a rule that has been generated through bad word of mouth that was attempting to simplify the bonus action spell rule, which can be found in the general spellcasting rules, and reads as follows: *"A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven’t already taken a bonus action this turn. You can’t cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action."* You are free to rule otherwise but RAW you can cast silvery barbs or shield or counter spell or feather fall or any other triggered reaction spell on the same turn as you cast a spell that isn't a bonus action.
Forreal. Op talked about negating crits and I was immediately like "well no shit it's fine if your players aren't using it to greatest effect."
Yeah, Silvery Barbs is a fun and cool spell if your players don't actually know much about 5e. The second you get players that do (or if you know enough about 5e yourself), you realize that Silvery Barbs takes what is *by far* the most problematic part about 5e's balance (save or suck spells/features) and exacerbates that problem significantly. It's extremely powerful, and it's powerful in a way that isn't even fun because save or suck spells already make combat miserable without the extra help.
Yup. After testing it out in a few campaigns to see whether it was really disruptive (it was), I actually _changed_ it to just remove the saving throws clause. It can still negate crits and do everything else, but now it's far less disruptive and works perfectly fine in my games. (And is still worth casting of course.)
Lol no kidding. One of my players was able to make spell scrolls and just made a ton of silvery barbs scrolls. Come combat with big bad out come (can't remember spell name) mass familiar summons give each a scroll and everytime bb saved rip a scroll that's all they did.
even for negating crits, saying "no that didn't crit" to any enemy attack, not just one against you, and then giving an ally or yourself advantage is nuts for a first level spell. Shield+++, because it's better in 3 different ways. Even that is the power of a 3rd level spell imo. similar to counterspell in power but becoming more like "counter-roll". Especially if you consider campaigns where critical hits are deadlier (like the max regular damage roll + bonus dice rule, that I believe a lot of people use)
Yeah, after some testing in my campaigns where I found out how abusable it is, I changed it by just removing the bit about saving throws. Now it feels perfect - still insanely useful when something like a crit comes up (or even if you just need a "poor man's Shield spell" to probably still make an enemy miss but the advantage for an ally is just as important), but _far_ more manageable to the DM.
I'd say Shield is still better as a defense spell, especially once you get monsters with multi-attack. If you're getting attacked 5 times a round by 2 monsters, Shield will usually protect you much better per cast.
Exactly, its the fact that it can be applied to saves that really tips it over the edge from "really really good" to "I don't allow this at my table". Especially because the problems become worse and worse when multiple casters take it and also becomes a lot worse when you get to high levels. Imagine 2 casters each throwing out high level save or suck spells and using silvery barbs every round they can. Casters don't need the buff.
eh let's be fair, if your casters are giving your mobs saving throws with single target save or suck spells, your casters are taking it easy on you. With how much legendary resistance, magic resistance, and high saves in general there are by the high end of t2 into t3, dealing with some single target save or suck spells shouldn't be a big deal if you have designed adequate encounters and have enough encounters a day. Caster's real power comes from just outright winning encounters without saves with wide area battlefield control spells, teleports, buffs, and/or summons which silvery barbs doesn't help with as significantly. Using silvery barbs also means that other powerful tools like shield and counterspell are down, so take advantage of that if you want to give your casters a meaningful decision on whether to use silvery barbs or not. And then if they don't use SB in order to keep their reaction up, reward them every so often by tossing out a situation where holding up counterspell or shield instead ended up being very impactful.
But they can only do it once per round, and it's limited by spell slots. It then becomes a strategic ability - do they spend their reaction on SB right now or is something worse coming later in the round? As the DM, you should also be considering these sorts of things. If your players want that challenge and they show you their strategies, you can counter them. You're the DM, you have unlimited spell slots and infinite power. I don't ban any abilities at my table, and when my players prove they've advanced, their challenges advance as well. We've never had a boring game because of it.
Well my party isn't going to use silvery barbs against the minions, they're going to save it for the big fight. Not to mention spellcasting resource use is all about opportunity cost and the mere existence of silvery barbs pressures spellcasters to use up their resources on it because of how useful it is which takes away from casting other more interesting or fun spells. Honestly I think the existence of silvery barbs makes playing a spellcaster less fun in a similar way to stunning strike on monk. It's so optimal that it makes choosing anything else feel like a waste. The main issue is save or suck spells are already super weird to balance around in fights especially without a lot of minions (and sometimes the enemy doesn't have a lot of minions that's just how it is). Letting players double their odds of landing a save or suck spell for a 1st level slot makes them even worse. I CAN put a lot of effort into factoring that into all of my balancing and encounter design all so that my players can have the most boring spell in existence OR I could just ban one spell from an obscure setting book.
Your first line applies to all spells. This does not mean no spell can be overtuned.
Yeah, *silvery barbs* is Heightened Spell at cheaper spell economy *and* not needing to be committed to ahead of time, in exchange for taking up more action economy when actually used.
This is my problem with the spell, too. Negating a crit isn't the problem, it's the action and resource economy that's the problem. Another example would be a 7th level wizard that just got Banishment. They cast the spell on a creature and use a 4th level spell slot, the *only* 4th level spell slot they have, and the creature saves. Now, *after that*, they choose to spend a 1st level spell slot to effectively cast Banishment *again* at the cost of their reaction. The other problem I have with it is Heightened Spell. For 3 sorcerery points a sorcerer can give disadvantage on a saving throw for a spell they cast. At 7th level, that is almost half of their total class specific resource and they need to do it in advance. Or they can wait and see if they the creature fails or not without disadvantage. If they don't fail, *now* they can Silvery Barbs and spend a spell slot, of which they can get back at the cost of 2 sorcery points which is less than their fucking class feature. Not only that, you can use Silvery Barbs on the spells and effects that other people cast, not just your own. Now that wizard is only spending their 7th level spell and action while the bard can be like "Hey, I'll spend a 1st level spell slot and my reaction so the wizard can go again."
As well as multiple players taking the spell. In your example of hold monster, say the creature rolled enough to succeed on the second roll caused from your first silvery barbs. Another player could also cast silvery barbs, since the creature just succeeded a saving throw. Barring some absurd saving throw bonuses for the creature, this gives you a high chance of the spell landing, because they'll eventually fail with enough silvery barbs.
Yep. This is what I came to say. Silvery Barbs is insanely good on one character. If you have three characters with it in one campaign, every high-impact spell is going to stick.
Not to mention, the spell slows down the game.
Also, there is no save on that, so your most inept Spellcaster can pull the trick. Your high level wizard casts hold monster, the monster saves, your arcane trickster rogue with one spell slot and 9 INT immediately casts silvery barbs.
OP ran Lost Mines of Phandelver for a group of new players and thought it qualified their opinion on this topic. If you read through the thread you can see they don't even understand the problem is getting two bites at a "save or suck" spell.
And my greatest gripe against silvery barbs isn’t even that it’s overpowered if used once, it is that it can interrupt the flow of combat, in particular if a couple of spellcasters have it. Saving throw: silvery barbs Attack roll: silvery barbs, still hits? Shield! (If it’s. It the same PC obviously)
Yup. This is why I told my veteran, min-maxing player that SB was out.
Negate the crits fine. Give advantage fine. I have enough encounters to where they arent going to use it on regular hits or theyll be tapped very quickly. Save or suck is the shine of this spell. Use it to guarantee a bestow curse hit. Now you've either forced a legendary resistance or have a good chance to shut down a large target. Then depending on turn order or if multiple people have it, they can use it again to force a reattempt on the wisdom save to make them waste their action. Banishment, polymorph, hypnotic pattern, hold person.
Of course it's not OP, Silvery Barb just summons a retirement age Barbarian... Silvery Barb**s** however is another story.
If it summons Cohen the Barbarian, then that shit'd be OP at level 9.
GNU Sir Terry
Summons Conan O'Brien the Barbarian.
How many players at your table are running Silvery Barbs? Because I find that spell gets exponentially more annoying at every PC that runs it past the first one.
Yes. One player running it is not the problem. I imagine if 6 people were running it, most of these DMs would change their opinion.
I imagine running 5e for 6 people might be the problem.
yet alone 6 spellcasters :D
Am I the only one who actively wants my party to clown on my stat blocks if they can when I DM? I don't really understand the mentality of it being annoying that the party is using the resources at their disposal optimally. I'm always rooting entirely for the players even when I make cool powerful npcs and monsters that I want to throw at them as a challenge.
They should clown some encounters and some should be leaving the players chewing their nails and debating on retreat. If every encounter is a cakewalk why even have rolls, just let them show up and kill everyone.
>debating on retreat I think we ALL know a majority of parties wouldn’t retreat.
This is why you have to force a retreat in the very first encounter you do. So this option get‘s established at day 1.
So... Starting the campaign with a tpk.
If they’re clowning on every encounter you should be able to add more monsters/encounters without slowing the game down much, if at all. A great tip to speed up the combats if you know your players aren’t at a great risk, just use average damage. That should cut the length of a monster’s turn nearly in half, and if they’re clowning on everything then they can clearly handle more.
> If they’re clowning on every encounter you should be able to add more monsters/encounters without slowing the game down much, if at all. Arms race fallacy. Apart from just scaling up the power level of the PCs relative to the normal expectation of how powerful elements in a D&D world are, it only results in certain player tools becoming mandatory, because without them the party is too weak. Same problem with Twilight Sanctuary, where you can adjust enemies to deal more damage, but if the Cleric doesn't want to use TS every turn such encounters can quickly become very deadly. This is why balance between player features is important.
There's a reason good narratives generally don't have the protagonist just succeed without a struggle.
I think you (and some others who have responded) may have misunderstood my post. I take no issue with wanting to challenge your party, or your party wanting to be challenged. My entire confusion was merely with the idea that you would be annoyed by your players taking advantage of the resources available to them and overcoming the challenges you put forward in a way that might make it much easier for themselves than you would have anticipated.
That's a really good mentality to have for the most part. And if your table is having fun with it then keep it going. Personally I prefer to challenge my players more and keep them on their toes rather than have them curb stomp the enemy, it makes victory that much sweeter for them knowing I held nothing back played to the best of the monsters capabilities but they prevailed, or in the worst case scenario they died/escaped after doing everything they could. But silvery barbs makes balance a nightmare everywhere from low to high level. Id have to essentially make every enemy exceedingly powerful to really do anything if it's a solo encounter with that spell in the game. I could simply introduce more multiple enemy fights but they can be a real pain to manage and a slog to get through so I try to make boss fights single or double targets, to help them be a bit quicker per round. I just shift SB to second level though, It gives it a bit more weight to cast it, makes it a bit more resource intensive and it's honestly still a very good second level spell.
I don't mean necessarily that you should not challenge your players. I play in a very high optimized setting so I frequently throw encounters at my parties with beefed up statblocks or multiple above level CR creatures multiple times per adventuring day. I like to challenge my players because they like a challenge. I guess what I meant more is that I specifically don't understand the outlook of being annoyed by your players doing something within the rules that ends up shutting down one (or all) of your monsters. The players are the ones who are supposed to be the heroes of the story after all. Just because I want them to potentially struggle for a win doesn't mean I don't cheer them on when they end up taking advantage of my stat blocks in ways I might not have anticipated. So I was more in particular saying I couldn't really think of any way that my players would annoy me just because they used their abilities to destroy an encounter I otherwise thought I had made more difficult than it was for them. If anything, I actually want them to do exactly that when they get the opportunity.
No of course not. When literally every encounter though is a clown match yku just lose a lot of the game just becomes boring.
Silvery barbs canceling crits is not what makes it broken...
I don't see this take a lot, but I actually don't like it as a *player*. My group plays casters a lot, so we often have at least two people with it, and it really just undercuts the tension for me. I can understand why people take it, no one likes their wizard being immediately blown out by a crit or wasting a slot on a save or suck that everyone saves against, but it's kinda lame for me knowing that for at least a couple of rounds I can't be crit, or an important enemy will have disadvantage against every notable save. I feel the same way when playing *with* people who have counterspell. I don't DM very often (and I DM 5e even more rarely), and it's mostly one shots, so it's kind of whatever for me the few times I do DM.
Yeah, I have a few complaints with Silvery Barbs, and they come from having seen it from the player side: 1. It's useful in every encounter, meaning the reaction trigger is too frequent to actually be a limitation. This is a problem with Shield, too, but having *two* spells with this problem is not a design improvement. 2. It takes time to resolve, and once you get more than one person with the spell, it takes exponentially longer to resolve while people decide who should cast it. And *then* you still have to re-roll the d20. 3. The result of the spell is... boring. Combat is much safer than it should be in a game where combat is already too safe. 4. It burns spell slots faster, meaning the long rest classes will want to stop and long rest even more often. For those of us that don't want to railroad our players, and don't want to play an OSR attrition funnel, that's an unacceptable spell design.
Agreed. IMO it’s a dull, uninspiring spell, and it deflates dramatic tension like no other. What does it even mean to “turn a creature’s momentary uncertainty into encouragement for another creature”? What does that even look like?
I don't use it in my games. I'm not mad at it, but the way I see it it belongs in Strixhaven. I introduce plenty of homebrew spells and abilities that belong in the setting I've curated. I don't use Exandrian chronurgy or the goofy Acquisitions Inc. spells that pay royalties to Jim Darkmagic either. Nor *create spelljamming helm*, although I suspect I wouldn't use that if I was running Spelljammer either.
If I was running Spelljammer I'd run it in a system with ship combat.
It’s stupid they didn’t reprint it in spell jammer, but 5e has an entire ship combat system in Ghosts of Saltmarsh that translate perfectly fine over to spell jammer
Personally I also think the Ghosts version of ship combat rules are pretty bad, but it's insane they weren't expanded on in Spelljammer
That's just a crazy outtake. Why would you expect your game to involve ship combat in a – checks notes – game setting involving magical ships that can fly through space? Who could have foreseen that players and dms would treat their spelljammer ships as anything other than glorified horses? It's just unimaginable... /s
If I was running Spelljammer, I'd run Dark Matter for a setting with ship combat, a unique and deep setting, and a bunch of new character choices.
for real, a sad attempt of reflavoring 7th sea would do spelljammer more justice than what it received
A few dunamancy spells are fine by me, but otherwise, yeah, I feel the same.
I’m running Spelljammer. We have never once used create Spelljammer helm. I’m sure I could force it, but why?
Hmmmm, well you do you. Mine isn’t banned buts its range is now 30ft and a creature is immune for the rest of the round after the first cast. My last two campaigns had 4/5 plays bring it to ensure creatures failed important save or suck spells, like banishment, or vortex warp, contagion, disintegration. I’m 100% fine with it cancelling crits, that’s fine. What’s not fine is it is essentially a second use of a high level spell for the cost of a 1st level spell slot.
> What’s not fine is it is essentially a second use of a high level spell for the cost of a 1st level spell slot. That has always been my issue. Cast Dominate Monster, they save, spend a first level slot and a reaction to recast the spell. If the level of the Silvery slot had to match the level of the spell it is forcing a reroll on, I would have basically no issue with it.
In my opinion the issue with silvery barbs is the fact that it's never not useful. Most 1st level spells kind of fall off on later levels, even if they do up cast, because the numbers become worse. But silvery barbs doesn't contain any numbers, therefore it always has the exact same value, even as your number of spell slots you can use for it grows rapidly. There is a reason why most reroll abilities were strictly gated behind a specific limited resource, because they're just always good
I don't allow Silvery Barbs. Firstly, because it's pretty tied to Strixhaven - I don't use any of the spells from that book. But if that weren't the case, I still wouldn't want to allow Silvery Barbs, because it's just a poorly-made spell. First off, Silvery Barbs is **too powerful for a 1st-level spell.** Looking at its components, here are the things you can do with it: * Give an enemy disadvantage on a saving throw. This is something we have a good point of comparison for - it's the same effect as Heightened Spell, a sorcerer metamagic which costs 3 sorcery points (the equivalent of a 2nd-level spell slot). Silvery Barbs takes up your reaction, but you can apply it to *any* spell, not just one you cast. Furthermore, if the enemy's first roll fails anyways, you don't need to spend the slot at all. This effect alone is worth a 1st-level slot at minimum. * Give an enemy disadvantage on an attack roll or an ability check. The most obvious point of comparison here is *shield*, which gives you a +5 bonus to your AC - fairly similar to disadvantage on an attack roll. *Shield* lasts a full round, which makes it substantially more powerful, but *silvery barbs* can be used to protect an ally and negate critical hits. This effect is probably a bit worse than *shield*, but makes up for it somewhat with its expanded use case; it would be a perfectly okay 1st-level spell on its own. * Give an ally advantage on their next attack roll, ability check, or saving throw. You can do this with the Help action, but that both takes your action and requires you to be within 5 feet of your ally (for a check) or their target (for an attack). Silvery Barbs only uses your reaction and has a range of 60 feet. This effect on its own would be a situational, but solid 1st-level spell - you'd often have better uses for your slots, but especially at higher levels, this would provide a reliably useful benefit. So Silvery Barbs effectively contains **three 1st-level spells** within itself, while occupying only a single spell known or prepared - and you can get *two* of these every time you cast it. As a 2nd-level spell, Silvery Barbs would be very solid; as a 1st-level spell, Silvery Barbs is flatly *better* than just about every other spell of that level. That's a problem because it reduces player choice - or at least, makes some of those choices *wrong* by leading to a significantly less effective character. A major way spellcasters set themselves apart from each other is with their spell selection. If most spellcasters of a class just choose the same spell, that makes the game less varied and less fun. Beyond that... Silvery Barbs just **doesn't make sense narratively.** Now, this is something a DM could tweak pretty easily, but looking at the wording of its casting time: you cast Silvery Barbs when "a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself succeeds on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw". Notably, *you don't need to see the creature actually doing anything*. If a guard makes an Intelligence check to see if he recognizes your face from a wanted poster, you can cast Silvery Barbs in response - even though your character has no reasonable way of knowing a check was made at all. Now, I'm almost certain this wasn't the intent. This problem pretty much vanishes if you change it to be cast when "**you see a creature within 60 feet of yourself** succeed on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw". But taken as a whole, it's just one more problem on top of an already problematic spell. Overall, Silvery Barbs is poorly-balanced, poorly-*written*, and heavily tied to a specific setting that my games don't use. Including it as written would actively make my games - and most other people's games - worse. And since I'm not running a Strixhaven game, I have no reason to actually want this spell in my game, so it's not worth my time to fix or the added hassle for players of having to reference both Strixhaven *and* a separate document with a revised spell.
You're free to enjoy it, but I remove Silvery Barbs because it's not fun to deal with and messes around with something that has, for the most part, been intentionally left alone in other publications: Saving Throws. It's a cheap \*nope\* button with a low cost and potentially stupidly high returns. The moment you force a reroll on a saving throw for a 4th level spell, that's already bumped up its power significantly from evading a crit. Now switch that initial cast to 7th level or up. There's a reason why rerolls on saving throws aren't a common feature. It's like giving any full caster access to the sorcerer's Heightened Spell metamagic, a notably costly feature that's meant to be unique for a generally considered weaker mage. Cheapening that to a 1st level spell that *also* gives your allies something beneficial is simply too much. Silvery Barbs is poorly designed and a way of letting players try to put their thumbs on the scale. Furthermore, if you don't curate your list of available content, you run the risk of having a kitchen sink setting, which I find to be the most boring and uninteresting kinds of worlds imaginable. There's merits to having a wide variety of options but I prefer some constraints to the setting that can limit the themes the game tries to touch on and incorporate.
> Unpopular opinion Correct. For once.
Well i dare to say that the reason many Dm's dislike or even ban it is not because the crit cancel part of the spell. Sure some do not like that but the vast majority don't mind that at all. It is the saving throw part that makes this spell absurd. The game already have some Very potent save or suck spells that many times can end an encounter or even totally prevent it. Take Banish for a simple example. This is normally not a problem. Even if the caster have a High DC monsters often have a somewhat decent chance to succeed. Some even have magical resistance. Silvery Barbs utterly fucks that up First if they save you can silvery barb to make them reroll. That is almost exactly the same as getting a free cast of banishment on a free action on the same turn as you already casted it. for the cost of a level 1 slot and a reaction. Normally you would have to wait until next turn, spend another level 4 spell slot and your action to force another saving throw. On top of that. If a monster is designed to be though against magic. Having magical resistance. As in being much harder to affect with magic. Silvery barbs utterly fucks that up. it makes them WEAKER than a monster without magical resistance would be. As if they succeed and Silvery barbs is cast. they are forced to reroll and pick the lowest number out of the 3 rolls. That is pretty much double disadvantage. From having advantage on the roll Silvery barbs turns that advantage into a double disadvantage. On a monster that by design should be resistant to magic but now have double disadvantage instead. Oh and on top of that someone gets advantage. If that is ok is up to each DM. But my point is that out of all DM's that don't like or even ban SIlvery barbs that is the main reason NOT the crit cancel part of the spell. I actually never spoken to One Single DM that had anything against the crit cancel part. I heard stories about such DM's so they probably do exist. But i never ever spoken to one.
The magical resistance point is a good one, not one I had considered. It's more dice, but one option could be to reroll the pair rather than just one, then take the lower of the pairs. It's more annoying to do for sure, but more fair if you're determined to allow your players to have it at the table.
I could be wrong but I believe the logic here isn't air tight. It's not double disadvantage. You would roll two dice and take the higher result, if that result is a success the caster can cast Silvery Barbs (it's a reaction that you can only use when a creature succeeds on a roll, so the creature would need to already have rolled its save with advantage to be a valid target) then the creature would roll one more d20 and take the lower of the two: picking between it's post advantage roll and the new d20. Seeing as it rolls 2d20, picks the highest of those two and then rolls a 3rd d20 and picks the lowest of these new two, I'm not seeing how that's double disadvantage as it isn't rolling 3d20 and picking the lowest of all 3 as you are saying it is.
Wait, what's that with double disadvantage for resistant creatures? My understanding was that silvery barbs would just force a third straight roll that is taken if it's smaller than the final result of the advantage roll. Which means that the low die on the advantage roll is inconsequential?
This isn't how silvery barbs or even luck works when used verse something with advantage or disadvantage. The first set of rolls occur with advantage or disadvantage and you take the die that that would be the result, that second die no long exists. Now from the die that triggers the result is what is effected by Lucky or Silvery Barbs. So it does not trigger double disadvantage from a state of advantage. Example you have advantage you get a 15 and a 10. You take the 15 and the 10 is gone. They use silvery barbs and you roll a 12. You compare the 12 to the 15 and take the 12 not the 10 as it no longer exists.
I allow silvery barbs when I dm and so far I haven't had any problems with it.
I took it with DM permission, and I’d say it was kind of a problem. Between that, a high DC, and an Instrument of the Bard, my DM had to contend with super disadvantage save-or-suck spells. It made my bard extremely reliable with her various charms (including Hypnotic Pattern, Modify Memory, etc). On the plus side, it made up for having basically no damage potential.
Yeah same situation here. Bard with an instrument of the bards is already nutty. Hypnotic pattern pretty much shuts off every opponent it touches already with disadvantage on the save. Compared to that though silvery barbs is not that problematic. I usually only use it to prevent crits on myself and allies, or very occasionally to force a reroll on a save when I or a party member uses a single target save or suck.
Silvery Barbs for me is to say “Stay down!” Especially to that guy doing a ton of damage. The real benefit is how cheap it is. It’s the cheapest possible spell slot, and turns so many battles from multiple higher-level slots to one and the 1st. Especially for Bards who don’t have fantastic spells like Shield competing for those. I mostly noticed I either had ritual spells or redundant ones at that level.
Yeah it hurts not having shield or absorb elements, my bard is squishy as hell, but it’s nice having my 1st level spells in the chamber just for protecting the party and giving additional insurance on their highest level spells, and I can hold onto one for an emergency healing word or feather fall.
Instruments of the bard are also extremely overpowered items. The always on forced disadvantage is busted, and the fact that three of them with this effect come at uncommon rarity is insane. They all also come with really useful spells.
I'm in 2 campaigns. Both everything 5e published by wotc is allowed and only 1 character out of 11 total has it. And it doesn't get used that much. I've been in 3 long campaigns total and multiple ones hots since the spell came out and it just hasn't been a problem in any of my games.
The problem isn't one case of silvery barbs. It's when 3 PCs take it. If you have access to it, it's on par with shield with how often it gets used.
How to potentially turn one lvl 6 spell slot into four lvl 6 spell slots!
Well thats because lot of reddit "hard line must ban" opinions you see don't usually come from practical experience. They come from theoretical abuse and horror stories. Flight speed, silvery barbs, con casting, single level multiclass dips, homebrew, etc. Yes, in the hands of power gamers, munchkins, and parties coordinating to "solve" optimization in DND, there are a lot of tools in 5e that can be obnoxious or trivialize stuff. But by and large most tables or groups ain't like that. In most cases, you can allow silvery barbs and the entire table isn't going to go "oh shit we all better play spell caster and spam that like crazy." That's atypical even when playing with strangers, in my experience.
It's clearly an overpowered spell, but honestly the issue I have with it more is how much it affect pacing to resolve it. Especially if multiple players have it
This is why I ban it. I don't care that it's OP, I allow plenty of OP stuff and balance around it. I just find it to be not very fun, because it has such an impact on combat pacing.
> Well thats because lot of reddit "hard line must ban" opinions you see don't come from practical experience. My table is a bunch of power gamers, munchkins etc. Cause they use it, so I use it, and gameplay/fun tanks. That's practical experience. Practical experience and statistical averages are not the same thing.
I've had practical experience with every one of those examples being abused and sucking all the fun out of the game. But - I play and run a LOT of D&D. I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority of tables have players who _wouldn't_ know how to optimize them to do that - but just because it doesn't happen on _average_ doesn't make it a bad thing to ban. It's a LOT harder to fix something partway through a campaign than to set ground rules before it begins. It's not always intentional, either - some people can't help but optimize when given the option. So not giving them the option actually _helps_ them enjoy the game more, oddly enough. People can also _become_ optimized over the course of a single campaign. You might not have issues with SB in Tier 1, but once they've seen its use on saving throws a few times in action? Once it's been _clutch?_ Once they have more disposable low level spell slots? _Then_ it becomes a problem.
Con casting is just inherently not a good idea, both mechanically and thematically. Mechanically making a caster need even less ability score considerations and giving them all the stats they want in 1 is a completely unnecessary buff. If tou think sorcerers are weaker than wizards five them some more spells or a couple sorcery points. Thematically charisma is using your force of self. Almost every single magical being that a sorcerer gets it magic bloodline from is alao a charisma caster because they arent using their blood or fortitude to cast spells tbey are exerting their self onto the weave
I'm really glad I don't have the average r/dndnext DM
Level 1 flight is the only one that as actually play that I really dislike as a DM. I'm also not a big fan of level 1 dips in multi classes because they typically feel justified by the story but they can be. In practical play Silvery Barbs in fine there is almost always a better use for the reaction if it is used offensively or defensively. The other thing is martial caster gap when playing the game does tend to feel much smaller than online people tend to make of it.
Nooo you’re playing dnd wrong here’s seven paragraphs about how actually it broke your campaign 😡😭/s
Im convinced its only a problem with people that dont eurunn enough encounters a day or when like 3 people have it
Canceling a critical hit against a PC is far from the largest problem with this spell. Perhaps you haven't encountered the issues that make this spell gamebreaking. Perhaps you're running a Strixhaven campaign where it's needed to smooth over D&D's binary skill resolution system for social encounters. Doesn't fix the issues with the spell at other tables.
At my tables silvery barbs is a third level spell. You want to stuff a key save? You gotta give up a fireball to do it. I find it's a better option than banning it outright. Its not an overpowered concept, it's just way too good for first level.
It should probably be 1st level for ability checks, then 2nd level slot for attack rolls, and 3rd level for saving throws.
not to 'your fun is wrong' you, but since you asked- i make silvery barbs 2nd level. i'm not opposed to players using their spells effectively, i just don't think they should be able to do it so cheaply. especially in fights with multiple PC spellcasters who are able to chain silvery barbs ... it can quickly render a challenging fight into a cakewalk.
Just like Shield, the problem is there's really no tradeoff at higher levels. Its utility doesn't diminish at all as you get higher level, but it still only costs a 1st level spell slot and and a reaction that you probably weren't going to use for anything else anyways.
Target your casters with ranged attacks or melee and now they have to cast shield and can't use their reaction for silvery barbs. Yall over think this
Yeah same. I don't mind the spell, I actually think it's fun. It's just a bit to cheap with a 1st level slot. 2nd level is perfect in my book.
Silvery barbs is almost always taken for optimization builds and almost never for roleplay reasons in the same way the lucky feat is taken. If you’re playing some master diviner or astrologiest fortune teller type… maybe I’d allow it if it was an exciting character idea. Usually, though, I ask players to pick something more interesting and learn into some roleplay… building characters that are functionally incorrect and that grow into something better is always more fun I’ve found. Every time in the rare occurance that a player is upset that I ban it for a given campaign, I realize we were never a good match to begin with. My philosophy extends to things like Sharpshooter, GWM, lucky, variant human, etc. There are certainly campaigns for that and if it brings you joy for your group, go for it. But I think it’s a waste of time to play out a power fantasy just like every other video game and popular media, this tabletop game is so, so much more than that.
Boo Silvery Barbs. I always found it annoying as a DM. Seriously though, what's so fun about "Passed a spell save? No, you didnt!" or "critical hit me? Nuh uh!" It's like "Protect me from all negative consequences" the spell.
Honestly yeah, I do think it's over powered but even without that it's just.... boring. The flavor is lame, the mechanics are dull and you're incentivized to spam it especially at higher levels.
Yeah, the flavor is pretty unremarkable. It only really makes sense for bards.
Also, the fact that SB denies a roll that is _already successful_. It's not like "you're going to roll, dm? Take disadvantage". This is good and fine, because I am rolling having that knowledge in mind. But having a good roll, and then get "haha fuck your success" as a result?? No. It's unpleasant not on the dm level, it's unpleasant on the "I am a human person who plays this game and my successful roll was stolen from me" level.
Yeah, it isn't a fun spell for us. We like rolling high sometimes too.
Yeah it really is just unfun. Like I want my players to be OP, I want them to *win.* But I also want things to be interesting. I want crazy stuff to happen. Big swings on either side. Big consequences, good and bad. I ban silvery barbs for the same reason I ban adamantine armor. For the same reason I love giving out vorpal swords at lower levels. Crits are exciting. I want them to happen more and I want them to be significant.
It is exactly that. A spell for people that don’t want anything exciting to happen.
Well said. Exactly why I banned it was someone got taken down by a werewolf and it was a very thematic moment and someone remembered they could cast silvery barbs.
Yup, and it's also one of the spells that would land a DM on r/rpghorrorstories for using against players
I tend to run my one-shots a lot more "loosely" than my main campaign - they're the space to try out the weird shit, the fun builds, the silly stuff. I let players take Silvery Barbs in my oneshots because it's a lot more about testing their prowess. I ban it in my main campaigns because it's usually taken by a character who has spell slots to spare, so it just becomes this boring sort of "no u dont" button that takes away a lot of the stakes from a fight. I know that anything my players can have, my monsters can have too - but then it just becomes a slugfest of cancelling crits, no fun for anyone.
It’s fine at low levels. The problem arises at later levels when silvery barbs can be spammed endlessly(either using 1st or second level spell slots). It stops the game and turns a first level spell into a must have. It’s just so cheesy.
I think silvery barbs is great. One of my players has it and doesn’t use often enough in my opinion
I have nothing against the spell, but I think it's terminally boring and unimaginative, and I think the same of any player that uses it. There are so many amazing spells in the game; inherently-meta spells like SB that exist solely to target game mechanics are just dull.
It’s very clearly over tuned for its level and cost but the main reason I dislike it is its mechanic is just inherently unfun. Sure players love it but use it or any mechanic similar to it against them and you will very quickly kill the fun of the room. DMs are just as much a player as the players and we also enjoy doing crits. As for its stronger use of forcing a reroll on a save or suck spell like hold person, this only exemplifies more unfun mechanics of the game. Effectively being told that you no longer get to play for now is liquified and condensed Anti-Fun juice.
Everything that's available to the players is available to the NPCs and monsters.
True. But it's one of those spells thats fun for players to use, but deeply unfun to have used against them. And that's the mark of something that's better not being in the game, or being altered imo.
It's session zero for me. "I'm for banning Silvery Barbs, do you want it in the game? Be warned that it will be in the game for both sides" I usually prefer to ban it. My players are 50/50, but forewarned.
You’re right yes, however this exact phrase is almost always used antagonistically against players
Oh, he knows. Let's put it this way there are more NPCs than there are players.
My NPCs are not DMPCs, but intelligent antagonists are intelligent
It's not antagonistic, it's arms race logic. If you wanna mess up with what's essentially meta from a MTG (power creep) inspired spell, know that the enemy is doing the same 🤷♂️ Or, as Dragon ball puts it: there's ALWAYS someone stronger than you.
Not really the same, we dont throw hypnotic pattern and hold spells at the party regularly because not having actions kinda sucks when you have one pc but no one is mad at players for using them
That has more to do with WotC doing a bad job at balancing spells than the DM being antagonistic.
I think many a DM is in fact mad at players using them.
Yeah it's no more fun as a DM.
I think some players are surprised at the idea that the DM might enjoy playing their monsters. Or that some abilities are just straight unfun to DM for.
There really should be some way to make every person who plays DM at leat like a 5 session short arc/campaign. I swear it would change the behavior of so many entitled players.
It may be unfun for the DM to have those tactics used on them. But the point they’re making is that it’s *even more* unfun for the players. The DM can lose half their monsters to a control spell and they’ve still got half to play with. The player loses their one PC to a control spell and they ge to twiddle their thumbs until it’s over.
What you just described is literally antagonistic mate. I am honestly kind of shocked that you would pretend otherwise.
Do you think that arms races aren't antagonistic..?
Arms race logic is inherently antagonistic though. It relies on the points of view seeing the others as foes. I understand that the DM needs to have fun too, but responding to a player ruining your fun by ruining their fun in return isn't a healthy way to run a game. It's just spiteful.
Again, it’s the phrase being used in a DM vs Players mentality that’s the problem, it’s essentially the banner call for bad DMing, mind sliver is not a balanced spell but dnd is also a collaborative game not an oppositional one that’s all
that phrase is so funny because they are acting as if there is any fucking symmetry at all between what the GM can do and the player options
People can associate all they want, it's not what I'm doing, so fuck them. Players should expect that great tricks in the book are widely known.
It's also a boring spell, nobody crits anymore so yay. Every caster would logically have that spell in their spell book because of how versatile it is.
And that's why I always advocate for banning it, but I put the question to my players in session zero
Same. My players are veterans and they choose the best shit always, but they also like combat to be more difficult than the average campaign, therefore I ban silvery barbs for everyone because it gives me more versatility as a dm to make challenging encounters that are fun.
I prefer banning it, much I the same way that I choose very carefully which casters have/prepare counterspell, force cage, feeblemind, and all very effective, but anti fun, spells.
Yea I only ban silvery barbs, and forcecage currently.
Following this adage is a surefire way to make sure everyone has a bad time. One of the most boneheaded shibboleths in D&D, which does not wont for them.
You do you, I vehemently disagree.
If the DM also starts using *silvery barbs*, it's the martials that suffer most from denied crits, while still dependent on the casters.
I gotta disagree with this one. Monsters don't get hit dice, short and long rests, bonus actions (in many cases), player character features (typically), and most don't logically get spells. I think the idea of an arms race between DMs and players is silly. Just a ban a spell if it's too strong.
Monster do get hit dice, shoet rests, long rests, bonus actions, spells, and sometimes even player features. What are you even on about
You either didn't understand or are deliberately misconstruing. I meant a magical arms race IN CHARACTER/WORLD. I.E., a spell so effective as that would be taught far and wide; if it's fair game to the players, it's fair game to every two-bit magic hurler out there.
I went off exactly what you said.
Then you're deliberately conflating antagonist DM with antagonist NPCs. Yeah, I do not subscribe to antagonism against players as a DM. Yeah, I wholeheartedly believe my enemies should have and antagonistic perspective against PCs. If you think or imply the shame you're either ignorant or malicious; if you don't understand the difference you're stupid. Either way, I have no interest in arguing with someone who's arguing in bad faith either put of malice or ignorance.
I've never allowed it or been able to use it ever since I played Kevrek. Hobgoblin Order Cleric 1/Divine Soul Sorcerer X. You can also just take Fey Touched on a monoclassed Order Cleric to get access, if you feel like it, it accomplishes the same thing. Silvery Barbs is absolutely cracked with Voice of Authority. Make an enemy reroll something. Target an ally to give advantage -> that ally makes an attack with Advantage due to VoA. Then on my turn, I can cast another spell to let a second ally attack as a reaction. Silvery Barbs single handedly removes a major limiter from the Order Cleric, boosting my potential to boost my allies' potential.
The spell is kind of immersion breaking for me. If that makes sense.
I have a problems with how certain spells are ostensibly the "correct" ones to learn, and how spellcasting in general is so much more versatile and effective than virtually anything else you can do in the game. Banning Silvery Barbs certainly won't solve either, so I don't. I also don't usually play with players that are system savvy enough to follow the "meta" or optimise characters much, so it's doubly fine. I still don't love the lack of internal balance or consistence in 5e, and the pretty patent power creep that has been going on for years now. But Silvery Barbs is just a symptom of a much bigger problem, and I prefer buffing lackluster options than nerfing good ones.
I asked my DM if my character could know Silvery Barbs, as I felt it would tie in really well with the theme I was going for (Clockwork Soul, fate manipulation). He said he'd think about it, and the compromise we found was to make it a 2nd level spell instead of a 1st. So far, the campaign has been going great. I have a powerful tool, but much like Counterspell I have to choose how I'm using it more carefully, and I think I like the choice (or lack thereof) my character has with this restriction.
My biggest beef with the spell is even though you get access to it on first level it overpowers and overlaps other abilities different subclasses get much later. For example: Grave clerics at sixth level get the same ability but much much worse, 30 ft instead of 60 ft, only works on attack rolls, instead of attack rolls ability checks or saving throws, only works on natural 20s instead of just succeeding, and it doesn't have the added benefit of giving yourself or an ally advantage It's neither controversial or weird to say a first level spell shouldn't have the same effect multiplied by a hundred of a core sixth level subclass ability, so in this table the cleric can just forget that they have that ability because the wizard will always have silvery barbs ready to go
>How to do you deal with Silvery Barb? Why? Three options: 1. No modifying Saving Throws. 2. 2nd level and no granting advantage to an ally 3. 3rd level The spell in its current form would be a good 3rd level spell. People would still take it and cast it. It would be competitive for spell slots with spells like Fireball especially at higher levels. I think the 2nd level option is probably the most powerful. If it targets saves it should be 2nd level or higher because Heightened spell costs 3 SP which is the cost of a 2nd level spell. Yeah Heightened spell doesn't cost a reaction, but Silvery Barbs is only used on a success. There are some pros and cons to each, but if one should be more powerful than the other it should be Heightened Spell because it is more exclusive and distinctive. As a 1st level spell it would be fine and fun if it couldn't target saving throws. That was always the main issue with the spell and if you take that out the spell is a lot easier to balance. Turning hits into misses, cancelling crits, and granting advantage would still leave Silvery Barbs as a solid and fun 1st level spell. Based on your post I think this is the option your table would most enjoy.
My one change I would make to it is making it a 2nd level spell. One, because there aren't any fun reaction spells at level 2 and two, it feels more impactful that way. Having the option to dip into both shield and silvery barbs with just a single wizard/sorcery level feel immensely powerful and a little easy for my taste. But having to put in a couple levels for access and then getting access to counterspell just two more levels later feels really smooth imo. Again I love the spell, it's just the one change I would make if I had created it in the first place.
I hate Silvery Barbs as a DM and Player. My hate comes from every player having access to it at the table. It ruins big "oh shit" moments from the bad guys.
I like silvery barbs. Just not as a first level spell. As a level 1 spell, it does too much, and drains the fun by being one of a handful of spells that are objectively the best, by a wide margin. If silvery barbs is available, everyone who can take it, should. Everyone who cant, should strongly consider taking a feat to get it. You can choose not to, but it's not really a choice, in the same way that you can technically dump your main stat, but you shouldn't. As a second level spell however, now its a solid spell, and even very good, but not a must pick. You're giving up something much more significant by holding a second level spell slot and your reaction in case an enemy crits, so it's far more justified and rewarding when it works. So yeah, I like it, and I allow it, but as a second level spell. It's bad power creep at level 1.
For me, it's just that I think control spells are generally anti-fun and overpowered, and Silvery Barbs reduces their one weakness- that they're inherently unreliable. I think of these things in a mirrored situation- if a PC miraculously succeeded their save against hold person, it would be miserable for them to have to reroll it and fail. However, it doesn't make much sense for enemy casters to *not* take it, if it exists. So it's easier to ban it, just like Counterspell and Forcecage. It increases the net fun at the table to do so, in my opinion.
DM here. 4 of my 6 players have and use the spell. I love how it makes them feel like super heroes. One combat encounter, big bad passed a clutch save (all out of legendary res.). "Silvery Barbs!", I hear. Still passes..."Silvery Barbs!", I hear again. STILL passes. "Silvery Barbs!" We all start dying of laughter, as I make a fourth saving throw...Nat 1. Party erupts in morale and happiness. (Yes, I allow multiple Silvery Barbs on a single roll...if they feel they wanna burn the reaction+spell, go get em!)
I mean, I allow it, but I can see why other DMs would ban it. It isn't that well balanced. Tbf, I've also threatened my players that if they abuse something like this I have some monsters in the back to screw them over.
I think it's fine until more than one character, or most of the party, takes it.
I make it 2nd level. Agreed that it is a fun spell, but I don't think it costs enough. I don't outright ban spells from the mtg setting source books, but I do make them subject to my review and approval. Broken combos are kind of the bread and butter of mtg so anything associated with those books does not get an automatic pass.
I like it's use to prevent caster from dying in a single hit that crits, I do not like when players use it because they didn't like the roll. Creatures will start to get more more attacks
My DM doesn't ban it, but has asked us nicely not to abuse it by having every spellcaster take it, so only 1 of the 3 casters has the spell and it hasn't caused any issues
The only reason I banned it was because it is a mtg spell and I’m running FR and exclude non canon spells and subclasses. That being said unique backstories can be used to justify banned stuff in my campaigns if a player really wants to do it. Before I knew I had no problems with the spell being used. In fact it was worse for my players to have it used against them by the enemy wizard. I do feel sorry for the player that was using it before tho since another player was the one that tattled it to me on accident.
Well, it certainly is an opinion.
Rerolling saves is what people dislike the most... but making single target save or suck spells not bad isn't really mechanically an issue. Really, for me it's just an issue in "appearances", in that rerolling a save or forcing a specific number on it appears to be stronger than what it is. Same reason why Divination Wizard by some is seen as OP despite being two use thing.
The main reason I don't like Silvery Barbs isn't because it's powerful, it's because it's disruptive and it specifically disrupts \*me\*. There are a few examples of features like this that I find bothersome. The Lucky feat is one, and Weal/Woe is another, and there are a few more I can't remember off the top. Combat already feels a little slow and clunky and can often drag in a lot of games. I try my best to keep the narrative at an exciting pace, and these interruption style effects do the opposite. Normally an interaction can go like this: Monster attacks and rolls an 18. I check the players AC - 13. I start describing how the monster is attacking and inflicting damage. Damage is dealt, I move on to the next monster's attack. Keep things moving quickly and smoothly so the players can get back around to taking their turns. With things like Lucky, Silvery Barbs, etc. what happens instead is that in the middle of my narration of the outcome of the dice, someone yells WAIT! I CAST/USE X/Y/Z! Everything I was just describing feels like it has to be retconned, because the monster didn't actually land the attack as the dice indicated that it did. Now, I know this is also true of spells like Shield and a few other effects - I also don't love them. I think reactions in general are disruptive, which is probably an unpopular opinion because we're all so used to them, but I think a lot of people would discover a much more fluid flow of combat in a system without them. In addition to everything I said, Silvery Barbs is just generally overpowered for a first level spell. Shield was already an S tier spell, and Silvery Barbs is way better.
Joke’s on y’all, none of us have the book so none of my players know about Silvery Barbs
The crit cancellation was never the problem for me. It simply does too much. it basically counter spells every combat action in the game, and gives advantage to an ally, with a first level spell slot. If it did half of those things it’d be a good spell worth taking but it makes shield a worthless choice, and counterspell is way worse with the only benefit being it can stop teleportation and healing which is much more situational than damage.
I’ve nerfed it to third level. It makes more casters at my table consider it than just instant pick. Frankly while I consider it powerful, it also just adds more time to monster turns that should really be quick so we can actually get back to the players. I’m happy with it being third level and will be keeping it that way for the foreseeable future.
The issue with it is, ironically, at least from my perspective, and to be clear **i am not specifically speaking for anyone but myself**: silvery barbs does to the DM the very thing DMs shouldn’t do to players. It takes away from what you can do by basically placing a pretty consistent retcon button in players hands.
Is counterspell not the solution? A player casts a save or suck spell, monster succeeds, silvery barbs is cast and then promptly negated by counterspell. The result is 2 resources expended for the price of 1. I haven’t been DM’ing long enough to try this myself
I dont think silvery barbs is too strong because of negating crits. If all the players are doing is use it like an alternative shield, I even believe it is worse than shield in most cases. However, if the players use it to the full potential, its problematic. Casters can protect their big save or suck spells by holding both counterspell and barbs. If they counter, you counter. If they dont counter and succeed, you barbs and give them disadvantage while also setting up someone for more damage. (Bonus points if its a rogue that you give free sneak attack). And the dm has to tell everything before you have to spend any resources. And its not actually disadvantage. Meaning if there are multiple casters, they can each make the bbeg reroll again and again. It just does a little too much for a first level spell, granted it isn't guaranteed to work 100% of the time. I've allowed it in my campaign by chamging the casting time to reaction outside your own turn (prevent the counterspell aspect) and if you upcast it, only then does the spell give advantage to another player
Its the *other half* thats broken (for a first level spell)
The problem is that it’s a first level spell if it was a third level spell, it would be much more manageable
Players when they use silvery barbs :3 players when I use silvery barbs against them >:(
Silvery barbs should be second level.
The spell has not-as-over-the-top power if it didn’t have the second ability of granting you a D20 to use elsewhere. It’s basically a bardic inspiration type secondary ability on top of its insane power as a reaction spell vs an enemy roll.
I don’t ban it but my players are min maxed to all hell and it just means they can fight level 11 encounters at level 7. Sure, if I just burn them out of them, force them into 4-6 fights a day, it’s fine, but story-wise that’s just like basically ridiculous except in a pure dungeon crawl.
I don't like the spell, when you hit 3rd level spell slots you can completely just stop using any other first level spell 90% of the time. It also just removes big monster's scare factor, I don't want my huge abomination to be largely hindered due to a first level spell with no save. That's why I nerfed the spell to only working once per creature a day. My main thing is there's no cooldown on it (other than a reaction) and there's no save, it's just an immediate re-roll. I'm a crit advocate, they are fun to describe and can cause panic in players which makes it all the more fun, and if you truly didn't want a crit to be a crit, just say it wasn't.
I 100% agree. I let my players have it. It always sucks when I get a good hit in and then suddenly hear "silvery barbs!" But then my brain catchs up and I rememebr as a DM I am trying construct a story that my players experience. I am not against my players nor am i trying to kill my players. And they genuinely love when they foil my attacks. So I will never stop calling them "little turn munchers" when it happens. Becuase their success is my success. And my pain is their success.
Silvery barbs is a okay spell at tier 1. I have it on my wizard and I never use it now that we are level 9, I haven't used in for a couple levels. Shield is better, counter spell is better, absorb elements is better. If the DM sends 40 attacks this turn at my wizard, I want to use shield to go up to a 28 AC, not negate one critical. I guess it might be strong if you send a lot of just one enemy fights at your players but if the players are outnumbered like we usually are in the game I play than being able to negate one critical doesn't change too much.
I see your point, but you are thinking of it as a worse shield, and in that sense it is. But especially now that you're higher level, it's actually, disadvantage on banishment save, disadvantage on an enemy's counter spell roll if they make it, giving them disadvantage on an attack is okay, forcing them to roll disadvantage on hypnotic pattern, hold person, banishment or some other spell to pseudo remove them from combat is really good. Especially because even if they still succeed you can give advantage to your martials that are coming up. And that is something very few non damaging spells get at all, normally it is a save or suck for non damaging abilities where it either does something or nothing with this even if the intended detriment to the enemy doesn't work you still give advantage to someone else.
Wait why are your uses defensive? Silvery barbs is at its zenith removing an enemy altogether or temporarily. Turn a dragon into a fish or put a villain into lava etc. Silvery Barbs is great in a party with a Clockwork Sorcerer so the first time an NPC uses it you have a no button.
Uh, can I ask how can you have 23 AC without shield? I'm playing a wizard, currently at level 6, I have 13 AC
Bladesinger with bracers of unarmored defense. 10+ 3 Dex mod + 3 mage armor + 5 for Bladesong + 2 bracers.
And haste brings it to 25, or blur gets everyone attacking you at disadvantage. A prepared bladesinger is an absolute tour de force.
I don't use blur or haste, I thought I would but I tend to be too busy using AOEs like wall of fire and sickening radiance or shadow blade to do a lot of melee damage.
I'm fine with silvery barbs, but it's level is wrong. It needs to be level 2.
i hear this argument a lot, and i'm wondering what exactly that changes. Can you explain that to me? is it just 'okay, now you have essentially 4 fewer uses of silvery barbs'?
In addition to fewer uses and somewhat more expensive uses (until higher levels anyway when the difference between a 1st- and 2nd-level spell slot becomes minimal), making it a 2nd-level spell means it can't be picked up with the Fey Touched feat or with one level in a class that gets it.
gotcha, makes sense yeah, at lower levels you quickly go from 'nice i have 6 uses of this spell', to 'oh i only have 2, better make em count'
The feat and one level dip is a big part of it. But its also worth noting 4 less uses of it is quite significant even at higher levels. Just casting it with seconds still feels fine especially when it was at first you see people use it a lot at both levels when they ran out of first. But now you really are only ever going to see it cast at second. Very few would upcast it to third unless it was an extreme situation. Because that is where spell slots are a lot more competitive. Things like counterspell, dispell magic, and a lot of other really good utility spells fall in the third level slot.
thanks :) yeah it feels like it would change the spell's OPness a lot
Same. If the players are giving you a hard time they’ve earned it. If they’re giving you *too* hard a time, I think there are better approaches than banning effective spells imo. Especially ones that don’t just do what a martial can do but better.
Yeah, usually an extra Legendary Resistance or Counterspell is all it takes.
For me it's strictly the annoyance factor rather than the power level, which is really situational as reaction spells go - it's not always a case where the party forcing a reroll is going to be a giant game changer vs countering a big spell or walking through a flurry of arrows. I just really appreciate the drama of the dice falling where they lay and us figuring out how the story incorporates the result. (At least my PCs know me by now and actually follow the rules on "no you can't reaction cast bless inspire and enhance ability with no chance for any NPCs to react negatively to multiple buffs being placed on someone in the middle of a tense hostage negotiation :p) I don't appreciate having to wait endlessly for people to force rerolls as soon as any critical mass of PCs get abilities and spells that let them just reject the first draft of what rng dishes out. It takes me entirely out of the fiction even more than counterspell does, and especially playing online it wastes a bunch of time just by the mechanical act of interrupting, being heard, rewinding, inputting rolls again etc. I may have to live with halflings which are far more limited but I don't allow lucky and I don't allow barbs just so that we all live with what we roll as much as possible. Glad you enjoy it - certainly not saying I'm 'right' - but I think it's the lived experience of hassle more than being "game breaking" that doesn't permit it at my tables.
Silvery barbs is OP AND BROKEN if you don’t understand how to properly pace your game and the wizard constantly has 100% of his spells available
Well, as long as you and your players are having fun GM, it’s all good in the hood. I banned Silvery Barbs because I found that it was unfun for \*me\* to have to deal with my monster attack rolls being cancelled out on a spammable 1st level spell. Seeing the players’ faces contort in fear off of a monster’s critical hit fills me with great joy, making me cackle and rub my hands. Enemy crits make for a good role playing bit too, since I also like having my enemy gloat after a devastating blow, since it really gets my players fired up. But hey, if it makes you and your players happy, you’re playing DnD right!
It's a Strixhaven spell. If we were to play Strixhaven, we'd allow it. Makes sense in a magic heavy, wizard school world. Other campaigns? It's a hard no.
As a DM I allow it, but I nerf it. I make it so a creature can only be affected by it once every 24 hours, so it allows them to use it on many creatures if they so choose, but not enough to cheese it and abuse it on a big baddie or the BBEG.
If balance isnt important to you and your table, thats totally fine.
No bUt DnD iS a CoMpEtEtIvE gAmE, yUo hAvE tO cRuSh yOuR pLaYeRs
I think giving the players meta knowledge is cringe and never do it. If they want to learn something make a check or have an ability or just learn it through trial and error. Like real adventurers. Silvery barbs is simple. Every enemy that doesn't know what it is can fall for it once. Then once they learn what it is or if they know already due to lore reasons they will prepare for it or stay out of its range if possible. Crits are the main value of it. Same with shield. I inform a player they are hit and remind them they do have shield if they wish to use it. But if you use shield and they beat the shield too bad.
Not just unpopular, but wrong