Hello there magic practitioners of all shapes and sizes! Thank you so much for using my spellbook, alright let’s get started on the second step to our cantrip journey we have a blade ward spell dnd 5e. The first one was acid splash if you haven’t check that out yet i highly recommend it. This guy is usable by the bard, sorcerer, warlock and wizard spell sheet. So most of the spellcasters and it is found in the players handbook so everyone should have access to it. Alright well let’s take a look at the mechanics.
Table of Contents
Mechanics
- Casting time: 1 Action
- Range: Self
- Duration: 1 Round
- Effect: Resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage.
- Components: Somatic and Verbal
- School: Abjuration
So cast time only one action which is standard for most cantrips. Range is self, duration is one round and the effect is resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage. There’s a caveat to that but i’ll get into it later. The components are somatic and verbal which means not only do you have to speak it, they have to gesture your hand as well and the school is abjuration. All right, let’s do a quick description. Also read this dodge article.
Description
You extend your hand and trace a sigil of warding in the air. Until the end of your next turn, you have resistance against bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage dealt by weapon attacks.
Now weapon attacks is the keyword there and is the one phrase that turn this cantrip from pretty good into not that great at all especially at lower levels. All right, so essentially what it breaks down is slashing damage, piercing damage, bludgeoning damage but you take half damage. That’s what resistance means. Don’t miss out this friends 5e.
If you already have resistance to any of these damages that you cast played word on it. You’ll have immunity to those damages which is pretty cool in the right context. With some magical items you might have a pretty good chance of using it. Now let’s get into some alternate uses. Also read this bonus action guide.
Alternative Uses
So imagine you’re with a group and you break a lot. Is your punishment you either have to get lashings or if you get hit or you have your arrow shot at you from some guardsmen in order to repent or something of those nature’s. You can also read magic weapons.
That would be great time for you to cast blade ward especially if you’re squish your character and your AC might not be the highest and i know it says that it has to be dealt by weapon attacks but i would homebrew it so traps will be allowed in there, so if you’re going down a dungeon and you’re one of the squishier characters that i would pass it on myself if your DM allows it that’d be great. Also check out dancing lights 5e.
Another interesting use i saw for it is getting the most bang for your buck when they came to armor of agathys a lot of warlocks some gish mages and eldritch knights might be able to take advantage of that. In addition the eldritch knight might be able to take even more advantage of it, because they can get that extra attack right.
So that might be one way to do it and they’ll also get action surge might be another good way to do it. But for most characters i couldn’t really imagine playing with this a lot like circumstantially huge upside but overall i’m not too so on it.
Conclusion
If you have any creative uses for it, i’d really like to hear it down in the comments below. With that in mind guys thank you so much for checking out my spellbook and i’m looking forward to doing the next one. Don’t miss out these interesting blog posts such as booming blade 5e | true strike 5e | chill touch 5e | prestidigitation 5e.