Master the Magical Dance of Bladesinging from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

Salutations, nerds! Today I’m going to honor and expand on the elven ways with a closer look at the Arcane Tradition of Bladesinging for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. You might be aware that I’m playing one of these wizards, Chessalyne, in our latest Chaos Crew game Untraditionally Arcane where normal magic is on the fritz and those of us who study more obscure magic have been called in to go try to fix it. The campaign is a lot of fun and you should totally check it out.

Incorporating swordplay and dance with 5E D&D wizard magic

As for Bladesinging itself the Arcane Tradition from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything is what you’d call a gish — a melee fighter who uses spells. It’s probably not a surprise I’m super into it. Traditionally Bladesinging wizards are elves who channel magic into their swords for both attack and defense. In this case, you are making art and corpses.

The Bladesinging Arcane Tradition adds a solid tank option for 5E D&D wizards. A tank’s purpose isn’t to do a crapton of damage to the enemy. It isn’t impossible to do through Bladesinging especially if the spells you take are the big damage output ones but I think where this subclass from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything really shines is in it’s capacity to soak hits. This is particularly evident in Untraditionally Arcane where we play an all wizard party.

“When faced with the endless onslaught of magical possibilities, many wizards suffer identity crises. Some overcome, some break, and some become sword-bards.” — Tasha’s commentary on the Bladesinging Arcane Tradition in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

Bladesinging Features

• Training in War and Song. You get proficiencies in light armor, one type of one-handed melee weapon of your choice (which doesn’t have to be a blade) and proficiency in the Performance skill. Imagine being a Bladesinging wizard and hefting a clunky one-handed mace and embarrassing all the other Bladesingers.
• Bladesong. Use a bonus action and you get a minute of adding your Intelligence modifier to your AC, getting an extra 10 feet of movement, having advantage on your Acrobatics checks and adding your Intelligence modifier to your Constitutions saving throws to keep your concentration spells up. This here is the reason you play a Bladesinging wizard in 5E D&D. It also makes casting spells in the middle of the melee viable. My apologies to the healer but I am 100% going to be butt deep in the enemy doing Cirque du Soliel.
• Extra Attack. You can attack twice instead of once. But wait — there’s more. You can cast one of your cantrips in place of one of those attacks. So imagine coming in, swinging and hitting with your sword and then channeling a firebolt into your enemy’s lacerated flesh. Boss? I think so.
• Song of Defense. Imagine creating a flare of magic to take damage for you. Because that’s pretty much what this feature does. Expending a spell slot to reduce the damage you’re taking by an amount equal to five times the spell slot’s level. Just another thing to makes the Bladesinging wizard a viable tank.
• Song of Victory. The ability to add your Intelligence modifier to the damage of your melee weapon attacks while your Bladesong is active. Because of the bounded accuracy design method in 5E D&D this damage buff is nothing to sneeze at particularly when you’re so hard to hit to start with and can just cancel damage.

There are better 5E D&D options to play if you want to taunt the enemy and keep them focused on you but the flavor of Bladesinging is incredibly fun. If what you want is the ability to cast those big deal damage spells and hit things in the melee you can do far worse too. I high key love it.

Let us know in the comments, connect with us on Facebook and @Nerdarchy or come see me after class @Pyrosynthesis and of course, stay nerdy!

*Featured image — A drow and a high elf Bladesinger wizards as seen in the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. [Image courtesy Wizards of the Coast]

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