Blade Ward 5e - D&D 5th Edition Spell Book
Blade Ward 5e Spell Effects
Abjuration cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S
Duration: 1 round
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.
All information on Blade Ward 5e comes from the DnD Player's Handbook.
Classes That Can Cast Blade Ward 5e
As with many basic spells in D&D 5e, there are less classes (at least in the Player's Handbook) than you might expect who cast cast Blade Ward.
- Bard
- Sorcerer
- Warlock
- Wizard
With basic defensive cantrips like this, you would think that the spell would come as a standard option at least for clerics, if not also for paladins and druids.
Blade Ward 5e Spell Effectiveness
| Resistance | 1st-Level | 5th-Level | 11th-Level | 17th-Level | 20th-Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Normal Damage | 11 | 19 | 30 | 41 | 45 |
| Resistance | 50% | 50% | 50% | 50% | 50% |
| Actual Damage | 5 | 9 | 15 | 20 | 22 |
Calculations for Damage and Resistance
The damage values presented above are roughly based on average damage values (not accounting for hit chance) for 1st-20th level characters. Resistance in DnD 5e reduces damage taken by half, so the Blade Ward 5e spell effectively halves weapon damage that's bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing. In D&D 5e, halved values are always rounded down.
Blade Ward Usefulness
Blade Ward is honestly kind of a strange spell, when you think about it. Since the spell is a cantrip, it certainly has its useful moments though. Try to use Blade Ward 5e in some of the following optimal circumstances though, to maximize its value for you.
- Blade Ward 5e, since it's a cantrip, should probably be used (almost) only when you have no other spell slots available to use.
- Use Blade Ward when you're surrounded by enemies with weapons (not spell casters) that deal bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage. If you're fighting spell casters, do not use Blade Ward 5e.
- Use Blade Ward 5e against enemies with particularly high physical/ weapon damage, to maximize your damage resisted.
- Cast Blade Ward as a last resort, when you know that your team is about to come in and save you. Since casting Blade Ward prevents you from using any other action (unless it's a bonus action), you're placed completely on the defensive. Without a healer nearby or allies to deal damage and save you, you're probably toast.
- Think of Blade Ward 5e as a stalling spell, where you're just dragging out the battle - trying to survive as long as possible - until help arrives.
Combine Blade Ward 5e with the Following Spells
Even though I'd typically only use Blade Ward 5e as a last-resort kind of spell, there are also some interesting combinations you can use to increase its value by quite a bit.
- Aid 5e: this spell grants temporary hit points, which last for 8-hours. Anyone who ends up in a situation where they need to continually cast Blade Ward 5e (probably while running for their lives) would certainly benefit from a little extra hit points, to survive. An alternative to aid would be armor of agathys, or any other spell that provides temporary hit points. Just note that temporary hit point effects do not stack, so you can't benefit from multiple of them at the same time.
- Aura of Vitality 5e: this may be one spell example that you can actually cast yourself, since once it's cast, it only requires a bonus action to provide healing each round. Using aura of vitality while protecting yourself with Blade Ward would allow you heal yourself each round while still giving yourself resistance against bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
- Cure Wounds 5e: since cure wounds requires an action to cast, this spell will have to be performed by an ally. Still though, if you can more or less tank damage with your weapon resistance while allies heal you up, you basically get double value from the cure wounds spell.
- Haste 5e: haste provides +2AC, doubled movement speed, and advantage on Dexterity saving throws, making it especially useful when you're trying to run away and survive, with Blade Ward 5e. Again, this is a situation where an ally would do better to caste haste on you, as you won't have the actions for it, continually casting blade ward, and taking damage might cause you to lose spell concentration, anyways.
- Hellish Rebuke 5e: this incredible, top-tier spell actually allows you to deal damage to enemies when they attack you, as a mere bonus action. So, you can protect yourself with Blade Ward 5e, then counterattack anyone who tries to harm you.
- Mage Armor 5e: since mage armor can be cast ahead of battle (with its 8-hour duration), you could have the spell raising your AC, making you not only harder to hit, but also causing you to take less damage when combined with Blade Ward 5e.
- Spiritual Weapon 5e: similarly to hellish rebuke, spiritual weapon - once cast - only requires a bonus action each round to attack enemies. The only problem with this spell is that if you're constantly being attack you can easily lose spell concentration. For this reason, combining spiritual weapon with Blade Ward 5e is probably only a fallback option.
Blade Ward 5e Counters
Blade Ward is a cantrip spell, so at least it doesn't take up spell slots. Aside from that, however, it's a pretty niche spell, and has many weaknesses.
For example, if you get overwhelmed by enemies, and an enemy spell caster notices that you're using Blade Ward to protect yourself, they can simply use Silence 5e on you to prevent you from casting it anymore. In all reality, Blade Ward is such a simple spell, that I doubt anyone would ever use dispel magic to remove the effect, but they could, if they so desired.
Additionally, enemies can just attack you with spell damage. Even cantrip spells such as Acid Splash 5e completely ignore the effects of Blade Ward, effectively making its effects worthless. Also, spells that deal bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage are exempt from the damage resistance blade ward 5e provides, as the spell only resists weapon attacks, specifically.
Finally, any enemy dealing half damage to a target affected by Blade Ward 5e is still dealing half damage, while the target uses their actions each turn doing no damage. Basically, enemies can still slowly wear down a spell caster who's using Blade Ward, and eventually defeat them, with nothing more than their basic weapon attacks.
Blade Ward-Type Spells in Eternity TTRPG
Each TTRPG system has its own list of spells, abilities, and specific rules for how the game works. Maybe you've been playing D&D for years, and it's the only game you've ever played, or you're new to tabletop gaming and have only ever heard of D&D.
Well, there are many games like DnD out there, and the Eternity TTRPG Game System is one of them. Of course, everyone knows and loves the largest tabletop RPGs, but many times, people are surprised at how much they enjoy playing smaller, independently-created games as well.
In case you're curious about trying out other games or seeing what they're like, I've included an ability from Eternity TTRPG (below) that's similar to Blade Ward in effect, so you can do some comparison of your own.
Royal Guard - Core Class Ability
Shield Wall: this Ability can only be used if you are wielding a shield. Move your Speed value -2, and gain +13Resilience, +13Dodge, and +13Will against attacks made from 3Range or more away, for 1turn.
- (Executor) You also “Charge” (see Chapter 14, “Additional Actions”) an enemy with your “Shield Wall.”
- (Life-Sworn) After you use this Critical, whenever an enemy attacks any target but you, you gain +7Strike Bonus the next time you attack them with “Shield Slam” (can stack to +14Strike Bonus).
- (Ancient Blade) Move your Speed value +2. You can also move up to your Speed value +2 when using this Ability, for Battle Duration.
Similar to Blade Ward 5e, the royal guard Shield Wall protects them from attacks - although in this case, from attacks made only from a distance. However, Shield Wall also allows the royal guard to move while defending themselves, and the ability also protects against spells (through the Will and Resilience stat bonuses).
Curious to learn more? Check out the
Eternity TTRPG Core Game!
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Author - Jacob Tegtman
Dear reader, I hope you enjoyed this article. Tabletop gaming has been a passion of mine since I was 6 years old. I've played just about every game from Dungeons and Dragons to video games like Final Fantasy. These games have inspired me, made me laugh, made me cry, and brought me endless hours of enjoyment.
I started Eternity TTRPG - and the indie tabletop game that goes along with it (Eternity Shop) - to share my love of gaming with others. I believe that in our technology-driven age, tabletop games help bring a sense of magic and community back into our world.
If you love the site, please share it with others! I have lots of gaming-related material for you to peruse and use in your own gaming sessions. If you have any questions about the site or want to contribute, just send me a message using the "Contact" page, which you can find in the site's footer.
Transcribed content from our recent YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ytddTkKJQQ Transcription [00:00:00] Welcome back to Eternity TTRPG YouTube channel, where I talk about different happenings in the tabletop role play universe, as well as the role play game that my husband and I have been creating and we recently released our first product of. So this go around, I am going to finish up the Crooked Moon races. There are quite a few in the Crooked Moon universe, so it's taken a while to get through them, but I have three left, and those three we're gonna cover. So I have the Deepborn, Azureborn, and Bogborn. Now, the theme with Crooked Moon is that they're all horror related in a way. They give you an eerie feeling, um, they're kind of like our worst nightmares put into D&D, right? So to jump right in with that, we're gonna go with the Deepborn first. So think of the Deepborn as a sea monster, for lack of a better term, right? So you have this eldritch knowledge that they're using, and [00:01:00] because they're, like, Deepborn and in the sea, there's a lot of things about them that human races wouldn't understand. So you get to really take this idea of understanding and knowing and kind of run with it, and it's almost like whatever you say in the campaign is true because you're just this cosmic being of sorts that gets to decide what's true about your race, right? Um, another way that I think of them is kind of alien-ish or there was, um, a Netflix movie that came out recently that I would think of them as. Um, it was a really neat movie, like, this, um, family got stuck inside their house because of these water beings. Recommend it. But continuing on, they're just super creepy and could be really fun to play because of how creepy they are, right? Because they're always gonna have this, um- kind of gibberish going on in their brain that they're probably spewing out because of the eldritch knowledge that they have. Um, not to mention being sea monsters, they're gonna be [00:02:00] amphibious, so you're gonna have that water to land going on. You're gonna have maybe some dark vision available, so that could be a really neat play, never having to need the light. Um, but could that also play against you? Like not needing to be in the light, maybe you're fearful of it as your character. Kind of a cool idea. Um, other character ideas is, um, what if your Deepborn character was absolutely terrified of the ocean even though they're able to breathe underwater and basically come from the sea? Um, other thing that I've already touched on is that they kind of hear these whispers in gibberish from eldritch, that eldritch knowledge, um, and it can be a lot of like the, "Whoa, what was that? Did you guys hear that?" And they could just be always feeding the campaign in that way. Um, other thing is like treating things that are not normal by human standards as [00:03:00] completely normal. Um, these incomprehensible like cosmic entities could be really cool. Um, and the other thing is like the Deepborn could genuinely not understand why their behavior is so disturbing to the party. So super fun. I think that could be a really cool take on it, any of those ideas that you could go with. I just like the idea of a sea monster kind of thing because I think I always thought, you know, the ocean is very unexplored. Um, it's definitely the last wonders of the world, right? 'Cause we can't go as deep as we'd like to in it, and it would just be cool to get to experience that as a sea creature. Eternity TTRPG has released a card game battler which emulates combat from the tabletop role-playing genre. Sparks of Eternity: Emanation is fast-paced, easy to learn, and features six classes from your favorite TTRPGs. Each class deck comes with [00:04:00] its own set of unique abilities, which everyone plays at the same time, so there's never any downtime at your table. Each turn, everyone's characters levels up, giving players access to even more options. If you're interested in taking a look, we have our sales page live now, packed with details. Moving on to the Azure Born. So the Azure Born is a prophetic harpy-like sky dweller. Okay, so when I hear prophetic, we're definitely thinking about a character that knows the future, knows what's gonna happen, and they're just like, they can always get a glimpse of the fate and how it's going to affect them. Now, the play that I would like with this is, yes, they can see the future, but obviously the decisions you make in the campaign can change the future they see. So that could be really cool as an NPC even to have, like, this sky-dwelling harpy that plays the prophet, gives all these things that could happen, tells you how the campaign ends, and if you as the campaign [00:05:00] doesn't like that ending, just make the decisions to change it, right? Now, as a character that you can play, right, they could be desperately trying to prevent what they've seen, um, or they could even lie about the visions that they see, so that way their prophetic ability isn't even real to everyone else, um, because they know what's going to happen. They, uh, could also have a personality where they're second-guessing every decision they make because they don't wanna make the wrong one because they've already seen what happens, right? And maybe they like that outcome, so they're like, "Well, how do I get that outcome? Maybe this is right. Maybe this is wrong. I don't know." So that could be just really fun in a character with that prophetic side of things. So last one I want to hop into was the Bog Born, and the Bog Born is your swamp-dwelling creature.[00:06:00] Um, I also think of it as like a mega swamp tank kind of guy, right? So I think of Avatar: The Last Airbender with these swamp benders when they make that giant swamp vine creature that's taking all the hits from the Fire Nation, and it just keeps regenerating. So it's like a giant tank for the army. And that is absolutely what I see when I think of this because they do have that regeneration, and they're very, you know, in tune with the swamps. So that's really fun to think of. And with that, it brings out the idea of if I'm this regenerative swamp creature, Can I be taken out? Maybe that's the whole premise of their character and how you role play this character is, "I'm gonna get into every fight possible and see just how much I can take." So it definitely brings in a different dynamic into the [00:07:00] party because if you do have a character like that, how is the party gonna react to you? Is the party going to have the same mentality? Will they constantly be pulling you back from that, um, mindset? So I don't know, maybe. With all of that going on, I think the other thing is all of the, all of these characters have a different idea when it comes to the future and fate and how to handle it, right? So the Deepborn always having this whispering knowledge in their ear. It's always this question of if the whispers are true, and maybe they're always trying to find out if they're true. The Azureborn, they know what's true, but they don't know how to get to it. And the Bogborn is like, "All I know is I'm gonna be a tank and go at this," right? So overall, they're super fun. I think you can definitely see where you can take these, uh, races. Um, and as I said earlier in the video, this [00:08:00] does round out, um, all of the Crooked Moon races. You can check in past videos to see what they were covered, what we talked about, how they are. Um, moving forward, I wanna be looking at the different classes available to you, um, specifically in Crooked Moon and specifically in the game that my husband and I have been creating. Um, so as always, like, comment, subscribe, and we'll catch you next time. Thanks. Bye.
Transcribed content from our recent YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP5OwjeAVBE Transcription [00:00:00] Welcome back to Eternity TTRPG YouTube, where I go over things going on in the tabletop role-playing community, um, from D&D to Crooked Moon to other games that we see. And this might be, for me, my most exciting one that I've gone over to date. Um, we have some very exciting news. I know if you've watched our channel in the past couple weeks, in the past couple months, um, you've seen videos talking about this card game, Battler, and we even did, um, a bit of an interview style talking about this game and its origin story and why it's so important to us. And the short version of that is my husband has been working on a tabletop role-playing game for 30 years at this point, you know, since he was a boy. And now here we are at the point where we have [00:01:00] something manufactured, published, and ready to sell, and it showed up at our doorstep this week. So we had this 750-pound pallet with 28 boxes of our game show up. Here it is. Sparks of Eternity Emanation. It is here. It is just-- It's better than, you know, we imagined it would be with just... It's just amazing. You know? You always talk about these things happening and these dreams coming true and, like, making a product. And to finally have it is an amazing experience. So, you know, we of course took the time this week to revel in that a little bit and, you know, we took the pictures. We [00:02:00] did the time lapses of everything. We just-- We got to see our dream come true this week. And, you know, this was his dream first, and I got to join in with it. And especially in the past year, um, this game was, you know, an idea from me, and he made it come true with his game. And it's just been a great experience getting to work together on it and play test it and everything. So let's go ahead and get into what is in the box. The guide, of course, you know, the how-to manual, how to play, what everything is, what all the symbols mean. And then of course you have the credits on the back with our artist on there as well as, you know, my husband and I's name, which is pretty incredible getting our name on something. And then you go into the box, and you get to see that there are six dice because it is a six-player game. [00:03:00] It can be up to six players, and you can obviously have more if you have more of the, um, uh, class decks. And then you have your life sparks, the red and the yellow, the red depicting, um, five hit points and the yellow depicting one. So, you know, some characters will start with that five hit points, and some will start with six or seven. And then I've seen hit points get all the way up to twenty-one if the healing ends up going super well. And then jumping into each of the classes that you see in this box, you are going to have the judge, the druid, the oracle, the, um... Oh, gosh You have all these different classes that we decided to put into what is considered the base game. And that is just amazing to see all of this artwork and getting it put together. And then on top of all [00:04:00] that, you have, um, the different effect cards. So your dazed, your blinded, your charmed, um, as well as some additional rules and details and your turn overviews to help you with the, like, getting going and your different turns. So that way you don't have to reference the how-to guide as often, the, um, instruction manual as often. So between my husband and I, because, you know, we've been play testing this for a year at this point, it has been a full calendar year, we have gotten to the point where we can play games in under 10 minutes. Um, however, this does state that it can take up to 30 when you are just learning this game. Um, of course, when you're just learning, you take a little more time with your turns and making sure everybody understands what is going on. Because the goal is to get to play faster [00:05:00] and to dive into this world a little bit quicker, you know? You want to be able to really enjoy this class that you're taking a part of and understand like, hey, this is why the druid is the druid. The druid gets to use these different shapes, the wolf and the griffin, to do more powerful attacks. Whereas the assassin, of course, has different things to help his assassin hit harder and guarantee that it hits and it can't be blocked. Um, so there's just all these little nuances about what you're playing with to see how it goes. So, you know, it's here. We are getting the final touches on everything for shipping, getting the sales page up, um, getting, you know, the different tiers because we are gonna offer a couple different things. Like, yes, we do have the box game, [00:06:00] but we also have a PDF version that has other classes available that you can just print off at home without having to have the box. Um, the other thing is we're looking at putting together a higher tier that is gonna have the box itself, but also a dedicated art book with all of the art that, um, has been used, we intend to use, that our artist has done. And there are a few other things with that tier that you're just gonna have to check out. But with all of that being said, we should be available to ship these within the next week. So we're gonna put that link below and if you don't mind waiting just a little bit longer, you can go ahead and order. However, once we get past this first week, we are gonna be shipping on a more regular schedule and we're excited to see the, uh, demand that these games will have. Of course, we have family and friends that want to see this, but we also want to grow the community with everyone else. So any support that you want to [00:07:00] give is greatly appreciated and it helps us achieve our dreams further and hopefully we can support others on their dreams. Um, so with that, comment, like, subscribe, let us know how we're doing. If you have any questions on the game, please let us know. And if you really would like to, please, uh, hit that button to order now. Thanks so much. Bye.
Transcribed content from our recent YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t2a-i3pyRk Transcription [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Eternity TTRPG channel, where I discuss different happenings in the tabletop role-playing universe, as well as talk about the game that my husband and I are actively creating. So one thing I wanna talk about this go around is a bit of the origin story of tabletop, um, as well as where it could be going and what's different about it and all those kind of things, right? So to start this off, when To start this off, I always thought of D&D as just D&D, right? D&D is [00:01:00] the premise of all tabletop role-playing. It's the genre itself. It's what I use to define the genre, is D&D. Because I think it was the first thing, right? It was the first thing where you could sit at a table with this book and go through a campaign and a dungeon and play this way. And then other creators said, "Hey, what if we take this thing that was created, and let's try it this way and go through this dungeon instead and this dungeon instead? And what if we add, you know, other universes now, like Star Wars and Avatar: The Last Airbender, and explore those worlds?" And the way that I look at it is that D&D was a way for people to come together and this singular person to lead you through their imagination, right? And now we come into today's day and age, and everybody has a lot of different ideas and imagination [00:02:00] going on. And with that, you have all of these different tabletop role-playing systems coming out and all these different campaigns coming out. But what are we trying to do, I guess? And how does D&D today translate to all of this? So the way that I'm starting to look at it is that these other systems could have just been, you know, the group of friends in the basement that was like, "Hey, I wanna try it this way." And it caught on and they're like, "Hey, my friend's like this. Let's make this an actual thing." And here comes all of these other role-playing games now. And the thing that we hear so much when I hear people talk about their other tabletop role-playing game is, "Oh, well, it's different than D&D. Oh, it does this that's [00:03:00] better. Oh, this is, you know, an easier system." And, you know, that's great and all, but the second you say tabletop role-playing or you say the words D&D, I just think D&D because D&D is the foundation of this entire genre, and it's going to continue to be, even with all of these different tabletops coming in and trying to change the system and all these different things. So when I realize this and everything, and I start to think about the game that my husband has been working on for 30 years and started in a basement, right, with a group of friends, um, I start to think, well, what makes it different? And the thing is we tend to use different in a way to make it seem better than what's already out there, right? And I don't think that's what [00:04:00] we're trying to do, but it's how it comes across in normal society. So with that being said, right- Just because we're different, it doesn't, you know, make us better. It just gives us other options in life. So the thing that I'm seeing the most when people say things are different is you're just getting a different campaign style. You're just getting a different, you know, way to play the game, perhaps a better entry point into tabletop role-playing. And I think in the end, all that we're trying to do is grow a community, right? You're trying to get to be more than just, you know, those 30, 40, 50-year-olds that were growing up playing it in their basement, and you're trying to get the younger generations to continue it. And I will say Stranger Things did help with that. Thank you, Stranger Things, for, you know, bringing it to light a little bit [00:05:00] more. But this thing with imagination is starting to gain so much popularity because we're starting to see so much more of the world, right? So I feel like I'm on a soapbox with this whole news channel because it is just my thoughts right now with this video. But let's just think about this for a second. We really hit... Actually, let's go back When we were in, you know, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, '80s, '90s, we were using libraries and books, encyclopedias, and it was, you know, kind of difficult to travel the world and have the money to do that, and you didn't always know what you were getting into. And it's like the world itself that we lived in held so much imagination [00:06:00] that we didn't know what to do with it, and we were able to go and do these things and strive for these things and just let it all explode and experience it realistically. Now, you hit the 2000s, the '10s, the '20s, and we had technology hit. We had social media hit. And we had access to these places just expand, and now we have everything that we want in this world in the palm of our hand, you know, in front of our faces. We can see it. We can hear it. The only thing we can't do is tangibly touch it unless we actually go there. But with this greater access and faster time to this greater access, w- I feel like our imagination has gone [00:07:00] down. So now, here's where we come into tabletop role-playing and why this connects, right? So we have this big push for tabletop role-playing, other systems, the original D&D system, because that's all the imagination we really have left. Now, I know that's a big statement, and you can rip me apart for that later. But take a moment and think about that. We have everything we could ever want in the palm of our hands except for this world that we can create and never actually see. And now, this is where imagination is coming back, the tabletop role-playing is coming back, because we've already encountered everything else. So now we have to make up these [00:08:00] stories in our heads to create a boost in our brains to just get something else that our phones and our computers and our technology can't give us And that is a lot to take in and think about So with that happening, I know that was a bit of a long soapbox, but with all that happening, we have these people once again that are trying to share their imagination, but they want to be different than the original D&D. But different isn't bad and options aren't bad. So with that in mind, I challenge you to go try a different RPG than you are used to. Get out of [00:09:00] your comfort zone and just give it a try. Because with the world being in the palm of our hands, we have to be exploring different worlds. We have to try these different things because that is the only way that I think we have left to grow. So I know that is some interesting thoughts and I don't know if I'll ever actually post this video, but if I do, comment, like, subscribe, give me your thoughts below and we'll catch y'all next time.