Melee Cantrips used with Bladesinger Extra Attack? IE. cast, first atk with effect, second without?
@FullMthrlJckt @mikemearls
No. Extra Attack requires the Attack action, not the Cast a Spell action.
— Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford) October 29, 2015
So why does the bladesinger have the extra attack feature? wouldn’t it have made more sense thematically for them to have the war magic feature of the eldritch knight which allows an extra attack as a bonus action after casting a cantrip?
It’s probably just to make them more effective in combat since they are intended to be in melee range. They don’t have the luxury of being able to risk an attack of opportunity, so they would have to do attacks if they start getting low on spell slots or some kind of magical effect is preventing them from doing cantrips easily or at all. Like Darkness or Silence.
I’m a bit late to this discussion, but am making up a Bladesinger and came across this same issue – Extra Attack seems borderline pointless. On the same page as Bladesinger, you have Booming Blade. At level 6, you can either use Extra Attack[1d8+Mod, 1d8+Mod], or a weapon cantrip like Booming Blade or Green-Flame Blade[1d8+Mod, +1d8]. So the only difference at lvl 6 is the +Mod vs single target, which I personally think both secondary effects of those cantrips makes up for. At level 11, the weapon cantrips gain an additional 1d8, while Extra Attack is stagnant until level 14.
Things change when you add dual wielding, but not characters will do that. If you designed you Bladesinger as a dual wielding, haste casting blender, I can see how it could balance out.
“In combat, a bladesinger uses a series of intricate, elegant maneuvers that fend off harm and allow the bladesinger to channel magic into devastating attacks and a cunning defense.” – Bladesinger description.
This sounds like War Magic. Weaving magic into its blade work, combining martial and arcane. It would allow them to use both magic and martial in melee combat, like an EK.
Serious question, is there any design reason why they would choose Extra Attack over War Magic? The class feels like one of its core concepts is War Magic, yet they went with a pure martial feature, which personally feels useless, as the conditions of it being useful seem rather rare.
I still think the Bladesinger is great, I’m just confused as to why they would put Extra Attack instead of War Magic.
Bold Ugg
Unfortunately I’m not a DnD Designer and this page is WOTC unofficial, you could ask directly via Twitter to Master Jeremy via Twitter @JeremyECrawford, Master Mike @mikemearls
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